The last day of the year

Today it's the last day of the year, yet we're not quite done yet with christmas in our family. My eldest brother henrik and his fiance yvonne spent christmas in taipei (the capital of taiwan) so we didn't get to spend it together. And therefore i'm celebrating christmas again - for the sixth time this year. Luckily i like christmas :p

Another christmas dinner with the family. Thankfully after this there won't be anymore christmas food this year ;)

Then we played another game of munchkin and after a long battle i won! Haha :D

I must say i love munchkin, it's a really fun game with so many twists and turns, it's crazy! And funny cards like the awesome duck of doom!

And this time, we had a really cheeky and fun santa claus!
Now i'm just waiting for this year to end, writing down my new years resolutions and secretly planning for my new years wish.
Hope you all are doing the same!

//Wayu

Bargain shopping

Yesterday me and sarah were out shopping. Johanna was supposed to come with us but she bailed in the last minute.

We looked around for some good clothes, any nice clothes really, but it's so hard to find anything on sale! Usually only the wrong size or just the clothes you don't want are left. And just like that we didn't find any nice clothes on sale.

But we did go eat the sushi buffet, on my favouite place - nooshi. This time it was the lunch buffet so it only cost us 99kr - it's such a bargain!

Even though we didn't find any clothes we did find some fun stuff when we looked around :) for example these:

It's headphones that we found at accesorize, the earpieces are decorated with cute things like roses and cats - and even funnier things like pizza and coke ;)
I didn't buy a pair, but it was quite tempting! And a good idea :) maybe i should decorate my earpieces ;)

but i did find this beautiful mug on indiska! It was 50% off but my mug had a tiiiny chip in it on the inside, so i got another 50% off!! so a total of 75% off <3 Sometimes you find great things on sale - it just doesn't necessarily have to be clothes ;)
//Wayu

Instagram

For those of you that like instagram i can tell you that i finally got myself one. I was never really interested in instagram, i've got other photo editing tools with all kinds of filters for iphone. For example camera+ and my favourite editing tool photo wonder (photo wonder is btw free on app store so go ger it if you don't have it already!) but today, sarah persuaded me today to fix instagram so i fixed it.

One of the photos i've put up today on instagram.

If you want to you can follow me :) my username is wayuchama :)

//wayu

The swedish subway performers :)

I'm right now on my way to meet my friend sarah for a little shopping spree and on my way two of my favorite subway performers have combined their acts! I must get some pocket change so i can give them next time! :)
//Wayu

Meeting with the gang

I still have something unusual - i still have close relationships with the most important childhood friends of mine - those who i have known and loved for as long as i can remember and even longer - we all went to the same kindergarden and school up to the gymnasium, then we started to have meetings where we meet up, talk, catch up on the latest happenings and just have fun.
Today we went to play badminton and then went for a mexican dinner only to finally go home to my (parents) place and watch a short documentary called "life" which was very interesting.

The nachos with guacamole that we shared.

Cissi and Ellen sitting across the table :)

We were eating tortillas! :) here one with beef and guacamole, and a little one with Zucchini, habanero, corn and philadelphia cheese

Camilla was sitting beside me, and erika was sitting beyond her but i never got a picture of her unfortunately :p

Then while shopping on lidl for a little movie snack we found this cute box of matches haha :) at least we had a good laugh about it ;)
All in all it was a great day, tomorrow i'll be going shopping with sarah and johanna - hopefully i will find something fun in the huge sale rush ;)
//Wayu

Not dead

Helle again blog, long timme no see.No i'm not dead, i've just been celebrating christmas with my and roberts family and i just haven't had any time to write a blog post. Really, i think it's mostly cause i have been busy with the fun, but also because i've been wanting to try adsense for some time now, but getting approved is very difficult. So i asked for help at the adsense forum and i received tips on how to get approved. Of course no one could guarantee anything but i tried out their tips. Turns out though it doesn't seem to work. But while trying to please adsense i have changed a bit of my writing, i have started posting reslly long posts and skipped the small updates even though i kind of like them.

 I never thought i would earn any big bucks on it, but as you all know i like to try things out and well trying out adsense is high on my list.

 Either way i will try to get some time to write retrospectively of my christmas days, i've taken a lot of photos and a lot of fun stuff have happened, i just need time to write it down.For now i'm going to continue watching drop dead diva with my family.

My hair has really grown out a lot by the way.

//Wayu

Christmas Day

At Christmas day Robert and his Mother came over to my parents place to celebrate christmas, we had another exchange of gifts, ate christmas food and loads of  cookies and played a game called munchkin. It is a fun game, I've played it a few times before, but it wasn't a total hit with the oldies at home ;) They thought it to be way too complicated, especially since the game is in english. I've grown up with english in everything I do so It's second nature to me, but apparently it's not the same for the older generation :) Probably because of all the confusion and discussion that followed, the game took longer than expected, about 7 hours to be exact. Note that the game should normally not take more than 1-2 hours. But I guess it happens?

 

So basically we spent the 25th just playing munchkin all day and eating, not a very bad combination I must say ;) But the next day Robert was at his place resting, and I spent the day with my family. We were so lazy, we just watched a show called "drop dead diva" all day on netflix and play with my parents new ipad. Oh, maybe I didn't say that? On Christmas my parents decided to give themselves a present instead of buying each other one. They went and bought themselves a new and shiny ipad! And so, as we haven't had an ipad before, we all played around with it a lot during christmas. I found it very handy for reading, it wasn't hutful for the eyes as I would have thought, and Harald and I also found the camera booth....

I wasn't allowed to show the pictures of the others, but I can show the pictures Harald and I took of me! Let's just say we had fun.

Oh and by the way, I am not symmetrical.

//Wayu

Christmas Eve

 

After spending christmas morning at Roberts mother's place I went home right before the start of the obligatory viewing of Donald ducks Christmas at 3 o'clock. It's been a tradition for many years in sweden to watch "Donald Duck's christmas" (At least that's what we call it), a show that shows bits and parts of Disney's "Santa's workshop", cinderella, snow white, ferdinand and other disney classics for an hour each Christmas. So at 3 o'clock when it starts half of sweden is benched in front of tv, watching the show together with their families. The show often is one of the most viewed programs of the year (this year it was the second most viewed program in sweden) so it's kind of a big deal here.

Since I had so little time at home before christmas, this year my family had to decorate without me, but they fared well anyway, though I did think the christmas tree looked a little bare compared to usual.

My family relaxing in our huge couch and watching tv. From the left my brother harald, my dad and my mom. (My eldest brother Henrik is missing as he was in Taiwan during christmas).

Santa Claus visited us and gave out our presents! He was kind of a swell fella', joking and rhyming and waving to the camera ^^ In our family, we always have one of us play santa - I guess we're a bit childish, but it's really fun!

Since we got older we never receive many presents anymore, usually it's some small packages and a letter, and the letter is always the "real" present, usually money for a purpose we've wished for. That tradition actually started when we started to wish for expensive technical stuff like computers, cameras or phones and our parents gave us a a contribution for it, sometimes for the whole thing, other times only a part of it, as we realized all the technical stuff are so much cheaper the days after christmas. (In sweden between christmas and new years there's something called "middle days Sale", where every shop has big sales). This year I got a book from my brother that he thinks will inspire me to write more and a new pair of cute gloves from my parents. Then of course the letter. This year I wanted to travel to dublin an wished for a contribution for that. You see, Robert will be studying in Dublin as an exchange student for three months and I want to visit him, but of course it's expensive and I didn't want anything special this christmas so I decided to instead wish for a contribution to those trips. Mom and dad sympathised with my wish and decided to give me TWO whole trips to and back from dublin ^-^ So happy!

Dad got loads of books (We've tried giving him something else, but in the end all he wants is books *laughs*) and mom got a real pearl and gold necklace from me and Robert. I think she likes it as she's been wearing it everyday since christmas :)

//Wayu

Christmas morning

At christmas morning I woke up at Roberts mother's house. Me, robert, his sister and her boyfriend had spent the evening of the 23'd at Roberts dad's house, celebrating christmas with him and his family, but when it got late we drove over to Irene's house to sleep. We both slept on the couch with his sister's dogs on our feet. They were kind of heavy but even so it worked out fine once you got used to it and I slept pretty well. 

Then when we woke up we ate a cozy breakfast consisting of warm cheese baguettes with christmas ham and mustard and a small bowl of yoghurt :) It was a perfect breakfast and a cozy atmosphere. I really like being over at Irene's house <3

After breakfast we needed to go out for a walk with the dogs, so we all put on our gear and went out. Leo (the white, slightly bigger dog who's actually the puppy) and Bambi (The black, slightly smaller dog who's actually the oldest) were also dressed for the outdoor adventure in the cutest santa clothes :) Apparently they freeze too when it's so cold outside. Robert played with them all the time, making sure they had fun and got some exercise. For his part I think he got some exercise and had some fun in the process as well ;)

I shot a little video of their playing on our way back to the house, I thought I'd share it with you :)

Then when we got back the others drank a swedish Christmas beverage that tastes kind of like warm juice with a splash of alcohol called Glögg. There's also versions without the alcohol, but I don't really fancy either of them, so while the others drank glögg I got to drink hot chocolate with whipped cream, yum! It's my favourite after being out in the snow and has been since I was little, such tasty nostalgia ;)

Then it was time for presents! Well, at least for me - Robert was going to stay the rest of christmas eve at his mothers house spending christmas with his family, and I was going to go back to my parents house and spend it with mine, so I got my presents a bit earlier than everyone else. Note though that in Sweden we spend christmas on the 24th and not the 25th :)

All presents were from Roberts mom, his sister and her boyfriend :) And as you can see on the picture I got palmolive products, a big make up box (which I will show you more of later), and a Sony Iphone speaker! I have been using the speakers ever since and will thoroughly look through the make up bag :) As for the palmolive products I know they're good and so they will go into my bathroom ;)

//Wayu

The 23:d - Second christmas celebration

On the 22 me and robert had our own little christmas celebration just the two of us, it was mostly just resting on our part, we were both kind of tired and we really needed it.
On the 23:d however i went home for a while and rolled meatballs with my family before going to roberts dad's place for our second christmas celebration of the year. We started of with a dinner and then played a game we in sweden call "fia med knuff" (fia with push), a game that usually don't take too long to play but for some reason, this time it took two and half hours!!

We also lit up the christmas tree with small fireworks that we call "tomtebloss" (santalights), it was really pretty and i had to take som pictures of it :)

When it got late we travelled by car to roberts mothers' place to sleep since the morning of the 24th would be spent at her house, but that's for another post ;)
//wayu

Back to Stockholm

Today it was supposedly the end of the world. Of course though, it wasn't. The ones who thoroughly believed it would happen are probably relieved (or sad, what do i know?).

Either way my test went well with a few weird happenings. Let's just say i got the right test, but me and another girl from my class managed to get placed in the wrong exam room. Since we still got the right test and all i guess it was okay. It was just a little bit funny to realize that us two were the only ones from our class in the exam room ;)

After the test I was so relieved that school was finally over for this year and went straight home to pack and eat a fast - way too little soup lunch. My mom arrived at about 1 o clock and we packed the last bit, talked and were finally on our way back to Stockholm two hours later. 

When i got to Stockholm i met up with Robert for he had a surprice for me. He led me to an apartment close by and we met a lady in her late sixties or early seventies with paintbrushes in her hand and traces acrylic paint on her skin and clothes. I put the pieces together and asked if i was going to be painted. And i was, or rather, i had already been but Robert had sent the artist too few pictures of me (and apparently she thought i was a chameleon as i looked different in all my photos) so she had demanded that he brought me in. And so, there i was in a very friendly and lovely strangers house chatting about my pictures and the gorgeous painting. It wasn't ready but even so it was very beautiful. It's a portrait of Robert and me that he wanted to give me for Christmas, unfortunately it wasn't ready yet, but it's okay since i won't have anywhere to hang it unless i go back to Örebro anyway. :) 

I didn't take a picture of it as it wasn't finished but i will take a picture so you all can see it when it's done.

After the visit to the artist it was already seven, and i had barely ate anything all day, so i was really, really hungry. So we met up with my brother Harald who just arrived in Stockholm and went to our favourite sushi buffet to eat. It's a place called Nooshi that's in "kulturhuset" (the culture house) right by the central. There you get to eat as much sushi and Asian dishes(deep fried foods, noodles, yakiniku, curry chicken, tom yam goong for example) as you want for 139kr. When we started eating there they had a campaign and so all you could eat was only 99kr, really great price and it was so delicious that we got hooked, so even though they've raised the price, we still go back from time to time.

Now, what's different from other sushi buffets is the quality. It's not just pre made sushi lying on a platter that you take from, even though you have no idea how long the sushi's been laying there. Instead you tell a sushi chef what sushi you want (it's fairly limited to rolls, avocado and salmon sushi  but that's our favourites so we don't mind) and she makes it for you - that way you can eat how much sushi you want, yet you always get it fresh and tasty.  It's really perfect!

I can really recommend nooshi for anyone who loves sushi, and the buffet for those who want to eat a bit more!


Then we said good bye to my brother and went home to Robert, but on our way the  bushes played a prank on me ;)

//Wayu

The End of the World

Lately everyone's been talking about the end of the Mayan calender - something some crazy person decided means the end of the world. I have not been preparing for the supposed end of the world, in fact if the world ends tomorrow I will have spent my last days studying for an exam. Almost to the point of frustration and boredom that I might even start thinking the end of the world might not be so bad after all if I don't have to do the exam ;) It's the last exam before Christmas and I am SERIOUSLY in need of some rest and family time <3 I haven't met my bf in two weeks now and it sucks, even more so since he will be in Dublin for three months next semester!

Time feels like it's been eluding me lately - I feel like the studying time has not been enough, the playing time has been sparse and the time for christmas preparations and baking have so not been enough. And since I've been in Örebro the last two weeks the time with my family, friends and boyfriend have been non-existent. The lack of baking has been bothering me especially since I had planned on making at last three kinds of pralines and Knäck, but I have only managed to make two kinds of knäck and one praline flavor. Even so, when I have been baking (and even when I haven't) there's been a special song stuck in my head! It's called Chocolate Love and I first heard it by a group called f(x) - a korean pop-group that's really good! Then when I started searching around a little bit on youtube, I found not only f(x) had made a version of the song, but also probably the most famous womens k-pop group - Girls' generation (also called SNSD). I found a video with both of the versions in one and of course, I'm sharing :)


Which one is the better version? For me it was hard since I had heard the f(x) version first, and then the girls' generation version just sounded slow... but after a few listenings I've started to love both versions! They're very different,  yet both are so good. :)

I gotta go back to studying now, and we'll just see if we will live through tomorrow or not ;)
Enjoy!

//Wayu

Fun and games

Today is only a few days away from the test (and then FINALLY Christmas break <3), and I should be furiously studying, yet I had to get up at seven, be at school at eight and be at two seminars, and then I had to go on the first lesson for the next course, and was finally done at school only after four o clock! Then I had to go get a package and buy some milk and break ( I was out). So I wasn't home until about 17.30! Crazy long day for me, and right before the test too! Crazy schedule really... But even though it's been a long day, it's been incredibly fun! Me and my class have been keeping our mood up and getting rid of the stress with playing around and laughing about Freud and the teacher for our next course. It's been great <3

While on a break we found a specially stupid sign at the cafeteria, it says "Here you can solve world problems! We serve Fairtrade coffee." Certainly drinking a cup of coffee won't solve any problem at all, fairtrade or not! But at least we had a good laugh at the false advertising and those who bought coffee could boast about saving the world ;) I don't drink coffee, so I guess I'm not doing shit to solve the worlds problems hahah!

Instead I bought a gingerbread flavored muffin that was in high demand among my classmates ;) This is also by the way on a 20 minute long break - yet we're all standing up in a random circle eating and drinking our "fika". Sitting down apparently didn't even cross our minds!

Hanna from my class was a real sunshine, at least until Chris tried to taste her little Delicato ball. Unfortunately Chris didn't get to taste any ;) They are really small after all and not sharable! But I got a big muffin so everyone had to chip in to finish it! ;)

Then we were back to the first lesson of the new course were our teacher started talking about Freud. Now, we started calling our teacher "Santa" amongst ourselves as he really reminds you of Santa. He's kind and kinda... chill. He gives of the air of a teddy bear and has white hair and a big white bushy beard that kinda melts together with his hair, he's fairly overweight with a round belly and unintentionally funny so that his lessons feels like tiny Christmas presents. And it's even funnier when he talks about Freud. Now, the little egg with propellers and different colors above is Santa's map over Freud's theory. It's an egg divided into three sections, the small white (the conscious), the bigger green (the preconscious) and finally the huge red (the subconscious), as well as the Id, Ego and superego - showing where in the consciousness they lie. as well as the two propellers that moves us forward - the libido and aggression. It's a fun and very weird theory and when Santa Claus tells it to you - it's just Christmas <3

Finally I went and got my package - a scale that can also measure fat, water, bone and muscle procentage using small electrical current that shoots through your body to measure your body. I will try it out and hopefully it works and can show me progress in the way of fat percentage decreasing and muscle percentage increasing :)

But for now, I have to keep on studying! It's soon time for bed again, and tomorrow is the last lesson before the test and - FINALLY - Christmas <33

I am looking forward to it SO MUCH!

Are you guys looking forward to Christmas?

//Wayu

White chocolate pralines with nougat truffle and candied hazelnuts

I've promised you before to give you the recipe to the pralines I made the other day, and of course, I will! It's a recipe I tried out with a little experimentation as I knew I wanted to make white chocolate truffles with nougat but wasn't sure about how to make it pop with something special. After looking around at different recipes on truffles, pralines and candies online I mixed together my own version of the nougat truffle and decided to use whole candied hazelnuts as the pop-factor. :) Thankfully, I think it turned out delicious! Hope you guys try it out too and like it as much as I do <3

You need:

For the praline shells:
♥ 250g of tempered white chocolate.
♥ A praline form/mold.
♥ An oven grid
(Note that this will be enough for one batch - about 24 praline shells) 

For the filling:
♥ 250g nougat
♥ 100g Dark or milk chocolate depending on your preference
♥ 2dl Cream
♥ Hazelnuts (one for each praline you're making)
♥ Sugar
♥ A few drops of honey
(Note that this filling will be enough for much more than 24 pralines, if you only want to make one batch of 24 pralines you should think of dividing the filling recipe by 2 or maybe even 4)

I used chocolate from Fantasy, and a pack of nougat from Oden as I think they have a good quality and I could also find them rather cheap, but you can use any brand you like.

First of all you need to make the shells for the pralines so we have somewhere to put the filling, to do that you need to temper the chocolate. If you don't know how to do this already, I've written a guide to tempering chocolate here.

What you need (plus a praline form of some kind) in order to make praline shells.

After tempering the chocolate, just pour it into you praline forms all the way to the top, wait a few seconds and then turn the form around, causing the excess chocolate to spill out. This way, some chocolate will stay stuck to the bottom and the sides of the mold but the middle will be emptied - resulting in chocolate "shells" in the molds which are wide open for filling. When you empty out the excess chocolate you can let it flow back into a bowl or just put it on top of an oven grid with baking paper underneath it. The chocolate will then dry at the baking paper but not get stuck, that way you can just pour the excess chocolate back into the bowl and reheat it. There's no reason to waste perfectly good chocolate after all! 

After pouring the excess chocolate back into the bowl or letting it fall on the baking paper, just let the mold rest upside down on the grid to let the chocolate cool down and dry.

While waiting for the praline shells to dry you can start making the truffle filling. Break down the chocolate and nougat into rough pieces and put it into a bowl. Put them into the microwave for a little bit so they melt a bit but not completely! This is only to make it easier to mix with the cream later and is not necessary, but it will make the mixing easier. 

 Pour in the cream into a pot and put it on the stove. Bring it up to a boil. Keep tabs on it so it doesn't burn and keep stirring it a little bit so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot. As soon as the cream starts boiling, bring the pot of the heat.

As soon as you bring the pot off the stove, pour the cream over the nougat and chocolate pieces and mix it together until it's smooth. It will now be way too hot for a while to pour into the praline shells as they would melt from the heat, so put the truffle bowl to the side for a bit to cool down. 

While the truffle is cooling we will make the candied hazelnuts. Put sugar in a frying pan, covering the bottom of the pan and drizzle a bit of honey on top of it. (I wanted the slight honey flavor on my candied hazelnuts, but I'm not sure if it's really necessary for candied hazelnuts - if you have any special way of making candied hazelnuts that you like you can always use that way instead.) Then just wait for the sugar to heat up and start browning (while stirring it around if you used the honey) then pour in the hazelnuts and coat them in a delicious layer of sugar and honey!

There's no need to have the hazelnuts in for a long time - after all sugar easily burns and we don't want any burnt sugar on our hazelnuts! Just let them gently coat the entire surface of the hazelnut and then they're done.

When they're done they start sticking together, just get them out of the pan and separate them and if you have an extra hazelnut to spare - taste it! ;) Then put one candied hazelnut into each praline shell.

Now the truffle should have cooled a bit so you can pour the truffle into the praline shells. Don't fill all the way to the top, leave a little room for the bottom part of the praline! Usually filling about 3/4 to the top is recommended.

After finally filling the truffle shells, let it rest in the freezer for a bit to let the truffle harden a bit and then pour the remaining chocolate in the molds. Now you can either use the break while the truffle cools down to temper the remaining chocolate again or just chill a bit. Some people say the whole praline should be tempered while others say that it's better if the bottom is untempered as tempered chocolate shrinks when it cools down (the reason why we can get the pralines out of the molds later) and therefore the bottom can fall of of it's tempered. Personally I have not noticed any difference with either way I've done it, and so I usually am to lazy to temper the bottom again. :P

Either way you do it, you should now use a metal spatula and drag it all over the form to remove any excess chocolate and create a smooth bottom surface. Or at least that's what the professionals use. Now I don't have a metal spatula yet, ( I think I might get one one day), so I just use the backside of a large knife and while it doesn't give the professional finish it works for a hobby praline-maker like me. 

When you're satisfied with the bottom surface  put the whole mold in the freezer. Yes that's right, the freezer. I have found that the freezer not only speeds up the cooling of the pralines, but also seem to shrink the chocolate even more than the tempering process, making it easier to get the pralines out of the mold.

When the pralines have cooled down turn the mold around and shake out the pralines. Now, this is usually a little trouble. I usually have to bang the bottom with something hard before they fall out, but it's worth it in the end, when they come out so beautifully. ♥

Oh! And don't forget to take a bite of one of the pralines to taste what you just created ♥ I always do, hehe.






Tips from experience:

♥ If you don't have a praline mold there's other things which can act as a substitute. For example your ice cube molds. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and are a cheap substitute for the real praline forms.  The classical "cubes" are also very usable as they have a very classical praline form.

♥ When pouring in the chocolate in the molds for the chocolate shells, dunk the mold gently into the table a few times so that air bubble come up to the surface - this way you wont have any bubbles in the outer layer that would disrupt the beautiful exterior of the praline. 

♥ Even if you pour the excess chocolate from the chocolate shells into a bowl, always use a baking paper under the grid for easier cleaning later as the chocolate might still drip out of the mold.

♥ The mold should always rest upside down while the chocolate shells are drying so all the chocolate won't flow back to the bottom of the mold.

♥ There's a reason for the "resting on the grid". First of all it allows air to to come in from underneath which allows for faster drying, but since there's melted chocolate running out from the mold, if you put it on a flat surface the mold will get stuck when the chocolate dries, making everything more complicated...

Hope you guys will try out making pralines if you hvaen't before. I am no expert - I only started making truffles and candies a few years ago and made pralines for the first time last Christmas, yet I can make pralines which the people who have tasted think are good. So it's not very hard, anyone can do it :) So try it out!

Good Luck!

//Wayu