Its been a busy day, mostly working on my current secret project. I wanted to reach a certain milestone today, and just managed it. Not much else to say about that.
COVID news was very bad here today, with another record high of 356 new cases for NSW.
For dinner I made shortcrust pastry and used it to make a mushroom quiche.
I really can’t think of anything else interesting I did today.
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First the bad news: 172 new COVID cases in New South Wales, beating the record high for this outbreak set two days ago. Worse is that most of those were infectious and still going about their business in the community, rather than having been isolated as known contacts. The state government announced the lockdown will be extended for another 4 weeks, meaning until 27 August. Let’s hope that’s enough to get the cases back close to zero.
In other news, I started working on this week’s ethics lesson, which will be on the topic of peer pressure. Like prejudice last week, it may be eye opening to the kids to consider that peer pressure isn’t automatically a bad thing. I’m partway through writing the lesson, and will have to finish it tomorrow.
I took a very long walk with Scully today, while my wife was out getting her second COVID vaccination. I used the K9 Sport-Sack to carry Scully on my back outbound. She really seems to enjoy being in the backpack, getting a nice high view of everything. I took a route to a nearby suburb that I usually don’t walk to, after noticing on Google Maps that it’s about the same distance as some of the other places I walk to, just in a slightly less appealing direction as it’s along a major road. But I walked along some back streets more or less parallel to the road, and passing through a large park, which made it more pleasant.
I had lunch out, and then let Scully walk all the way home. And one the way we took a detour to the Italian cake shop to pick up some treats for my wife to celebrate her full vaccination, so the way home was significantly longer than the trip out. The total was 8.2 km, so Scully walked probably at least 4.5 km, and bot was she worn out when we got home! She’s been asleep for most of the afternoon. š
For dinner tonight I tried an experiment:
That’s sourdough starter and an egg.
I added a bit of milk, and then flour until I had a runny dough, or a very stiff pancake batter consistency.
I put a big scoop of the dough onto a small cutting board, and used a knife to scrape off lumps into boiling water. Meanwhile I made a mushroom sauce in a frying pan.
The dough blobs sink initially, but float to the surface as they cook. I scooped them out and into a colander to drain while I continued adding more batches of dough to cook.
I finished the mushroom sauce with some crĆØme fraĆ®che.
And served! Sourdough spƤtzle with creamy mushroom sauce and broccolini. It turned out really good! I’ve been thinking about trying spƤtzle with sourdough starter for a while, and I’m glad I tried it.
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98 new COVID cases in NSW today. The numbers are holding steady, which is not great, but not terrible. Hopefully in a few days we’ll start to see the numbers dropping as the current lockdown rules impact the spread.
We were a bit concerned that the dog groomer hadn’t shaved the hair inside Scully’s ears on Friday when they gave Scully her haircut. The vet on Saturday said that she had a lot of hair in there, which isn’t good because it traps moisture and can lead to infections. So my wife called the groomer to ask about the ear hair, and the groomer said to bring Scully in again today for a few minutes and they’d do her ears. (Some people pluck the hair out of their dog’s ears, but our groomer doesn’t do that and the vet doesn’t recommend it because it’s painful for the dog.)
So I had to venture out to drop Scully off and then wait outside for them to bring her back out. The dog groomer is now also doing contact-free drop-offs – no customers are allowed into the premises; you have to hand your dog over at the front door.
Earlier I’d looked at the hardware store website, intending to order some necessary items for pick-up collection, but I saw that it was still open for normal business. And now I was out with Scully just around the block form the hardware store, so I decided to pop in very quickly and grab the things I needed. It was spookily empty – I have never ever seen the hardware store car park, or the store itself that empty. Which was good, because the fewer people around the less chance of anyone infectious with COVID. I was in and out in about 2 minutes.
I ran into our neighbour outside with her poodle Luna, at the grassy patch across the street where we take the dogs for toilets. We’re all wearing masks for stuff like this now, because of the government rules about masks in shared spaces of apartment blocks. I asked how she and her partner were going, and she sounded a bit resigned, but managing okay. I asked if they’d be interested in some sourdough bread, since I’m baking it and I need to bake every couple of days to keep the starter in good condition. She said they’d love that, but just bought two loaves of bread yesterday, so maybe in a few days. So maybe at the end of the week I’ll bake a loaf to give to them.
For dinner tonight I made some red curry vegetables with rice, and I decided to add some protein in the form of hard boiled eggs. Unfortunately I simmered the eggs at too low a temperature, or maybe started the timer too early, and they were still very soft when I started peeling one. Fortunately it was just hard enough that I could pop them back into the hot water and the partly peeled one kept its shape. In the end I eventually had two hard boiled eggs to add to the curry, and that worked really well.
Finally, a couple of photos I took on the weekend and forgot to share:
The view looking towards the city from the park by the water where we took Scully for a run around.
And a magnolia tree in full flower! In the very middle of winter! I’ve been watching magnolias blooming earlier and earlier over the past several years, but I’ve never seen one so full of flowers this early.
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It’s Sunday, and I spent some time making new Darths & Droids strip. I’m up over 2000 strips now, which is pretty amazing.
My wife took Scully for a walk to North Sydney today because there was a special “Bark Park” event on. This is an annual event in a large park, specially for dogs and dog owners. There are pet-relevant market stalls, entertainment, and other stuff. And then this afternoon we both took her on another walk down to the waterfront for some ball chasing.
This evening I tried roasting vegetables. I’ve done this a few times but never figured out how to get the potatoes nice and crispy, so today I looked up some recipes and tips on doing that. They all agreed that you have to par-boil the potatoes first. The recipe I found then suggested to toss them in a colander to rough up the surface before putting them into a roasting pan pre-heated so it the oil is already hot. Well, I did all that – except I forgot the tossing them in a colander bit.
They turned out okayāin fact better than previous times when I’ve tried to roast potatoesābut not very crispy. I also added some pumpkin and Brussels sprouts halfway through the roast, since they take less time to cook. Overall it was pretty good!
A friend of mine suggested adding baking soda to the water when boiling the potatoes, which also acts to rough up the surface. I looked this up and found many tips online suggesting the same thing. So I’ll try that next time. It sounds easier than roughing them up in a colander.
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Today was the second Ethics class of the year, and the first proper topic after last week’s introductory lesson. The topic is voting, and we started with a discussion of two students who wanted to be elected to the Student Representative Council at their school. One wants to tackle several thought-out issues, while the other just wants some cricket nets installed in the playground so he and his friends can play cricket – probably to the detriment of everyone else who will have less playground space. The first fears the second is more popular and so might win the election.
The discussion tackled the questions of whether it’s okay to vote for someone just because you like them, rather than thinking about their policies, and whether everybody should be allowed to vote, even if they don’t care about the issues. We had a lively discussion, with the kids bringing up various points, such as criminals being allowed to vote. It was really good, and again after last week I was pleased to see that this group is so much better behaved than a few of the kids I had last year.
At the end of the class, as they were leaving, I overhead one of the girls say to another, “That was the best Ethics class ever! Usually they’re really boring.” So that was pretty satisfying! I’m really looking forward to this year of classes with this group.
For dinner tonight I made a special fun dish: miso baked cauliflower.
The basic baked cauliflower is pretty straightforward. The real pizzazz comes form the garnish. Cashew honey cream and pomegranate:
Toasted sesame and sunflower seeds:
Chopped green chili and mint leaves:
The cauliflower cost I think $1.69. The garnish ingredients were over $10. But delicious!
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I baked sourdough today using my brand new loaf tin. It turned out okay!
My wife and I also did a big walk with Scully, down to the Coal Loader Market, which runs 4 times a year. Normally this market is packed with dozens of stalls and a lot of people. They had cut it down to maybe only a quarter of the usual number of stalls, all spread out with a lot of space in between. And the crowd wasn’t nearly as big either.
It’s on a lovely location on the shore of the harbour, this market!
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I didn’t do much today besides making some comic strips in the morning, and take Scully to the dog park in the afternoon. Still relaxing after yesterday’s work at the market.
I did cook dinner, however, and one of my favourite easy vegetable side dishes: chili miso Brussels sprouts. We had them with a chick pea burger patty.
It’s pretty easy to make. Wash and halve some sprouts, then par-cook either in the microwave or a steamer. Fry in a little olive oil with chopped garlic and chili, turning to ensure both sides brown. When done, pour over a half/half mix of miso paste and mirin, combined to form a runny paste, and stir to coat the sprouts, then serve. You don’t need much of the miso/mirin mix, as it’s a strong flavour.
Today I added some slivered almonds too for extra crunch.
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I was determined to do a second 5k run this week, and this morning was the time. It was a warmer morning, and sunny, but I managed to finish in 28:57, just 2 seconds faster than on Monday. Let’s see if I can keep up this enthusiasm for doing two runs a week…
Tomorrow I’m planning to try a new sourdough recipe: sourdough challah. My friend pointed me at a recipe which he says works well, so I’m going to give it a go, sticking as close to the recipe as I can. Today I had to feed the sourdough starter this morning, then tonight I make a levain (a new word I just learnt as I’m trying new things with sourdough), which sits overnight, before being used to make dough tomorrow morning, which then rises all day, before finally being baked tomorrow night. It’s a lot of lead-up time, so I hope it turns out!
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I’m really not sure about nutmeg. I cook a fair bit, and I have some nutmeg in the spice rack, but I never use it much. Because honestly I don’t think I like the flavour. It’s kind of earthy and woody and camphorous and resiny. Looking at some online information, nutmeg is described as a “warm and sweet” spice. “Warm and sweet” sounds like cinnamon, which I love. But nutmeg is nothing like cinnamon. It’s like the promise of something delightful, which then gets cruelly ripped away, leaving exposed the sham that is nutmeg.
I just made a simple semolina porridge as an after-dinner dessert. Normally I have this with cinnamon and brown sugar, and it’s delicious. Today I thought I’d expand my spice usage and add a dash of nutmeg…
Big mistake. Big. Huge.
It’s like what I imagine eating sandalwood, or mothballs, would be like. Bitter and nasty. I dunno… maybe the nutmeg has been sitting in a jar so long it’s gone off? But honestly the taste is pretty much what I remember nutmeg to taste like from past experience. Just stronger… maybe I just added too much? Anyway…. nutmeg is definitely no cinnamon.
Apart from poisoning myself, mostly today I did housework and little cleaning tasks, with a bit of comics work in between, but not much to speak of.
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It’s Christmas Eve, and that meant some cooking tasks. First cab off the rank was completing the sourdough Sourdough and Conjunctionthat I began yesterday.
After rising overnight at room temperature it looked like this (compare to the pre-rising photo from yesterday):
It rose nicely, more than doubling in size, but spread out and went a bit gooey. The next step was to try to manipulate it into a rough loaf shape on a baking tray. This was tricky because it had become quite sticky, and I needed a bit of flour dusting on my hands, and a butter knife to scrape it all off, but I finally managed to produce this:
I consulted my friend who’d gifted me the starter and he said it looked like it had been a bit overproofed. Which he said would make it sticky and not rise as much during baking, and quite sour, but should still taste good. He suggested letting the final rise happen in the fridge, which I did.
A few hours later I baked it, and after 40 minutes it turned out like this:
The bottom (not shown) was nice and browned, but the top had a pasty look. It was firm, and sounded hollow on tapping, which indicated it was baked properly, so I let it cool. Then came the moment of truth:
It was baked through, not doughy in the middle. Yes, it hadn’t risen much during baking, and so was a bit dense rather than airy. But cutting some slices and having them with a bit of butter…
It was indeed delicious! Nicely sour, and very more-ish. So it turned out edible and delicious, which is all I could ask for in a first attempt. My friend advised me to to try letting it rise for a shorter time next time, and then baking it in a hotter oven to try to brown the top a bit more. I knew sourdough would be a learning experience, but I’m happy to have achieved something worth eating on the first try. Hopefully things will just improve from here.
The next thing I had to do was make some mini-quiches, in preparation for Christmas lunch tomorrow. COVID cases have been apparently under control the past couple of days, and the NSW Government announced a slight easing of restrictions for Christmas Day, to allow people to gather with their families in the lower risk regions of the Northern Beaches (which is where my wife’s family lives). The high risk region is still under a strict lockdown, but what this means is we can travel to my in-laws for Christmas lunch as planned.
After I made the quiches, we did a quick run over in the car to drop things off, since tomorrow we’ll be wrangling an entire leg of ham. We drove over during peak hour, on a work day, on one of the most notoriously busy and congested roads in Sydney… and it was eerily quiet and deserted. Almost nobody is travelling into the Northern Beaches region, which is good to see.
Finally, Christmas Eve is traditionally the day my side of the family gathers together. But today with the various COVID restrictions, that wasn’t possible, so we had a big Zoom meeting instead. We had 8 separate groups, including my aunt in Germany, in on the call, and it was hilarious and fun.
It’s a bit of a weird Christmas Eve – one of very very few I’ve ever spent not together with my extended family. The end of a weird year.
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