Chicken pie

Posted by myrmillo

Dec 5

Here’s a very very yummy chicken pie i improvised after reading several recipes (from here and here .
Overall, it was fairly easy to cook, and I must say it came out pretty damn good, and was OK even reheated the next day. Everyone enjoyed it, and I will definitely make it again and again. Though now i wonder about a kidney pie…
Ingredients:
  • 50 grams of butter…
  • 3.5 spoons flour
  • 400 ml chicken stock (basically 1 cube of Knorr chicken and boiling water)
  • 400 ml milk, room temp/warm
  • 250-300 grams chicken
  • a 400 gram. bag frozen veggies (corn, green beans, carrots, etc)
  • 1 can button mushrooms
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • handful of dried mushrooms
  • one broccoli cut in smallish pieces
  • 2 teaspoons thyme
  • 1 pack pâte feuilletée from Cora (this one), or some other sort of puff pastry
  • 1 egg

Procedure:

  1. melt one third of the butter in a large pan, then add the chicken, some pepper, other spices according to your taste and cook till it is done. Then place it on a plate Read the rest of this entry
0 Comments
Filed under: recipes | Tagged as: ,

Tiramisu

Posted by myrmillo

Jan 17

A quick and dirty recipe for a rather yummy Tiramisu. It started as a research for what can we do with a bag of chocolate wafers we had around, and turned into the monster you can see on the left.

Half an hour and you are done, not many dishes to wash. You do have to wait around a few hours while it cools in the fridge before eating, but hey..it’s a small price to pay for yummyliciousness. Inspired mostly from here.

Ingredients:

  • -Ladyfingers. The quantity depends really on how big is the recipient you make the tiramisu in. For this quantity of stuff, 500 grams, or a pack containing two rows of biscuits should be fine. However, err on the side of caution if unsure and buy more. You can always eat them with something else :)
  • -500 grams mascarpone cheese. You can find this in most stores. The higher the fat content, the creamier the filling is going to be.
  • -3 large-ish eggs
  • -160 grams of sugar
  • -1 or 2 vanilla bourbon sugar small packs
  • -one medium can (500 ml) of liquid whipped cream (I used Hulala)
  • -Coffee (3, 4 cups dark strong coffee)
  • -dark chocolate shavings

The Preparation Read the rest of this entry

2 Comments
Filed under: recipes

Roma sub rosa

Posted by myrmillo

Nov 2

Back after not writing anything for who knows how long. yay! go me.

This time, we are in Rome, the last days of the Republic, when figures larger than life such as Sulla, Crassus, Caesar, Catilina and Mark Anthony hop around the not-quite-safe streets of the city with the 7 hills.

The books deal with the adventures of Gordianus the Finder, a well traveled Roman that is now living in Rome with his spirited good looking Egyptian slave/concubine. He happens to be the only private investigator in Rome, most likely because on one hand this profession of prying into peoples’ businesses is not very acceptable to society, but also because it’s also downright dangerous. Gordianus also seems to be a rare beast in those days, namely completely apolitical, without any great interest in any of the happenings in the forum.

As far as the books, they are not the greatest murder mysteries by any means. If you want that, go for the Cadfael series by Ellis Peters, or Agatha Christie. Where these books shine is in the depth of the historical research, combined with the rich, detailed way Rome is portrayed. Take them as historical novels, and you’ll be much happier.  The pacing can get slow from time to time, but if you like the period and want to read more about it, these books can help. Oh, and the best part: no slave-turned-gladiator-turned-hero of the people/emperor/BS.  The books actually make sense.

Read the rest of this entry

0 Comments
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged as: , , , , ,

Deathstalker – it’s space opera time

Posted by myrmillo

Sep 3

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, and I’ve read a ton of books, so i’ll be more brief talking about them. However, a few words first about Simon Green and the stuff he wrote. I’ve read most of his books, and I like every one of them, enough to reccomend them.

You have the Hawk and Fisher series, dark, gritty whodunnit mysteries in a medieval fantasy-ish world, part of the bigger Forest Kingdom series, that are fantasy with a twist. Then there is the Nightside, stories about John Taylor, a private investigator in a hidden area of London where magic, technology, old and new gods, time travellers, angels, demons and basically everything else that is nasty congregates. The Secret History series are a take on James Bond meeting fantasy, acting as a sort of framework for his other series, since you encounter characters from the Deathstalker universe, the Nightside, and the Forest Kingdom.

And then there’s the Deathstalker series, a universe where a decadent human star empire is being ruled by a paranoid empress (aptly named the Iron Bitch), and comes under threat both from the outside by various alien civilizations, and from the inside by a rebellion combining espers, clones and other malcontents.

The series is bloody, over the top, very well written, and a parody of the 1950′s Sci-fi. Basically anything goes, nothing is too improbable, and blood flows everywhere. It’s space opera at it’s best, and it spans thousands of pages. Read the rest of this entry

0 Comments
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged as: , , , , ,

Empire rising

Posted by myrmillo

Aug 3

Empire Rising
Sam Barone; William Morrow 2007

Follow-up to Dawn of Empire,  this book is worth reading if you liked the previous one, since it just gives you more of the same.

It’s back to the city of Orak, now renamed Akkad, where people are settling in after the events of the last book. Eskkar, the barbarian turned king, is about to become a father, but is getting restless with life in the big city. Thus, he decides to go around the countryside and pacify the nearby villages, thereby bringing back trade to Akkad, and making life all better. Meanwhile, his wife is left in charge, helped by the council of noble houses. However, all is not well, as an Egyptian renegade warrior with his band joins up with an old nemesis from the first book, and tries to infiltrate the city posing as a gem merchant.

And this is about half the book. Because it is that slow. If you thought in the first one that wall building is boring, well, waiting around for the Egyptian to make his move is worse. There are action scenes, when Eskkar fights with bandits raiding the nearby vilalges, and other stuff going on, but for some reason the first half of the book just seemed to be dragging on and on…it’s all just plain and generic, and it feels as if something is missing. The end of the book picks up, though the final assault on Akkad feels like a special ops mission…nighttime infiltration from the water in separate teams that go for the strategic objectives…riiight. And there’s a lot more that feels slightly off. Once again i feel the story would have been better served if placed somewhere else, like a different planet, or Howard’s Hyborian age.

The characters are also just as bland. There is no surprise, no subtlety. Everything, every thought, every motivation, every idea is out in the open from the first. And they are cookie- cutter made. You have the big barbarian (admitedly getting a bit old), the smart wife, the evil enemy (insert maniacal laughter please), the evil slimy person from the past that joins up with the new baddie, and the honorable bad dude that gets a shot at redemption and takes it. It’s all painfully obvious from the first.

The main characters are still the same, though having gained all insights in the previous book, they just stagnate. Eskkar finds himself a mistress thoug, and his wife Trella is mostly cool about it, instead of ripping his eyes out. Otherwise, she acts as the CEO of a corporation dealing with slightly troublesome manager. Then, when talking about the first code of laws in human history, it’s all treated as a brainstorm meeting where Trella tells the nobles “Check out this idea i’ve had overnight, that will revolutionize everything you know…”…and the introduced concepts…fixed prices and so on…6000 years ago? nevermind that they never had any coins back then.

If you’ve read the previous book and liked it, then go ahead with this one too. Otherwise, just pass. I’ve struggled with it for some reason, but after reading a few pages of the 3rd in the series, i’ll pass on this author for a long time. It’s back to space opera :D .

0 Comments
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged as: , ,

Dawn of Empire

Posted by myrmillo

Jul 26

Sam Barone; Morrow 2006

After reading a ton of Warhammer 40k books, both good ( Gaunt’s Ghosts) and bad (Blood Angels whatever), i needed a change. A drastic change. And since I’d recently read the reviews for Sam Barone’s Dawn of Empire and it fit the bill of no elves, no chaos cultists, no magic and no purging any heretics, I figured i would give it a go. And it wasn’t that bad after all.

The book takes place in ancient Mesopotamia, when people were beginning to grow their food instead of hunting/gathering. It tells the tale of Eskkar, a barbarian chased away by his own people who ends up a guardsman in Orak, a community of agricultural oriented people on the banks of the Euphrates that are on their way of building the first real walled city in the history of mankind. Read the rest of this entry

0 Comments
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged as: , , ,

marinated grilled chicken

Posted by myrmillo

Jul 15

This is a more or less original recipe, though it draws its basic inspiration from something a friend once showed me in the States. The original recipe involved Italian dressing, which is quite available over there, and not that pricey. Not the case here. Therefore, when Knorr came out with their salad dressing powders, I decided to improvise a bit and see what happens. It couldn’t turn out bad after all. However, i guess any sort of italian/herb type dressing would work, be it powder or already made.

Now, we all know chicken, and that it basically lacks any sort of taste, especially the breast.  Putting spices on it before cooking might help, but they won’t really get into the meat, and on the inside it’s still gonna..well…taste like chicken…. However, it is a healthy meat, and it is summer time. We all know grilling is fun and easy, whether you do it outdoors with charcoal (great flavour), or with an electric grill like I have to.

Marinating is one way to make that chicken explode with flavours, and make the meat even more tender to boot. The only downfall is that it takes time. If you like waking up, and randomly deciding you are going to grill some stuff today, then marinating isn’t for you. The preparation time is about 10 minutes, but it needs to spend the night in a soft and comfy fridge to achieve any result. Read the rest of this entry

0 Comments
Filed under: recipes | Tagged as: , , ,

Impact review

Posted by myrmillo

Jul 10

Impact
Douglas J. Preston; Forge 2010

I’ve started reading books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child a few years back, after buying Brimstone in an airport bookstore, in preparation for a 12 hour trip. And I discovered that  the book was what i wanted: the perfect airplane/vacation book. Or in other words, fluff, easy reading, something to keep you occupied while you are travelling, relaxing during a vacation, don’t feel like reading anything more meaningful or just need to take a break from sci-fi / fantasy. Over the years I’ve read the other books by those two authors, and also some of the stuff they’ve published separately.

Impact is by one of the pair of authors, Douglas Preston, but you really don’t feel the other one missing, except maybe for the lack of supernatural/mystical elements. Without spoiling it too much, this one’s got aliens…of sorts..instead of voodoo or whatnot. The plot is OKish, nothing spectacular, with a few twists and turns that you might not necessarily anticipate. At least I didn’t. The places the action takes place in are…meh…not that diverse…Cambodgia for a bit, some New England fishing village, and a couple of Washington DC offices…nothing spectacular. The action scenes are also decent…some fights on boats, during a big storm, some fights not on boats, guns, knives, and my favourite, a hammer as a murder weapon…

The characters are sort of cliche, and prone to doing things that make no bloody sense at all. You have Wyman Ford, ex-CIA dude that now does freelance work for various government agencies, and that appeared in previous Preston books. He’s supposed to be a tough guy and so on, but ends up being more of a whiny do gooder that is devastated by the sight of exploited peasants and chooses to risk life, limb and mission to save them, then sends packages with confidential data to major newspapers because it’s a global issue that affects the whole world, and everyone has to know…yeah right…i’d buy that from a hippie…or someone else…but an ex-CIA undercover agent thinking like that? hmmm

Then you have Abbey, the 20ish year old african-american girl adopted by a New England lobster fisherman, who went to Princeton but then dropped out and who apparently learnt more in all her time there then it seems possible…there was at the beginning a hint of her not fitting in because of being in an all white community..but that gets barely mentioned afterwards.

There’s also Abbey’s pot smoking rather slow friend…i’m not sure why she’s in the book but eh..whatever…there’s the psychopathic killer with a violent past that could have been a more interesting character but that also doesn’t get developed at all…and more characters that are as one dimensional. So perfect for a vacation/airplane book that you will read, enjoy for the moment (and it is enjoyable), and then promptly forget until seeing the author’s name again on his newest paperback.

In the end,  this is a book for reading on a warm beach, being abused by the sun, with a cold drink next to you and without a care in the world. It won’t make any impression on you whatsoever, it will just float through your life like a duck…with barely a quack.

1 Comment
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged as: , , , , ,

Space wolf review

Posted by myrmillo

Jul 7

Space Wolf
William King; Games Workshop 2007

Since posting this, I’ve managed to read the first three books of this series by William King, so instead of writing about just the first book, I’ll do the first three. They make up the first Space Wolf omnibus anyway, so consider it a review for that.

The books tell the story of the first years of Ragnar Blackmane as a Space Wolf Space Marine, from being selected as an applicant to becoming a full Space Marine, and beyond. Compared to the previous books about space marines that i’ve read, the Blood Angels series, these were like a breath of fresh air. They are not the best books I’ve read by any means, but for mass market paperbacks based on a preset world, they aren’t bad at all.

For those not familiar with the background, the Space Wolf space marines are based on vikings and wolves. They are genetically modified soldiers that gain wolf-like qualities, such as enhanced smell, hearing, and function in small pack-like units. I’d write more, but you can read it all here.

The characters get a bit of development, are not whiny, and furthermore have some sort of internal dialogue where they actually question things. Ragnar might be a space marine, but he’s not the mindless killing machine that other authors tend to portray the space marines as. He even has flaws..he’s claustrophobic.Overall, this character doesn’t bother at all. The other characters can be a bit one sided though. You have Sven the friendly brave but stupid guy, the tough but wise and with a golden heart sergeant and so on. Still, this does not remove from the readability of the book.

What is annoying is what the author calls “banter” between characters. I’m all for that, but…come on…how many times can you make jokes about how stupid Sven is, or about how he is always hungry. Once…twice…but at some point it’s time to invent something new. And it just makes the characters sound more like school boys on an outing than like tough dudes able to kill anyone with one finger…Oh…and the fart jokes…those confused me for a bit…was this an attempt at humor…I hope not…thankfully those just happened once.

Another strong point of the novels is the variety of the locations and the enemies they face. Sure, due to lore constraints, the Thousand Sons chaos marines have to be there, but nothing becomes repetitive. For example, the first book takes place on an island, in a fortress, inside old abandoned ruins, and a chaos temple, the second involves an ork infested jungle, a space hulk and an eldar pyramid, the fourth books happens on Terra. There are inquisitors, chaos marines, orks, eldar, a jolly plague demon talking with a decidedly British accent and so on, you get the point.

The plots are also ok-ish..nothing really extraordinary, but not bad either. Overall, the books make for an enjoyable read. I didn’t even have to force myself to go through them, like it happened with the Blood Angels novels (yeah..those really marked me…too bad they had nice covers). I’d recommend these books to anyone looking to get into the WH40k world (which I’ve enjoyed a lot lately…damn you, Dawn of War video games!!!), or those who are already familiar with the setting, and are looking for more books to read.

0 Comments
Filed under: Reviews | Tagged as: , , , ,

cheesecake…

Posted by myrmillo

Jul 7

Time for something both yummy and so very easy to make: cheesecake. The original recipe was obtained from here, but i’ve modiffied it a bit to correspond to the locally available stuff, as well as to my own tastes.

yummmmmm

Total preparation time is about 30 minutes (even less once you stop bumbling around), cooking time is 35-40 minutes. Now…you might think that in one hour-ish, you have a delicious cheesecake…ah, if only it were so..but nope…then you have to let it cool in the oven for one hour..then let it cool outside for another6, 7 hours, then stick it in a cold fridge for another 7, 8 hours. So in order to enjoy the cheesecake, you need serious planning. In addition to all the ingredients, you also need a mixer, and a big bowl, as towards the end the stuff gets liquid and tarts flying around like you wouldn’t believe it, baking paper, and some sort of container to put it in the oven.

The ingredients (that I use..feel free to improvise):

for the cheesecake:

  • 5 200 g Mega Image cream cheese boxes

    The ingredients

  • 100 grams of sugar
  • 4 spoons of flour
  • 4 eggs (if you get the small, regular kind..otherwise, if you manage to get jumbo eggs, use 3 and one yolk)
  • one little bag bourbon vanilla sugar
  • the grated zest of one lemon
  • 250-300 ml 25% fat sour cream (I use the napolact one)
  • 2, 3 teaspoons lemon juice
  • you can use any other sort of flavouring, since the cheese is more or less neutral. I was thinking about going for rum, or coffee, or whatever you fancy
  • Raisins. Yumm..Or chocolate sprinkles…or whatever…use your imagination

for the topping:

  • 250-300 ml 25% fat sour cream
  • 3 spoons sugar (I use brown sugar for some reason..not sure why)
  • one teaspoon of lemon juice. Don’t use too much, as it might make it too liquid, and that ain’t fun

The Preparation

First the topping. For this, mix well with a fork the sour cream with the sugar and the lemon juice in a small bowl/whatever, cover it with some tin foil and place it in the fridge. The sugar won’t melt right away, but by the time you actually put it on the cheesecake, it will be gone.

Then the cheesecake”

  1. Put all the cream cheese in the bowl

    The cheese in the bowl

  2. Whip it with the mixer on low speed for about 3 minutes
  3. Pour in the sugar, while mixing continuously. Make sure you scrape the cheese that gets stuck on the edges. The mixture should be getting more liquidy now
  4. Add the flour, and mix well for about 1 minute
  5. Add the lemon zest, the vanilla sugar, the lemon juice, or whatever other flavouring you have, and mix so that it goes in evenly
  6. Add the eggs…one by one..meaning you add one egg, then mix a bit, then another and so on. be careful..this is the part where it starts getting really liquid
  7. Add the sour cream, and keep mixing on low speed. It should be fairly liquid by now, with some air bubbles.
  8. Add the raisins. Now, to make sure they don’t all go to the bottom when you pour the mixture in the oven recipient, you can coat them in flour. I’ve also added them as I was pouring the mixture in the oven recipient (pour a bit..add the raising..pour a bit more, add more raisins, and so on)
  9. Coat the inside of the oven recipient with some butter, then wrap the baking paper on the inside

    Container wrapped with baking paper

  10. Pour the mixture inside…all of it..scrape the inside of the mixing bowl
  11. Preheat the oven. This is where it gets a bit funny. The BBC site mentions 200C/conventional 240C/gas 9. If you have an electric oven or an oven thermometer, I guess it’s all good. However I have neither, so what I do is just turn up the gas to the maximum. Mine goes to 11 :D
  12. After the oven is hot enough, place the cheesecake inside
  13. Wait 10 minutes
  14. Reduce the temperature of the oven. BBC says 90C/conventional 110C/gas 1⁄4. I turn it to rather low.
  15. Wait 26, 27 minutes
  16. These times depend on a lot of factors..what kind of container you use for the bowl..the oven kind, and so on…If you follow the guidelines of 10 minutes as hot as possible, followed by 25 minutes of fairly low, you should be fine.
  17. Turn off the oven. Leave the cheesecake inside for one hour

    After I stopped the oven

  18. After one hour, take the container out of the oven. be careful, it is still hot. Place it outside (covered) for another 7, 8 hours, so it cools down. Overnight is usually a good guideline
  19. Cover it with the topping
  20. Place it in the fridge for another 6, 7 hours. The colder the better
  21. Enjoy :D

after munching on it a bit...

After the sugar and flour

After adding the flavours

1 Comment
Filed under: recipes | Tagged as: ,
View more posts »