We survived Hipstergeddon!

Our little dog hiding under the table during the blackout.

We had a lengthy blackout on Monday night. Some have called it ‘Hipstergeddon’ because we spent around 7 hours without lights, TV, heating, microwave, dishwasher, radio and most importantly… computers! (First world problems :-))

We’ve had blackouts before of course (although I can’t remember one lasting this long since I was a kid), but this is the first time I’ve really been aware of how much more we rely on electricity these days!

When the lights flickered once and then suddenly shut off, I was right in the middle of serving our lasagna for dinner. Only my daughter, H, and I were home at the time, so after (I’m ashamed to say) some girlie shrieking and squealing about zombies and monsters…H earnestly suggested, in her best Scooby Doo character voice, “I think it would be best if we split up.”

Birthday favourite (or habit)

We had a family birthday at our house the other day. My baby boy turned 20!  I know every parent says this but…where did the years go??

It seems like only a couple of years ago that we were at his friend’s McDonald’s 5th birthday party and the waitress asked me, “If your son’s is vegetarian, is it OK for him to have fries?”

I was about to answer that he wasn’t vegetarian (it was ME who was vegetarian), but then I realised that he’d told her he was—and he has been ever since. (I was rather pleased!)

Celebrating with lemon meringue pie!

Here’s how mine turned out.

Yesterday I handed in my final assessment piece for my Masters course— what a relief!  So, after another semester of throwing together dinner, buying takeaway and eating out, I just wanted to take my time and make a bit of a special celebratory dinner tonight.

With some yummy puffed tofu in the fridge waiting to be eaten, I had a hankering for a Thai curry, and visited S-I-X shops before I found a Thai curry paste that didn’t contain shrimp paste. I’ve bought it many times before but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where I’d got it! I wouldn’t give up though. My mouth was already watering at the thought of the curry.

Black bean and quinoa soup

The photo doesn’t really do it justice. It was much brighter than this in real life. I really need to become a better photographer.

I’ve been making lots of yummy things lately, but I never seem to remember to take a photo of any of them before I stuff them into my mouth!

A recipe blog entry isn’t very interesting without a picture, so it’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe.

Well, tonight I re-made a Post Punk Kitchen recipe for Black Bean and Quinoa Soup, and managed to restrain myself long enough to get a photo before I gobbled it up.

Hunza pie and strawberry crumble

More farmers’ market produce put to good use last night.

Looking at the lovely bunch of rainbow chard and the bag of potatoes reminded me of a recipe I used to make when we first stopped eating meat back in 1994.

One of my sisters had given me a collection of her favourite vegetarian recipes. It included Hunza Pie, which soon became a regular dinner in our house, but somewhere along the way, we’d forgotten all about it.

Now that we’re not eating animal products, it was time to give it another go.