what we ate (non-food post next, i promise)

sorry all my food pictures
are of half-eaten food
i only think of sharing the momen
when my belly is happy and full

I have been reading all about kabocha at Happy Little Bento.  If I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have bought the Japanese pumpkin I saw in the greengrocers the other day.  It's beautiful - very sweet, tender and moist.  Last night, I cooked some up in the yummiest rissotto.

Ingredients

- kabocha (or any pumpkin)
- onion

- celery (optional)

- garlic
- olive oil
- arborio rice (or another risotto rice)

- white wine
- stock
- thyme

- basil

Instructions

- Peel and deseed your pumpkin.  Cut into bite-sized chunks.  Roast at 200 degrees C until done.  (I didn't have to do this step because I deliberately roasted extra pumpkin when I made a salad the other night.  The excess went into a box in the fridge ready to be made into something else - the easiest way to save time and energy!)

- Chop onions and garlic.  Fry in olive oil on a medium heat - the idea is to let both soften without colouring (not that I achieve this very often, my onions were pretty brown by the time I'd chopped the garlic and chucked it in!).

- Add one and a half metric cupfuls of rice (this should be enough for three people) and stir to coat the grains in the oil, onions and garlic.

- Add one cup of white wine or white vermouth.  (we used a sparkling white leftover from New Year's - why we didn't finish the bottle that night or soon thereafter, I'll never know - it was still perfectly good for cooking though)

- Stir until the rice has absorbed all the wine.

- This is where most recipes ask you to add small amounts of hot stock, stirring until absorbed and then repeating until the rice is al dente.  I cheat by using cold water and then adding powdered veggie boullion at the end - I just find it is easier to adjust the flavour that way.  I also added one teaspoon of dried thyme at this stage.

- Stir in your pumpkin.  This is where kabocha is amazing - it's so tender that some of it breaks down and melds with the risotto goo in a glorious orange ooze.

- Serve with chopped fresh basil.  I got mine from here:

meet the ladies
l-r: cherry, basil, corrie, little p and minty
(there are no good girly nicknames for parsley
sorry about the light it has been grey here today

We picked them up on the weekend (CNN and I are masters of lady-picking-up, don't you know) and I'm so happy to have them here.  Plants really make a house a home, even if they do attract flies (what can I say?  They're ladies who pick up!).  At least now I have a good reason to get a venus flytrap.

a second beginning

A rainy Sydney Saturday - English teacher detritus, steaming Chinese tea and gerberas from my husband

You've Got Mail was on TV this evening.  Now, either CNN loves me very much or he is developing a taste for romcoms because he prioritised watching it over watching the Indigenous All Stars vs. NRL All Stars rugby league game.  I'm hoping for both although there were some disparaging comments when we reached the grand finale of the film.

I'm sorry I haven't been the best of bloggers.  The job interview I was meant to go to last Tuesday was cancelled.  Not only was it cancelled, it was cancelled the day before the interview via email.  Isn't that rude?  I'm over it now, but I have to admit I did spend most of last week in my bednest, reading.  I highly, highly recommend The Thousand of Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  No mindfucks but a writer at the peak of his powers (I'm sorry I just used such a clichéd term, but it's true).  We also ate an abundance of Chinese food because it was Chinese New Year (Happy Year of the Rabbit, everyone!), but also because I thought New Year's fell on the Wednesday when it was actually on Thursday.  So we celebrated twice - no harm in that, right?  (Please can those of you who are super au fait with Chinese traditions hold your tongues if it is really unlucky to celebrate twice?)

On the weekend, our house was filled with boys.  CNN is part of a sports tipping competition called the ASS which stands for the Armchair Sportsman's Shield (there is an actual shield).  They held the 2010 presentation last weekend and I really enjoyed spending time with the opposite gender.  I haven't had many friends who are boys thus far in my life but I am open to this changing.  In fact, I am generally open to making friends in Sydney so if you see me, wave and smile and I promise to do the same back.  The other good thing that happened last weekend is that I decided on a church.  There were two that I really liked but I came to a decision after talking it over with CNN (which seems like an odd thing to do because he's agnostic but is one of the reasons why I love my husband).

This week I have been a busy bee, applying for jobs, looking after my buddy as the combination of new school and big weekend has lumbered him with a cold, and cleaning up the house after the ASS weekend.  As CNN is now the primary breadwinner, we are currently operating a 1950s marriage (although CNN is still responsible for cleaning the bathrooms and windows in a chore trade-off made whilst we were still in London).

In weather news, which I feel I must mention (is this a hangover from having lived in England for so long?) this week has been cool and grey - a big contrast from the superhot weather we had last week.

And finally, something exciting from two weekends ago...

We have furniture!  Unpacking our books made our little flat feel even more like home.  CNN and I spent a very enjoyable and very geeky afternoon figuring out how we were going to catergorise and store our books - our English and teaching degrees had a field day!

I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger.  Pinky promise I'll be better if you promise to continue reading?