Dumb animals and cooking traumas
I've been on a campaign to try and generate less food waste of late. It's tough, when you're cooking for one and have carnivore tendencies, not to either have to throw half a pack of meat away, or eat the same thing two days running. Or three days, depending on what variety of not-one-person-sized the packages come in.
But anyway, the hoard of little plastic containers that came from the local Chinese restaurant have been pressed into service, and Portion #2 is now going into the freezer directly it's cooled down sufficiently. Result: less waste, and I also have several easy meals for days when I stumble in the door late and really, really don't want to cook.
Tonight's effort was a bit of a disaster though. I'm going to have to try to remember in future that slipping on your favourite pale blue nightie after getting out of a nice long soak in the bath, and then going through to toss some chicken in a tomato-based fajita sauce is a bad idea. Particularly if you're stupid enough to flick the spatula, as I was, just as the food is ready. Having served it, I had to do a mad dash to the bathroom to try to scrub all that oily tomato and chili stain out of my nightie, and by the time I'd done that the food was going cold. Fortunately, it was seasoned with built-in heat so that was barely noticeable. :-)
I fear that even after much soaking and scrubbing the nightie is going to be permanently marked. Ah well. Next time I'll have to try it with the dressing gown instead. I quite fancy replacing that at some point.
I have a newish gadget, a replacement PDA which has satellite navigation software on it, and I've been putting it through its paces to see just how unexpected the directions it's likely to give me actually are. It has some weird thoughts about which are the best bridges via which to cross over the Thames, and I think if it does anything too bizarre I shall just ignore it and take routes that are in my comfort zone instead. And, should it happen to direct me down any narrow lanes with swollen rivers running across them, I shall back up and go another way. My car tells me it can't swim.
But anyway, the thing has a demo mode, so I've been setting up a few routes and letting it do test drives along them. This evening I set it the task of finding the Albert Memorial. It did fine, all the way to Kensington High Street. And then it got to the Memorial, turned left off the road, and entered Hyde Park.
"Er...." I thought, knowing that there weren't actually any roads there. "What's it up to now?"
And it turned right, slowed it's virtual speed waaaaaaaaaay down to about 4 mph, and found itself what appeared to be a nice new private road.
It'd decided to drive along Rotten Row. And to slow down enough so that it didn't frighten the horsies. Perhaps I shouldn't have named the new PDA Pegasus. It seems to have been giving it ideas...
But anyway, the hoard of little plastic containers that came from the local Chinese restaurant have been pressed into service, and Portion #2 is now going into the freezer directly it's cooled down sufficiently. Result: less waste, and I also have several easy meals for days when I stumble in the door late and really, really don't want to cook.
Tonight's effort was a bit of a disaster though. I'm going to have to try to remember in future that slipping on your favourite pale blue nightie after getting out of a nice long soak in the bath, and then going through to toss some chicken in a tomato-based fajita sauce is a bad idea. Particularly if you're stupid enough to flick the spatula, as I was, just as the food is ready. Having served it, I had to do a mad dash to the bathroom to try to scrub all that oily tomato and chili stain out of my nightie, and by the time I'd done that the food was going cold. Fortunately, it was seasoned with built-in heat so that was barely noticeable. :-)
I fear that even after much soaking and scrubbing the nightie is going to be permanently marked. Ah well. Next time I'll have to try it with the dressing gown instead. I quite fancy replacing that at some point.
I have a newish gadget, a replacement PDA which has satellite navigation software on it, and I've been putting it through its paces to see just how unexpected the directions it's likely to give me actually are. It has some weird thoughts about which are the best bridges via which to cross over the Thames, and I think if it does anything too bizarre I shall just ignore it and take routes that are in my comfort zone instead. And, should it happen to direct me down any narrow lanes with swollen rivers running across them, I shall back up and go another way. My car tells me it can't swim.
But anyway, the thing has a demo mode, so I've been setting up a few routes and letting it do test drives along them. This evening I set it the task of finding the Albert Memorial. It did fine, all the way to Kensington High Street. And then it got to the Memorial, turned left off the road, and entered Hyde Park.
"Er...." I thought, knowing that there weren't actually any roads there. "What's it up to now?"
And it turned right, slowed it's virtual speed waaaaaaaaaay down to about 4 mph, and found itself what appeared to be a nice new private road.
It'd decided to drive along Rotten Row. And to slow down enough so that it didn't frighten the horsies. Perhaps I shouldn't have named the new PDA Pegasus. It seems to have been giving it ideas...