It was a dreary, dismal day in London on the 31st, but I had a suitably enjoyable day. It started off with me waking up at 7am after getting six hours of sleep, slightly hungover from the day before (despite only having, like, four drinks over the course of five hours. I blame drinking wine, champagne and rum all in one night). Then I transported 100 cupcakes on a bus that inched along at a snail’s pace through Wandsworth (where I live) and that, unbeknownst to me and the other passengers, was on a replacement route due to road construction and ended up dropping me off a mile and a half away from my intended destination, a destination that was only one mile away from my place of origin.
So I walked, carrying 100 cupcakes, for about 30 minutes to the Tube station in the drizzling rain. By the time I got to the Tube station, wet and angry, the next train was due to arrive in two minutes. Excellent luck! But then the train came trundling into the station, its driver hanging out the front window, saying that the train wasn’t in service. He may have given me the one-finger salute; although I admit that I may be remembering this inaccurately. The next train was in 15 minutes. Wonderful. Oh, how I love the District line in Putney.
I eventually got a train and made it to Earl’s Court station with my cupcakes, although I soon found that, despite my destination being Earl’s Court Exhibition Hall, I was really going to Earl’s Court Exhibition Hall II, which is just outside West Brompton Tube Station. Instead of getting back on the Tube, I walked with my 100 cupcakes nearly an entire stop to the other station.
Once inside the Exhibition Hall, cupcakes dispatched to the appropriate bodies, I had a wander around (there was a ‘Glam Show’ going on) and ended up buying a handbag. I like handbags.
I decided to forgo underground transportation completely and soon realised that a bus travelled directly between Earl’s Court and Wandsworth (where I live) and only had a journey time of 12 minutes. Time it took me to get to Earl’s Court from Wandsworth: 1 hour and 45 minutes. Time it took me to get from Earl’s Court to Wandsworth: 12 minutes. Did TFL (Transport for London) tell me on its online Journey Planner that there was a bus from Wandsworth to Earl’s Court in the first place? No. For that matter, did it warn me about road construction and buses and replacement routes? No.
In any event, I made it home in one piece, peered into the kitchen which was covered in a heavy dusting of icing sugar at this point, and decided I would take a bath. I took a long bath and decided to start over. After this, I had a leisurely afternoon and got ready to go to a Zombie Halloween party. Below is a picture from the party. Can you find me?
The grad fair at Kensington Olympia was an epic waste of time. All the recruiters were pushing their grad training schemes, which don’t have application closing dates until December 31st and don’t actually start until March ‘10. What use is that to me, a 26-year-old woman with a postgraduate degree and seven years of editorial experience?
Not useful. No use.
No one was actually interested in taking CVs from potential candidates, either.
On the bus home now. Dejected.
I didn’t leave the flat today until 5pm. The only reason I left the flat was to go to the supermarket to buy a swede. I have plans to make swede and potato mash for dinner tonight. That was the highlight of my day: thinking about what I was going to cook for dinner, being unable to think of anything but swedes since dinner last night, and changing out of my pyjamas only when I realised I had to actually go outside in order to obtain a swede.
Having returned from the supermarket, project buy-a-swede successfully accomplished, I have played with the rats for a whole 30 seconds until they buggered off on their own, hiding behind the couch to spite me, and now I am debating whether or not to get back into my pyjamas.
My life is amazing.
The weather lately has been turning colder. It seems as if it was just last week when I left the flat wearing sandals and short skirts. But at temperatures only creeping up to 16C yesterday, a hearty vegetable stew was on the cards for a lazy Sunday dinner. Passing by the vegetable area at Sainsbury’s, I espied one of my favourite things: swedes (or rutabagas to the Americans). When I first started cooking with swedes, I was really intimidated by them. I even went into the supermarket with a grocery list I had constructed while attempting to create a cookbook recipe that called for swedes, not even knowing what they were; and after wandering the produce aisles, I eventually asked an employee where I could find the swedes, pretending as if I just couldn’t, for the life of me, find them. I didn’t mention that I didn’t know what they looked like.
In any event, now I think they’re lovely. Sweet and starchy balls of root-vegetable goodness, swedes bring you all the gastronomic brilliance of sweet potato but with a firmer texture that holds up well under slow-cooking conditions. And they work marvellously in stews.
This stew is filled with hearty, stick-to-your-ribs ingredients. It has no pretences of being a ‘balanced’ meal, carbohydrate-heavy as it is. But I love it. Plus, the addition of brussel sprouts makes your mother happy. Except they also make me happy. I love brussel sprouts.
Ingredients
- 1 swede, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 10 brussel sprouts, halved
- 1 large potato (or two small potatoes), cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 400mL water
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp marjoram
- 1 bay leaf
- salt and pepper to taste
- dash of tamari (or soy sauce)
All right, this recipe is super easy.
Step One Prepare all your vegetable ingredients (chopping). Heat the oil in a big pot, and throw in all your vegetables at once. Stir over medium heat for 3 minutes.
Step Two Add your water, tomato paste, marjoram and bay leaf; stir to combine. Raise the heat until you bring the mixture to a boil. Immediately lower your heat to the lowest setting and cover. Allow to simmer for at least 20 minutes, until all vegetables are tender (specifically the potato and swede pieces). But, better yet, transfer your pot to your smallest burner; turn the burner on to the lowest setting; and allow the pot to simmer while covered for as long as you can stand it (the smell will start to entice you and make you hungry).
Step Three Once you can’t stand it any longer, turn off the heat and allow the pot to sit for at least another 10 minutes. Butter some bread and ladle your stew into a bowl. Splash your stew with a few dashes of tamari. Eat stew with buttery bread.
(I have leftovers for lunch today. Writing about this stew has made me hungry well before lunchtime. Damnit.)
Yields 2 really big servings or 2 good-sized servings and 1lunch-sized serving.
I am posting this from my Android WordPress application. Never mind that my computer is sitting right next to me.
I’m blogging on the go.
Except I’m on the couch.
Because I have no where to go.
Because I have no job.
But it’s a rainy autumnal day outside in London.
So, joke’s on you, all you salaried suckers.
Just got back from Ikea.
How is it possible that it didn’t have THREE of the tables/bedside tables I was willing to settle on? How?
HOOOWWWWWWW?!?!?!
I had to settle on settling on bedside tables that were double the cost I wanted to spend and not really what I was looking for. But I wasn’t going to leave the Ikea in Croydon today without some motherfucking bedside tables.
We still don’t have any bedside tables. We moved in on August 1st. It’s September 24th.
After three emotionally fraught trips to Ikea at the beginning of August, I swore I would never return to that god-forsaken place again. I tried buying crappy bedside tables from Argos (epic fail), anything to keep myself from having to return to Ikea.
But here we are, nearly two months after moving in, still without any bedside tables.
It is time.
Now that I really have nothing of any consequence filling my days, there is no reason for me not to make another trip to Ikea. I shall go. I shall buy cheap bedside tables. I shall also buy cheap couch cushions. The rats have been very bad and prone to chewing on the preexisting couch cushions. I have devised a plan that involves taking the cushions off of the couch (storing them under the bed or something) and lining the couch back with cheap disposable cushions (after first draping the couch in a large throw/cover). Given the fact that the couch was terribly uncomfortable to start with, the removal of the unnecessarily large and imposing back cushions and their replacement with smaller, more-welcoming and less-likely-to-be-chewed cushions is just a good idea anyway.
Yes. Time to get. shit. done.
Ikea. Alright let’s do this. Leerooooooy Jeeeenkinnnnns!!!
I made this recipe from Leah Leneman’s Vegan Cooking for One the other night, and I was really pleasantly surprised with it. While Leneman suggests it as a main meal, both Red and I agreed that it wasn’t quite substantial enough as a main but that it was simple and easy enough to justify making it as part of a component meal. You see, usually I’m anti-component meal because I’m lazy on weekdays and the idea of orchestrating more than one dish with multiple ingredients and steps doesn’t appeal. And Red is anti-component meal because it requires him to do more washing up at the end of the night.
Anyway, so like I was saying, this was tasty and simple. I will definitely make it again in the future alongside a component protein dish.
Also, I put pesto in quotes above because the recipe isn’t actually a pesto at all, as it doesn’t use pine nuts or real parmesan. But its substitutes are perfectly tasty. And, really, it’s close enough. Plus, I’m more likely to have almonds in my pantry than pine nuts. Especially since I would probably only use pine nuts if I bought them for making pestos. And I’m not known for my pestos or anything…
Ingredients
- 1 red pepper
- 2 servings’ worth of dried wholewheat pasta
- 2 spring onions, chopped roughly
- 2 cloves garlic
- 4 sundried tomatoes in oil (or soaked in boiling water and drained if dried)
- 30 g toasted slivered almonds
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp vegan parmesan
- 1 tbsp water
- salt and pepper to taste
- fresh chopped basil, to garnish
[Yields 2 side servings]
Step One Deseed and halve the red pepper. Place under a hot grill and cook until well charred. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Step Two Cook the spaghetti according to package instructions.
Step Three Once the red pepper has cooled sufficiently, rub off its skin with your fingers and then chop it roughly. Add all of the ingredients (excepting the cooking pasta, obviously) to a food processor or blender. Blend thoroughly.
Step Four Drain the spaghetti when it’s finished cooking and return it to the pot. Chuck the pesto sauce you just made on top of the spaghetti. Mix the pesto with the spaghetti over the lowest heat on the hob until everything is well combined.
Mmm.
So I’ve made it through my first official week without a job.
I turned in my dissertation on Monday and have been trying to fill my days with activities since. I get pretty bored. Yesterday, I went into London early to meet Lizzie for some coffee at 10am. Cindy had planned an Indian dinner to celebrate the arrival of her best friend from the States at 7pm. That left me with nine whole hours to wander the streets of London. Some people might think, ‘Wow, what a lucky girl. She has hours in a fabulous city to do anything she wants!’ But I used to live in central London. And when presented with this day of freedom, I think, ‘-yawn-’.
So I just meandered.
For nine hours.
My feet hurt today.
I heard from the recruiter who found my CV on Monster and has been trying to place me as a copy editor for a medical publisher just outside of London (or, rather, the M25). They had sent me an editing test on Monday, and I whipped it out when I returned home on Monday night. I was met with emails of surprise and praise from the recruiter. It wasn’t difficult. I wonder how long they were expecting it to take me to finish. Or, rather, I wonder if English work ethic is piss poor and if tasks presented to employees by their employers are regarded with no sense of haste. In any event, if I don’t score an interview with this medical employer, I can tell that the recruiter is willing to work on my behalf, mostly because he wants to make money off of me by successfully placing me in a position. He asked me if there were any companies that I specifically wanted to work for, as he could contact them for me.
That caught me off guard.
Here I was just hoping for a job – any job – that would pay me money. I guess having a master’s degree, years of relevant experience and a lot of self-motivation and a drive to succeed means that you are allowed to be selective when it comes to a career. Even when the economy stinks.
Sweet.
I may change my tune in a couple weeks’ time if and when I still don’t have a job, but right now my prospects are looking good.
So, for whom do I want to work?
‘Mexican’ Breakfast Burritos (more specifically, fabulous black beans)
I was feeling a bit lazy the other night when considering dinner options. I had some eggs. I had a can of black beans. My chilli plant had finally sprouted a chilli. So ‘Mexican’ breakfast burritos, it was. I whipped up some guac, scrambled up some eggs, fried up some tortillas, chopped up some coriander.
But, most surprisingly, the black beans I simmered up were incredible. I think the secret ingredient was the apple cider vinegar that I added rather whimsically.
Black Beans Ingredients
- 1 tin black beans, drained
- 1 onion, choppped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small green chilli, chopped (seeds retained or removed depending on how much spice you like. I removed them… wasn’t feeling too spicy that night.)
- 1 tbsp vegegtable oil
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1.5 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp freshly chopped coriander
- salt to taste
Step One Fry up your onion in the vegetable oil for about five minutes. Throw in your garlic and chilli and fry for another 30 seconds. Dump in your beans and spices (excepting the fresh coriander). Stir.
Step Two Reduce to the lowest heat, cover and allow to simmer for about fifteen minutes. Check every so often, stirring and adding water if the beans are starting to stick to the bottom. Only add enough water to ensure the beans don’t stick.
Serve. Simple and fabulous.
Obviously, the eggs don’t make the Breakfast Burritos vegan, but if you do a tofu scramble they would be.
