Creamy Garlic Pasta :)

Hello all you lovely people 🙂 sorry for not keeping up to date with you. A LOT has been happening and I will update you all on it over the next few weeks.

My fiancé and I have started a YouTube channel so look out for some links to our videos in the near future. I thought I’d break the blogging silence with a quick and easy creamy garlic pasta recipe!
We just ate two portions worth EACH. It was that tasty.

Here are the ingredients you will need:

For the garlic sauce:
– 1/2 large onion chopped finely
– 1.5 cups unsweetened soy milk
– 2 to 3 tbsp corn starch mixed in with 1/4 cup cold water
– salt to season – about 1tsp
– 1/4 tsp black or white pepper
– 2-3 tbsp nutritional yeast
– 1 garlic clove
And any type of pasta you prefer – we used a mix of typical elbow macaroni and whole wheat fusilli pasta.

Steps:
– Prepare your pasta first – it will take longer to cook than the sauce
– Sautee the onion in a pot with a bit of water (just enough to cover the bottom of the pan) – or if you prefer use 1tbsp olive oil
– Once the onion is a bit translucent, add in the soy milk, salt, garlic, corn starch, and nutritional yeast. Stir continuously until the mixture thickens to a creamy consistency.
– Mix with pasta and serve hot.

Art of Flower Power update

So I’ve been working really hard the past couple of days on my calla lily painting, and I think it’s pretty much finished (except for a few finishing details).

Done 🙂

 

Oh, and the two white figures you seen on the right hand corner is a painting of Adventure Time characters Finn and Jake I started a while ago but not sure how to finish it just yet.

The next piece that I’m going to work on is an addition to the elephants I painted previously. I was going to do the same background and idea with a giraffe, kind of like a continuation of the original painting.

Holiday: Cyprus 2014

Oh how much I needed this 2 week holiday! I really needed to step away from work for a bit and just enjoy some days off where I didn’t have to worry about meetings, labs and preparing experiments. And I was missing my family and wanted to be with them for a bit during the summer.

If you’re planning a holiday in Cyprus, best time of the year to go is between June and July. The months of August and September are a bit too hot and humid for some people to bear.

So yes 🙂 had a lot of fun with my parents and our adopted dog Nana. We even had a bit of an adventure…

One night, about 4-5 days before I was to fly back to the UK, my mom and I were ambushed with cuteness by a tiny black dog who scampered up to us, tail waging so hard the momentum taking her little butt along with it.

So immediately we start looking around to see if her human family are close by. She didn’t have a collar on but we still checked and asked some of the people sitting outside a cafe and restaurant if they’d seen her before or heard if anyone was looking for a missing dog. No luck there. I sat on the curb of the road with her, making sure she didn’t run into traffic and get hurt.

We both knew we already have Nana and that it would be impossible to keep this little one with us as well…Nana is more than enough :P. But we couldn’t leave her alone roaming so close to a main and busy road.

We took turns carrying her the 3km back home. She was obviously scared and didn’t know where we were taking her. As soon as we got inside the flat we made a B line for the bathroom. We gave her a good wash twice, dried her off and put her on the floor in the bathroom to relax and take in her surroundings. She was very quiet and even after about 2-3 hours looked scared of everything around her. We decided to keep her in the bathroom for the night so that she wouldn’t be overwhelmed with Nana’s excited behaviour. We tried to introduce Nana to the little dog but first impressions weren’t good – the little dog didn’t seem to like Nana and would bare her teeth and growl at her. So we thought that was enough excitement for one night, left the little one in the bathroom to rest once we provided some bedding, food and water, and decided that was enough excitement for one day.

Next day we spent the whole morning trying to get two completely different dogs to, if not like, at least tolerate each other. After we passed the awkward stages of growls and teeth baring, it looked like both dogs would get along alright.

Look they didn’t kill each other! *phew* 🙂

 

And after a couple more hours, they started looking more comfortable being in each other’s presence.

 

 

 

 

After some time, we decided to give this little one a name as we couldn’t carry on calling her “dog” – which reminded me of Dog Meat from Fallout 3. Everyone: meet Zoey!

 

 

 

 

 

Zoey still needs a home though. We have advertised her on Facebook on a page called Rescue A Dog From Cyprus and PAWS (Protecting Animals Without Shelter). We cannot afford to have two dogs in our small two bedroom apartment in Cyprus. So I’m asking for your help to spread the word! 🙂

Art of Flower Power ;P

Been so busy lately with work and engrossed in Veronica Roth’s books – Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant – that I almost forgot I have all these amazing paints that I want to use! As for the novels, they are very easy to read and there’s always something happening to pique your interest. I read Divergent in about 4-5 days, didn’t even feel the time go by. Give them a go! 😉

Anyway, back to art :P. I decided to do something a bit more simple and started looking at some pictures of flowers on Google. Came across one I really liked and thought that I could paint without much difficulty.

Started painting the background first.

Takes getting used to to paint the leaves..

Just started the flower

Obviously I’m quite a bit away from completing this piece, but this was all done in about 3-4 hours so I should be able to complete it in a day :-).

And in case anyone is interested in my paintings, they are for sale for a reasonable price :). I can also take requests and paint whatever you’d like, so if you have any ideas or want to suggest what you want me to paint next, go ahead and send me a message/comment 😀 I’d love to hear from you guys and girls. 

Mars One Update

So I realise it’s been a while since I last did a Mars One update and thought you all should hear the news…..

My test results were awesome! 😀 Being poked and prodded was worth it!

I understand that some of the candidates that decided to go through with the medical received some bad news. In the running to become a colonist for Mars that news was unfortunate, but in the long term it is good for those candidates because if it wasn’t for the medical exam they probably wouldn’t have caught the illness in time.

I had some concerns of my own about my medical tests though. My own doctor had concerns as well because in 2011 I had experienced a panic attack following a rejection for a job interview. He even said that he waned to write a note on my medical forms expressing his concern and recommending that I not be considered. But as soon as my results got back, my doctor looked really excited and happy! I asked him whether he was going to write his note and he just brushed my question aside saying there was absolutely no need.

Now comes the hard part: preparation for Round 3 for interviews. There was news that the interviews will be moved to sometime end of this year/beginning of 2015. They were originally supposed to take place in September, but my guess is there is just a lot of work for them to do and to organise where all the interviews will be held.

I had tried to spread the word out through my University and Kingston University where I did my undergraduate course, but it feels like many people don’t seem to be taking this seriously, or they think it’s a joke/prank. I will try again to contact my Universities to inform others of Mars One and the goal to put humans on Mars. If any of you folks reading my blogs have any ideas or suggestions on what else I could do to branch out, message me with your thoughts – I would greatly appreciate any help and advice I can get :).

All in all I’m glad I passed my medical tests and that I am still in the running as a Mars One candidate. Hope that I’ll have more good news for you all in the future.

Cyprus

I’m back home in Cyprus visiting parents for the summer :-). Doing a PhD leaves little time for relaxation, so any time off is awesome and must be used to the max.

The last time I was back home was Christmas 2013. Also the last time I saw Nana (our adopted pup)  she was tiny, you could pick her up easily… But now…

 

 

 

She’s as big as a pony! And such ladylike manners…

 

Interesting new addition on planes, think these might replace screens on the back of plane seats?

I built my own desktop PC

For the the last 6-7 years I have not owned a desktop PC. My very first laptop was a HP Pavilion DV6000 series and it kind of continued with HP until almost 2 years ago when I got my very first Alienware.

With Nicholas’s help, we built an awesome gaming desktop PC 😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I loved having my Alienware, it’s an awesome gaming laptop. But having a desktop is just more practical at home. Since I’m working at University (and I already have a computer there) I don’t really need a laptop to lug around with me everywhere I go. The Alienware was great while I was a student, as every year meant I had to pack up my things and move to a different place – laptops are great for that!

Oh, I almost forgot – I am selling my Alienware laptop if anyone is interested (still has 2 months guarantee/warranty on it)  🙂 it’s an M17x R3 model with awesome specs and I’ll put the link to the ebay site here

 

 

Art work at last!

Hi again! 🙂 I realize I haven’t posted anything in a VERY long time! But I promise I will be keeping up to date with you guys and posting new and exciting things!

Lots of things happening this year, been keeping busy with my research work (FINALLY making headway), been to my very first conference – got to present my work and yes I was quite nervous 😛 – had my quarterly meeting with my sponsors and it was the longest meeting we’ve had to date, mostly because of the quantity of work I’ve had to talk through, and I’ve taken up painting again!

If there’s anything I fear, it’s a blank canvas. There are so many possibilities, so many ideas that go through my head of what I could put on each canvas; and the fear really comes from not wanting to mess things up and putting the right picture onto canvas. I’ve added the pictures just below :). I know I’m a bit rusty, but hopefully if I keep at it my techniques will improve.

 

 

Shuttle, Earth, and Space

 

So after my little practice with the space shuttle, I decided to move onto some more complicated things….like elephants! But like all things, you can’t just jump into it, you have to do the background first.

 

 

Hard at work trying to blend the sky blues

 

 

 

Cloudy sky 🙂

 

Background done, NOW we can focus on elephants 🙂

 

 

 

 

And that’s it! Honestly, I thought that my elephants would turn out not quite proportional. However the fact that this is the very first time I ever painted an elephant (didn’t even draw it before hand) I think it turned out all right.

What do you guys think? Any comments or suggestions? 🙂

It’s a Mexican Wrap!

I realize I haven’t been very diligent with my blogging these days. Work has been very demanding, and even when I’m done for the day I still find that I’m thinking about what I have to do the next day. I noticed that cooking and planning a meal helps me relax, so today I planned and made myself a healthy wrap sandwich 🙂 I hope you all can give it a try. It would work great for lunch at the office, picnic, or just being silly at home.

Crazy Googly Eyes!

This wrap is so easy to make, it just takes a bit of time to cut and clean all the veggies to add as the filling. To make this wrap, you’re going to need:

• a packet of tortilla wraps
• 2 large ripe avocados
• 1 medium onion finely chopped – half for the guacamole, and half for the pico de gallo
• about 10 – 15 cherry tomatoes
• a handful or two of coriander/cilantro, chopped
• 2 jalapeño peppers for some kick! or you could use some slices from a jar
• juice of 2 medium lemons
• salt to taste

– Start with the avocado – cut in half, take the stones out, then spoon the avocado flesh out. Chop the avocados roughly, move into a food processor, and add the lemon juice. Process until you reach a consistency of your liking – can be as smooth or chunky as you like. Then spoon the contents out into a Tupperware container, add the chopped onions and some freshly chopped cilantro/coriander. Add some salt to taste and mix everything up evenly. Add some jalapeños if you’d like to give it a bit of a spicy kick 🙂

nice and ripe

Into the processor it goes 🙂

All done

– Cut the cherry tomatoes in quarters and place them in a bowl. Add in the rest of the finely chopped onion, some chopped coriander, some jalapeños, and salt to taste.

– Take a tortilla wrap (or two :P) and spoon some of the guacamole and the pico de gallo, kind of like this:

almost there…

– Now, start to roll the tortilla. If you want a tortilla wrap sandwich which won’t leak out of its sides, you can push the ends inwards as you’re wrapping.

– You can also use my other smoked bean dip recipe here if you would prefer something with a bit more substance and protein. Whatever you decide, I’m sure the end result will be utter deliciousness!

Enjoy! 😀

Perfect for a hungry tummy

I’m done! My medical examination is over! No more needles, no more poking and prodding, just waiting for the next stage to kick off.

If you’re wondering what the fuss was about, here is the medical test I needed to carry out direct from Mars One themselves:

Medical tests

Thankfully all the tests came back with great results 🙂 and I get to keep all the paperwork, which is cool because I get to read through all the blood work information…etc.

The basic medical examination, which included skin exam, basic neurology assessment, ears, nose, throat exam, hearing, mobility, and urine analysis cost £85. The ECG and the bloodwork was the most expensive at £115 and a bruised arm:

Ouch!

But overall, I am one happy bunny to give this a go 🙂 I know that if I didn’t I would have wondered “what if?…” in the future. Now just to get my other half in the program 🙂