Of course, green plantains that are purchased at the same time, ripen at the same time. I knew that. So, why am I surprised that I suddenly have a plantain problem, now that they’ve all ripened at the same time?
Argh. Anyway, they’re delicious. So far, I’ve deep-fried them in oil (the sugars in the plantain caramelize beautifully), and wrapped them in egg roll wrappers & deep-fried them*.
And of course, all the bananas in the house are now way too ripe, too. So, they’re getting the Thai fried banana treatment…yuuuuuummmmmmy!
Healthy diet starts tomorrow. Probably.
(* I am of the waste-not, want-not philosophy when it comes to deep-frying, since it uses such an enormous amount of oil. We do it very rarely, like 2 times a year, so we just fry stuff all day long and collapse at the end, completely sick of fried food. It’s fantastic.)
It’s as persuasive as a brain slug. Once it’s in the fridge, watch out. It’s hard to think of anything else. We’re demolishing it over the weekend, and will lament the resulting weight gain quietly, over the course of the next week or so.
Oh, so fabulous.
From my contacts’ photostream, I saw these fantastic images of knitted moustaches and dreamy cupcakes and I truly wish I could have been there for the festivities!
Rock, ladies, rock!
Time for baking.
In the effort to use up the lime juice, I decided to try a risky thing: a vegan cheesecake. Bought the Tofutti “cream cheese”, the Earth Balance shortening & graham crackers to make the crust…and away we’ll go. Probably on Saturday, or maybe Friday night. The sucky thing about cheesecake is that you have to wait a good handful of hours before eating it. Grrrr! The lime cupcakes were fun, but I’m so over making things with all that butter…just makes me feel sluggish, somehow.
It’s just over a week til vacation & I’m really excited to go: my twin nephews are getting older by the day & I want to see how much bigger they are from last year. I mean, they’ll be 2 in August…time is really going by fast.
Trying to finish the garden fence, but the weather’s not cooperating. Grrrrrr.
Had a new experiment yesterday: scalding flour to make bread. Well. It probably would have worked out ok, except I did my usual n00b bread-baking mistake, and forgot the salt. And bread without salt is just…yuck. Otherwise, it’s not bad. Good texture, etc. I’m converting it to breadcrumbs, and consider it a lesson learned. Sort of. I’ve “learned” this particular lesson before, with remarkably little retention.
I want to bake something else, to use up the rest of the lime juice, but am hard pressed to figure out what. Something light, I think. Hmmmm.
I recently saw a vest that someone on Ravelry had knitted, and it really grabbed my attention, but the recommended yarn (Noro Kochoran) is reputed to be very…shed-dy…that can’t be a word. The yarn sheds mightily. So, I grabbed my giant tumbleweed of stashed roving, got out the Blue Steel (4 oz.) and Camo (4 oz.) blue-faced leicester wool from Zarzuela’s Fibers, and went to town.
I’ve been spinning ever since, and just finished setting the twist in the wool long enough for the stupid rain to come back AGAIN, and drive me inside to dry it over the fire. I’m more appreciative than ever of the wood-burning stove.
In other news, key lime cupcakes were baked & consumed…and the lime/cilantro coleslaw was shredded, mixed & consumed…and now I’m looking for a few more recipes, so I can use up all of the organic lime juice, because it’s just that f***ing good.
And I’ve been installing more garden fencing…we’re looking even more Englishy-cottagy, now that the rains have increased our green lushness to at least 400%. I mean, it’s usually very verdant and pretty around here well into fall, unless we get a drought, but this year, it’s vivid & dark & amazing.
We also have mushrooms coming up everywhere:
Unidentified mushroom
I really wish I knew what some of them were: I’m too afraid to eat any of them, though.
Tomorrow holds much of the same glorious boring stuff: spinning, knitting, cooking, garden work, walking…I have no complaints at all.
