Why you should housesit for hippies in the summertime

(Gratuitous iPhone photo of produce)

Because you will have organic fresh veg coming out your ears. Not to mention fresh eggs every morning. This was two days  worth of cherry tomato harvesting. They are all vine ripened, so ultra sweet. They are heirloom varieties, so ultra tasty.  We also had more chillies and cucumbers then we knew what to do with. So the logical conclusion was gazpacho. 


You will need:

• Lots of awesome tomatoes- maybe 5 cups.. the more the merrier. Vine ripened is pretty much the only way to go here. No need to bother if your toms don't rock.
• Two red capsicums
• A cucumber
• A red onion
• Fresh chillies to taste
• Two or more cloves of garlic
  
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Red wine vinegar
• Balsamic (optional)
• Fresh herbs- parsely, basil, corriander
• salt and pepper
• Serve with hot fresh bread

 
 Make it:

• Take the awesome tomatoes and whack them in your food processor until you have around three cups of tomato mush. Pour into a big pot or serving bowl.
• Chop a couple of capsicums, a big cucumber (or a couple of little ones) a red onion and as many chillies as you like. If it takes your fancy/ you are cooking with a boy who loves the food processor, pulse them until they are your desired size and consistancy. Add to the pot with the tomatos.
• Add 1/2-1 cup of extra virgin olive oil and 1/3 cup red wine vinegar. If you are cooking with a boy, also add a slosh of balsamic. Season with salt and pepper and squash in a couple of cloves of garlic. If your tomatoes aren't perfect, sprinkle in some castor sugar as well, to round out the flavour. If you feel so inclined, sprinkle some dried oregano, but better still, chop up corriander, basil and parsley- as much as you have- and mix everything together. 
• Chill for a couple of hours at least to let the flavours meld.
• Serve with hot bread or toast rubbed with garlic and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Gets better the next day and even better the day after that, if there is any left.

This was our post Christmas ham-free food. It lasted us four days for Mr Hansom and I having a bit with lunch and a bit with dinner. It was fantastic. Sad that there is no more tomatoes now that we are back home.

Peachy

That's what life is today. My last essay is done, I am on the bus to uni to hand it in. It's Friday and I have many craft adventures planned for the weekend. The weather is sunny and at my temperature threshold. Pretty sure that if I could sink my teeth into today and taste it would be sweet and juicy.

One down, one to go

For the next twenty minutes I am going to revel in the fact that I have churned out my 2500 word essay within word limit, choc full of lovely references and with a nice bibliography.

For the next twenty minutes I am going to ignore the fact that I have another 2500 essay to write, research and reference ready to hand in by 12pm tomorrow.

In the next twenty minutes or so I am going to saddle up the palominos, grab my packed lunch and head to uni to hand in the first essay.

Then for the remaining 26 hours I am going to chain myself to my laptop and write like a demon. I am about to go hide my spindle and all knitting projects and I will be passing along instruction to my nearest and dearest to kindly clip me over the ear if they catch me on non-educational websites.

Blog, if there isn't a post here tomorrow afternoon assume I am either dead, passed out celebrating or, and lord we hope it aint so, still writing.

Procrastiknitting

Never have I been so diligent in my knitting practice. I have knit and ripped back and re-knit the top cuff of my arm warmers.... (counting in head) four times. I think. I'm pretty happy with what I've got going on now. No pictures because there is only tungsten or super-flash so any photo I took tonight would be terrible. Hopefully I will finish mitt the first tomorrow and photograph it. I am super happy with the pattern. It is the Lovisa Armwarmer pattern (rav link). The pattern is wicked cute and supremely free. I am knitting it in what is quite possibly my all time favourite everyday yarn: Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed. Using the DK weight this time which I like better than the aran.

I will post my mods when I finish at least one mitt and have a snappy snap to go with it.

That is all.
What a good little blog keeper I am... My my! There must be assignments due, I'm not usually so productive!

Photos aka what Mr Handsom does all day

So when the boy isn't gaming or talking to people in far off places he takes photos or edits photos or writes about photos on the blog he and his friend/mentor run. And when he isn't doing that he is pouring over the Google Analyitics of the blog trying to figure out how to get more readers. It's so much more technical than I can bothered to be about the whole blogging thing.

In an attempt to assist him in his quest for more readers I got him a great little ebook from Craftypod, Diane Gilleland's craft blog/shop/self contained universe. The ebook is Creating a Blog Audience. It's full of advice, handy tips and such that even non-audience-interested people such as myself will find useful. It's also really well written, so when I was just having a glance through before I passed it over, I actually got sucked into reading half of it and felt sad when I had to hand the computer over.

But the blog in question here is not my little (and somewhat insignificant) corner of the intertubes, but Metaphor Online, Mr Handsome's main project. They have little run downs on some great photographers in Australia and overseas. It's still in its infancy but the boys are off to a good start. I think so anyway.

Today's craving is brought to you by Rowan

Absolutely dying to knit some crack silk haze. Have two balls bought at Purl SoHo. Startitis is hitting me hard at the moment. Got me a lace craving. Silly old brain, I know that I am way too virus riddled to handle the tricky stuff and it is just the Codral talking. Still feel like casting on a shawl though.

Well I'm no good now, am I

Ho hum...
So the gap is ever-widening.
In my defence, I am a very boring individual and have little to report.
+ New semester of Uni is half done. Am taking a politics unit which feels distinctly un-me. Interesting though.
+ Have an assignment for said pols unit, but finding it more tricky than I should. Will blame virus-brain.
+ Virused for the third time this season. Most displeased. Think maybe a better diet and more exercise is required.
+ have been working on my mad spinning skillz. Actually pretty happy with them. Was lent an Ashford spindle by one of the girls at a spinning afternoon. Much better than my sadly crap ebay spindle.
+ Decided that a spinning wheel is absolutely necessary to my on-going existence. Mister says not til we move out. I am still looking for nooks and crannies around the home in which to hide one.
+ have been doing battle with the bohemoth that is Centrelink. Application was finally approved today. After two and a half months. Now just need to rustle up payslips from the intervening weeks.
+ Am notorious for loosing/ chucking out my pay slips. I have found 4/10. Not happy.
+ After watching Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mister decided that Centrelink is run by Vogons. Agree entirely. "bring me the request to pursue fugitive form"

That's all. I am off for a nap.