binkyboots

thank you guys! I'm looking for mainly outlets, though for something nice for the kitchen I can usually be persuaded to splash out I'm looking for books which are hard to find in the uk and pricey to get borders to import, the king arthur's baking companion is high on my wishlist... I'm guessing borders stores in the states may have it. kitchen ware wise, my dream is to buy a lamb cake mold, odd dream, but hey, lol. cant be found for love nor money in the uk and the shipping that the ebayers want is just crazy! fair enough, a real cast iron lamb will be heavy, but I'm prepared to leave my clothes at the airport if need be nice bowls, serving platters, napkins/tablecloths... all good, I like to check out supermarkets for regional spices and ingredients too. I love dollar store type places, sometimes the best things are hidden there... also goodwill stores and flea markets, love them! we're flying into miami, staying a week then taking a train to orlando and staying a week there before flying home. I can drive, but having only had my licence a year I'm unable to hire a car (unless you know different? a hire care would make our trip much easier!)

cinnamon graham cereal, creamy milk. I still have flu and only cereal appeals. everyone else had french toast, bacon, maple syrup and sausage.

my sister and I are miami and orlando bound at the end of february... she'd looking for clothes and shiny stuff, I'm after cookware and cookbooks, I'm thinking she'll be easier to please! any reccomendations for bookstores, cookware shops...

from my darling husband "falling cloudberries" by Tessa Kiros and a £25 book token, which will be convereted into a cookbook, as soon as I make up my mind... "mes confitures" is the current favorite. my sister picked up two volumes of "culinaria, european specialities" enormous books with some rather lovely recipes.

dont know if you can buy them in the states, but I think matchmaker mint sticks could be good in cheesecake....

traditions, well, we usually celebrate st lucia day, saffron buns, coffee, candles, it's a nice calm moment in the run up to christmas.... we go to midnight mass, come home, say our goodnights and get some sleep... we dont have a traditional christmas meal, I make danish pastries, breads and buns, each person has a special place setting made of gingerbread with their name on it, there is fruit, yoghurt, porridge, cold meats, cheese and marzipan hearts.... after breakfast/brunch we go to the morning service, then in the afternoon we relax around the house, watch a film and have a light supper, soup and rolls, maybe a pie for pudding. oh, we have a huge, shared christmas stocking, we open that before breakfast, useful and useless gifts for the whole family! my personal favorite from last years stocking was a wind up walking brain, lol.

tonight's dinner will be a beef braise with garlic, bacon, prunes and red wine. keeping my fingers crossed that it tastes as good as it smells!

slice them thin, fry in butter with some bacon till frizzly and brown round the edges, stir into mashed potato.

broth, my recipe soak as much broth mix as you think you'll need (I use 250g for six peaople with leftovers!) overnight drain, set aside. fry an onion in butter, add in peeled, chunked potatos and carrots, swede, parsnips, any root veg that take your fancy. you could also chuck in a ham bone, or the heel of a chunk of parmesan cheese, if you wrap it in muslin it's easier to fish out at the end. I usually throw in a herb teabag at this point too, I bought the bags when the store was out of fresh herbs (hmmph, I can buy lemongrass but not bay leaves or thyme?) pour over water to cover and add back the broth mix, throw in four tablespoons of chicken stock (ok, I use bottled touch of taste) salt, pepper, simmer tilll done.

ok, my granny's potato soup, it's plain, but man it's good, anytime I have a cold, or it's raining this is what I want... hmm, on saying that it's good anytime, lol. golden potato soup 5/6 carrots an onion 4/5 potatoes knob of butter, glug of oil water ok, throw the peeled, chunked onions and carrots in your food processor, process until you get little bits, not mush but not chunky either. heat the oil and butter on a large pan, when it's fizzling put in the processed carrot and onion mix, cook for a few minutes. add the peeled, quartered (or chunked, slightly larger than bitesize, bit like roast potato size) potatoes, cook a few minutes more. pour in boiling water to cover, add salt and pepper. cook till potatoes are tender and the stock is a rich golden colour. that's it, it becomes white potato soup if you blend it to a cream texture.

sounds a bit like nigella's take on puff (and danish) pastry, I've made the danishes and although the dough looked very worrying at stages they turned out very nicely, I'll be trying the puff version soon

white wine and sage foccacia bratwurst sweetcorn coleslaw potato salad pickled beetroot feta and watermelon salad with sorrel and nasturtium leaves.

nothing, nothing smells quite as awfull as a decomposing potato... ugh, I found a bag of them hidden under a pile of stuff in our cupboard a coupe of years ago, black, wet and when I lifted the bag the lots slopped their way out and onto the floor, hmm, where's the vomiting smiley when you need it? also a big ugh, my sister was drinking a milkshake she'd bought (a probiotic type thing) when she suddenly gagged and ran for the sink.... when she was through spitting milk everywhere she told me she'd gagged on a large clump of furry mould o_0 since then I've had to drink all drinks from a glass, no more fly slurps out of bottles for me.

last night was lentil soup from mung dahl lentials, really good, much creamier than ordinary lentils! tonight, brie, figs, pears, fresh sourdough bread and a green salad

split pea and potato soup multi grain bread rhubarb crumble (and weetabix )

shrek

sausages and roast cauliflower (mike) spicy lentil soup with little scrunchy bits of roast cauliflower for me

heinz tomato ketchup on vanilla ice cream, tried this recentlky when my niece told me she didn't believe me, it's not bad also liked ketchup on a choclate biscuit or cornflakes

melon bread? as an enthusiastic baker I'd love to hear more about that, and Japanese breads in general, one subject I've found it hard to get books on! looking forward to this blog (first post is very promising!)

spiced lentil and root vegetable soup served with spiced/honey butter baked pasta in tomato/sausagemeat sauce (so much better than it sounds ) semolina with strawberry marmalade hehe, edited to say I'm making roast cauliflower tommorow! thank heavens I can nibble the burned/crunchy bits still.

my mum and sister do this, but in their case so that the witches can't use it as a boat little tiny witches.... me, I have no superstitions, not for food anyway. some others that I know though include... twist the stalk on an apple, as you twist you do a, b, c, etc one letter per twist, the letter on which the stalk comes off is the first letter in the name of the person you'll marry. cherry stones, to find a husband, tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. crusts from bread give you curly hair carrots will make you see in the dark always stir things clockwise

tonight because of a plumbing emergency, pizza (hehe, pizza = no plates to clean) and for me soup! lol, with sour cream on top

hiya, I had bariatric surgery in november last year, not the gastric bypass but the older style vertical banded gastroplasty. so far I've lost 90lbs, it's just the most unbelievable feeling ever, I've never lost weight before, not for the want of trying, last summer all I ate everyday were two cans of slimfast and a bowl of apple puree, I lost 12lbs over 5 months. I can't eat solids at all, even very mushy weetabix are a challenge (and I try not to challenge myself, lol) mashed potato/veg are "safe" foods, very soft and with gravy/sauce on them. I've also become very imaginative with soups! It's wierd, it's gotten to the point where I look at other people eat and can't imagine eating like them, a whole plate of potatos and a piece of fish the thought of that makes me feel queasy. in fact, my response to people who say "can you eat normal stuff?" is yep, I eat completely normally for me. it really brings home the oversized portions we tend to eat, I mean, my body is the same body just with a very tiny capacity for food, I eat 500 calories a day max but I'm not sick, I'm thriving. not suggesting that anyone should eat as little as that, but yeah, portions are enormous. congrats fistfullaroux (and your wife) it's an incredible thing to live through, the changes to a partner, physical and mental can be hard to deal with... this is my journal entry the day after I came home.... so, how things went... pretty well I think, the op was fast (1.5 hours I think) I remember waking up in recovery (happily the tube was out!) and having the morphine pump explained to me... then I was moved to hdu, all I remember from there is being told to kick my legs, mum, debs, mike and teresa all visited, gorgeous flowers arrived and a nurse sat by my bed more or less all night... at one point my stats went right down (scary) but they gave me a nebuliser and that sorted that out... moved to ward 106 the next day at 12pm, don't remember much more about that day, was taking quite a bit of morphine... lol. hmm.. much of that week is a blur, lynx came to visit, on wednesday I think, the physios had taken me for a walk and I was so tired that I fell asleep while she was there x_x sorry lynx... that evening was scary, I got left without my oxygen all afternoon, in fact till after 9ish that night, I had a temp and chest infection, then in the early hours they found out I'd had a pulmonary embolism, scariest moment in hospital, they gave me somehing to help me sleep (I was pretty tense) and left me till morning, had a ct scan which confirmed the clot was (is) sitting in my lung, not doing any harm now, but looking back on it I'm scared. I'm taking warfarin for six months to reduce my chances of another pe forming... got to have a blood test twice weekly to check my clotting time. also means no piercings, flying or long distance bus journeys for six months! my staples came out yesterday, the scar, I've had some trouble coming to terms with it, pre op I thought I'd wear my scar with pride (maybe I will someday) but right now I just look at it and wonder what the hell I did this to myself for. first shower I had, they peeled the dressing off and showed me the wound, it's long, from the top of my belly to around and inch below my belly button... it's very neatly done, apart from my belly button which is a bit of a mess really... but it should fade up quite nicely. lol, when they took the staples out (all 35 of them) they left me with my curtain shut to get dressed, an hour later a nurse stuck her head in, I was still sitting in my nightie in the same position she left me in, too scared to move in case my belly came in half!! got some pics, but I'll put them up with cuts, lol, they're not pretty.... weight loss, I've lost around a stone in hospital, but it's not suprising since I didn't eat for a week... now I'm having a little build up drink, a yoghurt, gravy... liquids only till december 17th at least. funy thin, a tiny pot of yoghurt really fills me up! I'm amazed. oh, my blood count is down, 8.7 at the last check... so I'm on iron syrup to get it back up, they wanted to give me a tranfsusion but couldn't find a vein (my arms are so bruised) lots of stabbing though, in fact I ended up really distressed, at that point they decided to leave me alone... if I get really ill with it I'll go back in and we can try again to tranfuse me... I hope not, the idea of having blood pumped in bothers me. that's really it, the nurses (bar one) were lovely, very caring, mr mac was round everyday to see me and check the wound... my bed was so uncomfortable that I barely slept, the other patients were so funny/cool, I'm glad to have met them.... hoping to go to the support group in december, I'm up and walking, though I get tired fast... I miss my independance, asking for help is so crappy, so I'm working hard to get back to normal.... my blood count never did get right back up, but I'm very carefull, if the anaemia gets really bad I double my dose of iron syrup (vile stuff) I do now wear my scar with pride, I made an effort everyday to look at it, moisturise it with lavender oil and say something nice about it, the thought of losing it when I have the plastic surgery bothers me more than living with it. it's faded quite well, still visible from a distance though, both a line and dots either side from the staples. I'm off the warfarin now too, my blood stabilised quickly and now I'm a slightly lower risk for pe than I was before.

tonight: split pea soup with spiced butter barley bread rice pudding (or baked semolina, undecided)