Food

Gluten free Birthday Cake for Kay

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We were flying back from Lima on Kay’s birthday and then I was in Hong Kong, but by late November, it was time to make the boy a cake. Or two, considering this was only the “shareable cake” and not his beloved, private cheesecake that I would make later on.

After two years eating gluten free, making cakes is not quite so scary any more. The recipes from The Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook seem to work very well. I decided to make a standard white cake and then spice it up to be a pseudo spiced cake.I added in spices like cardamom and cinnamon, as well as a pinch of cloves.Frostings usually confound me, but this time I made a delicious, delicious, delicciooooous maple cream cheese frosting, recipe below.Prepping the cake for frosting.Considering that we were getting close to Christmas, it made for a really nice, wintery cake.We had a belated dinner for Kay at his father’s house and I brought the cake along as dessert.This one turned out a tad denser than other cakes I have made from this book, but still perfectly acceptable. 🙂It was only a shame that Kay had a stuffed up nose and could barely tastemy yummy creation. Oh well, too bad for Kay!

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting:

  • 113g butter
  • 8oz/200g cream cheese (1 pack Philadelphia)
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp maple extract
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Home

New bedroom, or not

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Almost as soon as Kay left for France, I decided that I wanted a drastic change in the bedroom to make the space “mine” while he was gone. I didn’t want to feel like he’s missing in my bed all year long, so I thought that changing the room could make it more “my place” and less “our place”.

To do so, I planned out on our floor plan on the computer how to move the bed 90º to face the windows and open up a large floor space in front of the bathroom.It was pretty tight, but I moved the whole bed frame and the extremely heavy Tempur automated bed frames myself, as well as the dressers, using cloths to make sure the floor was not damaged.I even set up Christmas lights and tied all the cords for the automated bed frames up nice and neat. It was only when I was going to bed and went to close the bedroom door that I realized, the door didn’t shut!

Dammit!! The door wouldn’t shut by like 1″. It was SO tight. So close, yet so far. I had to move the whole bed, mattresses, and bed frames back and at that point, my muscles were really, really tired. The bed frames are so heavy with the motors. And this was when I was already ready to go to bed… ugh, stupid Katie!Since I couldn’t gain any floor space by having the bed in a different spot, I decided to put the smaller dresser in the wardrobe since Kay is not using it this year. It frees up the space in the room and makes the bedroom look a little more polished. I’m not totally a fan of this dresser shape, even if I like the mirror function.So here we are, right back at the beginning, just without the small dresser. Not much difference, but I took out the nightstands and still have all the cables tied up under the bed so that the robot vacuum can come in here and clean while I am away at work.Normally I am better with visualizing whether things fit or not, but I missed the mark in this case.

Have you ever gotten the measurements of something wrong before finding it out after you make a move?

Food

Homemade gluten free freezer meals

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Shortly after Kay moved out, I bought myself a granny bag, as I call it, to help bring groceries home on my own. Kay was my “carrying mule” as I fondly referred to him, and without him around, I really need some help with the heavy items like milk and liquids.I buy food in bulk and plan 4-6 meals to make over the weekend. Usually at least two are slow-cooker meals that require little prep or work and two are stove top meals.Above was fondue mac and cheese with cauliflower and carrots and below was slow cooker beef broccoli.This weekend I also used my Le Creuset pan for a big potato and carrot beef pot roast.And below was one pot chili mac.Most of the recipes are for around 8 portions. Sometimes I just wing them and make a bunch of food. These meals, along with chopped veggies like carrots and celery for the week, go into my new IKEA glass tupperware.Each night I cook, I enjoy a new, fresh hot meal, as well as dishing everything into the containers to cool before going into the fridge.It is really a factory line sometimes. Below was a risotto I made on auto mode on my Kenwood and then threw in cut peppers and spinach for some extra veg, as well as cheese, because, well…risotto. 🙂Once the meals have been in the fridge for a few hours and cooled even more, I transfer them to my big freezer that I bought myself last year.When I am heading to France or coming home from a weekend abroad, it’s SO easy to pull out meals for the week and to bring to work.Colleagues are amazed when I’ve been in Barcelona over the weekend and bring a fully homemade Sunday roast to work for lunch. With the freezer, everything is possible!

Are you a fan of homemade freezer meals or freezer cooking?

Life, Travel

INSEAD Life

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Life is pretty weird and wild since Kay started INSEAD. I have spent 12 weekends this year traveling, usually only staying home once a month. On Thursday and Friday nights, I head to a small town in France for the weekend and witness parties like this:Work hard, play hard. The INSEAD motto. And as a weekend partner, I am here to witness it.France is very different from Switzerland and I have to admit, I don’t really care for it. It’s just so not Switzerland. Maybe I am too Swiss at this point, but I miss order and function, something often lacking almost everywhere outside of my little country.

Sometimes it’s also just weird, the way elderly paw at every.single.vegetable in the produce section, for example. Whatever it is, I’m kind of happy I am only visiting. I am so Swiss in fact, that every weekend I bring prepared homemade frozen gluten free meals with me and let them thaw on the drive over, so that Kay doesn’t have to cook for us or worry about finding me gluten free meals.Back at home, my house looks like a mess as I use this opportunity to sort and change furniture around.I am using Kay’s absence to purge lots of unneeded items from our life, but in the meantime, it looks like I am moving and that has been driving me nuts, so for most of March and April, I’ve been trying to work hard during the week to clean up more. This year isn’t quite like I imagined. Being a partner to an INSEADer is not easy, especially when you only visit on the weekend, but I am trying my best.

Switzerland

Missing Christmastime

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It’s April now, but somehow spring has not gotten really started yet. The weather is calling for snow next week (snow?!) and it is reminding me why this part of the year is the hardest.

January-April in Switzerland can be pretty bleak, especially compared to this part of December I am thinking back to skies like this.In December, we had several fantastic sunsets, plus the towns are all decorated in Christmas cheer that raise your spirits even on the bleak days.For whatever reason, for most of January-March, you never see a sky like below.Also, you have fab Christmas parties with delicious food to look forward to!I am not sure I’ll be able to take part in the Christmas party this year, because I plan to be in Singapore for Kay’s graduation around then, but who knows.Also, when else is it appropriate to wear red noses around? Not in April!