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Chickpeas and chickens
Jul. 13th, 2018 01:46 pmFriday 13; a great day if you're a witch. Anybody else; relax, we're not out to get you.
Still on time off, which is good, I'm getting a chance to unwind. This word, however, is not quite so relaxing if you've read any of Neal Shusterman's Unwind series; some of the creepiest YA I've ever read, about a future where recalcitrant youth under 18 can be "rewound" and all their parts farmed out to more deserving people. I finished reading these last week :-)
Yesterday took a short bus ride over to Morley Galleria or more correctly, the nearby petshop which stocks rat cubes. I don't deal that well with crowds, so only went into the shopping centre very briefly for fruit and veg - the produce shop does have good prices - and then home to have a go at baking another loaf of bread and more messing about in the garden. Spread the soil improver in the back. Might try some ground cover instead of grass; honestly, lawn doesn't do terrifically well at my place and one can waste a lot of water trying to help it survive the summer.
At the moment I've just finished boiling the crap out of a pan of chickpeas. Soaking overnight and then a couple more hours being simmered. They may be a good survivalist food - these ones have been in the pantry probably for a couple of years and seem okay - but you could starve waiting until they were actually edible. The bread also takes a while, of course, and then you can eat the result within two days and have to go do it again.
I discovered quite a good "quick bread" recipe where you don't need to knead it and the mix just goes straight in to be baked, but that one uses three eggs, so I wouldn't be using it constantly. Unless I get chickens, of course, and I'd have to block off under the house before I did that or I know where I'd be spending all my time. It'd be like when my neighbour failed to confine his chickens - I think he'd only recently got them - and they came visiting me. I was pulling weeds at the front and heard this companionable clucking as three hens sauntered up to see what I was doing and if it involved food.
He was lucky I had a good idea where they'd come from; I left him a note and shut them in my yard - putting up a makeshift barricade - until he got home and came to collect them. After that there was a standing request to just "chuck them over the fence!" After he improved security, only the smartest hen, Angelina, could come visiting. Madonna and Paris couldn't work out the logistics. Angelina would flutter down from the fence to de-bug my back yard, but then couldn't get home afterwards, so she learned to let me pick her up to boost her back home. I really missed those chooks after that neighbour moved. I got stacks of eggs :-)
I'm considering going to boardgaming tomorrow, but the Midland Line trains are off again, so still debating that one. It adds quite a bit of time when one has to switch from bus, walk to the train, then wait for that; rinse and repeat for return journey, not including 2 kilometre hike to the community centre. So I'm a maybe for that.
Still on time off, which is good, I'm getting a chance to unwind. This word, however, is not quite so relaxing if you've read any of Neal Shusterman's Unwind series; some of the creepiest YA I've ever read, about a future where recalcitrant youth under 18 can be "rewound" and all their parts farmed out to more deserving people. I finished reading these last week :-)
Yesterday took a short bus ride over to Morley Galleria or more correctly, the nearby petshop which stocks rat cubes. I don't deal that well with crowds, so only went into the shopping centre very briefly for fruit and veg - the produce shop does have good prices - and then home to have a go at baking another loaf of bread and more messing about in the garden. Spread the soil improver in the back. Might try some ground cover instead of grass; honestly, lawn doesn't do terrifically well at my place and one can waste a lot of water trying to help it survive the summer.
At the moment I've just finished boiling the crap out of a pan of chickpeas. Soaking overnight and then a couple more hours being simmered. They may be a good survivalist food - these ones have been in the pantry probably for a couple of years and seem okay - but you could starve waiting until they were actually edible. The bread also takes a while, of course, and then you can eat the result within two days and have to go do it again.
I discovered quite a good "quick bread" recipe where you don't need to knead it and the mix just goes straight in to be baked, but that one uses three eggs, so I wouldn't be using it constantly. Unless I get chickens, of course, and I'd have to block off under the house before I did that or I know where I'd be spending all my time. It'd be like when my neighbour failed to confine his chickens - I think he'd only recently got them - and they came visiting me. I was pulling weeds at the front and heard this companionable clucking as three hens sauntered up to see what I was doing and if it involved food.
He was lucky I had a good idea where they'd come from; I left him a note and shut them in my yard - putting up a makeshift barricade - until he got home and came to collect them. After that there was a standing request to just "chuck them over the fence!" After he improved security, only the smartest hen, Angelina, could come visiting. Madonna and Paris couldn't work out the logistics. Angelina would flutter down from the fence to de-bug my back yard, but then couldn't get home afterwards, so she learned to let me pick her up to boost her back home. I really missed those chooks after that neighbour moved. I got stacks of eggs :-)
I'm considering going to boardgaming tomorrow, but the Midland Line trains are off again, so still debating that one. It adds quite a bit of time when one has to switch from bus, walk to the train, then wait for that; rinse and repeat for return journey, not including 2 kilometre hike to the community centre. So I'm a maybe for that.