Darkside of Knitting

Mastering Menu Planning

2012-01-11T16:54:00.001+11:00

It's been awhile since I menu planned and I have been sort of cooking on a whim and eating a lot of peanut butter sandwichs.

My family have this notion that I eat complicated food, I cook in my parents kitchen. They have an actual kitchen as opposed to a kitchenette, plus their actual kitchen has a dishwasher. Downside to this is their in my way while I'm trying to cook, asking questions, making faces (alright this is limited to my Dad) and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Really how many times do you need to come into the kitchen and make a cup of coffee? Apparently 10 times more when I'm trying to cook.

And I think they percieve my cooking to be time consuming and complicated based on the fact that I'm always chopping up a bunch of fresh vegetable. Since what I eat is nearly all vegetable, that's a fair bit of veg for each meal.

Task #1 - Make my food look less complicated.

Then there's my own little goal. Alright so this is more a ginormous goal.

Task #2 - Cook from the umpteen dozen cookzines I have, plus the cookbooks I've never used.

Then comes the big one, since I've started photographing all my food I'm eating, this is only day three. It's been kind of shaming all ready. Definite room for improvement.

Task #3 - Cook and eat more healthy food!

#3 is a big one, as I'm still very much on the road to "gaining health". The Roller Derby Workout has had an annual challenge for the last 2 years now? This will be year 3 if I'm couting right and I belive there is talk of a vegan meal plan this year. I'll be interested to see what they come up with.
Sadly my library dosen't have any of Brendan Brazier's books which I have seen reccomended. I will admit I am a little uncertain about how they would fit with where I am, my primary focus is to strip away the fat, from a vanity point of view I'll worry about shaping what's underneath later. Maybe it would be more time wise to think about shaping what's underneath the fat now as well as stripping the fat?
Does a book on fitness really fit what I'm trying to do? I'm unsure if there is a definate link between me now and how I see me later.

Fitness is the key overall issue here, whatever derby once was, it has very much evolved into a very competitve sport. Derby girls are now athletes, I want to be a derby girl, so I have to be an athlete? Maybe there is more of a connection to this "fitness".
Trial and error I suppose, I'll get there eventually. I hope?

Onwards to the menu planning!

From Sunny Days in Texas cookzine
Jackfruit Brisket - A quick one pot dish, that I'll only need to chop an onion for. Low effort!
ETA photo!

From Appetite For Reduction (Low-fat cooking, hopefully clean up my eating a bit more.) -
Broiled Blackened Tofu, Butternut Coconut Rice & Jerk Asparagus
Chilli-Lime Rubbed Tofu with Pasta de los Angeles
Tamarind BBQ Tempeh & Sweet Potatoes
Masala Baked Tofu with ??????? (Possibly cauliflower dish of some description.)

New Year, New Look

2012-01-08T19:24:00.000+11:00

I've done a little tweaking of my blog, revamp it for the new year. And also new for the new year, I have started an additional blog - Darkside Knitter's Food Diary (in Colour!).

Basically this new blog is an experiment, I was reading about how people trying to lose weight in some study, lost more weight when they photographed everything they ate as opposed to people who didn't.

Based on that I've decided to dedicate a blog to being a photographic food diary, I'm sure it will be incredibly dull for other people. We'll see how it works out.

But from this morning, this was my breakfast...even the cat enjoyed a shred of pancake.


Banana Pancakes with strawberries

This was from one of my new cook books I got for Christmas.

Alicia who wrote this one, has a soon to be released Low-Cal Vegan Comfort Food , might be more appropiate with the current years goals.

Start as you intend to go on.

2012-01-01T20:33:00.000+11:00

My New Year Day's dinner, Hottie Black Eyed Peas with Ginger Sweet Potatoes & Apples from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Inspiration, taking it where you find it.

2011-12-28T12:46:00.000+11:00


gnocchi with spinach, roasted zucchini and basil pesto (vegetarian)

I ate this out and what can I say? The roasted zucchini was a winner, I've been thinking about it ever since. I've also been thinking about gnocchi ever since as well, just before this I had a vegan gnocchi dish out that has made me totally rethink my stance on gnocchi. I love gnocchi! Now.

There was this recipe on the PPK for Pesto Soup with Gnocchi, Beans and Greens, which I thought I'd try at home and add in some roasted zucchini of my own to the mix.

After Christmas...

2011-12-23T11:09:00.000+11:00

Here it is! Terry has posted her recipe for the black cake, I shall have to make it after Christmas at this stage along with her Coquito Bonito.

And Xmas dinner, well, debate has raged and now the tofu and noodle salad is cancelled. So it's a peanut butter sandwich after all. I have my blender, but I will have a poke in the supermarket later to see if I can find a ready meal that is vegan and I can simply heat and eat. Baked beans maybe???

And the family wonder why I object to Xmas with them, probably hinges on the fact I'm bored stiff and hungry!
Cue the same conversation 1001 times, endless cups of teas, and a distinct lack of alcohol. Christmas should be illegal without the insulating intake of alcohol.

I think of Nigella talking about in her Christmas book, in reference to her lychee martini putting it into a water bottle and taking it the the children's school concert with her.
This sounds like a plan, nothing as exotic as a lychee martini, and just Xmas with the family as opposed to a school concert, I don't have that joy. Yet.

Maybe a Salted Caramel Martini? I know I have a bottle of Butterscotch Schnapps in the back of the cupboard. Do these things ever go off?? Ah well one way to find out.

The Christmas Weekend Menu revised...

2011-12-21T20:59:00.003+11:00

Christmas Eve Lunch with Family - A BBQ. Oh really now?
What I'll be making for myself Orange Ginger Baked Tofu with Noodle Salad with Peanut Mmmm Sauce

Christmas Day Lunch(?) with the same Family. Again. - Lunch? Or maybe not, it's now all up in the air.

How it orginally looked what I was making:
- Pull-Apart Rolls from Vegan Brunch
- Seitan Roast from the PPK
- Scalloped Potatoes from the PPK
- Steamed asparagus and sweet potato

Only now on Xmas day, were taking a cold lunch to see my grandmother in the nursing home, only who and what exactly were doing for this lunch is a mystery. As were meant to be going back home to have our hot lunch. My mother making the arrangements with the extended family is very vague on the what/when.

The potatoes take an hour to bake, so since I don't have a time frame, and I have no idea if were all eating or not at the cold lunch. Since I don't know when were having the hot lunch I have a new plan.

- Peanut butter sandwich to take to the cold nibbly/lunch.
- Probably make a smoothie after we get home, or eat leftovers from the X-Eve lunch.
- On Boxing day when not seeing anyone or doing anything else, then make the full cooked lunch I was planning for X-Day. Or not, see how enthused I feel.

Lines of communication run like this in my family, my mother is getting the turkey roll and cooking it ready to serve and eat cold on the day. Right, simple you'd think? Especially seeing the extended family have been told of this. My mum has bought two turkey rolls and is thawing them to cook in advance, the extended family have also bought a turkey roll and are thawing it ready to cook and serve cold on the day.
Yes, that's 3 turkey rolls. Cauliflower cheese and whatever salads the macrobiotic vegetarian/ pescertarian is bringing to the lunch. The other pescertarian in the family will "eat meat if it's there".
Lines are very blured in our family!

That PB sandwich and smoothie is suddenly looking mighty tempting. At least it'll be vegan. And quickly prepared.

What I've cooked lately...

2011-12-21T20:14:00.000+11:00

Seitan roast pre-baking...

Seitan roast after baking

Mama Pea's Gravy

Seitan roast, Mama Pea's Mash and Gravy and steamed broccolini

Almond Shake from TrishStratus.com

My first attempt at pastsy, single crust from Veganomicon

Strawberry & Rhubarb Crumb Pie unbaked

Strawberry & Rhubarb Crumb Pie baked

And it was delicious!

Pea and Lemon Risotto from the Veganomicon

French Puff Muffins from ........

Shitake Risotto from Potluck Mania #2

Mushroom filling from Chef Chloe's Oyster Mushroom Tacos

Garlic White Wine Mushrooms

Soaking the fruit for Black Cake

Coming soon...

2011-12-15T21:57:00.001+11:00

I'm in the process of uploading another huge photo update, I'll finishing naming everything and publish it later.

It's beginning to look a lot like.....

2011-12-13T18:13:00.000+11:00

Four things I plan to do with dark rum:-
1. Wine Drenched Fruit for Caribbean Black Cake from veganlatina.com
2. Rumnog Pecan Cookies from the Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
3. Eggnog Spiced Nuts from peasandthankyou.com
4. Drink it!

Guess what I bought today huh??? (Edit to Add: Dark rum!)

And since apparently some campaign got started at some point about coming to the Darkside because we have cookies...well it's a campaign I am certainly willing to get behind. Our houses are made of gingerbread too you know, with candy stain glass windows. Come on over and chow down!

Cookies I'm hoping to squeeze into the baking rotation before that day arrives:-
No Bake Snowball Cookies - I love the accompanying description with these "These have nearly half the sugar of the traditional version and just a fraction of the fat." - Mama Pea
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cups - I'd also really like this is someone else made me these. Hint family! Big hint! Apparently the big hint I dropped about Eggnog Spiced Nuts has been picked up, maybe I'll be lucky?
Christmas Cookie Dough Balls - Probably with candy canes.
Gingerbread Cut-Out Cookies - I have a gingerbread man wearing a santa hat cutter.
Pie Plate Shortbread from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar - Since it's moulded into a tart tin and turned out to bake, I thought I might try this in my shortbread mould.
Sugar Cookie Smoothie - Alright so this last one is not actually a cookie per se, can you blame a girl?

I'd also like to try the vanilla fudge from Hannah Kaminsky's Wicked Treats e-book, but probably cut out with Xmas shaped cutters as opposed to ghost ones. Although I'd totally appreciate ghost shaped fudge at Xmas. If I'd been more organised I'd have ordered a set of Gingerdead Men and made them. Maybe one year I'll make the gingerbread house but make it a haunted one.

Christmas lunch looks like this for me - Seitan Roast Stuffed with ah...mushroom and maybe onion?, scalloped potatoes (minus eggplant bacon, one less step on the morning) and vegan gravy - either made from scratch (Mama Pea's was good) or Massel instant, I've had their Supreme Gravy but I have seen a Turkey one as well. All Massel's stocks and gravies are vegan so yeah!

And the Raw Strawberry Cheesecake, I'm wavering on logisitics now of this, it needs the cashews soaked at the very least 3 hours. It might be late Xmas Eve before it gets into the fridge to start chilling.

Something else I'm wavering about is I had a sudden thought about how much fun it would be to make fresh bread or more likely rolls on X-Day. It was this Olive Oil Bread niggling at the back of my mind that did it, then I thought about the Poppyseed Pullapart in Vegan Brunch only without poppy seeds as I really don't like them, maybe sesame instead? I could make it the night before and pop it in the fridge overnight ready to get out and bake in the morning.

Breakfast on the day. French Toast? Strata? Muffins? Pancakes? Cocktails? Oh yes, cocktails for sure.

Are you in or are you out?

2011-12-09T16:08:00.001+11:00

I've been trying to come up with answers to both my own questions and otherpeople's, are you vegan or vegetarian?

And to which the obvious answer is vegetarian, but I am disappointed in thisanswer. I've come to see it as a failing on my part; I was always happy with vegetarianismand always expected vegans to be a "bit weird".

Vegans are far from weird; my brief experience has shown me they are intelligent,funny, rational and extremely passionate.
I really envy them their passion, I sort of fell into veganism. I didn'tcome to it through the moral high ground; I came to it from the foodperspective. Come for the food, stay for the saving of the animals!

Which brings me to that very infamous quotefrom that even more infamous movie:

"Do or do not... there is notry." - Yoda, Star Wars

I'd eat 90% vegan (everything I cook myself) and probably about still 10%vegetarian (when I'm out). Cruelty free/environmentally friendly products havealways been a huge deal for me, ah you found me out, and I’m secretly a treehugger!

The big word here is TRY, I'm trying to live a more compassionate lifestyle.Food has become a lot easier, but I will admit to being still quite a noob whenit comes to cruelty free non-food products.

Something that once again came home to me when I attended an info sessionfor the local roller derby league. I had reiterated what I'd already learned, aleather boot is the best kind of skate boot. There are loads of syntheticversions available, usually cheaper than the leather versions and there arestarting to come on the market 100% vegan skates.

When I first became interested in derby the whole leather v non-leatherskates wouldn't have been an issue, now, I couldn't comfortably buy leatherskates, no matter how much better they might be.

While there may be no try, I feel I may be doing in a fashion, I think I maybe "doing" for some time to come before I'm actually happy with theresult.

What I've cooked since the 16th Nov up to now...

2011-11-30T16:26:00.001+11:00

Mama Pea's Chocolate Lava Cake

Mama Pea's Blackberry Basil Smash Smoothie

Mac daddy with Peas from the Veganomicon

2x Banana Bread from the PPK

Raspberry Jam Swirl Crumbcake from the PPK

Elvis Blondies from Quick & Easy Vegan Bake Sale

Elvis Blondies with Peanut Butter Frosting from Quick & Easy Vegan Bake Sale

Avo-Shake from Trish Stratus.com

A half-batch of Cashew Vegetable Korma from the PPK

Mama Pea's Banana Chocolate Chip Pretzel Smoothie

Peanut Apple Pretzel Drops from the PPK

Coffee-Buzz Energy Bars from Hannah Kaminsky's Lunchbox Bites eBook

What I've Cooked Lately (Massive Photo Update!)

2011-11-15T17:37:00.001+11:00

Tempeh Shepherdess Pie from the Veganomicon

Roasted Broccoli from the PPK

Tempeh Shepherdess Pie with Roasted Broccoli

Scrambled Tofu from the PPK

Garlic Sesame Soba Noodles from Chef Chloe

Coconut Curry Caramel Corn by Mama Pea

Tempeh Orzilla from PPK
(And somehow I managed to pick the dodgy photo I took of it).

Marbled Banana Bread from the PPK

Slices of the Marbled Banana Bread

All-Purpose Apple Sauce from Get It Ripe by Jae Steel

Brown Sugar Peach Muffins from the PPK
(More adventures cooking with spelt flour!)

Lower-Fat Banana Bread from the Veganomicon

Slices of the Lower-Fat Banana Bread

Update on Christmas

2011-11-04T16:43:00.000+11:00

We've had some discussion with the extended family today about the menu for Christmas. I came home and discussed with my mother what we would (or should I say I would) do for lunch.

It's been sorted to the following: -
Scalloped Potatoes (minus the Eggplant Bacon)
Leaving out the eggplant bacon elimantes an extra step on the morning and requires less time hogging the oven.

Roasted Broccoli
I've just tested this and I love broccoli I really do, but like brussel sprouts once you've roasted it you'll be reluctant to going back to cooking it any other way by itself.

Raw Strawberry Cheesecake
This hasn't been tested and won't be tested before hand, I'm just going to wing it on Christmas Eve and see how it goes. I just got a new 9-inch springform (it's like kismet!). Sadly I have no where to take a cheesecake that feeds 16 prior to Christmas lunch with the extended family so they all have to be guinea pigs.

Which leaves some sort of main protien, since they all be tucking into turkey. Probably some sort of seitan cutlet since I can pan fry that. And I really want an orange vegetable in the mix. I'm tempted to do a modified version of the Buttered Swede and Carrot Mash out of the latest Family Circle Christmas issue.

And something I am a little bit behind on, Kittens Gone Lentil nominated my blog for the Liebster award.
I am completly unfamiliar with this so I have borrowed KGL's description:-
"The word “Liebster” is German for ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’ but it can also mean ‘favorite’. The idea behind this award is to bring attention to bloggers who have less than 200 followers.

So the rules are as follows:
Show your thanks to those who gave you the award by linking back to them.
Reveal 5 of your top picks and them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Post the award on your blog.
Enjoy the love and support of some wonderful people on the www"

Here are my 5 blogs:
Darkside of the Mushroom
Confessions of a Gothic Homemaker
Hot Vegan Chick....Peas!
Body by Chickpeas
2paw

Timeline of gaining health...

2011-11-02T15:38:00.000+11:00

June 2010 - My doctor told me I'd never lose the excess weight I was carrying unless I had lap band surgery and promptly wrote off a referral to the surgeon.
The day after this appointment I went out on a mission and revamped my pantry, changing how I shopped and what I ate. There was this thing called the Low GI diet and I jumped on that band wagon with gusto.

November 2010 - I saw a dietician and stepped on a set of scales for the first time in forever. A very, very daunting experience. We set a mini goal of 10kgs to start as my dietician told me the fastest way I could lose weight safely was a 1kg (2 pounds) a month.
This is the month when I went vegetarian again and started looking into veganisim.

October 2011 - 11kgs (22 pounds for the non-metric) down and I finally see the surgeon about the lap band surgery. We discussed, I say discussed, basically he talked and I listened. The surgeon packs me off with a bunch of "home work" to read up on, come back and see him in Feb 2012 with any questions I have from all my "home work".

Come Feb 2012 if I decided I want to have the operation are we good to go? No, I will need to see the hospital dietician and psychartrist and get the OK from both of them and I can go on the waiting list.
It's already been 16 months, add on another 4 months before I go back, about 20 months in total? Plus how ever long it'll take for the two other appointments + on the waiting list time.

Is it an understatement to say I am underwhelmed?

November 2011 - Where I stand now, well 19kgs (or 38 pounds) to go, my dietician thinks the fact I can consistently lose a kilo a month means I have got a fix on the food and its time to up the 30mins a day exercise. I need to increase it a tiny bit each day to bring it up to an hour and we'll (hopefully) see results of about 2kgs (4 pounds) a month.

What I've learned on the last 16 months trek up the mountain?
- When throughly fed up with myself and feel like I am never going to get to the top I think about Roller Derby. I have never wanted to play a sport ever, till I discovered derby. Maybe if other sports let you have ridiculous names and tacky outfits I'd have moved a lot sooner.
Next month my local league is holding a Fresh Meat session in prep for their intake in Feb 2012. I need to get myself along, nothing ventured nothing gained.

- I like parsnips/eggplants/shitake mushrooms/savoury yeast (aka nutritional yeast)/tempeh/tofu/oyster mushrooms. These things are all cool now.

- A whole new world of culinary adventures has been opened to me, along with the opportunity to shop for new gadgets and gizmos for the kitchen. Basically I'm still obsessed with the kitchen/food/eating but in a new way since I started eating more vegan food.

- Portion control! I can not talk about what an absolute must this is, it wasn't when I converted to a Low GI diet just changing what I ate but how much of it I ate. I'll admit it took me from June 2010 to November 2010 to wake up to just how important that really was.
I've never been one of life's fast learners, unfortunatly I need to spectacularly crash and burn at something, well anything, to learn from it. I lurch on to the bloody end, the world burning down arounrd my ears just about. What? That didn't work? Oh well, we'll start again.

Isn't it a Chinese saying, there are many paths to the top of the mountain but the view is always the same.
I'll see you at the top. Eventually.

Bananas for Baking

2011-10-30T20:42:00.000+11:00

Mocha Chip Muffins - without the baking powder :(

Mocha Chip "Muffins" are perhaps better described as "Brownies"

Banana Bread - Perfect!

Armchair Traveling (And Non-Flight Eating!)

2011-10-25T18:35:00.000+11:00

Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero

I suffer from chronic and uncurable I am sure wanderlust, I also have an unashamed passion for food, cooking and eating in general.

These things go hand in hand with arm chair travel, as much as I want to see what these other countries are like my main interest is in their food.

Cookbooks of other countrys cusines are my escape, since investigating vegananisim I've learned a bit more about some I was familiar with such as most of the Asian cusine. We have quite a strong influnce in Australian cooking from Asia, probably as their our next door neighbour. It must be like America having Mexico as a next door neighbour. Or so I imagine!

One of the first world cuisines I got a real interest in was Latin food, it's something I knew pretty much nothing about. My forays into Mexican food have been limited to the Old El Paso range of products from my local supermarket.

I've long been fascinated by Mexico, without really knowing anything about it. I'm further intrigued about the Día de los Muertos celebrations, much to my excitement was the day I was watching the SBS show Food Safari and Maeve went to the Mexican embassy here in Australia to talk about the celebration and see what food they were making. We also saw the decorated sugar skulls and the shrine. I must admit it's not just other people's cuisines I'm intrigued by, but also by their celebrations.
Hence I'd like to know more about this Cinco de Mayo the Americans always talk about, is it just an American holiday to eat Mexican food? Is it actually Mexican in origin? Will their be a party? Because if their is there will be food surely.

Enter into my life Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero, I have read it with endless fascination. It has made me want to know more about Latin food. It has not however prompted me to really cook anything from it yet. I'm hoping to have a bit of a homage to Día de los Muertos myself and cook up some of the recipes from this book.
Probably not authenic, but I feel I am being authentic to my British ancestry, those mighty empire builders who appropiated a fair portion of the world and adopted the bits they liked in each country and just overlaid their own methods down for everything else. Ghandi after all was a British trained and educated lawyer.

Now this zine below, actually first a word about zines. I never knew they existed until veganisim came into my life and I am hugely grateful for them. I love the quite often very personal nature of them. Sometimes handwritten, with little ancedotes from the author and even little hand drawn pictures. Some are typed with clip art done in a cut-and-paste style. And some, like Sunny Days are neatly typed and well laid out.

I'm also curious how you actually pronounce zine, having never heard it said I alwys thought of it zine rhymes with sign so it would have that sound to it. But then I heard an American actually say the word zine, and it rhymed with seen and came out sounding like "zeen".

Sunny Days in Texas

Enough about that, on to the Sunny Days In Texas! It is a fund raising zine, with all the profits going to the Sunny Day Farm Animal Sanctuary. It's like a double goody, your helping a good cause and getting a yummy little zine crammed with good things to make.

I had a laugh at a recipe for Popcorn Tofu donated from the Wheatsville Co-Op. It sounds delicious, but I'm not sure I'll ever need to fry up 40 pounds of tofu in a session!

Some of the things I think will be first onto the must make list are:-
- Texas Chili
- Jackfruit Brisket (I'm really intrigued about this, a fruit that you cook up and eat as a savoury dish).
- King Ranch Casserole (It looks delicious, something you'd make with a can of soup in a previous incarnation, suitably trashy!)

Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food

Thirdly, Papa Tofu loves Ethiopian Food. My knowledge about any kind of African food is non-existant. When I first started looking into vegan food it was hard to miss all the talk about Ethiopian food.

And I can understand why it is so popular, it seems to be a quite spicy cuisine. And I am fascinated by the injera bread, once again SBS Food Safari to the rescue and seemingly Teff flour is not available in Australia. But I shall be keeping my eye out anyway.

I thought I might tackle the Crepes from Vegan Brunch, as Isa uses them in her recipe for Ethiopian Crepes.

You can find much more coherent description about this great zine here on Kittee's blog.

And not pictured, because I can not find which bag I have put it in is a zine called Veganistan: Vegan food from the Middle East & Maghrebi
Maghrebi you ask?? I certainly did, according to good ole Wikipedia it is:-
"The Maghreb (also Maghrib; Arabic مغرب) is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara."

Now if I could place my copy I could tell you more about it, but I can't for the moment. So look for an update in the near future. The Veganistan zine, has introduced me to yet another new to me world cusine.

Broadening the horizons of my mind and also my taste buds! Does anyone else have a favourite cusine? A new one they are just delving into?

Is it that time already?

2011-10-24T12:14:00.001+11:00

I've seen out in the shops since early this month the begining of Christmas stock. Too early surely? Maybe not, the family are already talking about Christmas plans.

Since it's obviously hurtling towards that time of year I decided to start testing some vegan things in advance.

On my hit list:
Matrioshka Eggnog - Eggless nog? I'm quite partial to the nog myself so I'm keen to see what this version will be like. Nobody else in the family is really keen on eggnog so I don't know how they will take to this version. Oh well, all the more for me.

Gingered Champagne Cocktail - I lurrrve ginger! It must run in the family because so does my mother and her father. I highly suspect the extended family would try this on the day.

Christmas Tamales - All I know of tamales is that Americans rave over them on the internet, and I have Latin cook book in which I keep looking at the tamales thinking they look like they'd be delicious. I know people complain were all becoming too Amercanised, but this is one American tradition I like the sound of adopting.

Greenbean Mushroom Casserole - I love mushrooms and anything with mushrooms in it. I've not been a fan of green beans however. That said certain family members make faces at mushrooms. Combining too evils could equal something fabulous. Personally I think all that mushroom will elevate this to fabulousness!
However I know from past experience sourcing prepared vegan mushroom soup is a challenge. All but one of the mushroom soups I have seen are made with beef stock. And the one that didn't? Was a cream of, so contained dairy. That said I have seen a mushroom soup recipe in a zine I recently purchased (Sunny Days in Texas), so I'm adding that to my to try list.

Thanksgiving in an Hour - Quick and also looks very simple apart from the Chickpea Cutlets which require more work. Since I'll probably be jostling for space in the kitchen, minimum effort or make ahead are going to be key. I broccoli and mashed potato, the mushroom gravy sounds good and the chickpea cutlets get rave reviews. I've never eaten cranberry sauce so it's the only thing I'm unsure about.
If I go with the Greenbean Mushroom Casserole above, I don't think I'll do mushroom gravy. Too much 'shroom I fear for the family, don't think it would be for me. Massel who make wonderful veg friendly stocks also make veg friendly gravy powders. I've not tried the gravy but a fellow Aussie vegan highly reccomends them.

Looking for something to do with pumpkin/sweet potato/carrots, I feel like I'd like something orange going on my plate amongest all this.

Things I've already made and have on the reserve list:
Harvest Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms - Back to the mushrooms again, can you tell the mushrooms and I have torrid love affair? These were wonderful, although I had filling left over, but I suspect my portobello's wern't quite as big or perhaps as deep. Basically I had to mound the filling in, rather than stuff the mushrooms.
These have omni approval, my father polished off two them, after having alreadyfinished eating his dinner. And I will admit I found them very filling.

Maple Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Hazelnuts - I lurrve brussel sprouts, equal to mushrooms. And as much as I love them, roasting them takes them to a whole new level. Absolutly worth a try, even if your a bit ambivilent about them try this!

Scalloped Potatoes and Eggplant Bacon - I just made this the other day, and it also gets omni approval. Well my Dad had two serves, my sister ate the potato and picked the eggplant out. Mostly approved. But I really liked it.

My line up is basically picking a bunch of stuff I like the idea of, picking my favourite things. At least I know I'll have something interesting/tasty/vegan to eat at Christmas dinner instead of my usual vegetarian pickings of past which involves bread. potatoes and salad (lettuce/tomato/cucumber/possibly avocado concoction).
Has anybody else succombed to the impending madness and started making Christmas plans???

Photo Bonanza Part 2

2011-10-23T20:55:00.000+11:00

Banana Rabanada (Brazilian French Toast) with banana, strawberry and kiwifruit.

And new books!


Quick and Easy Vegan Bakesale

Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions

Photo bonanza Part 1

2011-10-23T16:21:00.002+11:00

Eggplant Bacon from PPK.com

Scalloped Potatoes and Eggplant Bacon from the PPK.com

Asparagus & Lemongrass Risotto from Veganomicon

Eight to ease.

2011-10-18T18:53:00.000+11:00

Teddies, Trees and Peas (my make do adaptation of Mac & Trees from Appetite For Reduction).
No, no small children in my life, the teddies are all for my benefit! Just puts the finishing touch on comfort food.

Verdict? Delicious! And just what I needed, it has been a very long day and I don't seem to have got very far despite spending forever working through a bunch of tasks.

Scrumptious 7!

2011-10-16T16:54:00.001+11:00

Todays baking effort, the Raspberry Blondie Bars from Vegan with a Vengeance. There really didn't look like enough topping when I set aside the specifed 1 cup of dough, and looking at how much the base puffed up I think next time I will reserve a bit more dough for the topping.

The raw dough was quite sweet to taste, but the raspberry layer was quite tart so I am presuming now that they are cooked together they will counter balance each other nicely.

At the time of writing this it is still in pan cooling down, when is is cool I shall cut it into bars and test it out. It certainly smells fabulous, if it does look a little dodgy. Live and learn!
Maybe I could make it work if I rolled the dough out for the top? I shall make myself notes for next time.

Successful sixth!

2011-10-15T20:11:00.001+11:00

Steamer has got another turn out tonight and here are the broccoli and carrots that I prepped to add to the Unfried Fried Rice.

Here is the finished product! I was ready for it, it didn't take that long to cook. It was just all the prep and lining everything up that took a bit of juggling, especially in a shared kitchen where your also fighting for space.

Unfried Fried Rice and Hoisin-Mustard Tofu from Appetite From Reduction - the sauce for the tofu got slightly "caramilised" due to cook's error but it still come up delicious and the fried rice was tasty without leaving you with that after oily mouth feel some take-away ones do.This was quite an experience, here I made Homemade Sorta Soy Yogurt from the Complete Guide to Vegan Substituions. It tastes delicious, I have to restrain myself from simply eating it as I want to use it in a batch of blondies. I think I will have to make a second batch for sure, it would be good with my porridge and fruit of a morning.

There's also an option for making it with coconut milk as opposed to soy milk, which sounds like it could be very delicious.

Fifth's a Fail?

2011-10-14T18:40:00.000+11:00

Tonight made the Curried Split Pea Soup from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan with a Vengeance. I went with the suggestion of serving it over rice to make it more of an "entree". I love how Americans call mains "entree", I often wonder what they think when they come to Australia and see our menus.

Step 1 - Artfully shaped mound of rice in bowl...

Step 2 - Drown rice with split pea soup!

Initially I was going to use the recently purchsed stash of yellow split peas I picked up, but upon discovering I had an almost at their best before date split green peas I gave way to good housekeeping and used those. Probably being a dried legume they would keep and still be alright past their best before. First in, first out!

Final verdict? Next time I'll either increase the spice/curry powder or decrease the water, the final result was lovely and quite delicately flavoured it just left me waiting a bit more. Not a write off, just room for experimenting.

And here soaking (overnight!) are some black eyed peas ready to be cooked up in the morning so they are ready to be used later in the day in some recipes.

Tomorrow I hope to turn these black-eyes peas into Black-Eyed Pea & Tempeh Beanballs from Appetite for Reduction and Black-Eyed Pea & Quinoa Croquettes from Vegan with a Vengeance.

Flying Fourth Vegan Mofo

2011-10-13T19:01:00.000+11:00

In an effort to post something else for Vegan Mofo, after tomorrow when life settles a bit I hope to be able to get cooking up a storm. Here is the end of the Red Lentil and Root Veg Dal from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Vegan Mofo Third's a Charm!

2011-10-13T10:31:00.000+11:00

I did some research on Happy Cow before going over on the weekend to seek out places in Hobart to check out. The plan was to do dome eating and photo taking that would make a mofo post.

Best laid plans? It should be altered to involve not men and mice but omni family members.

What I did find was the vegetarian Organic Summer Kitchen Bakery at the Salamanca Market, located down at the silo end. There they were, in a no frills plain white food fan. The food in the fan looked delicious! It was all tempting. To fit my time constraints I opted for a pie that was listed on the menu as vegan. Madras

Vegetable Curry Pie with Chutney

Filling included sweet potato, cauliflower, broccoli, green beans and possibly some regular potato as well. I'll admit to being dubious about how much I would like it as the pastry was made with wholemeal flour. It was the nicest pastry I have eaten in forever, quite crisp not soggy or greasy.Wholemeal flour certinaly gives it a distinct flavour but it managed to be tasty rather than too healthy tasting.

The only other pie listed as vegan was a lentil shepherd's pie, which included in it's filling brown rice. I'll admit I was all no to brown rice and wholemeal flour pastry. As I really don't like brown rice, no I do not Sam. Next time I get to Hobart I think I will certainly have to try their lentil pie, brown rice and all. If I liked their wholemeal pastry maybe Sam, just maybe I might like brown rice too.

Here's one we prepared earlier....

2011-10-07T09:49:00.001+11:00

This week has been a bit of a wash for vegan mofo, next week when I have had time to rally myself should be more productive.

Today I'm going to do a rehash of my adventures with Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Appetite for Reduction. Isa's Vegan with a Vengenance was my first vegan cookbook from the library and where I became both a fan of Isa and vegan food. And the rest as they say is history!

Speaking from past experience, in my previous omni life trying to be inspired by the healthy cook books was a bit of a challenge. Nothing was ever quite as nice as the things you would make from regular cookbooks. Finding the motivation to keep eating things that I really didn't like was a challenge.

Enter Isa....

Previously blogged about Tempeh Helper

Arabian Lentil and Rice Soup

Bistro Broccoli Chowder

Manhattan Glam Chowder

Moroccan Chickpeas and Zucchini

Mushroom and Cannellini Paprikas

Red Lentil and Root Veggie Dal with Basmati Rice

These have all been immensely successful and very tasty, it's all too easy to forget your chowing down on low fat meals. Huge win!

What else can I say? Changing my eating habits in an effort to go vegan has totally changed me, it's not just the obvious weight loss and masses of energy. But I've become a lot happier and quite a bit more tolerant, I feel like a hippy for saying this and the me of a year go would have rolled her eyes and snarked if someone had said it to me.

I think the process of cutting out various animal products I used to eat has actually made me happier. I have no real proof of this, just this feeling that at the same time I stopped eating animals, I also started to become a lot happier. Coincidence? Eh, maybe. However I have no plans to return to an omni diet any time in my future, that also makes me really happy. :)

Vegan Mofo First Post

2011-10-01T22:06:00.000+10:00

Apologies in advance, my photos are taken with an iPod touch and probably I'll learn from these and attempt to do my blogging cooking during the day to get better lit photos.Here we have Tempeh Helper with Easy Breezy Cheezy Sauce both from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

This is my first attempt at cooking with tempeh and certainly won't be my last, so delicious! Tempeh apparently has a bitter taste, Isa likens it to the bitter taste of aragula aka rocket. I do not like rocket. No Sam I do not.

I steamed it as per the instructions for avoiding the bitter flavour. Wish I'd taken pictures of that now as well, because I was excited because I got to use my steamer for the first time.
Tempeh is a soy product similar to tofu for those of you not familiar with what it is, I've only just learned it even existed.

Compared to tofu, stir fried tofu isn't bad, I prefer it if it's been cooked up quite crispy and a bit chewey as opposed to some times when it's left in large pieces and still remains quite soft in the centre.
Tempeh has a certainly more meaty texture and flavour, eating this very much reminded me of eating a savoury mince dish my mother used to cook.

The Cheezy sauce? Less cheesy and more like a very addictive savoury white sauce. I'm hooked on the nutritional yeast now, apparetnly here in Australia we recently struck a shortage of it. I'm not quite sure how it came about, but I can understand the panic at the thought of a shortage.
I'll do a post before the month is over on nutritional yeast, this was something else I've only just recently discovered.

Will I make this recipe again? A resounding yes! Actually I can't stop thinking about the left overs in the fridge. Will I cook more with tempeh? I think October is dangerously close to becoming tempeh month.

Alright that's my first post for Vegan Mofo, just a little taste to start off. This post was a bit of a rush so hopefully the future ones will be more planned and contain better photos.

A month of vegan goodness.

2011-09-14T21:07:00.001+10:00

I've signed on for Vegan MoFo, which will run from the 1st to 31st October. Just so your all warned, expect a month of posts and photos all about vegan food, my experiments and thoughts on it all.

Actually quite excited, I have been trying to cook my way through the cook books I have, hopefully I might even start on my cooking zines. I have asked for vegan cookbooks for my birthday, which happens next month as well. Hopefully even more new things to try.

Photo Heavy Post!

2011-08-17T18:58:00.000+10:00

I've been on a bit of a baked goods drive recently and basically I cooked a load of muffins, photos follow.

Zucchini Spelt Muffins

Bakery Style Berry Muffins

Coffee Chip Muffins

Blueberry Ginger Spelt Muffins

All of these come from the wonderful book Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Next plan is to attempt to try and cook something other than muffins from the Brunch book, eggless omelts and quiches have me really intrigued.

And one knitting photo...here is the now named As If! slouchy beret in progress. I am up to the last pattern repeat and then just decreasing and blocking to go.

For some reason whenever I look at it, I think of an octopus. I should make an octopus hat, I bet there is a pattern out there for one.

In the land of Vegan

2011-05-05T16:08:00.003+10:00

I love the Book Depository, but we had a minor blip earlier this year and I was a tad cross with them for a moment.

I pre-ordered last year in prep for a January release of a paperback version of the Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (or as I like to call her, the Vegan Nigella) and Terry Hope Romero. I counted down impatiently to the release date, the hardcover version had been out for ages but the paperback due to be released was half the price.
Release day rolled around, but the book wasn't released it simply showed as Currently Unavailable on the Book Depository. I e-mailed the BD after being unable to find any e-mails from them to me to find out what was happening regards my order since I had paid for the book.

And I got nothing back from them, the listing still showed up as unavailable. Being the impatient person I am, I e-mailed again and told them I wanted a refund since they didn't have the book to send me. Seconds later I got a reply to tell me they were only too happy to refund my money and it was all being processed right then.

When I saw the paperback listed once again for pre-order I ordered again, release day rolled around the 2nd time and it showed on my order as sent out and the listing showed it as available on the BD website.
The parcel arrived yesterday and on opening it I discovered they had sent me the hardcover copy! Squee, I thought, I've got the hardcover version for half price!

Only now I'm wondering if I should e-mail and let them know, they've sent the right book after all. And a superior version at that.

The other quandary I am having is about a local animal rights group's meetings. They are apparently meeting once a month at one of the vegetarian cafes in town. On the groups poster one of the things mentioned was cruelty free food, there's only so much animal welfare rights I can handle but it's very hard to look at vegan cooking and not be confronted with animal rights. Even when it's not physically there in the cook book it still is.
Vegetarian cook books seem to be coming from a different place however.

I was looking at this particular animal rights website and reading through past newsletters, which all seem to focus on animal rights and environmental impact on wildlife. But it often includes a vegan recipe, which has me tempted because I wouldn't mind meeting some other local veg/etarians.
There are some very good resources available, all very informative. The downside is that usually the vegan ones are all North American and the vegetarian are British. I am yet to turn up a good Australian resource for veg eating.

Still I suppose I should consider myself lucky to be able to choose what I do and don't want to eat. Being able to pop to the local shops and buy whatever you want is something I think I take a bit too much for granted.

What's eating Darkside Knitter?

2011-04-04T20:25:00.003+10:00

I spent far too many years hating myself, it is far from productive and leads to the accomplishment of nothing.

Over the last 2 years I have learnt to be a bit nicer to myself, hence the greater success rate now than ever before. Before I had a sucess rate of zero. I attribute a lot of it to turning 30, it truly was a life changing event.
Old habits are hard to break, and I find those little niggling habits creeping back. That little voice that is so critical and then I find myself actually having those critical thoughts about myself again.

As you will know from my recent blog posts I have dipped my oar into vegan cooking and it was through this that I found the pick up me I was looking for. On a blog called Beyond Will Power, the latest post was Because even the beautiful people don't feel beautiful...

Before this I was watching a vodcast, looking at and thinking would it really matter if I discovered the cure cancer if I didn't look good in a bikini? Alright so curing cancer might be a bit of a stretch, I am not scientifically minded at all. The principal is the same though, does it matter how good I am at anything if I don't look good in a bikini? I was watching the host on the vodcast talking about women or more exactly talking about looking at women.
And I found myself back where I was 15 years ago, looking in the mirror and hating myself for not being perfect, not being beautiful enough.
Which had prompted me to look this clip up on You Tube of Mel Fyfe, a strong woman on a now defunct tv show here with Christa Hughes singing Bikini Parade. FYI: You'll have to skip forward ot the 4min mark to get the song, the first four minutes is Mel talking about and doing her strong woman act with the show's host.

I would have liked to linked in P!nk's F*cking Perfect here, but the first time I watched it I had to run away from my computer during the video as it made me so uncomfortable. Christa's Bikini Parade is much much more humourous.

Another month over.

2011-03-31T23:22:00.002+11:00

Progress seems to be being made, suddenly everyone is really happy with me. Upside to all this is it appears my fertility is back, after years of girl issues it appears my body has finally righted itself.

Which is such a good thing, my body doing what it's supposed to do and if I come down on the Do I side of the Do I or Don't I baby debate, there's one less hurdle.

It seems highly apt that once I reach the stage were suddenly everyone else is happy, I'm not. I'm having a raging internal debate yet again about how I feel about my chosen degree. I have a love-hate relationship with my chosen major.
We had some very wet, very gray and gloomy days the other week and I guess I just haven't been able to pick myself up from it yet.

My cunning plan is working!

2011-03-02T12:15:00.003+11:00

Got up today and tried on my jeans, I do this once a month to see if I can fit back into them. Last time I can recall wearing them is at least 10 years, ago. Today they fit!

I had an appointment with my doctor today, I was ready to go in armed with my loss of 4kgs over the last month and the fact I can fit back in my jeans after 10 years. Because I was expecting long faces and all doom and gloom with the light at the end of the tunnel being that oft referred to lapband.

I ended up keeping these little gems to myself, because today my Doctor was happy. We're going to get a good outcome with my weight problem. Oh really? Ye of little faith, I never doubted myself. I just needed a shove in the right direction.

And on the downside last Friday I had to have a wisdom tooth out, I ccould feel my IQ dropping as it came out. ;)
It's looking at least 6 weeks healing time, provided there's no infection - cue salt washes for my mouth. Not appatising but more better than an infection, it's painful enough now as well as being a mite uncomfortable from the stitches. This Friday the stitches come out, it will be a relief. I've been eating a lot of soup, mashed veg and yoghurt since last Friday. I miss chewing, there's a whole list of things I am going to cook up after the stitches are out.
Preferably something with chilli in it, I really need chilli!

Tattoos and Cliches

2011-01-29T17:00:00.002+11:00

It must be at least 8, no maybe 9 months ago now my doctor told me I'd never lose any weight without lap band surgery. Flash forward to last month and it's now well realistically it'll be at least a 3 year wait maybe 2 if your lucky on the public waiting list so we should probably just keep going with what I have been doing and see how it continues to go.

I'd like to be able to say I told you so to him, but in actually fact I went off in a silent steam with the thought I'll show you running through my head. I think the victory is in some small way still mine.

Soon I make a return trip to my dietician, I fear I've done a bit too much socialising this last month too much going out for coffee or eating out for dinner. Hopefully my efforts to counter balance this will have paid off and the scales won't reveal anything too detrimental. All I'm hoping for really is not to have put any weight back on. If I've lost some it will be an added bonus at this stage.

I was reading an interview with a vegan tattooist based in California, and I was quite intrigued. I'm a huge fan of cruelty free cosmetics and personal products, I suppose cruelty free tattoos fit the bill as well.

Why am I talking about tattoos, cliches and weight loss? I think it has almost become a bit of a cliche, a lot of people seem to share the goal at the end of their weight loss to get tattooed. I feel I am adding myself to this cliche, not that I really mind, by saying hopefully come the end of the year provided I've made my goal I'll start looking locally for an artist that suits, if they use vegan inks it'll be an added bonus.
Although I have noticed a beauty spa at the other end of my state advertising vegan manicures and pedicures. I'm just pleased to see cruelty free becoming easier to find.

2011-01-11T19:21:00.006+11:00

Today I went out for lunch, and afterwards I did some shopping and spent my Christmas cash.

And this is what I bought....a new bag!

Unfortunately they took all the stuffing out in the shop before packing it in a bag, so it lost some of its ability to sit up by itself. Soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it, it was just so me!

While at lunch we were talking about how the higher an IQ a woman has or the more well educated she is, the lower her chances become of getting married. Which got me thinking about P!nk and her song Stupid Girls. And also about the lust of my life Matt Hardy, just recently on Twitter there was a bit of a cringe inducing flirting with a girl who if I'm honest strikes me as an idiot based on how she comes across on Twitter.
Then people got a bit upset with Matt and wrote to him on Twitter telling him so, stuff kind of got toned down and he was very quick to assure everyone they were just friends and they were just joking.
Lately Matt's been flittering (a word I made up to describe flirting on Twitter) with a woman who comes across as much, much more intelligent. Probably doesn’t hurt she's gorgeous to boot. So far there doesn’t seem to be mass indignation or declarations of horror. I find this very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Now I don't know what this means to other people, but for me it meant all my fantasies of intelligent conversation got revived after being totally dashed. Because idols after all have to be perfect. ;)

Waiting at home for me when I returned from town today was a parcel and in it was this!

It's a Bokashi Bucket which you can read all about here. I don't have a garden to empty it into, but it has a very tight fitting seal so I should be able to transfer the container to my family's home and into their garden to bury the waste from it. I've been talking about buying one of these forever, and well New Year and new starts and all that jazz here it now is!

Tomorrow is menu planning day, I must get around to getting it organised. And also plan out some more or less ready to go meals that are shelf stable, Velish soups have been given the big tick here.

The Challenge

2011-01-09T11:49:00.002+11:00

I saw my dietician just after new year, I've maintained over Christmas, the best we could hope for.
The next challenge in our process, is to start adding in kilojoule counting.

Now the whole eating process goes like this measure quantities out, write it down in food diary and now count the kilojoules for the day. Like I really needed any more obsessions with food. Still I suppose this is a good set, and in theroy provided I can stick to my daily kj limit I should have lost the required weight by the end of the year.

First major step is working on meal planning, picking 3 breakfasts and 3 lunches, sort of just cycling through to start with.
Elimanting too much choice to start with seems to be key, not needing to decide means hopefully I won't eat what ever random thing I find in my fridge. Half a block of chocolate and a tub of yoghurt is not really a balanced meal.

Admittedly when I saw the dietician for the first time, 2 months ago and we were talking about my eating habits they didn't come off as sounding too bad. Granted if I'd seen the dietician 8 months ago and they asked me what my eating habits were like, they were embarrsingly atrocious. So very bad.

Dinner is the less effort one, really, I just have to pick things that can be both cooked and bulk and frozen.
Both semesters last year I had a late evening class, and I have to drive through a take-away hub to get home from that class. It was so much easier just to get something to go rather than go home and actually cook something.

New year, new start, and hopefuly to continue as we mean to go on. That copy of Appetite for Reduction is really going to come into play here now.

New Year, New Ideas?

2011-01-02T20:41:00.002+11:00

I do have quite a few pictures from Christmas, and lots of stuff to write about both Christmas and New Year. I think that can all wait, because once again I have been over thinking things.

I have been watching a lot of 30 Rock, if you read regulary you'll know I bought Season 2 with gift cards from last Christmas as there were no copies of Season 1 in stock.
I've finished all of Season 2 and since picked up Season 1 on sale so I'm now halfway through these episodes.

And as it approaches the end of year/moving into the new year, I start thinking about what I have done with my past year and what I hope to do with the coming year. There's also a bit of debate about what I'll be doing in 5 years, or 10 years, or where and what I'll be doing 50 years from now. Too much thinking!

Back to 30 Rock and the fabulous Tina Fey charactor Liz Lemon, during season 1 we see her holding the make-up artisits baby and walking the studio hallway to entertain the baby and then suddenly Liz finds herself in her apartment with the baby.
Here is were the continuing story line of Liz Lemon and her desire to have a baby stems from, Liz Lemon 30-something single career gal. Yeah I think we can all see the how this will unfold.

While trawling the interwebs reading up on veganisim and vegetarnisim I was reading some parenting and family threads on some of these forums, I'll admit it's sort of interesting to read other people's dramas and exclaim to my computer screen "Who are these people????" because my family is so mellow evidently.
I was reading a thread by a not yet 30-something girl, talking about if not settled down with someone in the future to start a family, adopting as a single parent.

This thread combined with Liz Lemon had me thinking about me and what I want in my future, children are something other people have. I've always figured there'd be plenty of time if it was for me after all. There was so much I wanted before "settling", so many places I wanted to see, things to I wanted to learn (although I have learnt music and languages are not my forte at all), so much to do and it seemed so much time to do it in.

You know what? There isn't, there really isn't. I don't know how many people saw the Australian documentary Maverick Mother, described as follows from the site as:

SHORT SYNOPSIS
Tired of waiting for the perfect partner, and alarmed by the deafening tic-toc of her biological clock, 39-year-old filmmaker Janet Merewther decides to take life into her own hands and embark on a journey into the new social phenomenon of solo motherhood by choice.

I'm thinking is this going to be me in 10 years? Because from past experience 10 years is barely scratching the surface, I don't actually know what the next 10 years holds or how it will unfold.
There is so much I want to do, and when you have kids, you have to make sacrifices, you can't expect to live the way you did pre-kids.
Someday always seemed an appropiate time frame for having kids, someday dosen't seem quite as viable any more. Now it seems more like it needs a firm time frame, you know x amount of years. Which is a tad a scary actually.

At last, my Christmas has come along,

2010-12-23T16:31:00.003+11:00

First I have a few things to talk about before I get on to Christmas. Today I had my second weigh-in in, well, forever really and it turns out since last fortnight I've lost a kilo and a half. Nobody was more surprised than me, I don't actually own a set of scales, I really don't believe in them.
Personally I'm less obsessed with a set of numbers and more obsessed with how I look in my clothes or if I can get back into my jeans already.

Now getting back to my weigh-in, and my surprise I knew it was happening but I can't say I've gone out of my way to do extra to help it along. Especially given the pavlova and eggnog I quaffed just yesterday. In a way I have been slightly aware of making better choices to eat and of course workign on portion control by actaully measuring what I am eating. A tedious but necessary evil!
I have also managed to totally curb my peanut butter eating, and the cheese.

After this triumphant piece of news, and content with the knowledge I probably could indulge in a piece of Xmas pudding and cream (or maybe light cream?) I scurried off to K-Mart to seek out So Fresh Christmas 2010 CD, I must admit my disappointment at their lack of choice of other Christmas cd's normally they have loads of choice. Not this year, but no fear as I downloaded Twisted Sister's Twisted Chrisstmas through iTunes and Miss Stash bought the Glee Christmas album. New Christmas music glut! Although I must confess the Twisted Sister one is the best.
Glee as much as I love it is just a tad too chipper Disney sounding.

Anyway while I was at the K-Mart I had a very joyous moment, I found Season 1 of 30 Rock, you may remember from a previous post where I talked about only be able to find Season 2. Not only did I find Season 1, it was only $16!
This was followed by another happy thought when I remembered I still hadn't finished watching all of Scrubs Season 1 yet. I've still got half a season to go. Take that bad summer tv!

Another thing I am aiming to do over summer is to try and see my way to the end this time of the Roller Derby Workout Challenge.
Other things I like to give a try over summer is try on some more vegan cooking for size and dip my toe into the raw food movement.

This is my tribute to Christmas...

Probably would have been cheaper to just buy the chocolates, but I think it was worth it to pay the extra to get the benefit of someone else's time and expertise.

No other cooking yet, but I'll try to get pictures of anything I do get round to making this Christmas.

Don't Cha

2010-12-11T13:04:00.003+11:00

Dont cha wish your life was fun like mine? Dont cha, dont cha?

"To look at you, you wouldn't think you were very energetic. But the way you jumped out of that chair and leaped into my office, your obviously naturally very energetic. Don't resist it." - My doctor to me on my last visit.

It's a good thing I am so energetic as earlier this week I had to leg it down to the back garden of a two-storey house in a big hurry. The Daft White Cat and I have been house sitting. It's now over, and I never once managed to convince Miss Stash to have a vegetable curry. Sad.
Back to the story at hand, I only open the doors onto the balcony that had fly screens to keep the DWC in. Only I had to open one that didn't to chase a fly out, DWC also got out.

While I'm trying to move outdoor furniture to retreive him from where he was hiding, I just saw the white tail and back legs disappearing into a tree that grows next to the balcony. I rushed downstairs and out into the garden, over to the tree. No sign of him under it, peer over fence into neighbours garden no sign of him there. I'm trying to peer up into the tree thinking maybe he is stuck up there and I need to find a ladder to get him down. No DWC in the tree either.

He was gone, there I was standing in the garden convinced I've lost him for good and feeling all sad, when I catch sight of something white under some bushes about 5 meters away from the tree.
It was a DWC, completly oblivious to the panic he's caused me, merrily sniffing the plants in the garden. I was thrilled to find him. Alas the DWC was more thrilled with the garden than with me.

Snaffled up and brought back into the house, I'm panicking about him, the DWC? Just capers about the house like nothing happened at all. We had a one sided conversation where I informed the DWC he might have 9 lives, but I have only 1 and it's been considerably shortened by him climbing into trees off balconys. It ended when the DWC rushed to the window to watch birds flying outside.
I know when I'm defeated, another battle to the cat, at this rate I think I should just concede the war and be done with it.

Once a week since I've been doing the Healthy For You, I have to do the naked eyeball. Stand in front of the mirror naked, and eye myself off as I do quarter turns. This week I have shrunk, which I'm pleased about. So far I have one of two results, I've shrunk or nothing's obviously changed at all. So far, touch wood, to my delight I haven't actually been putting anything on anywhere. Yes! I rock.

I can also touch my toes, which seems incredible, it's been years since I've been able to do that. This is surely a good sign?

Not the so positive, I failed my accounting unit and will need to repeat it this year, which I am a tad annoyed about because it now I have to post pone another 2 subjects that I need to have it for.
Really a) I struggled on the exam so I'm not surprised this happened.
b) I struggled during the semester so not surprised about a)
c) Loads of people (me included) failed to pass the in semester test. About 10 people actually passed, the rest of us got not close, quite not close or perhaps you should reconsider your subject choices level of marks.

End result? I suspect I'll spot a few familiar faces when I re-do the subject.

Something I am madly in love with at the moment is e-books. They tend to be really cheap, there's no extra cost for postage and they arrive almost instantly!

Just before Halloween I bought Wicked Treats from Bittersweet. I haven't actually made anything from it yet sadly. But am intrigued about the licorice recipe. I haven't really baked or made any sweet things in forever, well apart from a couple batchs of muffins loaded with fruit.
Christmas is approaching now's the time to make goodies and give them away I suppose.

Last month I bought the EtsyVeg Team's World Veg Day Cookbook, haven't made anything out of this either. Trouble is I am notoriously bad about cooking for myself. And the rest of the family just can't be enthused about vegetarian food. Who are these people? And how is it that I can actually be related to them???

The latest e-book purchase or should I say purchases was for Potluck Mania zine number's 1 and 2. These I've only just got, but they are full of yummy things. And I totally want to hijack the Thanksgiving menu for a Christmas one. Pumpkin Spice Bread with Streusel Topping how good does that sound?

While I've always been down with vegetarianism, I always was a bit sceptical about vegans. My mind has been changed, I can't see myself tagging myself with that title any time soon. I like wool and alpaca yarns way too much to forgo them forever.
But I am now intrigued about raw foodists, it is a vegan diet, but nothing is cooked as such. Although the one book I have seen on the subject things were "cooked" in a dehydrator, food couldn't be heated past a certain tempature to be considered "raw". I think it would be a fascinating topic to know more about and even experiment with, but I can surely say it wouldn't be a lifestyle of choice for myself.

2010-12-04T20:27:00.003+11:00

Pretty quiet on today's front. Had a session of Mari Winsor's pilates with a resistance band this morning, a lot of fun but I'm not really very stretchy. Ah well with practice I suppose.

Tonight before bed I am hoping to do some relaxtional yoga, see if it helps me settle down and sleep better at night.

Last night I tried to tape the first episode in a series called Mistresses, it's hosted by that woman who's name I've forgotten but co-hosted Scrap Heap Challenge with Robert Llewellwyn (aka Kryton from Red Dwarf - took ages to figure out why he seemed familiar).
Anyway back to Mistresses last night's episode was meant to be interviewing Jeffrey Archer's (some British dude is all I know, think he writes books?) ex-mistress, a serial mistress, a dominatrix and a mistress who had a child with her married lover. And also the bit I was most interested in, talking about one of history's most famous mistresses, Cleopatra.

Only it must have been bad reception last night on the channel, because the sound works fine but I have a lot of problems with the picture freezing up.
I was highly insulted, a study found they said men prefer blondes, followed by red heads for mistresses and brunettes for wives. Second to blondes???
Although I will confess I'm less miffed about not being a bride, would you eat the same food everyday at all meals and be happy? No I'd be bored in no time. I do object both morally and selfishly to having to share, when your with me, it's only me! But still second to blondes.

A German study a few years ago released results that said that red headed women were the most passionate at playing chess. Although if using a board game analogy perhpas Twister would be better. Unless it's a woman in a commited relationship who is dying her hair red, in which case she's subliminally advertising to other men that she's currently unsatisfied playing Twister with her current partner.

Now you'll have something to think about with your hair colour now won't you? Especially if your dying it something other than your natural colour!

My date with diestiny

2010-12-03T17:38:00.002+11:00

I had my appointment with my dietition today, I am very excited. My diet is pretty good, I need ot keep eating what I'm eating but just less of it. Too much of a good thing can also add weight if your not using it all up.

My peanut butter addiction has to be curbed, working off current consumption, I'm at 15kg a year! And given I'm eating quantities that gives me an energy intake equivelent to a full meal, so not good. Especially given that I've probaly had the PB as a snack from the jar pre-dinner....eep!

I've come away also more aware about glycemic loading (different again to glycemic index), carb exchange and the start of calorie/kilojoule counting (I can pick which ever I prefer).

And the really good part? I seem to be getting enough protien to meet my needs, without actually needing to increase my meat intake. Something I have been hoping to avoid.

Oh and I also scored a free tape measure, bonus! And I have had my fears about the BMI put to rest, it's less usueful than it appears.

Now in a new fun size!

2010-12-02T15:44:00.002+11:00

I've been trying to do mini-blogging, just little short posts. I hoped I might be able to keep it up everyday. We'll see.

Yesterday I ordered a copy of Appetite For Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I've had all her books bar Brunch through my local library and she has a fantastic style and comes across as very passionate about food.
I'm going to be jumping out at the postie everyday till it arrives now I am so excited about it, this one of Isa's (rhymes with pizza) is about low-fat low-sugar vegan cooking.

On the weekend I am planning to make these from her website - Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles. Granted mine won't be vegan, I can't justify opening non-dairy milk just for this when I have so much dairy needing to be used up first in my fridge. They sound delicious and I read about them on another vegan food blog where they'd been having a month of cookies. I will look up the name later and link to it here for anyone who's interested.

Today I had an adventure to town, it truly was an adventure, involved comedic timing to miss the bus to get there to start with. Dawdles in the Body Shop haven't been in to it in years, they still have the exquisite white musk scented stuff and I tested out their hemp body butter. My skin does feel quite lovely having tried it. The hemp body butter does have a slightly unusual scent though and have no idea how best to describe it.

Quite a few of the newer veg cook books I have been reading make reference to hemp products for use in cooking. I must investigate here and see if we have any available.

Where I talk once again about my ambivelance to Christmas

2010-11-25T16:57:00.000+11:00

I've oft talked about my annoyance and disregard for Christmas and all it's trappings. But also about how passionate I am about food magazines and generally cooking in general and how I obsessivly peruse and collect these as the silly season rolls around.

This year, not even the prospect of baking up a storm can temper my disdain for the silly season. I was perusing a homewares catalog with my mother while telling her how I didn't see the point to Christmas.
And my mother says to me "Christmas is nice."
Nice? Nice? "I don't think Christmas is nice."
"You must be a throw back to your father's side of the family."

I beg to differ I think it is the Christmas lovers who might be the odd ones out, there must be a certain level of madness where you can actually believe you enjoy Christmas.

Multi-media joys

2010-11-23T14:46:00.002+11:00

I was poking through my workout dvd's this morning and was bamboozled by what I had done with two of my pilates ones. So I had to do that thing, where I pretended I was a pilates dvd in order to think like one and imagine where I would hide myself.

After elimanating the obvious places I would have put them, I opted for the not likely but I have to look anyway, opened up a desk drawer and there they were. But not just my missing pilates dvd's but also another 2 dvd's I had completly forgotten about. A yoga-pilates blend and Chakra Dance Flow - Movement Meditation, both still in their original wrappers.

It's like having your birthday all over again. Speaking of presents, I got a Sanity gift card last Chrsitmas, yes Xmas '09. You have a year in which to use it before it "expires", if it's considered the equivelent of cash, but cash dosen't expire? Weird.
I came home with Scrubs - Season 1 and 30 Rock - Season 2 (unfortunatly they didn't have Season 1).

Maybe this year

2010-11-22T14:36:00.002+11:00

Things I say I will make for every Christmas and then don't but this year will surely be the exception!

1. Gingerbread House
2. Buche de Noel
3. Fruit Mince Pies
4. Panaforte
5. A buffet table loaded down with the things I like - seafood, assorted veg dishes and dessert.
6. A truly epic edible centerpiece. Like trees constructed out of truffles or those chewy lolly leaves. Because you totally need something to wheel out with coffee after lunch.
7. A bunch of people who will come to lunch and tell me how a) fabulous I am, b) pretend I'm witty and laugh at all my jokes and c) tell me how wonderful my food is a la Nigella. Oh and d) be impressed by awesome hat, I need a really big hat.

Quick question how often have you seen someone at one of Nigella's dinners more than once? Do they just grab people off the street? Hire extras?

Well, let me tell you...

2010-11-21T16:07:00.002+11:00

Isn't that how all stories start? I have been absent from blog land, because a) I had nothing really blog worthy to write about, b) I figured I could give my blog a revamp and unveil it with a new look but it turns out I'm not that technically sound at webpages.

I had a very exciting afternoon yesterday, went on a road trip for a knitting adventure, met lots of new knitters and had some delicious treats (ginger coffee no less!). Unfortunatly today has become a bit of an anti-climax with nothing exciting happening.
Now all I can do is be really, really, really excited about our next knitting adventure.

World Dance New York who I love for their choice of DVD productions and who you may remember me writing exctedly about their How to be a Pin-Up Model some time ago when I received it, are now about to release another gem that has my heart all a flutter...Femme Fatale How To: - Makeup, Hair, Accessories Step-by-Step for Victorian Vampire, Flapper Vamp and Gothic Lolita.

And just because I feel soemtines life can be a little dull, and sometimes you can just take yourself too seriously, in effect of that 2011 for me will be the Year of the Disguise - yes 2011 shall be the year I don wigs and false eye lashes (False Eyelash Love!) and people watch in cafe's while drinking skinny lattes. Not that I expect to be incognito at all, people who know me will see me and say "Look there's DarksideKnitter in a wig in a cafe."
Probably I should be knitting, doing something while I loiter in cafes. Or playing with a knitting app, I wonder if they exist? I've been dead keen on an iPod Touch since Nigella released her app for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and have been looking for more reasons to justify purchasing one, like a whole load of free yoga apps, Poh's Kitchen app (also free!) and now Dick Smith have the iPod Touch's starting about $225. Hmm wonder if there'll be any left after Chrstmas???

Healthy for Me!

2010-07-22T08:55:00.002+10:00

Quite some time ago I took on the Healthy For You Challenge, and then I kind of fell off the wagon.

I sort of got back on a few months ago, and made a half hearted effort to clean my act up. But about a month ago I saw my doctor and it's back on the carb battling diet. I had this about 2 years ago and it was so hard. I love, love, love carbs.

2 years ago it was no potatoes, no white bread only wholemeal, no pasta at all, brown rice only but if I really couldn't face it only long grain white.

This time around it's multigrain bread, which is good because I really really really hate wholemeal bread. No potatoes again, but I can and should be substituting sweet potato in for it when cooking, actually I like sweet potato better than potato anyway so it's all good. Brown or Basmati rice, I always eat basmati rice, and I eat it lots, at least 3 to 4 times a week. It's become my go to carb since I've cut right back on potatoes and pasta on the last couple of years.
And pasta has now come off the no-go list, but only as an occasional.

For the past month I have been really good, porridge for breakfast, wholegrain bread, no sugar in my coffee/tea, eating way more fruit and veg and generally avoiding naughty things like chocolate, biscuits, cake, fast food and even the diet soft drinks.

End result? I'm eating better but less, but I'm not hungry and actually find I eat smaller serves of things now as well. No more insomnia, mid afternoon meltdowns or sugar cravings.
Best of all I've actually lost some weight and my 2-block walk has gone from 30 mins to 15 mins, I need to do 2 laps to get the same amount of time as when I started.

When I saw the doctor this week he was pleased, I was pleased, and better yet there was no more talk of lapbands, which pleased me even more. When I saw him a month ago, I don't know if he genuinely thought the only way I'd lose weight was with the aid of surgery or as I saw it, the gauntlet had been thrown and I've spent the last month out to prove a point.
I'm now to keep up the good work, and see the doctor again in a month. I've started a food diary to keep track of what I am eating so if things start to stagnate a bit I can look back over it and see what needs tweaking to get things moving again and also as a way I can look back and see how much good work and effort I have put in and how I actually can do it.
I can have a Bob the Builder moment, yes I can!

It's official I'm free to be naughty!

2010-06-22T15:20:00.002+10:00

Yes, my exams are over so I have time now ot be naughty and plot lots of mischief to get into.

One of the things I have previously talked baout getting up to in my living room was the How To Be a Pinup Model DVD. Which duly arrived before my break started and well I couldn't resist and had to have a look at it.
Personally I think a "complete guide" is a tad overgenerous, there was plenty of room for more I think on this DVD, perhaps it should have been a "beginners guide". As cool as the hair styles were I am still a little dubious about curlers, there was a reason I bought a hair straightner!

Something that has been on my want list forever, Bellydance for the Beautiful Freaks with Tempest. Oh yes Gothic Bellydance is very much alive and kicking, although this wonderful dvd from Tempest is more about merging belly dance into something mostly suited for the dance floor in a Goth club. Not that we have a Goth club where I live, I believe there is one or was one in the capital city.
Maybe I'm glad I have a feeling here in my locale a Goth club would only be filled with poseaurs. Because let's face it, Gothdom is mostly populated by the young and I speak from experience, to prove how non-conformitive you are with society and how much cooler you are, you are such a poseaur, yeah look at me I'm death personified! Ooogie boogie!

And then you grow up, and probably grow out of the need to be a special snowflake or you simply have money of your own and can have as many coffin handbags, stompy boots and lacey tops your budget can with stand. Because somebody somewhere has to keep all those people employed who make rubber bats and plastic skeletons!

I don't get Emo, I can't see the appeal it seems so dreary, even the music is dreary, and there seems to be license for full on drippiness in the Emo domain. At least Gothdom was all about fun and campyness or at least in the School of Trashy Goth I burst cackling from it was. I do realise there are actually some quite classy Goths who dress very well and are probably far from tacky at all.

Which is what I love so much about knitting, especially now, it so lends itself well to the construction of things to complement your wardrobe so well, shawls and fingerless gloves anyone? Or my latest addition to my Avarice list is this Patons Metro Volume 4, full of good things. Also really like the designs if not the colours in Patons Surf and Beach, another I'd liek to get my hands on.

Before I ordered Beautiful Freaks, I ordered from the same supplier Tribal LA - Live in Los Angeles (you'd think the LA part would be a give away to start with). I was waiting, waiting, waiting and BF turned up really quickly given it shipped from America. But still no Tribal LA! I was getting a tad worried, but when it was actully shipped I got an e-mail telling me it was sent and if it hadn't arrived by a certain date to please e-mail.
The date duly came and passed last week, so I e-mailed on the weekend to let them know it hadn't and general wailing because I was sad as it had obviously been eaten by the postal service.

Blasted thing turned up today didn't it? I had to rush to my computer to hastily write another e-mail and ask them to disregard my previous e-mail as it had turned up today. Felt a bit of an idiot, oh well it happens I suppose. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the local postal service now contracting a number of deliveries out???

My fave Rachel Brice is alas not on this DVD, however my other girl crush Sharon Kihara is! In all her tattooed wonder, she's very tall and thin and this makes me very envious.
I shall have to make a time to watch it and finish my mother's hats for her, she has two that need to go on to the double points to finish decreasing and one on the double points also needing to be finished decreasing.

But once all three hats are done, that will be another three she has ready to send off to Tibet. It's not till you here about how the other half are doing till you really appreciate all you have. I've got a lot to be thankful for, more than just missing DVD's arriving eventually!

What have I created?

2010-05-30T14:29:00.003+10:00

My mum is off and running with her knitting in the round on circulars, however I have to transfer the stitches to double points and finish the decrease as she hasn't mastered that yet.

I seem to have contracted a cold from one of my fellow germy students. That's the only trouble when your moving around a campus and touching chairs and desks and shared computers with a number of other people, alhtough I try to take full advantage of the antiseptic gel stuff for your hands which are available scattered around campus. Probably should have supplemented it with one of those tiny bottles I could have stashed in my bag.

I have fallen in love with a German band by the name of Corvus Corax, there quite a popular choice with bellydancers who do some of my personal favourite styling of fusion. Punk rock meets Medieval is how I have heard it described.

It's a future must to go on my iPod, along with a band I found on You Tube in the related video side bar while looking at Corvus Corvax, called Apocalyptica a Finnish Hard Rock Cello band. Yes, that's right a hard rock cello band.
I must say I wasn't all surprised to discover they were European, I must say they produce some very interesting rock/metal bands in Europe. However H.I.M., which I will admit has a fantastic look, very European goth always done well, I have yet to hear any of there music that I actually like. I am disappointed.
With Eurovision been and gone again, springs to mind the band Lordi? I must see if I can track them down on You Tube I have never heard anything from them. Hmmmmm.....

I need to do some more work on my Knit for Tibet hat, speaking of Tibet I was reading about an Australian climber who has just done his third trip up Everest. He was talking about the bodies he had passed on the way up and apparetnly also a couple of climbers from other groups who died on the descent and how they could do nothing for them.
Apparetnly on the Nepal side of Everest, Sherpas are endevouring to recover the bodies of those who have died on the mountain.

There was a series on tv about the Himalayan Rescue Association and the about medical staff working at Everest treating climbers and Sherpas during the season. Very interesting, and amazing just how many people were climbing Everest!

What I will be doing on my holidays...

2010-05-26T11:44:00.004+10:00

I've finished my last piece of continuous assesment yesterday at school, so now I have a couple of final classes where we will basically do revision and then I just have to study, study, study for my impending exams.

Then after my exams are done I will be on break, what will I do for my holidays? Well, some time ago I pre-ordered a DVD and impaiently awaited it's release. Mind you I didn't place my pre-order as soon as it become possible, something I was glad for when the release date got pushed back twice.
It seems to have stuck this last time and today was release day, and my copy has shipped! It's coming from America so I don't expect it for at least 3-4 weeks. It should by that timing arrive after I haver finished my exams.

And since June is so not conducieve to outdoor activites in my part of the world, far too cold, it will be a perfect in my living room activity.

However I do fear a slight complication, the only hair styling implement I own apart from brushes and combs is a hair straightner. Hmmmmm....I think world's are going to collide and I'm not going to be happy, I've been trying to get my not naturally straight hair straight for years. However I must confess to many, many, many, many years ago when I was much, much, much younger and probably only slightly less foolish than I still am, actually attempting to iron my hair.
Nothing, nada, zip, didn't make the slightest impression on it at all.

There'll also be more time to knit, I have temporarily put all my projects on hold as I have started a hat for Knit for Tibet through the Ravelry. They are trying to get as much warm knitwear over before the cold spell really hits in August (-10C!) so I'm on hat and cowl duty, two things I know I can knit up relatively quickly and not need to sew up.
I have a lot of empathy for anyone who has to endure sub zero tempetures. Having spent a fair bit of time at bus stops early morning in winter at temps that ranged from 0C down to about -4C, that was cold enough for me and I was well wrapped up with hat, scarf, coat and mittens and still cold!

I taught my Mum how to knit in the round and she almost knit an enitire hat in one night she had to stop as she needed to transfer from the circular needles to double points which I need to look out for her as she dosen't have any, to finish the final decrease.
After all these years of telling me she can't knit in the round, it's too tricky, she could never do that. I wanted so badly to say to her what she always says to me, see what you can do when you put your mind to it!

2010-05-20T14:31:00.002+10:00

I am so annoyed, I have to do a presentation for one of my subjects next week. Well we had a sign up sheet in class to fill in our preferred time. Then they did a new sheet with more times, as they decided to extend how long on that day they would do presentations.

Turns out I'm the only person for Monday afternoon, everyone else who chose Monday picked a morning slot. Our assessor Monday is coming up from the Hobart campus, so I've been asked if possible if I would take a morning slot instead since it's just me in the afternoon and late afternoon at that.
Because I picked a late time, as my only class on Monday is late afternoon so I picked one about an hour before my lecture, presentations 5 minutes I well and truly expected to be done and over with.

I'm cross, because I thought they offered those times and they were obviously prepared for our assessor to be here all day. It's not really convenient for me, it's just too much hassle to come in, go home and then come back which means depending on what times are left I could be here all day trying to fill in time.
Now I normally have a day like this anyway, but I can pass the time doing my tute work ready for the rest of the week or working on assignments. But there's none of that to be done next week. Those subjects still having a tutes are simply going to be revision and exam prep, where we turn up and they tell us what to expect on the exam and what we should prepare for.
Mind you one of mys ubjects is not having a lecture or tute next week - that's the one I have the inconveniently timed presentation for.

Another thing I am annoyed about, you know winter's hit when all the boots come out. All the young things are striding around campus in boots, not a ballet flat in sight. Every year boots come in to fashion for winter, I love boots, out I go in search of a pair. Every year they have all got pointy toes! And every year I can't buy any boots because my feet don't fit into pointy toed shoes or boots, not unless I buy too big and have a clown shoe thing going on. Not practical at all.

But an exciting thing, I remembered I am going to Knitting in the Pub tonight, I had forgotten that. When I remembered it was highly exciting. I shall be endevouring to finish the Autumn Dash mittens I am working on, then hopefully my hands won't freeze off and I can get more knitting done.
I am attempting to be really cheap this winter, after last winter where I was a bit extravgent ran the heater a lot at a very high temp, I am going so far with putting more layers on this year. Then if I'm still cold I can put the heater on but low only. So far so good.

Another exciting thing I haven't talked about yet, or at least I don't think I have is, I'm going to see Bill Bailey!!!
Only now I have to be good inbetween now and when he arrives (July!) because if Miss Stash decideds I have been too naughty she'll not let me have my ticket. We booked online with her credit card so they mailed the tickets out to Miss Stash who has them stashed away, I am not allowed to have mine In Case I Lose It, Or I Am Too Naughty To Be Allowed To Go.

Right I have to go practice being Good, probably means something like not wearing tea cosies on my head in public or something.

All roads lead to pole dance (Or my belated HFY Challenge post for the week)

2010-05-14T15:18:00.006+10:00

Well they at least do in my life. People tend to laugh when I talk about pole dancing, but I learned alot from those girls way back yonder.

I found plethora of ideas and some very sound advice on fitness while investigating pole dance in cyber land something which I've tried to follow up in the real world by reading books and magazines devoted to fitness.

Thanks to pole dancers I discovered that there were things known as Kettlebells, it gave me reason to give Pilates some serious thought and it prompted me to go back and relook over belly dance. For which I am hugely grateful for I love Mari Winsor's pilates and belly dance seemed to have undergone a revolution and it now had styles like Tribal Fusion, Dark Fusion and Gothic.

These women did so much more than just pole dance, they were all involved in other fitness activitys, various dance forms, different martial arts, hooping, burlesque and all kinds of fitness classes. This was even where I first really heard about parkour!

Jamilla one of my favourite Australian pole dancers also does aerial tissu (aerial silks) and another Suzy Q does the circle.
When I was little I loved the circus, I loved the girl in the sparkly costume up there on the circle or the trapeeze, or riding round the ring on the back of a pony doing handstands!

Probably had I done gymnastics or ballet when I was growing up I'd probably be less preoccupied with dance, leaping, twisting and twirling now. But I loved dress-up as a child, my nanna had the best box of clothes for dress-ups, somewhere I have a picture of me wearing a cotton embroided blouse and a jaunty purple beret over my normal outfit.
And, well, I still love dress-up now...only now it involves false eyelashes that have long feathery ends and green lipstick. Maybe I'd still be obsessed with twirling and twisting?

In my living room I am a legend, no I mightn't actually be any good at anything I like to jump in and try but since it's just me it dosen't really matter. The latest addition to my repertoire has been Samba - think Rio carnivale style not Dancing with Stars.
It has a completly different feel to it than my prefered syles of belly dance, however I have seen a belly dance fusion with Indian dance influence that has me going hmmmmm...

With all this creative passion, I love dance, cooking and my knitting and they all have to some element of fun to them as well. However I have left music well alone, I am not one of life's muscians by any stretch of the imagination. Although it hasn't stopped me from looking at a class for a women's drumming class for health and harmony and wondering what if????

Tonight I am making Nigella's Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake, to be eagerly devoured while I watch Notorius C.H.O - I saw this years ago on tv and it was my first introduction to Margaret Cho and where I first fell in love with her.
I also have the latest Family Circle to visually devour crammed full of chocolate and knitting, just what you need on a cold, dark night to inspire you.

Make my day punk!

2010-05-11T11:56:00.004+10:00

I'm not feeling a particular lot of good will to fellow mankind at the moment. I am sick of people who think they are the centre of the universe. There are a number of them in one of my subjects who I could cheerfully strangle.
In their world I am sure they are witty/smart/insightful, to the rest of the people in the lecture they are just smart arses/time wasters on their own personal tangent. If you have a valid point make it, if not shut up and stop wasting everyone else's time.

Other people who aren't feeling a lot of good will to fellow mankind this week? The headlines splashed all over the papers about a month ago was about a man who had been pimping out a 12-year-old girl. He's since been sentanced to 8 years imprisonment. This was done in conjunction with the girl's mother and the story in the papers at the time was it was so her mother would have money to buy drugs.

There's since been a lot of controvery as a Facebook group has been set up and people have been voicing their opinions on the matter, so much so it's gotten a lot of news coverage in it's own right. Are people actually surprised about this?

This week is the girl's mother's sentancing, she's pleaded guilty and her lawyer is saying that his client was worried about having money to pay off her mortgage and that she has just recently come back from testyfying at a trail interstate as she herself was a victim of sexual abuse as a child. And his client needs to be seperated from the rest of the prison population as they are "hostile" towards his client.

No matter how hard up for money you are or how horrible a life you've had, there is never any excuse for deciding to send your 12-year-old out to work as a prostitute. Never. However my first thought when this story initally broke was if this woman was so desperate and she thought prostitution was the quickest financial solution she should have gone herself.

I live in a state where prostitution is legal, but brothels are illegal. Brothels used to be legal but the laws changed and every so often the Scarlet Alliance come down and there's a lot of talk about changing the laws, there's a bit of news coverage but that's about it.

To further complicate this story the girl was a ward of state even though she was living with her mother at the time so now there's huge uproar and investigations into the state welfare. Who was supposed to be looking out for this girl? Clearly her mother wasn't. Which brings me to another pet peeve, dodgy parents.

Children are not cash cows, slaves or the means to making you a whole person as Jillian Michaels famously said recently about adopting children, by rescuing a child your rescuing a part of yourself. Oh dear Jillian, not the right answer.
Dear Jillian, perhaps you should just go back to bullying the obese while avoiding your own fat phobia issues.

Tracy Anderson, trainer to the stars, you know Gwenyth Paltrow and Madonna. Tracy went on Oprah with Gwyneth and told everyone women shouldn't lift weights heavier than 3 pounds (about 1.5kgs?) because otherwise you'll bulk up. B******t!
And in an article I read just recently about Tracy Anderson she was talking about her workout program and how "you can eat anything" but "you shouldn't eat bread four days before a photo shoot" and you shouldn't eat fast food. What happend to "you can eat anything if you follow my program"????

Where do these people come from? Or more importantly who's certifying them?

What I did on my weekend...

2010-05-02T20:39:00.004+10:00

What have I done with myself this weekend? Not any homework that's for sure, have to do it tomorrow. V. naughty I know but I've got the worst case of the blahs at the moment.

I think it's a combination of the weather change and just general exhaustion, all this thinking takes a toll on a girl. Yesterday I made Fried Rice, I haven't made it in years. And it was so good! I can't say I'm a huge fan of bought fried rice as it often feels a bit greasy, tasty but greasy.
Really tiny of amount of oil went into mine, which is why I think it managed to stay super tasty but still quite light feeling.
Tonight I made Nigella's Chocohotopots, absolutely delicious. They are so going on to the make again list along with the fried rice. I took some pictures of the Choc-pots, I will get them off the camera and post to show you all their gloriousness. If that's even a word!

Watched Doctor Who I'm not really quite convinced with the current incarnation, he dosen't quite have the passion to face off the Daleks. For that reason I'm crediting tonight's episode as a bit of a fail.
Tonight is also Castle night, oh how I love Castle. And they've announced a third season! Yes! Although another thing I am super excited about is I think we're close in episodes to America, shortly after all the tweeting about the red lipstick named Mistress we actually had the episode.

During tonight's Castle I am going to attempt to get some knitting done, Miss Stash started a Dashing for herself, knitted the first one and hated it. Now I never would have picked the pattern or the colour she choose for myself. But I totally fell in love it. All I need to do is knit the second mitt and then they will be all mine! Yeah new mitts!
Going to come in very handy at the moment, I wore my neck warmer to school the other day, yes that chilly and way easier to keep on than loose scarf ends.
Which given that we all had to evacuate the buildings due to a fire alarm was quite handy. However I couldn't help but notice after I had to down my pen mid home work that while I was standing under cover (it was raining) with everyone else while I was standing round doing my best Lone Wolf, all the young people seem to travel in packs. Hmmm, it was before class so I didn't even have any classmates to converse with while I waited. A lecture would be even better loads of class mates to congregate and converse with then.

But I think I see a way into to infiltrating the packs, it needs a cunning plan! Oh and a disguise, and the disguise goes something like this.

A super slouchy beret (Knitter, knit thy self a super slouchy beret!)
A ginormous hand bag, the bigger the better here.
A pair of ballet flats.

Cunningly disguised as one of "Them", I can then infiltrate their packs as they roam the campus ingratiting myself in with them and earning their trust and finding out what if any rebellious or subversive things they are up to. Which from snippets of conversation I overhear is apparently nothing.
And maybe no on the ballet flats. Me in ballet flats? I rock hats and hand bags but I just don't have the personality to carry off ballet flats. I'm more of a chunky boot girl.

Wii are not amused or are Wii?

2010-05-01T20:11:00.005+10:00

I just signed up to Spark People, once again the same group on the Ravelry who were so excited about the Wii Fit also are uber excited and talk lots about this Spark People so I joined.

And while trawling through the fitness articles I found one on Wii Fit, it's either a feast or a famine! In their article they also linked to this You Tube vid making fun of the Wii. Snarf!

Where do I end?

2010-04-28T17:06:00.006+10:00

First off a big thank you to everyone for their advice re the Wii Fit, I am a member of a group on the Ravelry and last year they started a fitness thread and we were all motivating each other on. And people were really excited about their Wii Fit or really excited because they were going to be getting one.
However, I never actually found out what the Wii Fit did, or if it was worth it's purchase price. I even Googled it and had no luck. Having asked, you've all answered and I found a recent informative blog post so I am now more aware.

Secondly I am very excited about this recipe I found on a blog, I was going down a rabbit hole like Alice, following link to link and ended at this recipe for Taco Pasta. Mmmm looks good, I think I could do that and it's just the weather at the moment for a pasta bake.

And on for my weekly Healthy For You challenge, this must be end of week 3 now. I discovered I liked Pilates, I was never sure I would. I am a mad keen yoga buff but I often looked at Pilates and dismissed it thinking it would be too samey. Then I finally got one, a Stott I think. And I hated it with a passion.
Fast forward, I have one of Mari Winsor's, she of the infomercial fame although having said that I haven't seen one for her in ages. Oh how I now like Pilates! Thank you Mari.

Many, many, many years ago in a galaxy far away...around the same time I really got into yoga, I was also intrigued with belly dance. Only back then it was well I may be ignorant and making sweeping statements it was very "Middle Eastern". And in that I mean it all seemed to draw from an Arabic/Egyptian kind of background. This was pre-internet, pre-culture explosion as well.
Now you can surf the net to see what people are doing on the other side of the world, you can get books on everything and everyplace now. There's no lack of knowledge available now, but then the world was a lot bigger and places and other cultures were much farther away and far more mysterious and unknown.

I bought a video on belly dance, it had horrible chinky clinky music that irritated me to no end and the instructor was wearing a unitard, it was red, and when she came to use her veil it was also red. Most of the time I had no idea what she was exactly trying to demonstrate and this was way back in the dark ages, pre-internet, pre-YouTube, pre-Paypal and ease of shopping from overseas even finding this one video locally was about it at the time.
I gave up belly dance as a bit of a bad joke.

Then some how, I forget what I saw where but I was looking at it again, thinking about it. Belly dance now is kind of like ice-cream there's a flavour to suit everybody! While I was browsing the many flavours that I found out about Rachel Brice.

Rachel Brice is a incredibly wonderful thing to know about. I am hugely enamored of her, in part because she's so bendy but I am also fascinated by Tribal Fusion style (or flavour!) of belly dance she practices. I got her first DVD, and was then hugely intimidated because she is so lean and bendy and found my self scurrying for safer ground with the equally wonderful Sharon Kihara (think Angela from Bones meets Abby from NCIS).
Anyway back to Rachel, she's about to release another DVD, which will include details on one of the things she is famous for in her routines - very cool looking back bends!
I realise these are not unique to Rachel or Tribal Fusion they pop up else where across belly dance, but I just find them here to be particularly awe inspiring.

When I took on the HFYC, it was partly as a way to keep my motivation going, make me perhaps slightly more accountable in my effort to clean my life up. There was a certain quality of life I was aspiring to for some time and this seemed an opportunity to keep at it.
But now, now my new goal for HFYC? I want to be bendy like Rachel Brice, I want to do one of those cool looking back bends among other things.

Up until here I liked belly dancing, but here after I saw this is where I fell in love with it!

Where I find a new soapbox...

2010-04-20T14:11:00.002+10:00

HFY End Week One - Well nothing earth shattering to report on this front yet. I have been working my way through the links on the blog roll on HFY and so far it's been 50/50 live and dead links. The check in links on Scalejunkie.com is all live so there's been some successful reading there.

I find myself nodding in agreement as I read these blog posts as I find I can really empathise with what there women are writing about.
There isn't exactly a new story to found here, women with weight loss goals have been around forever. We clearly like weight loss stories; as a society we seem to have a passion for thinness.
As Lord Vetinari said to William de Worde in Terry Pratchett's novel The Truth, people don't want new news they want old news. They want to read about dog biting man, not man biting dog!

Magazines love to write glowing stories about how some celeb got their pre-baby body back and write of the epic tragedy that has caused celebs weight to balloon out and generally give them a good hiding with the proverbial stick. However, when they lose it you'll hear all about in glowing terms whatever exercise and diet regime they have been following to bounce back so quick and how you too can benefit from this.

But Celebrity Fitness is a huge industry, Elle, Cindy Crawford, Rachel Hunter and Jerry Hall have all made workout’s, fast forward and now we have workout’s from Jordan aka Katie Price, The Girls Next Door (those infamous Playboy girls), the Pussycat Dolls (not actually featuring the Pussycat Dolls mind you) and a whole plethora under the Biggest Loser banner. Which has certainly given Jillian Michaels a platform to launch off a number of titles under her own name separate from Biggest Loser, people rave about her 30 Day Shred. Personally I don’t like Jillian Michaels; the lasting impression is that of an over-aerbocised megalomaniac, but that might just be me.

How about the Wii Fitness boom? And all it's associated paraphnalia? I see Biggest Loser is in on the action there as well. How do I feel about the Wii Fitness? I must admit I am both intrigued and suspicious of it. It is after all a game, a computer game and quite honestly I'd put more stock in the Girl's Next Door workout than I would in any computer game.
People rave over it and I have no doubt it does do something for you but so does walking round the block twice every day. No matter how interesting a neighbourhood you live in, that will eventually get old and kind of useless.
Aside from the benefit of trying something new to avoid boredom at some point you need to change up what your doing to stop your body from cruising through on auto-pilot and not getting the maximum benefit from your workout.
I know this is true, because I've been there, done it and seen the results.

In closing today I'm putting the question out to you in cyber land, you all get to be my opinion poll - What's the verdict on the Wii Fit? Am I simply being all dark ages biased about this particular piece of technology? If have one does it live up to all it's hype??? Come on dish it all, this inquiring mind wants to know!

Cooking, Eating and Reviewing on the Darkside

2010-04-17T16:21:00.001+10:00

Over the last two days I have been slow cooking from Sally Wise's book Slow Cooking. I've made Satay Chicken always delicious and I love satay! And yesterday I made Meatballs in Spicy Barbecue Sauce which is delicious as well but it's more of a glaze than an actual sauce on the meatballs.

Sally Wise has just released a new book Out of the Bottle, preserving and recipes using your preserves. I might have to compare it with her first book A Year in a Bottle (which was the best selling book for the year according to one of my local book stores) to see if there is much repetition, but there are no slow cooking recipes in it.
What recipes there are a fairly good I'm loathe to say basic, but there not fancy and nothing to weird or obscure to find is needed and in most instances even if you haven't preserved anything your self you can buy a commercial product equivalent not quite in the same spirit but preserving very much hinges on what's available. If you want raspberry jam, you best be making it in raspberry season!

I'll test some of the recipes and maybe try and squeeze in some preserving if I can find a suitable recipe for the time of year here and see how we go, then write up a more accurate review here.

Miss Stash and I have been watching on DVD the TV show All American Girl, oh my how it takes me back. Not only does it remind me of when I saw it the first time around but I so remember those 90's fashions!

I'm sure most people will have heard about John Cleese's 3,300 British pounds taxi ride across Europe by now. I have been following with amused interest on Twitter Bill Bailey's trip home from Spain. He's made it into France now, but hasn't yet bought an old car with which he hopes to drive back to England in.
My limited overseas travel while exciting never become adventures like this. I guess with the internet I can live vicariously through other people's adventures.

They come in 3's!

2010-04-14T19:43:00.003+10:00

Lots of things come in threes, but having written my last blog post the three most interesting things to write about all fall into my new workout plan time allotment. There was other stuff but that's mere boring drudgery and makes these 3's look awesome.

1. I discovered the Healthy You Challenge - it was exactly what I was looking for! I wanted something to keep me inspired but without sucking up too much of time and this challenge is perfect for it.

2. At school I saw on a noticeboard a poster for a Zumba Fitness Party, someone is running one locally on Monday nights, at $10 a session. Since I don't sleep well and roam about at night and by night I actually mean very very early hours of morning when it is still dark so it can be classed as night still, sometimes I find myself watching infomercials.
All the fitness machines amuse me to no end, I like how they all fold away for easy storage. My ironing board folds away for easy storage but I suspect comes out for more use than some of these machines. I also love the beauty treatment one where they drive around in a caravan and surprise "ordinary" woman with beauty treatments.
And I have totally gotten off point, I can't vouch for how many of you out there in blog land also peruse infomercials at odd hours but one that seems to get a lot of airing is the Zumba one.

Now the infomercial would have you buy a very, very, very expensive set of DVD's which come with Toning Sticks - which to me seem to be a set of plasticy looking dumbells that apparently rattle when you shake them as your dancing to the Latin beat.
While I'm quite happy to pass on the DVD"s, I am kind of intrigued about the class. It does look like it'd be fun and it is only pay for the session you attend. A thought I shall keep to think about later.

3. The school gym, I heard from them at last year's orientation and they were then touting themselves as the cheapest membership in town. Which is true if your student, it is a very cheap membership and they offer up services comparable to other gyms around town.
I think I'd need a an actual look around before parting with any cash and see how it looks, but they had just refitted it last year so everything was brand new.
Should be quite modernised then. Another thought to think about later.

But first I need to work out my plan, I feel if I actually organise something and write it down I'm probably more likely to do it. Or at least I hope I will be more likely to get off my backside and do it.

Things I Need To Do....

2010-04-11T22:52:00.003+10:00

- Homework...If I do it at school does it become school work????
- Housework...Why does it never end?
- Fix the second Punky Rose Wristlet, discovered when I went to start thumb I had been knitting the right wristlet again. No problem, managed to work it so I could get thumb in normal, all good. But no, I now need to be working back and forth and it's not in the right place. Needs more thought.
- Possibly temporarily desert PRW and work on second sock I found half finished?
- Find the other 9mm needle, I can work on finishing the scrunch scarf then.
- Take time to work out what, when and where of a new exercise plan. Must be user friendly, not boring, not too hard or worse too easy!

And if I have time left after all that possibly I could turn my mind to creating peace in the Middle East, you know just for R&R....
No, more likely at the end of the week I'll sit down and watch Margaret Cho. Very, very, very, very funny but a bit rude for some people I fear. I do love Margaret's Mommy stories!

To do now? Cup of tea and then into bed with a book, I am not yet sure if it will be a good one or a bad one.

Happy Hijacked Ancient Pagan Festival!

2010-04-05T13:56:00.016+10:00

Or as Bill Bailey would call it Happy Implausible Resurrection Day.

Reading the newspaper leading into Easter, there will be a two page spread advertising chocolate eggs and bunnies followed by a two page spread about the Christian spirituality of the occasion.

There were also quick quotes from people they'd stopped on the street and asked about if they would eat fish on Good Friday? If they'd asked me I would have said no, I tend to like making my dinner decisions on the day.
Get up and think what do I fancy for dinner tonight? And work from there. Granted 9 times out of 10 it'll be green Thai curry, but sometimes there are other things I fancy. Usually something else suitably spicy, I have been having the most immense cravings for hot spicy food lately.

To me the not eating of meat on Good Friday belongs to the Christian religion, it's like people of Jewish and Islamic faith who both have the no pork dietary rule among others. I’m not an expert on either of those religions so won’t attempt to profess what others fall under their dietary rules.

It's like vegetarians there falls many choices of what you will and won't have before moving onto fully fledged vegan. Or even more hardcore again I feel are the fruitarians, I'm never sure if I believe this or not. A fruitarian is someone who only eats produce that has fallen from the plant. Or perhaps has been picked but allows the plant to continue on living??? They'll eat an apple because the tree can live on, but they won't eat a carrot because it has ceased to continue on growing.
However a quick Google brings up this site so maybe over time its definition has changed - Fruitarian Site.

None of those options necessarily stem from a religious faith, maybe if you’re Buddhist that would encourage vegetarianism. Religion is a weird animal; if you have it does that make you better than someone who doesn’t?
I don't believe in God with a G, I don't identify myself from any branch of the Christian faith. And I must confess quite ambivalent about anyone who does have faith in any religion. Live and let live! Yet what surprise me is Christians I know who are very anti-Muslim. How dare they be allowed to build mosques! How dare they practice their non-Christian religion in our Christian country!

Last time I checked we were secular and our constitution gave us all the right to freedom of religion, we can believe or not believe as we choose. Something for which I am immensely thankful for, I can believe in the Easter Bunny!

But in closing for some light relief, how about those Republicans, the American political party and their trip to the nightclub with live faux lesbian bondage acts??? I thought they were all morally opposed to lesbians and gays.

Vacuming the cat

2010-03-30T15:09:00.008+11:00

I'm meant to be finsihsing an assignment but currently I am wresrling with my conclusion, I need to finish it and stay within the word limit as there are penalties for going over.
However I have just over 70 words left, the rest of my conlusion needs to be short or I need to cull something from somewhere else in the essay.....hmmmmm....haaaaaawww...heeeemmmm.....

I've located the details of what one of my tests tomorrow will be about, narrows down what I have to revise tonight for that one and the other one I have tomorrow I already know what it will be on.
Today I did a presentation, I thought it was awful, there was Basil Fawlty style escapedes with the lap top and projector to start with. It seemed an omen of things to come, but official verdict is the presentation went "very well". I'm inteperating that to mean a good mark.

But back to the assignment, I have this problem of I always find them hard to start but once I get started I have to struggle to rein it in under the word limit and have to start looking for lesser bits of infomration to cull to make it all fit.

A few of my favourite things

2010-03-27T00:00:00.003+11:00

My mum bought the latest Australian Women's Weekly and for any non-Aussies reading this magazine actually comes out monthly. I flipped to the food section, the only section I tend to actually read in the AWW.
And one of the food features was on High Tea as a means to promote the new AWW High Tea book.
The blurb about the book makes it sound irresistible, I love doing the whole fancy afternoon tea and getting the good china out.

"High Tea is every girl’s dream book, as delightful to look at as it is to cook from. Think finger sandwiches, scones, pastries, cakes, biscuits and slices. Think linen tablecloths and fine china, proper tea made in a teapot, your best friends gathered round, and lots of gossip. Here’s your chance to spoil yourself with cucumber sandwiches, chocolate éclairs and raspberry cream sponge. Teatime will never be the same again."

Oh yum I have to keep my eye out for this one!

It's not being released till October so a bit of a wait but there is a vampire knitting book in the works. I've seen some of the projects to be featured and really looking forward to the finished product. Even if it fails to offer up too much in what I'd actually knit I just know it's going to fit in with my other knitting books - most of which are a bit quirky to start with.

Bill Bailey. The trouser presses, tea and coffee making facilities, spider singing, eagles, sheds and tiny pixies. It never stops being funny, any of it. And the boy playing the setar in Tinselworm is delicious!

Yeah for me!

2010-03-17T15:37:00.002+11:00

Breaking my own embargo...but I got 5/10 on my Accounting quiz this afternoon. For reference top mark was 6/10. And since we all had to mark each others, took me back to primary school(!), I feel even better about my 5 since the poor soul who I marked got 0 right. (I don't know who it belongs to were all identified by student numbers which our tutor uses to identify the papers and then hand back to owners.)

But when the answers were being written up there was lots of collective moaning (and not in a good way like When Harry Met Sally) and muttering of "Oh no I'll have so many answers wrong!".
Yet there was also some discussion pre-tute, not everyone had done their Independent Study Tasks. Might've helped!

No more painting the cat's nails...

2010-03-16T14:17:00.002+11:00

Twice in the last week on Twitter people I follow have found cash in old bags. What did I find in mine an unfinished knitting project. I'd like to look through all my old bags on the off chance but it will have to wait.

Knitting, blogging, tweeting, searching bags and painting the cats nails will all have to go on the back burner. Put the nail polish down and step away from the cat!

I was filling in my calender so I have at-a-glance-monthly list of what is due when and when tests are, except Corp Reg we just have to turn up to every tute as their not telling us which tutes the tests wil be in. Very sneaky but probably very effective for attendance, learning and final pass rates.

But back to my calender, over the next 2 weeks (17th March to to the 31st March), I have in total 5 tests, 5 assignments and a oral presentation to do. Talk about baptisim of fire!
After this insanity, the following two months sees me with huge gaps between assesments loads of time to do far less work???
Admittedly census falls in the middle of this insane period so I guess either you do the work or you quit before you officially start racking up fees and/or academic penalties.

But guess who so far has been busy doing all their required reading and doing hopmework for tutes??? Guess who thought at start of smester they had plenty of time till first assessment and got stuck in on their reading (it's hard to catch up if your behind!)??? Guess who upon filling out their calender this morning had a Macauly Caulkin in Home Alone moment???

But maybe there is still time for one final Lolcat???

Would you believe???

2010-03-14T15:52:00.002+11:00

I was cleaning out one of my larger handbags so as to use it for school and I found a long forgotten UFO.
It was a finished sock and a half finished sock, everything is there but the pattern but they are an all knit sock so I just need to check other patterns regards heels and possibly the toe finishing. And no I'm not really fussed if they match exactly or not!

I've spent this afternoon preparing for tomorrow's school, printing off lecture notes and making sure my reading is up to date. There is lots of reading, there will have to be some more tonight and then some again tomorrow night.
If I were a Lolcat, I'd be a tiny kitten surrounded by huge tomes with lots of teeny tiny print with the caption reading "Why i haz so much readingz?".

Last year I came into Uni a bit apprehensive I knew it would be epic regards the workload compared to any other study I'd previously done but I got through. This year I've started back knowing full well how it all works and yet I have come back and been outraged at how much work they actually expect me to do. I think really the audacity of them!

However in the fun department, for one of my law units our head of department suggests looking to movies, TV shows and novels about law with the idea of course of using these to make comparisons to real life to fictional interpretations about it.
In the "Light Entertainment" department this week the suggestions were Legally Blonde, The Hurricane and The Castle. I'm going to concede LB and TC as light entertainment. But I feel The Hurricane is made from a much more serious stand point.

However I am joyful about Boston Legal being an acceptable topic for homework, I've been putting off and putting off buying more seasons of BL as they tend to be a bit pricey but I saw a catalog with some of the seasons on sale. Guess I have no reason to put it off any longer, it will after all help me with my school work right? ;)

As for the knitting front, well the good fight, has slowed down there. These last couple of weeks I have been too busy to sit and really work on anything but I have been able to squeeze a few rounds in here and there on the second Punky Rose Wristlet during breaks at school.

Tonight is Sunday night and that means Castle night here in Australia, if you haven't already seen Castle I can not reccomend it enough. It is very funny and certianly has some clever twists with a suitable sprinkling of quirky characters that sort of fit into the story well rather than just being there and quirky for sheer novelty value.

Blatent bragging below...

2010-02-28T18:52:00.002+11:00

Here it is my Storm Witch Cowl finished! Made to the Storm Water Cowl using some Cherry Tree Hill yarn from my stash in a lovely colour way called Tropical Storm.

And as it was one of my Knit Olympic entries, one project, three events...

The main project event for all scarfs, cowls and neck warmers etc...

The event for projects using only one skein, which was handy as I only had one to use.

For using up something from your stash that was at least year old, and my CTH was easily. More like 2 years at least.

My second cowl has temporarily been scratched, unless I find where I put my wool for it tonight and I can easily get it done tomorrow pre-cut off time. But my third project which was really only in reserve in case I had time over and I didn't expect to get done has become my second and hopefully I'll get it finished tonight. It is surprise, surprise a pair of arm warmers. I've completed the first one and they do knit up fairly quick, fingers crossed! Better yet it looks like it'll be another qualifyer for the Single Skein event.

A rose wristlet by any other name would be just as sweet.

2010-02-04T17:18:00.003+11:00

After Friday's post I spent more time working on the first Punky Rose Wristlet. And these pictures show how far I had gotten by Saturday night.

I'm really pleased now with how well the lace pattern is starting to stand out now, at first I wasn't sure how clear it would be, but it is knitting up brilliantly. And while I love the look of it, I don't think I love it enough to want to make socks in it as well. I'm still opposed to socks, I may unbend my rules for 8/10ply ones however.

Keen eyed blog readers may spot the felonious feline in the background of the second shot. He saw the camera and had to get up into the picture. That is Mr Naughty, Miss Stash's precious bundle of trouble.

Another exciting thing is, my Mum found the knitting bag she had my copy of Funky Knitting in! It was one of the first knitting books I bought myself and have been without it forever so it's nice to have it back finally.

Spotlight on a Punky Rose

2010-01-29T20:05:00.004+11:00

These are some pictures I took yesterday of my in progress Punky Rose Wristers (aka Blackrose Wristers). I have since reached up to and started the thumb gusset after taking these photos.

I am really psyched for how quickly these are knitting up, I normally not a huge fan of working with 4-ply as it seems to take forever or feels like it at least to knit up. This is Blue Moon Fibre's Sock's That Rock in Moody Blues. It is delicious in both feel and colour, and is the perfect colour combo for what I like to wear.
I have a skein also of this yarn, but in the colourway called Pirate's Booty. Bought mostly because I couldn't resist the name, and I was quite taken with most of the colour way. There was a few sections I was a bit dubious about, but having seen how this one knits up I'm sure it won't bother me at all.

What I have my eye on now is the Raven Clan collection, and for a super not subtle hint for gidt giving later this year, particulary the colour way Thraven!
Toyed with the idea of enough for a shawl, but there's so many fabulous colours I may have to content myself with a skein a year and knit my way thorugh all the hand, wrist and armwarmers I have on my to do list!
Although I must admit cowls (or neckwarmers or smoke rings or tube scarves call them what you will!) are fast jostling the aforementioned warmers as my ultimate fave thing to knit.

Last night I went out for a knit & dessert evening, hence the reason I got so much more knitting done. A bit of chatter over drinks and rather a lot of strawberries is very conducieve to making progress.
Actually earlier this week I had a Marvel movie & knit night with Miss Stash, knitted like mad all through Ghost Rider, which I love and have seen a bizillion times and somehow seemed to knit the scarf I was working on wrong. I then spent the first fantastic Four movie which I hadn't seen since it's release at the cinemas attempting to take back mohair so I could fix the scarf...yikes! Then spent the second Fabtastic Four which I have never seen knitting it properly, sigh of relief.

What prompted this Marvel mood, apart from I like to spot Stan Lee, like in Alfred Hitchcock movies playing spot Alfred. I bought the Marvel Scene It dvd game.
Now I knew I would be absolutely woeful at just about anything to do with the comics themselves, I just don't have that knowledge and I'm prepared to admit it. But I figured I'd be on firmer ground re movies and cartoons.

I'm not too good on this actor was what character in this movie? And the answer is always someone I have never heard of. However about stuff that actually took place in the movies I had slightly more of an idea. Hence my Marvel movie marathon knit session! I'll have to have a couple more before I take a crack at Scene It again I think.

I am pleased to see that Wolfman is due to open on Feb 11th here, so it will be open before I go back to school. Yeah! Just got to choose between Vietnamese, Japanese or perhaps a noodle box for after. I find myself very enraptured with noodley stir frys at the moment and have been ogling recpies for them like mad.

Tonight I have a knitting date with Wycliffe, which are shorter and faster paced than a Midsummer Murder (although these are slow and lengthy which makes them wonderful not too distracting knitting time).

Write a blog about it!

2010-01-25T16:16:00.003+11:00

Had a bit of a calamitous weekend, I broke my glasses, discovered a leak in my bathroom and during all this drama lamented that I couldn't sit and work on a concise with no spelling mistakes explanation for the local Sheriff's office as they have sent me another jury summons.
It unfortunately clashes this time right ton my return to study, last year it fell right as I was having my end of year exams.

I plan to write back to them and ask to be exempted for the rest of the year at least, I don't think I can ask for the next couple of years at the same time but I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

My dad managed to fix my glasses, which meant I didn't have to wait till today to try and go to town and get them repaired. And I got a plumber out to fix my leaky pipe in the bathroom after trying my real estate agent and having no luck.
I popped into the real estate office today to let them know I had gone ahead and organised a plumber myself, the young girls who I see once in a blue moon who do rental inspections tend to be quite friendly. But for some reason, the young girls I seem to have the misfortune to strike behind the counter at the REA office always seem to come across as a bit aloof if I put it politely, I wouldn't go so far as to say rude because their not.

I was on the phone to Miss Stash telling all my tales of woe and what had gone wrong on the weekend and she simply said to me, "Write a blog about it".
Here it is or there it was, it was just one of those days where I was just waiting for something else to go wrong. So far, so good.

And on to more exciting things, I have two projects picked out for the Knitting Olympics, with the possibility of a third. I have the patterns and yarn for all of them, needles for one and need to seek out needles for the other 2 I plan to work on.
I'm really excited about starting them actually, I am doing 2 cowls and of course a pair of the ever favourite arm warmers.

Before I go back to school, and my holidays are finished. I figure I shoul do school holiday stuff have little treats and outings, isn't that after all half the fun of school holidays???
I did I must add have 5 days away by the sea side, pure bliss, no one or anything to worry about and I did heaps of reading. I did lots of reading before I went away and have done lots more since I got back.
It's mostly been re-reading Janet Evanovich's Stephenie Plum series and reading some of the in between the numbers novels from the library I hadn't read yet and also Finger Lickin Fifteen! I read it in two nights, it was good.
My only critique of it is, it felt like an earlier novel, in the last few novels we've struck Stephenie's sister Val and her children, the lawyer Albert Kloughn and of course Sally Sweet who wears dresses and sings in a band. But they didn't pop up even in passing, it felt slightly like we'd gone backwards in some respects.

One of my outings this holidays was to see the Sherlock Holmes movie, it was absolutely fantastic. I loved their interpretation of Dr Watson and Robert Downey Jnr as Sherlock Holmes was just suitably eccentric enough.
While I was there they had a preview for a movie called The Wolfman, it had what I would call a very Victorian vibe about it which I really liked the look of.
Accordign to the official website it's released on the 12th Febuary, so before school goes back if that is a world wide date. Which I hope it is and not just a US date.

After I'd seen Sherlock Holmes I went to Dave's Noodle Box to get a take-away for dinner, a very yummy Hot Box. And as I was leaving I passed Bento, now someone has been there and told me it was very good but I forget who???
And I thought, I'll have to go before my holidays are over and try them out, I've never been to a Japanese restaurant before.

However today while I was out and about I passed a Vietnamese restaurant called Mekong, mind you it's been ages since I'd been into the square so I'm not sure how long it's been there or anything about it but last time I was in Yorktown Square Mekong was a Japanese resaurant of a name I have forgotton. But there does seem to be another Japanese restaurant in the oppodite diagonal corner from the Mekong.
Never been to a Vietnamese restaurant either so my interest has been peaked well and truly!

It's the thought that counts right?

2009-12-28T13:14:00.002+11:00

Caught up with the family yesterday and debriefed on the holly jolly family occasion, of which I wasn't there for, because I was actually having a holly jolly time.
Did I miss having Christmas with them? No not at all, I'm not going to pretend or lie that it was anything other than what it was.

Read Miss Stash's copy of Jamie's America, cover to cover, truly his best book yet. I'd like to try just about everything in it. I have just enough in gift cards to go stores that had him well below the RRP and try to secure a copy for myself if there are any left.

But talking of cookbooks, one branch of family gave gifts that were addressed to me or Miss Stash, apparently if we'd both been there we would have had to flip a coin or fight over them. Since I wasn't there Miss Stash got to open both and pick.

Price you pay for not doing the family thing? You get the Masterchef cookbook.
Can't blame Miss Stash really I would have picked the giant board and pizza cutter as well, the cutter is like the one they use in the pizza shops, the wide half circle so you rock and cut across the whole pizza. We are so going to have make pizza now, especially since I've already been delegated the fun job of using the cutter. Other members of the family think it looks scary, sometimes I wonder how it is we're related.

Have you been naughty or nice?

2009-12-25T13:24:00.006+11:00

I spent the hours between midnight and 6am this morning, alternatively shoosing the cat, turning the light on and getting up and looking for him to shoosh or being jumped on by the cat before he ricochet off to charge through the house. Somehow despite only being a cat when he runs through the house you'd think it was an elephant.

Clearly he missed the memo about the night before Christmas and no creatures stirring in houses. Of course now, now, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, he's curled up sound asleep.

My wake up call came at about quarter to eleven when Miss Stash rang me to wish me a Merry Christmas, they'd had the family present opening at 9:30. Too early in my book, I just want to be sitting down to breakfast at that time of day. They were now all doing the waiting to go to lunch at 1pm.
We had live present opening over the phone, or at least it was live opening at my end, Miss Stash just had to listen to me telling her what everything was when I opened it. All I know of what she got was a Terry Pratchett book (although I know I gave her the latest Star Trek movie and made her fave Peanut Butter and M&M Cookies as well as a no-cook caramel slice), I'm guessing the latest one and she was hoping now everyone had drifted off after present opening to be able to start reading it without looking rude.

Then spoke with the rest of the family, and was faced with the complex problem of answering the question, "What are you going to do by yourself?".
Eat green Thai chicken curry washed down with a mocktail called a Mistletoe all while comfortably ensconced on my couch watching back to back Christmas movies? Apparently this is not as exciting to other people as it is to me.

After that I wrestled with Apple/iTunes, it doesn't like my code for iTunes gift card. So no download of Twisted Sister's Twisted Christmas yet. Need to check in with family when they next ring in to get them to double check the code on their receipt.

Which brings me to 12 noon, sat down to watch Jamie Cooks Christmas while eating baked beans on toast, I was starving I needed something substantial and didn't have the patience to prepare and cook the curry. Curry's been moved to tea time, plenty of time to prepare for it.

I had vague memories of a Christmas episode Jamie did years ago and he was in New York, and that's what I thought this would be. But it turned out to be a much more recent episode he'd obviously made, I don't even like ham, but I liked the look of the Jerk Ham he made.
Then watched fascinated at the end while he fried leftover Christmas pudding to put into a sundae he was making. I've often heard of frying Xmas pud, but I've always associated it as being something very British and if I'm honest slightly bewildering.
I like my pudding sliced thick, served cold and slathered with thick whipped cream. Yum! Although I must confess my most favourite bit of the pudding is it's "skin" around the outside edges, really tasty.

Anyway Santa brought me a packet of Baci, oh how I lurrve them! Clearly I'm not on everyone's naughty list. I may have some now with some of the leftover Gingerbread latte from yesterday.

Update:
I remembered why I don't normally buy chicken from the supermarket where I did to make my curry today, I unwrapped the package. And oh my were they fatty, I started to trim them but just lost patience. They've gone into the freezer for the day when I am less of a hurry. While there was some chicken, the curry has mostly been bulked out with the frozen green veg mix I normally add to it.
However, the Mistletoe is delicious and perfect for our climate Christmas time. Very refreshing!

It's begining to feel a lot like something?

2009-12-19T13:57:00.002+11:00

It dosen't really feel like Christmas is approaching. It's what now 6 days away? I still have not put my tree up, worn my decorations or made a interestingly named cocktail.
I do appreciate for some people Christmas is very exciting and they thoroughly enjoy it, but this dosen't give them the right to turn into those people who turn up on your doorstep and want to tell you about their religion.

Actually that's not true people who come to your door to tell you about religion give you a pamphlet and go away. It's not like their actually expecting me to turn up and pretend to be personable.

My mother and I have had some doozey's of a Christmases over the years. There was the year she thought I was wearing too much black, I always wear a lot of black. Many mornings "we will all be late" because I am slow to get up/ready and I then have to go with out breakfast or a shower so we can be there on time for present opening because my aunt has demanded we all be there by 9am for it.
We arrive after 9, usually about half past, cousin is never out of bed when we arrive, then she has an hour in the bathroom followed by breakfast so we all sit and wait for her to be ready.
This time is usually spent with me making snarky remarks, I don't do well when I'm hungary.

Last year we were very late arriving for presents, because I was making breakfast which they'd all been told about. But all the family had opened their presents, bar my other aunt who'd kept the present from Mum aside to open when she arrived.
To my mum the fault lies with us for all "being extremly late".

About 9 years I had my first Christmas away from home I did Christmas dinner, I've seen the photos somewhere recently I took at the time of the tree and the table setting. I'm still not sure who that woman was that year but I wish she'd come back, I had lists, I had shopping lists, I had menus, I had recpies picked out. I was totally organised, I had shooping lists made up for each shop as I got closer to Christmas for what I could buy in advance and those lists of things that would have to be bought almost last day.
Then there was the Christmas I was too sick to eat anything let alone cook anything we had to stay home "in case I gave anybody else my germs" my mother informed everyone. The Chrsitmas Miss Stash and I had by ourselves, now that was fun! Alhtough I ate way too many of Nigella's Gingerbred Muffins for breakfast and was to Miss Stash's annoyance far too full to cook anything for lunch.
However I did have Prawns with Tequila Mayonaise for tea, Miss Stash dosen't eat prawns or mayo. She did however polish off the turkey which I don't eat. This was followed by Nigella's Massacre in a Snowstorm only we used fresh raspberries instead of pomegrante seeds.

I decided in July what I was going to do this Christmas, I like to plan early gives me time to decided what exactly I want to eat. I'm old, 31 and keep noticing white hairs while I brush my hair each day, further proof that I am getting old I am sure.
That's who I am, a grumpy old baggage who's had enough with white hairs, I don't want to sit around other people's houses waiting for the appointed time to go and sit at some one else's house and eat what someone else has decided to cook.

While I'm old enough to organise and do a Christmas lunch, I'm not yet old enough to appreciate going to someone ese's house and let them do all the work. Maybe in another 9 years I may feel differently.

In case I don't blog again before that fateful day that's looming ahead, look after yourselves and I want to say don't do anything I wouldn't do, but perhaps I should phrase that as don't do anything my mother wouldn't do. My mother is the height of respectability, she dosen't drink cocktails or eat cake at breakfast, she dosen't think dancing aorund your living room taking your clothes is actually a legit exercise and she certainly wouldn't be leaving Austin Powers style comments on the blog of a certain pro-wrestler who likes to talk about being in his hot tub naked, she wouldn't even be reading it in the first place.

And those my lovelies are just some of my lesser bad habits which I fully plan to not only keep in the new year but add too.

New Knitty...

2009-12-17T13:13:00.002+11:00

The new Knitty is up and I am utterly fascinated at the construction and design of Spoke and Four Corners in Tokoyo.

Although I think something like Zora might be better suited for me to actually wear. But it's the accessories or small projects which will most likely be going onto a set of my needles in the near future.
Because I really really really like hats, neck warmers and penguins the very lovely Shroom, Duet, Burning Embers and Mr Popper are my top picks from this issue.

While the socks were lovely, I just don;t like knitting them, I find them quite tedious and boring. This amuses Miss Stash because I love knitting arm/wrist/hand warmers, but as I point out to her these things are exciting to knit!

Truer words have never been spoken...

2009-12-15T16:26:00.003+11:00

I have become a fast and firm fan of Maven and her blog A Fabulously Good Life. And what can I say but the latest post is very true, I have so been behind that person on the phone at the checkout.

And given that everyone knows everyone in my home town and just about the whole state, not always a wise move!