My Tomatoes :-)

They are growing, also while I'm not at home......

So when I came home from a cold Christmas holiday, they really needed to be staked up from the ground. I heard that it was raining hard while we were away. Good nothing happened to them.

Not so good :-(

I already gave them bamboo stakes when I was repotting them, I don't know why I didn't stake them at the same time!!!!

Much better.

I think I need something else to stake them with, now I 'm using cable tires. I want something more soft. Maybe I should go to the Garden Centre soon :-)

They already have a few yellow flowers :-) I'll soon be making homemade pasta with delicious simple Pomodoro sauce.

Looking for Al Diyafa!

Found the shop in my second try.
If you need something for baking or the kitchen, they probably have it :-)
I found what I was looking for, and I'm definitely going back. So many things I need.....

It's easy to find, a pink building on road 4B Street (and 6A Street) behind Times Square Center.
I took a picture for you:

Seen from 4B St.

 

Inside the Courtyard, seen from the end the store is located.

 I bought a spatula that can stand the heat, love to use it in the wok and pans.

Anything you can't work in the kitchen without?

I love Muffins!

But, I hate muffin tops!
That's why I started my day walking 10 km, before baking :-)
And it was chilly this morning......

Today's mission: to make these two delicious apples into muffins.

One delicious Granny Smith apple & a Gala apple.

I'm normally not baking a lot, and starting on something, knowing it's not gonna be my favourite..... but I have so many recipes from my course I have to try at home as well.
So these two apples I'll make in to:

Apple, Oats and Cinnamon Muffins:

3 eggs
3/4 cups vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used the liquid)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup oats
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 peeled cored and chopped apples
1/2 cup chopped pecans/walnuts & raisins
zest and juice of one orange

Frosting:
1 Tbsp Icing sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 175c
Combine all ingredients except apple, raisins and nuts. Blend until uniform in consistency.
Fold in apples, raisins and nuts, pour batter into muffin tins. I had paper in.
The batter feels very dry. (not really tried to bake with oil instead of butter before) Bake for 40-45 min. Careful, the easily gets dry, a toothpick in the center should come out clean.
Turn out onto a wire rack, dust with frosting.

Side Stitch!

In my buttock....!!!
Didn't try that before. But it was actually nice to get out running, before the stitch.

My way home was half running, half walking, and now I can blame the stitches :-)
If anyone have tips on how to get it to go away, I will be happy to hear them.

I also continued my 100 push-ups- and 200 sit-ups challenge today.
Now I don't feel so guilty about having dinner at Coldstones yesterday...... But I really love their Chocolate Devotion!

Farinaceous!

It's a very dangerous course I'm taking. Today we had the first of two classes about Farinaceous. I didn't know the word before, but it derives from 'farina' Latin for flour, flour with high starch content, cereals, pasta, pulses and potatoes.
Today we made:
Pancakes, Crepes, Qatayef, (Arabic Pancakes) Waffles, Belgian Yeast Waffles, Belgian Yeast Crepes and French Toast. Pyhhh! And all the different sauces........
That means A LOT of tasting!!!

I'll have to try it all at home, so no more Oats for breakfast the next weekends :-)

Oh my, I think the Chef who said, we should take a before and after picture of us, was right!
I don't hope the difference will be too many kilos though......

I've had a running break for almost 2 weeks now, actually I look forward to have time for it tomorrow
(easy said ;-)  )

The Tagetes/Marigolds!

Here is the Marigolds I bought on the way home from Oman. They are not that pretty, and I bought them actually only so I could get the seeds later.

High and lanky, not that pretty!

But they are now looking OK, and maybe they will get better over time.

Nicer!

Pots and Plants!

Plant: dhs 5,- I think that's cheep

With my visa taken care of, I could relax on my way home from Oman.
So I decided to stop and look at all the pots, ceramics and plant shops. I stopped at the first and biggest I saw, and the salesman came out right away to say Hello. He assured me, that all his pots very good, top class :-). I found 2 I liked, haggled a little. I'm sure I could have gotten him lower, but the price was OK, and I don't think he has lots of customers...
Then I made a u-turn to look for plants. I don't know what they are called, so take a look at the pictures.

Plant: dhs 10,-/Pot: dhs 45,- Just what I was looking for.

Definitely I'll be going again soon, a day when a friend or my husband has time to go with me. It's always more fun to be two.
But you find all the shops, going towards Oman on E44. It's just after the second check-point. Easy to find.
I also bought 3 tagetes, or I picked 2 and got one for free :-)

Visa run to Oman!

So, I tried to get extension of my residence visa or a tourist visa at The Immigration Department on Trade Centre Road, but they couldn't help. So I had to go on a visa run to Oman.

After a 7 - 8 hours long school day with LOTS of baking, I started my journey. I went alone, since my husband don't have his passport back yet. We have done the trip before, it's so pretty. But this time, it was already dark before I left Dubai City.
There were a lot of traffic until I passed International City/Dragon Mart on E44. E44 is called many different names, depending on which section you are on. But some of the names in this end are Ras Al Khor St., Al Awir Rd and Hatta-Oman Rd. It's straight all the way to Oman.
I actually drove past the Warsan Nurseries, didn't stop, but will go there soon. It's always fun to have a look around there.
The Oman trip always take longer than expected with all the check-points. And they stopped me, asked me questions at all of them.
At the 5th stop I paid dhs 200,- and got an Oman Entry and Exit stamp. If you are going, tell them that you'll return to Dubai (and not go into Oman), it goes faster then.
On my way back at the Dubai border, I was lucky they just opened a new counter as I walked in. Otherwise, a whole bus would have been in front of me. No waiting time, perfect!

When I got home a little past 10pm, I was tired.

Suddenly growing.

My  tomato plants are doing very well. The 2 others, I don't know what are.

My tomato plants were growing so fast in the beginning, that suddenly it looked like they stopped. But this morning they had suddenly changed, and needed to be planted separately. I don't have so many pots, so they are still together, but in bigger pots. Then I will later choose which of them looks best.
I actually wasn't counting on all the seeds to sprout, since I made them myself, but guess I did it the right way!
Closer to tasting them :-)

Brownie for Breakfast!

A lovely odour of a freshly baked brownie met me yesterday morning at school. Somebody had been there early!
And that was good, I was in a hurry, so I didn't have breakfast.
And OMG it tasted fantastic :-)

My cakes were a little boring compared to this one. Carrot cake, apple & cinnamon muffins and a banana loaf. I will make the apple muffins at home in December, they where good. Just because there is cinnamon in, makes them Christmas-like, and I guess they are a little healthy as well, as one of the ingredients is oats :-)
But I ate more butter than I've done in the last, I don't know... months!! We made a cream cheese frosting and two different french butter cream, one with vanilla, one with strawberry flavour. Had to taste all of them :-)

You should try the French Butter Cream, easy and good:

2 eggs
225 g butter
1/2 cup sugar
A/R vanilla (or your favourite taste)
30 ml (or 2 tbsp) water

Whisk the eggs, adding vanilla
heat the sugar and water to 112 C, if it goes too high you'll have to make it again
adding the sugar to the eggs slowly while whisking
Add the butter in small pieces while whisking and while it's still hot
You can see when it's finish, and Enjoy!

Pelargonie!

My pelargonie bought in Al Safa 2, near Spinneys. I also bought some pots there, but I'll have to go there again a day I'm not in a hurry. 
The salesman told me the flowers would be orange. I think, they are a mix between orange and pink, very pretty and eye catching!

They are growing!

My little tomatoes, now 10 days.

A picture of my Tomatoes, after 10 days!
They are still looking good, even though the temperature is higher than the recommended. There is hot in our little garden, the walls around it makes it into a pot. But they are still in the sun, I hope they wont get high and lanky then.
I'll have to find out, if I should do something different, than what I would do in Denmark.
It's normal in Denmark to have them in a Greenhouse. There they will be warm, and get shelter from the rain. Both, cold nights and rain, are not a problem here :-)
So, maybe outside in my garden here, is just like inside my old Greenhouse.

Culinary Classes!

Have just put all my Cookery- and Patisserie Classes into my calendar. There will be some serious cooking and baking in the nearest future.
I've decided to try most of it at home, I think that's the best way to remember all of it.
Normally we don't eat a lot of cake at home though, but that will have to change. I'll keep it to myself how it normally goes when I'm near my Mom's Christmas biscuits :-)

I've already had my first baking class, which was Creaming Cakes.
One of the cakes we made, Upside Down Pineapple Cake, was already on my to-try-list. I saw one of the Chefs make it on the "Daily Cooks Challenge" show, and it looked soo pretty and yummy.
So that will be the first cake I'll try at home.
Hopefully today or tomorrow I can show a pretty picture :-)
I will also try some of the mixed fruit cakes, but that will be in December, they reminds me of Christmas.

Seriously!! After looking at my schedule.....
I will need to do some more exercises, otherwise, there will be two of me soon :-)

Sowing Tomatoes!

My tomatoes just broke ground!

Now I have a garden, the Summer is over, it's sowing time!
I will try different seeds, some will succeed, some not. I still don't know a lot about sowing and plants in this weather, so I'll just give it a go.

My first attempt will be cherry tomatoes.
So, I bought my favourite tomatoes. Squeezed the tomatoes and spread the seeds out on kitchen towel, folded it, and put it in the sun a few days to dry totally.
It is the jelly stuff around the seeds, that prevent them from sprouting, and I think this is the easiest way to dry them.
Then I gently took the seeds off the paper, and seeded 4 in each little pot, and waited....
After 3 days I could see the first little sprouts, and they are growing fast :-)
I still have them in the sun, I hope that it will help them to get used to the heat. But soon I'll place them different places in the garden, so that if they die, it hopefully wont be all of them.

So, after this first (so far successful) attempt, I will try different seeds now. Don't know which yet, I'll go to the Hypermarkets and nurseries to get ideas.