New paintings and regular art updates.
Bento box at a local Japanese restaurant. It was my birthday treat today. I like how the various types of food are held in compartments so you can mix and match flavours. You chose when main meat or vegetarian portion and the bento comes with rice, salad, sliced pickled ginger, goyoza, sushi, all very tasty. I had roast duck with Teriyaki sauce as my main choice. It was very pleasant sharing the evening with friends and putting worries to the back of my mind.
I used it! After weeks of looking at it and trying to think when to use it my sister decided to get me to cook with it.
I was anxious when u first used a pressure cooker. This was far more simple. Set the heat, set the timer. If things need shaking just set the timer to half the full amount, take the food basket out, shake the food, put it back in and reset the timer for the second half of the cooking. So simple and I didn’t realise that it cooks quicker than an oven!
Finishing off my trifle. Sugar free jelly with fresh raspberries. Blancmange with sweetner, cream on top! Yum!
I only make it for special occasions, my sister has been to visit so it was a treat for her. It’s refreshing and tasty. Not overly sweet, with fresh fruit rather than trifle sponges that can be too sugary.
Cherry Scone with jam and cream.
Tasty treat makes me beam!
But how do you pronounce this fodder?
Which pronunciation is odder?
Call it a scone?
Once eaten it’s gone!
Call it a scone?
To rhyme with stone?
But surely that’s fake?
It’s then a rock cake!
What a treat! Starter with wasabi mayonnaise at Miso Japanese restaurant in Stoke, Stoke on Trent.
Then I had a bento box, your choice of main dish plus vegetable goyoza, sticky rice with sesame seeds, salad, cucumber sushi rolls and thinly sliced pickled ginger. There are vegan, vegetarian and meat or fish options.
Then we had sake and also plum wine. I’m not used to drinking much anymore but a relative was over visiting me so we decided to go mad.
I don’t go out very often anymore, but I remember years ago we used to visit the restaurant regularly. I’m glad I went, it’s really friendly and the food is always good.
What are your favorite brands and why?
Things cost too much so I try and be selective in what I buy. I go to a few different shops and try and buy what’s cheapest, but of a reasonable quality. I don’t want to buy a tin of beans only to find out half of its weight is tomato sauce.
It turns out a lot of own brands can be as good or better than the more well known ones. So they can be cost effective to buy. I also buy food close to it’s sell buy date, it means there are savings to be made there too. I live close to shops so I can pop out and top up with things relatively easily.
As to other things, anyone who knows me knows I’m not into fashion or expensive objects. If I have money it gets spent on bills or repairs or art supplies.
I hate adverts, I never buy things I see on TV or online. It doesn’t tempt me to see expensive perfume or clothing. I’m not a brand buyer, I can’t be bothered with merchandise like handbags or shoes.
So that’s your answer… None.
A friend sent me this conversion chart yesterday after I told her my oven had stopped working. I’m used to gas cookers and had no idea how the air fryer and oven compare.
It looks like air fryers use less power so perhaps this will save me money, I’m using my microwave more because I’m struggling with my Parkinsons disease, but I like things like jacket potato’s crispy brown on the outside. I also put it on in the winter to warm up the kitchen.
But I’ve bit the bullet and bought an air fryer. Wish me luck!
Photo by my friend Lin, she met up with me yesterday and we popped over to the Brampton museum and art gallery to collect some of my paintings and have a drink and a scone each. It didn’t help that as I cut mine in half my hand shook and I dropped the bottom half on the ground.
Bother! We shared the other scone and had another quarter each.
But what comes first on a scone? Cream or jam? I always go jam first, then cream on top (preferably clotted cream, but whipped cream also works). It just spreads easier. In this case we also didn’t have butter, but to be honest I don’t think you need it. The scones were moist and didn’t have too much of a flavour of baking powder. 10 out of 10. Tasty.
Cats stare, they hardly blink, a slow closure of their eyes sometimes, or eyes tight shut, but you know they have half an eye checking out whats going on.
Ears pricked, listening for the rustle of a packet of food, the rip as you open it. They know the sound of a tin opening and releasing the smell of food.
Nose twitches, whiskers flex, mouth ready. Time for tea. And they move quickly when they tune into the signals you send them.
Tonight’s tea. I decided to have a mushroom omelette (closed cup mushrooms fried in a little oil, then a spot of milk and two eggs). Cooked until the omelette was firm.
The salad was salad leaves with grated carrot and red pepper, a few sliced cherry tomatoes, a sliced radish, a few slices of cucumber, a few sliced garlic stuffed olives, half an avocado, and finally a bit of light mayonnaise.
Mallaband-Brown