lunch

Yum. Asparagus soup and banana/oat muffin for lunch. I feel so healthy. Doubly healthy because I went out for a cycle this morning too - 10km. Go me!

Asparagus soup is funny, because it looks like it shouldn't taste nice - all pea green and creamy. It's only really because it looks like pea soup, and as we all know peas are the bane of existence. But it tastes yummy, all zesty and spicy (because I wasn't watching the amount of pepper - I was too concentrated on turning the pepper grinder) and asparagusy.

I got the recipe on all recipes. And for posterity I'm going to post it here too.



4 servings
Ingredients

1 pound fresh asparagus
3/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground black pepper
1 1/4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup soy milk
1/2 cup yogurt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Directions

Place asparagus and onion in a saucepan with 1/2 cup vegetable broth. Bring the broth to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer until the vegetables are tender.
Reserve a few asparagus tips for garnish. Place remaining vegetable mixture in an electric blender and puree until smooth.
Melt butter in the pan that was used for simmering the asparagus and onions. Stir while sprinkling flour, salt, and pepper into the butter. Do not let the flour brown. Allow the mixture to cook only 2 minutes. Stir in remaining 1 1/4 cups vegetable broth and increase the heat. Continue stirring until the mixture comes to a boil.
Stir the vegetable puree and milk into the saucepan. Whisk yogurt into the mixture, followed by lemon juice. Stir until heated through, then ladle into bowls. Garnish with reserved asparagus tips. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if desired.

Om Nom Nom

I just made the most delicious muffins ever (well maybe not ever, but they are certainly one of the nicest (that doesn't involve chocolate) I've ever eaten. I found two recipes and smooshed them together, taking the best bits out of both. They were similar enough that I could do this and be pretty confident things would work out okay. I think the nicest thing about them is how light and moist they are. And they are healthy too :)

Here's the recipe, for anyone interested.

1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used brown sugar)
1 egg
1/2 cup mashed bananas, very ripe
1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup whole wheat flour (my cup was semi-heaped)
1/2 cup oatmeal (mine was heaped; one of the original recipes was 2 cups of flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice


Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg gradually and mix well, beating all the time. Mix in the mashed banana and buttermilk.
Combine the flour, oatmeal, baking powder and spices. Add this to the creamed mixture and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened.
Divide the batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake for 25 minutes at 200C, or until golden brown (mine turned out a dark golden) and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Immediately remove muffins from the pan. Serve warm (optional).

Makes 12

(I think I need a cooking icon that doesn't involve chocolate cake)

Further to Yesterday

More news. Which conveniently escaped my brain as soon as I started typing. Typical.

So, I got a sunhat. Actually, it's not so much a sun hat as an autumn hat. It's made of black felt and I have an idea that if I wear it out in the sun my head will bake. But it's lovely - 1920s style cloche (there are loads of pictures on google if you want to know what style that is). I'm wearing it now :)

I also got a cake decorating funnel with shaped metal tips - for putting icing on things. Ooh - that was my main news. I made muffins yesterday. I used a kind of modified banana bread recipe and they are gorgeous. This recipe called for egg and butter and they made the muffins come out light and fluffy (well, lighter and fluffier than any other bread I've tried). I got the cake decorating thing, because I think some chocolate frosting on top will make the muffins simply decadent :) nom nom nom. And because I've always wanted to have a go with cake decorating / making cupcakes. And yes, muffins magically turn into cupcakes when you add frosting on top.

I don't have much other news.

I don't know if I've mentioned World of Warcraft on here before, but I've gotten up to level 73 and Wrath of the Lich King stuff, and boy are the quests and storylines amazing. I'm playing alliance (because they feel like a big supportive family, where horde feels like a bunch of selfish individuals) and the storyline involving the 7th legion was fantastic. Totally epic. It's funny, because when it ended, I went on to a new area, and it was back to killing animals and providing food for the local community. It felt so small-time.

However, at the same time I reached the alpine area (can't remember what it's called) lordkilljoy was watching Bear Grylls (Man vs Wild, which is a amazing show - I wish I could be like Bear - he can survive in the wild on nothing but insects and plants he finds along the way) in Alaska, and the terrain was so similar to that in WoW that it almost felt like I'd find Bear just over the next hill. So that helped add some of the missing vitality back into the game.

Yea, I think that's about it.

Phonecalls and Daily Life

Phone calls in this country are the weirdest things ever. I just got a call, saw on the display that it was the Democratic Party and wondered did I have to talk to someone who was canvassing. I didn't. I picked up the phone, said 'hello' and in return got a recorded message telling me to press 1 to call and complain to some guy about cutting movie rights in New Mexico (and therefore jobs). Needless to say, I hung up at that stage, but jeepers, people - I can't imagine how successful your recorded message phone campaign is.

And they love doing that over here. I think I've had about 10 calls in the last 3 months and 2 of them were from real people. The rest were all pre-recorded or a voice telling you to push buttons in order so that they can get their records straight, or something.

*

I had another lovely day yesterday. It was wierd, though, becuase I got woken at 5, and didn't really get back to sleep. At 7, I got up, marvelled at the sun on the balcony, and went painting miniatures. I went to the park again, for about an hour - bliss, though it was slightly colder than Wednesday (there were more clouds). I might go again today, but it's really windy at the moment.

Wise Man's Fear arrived yesterday. Anyone who doesn't know of Patrick Rothfuss should go out and buy both of his books right now. They are amazing. Well, okay, I havn't read Wise Man's Fear yet, but I'm sure it will be good.

For having gotten up so early yesterday, I wasn't that tired. I didn't fall asleep that fast. Last night lordkilljoy was on call and he got called loads of times. So, I guess I'm a bit tired today. I imagine I'll feel it later.

I think I'll make muffins today. I have an interesting recipe involving bananas and spices. Ooh - google recipes is amazing. I put in chicken last night (because that's what I had taken out of the freezer), told it what other ingredients I had, and it came up with ramen (a kind of japanese chicken noodle soup). And the ramen was lovely. Slightly too salty (even though I added no salt - stock cubes and miso must have had loads) but really good. I'd definitely make it again.

I think that's about it. I'm going to go to the shop today (we need butter) and I'm going to buy a sun hat. While letting my parting get burned in Ireland is fine (because it only happens 4 or 5 times in the whole summer), it's already been burned twice, and I don't think constant burn on my head is the best thing ever.

Oh, I reinstalled Oblivion yesterday. I am totally excited about Skyrim and needed something from Bethesda to take the edge off.

Lizard in the Park

I should remind myself that when the thermometer reads 12C in the shade, it's about 24 in the sun.

I discovered a park close to us. I am so happy because of this. I can walk 10 minutes to the park and sit out in the sun and not feel like all my neighbours can spy on me. Yeay. So I went today, brought my book along and read for about an hour. It is seriously hot out there. Okay, I was wearing two layers on top, one of which was a dark long-sleeve, and jeans. Every part of me was boiling.

And I saw a lizard. It was dark greenish-brown with a slightly lighter stripe, and really small. It looked like a newt - about 1cm in diameter and 10cm long (half of which was tail). It was so cute. I only saw it for a moment as it popped its head out of a bush. I wanted it to come out and lie in the sun so I could get a photo of it, but it stayed safely in the bush.

I kind of want to grab a blanket, put on lighter pants and go back to the park. But I'm a little scared I'll get sunburned.