Friday 6 June 2014

As the weather cools...


We have, after quite a warm autumn, fallen into winter.  All of a sudden it has gotten cold and we're beginning to find snotty little people around the place.  I've had my own snotty not-so-little young man about the house these past two weeks and being the sharing kind of boy he is, has passed some germs on to me.  I'm diligently taking ease-a-cold tablets and eating fruit.  And salad.  It is terribly unsatisfying eating something cold on a cold day, but I know there are far more good things in raw foods, so salad it is, because this is not the week to be unwell and foggy.  I have an exam on Wednesday and the possibility of me needing to attend an excursion has been raised. 

I found some little gel hand-warming thingys in Aldi the other day.  They're like ice-packs, only you crack the disk inside these little pouches and the gel inside gets warm.  To return them to their original state you boil them in a pot of water for five minutes.  I haven't used them yet....but that excursion may be a great time to christen them for winter use.  I expect they'll be very appreciated when I am finally in a position to be required for yard duty.

My winter adventure in the kitchen at the moment is with a Moroccan spice mix called 'ras el hanout'.  I have used it in a recipe I was given for a lamb and apricot tagine.  I've also used it to coat sweet potato cubes for a salad.  I have plans to make a vegetarian casserole as well...like the lamb tagine only with vegies instead.  I ended up googling for a recipe to make the spice mix because it's hard to come by in this very Anglo little corner of the world.  As it happens I had all of the one hundred million spices (only a slight exaggeration!) I needed to make it so I can enjoy this little adventure whenever I please!  I used this recipe, and added two star anise to my lamb tagine, since another recipe I found had anise seeds in it.
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We're deep in the throes of learner driver training around here, with two Learners in the house.  There are days I feel I may never drive my own car all by myself again.  And I have never sat in my own back seat so often since I began driving about 25 years ago.  It's quite a thing, to drag one's very adult self out of the back seat!  This is almost as bad as toilet training toddlers, only this lasts for so much longer.  Maybe I'll just have to enjoy my hand warmers while Miss Sunshine learns about the challenges of icy-cold steering wheels?

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