foodie fails and findings

Obviously having always lived at home I've never really had to shop and cook for myself. On my first day I bought a loaf of bread which after two weeks still wasn't finished and was rock hard... After that I decided not to buy any bread because it would just go to waste. Here are a few things I have learnt...

steaming

Seeing as I don't have a pan for steaming veggies and I don't really want to buy one for the next couple of months, instead I've been putting them in a grater and holding it over a pan. I think it works just as well!

rice

I love a bargain so when I saw a 2kg bag of rice I bought it without thinking. When I got home I realised that cooking rice for one was going to be a faff I couldn't really be bothered with. Luckily my friends who have been living away from home shared their method of cooking rice in the microwave. I think I had rice every singly day the week I discovered this because I was so impressed! All you have to do is rinse your rice, then place it in a bowl with one part rice and two parts water for 9mins. Easy peasy :)

no mixers

I've been pretty much vegetarian since I arrived in Sweden, partly because I'm not actually sure what meat I would be buying and because chicken is so expensive! I invested in a hand held blender so I can make ample portions of soup. But I've also been using it for frozen cocktails. Being too lazy to go to the shop (which is about 60 seconds away from my room) I decided to blend my frozen berries with vodka and water. And voilà, no need for mixers!

baking

Baking is probably the only thing I do that I can class as a hobby. Normally I find any reason to bake because I love it so much. Luckily for me most, if not all, of the ingredients I use at home are paid for by mum and dad. As I no longer have the never ending supply of flour and sugar, I tried not to bake anything, until last week. I invited my friends over hoping to impress them with apricot & cinnamon muffins and lemon flavoured macarons. But I'd never actually used the oven, apart from making wedges, so both attempts were a disaster. The muffins were like rock cakes and the macarons were, on one tray burned biscuits and on the other soggy yellow blobs. Since then I have been shown how to use the over so hopefully I can edit this post and declare that I am capable of making cakes.