iki and her dreams

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i've started a new blog elsewhere. if you want to follow it, contact me personally or write a comment here and i'll give you the new link. it won't appear on search engines for obvious reasons.

i hope to keep my followers. i've valued your feedback and i appreciate that you chose to read my thoughts about life. spread your wings and follow me. the first post will be about a twin (a second one, more digital), that i didn't know existed until today.


xx iki

almost all of the original post.....

the small things in life. what a cliché. but they really make me happy! like, walking barefoot in the grass. or seeing flowering löjtnantshjärtan (why do they have so many names in english?). watching someone i care about laughing with his friends in uppsala. and the warm feeling of sun after a buzz cut.



when i was a teenager i listen to hiphop. at that time, hiphop was about politics, not about sexism (or maybe i just found the good hiphop). my boyfriend at the time being was not a hiphopper but rather listened to rock. and i found the first rock song that i really liked, holy diver. it's a classic. and it's still good. so learning that dio has died was sad. i'm glad i saw him live last year at wacken. i hope the rest of the old men survives until sonisphere.. :X

M kindly looked after our jewellery at the aoh, and we are satisfied although we didn't sell much. at all. anyways, i learned something: if we want to make any profit, we have to buy the material online to get the prices down, and we have to re-use designs. it takes so much time to come up with a new design! i've made a necklace for my sister's friend, and i sure will reuse this design - with other colors. pink is so not me. but i'm not the one who'll be wearing this one;

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biking to work this morning, i smelled a fresh mowed lawn. and i felt like 12 again, longing for summer holiday. i wanted to take my shoes off and walk bare-foot, and roll around in the grass. i'm trying to stop myself from the latter when people are watching. possibly i'll go watch the calves' first encounter with grass at the test farm where M works. not sure how i will feel about it. happiness is always lovely, but even though this may be one of the better farms in sweden it is still part of an industry i don't believe in.

the lilacs are flowering. that normally happens in the end of june, at the end of the school term. i love it.

i'm trying to move on with my life. it's about time now.

i was emailing with C about break-ups, and when looking at what i had just written, i realised that while she was talking about my recent break-up with D i was actually rather talking about my previous break-up. but i guess what we concluded is true for both of them; break-ups are never easy but sometimes the relationship is even worse. and i realised that even though looking after my very depressed friend some two weeks ago almost got me to seek psychological advice for myself, it did also help me in the long run. she's a lot better now, she's stronger than she knows. but when she lost her grip on life, i had to let go of other people to take on her pain. so now that she is better, i've already stepped back from these other people, one in particular. and thanks to that, my main concern can and has to be myself, getting my own life sorted out and working proper hours again.

last weekend i was flying. that was so amazing!

a lovely gift from lovely people, C went up too (do we ever do things without each other?) and she seemed to enjoy it too, although she's always more sensible than i am. it was a bit cloudy so we sent around inside the clouds, and then i got to take over the levers, it was surprisingly hard to keep the plane stable while making turns. then halfway through the instructor turned the engine off, it got soo quiet and we kept flying for another ten minutes or so. of course we dived and turned upside-down, my stomach didn't like that part but i love the thrill. yay! i totally recommend that if you get the chance to try it.

jeez gotta sleep now! up in five hours to go hiking. i think a lot better at night so i tend to stay up late, but this weekend is planned according to normal people's hours.

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The one thing that keeps me sane these days is making jewellry. I was nervous when I posted letter to England, with the work of my beloved sister and me. what if people don't like it? what if noone buys anything? it's the first time we try to sell any of our work and i can't really emagine anyone paying for my hobby, but now that we're into it, i want to perform perfectly, as always.

i'm trying to learn to forgive myself.

i was slightly worried that the whole thing would turn into a competition between my sister and me, and i really didn't want that. so we discussed this and she's just so easy talking to. it's so relieving to have someone that i can be absolutely honest with. and we discussed it and sorted it all out. and i think we're both satisfied if we sell one single piece.

one good thing about the jewellry making, apart from that we both find it relaxing to work with our hands and it's good for us to have a reason to leave work at an appropriate time, was that it gave us an excuse to see each other more often. i really really love my sister <3 she's also been an unvaluable support these last days when too many things have gone wrong at the same time.

so since i can't sleep at the moment (hmm that's nothing new about that), i've made some more stuff that we didn't send to England. here's my latest piece of work:

I'm actually quite proud X-D

or actually, i have another even newer thing. tonight C and i went to a glass fusing course, that was totally new to me. we chose among small shattered pieces of glass and combined them. then we heated this in an oven and it all melted (fused) together into one single multi-coloured glass stone. totally amazing! we were four people and everyone's work turned out oompletely different and individual, and it all looked good. i can't manage to get a proper photo of it, but the two larger triangles are yellowish green and greenish blue, and the small one in the middle is dark blue. or so they ended up after the heating process - the bottom layer is one big single piece of black glass, then i put the triangle shaped pieces on that and a clear peice of glass diagonal on top of everything. this clear glass has pressed the middle blue thing down, creating a depth in the final product. this was definitively worth trying.


ok time to sleep i suppose, and stop showing off :)

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I've been so moody this last few days I almost think I'll get my period soon. That would explain a lot. But I think the real, major cause is a boss with too much to do and too little time to listen.

Anyway I did a cheesecake today for the work party tomorrow. Somehow, spending an hour in the kitchen just helped me leave most of the stress behind. It was the same recipe that I used for my vegan birthday two weeks ago (yes I've been a vegan for over seven years now! hooray!). Here comes the cakes I made then. I had planned to take photos of them 'cause the all looked really nice, but as usual I was running late and my guests had started to arrive so I skipped that.

I'm lacking some baking words in English so if you want to, enlighten me :D

Cheesecake with rum and cherries
(from veganvrak.blogspot.com)
bottom
12 digestives
60g milk-free margarine
a little (a teaspoon or so) vegetable oil, optional
a teaspoon of lemon juice

main layer
400 g Tofuline original soft cheese, or some equivalent
0.5dl white rum or 0.5dl over-diluted cherry squash and 10 drops of rum essence
1dl oat cream
2dl jelling sugar multi

top layer
2dl cherry squash
2dl jelling sugar multi

This is one of Sara's (the creator of the veganvrak blog) latest cheesecakes and it's really nice. I made another one for the Christmas Party in Sussex and it seemed to be appreciated. Sara's cheesecakes takes about an hour to prepare and as with most cakes they're better if made the day before they are to be eaten, and left in the fridge overnight.
The top layer for this cheesecake is obviously a bit more boring than using raspberries or smth, but then again it has to be a more subtle flavour to go well with the rum taste. I decorated this cake with kiwi fruit, but it would probably work fine to make the top layer from passion fruits and water instead of cherry squash to make it more aesthetically attractive.
I guess that the jelling sugar is called different things in different countries, but when I scroogled 'jelling sugar' I found a sugar forum (!! :D) mentioning 'jelling sugar multi' which is a direct translation of Swedish name, so that should be it. You know, the kind of sugar you use for panna cotta. Anyways here we go!

bottom
preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. melt the margarine. you can use 75g of margarine or 50g of margarine and some sunflower oil (doesn't need melting, obviously).
crush the digestives by hand. add melted margarine and some lemon juice, and add sunflower oil if needed to create a digestive paste.
spread the paste in a sponge pan, preferably one where you can remove the sides (springform?).
bake in the middle of the oven for 7 minutes. allow to cool.

middle layer
mix the soft cheese with a spoon to make it smooth. this mixing is especially important if the cheese is fridge cold, you want it to be room tempered and nice. add rum or rum essence and some overly diluted cherry squash (some cherry taste is good but this layer should mainly taste of rum). mix the cheese and the liquid.
i couldn't find tofuline cream cheese in UK, so there I used 4/5 tofutti cream cheese and 1/5 silken tofu, and then added a bit of sour supreme. I'm sure there are better and easier combinations, only tofutti might work fine but that cheese is a bit more firm than tofuline so maybe it's good to add some extra liquid (cherry squash or oat cream) to this layer then. it's not as complicated as it may sound! :D

pour the jelling sugar and the cream in a pan and bring to a boil. allow to boil for 30 second, then remove from the heat. mix with the soft cheese mixture, and spread this in the sponge pan. place in the fridge to cool down.

top layer
mix the cherry squash and jelling sugar in a pan. I used cherry squash that was twice as concentrated as the recommended, but that might be a bit too much.
bring to a boil and boil for 30 seconds. cool down a little and carefully spread this on top of the main layer. if you pour it too quickly onto the middle layer, the layers will mix which is not the point. try using a spoon. you'll notice that if you're too quick it becomes uneven and if you're too slow the mix solidifies in the pan before you're done, so I think it's useful to decorate the cake with sliced kiwi fruit or strawberries or so.


Chocolate cake with a hint of orange
I haven't found a good English word for 'kladdkaka' - it's a chocolate cake made with less flour than a normal sponge cake and no baking powder, so it ends up being a bit muddy in the middle. If you bake it for too long, it bets chewy and then hardens, which is good too but not really the point.
My sister recommended me to do this cake and then melt orange-flavoured chocolate and spread on top. My local supermarket didn't carry such chocolate that was vegan, or maybe I just didn't find it, but anyway I used 70% chocolate and orange peel which was fine too.



Muddy chocolate cake
(dagensvegan.blogspot.com)
1.25 dl soy cream (not oat cream)
3dl sugar
1 teaspoon orange peel (or vanilla sugar)
4 tablespoons cacao powder
a tiny bit of salt
1.5 dl flour
1dl melted milk-free margarine

Top layer
(vegania.net)
100g chocolate
1 teaspoon orange peel (if you didn't find orange-flavoured chocolate)
50g melted milk-free margarine
1.5dl icing sugar

Cake
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Mix all the ingredients. Use soy cream, not oat cream, I don't know why but it just doesn't work.
Spread some oil (another word I'm lacking! how do you call that?) in a sponge pan and add finely crushed bread, cereal germ or whatever you normally use to get a non-sticky surface on the pan.
Pour the mix into the pan and bake in the over for about 30 min. If the pan is wide and the cake is thin, it's obviously done quicker.
The cake is great like this, with ice cream or vanilla sauce or so. or you can make it with orange peel and then make an orange-flavoured top layer.

Top layer
melt the chocolate, add the margarine, mix until everything is melted and well mixed, then add the orange peel.
slowly add the icing sugar and mix well.
spread on top of the cake

Sauce
I made a raspberry sauce to this, by simply boiling raspberries and orange peel for a few minutes.



Muffins
(vegan.nu)
I'm just way too lazy to make cupcakes, so I make muffins. It's exactly the same recipe as for sponge cake, but 15 min in the oven (225 degr Celsius) instead of 45 min (175 degr C)
It's also a wonderful basic recipe, and then it's easy to add whatever flavour you want.

4dl flour
1.5dl sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
100g milk-free margarine or 1dl sunflower oil
2dl soy milk
flavour of your choice, e.g.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder, 200g crushed pineapple without the juice, 0.5dl dried coconut flakes
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 0.5 teaspoon cardamom, 1 finely sliced apple, 0.25dl dried coconut flakes
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1.5dl lingonberry jam (tehn use only 1dl soy milk)

Preheat the oven to 225 degr Celsius (muffins). Mix all the ingredients and bake in the oven for 15 min. Sooo simple!



Whatever-berry Pie
Aough I didn't use a recipe and I'm getting really tired so I won't give you a recipe for this one. But it's simple. Might add one later.
I made a raspberry pie late Friday night after my sister had gone home, but then the next morning when I had breakfast I couldn't find my lingonberry jam in the fridge... but I found an unopened raspberry jam in the cupboard. I never tried the pie, I hope it was okay :D

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my heart is still bleeding, and i'm emotionally exhausted. i watch the stars emerge and the new day come. i'm careful not to feel too much. i watch the weather change and the hours pass and i don't see the point of anything. i avoid loneliness but sometimes i'd be better off seeking it. the ultimate loneliness is when speaking to someone and they just don't understand. but still, as time passes, i know that some damage will heal and some ache will fade.

so i listen to anna ternheim and i wait for the tide.

if i dwell on like this much longer, i'll start feeling sorry for myself. and that's not very attractive, is it? last year when i couldn't sleep - for other reasons, for work - H was such great company and support. sometimes, he'd walk with me for hours in a sleeping Stockholm, until i was physically tired and could sleep a little. sleepwise (is that a word?), i'm better now than i was then. and my self esteem is better than it was a couple of years ago. i know i will survive this. it's just that now, being in the middle of the mess, i so need that ease, and i don't see it happening.

i've deleted the last three entries. i still mean every word i wrote. maybe, some things should not be published. maybe, i'm censored.

i'm walking on such a thin line now. i'd need some time to just be me, with no expectations from others. or maybe all expectations are from me? how do i know?

ok this will just be a short note before going back to work. no i'm not 'celebrating' easter :) but apart from eating animals and eggs, there is another obscure easter tradition that belongs to the past - the idea of decorating our homes with feathers from turkeys and other birds.

if you're considering buying feathers, or eating chicken, watch this short documentary first. it's only four minutes. (and don't consider buying those things anymore!)

some good news: http://www.city.se/ the issue from 1st of April, page 8-9