Summer Stays and Delightful Bites

A brief stopover in my blog posting calls for a visual feast for the eyes. I was enjoying visits from my sister, and a few friends in town. Basically, many loved ones passing through as they were on summer holiday.

What’s cooking in the Fashion Tales’ kitchen? Well, as many of you know I love to cook and in recent years I have been getting back into baking more. For any foodie or cooking enthusiast there are always new gadgets and useful items that one can hope to acquire for the kitchen. Whether it’s to help save time with prepping, or add to the exquisite kitchen tools collection. Sometimes a kitchen gadget is the perfect (additional) way to say, “I love you” to a stylish foodie.

Below are a few selections on my current wish list.*

Here is also a glimpse of a few random snapshots of several dishes that I’ve cooked, baked, and made for our weekend lunch and weeknight dinners.

We had a family friend visiting from Turkey (who currently lives in Spain), and I wanted to make Açma, a Turkish pastry similar to flaky bagels that my mum used to make in the morning. It’s very delicious and not too difficult at all to make. I used this recipe, which is pretty much the same, but I added olive paste inside of some of them. The dough for this is so silky smooth and if you have ever baked a lot, then you can appreciate how beautiful the dough comes out.

One night I made vegetarian Thai green curry, then another night I did a spicy veggie noodle stir fry topped with jalapeños and fresh coriander (see below).

I was so excited to open a parcel from my sister, which included many drugstore beauty goodies that I have not been able to try or buy. Two favourites that I’ve been using quite a lot already are a matte lipstick from Milani (the colour is amazing and is a bit similar to my Chanel #40 Le Sensuelle colour on me), and this facial day cream from Finnish brand, Lumene. I’m wearing the lipstick above when she took a candid photo, as I was laughing on a Skype call.  

Instead of tossing the e.l.f. primer containers that I was happy to finally have finished using, I decided to turn the tops upside down and use the bottoms as a travel brush container. This works so well, especially if you want to give your brushes a breather from your compact cases.

I had a couple cans of chickpeas, and I made an easy weekend lunch of hummus (w/ olives, Hungarian paprika, parsley, lemon, tahini, and garlic), served with carrots, snap peas, and crackers.

(Above) 1 The cooking sauce: I made a sun dried tomato butter curry dish with garlic aubergine and steamed rice, obviously I added a few extras as well. 2 Summer salads are a perennial favourite, and since there are plenty of ways to create them, I made a pickled cucumber and onion salad with a side of canapés, and smoked Gouda slices.

At some one point there were oyster po’boys on the Tuesday menu as well, but they were rapidly digested before any of us remembered to take snapshots. Oh, the visual disappointment … yes, they too, were incredibly tasty as any seafood aficionado may imagine.

Next, I’m planning on making pepper jam, or gourmet pasties with some kind of veggie infusion.

Have you cooked anything recently that you’re proud of? 

If not, then what’s the last dish that you ordered at a restaurant and really enjoyed?