Wednesday and red lentil curry

Wednesday is for recovering from Tuesday. And for making red lentil curry. I now have red lentils and since that was the only ingredient I was missing from this recipe from Yeung Man Cooking I was all set 

There's another page of instructions. This is a meal where you get into the process of cooking by stages, ending in a wonderful hot spicy endlessly interesting dish. 

You need to be left alone to cook this, many stages, involving chopping and toasting and crushing and sauteeing in stages. Just finding and setting out the ingredients is a thing.

I eat this with spoon and fork, or pusher,  because you get a different taste with each spoonful, all the different flavors and spices are in the sauce, and you'd miss some of the combos if you used a fork.

This half hour of prep and cooking makes three substantial meals. I suppose that's one family or a meal for a hungry couple.

Tomorrow's Misfits will include ginger beer again, perfect accompaniment to this curry, which I'll have again for lunch.

And I'm reading a cosy mystery 

Yesterday was full of good things. Aside from what you already know, one neighbor gave me dill, an herb I've never succeeded with, and she has a surplus. 

Another watered my flowers along with his own. He also told me his daughter had installed insulation for a sound barrier around his new fireplace where the speakers are, so I wouldn't hear his music. 

His fireplace and mine back each other and sound can travel. He can't do it himself at the moment, so he organized her into it! 

This is why I stay here as long as I can do it. Lovely neighborhood. Caring, not nosy.

 

This afternoon may involve a siesta.

Meanwhile, problem solving 

 

 

Dosas, knitting, Textiles and Tea

After seeing Kamala cooking on YouTube, I remembered it's a long time since I made dosas. Kind of pancakes made with red lentils, fermented.

I didn't have red lentils, so instead I ground brown lentils into flour. Red lentils are softer, fast cooking, brown more resistant. So I thought flour would work. 

This coffee mill is about 35 years old, $10 at a local store long gone. It's still working fine after grinding all kinds of grains and nuts and seeds and spices. Also coffee, but rarely.

Made a batter with salt and water. Left it overnight.

Dosas for lunch today with chicken breast. It was edible but not pretty, hence no pictures. I've made other edible but not photogenic meals lately, usual involving cannellini beans. Not much color. But still good food.

The Tuesday knitting group was about beads, this entire can donated to the library for crafting classes. Many of the beads are antique, from the donor's grandmother.

Also Tunisian crochet returned, with a phone case and a bag for clothes pegs 

The resident librarian who officially runs the group always leaves out relevant books from the collection 

Lovely designs. And lovely discussion of hats and fashion and living in New Mexico north of Taos, learning to spin, indigo dyeing, umbrellas, my now-returned and refunded brolly, paper making with various materials, wrens nesting, drawing, spinning cotton, Gandhi, cordage and heatwaves. 

Textiles and Tea featured Laurie Carlson Steger, who not only weaves solo, but does collaborative work too. She has worked in fiber optics for a special MIT project, which ended up being part of a space telescope! 

Nearer home, she's an artist who uses weaving as her medium. You can see echoes of Klee, Rothko and others.

She wove this piece at the age of twelve.

See the Rothko style on her wall

And here Klee and others

This is jazz violinist Stefan Grappelli, from a live drawing at a concert, rendered in black and white then colors

And here's her high tech TC2 loom, with skeins of hand dyed yarn drying in front of it. 

This was an entertaining and far reaching session. Next year she's teaching a weaving workshop using fiber optic yarn to make a lighting-up hat, great fun.

Happy day, everyone, I love my Tuesdays!

Reaction setting in

Here's the empty cup from the hibiscus blossom 

I feel like this today. Maybe reaction after all the recent relief and excitement.

So I walked, not too hot, catching this new view of the debated plant 

It's now about two feet tall, and I thought evening primrose opened in the evening, but this is mid morning.  I think this may be blogistas 1, Boud 0. 

And here's my cure for feeling low.

When I can get there, yesterday too tired, but a few minutes, with leaping frogs and turtles swimming, is a great natural remedy.

And on the way home, a greeting from Billy the Pup, licking my phone 

Then backing up to get her picture taken, looking Big and Fierce 

Happy day everyone, and for the etymologists among us 

And, another reason to love her, she's a legit great cook, here making stuffed dosas with Mindy Kaling

Let a smile be your umbrella and other vain hopes

Recently a friend showed me an spf umbrella, supposedly ideal for sun protection out walking. Silver outside, lined, looked good.  So I thought I could use one shade my upper body, no need for a hat. And promptly ordered one.

It arrived today 

Not exactly like hers, but seemingly good for purpose. Then I read the instructions that came with it.

"Not to be used in sunlight, which could damage the fabric".  It's going back. I already got the qr code to drop it off at the nearby UPS store. 

According to my other knitting friends, I was had anyway, since any fabric between you and sunlight blocks UV.  So I've learned a thing or two.   But I'm disappointed. I could just use my regular umbrella. Which I will.

The gold and bead piece is progressing, I'm liking this a lot 

This is probably going to be a page in the fabric book.

The spectacular hibiscus flower has already faded 

But right next to it, a successor is tuning up

 A metaphor for life if ever there was one.

And the zinnias are getting under way 

My curry leaf plant which seemed to be dying, suddenly got going with new foliage 

A bit hard to see against the ground cover, but many new little branches are developing.  You can see the older yellowed leaves. I'll freeze them because they still have a lot of flavor.

And here's today's little flower arrangement

 

It's a while since I celebrated anyone's art, so here's a lovely piece

Australians do wonderful fiberarts. There's a spiritual quality in a lot of it that's hard to find elsewhere and impossible to duplicate.

Happy day, everyone, fight the good fight!

Now for calm, to balance the excitement

 Friday's knitting group was lively, stitching, knitting, crochet 

Lovely African work basket. Does anyone know the purpose of the loops at the base of the handles?

Talk ranged over birthdays, childbirth, kidney stones (!), knitting patterns, MDK, spf umbrellas, business travel, missing medical calls because made from personal phones, weather, goldwork, Williamsburg, color blindness and interlibrary loans. So long since I've been there, it was like a reunion.

In the garden, here's the drama of the season 

Friday the hibiscus did this 

Saturday 

It just exploded into its very first blossom. Tell me this isn't a metaphor for our political season! Gary and friend came to admire and take pictures. He's looking stronger now.

And less spectacular, but beautiful, the first zinnia 

and friends 

So that's nature and friends, coming through faithfully.

Saturday's walk gave more sights 

First tiger swallowtail of the year, blurred because she was busy 

Wildflower at the edge of the trees, don't know this one, guessing birds foot trefoil.

Ed. Note here's a much better picture of what I saw. Mine didn't convey the three part complexity of the flower, which can grow to 12", like this one.

And it might be yet another wildflower!

A lot of yellow sorrel underfoot 

My neighbors also have a hibiscus 

Then home to food 

Roast chicken breast with basmati rice with baby Bella mushrooms and dried cranberries 

And a pluot, apple and nectarine crumble, baked in the toaster oven. 

For the crumble part I just slung oats, chickpea flour, cane sugar and molasses mixed together, over the fruit, dots of butter, baked at 380°f an hour, first 30 minutes with a tinfoil hat (!) second 30 minutes uncovered and it came out well enough. 

Got to keep up my strength.

Happy day, everyone! Including dog people