Anarchistelfliege 2 (back to Utopia) : topic:tutorials

Pakoras - deep fried veggies

distelfliege — 2008-10-19T13:29:00Z

You'll need:

* Raw Veggies, cut into pieces
* 4 big spoons full of gram flour
* 2 big spoons of oil
* 1/2 - 1 cup of water
* salt
* spices (whatever you like, I use curry powder)
* fat for deep frying
* Wok or pot to fry the stuff in

How to make them:

Put everything but the veggies into a bowl.

Stir until you get a fluid dough.

Heat the fat and dip the veggies into the dough, then deep fry them until they are golden brown.

This is a dish from india, and I like to eat it with rice and a chutney.

beautiful desserts

distelfliege — 2008-08-08T08:51:00Z

I made them yesterday and I edited the photo after reading Lisa Lams tutorial on how to make a professional looking photo of a craft item. I never had used the dodge tool before and I like it really!

I've got a problem with the peach-coco-recipe though, when I mix the beaten egg with sugar and the coconut milk/curd mixture, the whole stuff becomes totally thin and fluid. This is fixed by the gelatine later on, but it would be less of a fuss if it would stay creamy right away.

Peach-Coconut-Dessert (about 10)

Canned peaches
1 fresh peach
250 g curd
100 g coconut milk
some coconut flakes
135 g sugar
1 egg and 4 egg yolks
500 g whipped cream
48 g gelatine (8 leaves)
flat sponge cake, 1cm thick
60 g gelatine (10 leaves)
400 ml fruit juice (orange, mango, peach)
sugar syrup (sugar and water in equal amounts, cooked together).

1. beat the egg+egg yolks with the sugar over a heat source to kill bacteria and continue beating them until they are cooled down.
Mix curd and coconut milk and coco flakes.
Mix eggs and curd+coco (now this will turn into a fluid, I don't know how to fix that).
2. melt 48 g of gelatine and stir into this mixture. gently stir in 500 g of whipped cream. Put in the fridge until the gelatine makes it a little bit less fluid.
3. fill dessert rings with the mixture and let them become firm in the freezer. (Put sliced canned peaches in the rings before filling them with the mixture)
In the meantime, use the same dessert ring to cut out shapes (mine are circular) from the thin sponge cake.
4. melt 60 g of gelatine in the fruit juice (heating it up until gelatine is melted) and cut the peach into slices. put the peach slices on a metal tray which has been oiled first, and pour the juice with gelatine on top of the slices. let it become jelly in the fridge oder freezer.
5. take out the firm desserts and get them out of the rings, brush sugar syrup on the sponge cake circles and use the dessert ring to cut out circular shapes from the jelly. The cake and the jelly go to each side of the cream/coco dessert. Sprinkle coco flakes on top :)
6. write a comment suggesting what I should do to avoid this becoming fluid of the mixture - maybe replace the curd with something else? mascarpone? joghurt? ;-)

blueberry-joghurt-dessert (about 10)

4 egg yolks
50 g sugar

stir together.

250 g joghurt
250 g blueberries, blended

mix egg/sugar and blueberry/joghurt together

8 leaves of gelatine (48 g)
put it in cold water for some minutes, take it out, squeeze out excess water, melt gelatine over a heat source. mix gelatine into the berries-joghurt-stuff.

500 g whipped cream
gently stir whipped cream into the whole mixture.

fill you dessert rings with mixture and let them become firm in the fridge/freezer.

take a brown sponge cake (which you should have made beforehand) 1cm thick and cut out your dessert shapes.
Make jelly with 10 leaves/60 g gelatine, 400ml red fruit juice and blueberries the same way as for the peach/coco-dessert.
the rest of the procedure is the same as for the other dessert, except for the comment on how to keep it creamy. This one keeps a pleasant texture to work with.

Tutorial: making lavender bags

distelfliege — 2008-06-24T12:05:00Z

Making lavender bags is very easy, and I guess that people who love sewing do not need a tutorial like this, but then, I made this tutorial in german and since the pics are all taken and uploaded, I could just as well translate it:

Lavender bags are made to put in between your clothes to give them a nice scent. It's also said that the scent deters moths.

You will need: Scraps (Cotton or linen)
1 x 10cm wide and 18cm long (approx. 4 x 7 inches)
1 x 11,5 cm wide and 17,5 cm long (4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches)
Scissors (rotary cutting stuff), sewing machine, a ribbon or cord to tie closed, a safety pin.

First, cut the smaller piece of fabric.

Finish the short sides of the smaller piece by zigzagging over the edge, turning it 1/4 inch to the inside (wrong side) and sew over that with a straight stitch.

fold it as shown in the picture with the right side inside and sew a tube:

Turn the tube around, the right side outside, and iron flat. The seam should be at one side of the tube. Then cut the second (bigger) piece of fabric.
It should be the same width as the tube:

Put the tube on top of the second piece of fabric, place the seam of the tube on the side where you will be sewing now. Then sew together:

Press seam open.

I sewed over the whole thing one more time, but this is not necessary. At this stage, you could add some embroidery or textile paint.

fold in half, the right side inside and the wrong side outside:

Simply sew the two open sides closed. Stop about 1/2 inch before you reach the end of the tube, to leave openings for putting the ribbon in:

Nearly finished. With the safety pin, put the ribbon through the tube.

Fill with dried lavender blossoms:

You're done!