Black Cherry Sorbet (Healthy Dessert)
For all those healthy people out there who cares about what they put into their systems, unlike me! 
Ingredients:
- 1 cup black cherries
- 1 large banana
- water (optional)
- Puree black cherries.
- Add bananas and blend till smooth. You may have to add a splash of water to get the blades moving.
- Freeze.
Please, hear what I’m not saying…
- Source Unknown -
Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the mask I wear. For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off and, none of them is me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don’t be fooled.
I give the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without; that confidense is my name and coolness is my game; that the waters are calm and that I’m in command and I need no one. But don’t believe it; please don’t.
I idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talks, I tell you everything that’s really nothing, nothing of what’s crying within me. So when I’m going through my routine, don’t be fooled by what I’m saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying; what I’d like to be able to say; what, for survival, I need to say but I can’t say. I dislike the hiding. I dislike the superficial phony games I’m playing.
I’d really like to be genuine, spontaneous, and me; but you have to help me. You have to help me by holding out your hand, even when that’s the last thing I seem to want or need. Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings. Very feeble wings. But wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy and your power of understanding,I can make it. You can breathe like into me. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. But love is stronger than strong walls, and therein lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firms hands, but with gentle hands. for a child is very sensitive, and I am a child.
Who am I, you may wonder. For I am every man, every woman, every child…. Every human you meet…
- Source Unknown -
Lone Bright Star
You see a star shine true and bright,
while all the other are covered by clouds.
You deem the clouds are not to go,
and dote on the lone bright star.
Little do you know that clouds will clear,
revealing the beauty it hides from you.
Soon the sky will dazzle and shine,
But for now its just the lone bright star.
(I came across this poem I wrote more than a year ago… 28/05/2010, precisely… I have no idea if I was writing about someone specifically or if I was just looking out the window when I wrote this.. But yea, I wrote it… lol… )
Please Listen…
Silence is golden…
In the current world where everyone is so busy trying to be heard, silence is definitely golden.
Sometimes silence works better for us too. We just can’t dig our graves with silence.
But when I think about the way I am with dealing with the world; where I put up the perfect facade to fit the different situations, hiding the way I really feel… I start to wonder whether what we’re hearing is really the truth or is that also just another lie?
But I guess even that is best left as it is, b’cos I just don’t want to dig yet another grave for myself…
Maybe if that fish had learnt to keep it’s mouth shut, it wouldn’t be facing it’s doom…
Tiramisu
When you’re planing to make Tiramisu, you’re going to want to think of an assembly line… Prepare everything you need for the assembly before you start to put it together..
1. The ladyfingers/sponge fingers (I used store bought sponge cake..)
2. The coffee mixture..
3. The cocoa powder..
4. The cream mixture..
This is the recipe that I’ve concocted after researching so much to find one that will be easy for me to make with ingredients that are easy for me to find.. And it came out perfectly..
Ingredients:
- 250 gm Cream Cheese
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/8 cup milk
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup warm water
- 7 tbsp instant coffee powder
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- sponge cake (store bought or homemade.. which ever works for you…)
- cocoa powder, for dusting..
Directions:
1. Spoon cocoa powder into a sugar shaker. (If you’re comfortable with using a small sieve, you can just keep the cocoa and the sieve ready..)
2. In a small bowl, dissolve instant coffee in the warm water. Add cocoa powder, stir and chill in the fridge while preparing the other stuff.
3. Beat softened cream cheese and sugar on medium to high speed until smooth and creamy. Add milk and vanilla. Beat again until fluffy. Transfer to large mixing bowl and set aside.
4. Separately, whip heavy whipping cream on high speed until stiff. Fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture with spatula and combine well.
5. Set up your assembly line:
- Ladyfingers/Sponge cake
- Coffee mixture
- Cream mixture
- Cocoa
- The dish that you’re assembling the Tiramisu in..
6. One at a time, quickly dip the sponge into the coffee mixture and line the entire bottom of the dish with the sponge.
7. Spread evenly about half the cream mixture (Use your own judgement.. You don’t want a layer of cream that’s much too thick for your liking…) over the sponge using a spatula.
8. Sprinkle or dust with about 1/8 cup cocoa or until an even layer of cocoa has been sprinkled over the cream mixture.
9. Repeat the same steps for the second layer; with sponge dipped in the coffee mixture followed by a layer of cream mixture followed by the final layer of cocoa dusting.
10. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 6 hours or overnight.
Use a sharp, thin knife to cut into pieces. Refrigerate any leftovers.
Hope you enjoyed the recipe!
Part 3: Questions Unanswered
If you haven’t read the first two parts yet, please do. You can find it here:
Part 1: http://kittyscribbles.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/part-1-hypnotic-angel/
Part 2: http://kittyscribbles.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/part-2-churning-dreams/
____________________________________________________________
As my consciousness slowly ebbed into my being, my thoughts started to flow through my mind… What happened? Why did it happen? It doesn’t make sense! Nothing does! And my body? Why is it so still? Not even a twitch of a muscle, not even a shiver of fear and most definitely not even a forced movement! Was my body pinned down? Or was it just not responding? I wanted to move! I wanted to know!
The memories of the pain went through my mind… My angel! Where is my angel? Why did my angel let this unbearable pain wash through me? Why did I even feel the pain when my angel left? Did my angel feel any of the pain I felt? Is that why the angel left? Did he really leave? Or was he just invisible to my eyes, skirting around the horizon? So many questions, but none neither uttered aloud, nor answered…
And as I waited for the paralysis to lift off my body, my thoughts were clearing and my hearing sharpening… I heard the most beautiful sound in the whole world! The voice of my angel! My angel was here! To protect, to comfort, to love…. I could feel my hopes rising… rising, rising and staying there…. like a majestic eagle soaring through the brilliant blue sky, and settling on a high perch…
My angel was humming… a very beautiful tune… the word beautiful doesn’t even do justice to the music! It was plain heavenly! Soothing my nerves, my excitement… making me smile…
Smile? I smiled? I can smile?! My temporary paralysis was over! I can move now! Opening my eyes quickly, I scanned my surroundings…. Where is he? Where is my angel? I couldn’t wait to see my angel’s beautiful face! My hope, my reason for life… Amazing how my angel had become all that un such a short time.. But everything seemed reasonable.. at least to my eyes… Is this what everyone talks about? Is this love? Or is this plain dependency? My angel… he will answer my questions… but where is he?
The middle sister…
In the last book I read, I came across a part where the middle sister in the book describing exactly how I feel quite perfectly about being the middle sister… Being sandwiched by two girls sometimes suffocate me so much I want to run away from them forever but I can’t even imagine a life without them…
I am the middle sister. The one in between. Not oldest, not youngest, not boldest, not nicest. I am the shade of gray, the glass half empty or full, depending on your view. In my life, there has been little that I have done first or better than the one preceding or following me. Of all of us, though, I am the only one who has been broken.
It happened on the day of my youngest sister’s ninth birthday party. I’d been sulking around the house all day, feeling alternately ignored and entirely too hassled, which was pretty much my default setting, even at eleven.
My older sister, the social one, was going to ride her bike down to the neighborhood pool to meet some friends and asked me to come along. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be with anyone. If my older sister was friendly, and my younger sweet, I was the darkness. Nobody understood my pain. Not even me.
My older sister got on her bike and headed for the pool, and I started to follow. I always followed, and once we were riding, I started to get angry about it. I was tired of being second. So I turned back. And suddenly, the road was empty ahead of me, this whole new view, all mine.
I started to pedal as fast as I could. It was great. Freedom, even the imagined kind, always is. But as I got farther away, and didn’t recognize what was ahead of me, I started to realize the distance I was covering. I was still going full speed, away from home, when my front wheel suddenly sank, and I was flying.
It’s a funny feeling, being suddenly airborne. Just as you realize it, it’s over, and you’re sinking. When I hit the pavement, I heard the bone in my arm break. In the moments afterwards, I could hear the wheel of my bike, ticking as it spun.
All I could think was what I always thought, even then: that this was just not fair. To get a taste of freedom, only to instantly be punished for it. Everything hurt. I closed my eyes, pressing my cheek to the street, and waited. What for, I didn’t know. To be rescued. Or found. But no one came. All I’d ever thought I wanted was to be left alone. Until I was.
I don’t know how long I lay there before my sister came back for me. I remember staring up at the sky, the clouds moving past, and then hearing her calling my name. When she skidded to a stop beside me, she was the last person I wanted to see. And yet, like so many times before and since, the only one I had.
She lifted me up and settled me onto her handlebars. I knew I should be grateful to her. But as we pedaled toward home, I was angry. With myself, for falling, and with her for being there to see it. As we came up the driveway, my younger sister, the birthday girl, burst out of the house. When she saw me, my arm dangling useless, she ran back inside yelling for my mother. That was her role, always, as the youngest. She was the one who told.
My father took me to the emergency room, where the bone was reset. When we got home, the party was almost over, presents unwrapped, the cake just being served. In the pictures taken that day, I am holding my arm over my cast, as if I don’t trust it to keep me together. My older sister is on one side, the hero; my younger, the birthday girl, on the other.
For years, when I looked at the snapshot, all I could see was my broken arm. It was only later that I began to make out other things. Like how my sisters are both smiling and leaning in toward me, while I am, as always, between them.
It was not the last time I would run away from my sisters. Not the last time I thought being alone was preferable. I am still the center sister. But I see it differently now. There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.
(Quoted from “Just Listen” by Sarah Dessen)
Red Velvet Cake
I’ve been planning to make a red velvet cake for so long… But every recipe that I came across gave me a heart attack (Figurative speech!) They made it so very complicated.. Finally I came across a recipe that made me ready to give it a go…
Originally it’s a red velvet cupcake recipe, I just made it into cakes.. ^_^
Ingredients:
- 1 ¼ cup of all Purpose Flour
- 2 Tbsp of Cocoa Powder
- ½ tsp of Baking Powder
- ½ tsp of Baking Soda
- ¼ tsp of Salt (I used salted butter, so I skipped the salt..)
- ¼ cup of Unsalted Butter, softened at room temperature
- ¾ cup of Granulated sugar
- ¾ cup of Buttermilk (I just used yogurt instead.. Check here for other substitutes: http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodequivalents/a/buttermilkequiv.htm)
- 1 Egg
- 1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
- Red food colouring (I used about 1 or 2 tsps only.. I have seen recipes that uses about 2 ounce…)
For the frosting:
- 2 Cups of Powdered Sugar
- 4 oz of Cream Cheese, softened at room temperature
- 2 Tbsp of Unsalted Butter, softened at room temperature
- 1 Tbsp of Milk (I found the frosting to be quite runny as it is, so I skipped the milk..)
- 1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
Preparation:
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a muffin pan with cup cake liners and set aside.
- In a small bowl mix together the first 5 ingredients and set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the sugar and butter, add the egg and vanilla and mix until well combined and creamy.
- With the mixer running on low, add half of the dry ingredients and half of the buttermilk, make sure its combined and add the remaining dry ingredients and buttermilk making sure to combine everything together but not over mixing. Using a spatula mix the batter from the bottom to make sure nothing is left stuck to the side of the bowl, add enough food coloring to get the desired red color for your cupcakes.
- Using a large ice cream scoop, scoop the batter evenly in your prepared pan and bake for 18 to 22 minutes or until when you insert a toothpick in the center it comes out clean.Let the cupcakes cool completely.
- To make the frosting, simply put all the frosting ingredients into the bowl of an electric mixer and mix until well combined and it has the consistency of a thick frosting.Frost the cupcakes either with a little spatula or using a disposable piping bag fitted with a plain large tip.
- Let cool in the fridge for about 10 to 15 minutes to set a little before serving (if you can resist them anyway)
Enjoy!
You can watch Laura Vitale’s demonstration here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxSJjioS-k4
Blueberry Cheesecake
My favourite of the cheesecakes! Blueberry cheesecake…
Once we’ve followed everything in the very basic, very perfect cheesecake recipe of mine (http://kittyscribbles.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-very-perfect-very-basic-cheesecake/), just slather on some blueberry pie filling over it before refrigerating it for a couple of hours… Happy eating!
Doesn’t this look heavenly? Yummm…
On a side note, I would personally recommend the Monarch’s Blueberry Pie Filling.. I don’t get a commission for marketing their product.. It’s just my personal preference.. I find that it’s just the perfect kind. I’ve tried Hartley’s and it’s rather sour…
Also, I don’t live in a country where fresh blueberries are available, so I can’t make it myself…
