THAT IS A DOGGIE'S NOSE. But tonight I came to my tubbers and called "come out you fatty pink noses! Come out you furry old gremlin swines!" ~~ sure enough, direct from the teabox two tubby pink noses appeared. Sergeant Itchy and Bashful sure enough, who sleep together. Spherical, who I am not sure is related to them, sometimes sleeps separately in the "jagoda" strawberry Jaffa Cakes box, sometimes sleeps with the other two. When it's particularly cold Bashful and Itchy bed down in the Parmesan lavatory (now bedroom complete with cotton wool provided by me). I've put down another Parmesan tube for them to peepee in ...As you can see not much news. I've not been sleeping too much lately... Last night I seemed to catch up bigstyle. Hours and hours of vivid-dreamy sleep... the dreams quite confused (be thankful: else I'd be posting them in blow-by-blow detail); but ended up with me and a princess in the Romanovs' (that is the late Tsars of Russia's) Winter Palace running through ballrooms escaping some secret adversary.... Not quite sure how/wherefore/why/etc... but hey it was "just" a dream...
The Chinese cooking is coming on dreamily. I've yet to remember to make the scrambled eggs for the rice and so the present fried rice is egg-free. But I've made a fantastic mixed vegetable one and my chicken blackbean sauce is coming on whizzingly...
AND SO! The first weekend of 2008 approacheth. What am I saying: it's here! Have a great one everybody and don't get too exhausted.
Take care
Gleds
xxx
xx
xx
Video:
Queen Alexandra: the Danish aristocrat who became England's darling...
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Here's a really good blog about perfume.
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"Unlawful rendition"... sorry "combatants"... have a look at Damp Dog's blog to see what George W Bush has made of America's laws...
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PS Re: monosodium glutamate/MSG I've discovered that to jazz up one portion fried rice for example you would add a quarter to a third of a flat teaspoon (ie a large pinch or so). Do NOT be taken in by the packet instructions saying to put on afterwards this means even with a bit of tossing it's not properly mixed in and will stay in the mouth long afterwards leaving a horrid aftertaste. NO! The best thing is to add it in the last five mins of cooking and make sure thorougly mixed in. MSG is essential not to all dishes but to egg fried rice in particular to make "just like from the Chinese" flavoured for sure...
I'm a little dubious about using this stuff at all.
Here's the wikipedia article on MSG which gives some cons
Here's the "glutamate association"'s website which gives some pros!
Read well! And nb I am NOT recommending the stuff. I really don't know too much about it...
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O righto te! It's nearly 9pm and I've just had my special "leftovers" chicken-peppers-blackbean sauce mixed vegetable fry rice ~ ALL cooked myself and gleddered specially into specially saved plastic microwaveable Chinese takeaway cartons* for added authenticity... Now that I've finished I've had a real yen for Cadbury's Mini Eggs (100g). Now if you live outside the old British colonial "axis" you may not be aware of Cadbury's chocolate but let me tell you they make the best milk chocolate in the world. Loverrly-doverrly. Best dark choc, as I said yesterday, is in my opinion Ritter Sport.
*in the UK, takeaway cartons tend to be either foil with waxed card tops like this; or microwaveable plastic. Not posh origami-style like these American ones ...
Bon appetit everyone and have a lovelly weekend!
Happy New Year Gledwood - i've been having a luvverly time catching up on your blog. tho i have to come back and watch the vids later, LG is currently playing loud screamy music in my ear.
ReplyDeleteHappy to see that you sound bright and positive and also happy to see pics of your little lovely furry friends.
i thought kylie did pretty well in the Xmas Dr. Who, what did you think?
sounds like a most dramatic and romantic dream. I love dreaming.
(well, obviously not the bad ones...)
chinese cooking - i always like to keep pretty well stocked with jars of hoisin sauce from our local chinese supermarket - delish and useful stuff.
have a great weekend gledwood.
Yeah Kylie was really good in Dr Who I often wondered why she didn't try going back into acting during some of her "darker" years in the mid 90s... she did that thing with the Belgian steroidal hero whatsisname cannot for the life of me remember but that was meant to be crap and some romantic film around the time of the Jason Donovan "affair" but neither really hit home. Considering how crap some of her earlier singing has been I don't know why she didn't jump STRAIGHT into acting!!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the message. Glad you had an entertaining read ...
Which of your 3 blogs is the Main one btw? I always get confused about this...
Thanks for stopping by my blog & Happy New Year to you & yours! The hamsters are adorable!
ReplyDeleteHamsters rule!
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful weekend! Keep up the cooking, and make the rice first and get it nice and cold before throwing into the hot skillet or wok or what have you.
ReplyDeleteThose kind of dreamy dreams leave me unnerved for the rest of the day . . .
Dreams: sometimes yeah they do do that but only if they're REALLY unnerving to start with...
ReplyDeleteThe cooking: yeah I'm finally getting the hang of simple "cook the rice first and leave lid-off in refrigerator"... THEN you can fry it easily
other recipes have said idiot things like "drain the rice then fry" which I did and of course it STUCK BIGTIME to the bottom of the pan.
duh
you gotta explain CLOSELY and in DETAIL how to do these things else no-one'll get 'em!
many thanks for your comment
have a great weekend yourself
Gleds
:->...
Hiya gledhill *waves madly* Thanks for coming over and leaving a comment too!!!! Hamsters and Heroin eh. could be worse I suppose..hehehehe
ReplyDeletecheers Kim.. I vill be back
Such cute little creatures. I would love to share my home with a few like them, but fear that Alex, the cat who owns me, would see them as treats for his dining pleasure.
ReplyDeleteLettuce-eating is my main blog, the others are rather occasional
ReplyDeletemust check out the other limp one tho!
I'm cooking Chinese chicken w/ blackbeans sauce as I write :$
ReplyDeleteWell, mister Zhu is cooking. I just cut the veggies ;)
OMG Gleds Im on the floor salivating at the mouth, you make cooking read so interesting I may just take it up again...too many ready meals with working strange shifts.
ReplyDeleteFor my fried rice ( when I do cook ) I whisk up an egg in a cup and drop it into a well I make in the rice, wait until its beginning to cook and then stir it into the rice gradually,then add a dash of soy sauce, sometimes I add a touch of garlic puree too.
Bashfuls look alike is oh so sweet.
Have a good first of the New Year weekend too Auds x
Hi Glen,
ReplyDeleteI'll take your word for the various faces your hampsters are making, they all seem like "deer caught in the head light" look to me.
Happy New year,
Janice~
Thanks for posting the Queen Alexandra video .... I love all that Royal Historical stuff and the photos of those tiny teeny waists. Thank goodness those fashions are wayback in history too.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think Annie Lennox far superior to both Madonna and Kylie combined ;) Have a lovely weekend and save some of those cadburry eggs for the rest of us *!*
I never used MSG in my chinese cooking, or any cooking for that matter. I thought it was just a preservative and if you're going to eat your concoction right away you don't need it?
ReplyDeleteFrogponds: could be much worse... "koi carp and crack", for example ...
ReplyDeleteNick: you would need a really high security tank (not a cage) with cats in the house...
Lettuce: I can't remember what was ON the other limplettuce blog. hmmm
Zhu: do you make your own blackbean sauce or do you just buy it readymade like I do..??!?
PS: Zhu do you know a recipe for Chinese style curry sauce? I am desperate to learn to make my own. I've been told it needs Star Anise... does that sound right?
ReplyDeleteAudrey: that sounds like a really good way of making it... the other way I was told was scramble an egg first and just chuck that on as part of the stirfry... only trouble is the Chinese takeaway egg fry rice has so little egg that unless you're serving about five people you're practically wasting the egg!
Janice: haha!!
Bimbimbie: Annie Lennox is in a totally different league to Madonna. I once rode the top deck of a doubledecker bus at the front opposite Annie Lennox. I'm quite sure it was her. Looked just like her and was right near Highgate, which is where she lives ... woopee!!
Akelamalu: it's a flavour enhancer a little bit like salt but it's flavour is warmer. I think it enhances meat and oniony fried ricey type dishes more than some others... basically I think it is only "needed" if at all in the fried rice to make it taste like "just from the Chinese"
:->...
those hamsters are just too cute. i couldn't quite distinguish the grumpy from the not grumpy, but i'm sure you know what you're talking about. :)
ReplyDeleteLove all the photos Gleds. Just dropping by briefly to wish you the best for 2008...will get back online properly as soon as I can.
ReplyDeleteRx
Gled, have a good new year, been traveling across this great land of mine, so not able too catch up until now.
ReplyDeleteDid the Alexendra vid come from the royals you tube page?
and that Prod vid gave me horrible flashbacks...
Hey Gleds, I have browned raw rice straight in the frypan (no oil) before boiling it. You have to be careful not to get it too hot and keep moving it around or it "pops" like popcorn and you end up with a pan full of what looks like Rice Krispies (are you familiar with that cereal?) If done correctly, the rice takes on a little nutty flavour which adds a new dimension to fried rice or pilaf dishes.
ReplyDeleteMmmmm now I am craving Chinese food too!
Have a great weekend!
I have dreams like the ones you describe, full length features that go into minute details. Then everything gets all jumbled when I wake up. But they're good while they last!
ReplyDeleteI was laughing out loud at your description of Kylie! Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteI think insomnia comes with the blogging territory! Maybe it makes us more apt to nonsense, giving us an unlimited amount of blog fodder!
I love Ched from Tangled! Awesome blog!!!!!!!
The pictures of your hamsters are sooo cute ! They have so intelligent eyes !
ReplyDeleteToday we celebrate Three Kings Day in Belgium, so come and have a slice of the "Galette" !
Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteThat bit on MSG made me remember that Victoria Wood show 'Men Sana In Thingummydoodah'. Julie Walters is the rubbish manager of Pinkneys, a health farm, and is discovered in her office scoffing jaffa cakes or something. She confesses to Victoria and co, who were staying at Pinkneys, that she likes MSG.
"I've got a monosodium glutemate recipe book" she declares.
Hilarious!
Heh, I love the way the lighting projects the bullseye of a target on Kylie's crotch as she sings "love me, love me, love me..."
ReplyDeleteHappy new year, and Romanov dynasty was the last ruling dynasty in Russia.
ReplyDeletehi thanks for the messages everybody i have to reply tommorow when i have more internet time!
ReplyDeleteCinn: You know your sparkly lips have been familiar to me longtime over various exotic internet blogs I occasionally "float on through..." As for hamster faces: I CAN see what I'm talking about bc they're my animals; but probably everyone says that but is too polite to say haha!
ReplyDeleteRuth: Glad you're back I missed you; stay well xx
Junky: o the Prodigy. And to think I used to think they were amazing and that "rave" was the "new religion" spreading across the world... yeah I tuned into the British royal channel on youtube which you just find with obvious keywords, but the "official" stuff is nonembeddable (why??) then this came up from someone like "Coker 10" or something who's obviously a Queen Alexandra fan... there's quite a lot of other stuff about her there too... I was quite intrigued about her, having seen her tall persona on lots of old royal photos... and wondering who she was ...
Kahshe: I have heard about that method too... never realized Rice Crispies is THAT easy to make, yeah they're everywhere here (well, not everywhere but you know what I mean... :-])
Bemused: yeah dreams can fade fast, can't they... do you ever dream with the radio or TV on and get the news tangled up in your inner world... SCAREY!!
QUEEN of the Mayhem: I'm getting quite a lot of royalty in these here comments: a queen and an emperor within five hits! I'm glad you liked not liking Kylie. I think she's OK but hardly as amazing as the gay/teenage/tabloid "community" seems to believe ...
ReplyDeleteGattina: I think the "three wise men" at "epiphany" were a day later here than you... I think they were yesterday Sunday night 6.1.8... not 100% sure tho... you are right about the eyes. Not all small animals make eyecontact at all. My only one who really does is Bashful who makes prolonged eyecontact. And follows my hand around the cage when I put it in... I am sure she must be hyper-smart!
Inexplicable: Hey thanks for that I shall have a look for that on Youtube...
Whitenoise: hmm. tart! typical!
EMPEROR Ropi: yeah I know and the British royal family REFUSED them sanctuary in this country during the revolution for fear of getting "politically involved". Which lead to their deaths. Lilly livered lot! (The Windsors, that is.) I heartily disapprove of that. Just because you're head of state and a "figurehead" doesn't mean you have to act like a brainless dimwit or worse marionette into the bargain...
;-<
Hey Gleds,
ReplyDeleteI've just been catching up here and I have to agree that Ritter Sport is my favourite Dark chocolate, especially the one with Hazelnuts. I don't care for milk chocolate at all. Lindt dark is great too. What am I saying all dark is great.