Simple Aspic (Meat Jelly, Kholodets) Recipe

27 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 109 seen

In today's food blogger's series I will show how to prepare a really tasty and delicious homemade aspic out of pig's trotters.

I'm not sure how popular an aspic is in the Western world, but it is a super popular in post Soviet countries, and is served in every fiests. Russian have a name for it - a kholodets (Холодец).According to Wikipedia - Aspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads. Nearly any type of meat can be used to make the gelatin: pork, beef, veal, chicken, turkey, or fish. The aspic may need additional gelatin in order to set properly. Veal stock provides a great deal of gelatin; in making stock, veal is often included with other meat for that reason. Fish consommés usually have too little natural gelatin, so the fish stock may be double-cooked or supplemented. Since fish gelatin melts at a lower temperature than gelatins of other meats, fish aspic is more delicate and melts more readily…

Third Traffic Spike: More than 7,500 Daily Users

26 November, 2015 | Servers | 6 seen

A huge traffic surge to this website was experienced on November 15 when total unique user count reached 7,732. The vast majority of them were coming from Turkey. 

Update: Learn how I got 10,000 Page views in a day

This was already third traffic spike to my blog, previous record was set back in January (2015) with 3,584 users. While the first serious traffic spike my blog experienced almost two years ago, when total daily traffic surged just above 1,000 daily users. For the couple of last months this is actually a daily traffic norm to my blog - well above 1,000 daily users every day, though the first traffic spike seemed very impressive for me.

Does 7,500 daily users impress me today? Yes, of course, though the excitement is not so huge as it was first time. Anyway 7,500 is a pretty decent number, so there is a reason to cover article on them.

I believe there will be some who are going to smile about such results, I mean those of you who are receiving traffic more than 10,000 unique visitors per day, but for me - well, it is still a great achievement. Best so far! Best of it, my…

How to add MailChimp Signup Form for Drupal

25 November, 2015 | Drupal Development | 15 seen

After being blogging for more than two years already and finally reached about 40,000 monthly unique visitors to my blog I decided it's time to set up an email newsletter. I knew there are some Drupal modules already, but I ended with a very simple solution not involving any of them (modules).

I have been using MailChimp in past to deliver email newsletters and I believe MailChimp is one of the best in the market. They offer free account for up to 2000 subscribers list. Perfectly what I need. Since I'm building my list from scratch I believe it will take a long time to get over 2000 subscribers.

MailChimp Lists

I created a new list, gave it a self explaining name and next looked for embedded code so I can embed a signup form on my Drupal site using blocks.

MailChimp Signup forms

Embedded forms works best if you are looking to display a signup form bellow your articles or in page sidebar.

You will have few options to customize your signup form and you will be provided with embed code to add to your Drupal website. After adding a few CSS lines to sites style sheet I ended up with following signup form for…

Postcards from Tbilisi

24 November, 2015 | | 8 seen

Tbilisi is city which have inspired many great poets, writers and of course travelers. Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy and even Marco Polo have spent some time in Tbilisi.

Who knows maybe the sulfur baths in Abanotubani district has inspired the great poets?!

As for a photographers - Tbilisi is a lovely destination and we have found a lot of inspiration here (This is the place I learned to create a decent night exposure photography).

This time we headed to catch the Golden Hour and ended up with lovely postcard style images from Tbilisi.

Tbilisi - thanks for being a piece of our lives.

David Agmashenebeli street in Tbilisi

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Metekhi church and river Mtkvari

Metekhi church and river Mtkvari in Tbilisi

Tbilisi old town

Tbilisi old town

Tbilisi Old Town and Narikala Fortress

Sioni church in Tbilisi

Postcards from Tbilisi

Vahtang Gorgasali statue and Tbilisi Old town

Monument "Mother Georgia"

Streets of Tbilisi's Old town…

Gelati Monastery in Georgia

23 November, 2015 | Churches and Monasteries | 80 seen

Gelati monastery together with Bagrati Cathderal are one of the main sights in this region (Imereti) in Georgia. Although I have been living in Georgia since 2011, first I visited this site just in the Spring 2015 together with my dad, unfortunately it was a late evening already and I was not proficient of taking night photography (now I'm).

The second time I visited Gelati monastery was together with my mom already in Autumn 2015. This time I was prepared much better and instead of just taking photographs here I took HDR images.

Gelati monastery near Kutaisi

Gelati is a monastic complex near Kutaisi, Imereti, western Georgia. It contains the Church of the Virgin founded by the King of Georgia David the Builder in 1106, and the 13th-century churches of St George and St Nicholas.

Bell tower at Gelati monastery

Gelati monastery complex

Arches and burials at Gelati monastery complex

Dome inside Gelati church

Wall paintings at Gelati monastery

Sundial at Gelati monastery

I wouldn't probably even notice this…

How To Make Floating Banana Photo Trick (Photoshop / Lightroom)

22 November, 2015 | Digital Photography School | 5 seen

I created this simple floating banana image using a tripod, camera and Adobe Ligtrooms + A little retouching in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to make the image look even better so I did a HDR image.

Floating Banana Photography Trick

I did this image for my 365 day photo challenge project and submitted it as day 49 picture. I really feel proud of my self - like on day 1 I barely knew how to take a decent exposure using Manual mode, while on day 49 I'm photographing floating bananas already. I can't wait to see what will I submit at day 365.

Now back to the floating banana... Actually it is very easy trick. I was taking two separate images - one with a banana and background, while second just with background. I used tripod to have a fixed position for both of my pictures.

Now this is the tricky part - HDR images is done using a bracketing technique, which means instead of taking just one image you are taking at least 3 images (underexposed, overexposed and normal) and then sticking them together in Photomatix (there are other HDR processing tools as well). I wanted to make super cool HDR floating banana picture, so I…

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati near Motsameta

21 November, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 12 seen

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati (Old Gelati in English) is located outside of Kutaisi in small village Motsameta. I had a chance to have a dinner here during a short one day tour around Kutaisi (Bagrati Cathedral, Gelati monastery and of course Motsameta monastery).

Dzveli Gelati restaurant serves a traditional Georgian cuisine, prices seemed somehow above average for me, but meal was just excellent. By the way this was on of the rare places in Georgia were vinegar is added to salads.

A large banquet hall in Dzveli Gelati restaurant

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati near Kutaisi

View from Dzveli Gelati restaurant

We asked to have a separate coupe room

Traditional Georgian tomatoes & cucumber salad

Ostri - Traditional Georgian meal

A cup of Turkish coffee at Dzveli Gelati

Pork barbecue 

Dzveli Gelati restaurant is located in a good place (next to the road heading to Gelati Monastery) it has a spacious rooms, while the price is above the average. If you are traveling a large group this place for sure can host…

Masterclass in Asian Cuisine

20 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 8 seen

At the start of November 2015 I took a master class in Asian Cuisine. The master class happened in a lovely Georgian restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi and was led by a gourmet chef from Russia Natalia Chvileva. You can follow Natalia on her Facebook page: Touch to Food

The reason that made me to take participation in such master class was simple - I love to cook, I enjoy Asian cuisine and I have a food blogger section on my blog. Being a food blogger means just one - I'm always learning new things and I'm happy to share my knowledge with my readers (you). This master class was not only good for learning new things in Asian cuisine but also a good practice for my digital photography school project, so I took a tripod and camera and was ready to learn new things.

And I learnt a lot.

Ingredients for Asian Cuisine master class

You can see there are a lot of sauces and actually sauces are one of the main ingredients in Asian cuisine. Also we were using soybean noodles instead of rice noodles, and we were using corn starch, I believe those were my first two discoveries in this master class. Prior to that I knew just regular noodles made from…

October 2015 Blog Traffic and Income Report 39,928 Users / $549.49

19 November, 2015 | Blogging | 6 seen

Today we are celebrating this blog's #22 traffic and income report. Unbelievable how fast times goes by. It seems just yesterday I sat at my laptop's monitor, installed Drupal on Linode VPS, registered a domain in Godaddy and started to explore is there a way I can get some traffic (back then I was not thinking about making actual money out of it) to my blog. 

On October 10, 2015 this blog celebrated its second anniversary - just wow. 2 years passed like a flicker. 

I was doing separate reviews both for traffic and income until last September, I just understood - how time consuming it is to provide 2 similar articles on related topic. Traffic and Income for any website goes hand to hand. The reason for publishing such reports and revealing secrets beyond the scenes are simple - Transparency matters. I hope my success or failures can give some ideas to you as well. On the other hand there are times when I'm planing to stop write reviews about traffic and income at all, well most probably I will do that once 100 000 user milestone will be (if) cracked. But you never know.

Back to the numbers…

Restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi

18 November, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 11 seen

Restaurant Sarackela is located in Tbilisi on A.Tsereteli Avenue 72, it serves both European and Georgian cuisine, and has one of the most passionate chefs in the town - Natalia Chivileva. One of the nice features this restaurant offers - are master classes for kids and adults on Sundays.

This is the reason I got to this place actually, I took a master class of preparing Asian food at start of November 2015.

Restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi

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Interior at Sareckela restaurant in Tbilisi

Restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi

Working hours for restaurant Sareckela

Although I didn't ordered here any meal as I took a master class (for which I paid 35 Lari) and didn't see actually the menu, the one is for sure - the food here will be tasty and delicious thanks to it's great chef Natalia, she is found of seasoning and left me with an impression that she is a super gourmet - so did must be her dishes.

You can follow restaurant Sareckela on Facebook to learn more about special offers or master classes. 

Prometheus Cave near Kutaisi (Georgia)

17 November, 2015 | Tourism objects | 40 seen

Prometheus cave is one of the interesting places I have visited lately in Georgia. In fact that's the second cave I have visited here. The first one is called Sataplia Cave. In case you are into caves and speleology I recommend to visit both of them.

Prometheus cave is located some 20km from Kutaisi in village Kumistavi (Tskaltubo Municipality), and if you are arriving to this lovely city  - I can only recommend include Prometheus cave in your itinerary while being in these parts of Georgia.

And that's how it actually happened last time I were here - my mom arrived to visit me in Georgia through Kutasi international airport, and I immediately took here to the Prometheus cave. If you don't have a friend to pick you up in Georgia, take a look on these Kutaisi hotels to book your stay and arrange a tour guide from your hotel (It's ridiculously easy to arrange tours in Georgia, ask any taxi and he will take you there for some 20 lari, or you can even get there by minibus for some 1 GEL)

Prometheus cave visitor centre 

You can buy your tickets here. Price for a regular walk in group accompanied by guide - 7 GEL,…

Painting Floor - Adding Base Layer of Paint

16 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 13 seen

After we cleaned up our space from junk, I painted walls and ceilings in white using just a water based paint. Both our future temporary bedroom and kitchen started look decent. Then my father helped me with electrical wiring and installed a few new power outlets. Now was the right time for painting floors. I started with our bedroom. Bought the most cheapest paint available on market (brown) and started to paint.

I was hoping that for temporary solution it should be enough just with one paint layer, but I turned wrong - floor looked screwed. But that's not a big issue, because you can always add second layer of paint after the first one has dried up.

Bedroom prepared for floor painting

This is the same room I painted both walls and ceilings with water based paint. 

Adding base layer of paint

As you can see the surface of this floor is made from some plywood and the last time it has seen some paint job probably is some 30 years ago. Most probably we will change flooring for this room in future, but for now - all it asked was just a fresh paint.

Painting doors

In parallel we painted…

My Outdoor Working Place During Last Summer (2015)

15 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 7 seen

Owning an old rural house is nice, and it's even nicer if you can both live and work from there. Since I'm into a thing called a digital nomad (place doesn't matter as long as there is an internet connection), during last summer I had setup my working place in different corners both inside and outside of our country house.

I remember how back in 2014 we used Turtle lake for our working place in Tbilisi. 

Prior of having a basic outdoor working place there are three main important things you will need - an internet connection, a laptop and of course an electricity, speaking of the internet - in rural areas most probably you will stick with a mobile (3G/4G), you should have a phone with a built in Wi-Fi router to connect your laptop. I had both the phone, internet on it and laptop, but it took some 2 months before electricity was connected to our house.

So I'm sharing how it actually looked alike:

Laptop on the desk

Seems that in that particular moment I have been just finished an article about Andorra La Vella hotels. Andorra is among my favorite tourist destination points.…

Replacing Electrical Wiring and Installing Outlets

14 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 47 seen

On June 25th electricity was connected to our old rural house, and that was the next big issue to fix soon. The old electrical wiring was done like some 30-40 years ago and it just wasn't safe. Luckily I'm familiar with the best electrician, and he is my dad. So I called him and asked for both advice and assistance.

Dad seemed excited and soon he was on site, with a lot of wires, cables, screwdrivers, different unknown for me electrical measurement devices and the wiring replace works started.

Old wiring

We agreed to disconnect all the old wiring and install a new cable connecting it directly to electrical distributing point. We had to drill a few holes. In above image - white wire - the new one, black - old.

Dad in action

Preparing a safety box for electrical switches

The new wires goes through the old walls

Electrical distribution point

Next year we are planing to pull down these walls and build new ones instead for building a bathroom latter in this space. Most probably the replaced wiring will be changed at least one more time.

Electrical switches…

Homemade Noodles in Spicy Sauce

13 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 6 seen

November started with a huge goal - not to spend a tetri eating outside, instead we decided to cook good food at home. Today I will show how to prepare a really fresh egg pasta noodles in spicy sauce. 

I really love to make noodle pasta by my own - and actually it's very easy, thus a hand strength is required if you are not using some dough mixer machine. 

My recipe for noodle pasta is simple - one egg for every 100 grams flour. Today I took 7 eggs and 700 grams flour. Add a little bit salt (1 tbs) and sugar (2 tbs). 

• Add Flour to a bowl (make a small cavity to put eggs in)
• Add eggs to the flour
• Knead your pasta
• Today I spent 20 minutes of kneading this egg pasta, it required a lot of muscle strength and patience. 
• Once you have finished your pasta kneading, make a ball shape of it and put it in fridge for some 30 minutes (at least)

Preparing fresh egg pasta

We bought our macaroni machine here in Georgia some years ago already, if you don't have one, take your chances…