Friday follies

So I had a spurt of inspiration (read insanity) today, and decided that dislocated knee be damned, what I really needed to do was clean my lounge and kitchen. Now you know when you reach your tolerance for mess and you hit the point where your fingers itch because you just can’t stand the clutter anymore? (No only me? Thats sad! Alone here with my neuroses on my sofa. But hey hum, at least my kitchen is now tidy!)

So lets back up. My kitchen is now tidy, yes. But is now 12:30. I started this big plan for tidiness at 8:30 this morning when I got up and saw the mess as I one handedly tried to do something about it whilst making my morning coffee. My crutch skillz have got to the point where I can hobble about on one crutch for limited periods. So picture it. I have one spare hand and a very messy house, so I could only pick up one thing at a time. It took a while. And all I could think was how I needed one of those trays ushers get at cinemas to put the stuff in that had very rudely scattered itself around my house.



Source

I have too add that as I type this it is now 1:30. I got distracted by trying to make myself lunch. Now considering my hobble status we haven’t done any food shopping this week. Thus I have been eating pretty much what ever I can find and today that was 2 eggs, some Italian hard cheese and some sun dried tomatoes. Omelet here I come! I was so pleased with myself, I thought myself so clever for being able to rustle up such a meal! So I heated up the pan, whisked the egg, poured it in, added the stuff and waited for omlettey goodness to happen. Then as my final flourish I folded it in half so I had a nice semi circular omelet and discovered that my frying pan had decided to stop being non-stick and deposit its non-stickiness all over my omelet. It is probably a testament to the fact that I was recently a student, that I simply scraped off the worst of it and ate it anyway. Or to the fact I was really hungry. Take your pick.

So there we go I have been home all morning and have only managed to just about tidy one room and fail at making an omelet.

Hmmmmm.

Lets try again tomorrow!

Happy Friday

Lindy xxx

Big Picture... Controlled Chaos

Controlled chaos is probably a good way to describe my cooking. Without the controlled part. Not so much.

This is what I managed to produce for dinner tonight.



It was practically uneatable. Delia I am not. I think the sauce I used was the wrong type, it wasn't a specific stir fry sauce and I don't think I cooked for long enough.


Anyway. What do you do when its relatively late at night and dinner is un edible?

I think you get in the car in the pouring rain...

And give in to capitalism...

The are approximately over 6 billion people in the world today, which i guestimate most of which managed to cook and provide dinner for themselves and their families. I think I need to improve me my cooking skills!

That Friday feeling...

Last night for dinner James made me this...


Its true I am a very lucky girl! Steak and garlic potatoes. I very much enjoyed this!

Today, amongst other things, I watched an awful lot of House and drew these little cuties!





I tried for a second time because I ran out of room at the top on the first one!

I also decided to buy some new sketching pencils. Over the years I have had loads of different sets, but seem to have ended up with a glut of 4H's and 3B's and not a lot in between! Thus a new set was required. I managed to get this tin from W H Smiths for half price at only £2.74- a pretty good deal I thought. But that aside the thing that amused me about these was the warning on the back.



What I was trying to show, through my poor photography skills was the warning which said 'Recommended for age 14 years & above'! I mean really. They are only pencils, those below 14 don't have the right to draw?! Madness, I tell you. Madness.

Lindy xxx

Food, food, glorious food!

Last night was a very good night. Ignoring the fact that I have whiplash, and thus probably shouldn’t have been drinking (shhh don’t tell anyone), James cooked me another amazing meal.



We had Bobotie (which is a kind of spiced South African meatloaf) and salad. I think it was the eating by candle light which made it so romantic. That and the music of Billy Joel in the background. (Don’t laugh, I love Billy Joel, there is nothing like a little social commentary with dinner!)





After which we had strawberries and cream whilst watching Food Inc. Now I know I’m a little behind here in watching this film, but it was a really eye opener. Now I know i don’t live in the states, but still. It was horrifying to see some of the scenes in the slaughterhouses. Now I know that as a former vegetarian the film was preaching to the converted, but I was still shocked. If I ever manage to make it to the States (which i would love to one day), I might not be eating!

I hope every one has a happy Sunday, I am off to visit my Gran and go out for lunch! See you all next week.

Ros xxxx

(ps. Please excuse the slightly blurry photos, I'm still getting to grips with my new camera!)

Discrepancies...

I have come to a conclusion that will be of little shock to those who know me well. If left to my own devises I might continue to live the life of a student forever. A case in point would seem to be my eating habits.

When James makes dinner for us I receive offerings such as that below.



Excusing my poor photography skills, what you have before you is a delicious thai green curry made from scratch. And when I say from scratch I really do mean it. It took him hours. We had special fragrant thai rice to go with it. It was garnished. Side dishes were involved. All in all it was a culinary sensation. And this from a man who had never had thai green curry before that day, when I had happened to say that I fancied it when he asked me what I wanted for dinner. It was heaven.

Now I hear you ask, how do I repay him for such culinary genius?



Yes. When it was my turn I managed bake potatoes with grated cheese. And I managed to undercook the potatoes. I think he's defiantly winning here! Yet since I get to eat all of this delicious food without putting the effort in to cooking it, does this actually mean that I'm winning?...

Yes, yes I think it might!

Tomato Soup Cake (Yes really!)

Ahhhh. My poor little blog is feeling somewhat neglected this week. Unfortunately real life intruded in the form of my dissertation to finish, which I have nearly done! Happy, happy days. I will be singing from the rooftops when I hand this baby in!

So yesterday in order to distract myself from the fact I had just mauled a 1000 words out of my footnotes (i’m so over my word count its not even funny anymore!) I made this baby of a cake.



Now I like baking. This is no secret. I also like the Pioneer Woman. (If you haven’t found her blog yet check out the link) So baking Pioneer Woman style seems like a good thing to me. Hence this cake. Its a tomato soup cake- yeah I made that face too. Yet my curiosity is insatiable to I just had to bake this one. And unsurprisingly for a recipe recommended by P-dub herself it is delicious. It also tastes noting like tomatoes which is a good quality in a cake I think. The soup just has the effect of making the cake a gorgeous orangey red colour which is also a good quality in a cake.

I would highly recommend that every bakes this cake, gives it to their friend and loved ones, wait until they have tried some, and then tell them the surprise! Its so much fun!

Whilst your over at the ranch I would suggest checking out some of the other recipes on the Tasty Kitchen as well as the main site. There are some seriously talented cooks over in that part of the internet.

Just on a side note to brighten up the seriously grey day we are having today (thank you big cloud of volcanic ash!) this is where I went for a walk at the weekend. When the weather was considerably better. I love the beach!



I will see everyone tomorrow for Saturday Steals, have a happy and productive Friday. xxx

Saturday Steals

So i’m continuing on the produce theme for my Saturday Steals this week! Last week it was potatoes this week its carrots!

So my Mum got these carrots on sale for 50p for the whole pack, and she then gave them to me! So technically they’re free to me! You can’t get a bigger steal than that!

So since just telling you about free carrots doesn’t make a particularly interesting post, I thought I would tell you what I made with them. Remember the sweet potatoes from last week? Well not even I can eat that many, so I still had a few left over. Cue the most orange soup you will ever see- Spicy Red Lentil, Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup.



To make this homage to orangeness you will need: 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, some red lentils, 6 carrots, 3 sweet potatoes, about 3 pints of chicken stock, garam masala, hot chili powder and cayenne pepper. (Did I mention that this makes an awful lot of soup!)



To begin, mince the garlic and chop the onion in to a stock pot with a little bit of olive oil. Saute them until the onion is translucent. Add to this the chopped vegetables and red lentils and then cover in the stock. Cook until the vegetable are cooked and then blend the mixture. At this point add the spices to your mix depending on how spicy you feel like making your soup. You may also want to add a bit more water as mine turned out a little on the thick side.

Then sit back and enjoy your thrifty homage to orangeness!

A very long day...

Well I feel that yesterday can go down as a particularly productive day! I did eleven hours at work, three hundred words on my dissertation and baked a kick ass batch of chocolate cookies! The pay off being that I spent until gone eleven in bed today. Not so good, or indeed productive at all.

I thought that next week I would try to share some of the ways in which I study and try to maximize my time. I realize that I am abnormal as a student because I work anywhere between 12 and 25 hours a week at a real life job as well. This makes organisation key to getting anything handed in on time!

I hope everyone has a restful and peaceful weekend (unfortunately I am a work so this will not be the case for me!), and can get some serious chilling out done. It is sunny where I am, and I hope the same for you. See you on Monday.