The Yogurt Flan recipe

This recipe is now on this address:

http://deliciousrecipescooking.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/yogurt-flan/

Thank you

The couch potato movie guide

Since it's a sunday and like most people, I find myself at home (in my case, alone), I usually crave some movies to keep me company and make me laugh. So, let's begin:

Bridget Jones's Diary

As I find myself  lying on the couch and singing "All by myself" to the top of my lungs I remember that first scene where Bridget lip syncs to the Jamie O'Neal song and how much it represents the feeling. That feeling I'm now so familiar with. That feeling of being alone. This movie works for me for several reasons. a) Renée Zellweger is brilliant as a single English woman in her 30's trying to find happiness and putting an end to her spinsterhood. b) Colin Firth is so charming is so hard to resist, even when he's not into Bridget. c) Although Hugh Grant is often accused of playing the same part, this is HIS role, just a playboy and the villain of the film who finds himself into Bridget's giant grandma underpants. d) The movie is hilarious from beginning to end (I love that scene where she's watching herself going down from the sliding pole). e) I identify myself a lot with Bridget, with her struggle and life as a single woman (I'm not english). f) it's romantic comedy, with a happy ending. g) it has a great amount of unforgettable scenes: Bridget arriving to a party in the bunny costume, the not-too-rehearsed fight between the guys over Bridget, lion-hair Bridget, the dream wedding.....It's without question one of my favorite movies just to have a good laugh and relax.

Due Date 

Recently I watched this movie with really low expectations and I ended up lmao. Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. make a very odd couple in this movie, during the road trip of their lives from Atlanta to Los Angeles. At first I thought Galifianakis would play the same role as in The Hangover, and I was kind of right. But you know what? the guy cracks me up. There are some pretty unbelievable scenes, specially towards the end, but it still managed to make me laugh all the way through it.

Stranger than Fiction

I'm a confessed SNL fan and I openly admit I love Will Ferrell. This is not a typical Will Ferrell movie, though. It's like when you watch Jim Carrey in The Truman Show or something. He's not the clown, for a change, but it still very convincing in a very unconventional plot: He's the character of an Emma Thompson novel. As she describes his day-to-say life as she writes it. I think it's a very interesting idea and it kind of takes you to a different story. It's not real , but I don't think it's supposed to make you believe it is. 

Hitch

I had some serious reservations about this movie when an ex-boyfriend first tried to showed it to me. I was wrong. It's a hilarious romantic comedy about a "Date Doctor" (Will Smith) who turns out to be a hopeless romantic and falls in love with Sara (Eva Mendes). At the same time, he's trying to help Albert (Kevin James) to get the woman of his dreams (Amber Valletta). This results in a very funny comedy with the usual romantic twists, and some awesome dancing steps by Kevin James (the Q-tip is my favorite). It's simply hilarious. 




Tropic Thunder

I've always thought of Ben Stiller as seriously funny (there are other of his movies included on this list). Not only he acts on this film but he directs and writes the entire film about the making of a war movie in Vietnam. The movie starts with movie trailers, that are not to miss. Robert Downey Jr. steals the movie as the australian actor that underwent surgery in order to perform a black guy in the film, and a very funny Tom Cruise can't go unrecognized as the producer of the film. The movie makes you laugh from the beginning to almost the end (I didn't like the end) and it shows Stiller's many funny talents.

The Hangover

Just the title reminds me of my wildest nights out. And so does the movie. It tells the story of a group of friends in a bachelor party in Vegas gone wrong. It features a Tiger, Mike Tyson, and a baby, besides a very funny cast including Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper. Again, watching them trying to figure out what had happened the night before just took me to my most serve drinking night out with my friends of which I barely remember getting there. So, if you've ever been there, around there, near there, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it. If not, I'm sure it will crack you up.




Wedding Crashers


Both Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn make great performances as wedding crashers. Adorable Rachel McAdams  and hilarious Isla Fisher complete the cast for a perfect movie for a sunday afternoon. You might also hear cheesy pick up lines, lame excuses and other stereotypes that will only entertain you, at the very least. 






The Heartbreak Kid

I never understood the title of this movie. I mean, I think it's the worst title possible. But still, it's the story of a couple that gets married way too in the relationship and little by little he discovers she's not the woman of his dreams. His nightmares, maybe. Malin Ackerman stands out as the unbearable wife. This movie directed by the Farelly brothers is no "There's Something About Mary" but I still think it's very funny to watch on a sunday afternoon. 

Easy A

I watched this movie not long ago and I have to say it was better than I expected. I thought it would be a stupid comedy about american teenagers but it wasn't stupid at all (it is about american teenagers in high school). Before this movie I didn't know who Emma Stone was, but her role as a student that uses gossip to have a higher social status, really puts her on the map. Not only for me, but in general it's her breakout role, as it's funny in a very smart way. I love the scenes of her singing Pocketful of Sunshine. Hilarious.


(500) Days of Summer


I first watch this movie when I heard the Smiths played a major role in the movie's soundtrack.That, from the start, tells you that this is probably a romantic comedy gone wrong. And you might be right. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel portrait a lovely couple that meets at the office. Their ups and downs and very sensible but unexpected ending that takes you through 500 days in their relationship (or not!!) It's romantic, it's funny, it's sad. And I love the narrative of the movie and how it takes you back and forth in time. I loved it!! and I love the soundtrack!!







The School of Rock

Jack Black at his best. He sings, he dances, he plays the guitar and he definetely cracks me up as the substite school teacher that creates a rock band with the kids from his class. The kids in this movie, as they usually are in movies, are very funny. It's entertaining, and as a music lover, it's great to have rock in a movie that somehow works. 

Date Night

When I realize there was a movie with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell I was really excited to see what they come up with. I was disappointed. It's on this list as it is a movie to watch on sunday and it's very likely that I expected way too much of the movie. They portrait a couple that never has time for themselves, having two kids and jobs. So they decide to hire a nanny and have a date night in NYC. Everything that could go wrong, goes wrong and several familiar faces show up (Mila Kunis, Leighton Meester, James Franco, Mark Wahlberg, Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo) as they are mistaken for criminals and chased the entire night. I laughed a lot more at the credits with some additional scenes with bloopers.

I Love You Man

Paul Rudd plays a happily engaged guy who finds himself without a best man, because he has no friends. Then he starts the search for his best man in what I think it's a bromantic comedy. Jason Segel takes up the role of best friend and as they get to know each other they find how different they are, but still the bromance must go on. It's highly entertaining and enjoyable for a sunday.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

I actually watched this before starting writing this post. It was recommended to me and it was totally worth it. One of those films that mixes reality with fiction and comics. Michael Cera plays once again the awkward kid that hasn't moved on from his last relationship until he meets Ramona. In order to be with her he has to defeat her seven evil exes, which leads to a series of battles with a bunch of punch lines on the way. It's funny and chances are high it's gonna cheer up your sunday.

The Ugly Truth

I think I laughed almost through the entire movie. I love romantic comedies (in case you haven't realized) and this one is more comedy than it's romantic. It also puts the question out there of how men and women love. What men want and what women want. What they want form each other. Maybe I'm not making it sound as funny as it actually is, but trust me, I think it's absolutely hilarious. Katherine Heigl plays a romantic producer that follows advice of a cynical Gerard Butler in order to win another guy's heart. It has some very material that still makes me laugh just to remember it.

Julie and Julia

I rewatched this film with a friend the other day and remembered what it was that I loved so much about it. Meryl Streep is fantastic as Julia Child, and Amy Adams is adorable, and so cute as Julie. The movie goes back and forth  as Julia is writing a book of french cuisine  for americans in the 50's and Julie is writing a blog about her experience cooking 554 recipes out of Julia's book in 365 days in 2002. I must say I felt inspired about blogging after watching the movie as I was touched realizing how easy is to get published these days. 

The Devil wears Prada

Another Meryl Streep movie. Another amazing performance. I do think it's probably the girliest of all girly films listed here and I really enjoyed all the fashion on the movie. The coats, the pursues, the shoes, and all the accessories shown as Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt try to make Meryl happy. The story is about a young woman trying to be writer but the only job she finds is as Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)'s assistant (talk about Ugly Betty). The transformation she goes through lead her to a better wardrobe a better haircut and eventually a better job. It's worth watching.

Along Came Polly

One of my favorite Ben stiller movies. I love Jennifer Aniston as much as the next girl and this odd couple with Stiller make this movie irresistible. Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, Hank Azaria and Debra Messing as supporting actors make this movie even better and funnier. Perfect for a sunday.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

When I first saw this movie I just had had an awful break-up. It seemed just right to watch a movie about forgetting and a break-up. I was surprised to see Jason Segel full frontal nudity scene so soon into it. Russell Brand is hilarious as the charming rock star and new boyfriend that somehow, it's just impossible to hate as Peter (Segel) mourns Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). As I was in pain, I have to say the movie made me not only crack up, but also gave me hope when I needed it the most.



OK, I hope you can enjoy the guide next sunday. For now I'm going to bed....Goood night

The Retreat

A few weeks ago my therapist convinced me a retreat from the city might do wonders for me. It was a retreat that she was organizing and included meditation by the fire among other activities that the place we were going to offered. These were canopy, horse backriding and rock climbing just to name a few. Well, it turns out of all the people who at first signed up for this, I was the only one who showed up. 

This changed the game since the owners of the place were friends with my therapist and her husband, and therefore, the trip was more like a family trip. The place is about an hour away from Bogota, in a town very well known for its rocks and its climbers, who religiously go every weekend. We got there on saturday noon, witnessing the continuous change of weather you only get to see around here. The owners made lunch for us, and I realized a lot of people came by for the day, just to enjoy the activities and then go back home. I had a room for myself with a shared bathroom, which I had to be honest, in all the travelling I've done I had never shared the bathroom. I guess I felt different this time, it was more like being in a family home, and there was no room to be picky. This place has two houses, sort two speak. The one I stayed in is where the owners live before the finish up their apartment (in the other house). The second house has the restaurant and three other rooms, each one with their own private bathrooms. I got a chance to see one of them, and they are pretty cozy.... 

Anyway, after lunch I went for a nice hike around the mountains. The thing is, even though I am from here, I don't get around too much, and I think I got forgotten the beautiful landscapes you can see just an hour away from home. When I decided to go, one of the main reasons I was encouraged by, besides the resting, the change of scenery and the meditation was the horse back riding. I don't have that many chances of doing it, and I realized once again how much I enjoy riding horses. When the night came, instead of the meditation by the fire, we did more of the wine by the fireplace thing. It was a night among friends, even though they were not my friends, and the friendly environment made me feel welcome and warm (that and the fireplace, because that place is really cold, at least for my standards). It's weird how without laptop, tv, cell phone or other electronic devices, time just go by in slow motion. All right, I did take my iPad, but I only used it when I was alone in my room and time started to go by very quickly as I filled out lots and lots of sudokus and read a book about my favorite painter: Van Gogh. All of this got me thinking about what I wanted out of this retreat, and the real reasons I had gone, instead of staying home and doing the same here, after all it was warmer and I already knew all the people here (my parents). 

It also got me thinking in what a retreat is. I've been really curious about since I finished Eat, Pray, Love. I practice yoga quite often and I really started to consider going away to an ashram like Elizabeth did on the book. This little trip gave me perspective on that. I wasn't meditating or in complete silence and we didn't anything yoga-related. But it was in fact a retreat. From what I'm used to, from my people to make room for new people, and from my prejudices about people I just meet. It was in fact a change of perspective and the truth is, I didn't have to go too far away to feel like something had changed and that I'm definitely more open to new people.

An alternative occupation: An iPad app reviewer

Today I was thinking how I hear other people's stories about their jobs and I find myself feeling jealous of others. I know every work has advantages and dissadvantages, but some of them just look a bit too easy and a lot of fun. Today I decided to be an iPad App reviewer, telling you a little bit about the iPad apps I use the most, and the ones I like the best.

1. Pages

I wasn't sure about buying this app at first, but I had heard lots of nice comments from friends and coworkers who own a MacBook. It totally paid off.





The pages app allows you to create documents from different templates and you can easily write over them. It's easy to add pics and graphs, simply by tapping on the existing ones on the and dragging them around,you can place them wherever you want. Templates available offer a variety to work with and you can always install other apps, that provide you, for a minimum price, a set of new templates you can use (look for "pages templates" on the app store)

Once you're done, you can save it  on your iPad, email it to yourself or somebody else, of course, or print it, if you have an available printer on your network. I saved it as a word document, and then came to my laptop, opened it on microsoft word and worked like a charm! Very few features were lost in translation and I could keep working on it . This app allows me to do my writing work without having to turn the laptop on, which can take time and makes me very lazy to begin with. I mean like at night before going to bed, for real work I need to open too many programs, but I promise to do it one day and I'll tell you how that goes. It also makes it easier to travel, if you have the information you need.

2.Delicious

That's the name for the app, that its, of course, about cooking. It has a lot of recipes that you can easily do, and the best thing it's that you can see pictures of every step. Once you've chosen the recipe you want, you slide your way into it, seeing a picture of everything you have to do. It makes it a lot easier to cook recipes. Once, I took a salad from this app and my coworkers loved it as much as I did. I know it was salad, nothing fancy, but it gave me a great idea to do something different and I was able to customized it, changing some ingredients I didn't like. I definitely recommend it. It contains a great variety to choose from. Bon appetit!!

  

3. iBooks

I don't think this app needs much presentation. As it states on the name, it allows you to read books and documents in your iPad. I struggled a lot with it at the beginning, because I thought you could only see documents on the epub format and I used a program to convert documents from pdf to epub. It was a disaster. They looked disorganized and I realize it was better to leave them as pdfs and downloading books in the epub format.

This format gives you the ilussion of reading from a hardcopy, and you can easily just slide to go to the next page. In this format you can hightlight, select and copy text to other applications, You can also change the amount of light, bookmark the page you're at and look for a specific page in the book. 

 iBooks has separate libraries for the pdfs and the epub books, allowing you to find them easily. You can add pdf files in the same way you can add epub files in your iPad. When you connect your iPad to your computer, oen iTunes and drag them on to the device, he automatically separates them according to the file format. In both cases, if you need to close it, to open another app or another book, when you open them again it's gonna be right there where you left off.    

You can also adjust the zoom, and see it as big as you like, and to me it looks the way it would look after printing a hardcopy. It's easier to read than in your laptop, and easy to carry it if you want o read while on a bus, a train, or a plane. I've also read scientific papers on it and I think I don't need the printer anymore. It's probably one of the reasons I got it on the first place. It totally works!!!

4. Wunderlist  

I first found this app a few days ago, when I was starting to write this post. I absolutely love it! I love making list of things I need to do, and I usually just write them down on a notebook or something, but this kinda puts pressure on me when I need to get things done. You add something to you list and depending on the priority it has, you can add due date, a reminder (to your email), and you can make separate lists, like home, work, shopping, etc. It really helped me yesterday to organize things and when you're done, you just simply cross them off your list! It was also very helpful when I was brainstorming for my blog too. Now I have like 25 post ideas, with their own deadlines.


Ok. I have to go now, but I have several apps I'd really love to add to this list. Bare with me, please, I'm still learning how to do the design and how to make it look good....