food

9 April, 2014

Update from the Campsite

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what’s up. It was created by created by Jaime and Erin. Want to join the party? Go right ahead, and remember to leave a link to your What’s Up Wednesday post in the widget on Jaime´s blog.

Today’s update is a CampNaNoWriMo edition because this challenge is entirely consuming my life.

What I’m Reading

No books read this week! I did get a bit of beta reading done but I’m still behind on that. I’m going to try and squeeze in more beta reading time in-between Camp NaNo, but it looks like it’s going to be a hectic month.

What I’m Writing

I’m 6.5k done with a 35k goal, so things are ticking along nicely. I’ve got a children’s fantasy WIP in the first draft stage and BROKEN THINGS in a second revision (30% done!), and both are motoring along nicely.

My CampNaNo goal is 35k which is… probably an over-optimistic goal for me most months. I should be able to manage it this month but I won’t be trying 35k-a-month again in a hurry. Especially not when I’m editing a project as well as drafting one.

What Inspires Me

All the other #CampNaNo writers (and those who aren’t taking part but are just writing away as normal) are keeping me motivated. Rock on, you guys.

What Else I’ve Been Up To

I came down with the lurgy on Monday night so I’m just recover from that. Again. Sickness has basically been a second job for me lately.

Aside from that, I’ve just been continuing with the driving lessons, doing a bit of baking, and sharing some awesome meals with Dave.

Bacon and egg bagels -- cooked by Dave, put in naan bread by me because we ran out of bagels — Bacon and egg bagels — cooked by Dave, put in naan bread by me because we ran out of bagels. (This one was a joke meal, but I still ate it! Don’t waste food, kids.)

Pancakes by the Co-Op, arranged and cooked by Dave, sauce by me. TEAMWORK!

And with that spree of food photos, I wish you well for the rest of the week. I hope it’s a productive one for us all!

20 January, 2013

Cinnamon “Churro Waffle” Triangles

Alternative post title: “What to Do When You Don’t Have a Waffle Iron”

Last Friday, sci-fi writing legend John Scalzi found Chica Chocolatina’s recipe for Churro Waffles and proceeded to get very excited about them, getting the rest of the internet both excited about them and very hungry in the process.

The recipe itself is nice and simple when it comes to ingredients, as long as you’ve got cinnamon in the house. But there was a bit of a problem stopping me from using it…

I don’t own a waffle iron. Waffle irons aren’t really much of a thing in the UK (because waffles aren’t either) and I’d have to order one online to even get hold of one.

I despaired. And despaired. And despaired some more.

But while I was despairing, loudly, about my lack of waffle iron, chef-y housemate reminded me that we have a certain utensil in our house that serves the same function (two hot plates keeping the contents sealed).

With the missing link now in place, it was just a case of putting together the recipe. Easy peasy. And thus, a Scottish spin on churro waffles (called “Cinnamon “Churro Waffle” Triangles” with the subtitle “they’re sort of like pancakes or doughnuts” because of my friends don’t know what churros are*) was born and hastily consumed!

churrowaffles

So that’s how my Saturday morning sugar overdose happened, along with the rest of the household and everyone else who set foot in our door that day. And it’s all that damn sci-fi writer’s fault.

*Really there’s no ‘sort of’ about it — churros are doughnuts. But this recipe isn’t deep-friend so the resulting treat is more like a pancake is texture.

7 October, 2012

The Week Long Birthday

Last week was my birthday (and my twin sister Sarah’s). On Tuesday, to be precise. But the actual breakdown went more like this:

Midnight Monday/Early morning Tuesday: I received my Christmas present early from my fiance, Dave, because my birthday present got tangled up in some courier delivery drama. It’s the Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection, and oh boy… it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous box set that covers every aspect of the movies, but just looking at it makes me feel guilty. I could never, ever spend that kind of money of a luxury for myself and the fact that someone else did just makes me feel even guiltier. I am not very good at receiving expensive presents.

birthdayhp — My technique for photographs is mostly ‘look startled’.

Tuesday: A package just arrived in this post with a card, in French, and I looked at it like ‘French?’ because I don’t know anyone in France. Turns out my best friend school made me an AWESOME hand-knitted Sherlock Scarf. I spent that morning in my pyjamas and a Sherlock scarf, and I regret nothing.The card also contained the commands ‘gayly celebrate this agreeable event’ which is always a good plan. Later that afternoon, Dave fitted multicoloured remote-controlled LEDs to the bottom of the bed and now our room becomes a rave at the push of a button.

In the evening, I went to a birthday buffet at my parents house. There was an awesome cake and an even more awesome ‘Happy Birthday’ banner on the way to their house.

malteasercrepe — Crepe with Malteaser Ice Cream

Wednesday: Went to for a birthday meal at a swanky Inverness restaurant with my lovely friends. The highlights of the meal were a lovely (but pricey) strawberry daiquiri, wood pigeon, and a crepe wrapped around Malteaser ice cream.

Thursday: THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT ARRIVED. I received Castiel, a desktop PC more powerful than my wildest dreams: built like a gaming machine but also capable of handling all my writing, art and multitasking without flinching. He was bought for me because my loyal Macbook workhorse, despite several resuscitation attempts, was on his last legs (and because I’d been craving a bit of PC gaming).

In all seriousness, though, I am extremely lucky that Dave and Josh put this machine together for me. It’s absolutely fantastic, and because I didn’t build him, there’s a whole load of awesomeness in this machine that I’d never dare spend on myself. Here are the specs, for bragging rights:

Machine name: CASTIELProcessor: AMD FX(tm)-6100 Six-Core Processor (6 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM Corsair ‘Vengeance’ RAM
Card name: AMD Radeon HD7770 (Black Edition)
C Drive (LEVIATHAN): Model: Seagate Barracuda 1TB

And an awesome Logitech Wave wireless keyboard was supplied to finish off the machine, by my friend Allan.

So if I disappear from the Internet, you can rest assured I’m in my room on this beast of a machine. So far, my Friday and weekend has consisted of building a bookshelf, playing Borderlands 2, playing Bastion (love <3), and supervising Josh’s addition of extra case fans and a non-stock CPU cooler (read: new shiny bits) to Castiel.