(no subject)

[slemslempike]

I ended up taking this week off at very short notice after a helpful conversation with my manager. I was going to call the GP today to get a phone triage to ask advice about burnout (kind of hoping to be told to take more time off) but you have to be up at 8.30 to ring, and I woke at 11am after staying up til 1am finishing off my work to be able to take time off and then accidentally reading for 2 more hours after that. So maybe tomorrow, and I should see if my work insurance connects me to something.

I have done lots of nothing, including going through all my charity shop recipe book purchases to see if I actually intend to make anything from them. I have discarded three already (after taking photos of the one recipe in each I fancy making as opposed to eating), Nordic eating, Scottish Kitchen and the National Gallery cookbook. They have lots of things that sound delicious, but I only really like cooking things that are putting everything in the same pot and leaving it. Even with that caveat I already found 40 recipes to make with five more books to go through.

The most successful book I have bought is Stewed! by Alan Rosenthal. It is all one pot, and unlike other one-pot books I've gone through, actually MEANS one pot instead of cook ten different ingredients separately and then at the very end put them into the same pot. I have already made 7 things - the standout being Persian sour cherry and walnut stew - several of them more than once. And almost all freeze well, so I can cook and then spread out my eating over more time instead of dying of boredom. I might be about to select a new recipe to do that tonight and go and buy ingredients, or I might be about to order McDonald's. Time will tell. Even if I don't need to go for food shopping I must leave the house anyway, I haven't since Friday when I continued my SWIMMING streak.

Onto the next recipe books to look through - including both Ottolenghi's Jerusalem, and the Marmite Cookbook.

Comments

[katlinel]

Ugh, I hope the week off will help in the immediate term, and your current job/potential new job will help in the medium term, and also the GP if you can crack the 08:30 call.

Well done on the SWIMMING STREAK!

Properly one pot meals are great. That's excellent progress on the recipe books. S suggested getting Nadiya Begum's book from her new series, but her cooking style is to invariably complicate things, to the point of it being All Too Much for my innards, and I think, in the entire series, there were one and a half recipes I'd even contemplate making. The half was her brownie base in a recipe that was millionaire's shortbread but with brownie, not shortbread, as the base and many, many sicklier things piled on top. She's a great presenter though.

[slemslempike]

Yes, the fancier recipe books are pretty, but often not very practical and put me off trying them.

[slemslempike]

Overly complicated food loses me as I am lazy and also fussy :) Sad that Nadiya's book falls int this category as I like her very much.

[katlinel]

Me too. I know there's the pressure to come up with original recipes, but like this recipe, which at first looks like just a cupcake with extra fancy icing on top, but turns out to have a sandwich biscuit at bottom of the cake, and just, no.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/strawberry_shortcake_91461

My hands shake too much when I tense them for icing to ever be able to make pretty icing swirls, so I'm never going to be able to do pretty food like that.


And this is the brownie recipe:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cheesecake_brownies_with_59044

[girlofprey]

I hope you get some help. Doctors are so very difficult these days, even before the pandemic.

The lockdown this year has been amazing for helping me go through my belongings. I had a pile of 'maybe' CDs to listen to before I threw them out, and it sat in my room for about two or three years. Now, listening to one CD a day, I've managed to get down to the last one. And have discovered I really like sitting in my chair reading or playing something, and just listening to music, which I never really did before. Time off is so useful.

[slemslempike]

I managed to get through first time today and the GP was helpful, signed off for another week.

That's really nice! I almost never listen to music now, I should try to do it more. Any nice surprises in your maybe pile?

[girlofprey]

Nothing was really a complete surprise, because I rarely buy music unless I've heard something by the artist before, but there were certainly some songs I'm glad I heard or rediscovered. I mentioned a few in a post last month, and there are a few others like Meds and Feds by M.I.A. and Lake Pontchartrain by Ludo that I'll probably post about again.

[goodbyebird]

oooh Stewed sounds most excellent, I'll have to look that one up, thanks!

Good luck with the time off <3

[slemslempike]

I highly recommend it! Really clear instructions too.

Thanks.