Sushi For Breakfast

Tonight we had a good evening out from work, and then I had things to do when I got back. Glad to be back, but the stuff to do was meh.
( Full story )

It started snowing when I was driving home. Hopefully it won't amount to anything major, but it's supposed to stay cold for a good while yet. I'll be glad when winter is over.

Two things that coincided today - having the house to myself, and a team awayday at work which took place 10.30-3.30 - have ironically given me a super-busy day. But in a good way, as the awayday was really good so I didn't mind so much.

So, today's accomplishments, in ascending order: Laundry done (well, the second load is still in the dryer and it will be ironed tomorrow). Christmas cross-stitch cards mounted. And, pasta bake cooked and first portion eaten, the remainder is cooling in little freezable tubs.

The pasta bake had been the big thing, I'm not great at cooking, and last week my colleague had some reheated pasta bake for lunch which smelled so utterly delicious with all that melted cheese it gave me a headache, only cured by having strong cheddar on toast for dinner. But after consulting approximately 493802 online recipes I cobbled one together (needs refining next time) and tonight had my first home-made pasta bake. The refining I need to make is to let the veg simmer longer - the original recipe doesn't contain veg as such, so this didn't occur to me until I tucked in. I had planned to use up three lots of leftovers: tagliatelle (success), mushrooms (completely forgot about them), and breadcrumbs (don't even think of not topping a pasta bake with breadcrumbs, so delicious).

Hoping I don't have to stay up extra for the leftovers to cool down enough. I guess so long as it cools enough for the fridge tonight & I can freeze it in the morning that'll be OK. Need to check there's room in the freezer too.

If you follow the news in the UK you may know about the chemical fire on a lorry on the M6 north of Coventry, which has buggered up the roads around Coventry and Warwickshire all day. Thankfully I was able to leave work at 4.20 this afternoon, despite problems with our website interfering with my e-newsletter editing, and I got home by 5pm with heavy traffic confined to a section of roads which are usually busy anyway.

The Great Loft Clearout Of 2012 has yielded up some surprises this week - three, in particular. Firstly a facial sauna, which my parents brought to torture me with during the worst of my years of woeful teenage skin issues, and secondly a steam iron, which Dad thinks he got from an end-of-line shop. And thirdly, a filter coffee maker, which was completely sealed, and for which we have absolutely no idea where or how we acquired it. Not wanting to pass up on a free coffee maker, I investigated it tonight and now have a half-drunk cup of filter coffee on the side table as a result. It's only a small model - four cups capacity, ie two full mugs - but it takes no longer than my little one-cup filter thing to make a cup of coffee. Judging by the pre-use washing, it's also easier to clean.

Also, I am claiming one 12.12.12 moment. This is due to the fact that in our house, when we start a new bottle or jar of sauce/salad dressing/relish, we write the date it was opened on the side, so we have some idea of how fresh (or not) it is without having to rely on how it smells. So this is from this evening:

My latest thing for food is a not-quite Bento box, ie a Sainsburys-bought lunchbox:

( Explained in pictures )

I was inspired by this Flickr group, and while I don't have the official & expensive kit they have, there's lots of ideas there (Warning: looking through the photos at this group will make you hungry). I've already discovered that cheap supermarket fish fingers taste better cold the next day in salad, even though the breadcrumbs have mostly gone soft. I'm hoping this will keep lunch interesting, it's a struggle some times not to have the same stuff again and again.

Had a bizarre dream this morning featuring astronaut Ron Garan (@Astro_Ron on Twitter), who kept popping up at regular intervals within the dream. Other roles in the dream were played by various people from work, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and astronaut Sunita Williams.

( Food was also a theme. Let me explain. )

So, I had to get all of that down before breakfast, so I am now rather hungry. And I must think about kettlebells some time today. I cannot let good intentions slide.

Day 360 Following yesterday's present haul, I'm not short of DVDs to watch:



Although for now, I'm quite happy enjoying the silence while spending hours at a time on Wikipedia reading about EastEnders characters from the 1980s or whatever. Also my sleep schedule is totally wrecked, because it's so cold at night my sore throat is irritated further and I'm up most of the night coughing, so sleep happens mostly between 5am and 11am, with odd hours before or after if I'm lucky. So long as I can shift this cold I should be fine about getting back on schedule, I'm not in work until 4th January, and I'm past the stage in my cold where I need an extra snooze in the afternoon.

We don't really have any leftovers apart from the turkey and half a jar of good quality cranberry sauce. Because we had Christmas dinner late in the afternoon we didn't have a buffet-type meal during the day, so we never bought the accompaniments usual for this (eg dips, breadsticks, cheese straws, etc) that are so yummy when eaten as leftovers. We do have the stilton of course, plus some strong cheddar, various relishes, and the box of biscuits for cheese, which I made a start on as part of breakfast. I was thinking it was a shame we didn't have the dips, but then they're so predictable, everywhere sells the same quartet, it's no longer a novelty and no-one ever wants much of the thousand island dip. But I still plan to make sushi at some point next week.

Day 353 I tend to be rather wary of starting Christmas food (ie snack food, seasonal variations of the usual stuff) too early, lest it all be gone by the big day. But we had to start on the Stilton because it's too big for the cheese dish, so we have some in the cheese dish and this is the rest:



So the stuff in the cheese dish is less than half of what we bought. And it's highly delicious. I know Stilton is delicious anyway, but this is more sublime than the usual stuff, it doesn't have the standard sharp kick, more of a gentle buzz that increases in intensity when you eat more. Very highly recommended.

Day 340 Meh. Started the day smelling vaguely nice thanks to this:



Which I like because the tube is pretty. The scent is Ice Musk from Boots, which is wintery but doesn't overpower other scents or smell cold. I do like their Natural Collection stuff, always have, but I preferred Global Collection, does anyone else remember it?

It's been foggy today, and we've had a bit of snow here tonight, just a thin film but enough for you to walk carefully. I took lots of photos of the trees and bushes around work and in the front garden covered with frost, which you can see here. It did look pretty when the fog thinned out. Unfortunately the fog came back just in time for hometime but it wasn't too bad on the whole driving-wise. Am still in a crappy mood so I bought these for myself at Sainsburys:



They're from the kiddie range but they're not too kiddie-style. It's often cheaper to get hairbands from kid's ranges than from Next or Boots or wherever. I also bought a freshly-made vegetable pizza, which I'm now half-way through and is delish. And some sushi for breakfast tomorrow.

Day 322 Just finished some delish food, a split muffin with smoked salmon, poached egg, chives and pesto on each:



The original idea was for Eggs Benedict, but I have no Hollandaise Sauce. I then came across a recipe online involving a spoonful of pesto on top of poached egg, so I combined the two. The egg-poaching worked very well, I tipped the eggs into a good whirlpool and they held well, poached for four minutes which gave them a solid yolk. And the little towers didn't collapse:



Earlier this afternoon I went to visit my sister and baby Bean. Bean is three months old now, and smiles and gurgles and laughs a lot. akalfjslfjdlfjdljfsld she is so cute, I took lots of photos of her and only stopped when the batteries died on my camera <3 <3 <3

Day 315 I made another load of sushi this evening:



I forgot that less is more with Philadelphia, and made some with loads of Philly which then mostly squished out. But I did learn that a few chilli flakes are an excellent addition - strong flavours are good in home-made sushi it seems. I used loads of sundried tomatoes in this batch.

I had some pieces, as well as all the raggedy ends and the ones which fell apart when slicing, so I'm now full of sushi. Dad's had some, he was very impressed, I think there's 35 pieces left so that's plenty for lunch plus enough to share around at work.

EDIT: A few pieces fell apart while transporting to boxes (the seafood stick fell out leaving a Polo-like ring of sushi rice) & I pinched a couple more pieces, so will take some to work for lunch and leave some here for Dad or whoever wants some.