yodge

click the picture to go to the picspam. image heavy!

Recipe and step-by-step tutorial for making fried shrimp inside-out sushi rolls is here at Lunch in a Box.

Picked up cough meds and a new shirt on the way back from the TIC. 2 new items up, one expressing the hope that Ianto will 'do a Jesus' and return. *shakes head* Everybody's a Christ analogue!

Apart from that, I feel terrible, and I think the infection is rallying. *sigh* It's a tradition-- this week, I'm always sick. The conference was a year ago this week, and I was so ill I've lost most of the memory. (This is probably good).

So, after the lecture this evening (on Pompeii-- here's hoping for at least a small DW shout-out) I'm going home, eating the leftover pizza from last night (okay, 0100 this morning, but at least I remembered eventually) watching a DVD and then working on the MPhil some more. Tomorrow will be writing up my notes to print for AMPAL, more MPhil, and anything else I need to do. :P

In other news, I'm entertained by Twitter, which is all I require of it, really. :)

Нашему большому другу - магазину Banya очень нужна ваша поддержка! Журнал Афиша, выбрав 10 ритейлеров, среди которых и глобальные корпорации сетевики, и независимые идейные сторы, начал голосование за премию лучший магазин года.

Друзья, не поленитесь проголосовать за “Banya” по ccылке - http://www.afisha.ru/article/6142/ Для нас это тоже крайне важно! Процедура проста - просто переходите по ссылке и выбираете Banya. Никаких регистраций и прочих движение.

Заранее спасибо.

P.S. В случае победы обязательно состоится вечеринка - прямо в магазине с free баром. VOTE for PRTY!

( The cake is a lie... )I'm new to cake decoration, and I have a lot to learn, but I had a LOT of fun!

First of all thanks to everyone who gave me tips on my Broth project. Here's what I ended up doing:

5 Carrots
5 Stalks of Celery
2 Small Onions
3 Cloves of Garlic
Fresh Herbs
3 tbsp Dried Porcini (approx)
1 litre Water
1 cup mushroom stalks
3-4 tsps salt
Pepper to taste
Worcestershire Sauce
Light Soy Sauce
1 Cup White Wine

Cut into chunks and roasted with a bit of olive oil and a touch of salt for 30 minutes. Deglazed the pan with about a cup of white wine (actually last years Primrose Wine cause I didn't have anything else in the house). Put the whole thing in a medium sized pot and added no more than a litre of water (I basically topped the pot up and can't remember how much it holds exactly). At this point I added about 1 cup of mushroom stalks and a small handful of dried porcini as well as a handful of fresh herbs from the garden (right now that's thyme, oregano, summer savory, sage and bay laurel). Seasoned with about 3 tsps of salt and some dried marjoram. Gently simmered for 45 minutes. Strained and added some Worcestershire Sauce and Soy Sauce to taste.

It turned out to be a very nice stock, not quite ready for the big time of being served as a soup.

What I wish I had done different or had on hand: I wish I had chopped the veggies more finely, I'm too used to my 6 hour chicken stock and need to take into account the shorter cooking time. I did not have tomato puree, if I had had some on hand would have added it to the roasting veggies. I did not have Parsley, would have added the Parsley stalks to the pot and at the end added some chopped parsley to the finished product. I wish I had soaked the dried Porcini mushrooms, they were an impulse addition and I did not take into account the short cooking time of veggie broth so I don't think I got all the flavor out of them that I could.

I ended up using the stock in some bread stuffing as well as a mushroom sauce that along with some spiced red cabbage and sprouts made up our dinner last night. I think the stock added a lot to the flavor of especially the stuffing and I will definitely continue refining my recipe and experimenting with different options. I suspect that we will start making a pot of veggie stock that will vary seasonally every weekend and keep it in the fridge to use throughout the week instead of using the (very excellent) Marigold Stock Powder. Thanks again to everyone who commented on my original post.

Ребята, может подскажет кто, а то я как слепой котёнок...Где вы берёте 120мм плёнку, а главное как вы её проявляете и сканируете?..а то мне тут вот такую милую игрушку предлагают в дар...

The reason I've not been feeling so well the last few hours might have less to do with the sinus infection and more to do with me forgetting to eat again...

(Still, I'm at 7000 words on the MPhil now. If I didn't have stuff to do tomorrow I'd just stay up all night).

Supremely bummed that I couldn't go to Laguna this morning, but exposing everybody to whatever I have would be pretty thoughtless – that and I've pretty much lost my voice. Alas. I've been mainlining vitamins and OJ for awhile now, as our neighbor has swine flu. So my body's armed to the teeth; I'm hoping it's enough to kill whatever this is. Doesn't feel like swine flu, and I hope it isn't – only because I don't want to take a week off work when we've got our Kauai trip coming up so soon.

Anyway, despite all that unpleasantry, yesterday was wonderful. It was my first full day with Luke back (NO MORE BUSINESS TRIPS) and we just lounged around playing Dragon Age: Origins, watching T:SCC S2, terrorizing Sokka-bird, and refusing to cook any meals. It was lovely.

Dragon Age is completely addicting, despite the fact that the console version has some uninspiring graphics at times. The character expressions are still better than those in Oblivion, and the narrative is far more captivating. Luke and I both kind of adore Morrigan and Alistair – get all excited every time they have a bantery moment. I'm highly amused that they're played by Claudia Black and Steve Valentine, aka Chloe and Flynn from Uncharted 2! They have great chemistry together. And man, Claudia keeps getting all these awesome femmes to play. She's doing well for herself.

Anyhow, a bit earlier on, I took my car in for an oil change, ( and had a 'faith in humanity – restored!' moment. )

Sometimes, people can be awesome.

 

 
Вот такие дома все еще стоят в центре Иркутска. 

Пленка Fuji Superia 200
Камера Lomo-Compact 
Сентябрь 2009 г.

Сканируя плёнку, отснятую еще летом, обнаружил вот такой кадр.  Показалось что он интересен.

Городской двор, поздний вечер.
Пленка Fiji Superia 200
Камера Lomo-Compact

Август 2009 г.

Ссылка на обсуждение этой фотографии на сайте fotosniper.ru

All right, I have some roast that needs potting and I would love to hear your best recipes! I will report back later tonight how it went :)

Thankies <3

My mum popped over to visit today. She gave me a 2L ice cream container full of mulberries!

I love mulberries, but can't eat that many before they'll go off.

Hit me with your best mulberry recipes people. Good crumbles, jams, other ideas, I'll take 'em all.

I just had a bowl straight and now my fingers, lips and teeth are purple/black. Oops.

Testing out one of the Presidential Cookies on my blog HERE. Check it out for some more drool-worthy pictures!
Made with oats, chocolate chips, pecans, and coconut.

( Recipe also behind cut.. )

So, today I decided to make some vegetable stock, that went well and now I have portions of frozen stock in my freezer. Since I didn't want to waste the vegetables, I put them and some of the stock into my blender and made vegetable soup. The thing is, because it's made of mostly carrots and onions, it's sweet. Being Chinese, I have a dislike of sweet soup, since I grew up on salty soup. Now, any suggestions on what I can do with all this soup? Any interesting ways to put it in dishes or made it into salad dressing or anything like that?

I was talking to my MIL today and she mentioned that she would like a Pasta maker for Christmas. She has been making noodles by hand for years and would like to have a machine now.

I'm looking for some advice on what to buy. I'm trying to keep it under $50, that is the only stipulation.

Thanks in advance.