Choking on the sun

I have 300 bazillion Jerusalem artichokes to give away to intrepid foodies/gardeners. Please please please take them off my hands. I like the little buggers, but not THAT much.

Also planted foxgloves, primulas, pansies, jonquils, snow peas, sugar snap peas, NZ spinach, Kale and brocoletti for winter growing and am completely packed and organised for Caloola. Away for a blissful week of long walks, family time, biking around Burly Griffin and such. Toorah and be back in a week:-)

Results soon consumed...

What Brett gets for dinner when I'm on holidays...

All day to do very little, crisp autumn air, cool breeze,-obviously cooking is the thing that needs to be done.

So, in my endless quest to make Gluten 'meats' as well as those damn buddhists, I set about making 'Chicken' cutlets. I added and subtracted and included crazy things that shouldn't work at all. I kneaded and pressed and crumbed and fried.

Not too bad methinks. I checked a little bit off the edge of one and it is distinctly 'chickeny' although the texture wasn't exactly what I wanted....maybe I shouldn't have pressed.

So Mr gets chicken seitan cutlets, pepper gravy, roast spuds, roast pumpkin, carrot, kumera and cauliflower with ginger and preseved lemon, steamed greens and chocolate cake for dessert. In other news, this is the coolest artwork I've seen in ages.

A gorgeous little 'wunderkammer' of fairy artefacts. it's hanging in the revamped Edge Cinema art gallery. There's a surprising amount of great stuff up there actually. Catch a film, peruse the art and all that...we did this on our 1st wedding anniversary the other day. Oh, 'Race to Witch Mountain' isn't about witches. If you like aliens and teenagers and rotten storylines, you'll love it. Other than that, I would like a glass of champagne and $200 to spend at the Green Gourmet grocery,...and cooking classes with a buddhist chef, and to have my hair done all pretty and stuff, and another $200 for my garden, and to lose 10kgs, and to go horse riding in autumn colours, and the 'Wuthering Heights' soundtrack, and to be pregnant. Just today, I'll have to settle for chicken seitan and about a million veg. Cheers.

Hermit Days

OK. I am shit at communication in general. I have been upbraided and am suitably chastised. This big ol world is just full of stuff that needs my attention and so occasionally I 'zone out'. Every now and then 'stuff' is just too much and I spend my days having bubble baths, listening to music that makes me weep at its beauty, walking amongst trees and cooking fabulous things.
This does not make me one of the 'popular' people, to say the least.
I decided a good time ago that 'quality of life' was far better than quantity. I have been a hermit-type for many years. My heart got all broke and I discovered this particular part of myself.
I also discovered that people hate this about me. Quite the connundrum.
For now, I ask patience from those willing to give it, and send a big 'screw you' to everyone else. You want a happy Cath? Let me have my peace so I can find her somewhere amidst this maelstrom.

I found my camera!!! and other happenings...

Yay! Oh so very yay! I thought the little snap-taker was truly gone for good and lo! She was just hiding under a set of drawers....clever minx. This means that all and sundry get to be bored witless again by photos of my garden,-good times.

We've had a picture-perfect sunday. We slept til we woke, ate a leisurely breakfast in the crisp morning air and headed down to Springwood to retrieve 'Wuthering Heights' (Fiennes/Binoche) from Video Ezy. I may watch the whole thing, -I may just listen to the soundtrack. Then Mr gets all 'I-bizzarely-don't-want-to-sit-on-my-ass-all-day-and-play-computer-games' and suggests we go for a walk. So off we trot to the Terrace Falls walk in South Lawson (and I don't take the camera.....). What a wonder! The water gushed over pristine rocks and white river sand, little green and red yabbies frolicked happily in the waterfall spray and Mr sank into quicksand most comically. We walked for about an hour and were delighted to discover that we have many further walks in the same area to discover on ensuing weekends (WITH the camera).

We headed home all lightly-sweaty and generally high on oxygen and Mr (again, -bizarrely) decides he will pull out the Vegonomicon and cook dinner for us.

A massive pot of spicy Jambalaya is now sitting on the kitchen bench awaiting evening consumption (Oh Lydgate...you really should have been here for this day!). I got all inspired and whipped up our soup for tomorrow at the same time, a lovely sweet potato, pumpkin, carrot, ginger, cumin and coconut cream concoction, with plenty of chilli. I will buy some extra-yummo crusty bread tomorrow before work.

As if all this crazy activity wasn't well-enough for one day, I have also cut and collected kindling for tonights fire. It's now 4pm and I'm still restless and looking for other industrious things to do...I'd start the Brocade silk quilt, but have no backing material...payday tuesday though:-)

So, that was my day, and here's the shots of my luscious and fruitful little bit of earth,-particularly pleased with the corn. One feels oddly clever when picking produce that one planted as a wee seed. Very satisfying and wholesome and all that.

Completely impressive Mustard Greens. Lightly saute with Nuttelex, Garlic and Lots of Vegeta and Black Pepper. Oh soooooo goood!

The cannot-be-bought-in-supermarkets Hubbard Squash. Completely unimpressive next to my mum's effort. She has grown an ohmigosh-massive one in her garden, but as I'm not at all competitive, I shall just mention that her garden has better sunlight exposure than mine and besides she inherited really really good soil that someone else worked on for ages and stuff....

And finally, the umerow who (as a teenager now) prefers NOT sleeping with mummy or daddy anymore and has found various new sleepy-spots. The bag under the bed is a current favourite, as is the spare room bed (her own room.....spoiled much?) and the couch (as long as there's a nice big quilt on it for nesting purposes). Mr just showed me his truly heinous toenails that are 'less festy' than they used to be, but I will spare you the imagery....shudder.