Happy New Year!
Since I last posted, Lego Lover had a birthday and it went well. He woke up very early and stayed up quite late to experience as much of the day as possible. No disappointments at the end. This is fairly typical but it still pleases me every year. Such a contrast to his brother on his birthday too. There’s still a small chance I will write up a post for his birthday, even though it’s been nearly two weeks now.
Christmas went pretty well  aside from it being the first day of a week-long heatwave. We had a family gathering at the Scientist’s mum’s house. We all ate quite well on all the food prepared. I’d made my usual vegetable and chickpea patties for my MIL and a potato salad for Game Fanatic. The Scientist cooked a small turkey and his mum made heaps of curries plus a salad. Plenty of food was eaten. I was last to get my food and I made the mistake of having a couple veg patties and was filled way too soon. Almost as soon as dinner was finished, dessert was on. To be fair, it’s also my BIL’s birthday and the Scientist had made a cake so it was time to serve it and sing happy birthday. But I didn’t eat any of the cake because I knew it would be way too much after all the food. Another BIL’s family had brought along four or five things for desserts and it seemed like they had gone a bit overboard. Later on I remembered she told about several family members being sick and missing out on Christmas at an earlier gathering with her family. I can only assume some of that was meant for the other gathering and had gone uneaten so they brought it to ours. Still it was way too much and it was too hot to enjoy so much rich food. I did have some jelly (gelatin) that my MIL had prepared with a little bit of a couple desserts but could eat no more than that. We’d also taken along some chocolate and raspberry brownies we’d made a few days earlier and they weren’t touched at all…just meant we were eating them for days after Christmas.
The rest of the year was hot and hot and hot. Everyone just stayed in cool places as much as possible…Then it cooled off a bit and became humid earlier this week. Not a lot better, really…then a couple days of lovely mild weather. Meanwhile the heatwave seems to have gone east and they are now sweltering there. It’s heated up again here for the weekend but it seems we will be okay for next week.
We stayed home on New Year’s Eve, which is pretty usual for our family. Our clock was slow so there was some uncertainty when midnight rolled around so our happy new years were a bit delayed. The Scientist managed to stay awake that long and then was off to bed almost at once.
The next day our dog Maromi had to go to the vet to have a grass seed abscess removed from his paw under surgery. He has a bad relationship with the grass seeds…usually, though, they get into his ear…which is a lot less costly to treat than surgery on his paw. :( He’s recovering just fine. Managed to pull the bandage off a bit early and it was impossible to get it back on where it would stay. It’s all fine though and the stitch comes out in a week which means he can get rid of the cone.
We also bought a couple of new gadgets at the end of the year sales. We started off looking at one thing but ended up looking at food processors. We have an older one that I’d been using once a year for my veg and chickpea patties and it pretty much is a piece of junk. I had to hold things together to keep it working this year so it was destined to be removed from our house in the near future. Anyway, all my research turned up that there were really no lower end models that rated well at all. Maybe this is an area where you just have to pay for a decent machine. The one we finally chose was cost $435 on sale. I haven’t used it yet but it seems quite solid and has a lot of attachments that are stored in a separate case. The other gadget is an air fryer that uses very little oil to cook foods in. We’ve used it a few times now and it works wonderfully. Mostly it’s nice for making chips (french fries) and they come out nice and crispy in far less time than the oven takes.
I almost forgot we have another expense coming up in the bathroom. Seems that the light switch is now shocking when turned on so it’s not to be used until fixed. We are hoping to have a couple extra plug points installed in the house when the electrician comes out as that’s been on the t0-do list for a while now.
4 Comments
Valerie
Happy Birthday Lego Lover!!!
I still make your veg and chickpea patties recipe from time to time. It’s a meal that my kids eat fairly readily. The recipe has so many options that probably yours and mine are unrecognizeably different from each other, even though it’s the same basic recipe for both. :)
I’m curious what brand of food processor you bought. Me personally, I’m a big fan of Braun food processors. They have a number of features that no other brand has, such as having the cover fit *inside* the top of the bowl, instead of outside, so that drips drip on the inside. My current one has a “sealed bowl” — which means that you can fill it up much deeper than any other food processor I’ve ever had, and not worry that it will leak out. I’d consider that feature a basic necessity in any future food processor I might ever buy, I like it that much.
I’m also curious how your dog Maromi got his name. (You’ve probably posted before and I forgot.) It’s a lovely name, so I’m curious about its origin.
Purple Lorikeet
I can believe your recipe would be quite different. I find each version of mine is a bit different. Lately I’ve been putting a small amount of beets into mine but keeping it from turning pink is a bit tricky.
The food processor is Breville. I don’t know if they sell them there or not but I think some other Breville products are sold on Amazon…I never heard of the company until I came here though. Here is the link to one we bought:
http://www.breville.com.au/food-preparation/food-processors/kitchen-wizztmpro.html
I’ll have to post an update once I’ve used it properly, which should be in the next few days. The bowl on this one is sealed, if I’m not mistaken. It’s also fairly large so should accommodate most of the foods I might make. The one thing I can’t do in it is grate cheese…that will void the warranty so will stick to doing it manually.
Maromi was named by Game Fanatic…I think it’s a character in the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist. I’d ask him but he went to bed early tonight. Most of the time his name gets shortened to ‘Romi and Flutteryshy gets called Flutter…I think the third syllable is just a bit too much of a mouthful when you are calling them. :D
eValerie
The only way I’ve found to not turn things pink with beets is to use golden beets or chioggia beets. Red ones are hopelessly generous with sharing their coloring. :)
I’ve seen Breville food processors around, but don’t know much about them.
Is Fluttershy named for the character from “My Little Pony – Friendship Is Magic” ? My kids have been watching that lately, so they would recognize and appreciate the name.
Purple Lorikeet
I don’t know of any places selling anything but the normal red beets around here. Unless there is an occasional one-off crop that reaches the markets and I’ve missed it…Perhaps I will try to plant some other varieties during the winter and see how that goes.
Yes, Fluttershy is named for the MLP character. Also chosen by Game Fanatic…He had the name chosen before we met the puppies but the only one available was male so he came up with Maromi for him. But when another female puppy came back, he was desperate to have her just to call her Fluttershy…not really an apt name as she is anything but shy and is quite impulsive. :D Game Fanatic is a massive fan and follows all the Bronie stuff online. I probably should post about that some time as it’s had a major impact on him over the past year and a half. Lego Lover watches it online with his brother when the new episodes are aired…at about 11:30pm on a Saturday night!