Trust Me, I'm a Rat.

18^th February 2011 – Donna’s Easy Vegetable Ratatouille

I’m so busy and important that I am only just posting this now. My bad.

All the family were coming to Sancroft for dinner, so I manned up and decided to cook something. I wanted a no pressure dish so decided to cook Donna’s Easy Vegetable Ratatouille.

It was a pretty awesome cooking experience. Dad went to the shops and got all the stuff, and then as I was cooking he’d bring me the stuff I needed and do the shitty jobs. Not too shabby.

We talked about some interesting things – various ‘knobs’ in the kitchen and the “kitchen vibrator” as Dad refers to it. I was convinced the bench is the wrong height for me but Dad thinks I’m mad. We then made lots of jokes about being barefoot and in the kitchen where I belong.

He again questioned my sanity when I was talking about having a rat under my hat pulling my hair to tell me how to cook. Great movie (I think – I’ve only seen it on a plane and the sound wasn’t working so I’ve kinda just made up my own mind about what happened).

I added sweet potato (of course), I did less zucchini because I hate it and more carrot because I love it. I added an onion and a capsicum and would probably do more of both next time. It took a really long time to cook. I cooked it in the webber and after 1 hour and 15 minutes the potato was nowhere near cooked. I think it was closer to two hours by the time we actually ate it and everything seemed to be fine by then.

Everyone said it was nice, but to be honest I was getting a cold and couldn’t taste that well. I thought everything tasted like zucchini. I covered the whole thing in salt (as I do) but to be fair, before I even cooked it I said to Dad “pretty sure I’ll salt the shit out of this” so that’s not saying much.

Went to a “party” (aka was a 5^th wheel) which was fun. Got a new awesome recipe which was good.

Tips: There was probably enough to feed several armys which was unnecessary. Leave out zucchini, it’s disgusting and infests all the other yummy vegetables with its taste.

Music: Black Keys

The best kind of Spaghetti Arms

13^th February 2011 – Sian’s Perfect Spaggy Bol

February is going to be slightly challenging I think. Having an amazing holiday has really put me behind… woe is me! Bali was amazing, many hundreds of good times were had.

So I kicked off February with Sian’s Perfect Spaggy Bol. No trouble finding or pronouncing any of the ingredients this time which is handy! Alex was coming over to have dinner with me and watch Loser (still the best show in the history of television).

Turned the music up crazy loud and probably drove my neighbours mad as I have only five Yves songs and was listening to them on repeat (while singing loudly in jibberish as I am TERRIBLE at knowing what songs are saying).

Note to self: your chopping skills really aren’t good enough for you to dance while chopping – disaster waiting to happen.

Note to Sian: My stirring skills are greatly improved by my dancing – you’d probably be impressed.

Everything seemed to go smoothly – I didn’t use red wine as I had no money left to buy any (probably due to the rest of the weekend’s alcohol consumption) so used a combo of red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar instead.

Seemed to go OK. I got confused because I didn’t have my recipe and when Sian wrote a new one out, she forgot to put on the different heats so I didn’t know when I was on a high heat, low heat, simmering etc. Was v. confusing.

I didn’t know what to tie the herbs with and they fell apart so it ended up tasting very rosemary-y, but apart from that I thought it was delicious.

Al said it was nice but she didn’t know what it was meant to taste like, but Sian knows and she said it was yum so… SUCCESS!

Tips: I didn’t know what to tie the herbs together with, and they all fell apart. Purchase some string (not blue, learn from Bridget’s mistakes). Also, we like a high fibre non-wholemeal pasta – keeps everything working in order and tastes the same.

Music: Yves Klein Blue.