Random stuff (mostly about food)

• Introducing the the world's biggest can of chickpeas. Well at least the biggest one I ever seen. I got it from a supermarket in Glenroy. How could I resist a can that big and so cheap too at $3.99. We are planning on making a huge amount of hommus. Anyone have any hommus recipes they can recommend, anyone want some freshly made hommus? Anyone had luck freezing hommus?
  

• I discovered that the churros and dark choc dipping sauce at san churros (the choc place on brunswick st) are vegan. We sampled tonight, it was super super yummy but you need to share it, it's too much for one person.

• I didn't get the job I applied for. I also discovered that with my one remaining job I am earning close to the Dole amount. How do people live off the dole? I'm trying to see my poverty (ok not yet) as a challenge of how fruggal I can get instead of the depressing state it is. Also trying to force myself to work on my thesis as much I can. A massive part of it is due at the end of december and I have just started.
  

• My neigbour just showed me her new bike that she got from Kmart for $100, I had a little ride and now I really want a bike. Especially since there is a bike track right next to us. I'm hoping Mr T can learn how to ride a bike (yes he doesn't know how) and get one too and then we can go for weekly rides together.

I need your advice!

Anyone know how to get a tomato based stain out of lino (vinyl) flooring?

Google couldn't give me the answer :-(

Tiffin, Tiffin, Tiffin

I have a tiffin courtesy of ebay. It's smaller than I thought as I opted for the small size. I will trial it tomorrow packed with food and see if I am left hungry.

here's tomorrow lunch:



It consists of a noodle salad with smoked tofu and a dodgy carrot flower on top made out of love hearts (I'm new at this), salted edamame and lotus root slices.

I bought frozen lotus root slices and then discovered there was no cooking instructions on the packet. After searching for recipes with frozen lotus root slices and finding nothing I eventually gave up and made it up. I washed the frozen lotus root slices in water to defrost a little then stir fried with a little sesame oil, Braggs (soy sauce), and rice vinegar and sprinkled with sesame oil. It was quite good, I will make them again.

Salsa with what?



Rice noodles. It was Mr T's invention this evening and it was beautiful. He combined water chestnuts, macadamia nuts, and dried vegetables (from a Taiwanese organic instant noodle pack) with the rice noodles and salsa for a quick can't be bothered going to the supermarket meal. His thinking for adding salsa: they normally use chili sauce to these type of noodles and we didn't have any.

Stencil grafitti in the CBD (close to the vic market)

I'm back

from moping land and moved into a wonderful place called Denial.

Last night a couple of drinks with Mr T's Co-workers turned into more drinks, dancing and lots of laughing with my step brother, brother and a couple of their friends and then with Claire and Dave. It's so bizarre that we were on our way home at about 7pm and almost went home again at 9pm but ended up staying out to about 11.30pm.

Today, Mr T got dreadlocks. Let's just say I am hoping it will grow on me.

More later.

More personal than political

I have to apologise for my lack of posts and general lack of comments on other blogs too.

Things have kind of spun around for me lately. I'm about to go from two jobs to none. Or one but only for a month if I am lucky. That unfortunately also looks like it will fall apart.

I thought it was a little sad a couple of months ago when I discovered that both Mr T and I were classified as minimum wage. Sure I didn't think we were earning great money but I also thought there was people earning less. Nope, we are at the bottom. Well now it's less than that. I'm on half minimum wage.

So what am I doing about it? Looking for work of course, but finding part time employment is a thousand times harder than finding a full time job. Especially when you have to be pretty picky with hours.

It's gotten to me lately and I can't seem to enjoy anything, just stressed about how I will survive throughout the most expensive time of the year.

I really realised today how much it is affecting me though when I burst out crying at a friends place. Hence this post: blog therapy :-)

This week I have a job interview for the only suitable job I have managed to find in the last 2 months. I had my doubts about getting it anyway due to lack of experience in the field, but now I think my chances are even less since there is so much pressure on me getting it.

It's gotten so bad I even considered lying and getting a full time job and doing that for a couple of months til I have to return to uni ( only 1 more year of masters to go). But that of course would mean I'm back to square one with my unemployment situation in a couple of months and I would feel bad about lying and getting trained and starting only to leave.

The strangest thing is you would think that will all this extra time I would be productive: get some work done on my thesis, even house work. But No. I don't have the motivation to do anything, except for search frantically for jobs and mope. I'm also not bad at pretending that I have money and window shopping and wasting time on etsy.com. I'm forcing myself to do productive things, but I'm amazed by the energy required to actually overturn my desire to do nothing and mope. It's beyond my normal laziness, it's a force of it's own.

I'm trying to tell myself happy thoughts too. At least I have my health, have friends and family and I know I am lucky but I would feel a lot lot lot better if I had even a little more financial security. It's scary not knowing how I will pay for things.

Fingers crossed for this interview!!!

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Edited to add: I just realised it hasn't been so long since I last posted afterall. I guess it just feels longer.

Mr T's new t-shirt from a shop on sydney road.

I heart lists

One of the things that was talked about recently in a class was the need for having outlets/fun/relaxing/enjoyable things to basically debrief from difficult days at work. One thing that was spoken about from the instructor was how she enjoys crappy tv and red wine but basically monitoring that so that if you normally drink 2 glasses and are reaching for a third or watching OC, all saints, and desperate housewives and then searching for more crappy tv then you know that things are a little more stressful and to look for alternatives instead of say becoming an alcholic or spending every evening glued to the TV. She actually suggested having a list of 40 things, and so I decided to try to make a list of happy things. I got to 13, and Mr T made a list of 15. It's a work in progress.

I've now thought of another list. I was just thinking what a great weekend it has been, with last night just having a few friends over for drinks and today having a nice picnic, walk and rowing along the murry river at stanley boat house. So often the weekend passes by and we do the same old things. Sure we go out often go out for dinner or breakfast or lunch or go shopping or go to shows but not much outside that. So the list is basically a list of things to do that you may talk about but never get around to doing, almost like a 43 things list but more attainable. I call it our weekend list. So things like:
* using the bike path near us to go for a bike ride
* picking berries
* going to visit the sea shephard boat while it is docked at docklands
* taking Mr T ice-skating (he's never been)
* going kayaking or rowing again
* yum cha in doncaster
* going to get massages together
* go indoor rock climbing
* go to werribee open range zoo
* and lots of other things I can't think of right now, hence the reason I need the list

The first list serves as a reminder when you are reaching for too much of something on a daily basis after a hard day at work and the second list serves as a reminder of things you said you want to do that you might forget or simply just keep putting aside but can easily fit in the weekend.

Now someone please tell me I'm not being too anal! Also, what would you put on your weekend list?

I want a bento

I've been getting lost in all the great bento flickr accounts: the vegan bento pool and mr bento 'porn' pool and bento boxes pool. It all started from the aussie lunch matters blog (the aussie couple who sell 'laptop lunch packs and will sell 'Vegan Lunch Box' cookbook). That lead to lunch matters flickr pool
which then lead to all of the above flickr accounts.

I also discovered more bento blogs too: here and here and here

Mr T thinks they are a waste of money and I won't use it. I'm hoping it will encourage me to eat more variety for lunch. Although it will require quite a lot more effort. As most dinners I make consist of one bowl meals, and lunch consists of leftovers of the one bowl meal from the night before.

The problem is I want a stainless steel one with no plastic.

Our apartment may be small, but it's colorful!