Greek Donuts

Greek Donuts ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT Greek 'donuts' turned out really yummy -- recipe here. Weird thing is, I strained the falafel oil and used the same oil to fry these up.  Although there was a smell of spices, the donuts didn't taste like falafel.  Maybe it was the cinnamon sauce that saved the day? Next lot I do will be the Somalian ones.  Cardamom sauce and a yoghurt based dough sounds good.  Some of the other recipes on this site look good:  the spice mix and the chutney look appealing, although the chutney looks like a bit more work than I'd like to do. Still have half the Greek donut dough in the refrigerator to fry up tomorrow.  After that, I might have to lay off the donuts for a while.  I've scoffed almost this entire bowl on my own.  Mouth's sort of numb from all the sugar I've consumed.  Main meal was French style chicken in white wine stew with vegetables.  No photo because it wasn't visually appealing.  Sort of looked like spew.  lol Bit rattled at the moment.  Heap of screaming and carrying on down the street freaked me.  Sounded like someone was being attacked.  Didn't know what they were going to do.  Half expected someone to come charging in here, or to have my car damaged again.  It's died down now, but I'm on still on edge.  Neighbourhood's gone down the tubes.  A**holes.

Falafel

Falafel Right-Click Select:  Open Link in NEW TAB Use Magnifier Tool to ENLARGE ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT Resetting the body-clock was a disaster so far ... woke at 3am, was up until 11pm.  Crashed. But then I slept for 13 hours straight.  WTF?  Who sleeps that long???  And who gets up after 13 hours of sleep, feeling sleepy and tired??   Think I liked it better when I as semi 'manic' or something, poring over the news obsessively.  lol Falafel cooking went somewhat better than the planned body-clock reset.  But it began as a disaster.  Rolled home-made falafel mix into small dessert-spoon sized balls, flattened them a little, & arranged them on a tray for a quick chill before frying.  Easier for the inexperienced falafel cook without the requisite falafel scooping gadget. All good ... until I threw some falafel into the oil.  Not hot enough, even after something like 8 minutes heating.  Had to fish it out. Might need some wooden skewers for oil testing.  Apparently, if the oil bubbles around skewer, it's good to go.  Got that off watching what I call 'food porn,' recently. Falafel frying attempt in hot oil:  bubbling.  Bubbling big time.  Seemed OK.  Bubbling's good, right?   Well, it looked like it was all good ... until I tried to fish out a falafel balls to see how the frying process was going.  The f*%$ing falafel balls DISINTEGRATED!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fished out a couple of remaining 'stumps' of falafel and got to quickly remixing and reforming the balls, with a small amount of plain flour. The balls that incorporated some flour didn't fall apart and fried up OK.  But I'm not entirely happy with the texture. The mix I made is just a little too mushy for my taste and needs to be a little more coarse next time.  As I don't really know what I'm doing, how coarse/textured will depend on experimenting to see what I can get away with in terms of falafel balls that don't fall apart. I'm working with tinned chickpeas, so maybe that's where the problem lies.  As in, the chickpeas would probably be waterlogged compared to those traditionally used, starting from scratch with dried chickpeas and soaking them overnight or whatever they do. The lot I mixed up didn't need additional water for the same reason, so that was pointless and counter-productive for me.  After frying off a trial batch of falafel balls remixed with flour, I've had to then drain the oil through a fine sieve to fish out the residue.  Annoying.  Should have only tested with one, instead of tossing in several.  General falafel mix: Chickpeas, x3 cans (drain & rinse) Onion, x2 medium garlic, x5-6 cloves coriander, x1 bunch parsley, half bunch salt cumin coriander powder chilli powder cinnamon powder (small amount) baking powder, 1 tsp 2 slices fresh crumbed bread (food processor) plain flour The spices were on a 'whatever' basis ... whatever I think will taste good.  Can taste the mix to make sure there's enough salt & spices.  Other spices can go in there, as well.  But the above is enough for me. Think I might need to prepare this on a few consecutive days to get the feel for what will work best. Final result wasn't too bad, but I need to maybe take it easy with the degree of food-processing next time. Update Made up a batch of dry chickpeas, soaked overnight. Some panic thinking there's no way the mix was going to adhere as it seemed too crumbly.  Put in a small amount of flour and tested a batch that kind of just adhered.   Cooked up really well.  No problem with falling apart. The texture is very nice.  Much better than the canned chickpeas version. Falafel - Version #2

Off Topic - Latest

General Tso Chicken [CLICK to Enlarge] ---------------------- ---------------------- Still depressed. Forcing myself to cook more than I otherwise would cook these days, just to try to get back into a more functional mode. Not a success so far. Body clock is COMPLETELY out of whack. It's getting to be a huge problem, because I cannot tend to some of the things I really do have to see to (like follow-up medical etc). Success rate in kitchen an all-time low.  Run of cooking disasters: General Tso Chicken - horrible and nothing like it tastes like from the take-away. Bread & Butter Pudding with Banana -  Yuk.  Conclusion:  not into banana unless its fresh and on the unripe side. Also burnt the pudding this time around, trying to toast the top.  Forgot about it.  Memory's not good for practical things, but I can remember weird facts OK ... lol. Fried Rice - more improvised than usual / too much sauce.  Yuk again. Spaghetti Carbonara - that also went wrong.  Not completely, but I did waaaaaaaay more pasta than needed for amount of sauce.   It was edible, but still a disaster. Just baked an improvised Buttermilk Coffee Cake, using this recipe as a base.  It smells beautiful, although it hasn't risen much for me.   Maybe I shouldn't have tampered with this recipe -- here. Recipe calls for 'cake four'.  I used plain flour.   Next time it might be an idea to use Nigella's method to reduce the protein -- substitute 2 Tbsp per cup with cornflour  -- here?   That's if I could be bothered doing this again and if I could be bothered messing around while doing it. Buttermilk Coffee Cake The mix I've made up has dissolved instant coffee in it (x4 dessert spoons  dissolved in x6 dessert spoons of boiling water; abt 1 tsp set aside for the cream I'll whip up later).  Added some extra buttermilk because it seemed too dry a mix.* I can't cook without stuffing my face as well, so if I keep cooking as an 'antidote' to apathy and depression, I'm going to wind up depressed, fat and apathetic.  Great. Might have to substitute cleaning for cooking.   Finally did some cleaning the other day and it just about killed me.  Sweat pouring off me, couldn't breathe, skin must be paper-thin because I've got hand injuries even through rubber gloves. Wish I was one of those people obsessed about cleaning.  The things I like doing are useless ... like,  lists of Roman emperors ... lol. I'll never remember all those Roman emperors and I'm not sure I'll get around to looking up all their bios -- never enough time, even when you've got all the time in the world.   Was wondering if Rome began to go down the tubes once they started appointing foreign emperors from the provinces, followed by the divisions of empire etc?   So, is power-sharing and dilution of ethnic bonds the beginning of the end? Don't know the answer to that, it was just a thought while I was skimming Roman emperors. ------- YUK * Broke off a bit of the cake.  It tastes gluey.  Improvisation gone wrong.  LMAO. At this rate, maybe I won't put on weight ... everything's going to be too yuk to eat.  lol Noticed the stick blender cord  had been dangling in a plastic container of water by the side of the sink as I whipped the cream.  Yikes.  I could have been zapped.   Maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad thing if it was instant. For those that don't fancy a zapping, might be best not to have containers of water resting in kitchen areas electrical cords are likely to cross. It was a f*cking mistake to try to kick-start energy by turning to cooking.  I'm now being pressured to cook regardless of my disinterest in reverting to kitchen slavery and getting f*cking fat.   I feel like I'm suffocating here.  Wish I could escape. Ideally, I'd live on a Russian submarine or something.  lol

Off Topic - Bears & people

Off Topic Bears & people Too depressed to blog or take much of an interest in politics, save for half-heartedly monitoring the invasion of Europe and associated chaos. Fantasised about a refuge somewhere in Europe for Europeans, but can't think of anywhere in Europe that's still European. Although Russia's a federation of different peoples, Russia sort of appeals because the Russian public don't take crap from foreigners ... and Russia has nukes. Refugees Go Clubbing In Russia, Harass Girls, Wake Up In Hospital The Next Morning 4:52 PM 02/04/2016 A group of 51 refugees were brutally assaulted outside a night club in Murmansk, Russia, after they groped and molested women at a night club Saturday. http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/04/refugees-go-clubbing-in-russia-harass-girls-wake-up-in-hospital-the-next-morning/ Nearby Estonia also looks really cool, especially the rural areas.  But Estonia is no longer Estonian.  It joined the European Union in 2004, following a two-thirds vote in favour ... and now its borders are open to third world invasion like everywhere else in sold-out Europe. "Purchasing our little dacha in Aseri, Estonia ..." https://lifeinrussia.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/purchasing-our-little-dacha-in-aseri-estonia/ Although it's rather modern, the house below also looks nice (I like boxy angles on most things) ... but with all that glass, it's probably not that practical for a cold climate, and maybe even bears. http://www.kv.ee/soodushind-kehtib-01-03-2016osta-enne-kevadist-era-1955003.html?n Even though I'll never move to Estonia, I'm going to look at the photos and fantasise about how great it would be to live in isolation in Estonia & how good it might have once felt going feral, taking a crap in the woods with bears, or something ... lol The property below looks good for hanging out with bears: http://www.kv.ee/pakume-voimalust-osta-laenuga-ka-majakarpi-ja-krun-2541966.html?nr=70&search_key=da0286ae7ead76e0975960d25bd04092 Bears inhabited the Estonia region for 11,000 years.  But the bears have been reduced to 231 brown bears in 1998 (here). In 1998-99, there were 12 orphaned cubs, as either the mother was killed or was disturbed by hunters or loggers (in which case she will have abandoned her cubs). Bears reared in captivity become too accustomed to people for it to be an effective means of rearing bears that are destined for release in  areas that are close to human settlements (as is the case in Estonia). Bears younger than 6 months aren't capable of surviving on their own.  Young bears are either taken in by people who raise them or they're left at bear 'homes'. How cool would it be raising baby bears in bear homes? Despite the low numbers, bears weren't protected as at the date of that (maybe late 1990s) article.  We live in a disgusting, over populated, and destructive world; and we stand by as Europe itself is being destroyed. Meanwhile, everyone in the 'human rights' exploitation industry is bleating about 'human rights' of aliens, as if alien members of the human species that numbers in the multiple billions are magically 'entitled' to considerations and concessions from Europeans,  owing to nothing but mere biological existence that is a consequence of senseless, plague-proportion reproduction. In a world of  7.349 billion estimated in 2015, of which 742.5 million of all extractions is estimated to inhabit the native European land mass (2013), it looks like both the bears and the native Europeans need protection before they cease to exist.

Off Topic - Onion, Bacon, Potato Hotpot

Food Onion, Bacon, Potato (& Bean) Hotpot Hotpot in the Making [CLICK on IMAGE to ENLARGE] Hotpot is something else that's easy to prepare and very tasty. The hotpot is based on a recipe by Jocasta Innes. By and large as per recipe, but I've added some sharp crumbly cheese and crushed garlic to my white sauce. I've also added a tin of Cannellini beans to the layers of sliced onion, sliced potato, & diced smoky bacon. I've not prepared this strictly per directions; I've just sort of thrown it together and thrown the white sauce on top, as I'm rather lazy.  ;) Good with vegetables, salad, or anything else.   :) ---------------------- ---------------------- RECIPE:  Onion, Bacon & Potato Hotpot LINK | Recipe Jocasta Innes Jocasta Innes, who has died aged 78, was the author of some 60 books in which she set out to prove that it is possible to live elegantly on a shoestring. 6:04PM BST 23 Apr 2013 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10013601/Jocasta-Innes.html

Off Topic - Mee Goreng

Off Topic Mee Goreng Result Mortar & Pestle Ground Onion & Garlic Mee Goreng [Click on Image to Enlarge] Mee Goreng Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4X-_qIIAoo Other Inspiration Mee Goreng Recipe http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/make-mee-goreng-malaysian-noodle-dish-you-cant-get-wrong-n216991 ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT Took my inspiration from the above video & alternate recipe.  Did my own thing, sort of.  Very nice.  Reasonably quick and easy job. I threw in whatever I had. Eg.  I didn't have shallots, so I just used a large onion (diced & then whacked until ground -- mortar and pestle.  But I'm guessing electric device would work just as well). Instead of bok choy, I had finely shredded cabbage & red capsicum that was on hand.  Wok fried that ahead of assembling entire dish.  Likewise with the chicken.  Wok fried the chicken strips.  For the sauce, I just threw in everything together in one measuring jug. I made an omelette in advance, which I chopped up, because I'm no good with wok egg. Sauce was really nice.  Did mine with the tomato sauce.  So it was tomato sauce, sweet soy, and a dark soy mix.  As I did a massive batch, mine was something like 1/4 cup of each. Next time, I'll have some fried tofu and definitely greens of some kind.  Greens make it yummy & more appealing visually, too. Need to be fit with strong wrists (unlike my puny wrists ... lol), to do the stone mortar and wok lifting (ouch!) ... & the wok stirring (ouch, again). Worked up a massive sweat doing this.  How unfit am I?  lol [In a hurry ... hope there's no typos ... lol ... gotta go]

Off Topic

Off Topic freak-out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PamMPGFmohU ---------------------- ---------------------- Feeling really weird and having a major freak-out that I'm having a breakdown or something ... lol It's a horrible suffocating feeling that comes and goes. I guess it's really a strong feeling of being overwhelmed. Maybe a strong need, impulse, or desire to control some aspect of my immediate environment, but at the same time being absolutely unable to satisfactorily control or address what's primarily bothering me  ...  or anything else that's belly up (my life, my self ... lol). So it is being/feeling completely helpless that's maybe sending me loopy. Hope Planet Tokyo doesn't implode ... lol

Off Topic Unicode & Murdoch

Off Topic *post title header *post title header Tried to add a background colour to post title header HTML codes of the Blogger template. Two lots of instructions made no difference. Tried to improvise something & it was a disaster:  got a page of red code ... yikes! Lucky, I saved a copy of my template before I had a shot at this. It's annoying me but it's also annoying me looking for suitable instructions to add in something that should be really easy to add in ... if you know what you're doing. I've also got to mess around with my individual post templates and with the pages and other bits and pieces on the blog, because my browser isn't recognising some of the Unicode that I had happening in individual templates. Probably months of individual blog posts, I can't adjust.  But I'll need to adjust various pages, I guess. On top of that, I still haven't got around to drawing up a 'map' of the blog pages etc, so that I can easily see what fits into what and keep an eye ... as it's not that easy to remember what's what, as content builds up. And I haven't kept on top of intended cataloguing type tasks I'd hoped to do ... or the ideas I had for pages, which I can't even remember now.  lol Just know that I'd intended to do something, but I can't remember what. Wrote up a commentary on what appears to me to be a mutually parasitic relationship between US-Anglo-European elites, Zionist groups, and Israel the state, as the state/agent created by those same groups, which state appears to be used by those same groups as a shield and as an tool for pursuing private profit-making capitalist interests and agendas in the Middle East, while diverting state (ie taxpayer) resources from domestic populations (eg war funds), or worse:  pursuing polices that are detrimental to the interests of the native European populations --  eg. the PR (propaganda) sale of 'liberalism' and liberal ideals, deregulation of labour markets, & decades-long pursuit of the mass foreign population transfer state-facilitated invasions of Europe, come to mind. EDIT:  I should probably elaborate a little re above ... liberal ideas is something that is CONSTANTLY used by the state/politicians, media, their intelligentsia -- and even Israel (only democracy in the Middle East claims  type thing, etc.), to justify actions -- be it interventions in the guise of 'humanitarian' rather 'SJW' type 'concerns' of the elite establishment warmongers; harsh militarily retaliation/action (re Israel example) and so forth, and in the case of the West and Western Europe, to deregulate labour markets and to fling open borders etc.  Anyway, that's the sort of thing I'm thinking.  But I might need to do some more reading, as I don't really know when this liberal line of thought was first launched into the public sphere, to manipulate the public. I didn't really expand much on this; it was just ideas I had after reading about Rupert Murdoch's investment in extraction of resources in Israeli occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and then reading the speech (plus pitch on behalf of Israel)  Murdoch made, on getting some preposterous humanitarian award in 2009, from what I gather is an American Zionist organisation - [here]. Now I know why the public doesn't like that guy. ---------------------- ----------------------

Off Topic - Hair GIF

ꕤ Goodbye Hair Yikes! ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Gross.  I don't even like the look of my own hair on surfaces, in the basin, on my clothes and pretty much everywhere else it has wound up these last 2 or 3 years I've been losing MASSES of hair. That lot is AFTER loads of hair came off me while washing it in the shower. I'm freaking ... how am I supposed to leave the house if I go bald???? !!   I don't care much for public places at it is, but my public place and outdoors 'phobia' of sorts is likely to get worse if this keeps up.  I may never leave this chair.  lol In other news:  finally have a throw-away SIM so I can hopefully access my Twitter account again (assh*les). Will activate it when I get around to being bothered fiddling with accounts and passwords etc.  ... which I also detest. ꕤ

Off Topic - Welcome to My Laundry

ꕤ Same sh*t different year ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Fly The Friendly Way HITLER ROLLER COASTER   LOL ... I love that roller coaster thing.  I can identify. Discovery:   As a bath fills, running water makes less of a rushing noise. Nearly had another bath overflow house-flooding mishap. Caught it just in time although I almost let it go, as I couldn't hear the rush of water and I thought I'd turned off the taps. Lucky catch. ꕤ

Off-Topic - Time

ꕤ British Library 'Beaujolais-Drill-Dombes. Thizy and surroundings. Armorial and genealogical notes. Book decorated with 380 engravings and written by the scattered notes left by Étienne Mulsant, etc. ' Author: BILLET, H. Contributor: MULSANT, Martial Étienne. Place of Publishing: Lyon Date of Publishing: 1899 ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- The first documented record for staying awake is 11 days, and it goes back to 1964 (Randy Gardner - here). During the Stanford University (California, USA) experiment: "On the eleventh day, when [the subject, Randy Gardner] was asked to subtract seven repeatedly, starting with 100, he stopped at 65. When asked why he had stopped, he replied that he had forgotten what he was doing"  [as above] LOL ... I'm forever forgetting what I'm doing, even with regular sleep.  And I'd have no hope with the backwards count, even with sleep.  The other record (almost 19 days awake in rocking chair marathon) sounds positively crazy ... and maybe fun: The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses. [here] I'd been awake for over a couple of days straight, wondering how long I'd last staying awake without going nuts, so I found myself check out how long I had (after experiencing anxiety that I maybe wouldn't be able to sleep at all). It looks like just short of 3 days is my limit (or close to it, I think ... it's hard to go back & count the time, as I can't remember the time frame). Unlike the experiment guy, I wasn't going for the record ... I was just wired from being on the computer and listening to music.  After passing the initial sleep 'wall' it feels like you can go on forever.   And it's like flying.  While stationary.  Rather cool. More 'sleep walls' or 'sleep dips' recur, but can be bypassed for those that want to, I guess.  LOL After a few sessions of extensive wakefulness periods, it is as if the duration of one's 'days' is altered:  a 'day' is no longer 24 hours, as in the feeling for time changes. Normal time frames feel too short/fast. That's an enduring feeling, for me. Long stretches without sleep come with a sort of depressing side-effect, the longer you go without sleep (well, for me).  But it's not enduring ... I hope. The other side-effect is a sore, cramping 'mouse-hand'. Even with long stretches without sleep, natural sleep periods don't extend beyond the range of normal. So that's kind of cool.  It's a gain in time. Although it's apparently also a loss in terms of wear and tear, and probably not recommended.  ;) ꕤ

VIDEO

Sigue Sigue Sputnik Hey, Jayne Mansfield Superstar  Remastered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQyU_jaAjAo

Forest Project [ partial - clip ] * Having trouble converting my string of gifs ... & some Netherlands site ate my file. Maybe my string gif will turn up in some porno.  ;)

Play Button in Constant Motion

Listening to this while I wait for some Netherlands site  to convert my GIF to video ... "Cello in Motion" direct link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8IXJQJ9e6Y I'd like this on a constant loop.  Been listening to this over and over again for at least the last 2 hrs, but I'm getting sick of pressing the play button.