Monthly Archives: October 2006

Recipe: Basmati Rice & Pomegranate Salad

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Basmati Rice - Pomegranate Salad

Ingredients:

  • 100 grams basmati rice
  • 2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 small spring onion
  • 1 slice smoked tofu
  • 6 cherry tomatos
  • salt, olive oil

Instructions:

  1. Rinse the basmati rice, bring to a boil enough water to boil it (about five times the rice’s volume). Add the rice to the boiling water, add a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of salt, stir, and let boil for 10 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, peel the carrot, cut it in half, and slice it in half moons. Clean the spring onion, cut it in quarters and then slice.
  3. When the rice is boiled, drain excess water, and put in a bowl. Add the carrot, the onion and the pomegranate seeds, and mix.
  4. Cut the tofu in 1cm cubes, heat a little oil in a pan, and stir fry until golden.
  5. Add tofu to rice, mix carefully. Season with some more olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Decorate with the cherry tomatoes. Serve.

Notes:
This dish can be served warm, as above, or chilled (or at room temperature). Makes a great tupper meal! (This is tomorrow’s meal for me)

I’m Not Dead…

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I’m just dead busy!

Here is the deal: this semester I have six courses and three labs, and that means at least all morning at university (plus mondays evenings) and the rest of the time trying to study all the notes and making exercises and doing lab reports and sleeping. Ok, and eating, I would skip that part, but seems my body isn’t happy with it ;)

Also, starting the 1st of November, I’ll be trying to write around 1,700 words per day, because I’m doing NaNoWriMo. It’s set! I have a plot, I have to develop the characters now, and write a decent outline so I can reach the 50k goal. And I’m also working on that at the moment.

On other news, Jan was over here this past week. He put up with my stress and my classes and my studying, and took me out for dinner at Vegaviana, a very nice vegetarian restaurant. When I wasn’t in class, I just tried to do nothing and enjoy him. So it was a bit quieter.

And on the knitting front, after finishing the Turkish Stitch String Bag, I put knitting off for a couple of weeks. And then I ripped off the too narrow kilt hose, and started it again. This time I learned proper crochet cast on.

More updates as time allows. And probably a few teasers from my NaNovel too.

Back To School Requires Lunchbox!

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So, here I am, already one week into this semester, and next week I start labs in the afternoon. That means I have to take my food to university, because, to be honest, the cafeteria isn’t anything to call home about. And they don’t have a vegetarian menu *pout* So, this year I decided, instead of eating salad every time I have to stay, taking my own mjummy food, heat it in the microwave there, and eat healthier.

However, this whole “take your own food to uni/work” is not very stablished here, and there are no proper lunchboxes, or bags, or anything. And ordering would take at least two weeks to get here, and be expensive. So what’s a girl got to do? Think! Take some fabric and make your own lunchbag:

ikea fabric lunchbox bag

That’s 110cm of a 45 cm wide Ikea fabric made into a drawstring bag with handles. Of course, this bag hides things. I’ll take my food in two Ikea tuppers, and my drink in an Ikea thermos. Of course, I’m also taking cutlery, and I made a pouch out of a scrap of (more Ikea) fabric to hide it. Wanna see it?

lunchbox

What did I learn with this? First, plan your sewing project. I just went to Ikea, bought the tuppers and the thermos, and then guessed how much fabric I’d need. Yes, I was in a hurry! I could have used 50cm more for a couple pockets, maybe. Second, the sewing machine hates me. It’s a cheap machine my mother got years ago, and she’s never sewn with it, it’s only me who started using it recently. This time, I had to clean it because the tension was very wonky (weird, but just cleaning worked like a charm, didn’t take it to the repair shop like last time), and a needle broke mid-project. And third, I can make an easy bag in a morning if I need to.