Myriad topics to cover today:
-- I was feeling so proud of myself for clearing off the window sill (of tomatoes) to make sauce today. It's a lot of pressure, knowing there are tomatoes that will go bad if I don't do something with them in a limited amount of time. So, well done, me. Dusted the old hands off and thought I'd take a stroll around the garden, thumbs hooked in my imaginary suspenders/braces. Then I started picking tomatoes and came inside with over ten pounds of 'em. Whoops.
-- I made Susan's Seitan and Eggplant Stew yesterday, and I can heartily recommend it. I halved the recipe and soaked my split peas for quite a few hours before I even began cooking. I think my only changes were to omit the chili peppers (used red pepper flakes instead, just a dash) and the pomegranate molasses (no substitution) because I had neither. I also cut way back on the cloves, because I find that that flavour often overpowers everything else. It's a delicious dish, and I LOVE the seitan cooked in with everything. I'm thinking I'll have to try a 'beef' stew using that method!
-- My mom gifted a Cat-A-Wheel to my pet cats. Beany loves it. She's just this second gone over to curl up in it again, actually. Booty doesn't trust it at all, however; he prefers to sleep in the cat carrier, of all things. Sadly, neither the cat carrier nor the Cat-A-Wheel blend seamlessly with the rest of my decor. Imagine.
-- My friend Mo did a desktop meme, which began its life as a 'show your computer desktop' thing, but which she expanded to include her literal desktop as well. So this is my MacBook desktop (the photo was taken a couple of years ago in Minneapolis, right after an impressive summer storm had passed). Not very interesting, eh? And this is my actual desk, with the iMac. My screen saver just cycles through a folder of my photos, so that's what's on the screen. The book on my desk is Thomas Emson's Maneater (go buy it now!), which I needed on hand the week before last, when I was typesetting its sequel.
-- I spent ages picking grapes off their stems yesterday (grapes taken from my parents' yard) and turned them into juice. Today, I made jelly, except I did it all wrong. There were too many words in the instructions, words that I couldn't be bothered to process, so I missed the fact that I was supposed to measure the juice into a BOWL and the sugar+pectin+water into the SAUCEPAN, so it all wound up in the saucepan. I think it'll actually set up... mostly... but definitely not as well as last year. Live and yet still fail to learn.
