I’ve been cooking!
I’ve been cooking recently. Early Christmas gatherings to cook for, as well as just the plain old boring need for food.
In non-boring news, I think I have perfected the ultimate gluten free pizza dough, and have finally made home made mozzarella!
[Read more →]
December 1, 2009 Comments Off
And repeat
sad Feeling by ~Auu on deviantART
Well, I don’t feel any better today. If anything, I probably feel worse.
I feel small and ineffectual. I want to go to bed and think about what a useless person I am, and how I can never climb the mountain of work I have in front of me.
Like emptying the dishes from the dishwasher…it’s such a daunting idea. How did I ever manage such a complex task in the past? How does one even start?
But it doesn’t take a genius to realise that going back to bed to ponder all the millions of ways I fail as a human being probably isn’t the ideal way to get through a day of depression, and luckily I’m the very not a genius to make that realisation!
So, after a little bit of computer work, I headed out to the garden for fresh air and exercise.
To be honest, it was the very last thing I felt like doing, but I’m glad I did. I feel like I actually got something done, which is always a good thing. Did some weeding, planted some more plants, mulched and added compost. There’s still SO MUCH to do out there, but hopefully once more seedlings start popping up it’ll look more like a nice garden and less like a wasteland.
Annoyingly, the months of bad weather we’ve had (gale force winds, hot dry days, sudden cold snaps, sudden downpours that don’t provide enough water and more gale force winds) has seen me lose a few things.
The basil, for instance. It didn’t just shrivel and die – the poor little seedlings were actually uprooted and blown away. And my ‘Jack-be-little’ pumpkin seedlings just withered and died after the wind shredded them and then a branch fell on them, really finishing them off for me.
But! It’s not all bad.
My normal pumpkins have started sprouting. And after picking peas and snow peas last night, there are a bunch more out there ready to pick today.
And the passion fruit vine (which was starting to grow in a ‘Z’ shape from being ripped down by the wind, tied up again by me, ripped down by the wind, etc) is finally recovering.
In other, and entirely unrelated, good news, the rock melon paddle-pops I made yesterday taste FANTASTIC.
It’s goddamned cold in the house today, but after work in the garden had warmed me up a bit I braved the cold just to try one.
Now I’m keen to try all sorts of other fruit. Especially strawberries, since we’ll have some of our own before too long. I think I need more paddle-pop molds…
Anyway, after all that work, I do feel a little better. I feel less like going to bed for the rest of the day and more like sitting and staring blankly at a wall for the rest of the day instead.
Uh…which is an improvement. Of about 90°, geometrically speaking. Or of jack bloody all, in real terms.
Still, it kept my occupied for a bit, and I’d have felt worse by now without it.
Time to find another (easy) task. Something less scary than emptying a dishwasher.
October 27, 2009 Comments Off
God thinking up a title is a lot of pressure…
Having a bit of a down day today. Which is funny – I had a really great day out yesterday, then started today all warm and toasty while it rained outside.
I guess maybe the gloomy weather got to me a bit though, I don’t know, but suddenly I’m finding myself feeling pretty depressed.
Still, as we all know, depression has up and down days.
I met my deadline of having an artwork finished on Friday, and though I have plenty of other work to do, I took today off from computer work and tried to distract myself from feeling crap by getting other stuff done.
And – lo and behold – I actually DID get stuff done!
I tidied my room, which was a MONSTER task. My drawers had stopped functioning, so all my clothes were all over the floor in a sprawl several layers deep. I got a cheap and nasty mini wardrobe from IKEA to help fix that problem, but hadn’t had the time to actually pack my stuff into it properly until today.
Then, once my drawers weren’t so over full, a bit of sanding and then running wax over all the timber saw it working again. Just got to make sure I don’t cram too much into it or I’ll have the same problem.
So now, at least my room feels nice to be in. Well, It doesn’t today, because I feel crap, but tomorrow, or the next day, or whatever day it is that I feel better again, I’ll be really pleased.
And for now, at least it’s one less job weighing on me.
I also cooked pears and apples with some of the maple syrup my dad bought back from Canada for me, which turned out to be thoroughly delicious.
I made crepes and we wrapped up the mix in the middle of them then ate them for breakfast. Maybe not the MOST healthy breakfast ever, but certainly the tastiest. And, I mean, it’s fruit isn’t it? A shirtload of sugar, but at least fruit sugar. NATURE WOULDN’T MAKE IT IF IT DIDN’T WANT ME TO EAT IT!
Other good news on the food front is also good news on the garden front:
Firstly, the ruby chard patch is going so well that we can eat a bit of it daily, and the patch still keeps getting bigger, not smaller.
Additionally, today also saw us eat our first peas, snow peas and our first (very) baby carrot from the garden.
Snow peas and peas were soft and juicy and sweet, carrot was fail. But that’s because I really hate carrots. I don’t know why I thought this one would be any different. It wasn’t. It was disgusting.
And, even if it is currently depriving me of my vitamin D, the rainy weather should see stuff grow like mad. I hope.
I’m also hoping I’ll feel a bit more excited about garden things later in the week, and that I’ll get out there and plant more seeds and transplant seedlings. Right now I feel very ‘meh’ about the whole thing, but hopefully that’s just short lived.
Then, keeping myself busy this afternoon, I pureed some really delicious rock melon (cantaloupe) with a dash of milk, and poured the mix into paddle-pop molds to pop into the freezer to eat on a hot day. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it tastes as good as it smelled – I’ve still got the dried juice all over fingers, which I keep sniffing just because it smells so tasty, which makes me look like finger-sniffing creep. Probably because I am.
Anyway, I’ve made it through a ‘down’ day again by swinging from task to task. A good thing, I think.
Even if I did wear my pajamas the whole day. But you can do that on rainy days, so long as you get stuff done, right?
And tonight, after watching a show about Ed Wood’s ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ with Seth, I’ll go to bed early and relax and listen to the rain on my window, and hopefully tomorrow will be better.
October 26, 2009 Comments Off
Maple Syrup
When my dad came back from Canada recently, he bought me back a tin of dark maple syrup.
It’s a fair size tin – 540ml, but I don’t want to waste a drop of it. You CAN get real maple syrup over here, but it’s pretty damned expensive. Usually you get the weird arse fake stuff that’s maple flavoured and actually tastes more like old cork floor tiles than maple.
SO! In order to get the most out of my can of maple syrup, I have been planning very carefully (when I’m not getting distracted reading the french on the side of the side of the can) and think I have arrived at three recipes I can make using my one tin.
And they are:
Baked apples with maple syrup.
Mulled apple cider with maple syrup.
And a Maple Cheesecake.
I must say, I’m particularly curious about the Maple Cheesecake.
I’m not 100% certain yet though. I may swap out the mulled cider for drizzling a bit over my yoghurt, in an attempt to replicate the flavour of the Wallaby Maple Yoghurt I had while in California.
And since I bought that up, I’m very confused about Wallaby Yoghurt. They say it’s ‘Australian style’….we have a style of yoghurt? Funny, since we sure as hell don’t have any maple yoghurt here. I have NO IDEA what qualifies it as Australian-like, but apparently they felt so strongly that it was Australianesque that they named it ‘Wallaby’.
Very confusing.
Anyhow, I SHALL KEEP YOU UPDATED ON THE SYRUP FRONT.
I know you’ll be hanging on the edge of your seats.
October 21, 2009 Comments Off
A horrible secret
Sometimes I get in a mood where I want to drag the tv into my room, get into bed (dragging the cat in with me), watch a romantic comedy and cry.
Yes, it’s wrong. Yes, it makes me feel dirty to even write that.
I have no idea why I get these moods. But I’ve been feeling melancholy yet oddly energised today. An odd little individual washing clothes and tidying dishes while listening to Zoe Keating’s (yes, I know I’ve mentioned her a million times before, but she’s incredible) Cello x 16.
Also, there are no cookies in my house. This makes me sad.
October 14, 2009 Comments Off
Good things from the world of me
I’m up to my eyeballs in work right now, which has had me a bit too busy to appreciate some of the good things going on around me.
So! Here are some good things, along with some of my day’s favourites on deviant art (I love to go there and just roam around, looking at lovely things):
1. Avocado Milkshakes
Selina Fenech mentioned having had avocado milkshakes while on holiday in Bali. Initially I found the idea as unappealing as the idea of grilling a cow pat, but after thinking about the creaminess of an avocado, I saw how it could possibly work.
A quick whirlwind tour of avocado milkshake recipes later (thankyou google!) I had made one and it tasted really good. Really really good.
And it’s healthy and filling too. Win. [Read more →]
September 9, 2009 Comments Off
