Great to get back to the FatController yesterday. Challenging as ever. Particularly the skipping (3 sets of 100). Overall not as ghastly as last time – primarily because I did not have a raging hangover.

I am very lucky to have this in my life, it was a very good decision.

I had hoped to get in 10km on my treadmill run this morning but the 8km I did will suffice. I was exhausted by the time I finished (sprinting the last 500m probably didn’t help matters). I’m hoping to get in a couple of short (less than 2km) outside before work runs in the next week. As much as I am very fond of slothing about in bed with coffee reading stuff on the InformationSuperHighway, I do miss the discipline I had last year of early morning freezing runs about the neighbourhood.

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More pottering about yesterday, including packing away some of the good china and glassware from Mom that we don’t use. While we have a vast expanse of Palace, storage space is very much at a premium in the kitchen / dining area – all looks rather more organised which is very pleasing.

In further pottering, I prepared the stencil for more shopping bags

One bag has gone astray (undoubtedly left in a supermarket somewhere) and we were finding that 4 was often not enough anyway.

I may get around to the actually cutting the fabric and stencilling today, but then, perhaps not. I will not judge myself if I do not!

If you’re at all a sewing type, you should make some. Much superior to the supermarket ones and very easy.

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We’re trying to cook from the freezer, so last evening I made lamb rogan josh from scratch (rather than a paste) with wee lamb chops we had left from the last lamb delivery. It was really very good (unfortunately no pix) and used ingredients we always have on hand – so will definitely repeat. As an aside, if you are not storing fresh ginger in the freezer, you really should be – it keeps forever and is exceptionally easy to grate.

Tonight is pork chicken and black-eyed bean cassoulet (salvaging pork belly and pork + fennel sausages from the freezer depths). We’ve cooked this before and it is wonderful – despite being not at all traditional.

Both recipes from women’s weekly: new casseroles – which, at $4.95, was a complete bargain, given the number of meals we’ve made from it over the past 6-7 years.

In the interim, I’ve just made pastry for Quiche with prosciutto and gruyere for tomorrow night’s dinner. I have no idea why I resisted food processor pastry for so long – so efficient and excellent results.

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Don is off at an all grain brew class (hipster fest) this afternoon with these lovely peeps. I foresee more brewing equipment in our future.

After the first cider-becomes-wine experiment and the disaster with the cider kit (horribly chemical taste apparently), Don and Bessie are experimenting with a small batch of apple cider – mainly just juice and cider yeast. They’ll branch out into other fruity ciders if it is successful.

I’m toying with the idea of limoncello using the two lemons which grew on our wee tree from this recipe. I’m also adding “make wine” to my 50before50 list.

Yes, it is all booze all the time in this haus.