restless

i am restless tonight. i wish i had a tv. then i could just watch something mindless. i could go out, but i have a tin of condensed milk simmering on my stove, and i'm guessing it wouldn't be a good idea to leave it.

at any rate, the event that is going to take place in my uterus very soon is making me rather grump and willing to eat ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. i can not tell you how much i want icecream right now.

i did make myself kali dahl for dinner tonight, which was lovely and rich and creamy and smooth. i love dahl, it is one of life's ultimate comfort foods.

kali dahl
take 250g black urad beans and place them in a heavy based saucepan with 8 cups of water. bring to the boil, and then reduce to a simmer for 1 hour, or until beans feel soft when pressed between your fingers

drain the dahl, but retain the water

put a roughly chopped onion, 2 cloves of garlic and a 1cm piece of ginger into a food processor to make a paste (or if you're some weird stubborn tattooed chick who knows damn well that 21st century gadgets like this are all just part of some capitalist plot to make us all slaves to 'the man' and dominate our actions in order to further the aims of the world's oil cartels - ie you're me - and you don't have a food processor chop all vegetables finely with a sharp knife). good thing 'the man' isn't around, because my sharp knife is still on the bench. that'd show them. no good capitalist swines, i'll ...... sorry where was i? oh yes, the dahl.

anyhoo fry your vegetables in a little hot oil until they're golden and lovely. add 2 tspn of each ground cumin and coriander. add the beans back to the pan with about 1.5 cups of the water they were cooked in. stir through a teaspoon of garam masala and half a teaspoon of chili powder.

simmer for 10 minutes until thickened, then add about 100ml of cream and allow to heat through before serving with some bread or something, or meat or stuff. don't ask me complicated questions today!!!

madness

i'm not sure if i mentioned it, but my television bit the bullet early in the week. it's nearly as old as me, so it's served my family well. i have decided not to replace it (at least in the short term). i am going to through the first semester (until about mid june) with out one to see just how much i miss it. if the answer is 'not really' i will leave in a tv-free zone. i must say i got home from the fringe opening on friday night and really just wanted to watch rage for a bit before i sunk into bed (my mobile phone also kicked the bucked over the weekend, but that's another post all of its own).

the hope is that i will do a lot more study, keep a cleaner house, read more and generally be a more well rounded person. i am listening to chinese dialogues as i type this - wo bu jiao lili.

it also means that i have been spending far too much time on line looking at stuff. i bought the entire okkervil river back catalogue the other day, looked at the ABC's greatests speeches of all time, googled some sites about perikles, and - of course - looked at a lot of food.

i'm thinking of having a week where everything i eat will have come off of someone else's site. it's hard becuase, living on my own, a recipe's worth of food normally feeds me for a week. maybe i'll have to have someone different over every night so i can cook for them. and take the baked goods to work (work are already sick of eating my left over baked goods). if i do this i think i'll start with joy the baker's flax meal muffins. they look greeeeat.