Where did that three day weekend go? It seemed not a great deal was accomplished, but I am absolutely knackered.
Yesterday I spent what seemed like the entire day in the kitchen. The fruit bowl was overflowing with fruit on its last legs, so rather than add it to the compost heap I took action.
Made mango coconut ice-pops with 3 small mangos & the usual coconut paleta recipe
(I had one this evening – delicious! Even better than I had hoped!)
Squeezed a ridiculous number of oranges by hand with the reamer. This took a surprisingly long time, but the output was worth it.
Also used 3 small apples for the ubiquitous Kerry apple cake (unpictured), I’m sure I could have been more imaginative with the apples, but by that point I just wanted to sit down …
because, I also made chicken stock for us, made chicken stock for the kitties (helps NewKitty’s horrid innards), made a lemon infused syrup for lemonade AND a slow-cooked lamb rogan josh from scratch. Yikes!
Today was Don’s turn to earn the horribly aching legs from standing all day – though he sensibly wore shoes, so was quite a bit less achy.
It was about 10oC cooler than Sunday, so he started with beef stock (we should be well set for stock for a while) and then a big batch of gumbo. Rather than use his usual peanut oil to make the roux, he was inspired by
the most excellent Amy and used lard instead (though stuck to regular flour).
And used some of my freshly made stock. Sadly no photo of the finished product either. Needless to say, it was outstandingly outstanding. We will definitely be using lard again. Best of all because the batch was large, we have a couple of containers of leftovers freezing for future dinners.
And me? Today I decided it was time to attack the temporary IKEA block-out curtains and add pinch pleats to the headers to replace the very didspleasing gathers – which were a bit too froofy and unstructured for my liking.
Because I am an idiot, I sewed them by hand – this took a REALLY long time and I still have one panel of four to go. I could have done the whole thing on the machine which probably would have taken about half an hour for the entire four, but I think it in this case the hand-sewing made for a better finish. I could also have used those metal prong pleaty things, but hey I’m all about the using what I have on hand and possibly giving myself RSI in the process.
I’ve hemmed two and the others are clipped with bulldog clips (my new favourite haberdashery sewing accessory – brilliant to hold please in place).
They do look infinitely better with pleats. They will do until we can decide what we actually want there and I won’t be hating them every second. But really, even in the froofy state they were better than the ugly off-white(ish), weirdly textured, bargain-basement vertical blinds that were here when we moved in.
I was supposed to do a little SML work this evening. I don’t feel in the least remorseful that I haven’t.
* heard on australian open tennis commentary: wawrinka v garcia-lopez