Dinner: Monday 27.05.08

For a while now I've had a desire for a slurpy, noodly dumpling soup.

I've made several batches of dumplings lately and they make a delicious snack, but they're just never enough to constitute a whole meal. Especially not for a 6ft-5 boy with a raging appetite for stogy carbs. The same has been with soba noodles. Many of my favourite meals of late have involved the slippery, wholesome sensation of soba noodles. They make a fantastic salad, but there is rarely enough for leftovers. So why not combine the two?

This also gave me the opportunity to try the scrambled egg cooked into the brothy soup trick that has been on my mind. The descriptions I've read about watching golden egg bloom like a flower in hot broth have inspired me.

To add to the mix, the boy pulled a load of beetroot out of the garden on Sunday and it had to be used. Beetroot, I have learned, works best with a salty, astringent counterpart - a strong fetta or pungent blue vein often do the trick - but why not soy sauce?

Nearing the tail-end of our shopping week, I threw in this dish whatever morsels the fridge had to offer, which is why my quantities may seem a little vague. So consider the list of ingredients entirely open to interpretation, this is more of an idea for a meal than a recipe for one, really it doesn't matter, use your instinct on what will work well. It was a bit of a gamble with no set of instructions to follow, but the result was very tasty - the beetroot and soy balanced well, giving a wonderful base for the slippery noodles and pudgy dumplings to soak up. And the colour! The soup takes on the hot pink of the beetroot and would be shocking if it weren't so pretty.

Dumpling and soba noodle soup with beetroot

Ingredients:
1/8 large cabbage
4 mushrooms
1 onion
2 chillies
1 bunch coriander
2 kafir lime leaves
sesame oil
soy sauce
fish sauce
vegetable stock
1 tbs brown sugar
sambal olek
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 large or several small beetroot, cubed
1 package gow gee dumpling wrappers
1 package soba noodles
1 egg, mixed with a fork
salt to taste

In a food processor, blend till finely chopped:
1/8 cabbage
4 mushrooms
1 onion
2 chillies
a sprig of coriander
1 kafir lime leaf

Heat 1tbs sesame oil in a large pot and add vege mixture and salt and fry until fragrant and starting to brown. Remove from pan to a bowl to cool.

In the same pot, make a vegetable stock (I used Masel cubes) and add:
2 tbs soy sauce
1 clove crushed garlic
a few drops of fish sauce
a few drops of sesame oil
1tbs brown sugar
1 tbs sambal olek
1 finely sliced kafir lime leaf
1 large or several smaller cubed beetroot

Bring covered stock slowly to the boil and test for flavour.
Make dumplings by placing a teaspoon of the vege mix into the centre of a gow gee wrapper, gather edges at the top to form a sealed parcel.

Add dumplings to the stock pot and have on low boil for 3 minutes.
Add 1 package of soba noodles and stir soup gently for another 4 minutes until noodles are cooked. Turn off heat and add 1 mixed egg to pot and stir til cooked. Add chopped coriander and serve in bowls.

Lately

So much good stuff has happened since I last wrote. Perhaps that's why I haven't felt the need to write. I began this blog at a bit of a low point for me. Not that anything had gone particularly wrong, I was just feeling really unhappy and needed to be reminded that there were good things in my life. Lots of good things.

So here's a list of good stuff lately:

• My boy passed his big exam and was the only one in Victoria to do so. I am extremely proud.
• I got a promotion. I am now a manager. This doesn't mean an awful lot - it seems I still don't have to wear a suit, but I do get drinks and get to pay off the mortgage a little bit quicker.
• Speaking of the mortgage, we're celebrating having paid our first $50k off our home loan since we bought Hope Farm less than a year ago.
• I've now paid for my plane ticket to England and leave in under a month to go and see my brother, his lovely partner (and a good friend) and my two little nephews. So now I can get excited about hanging out with them - cooking, playing, drinking wine and, no doubt, plenty of dancing.

Well those are the big things, but life has generally been happy and good and the distinct beginning of summer lurking behind the clouds brings a feeling of excitement and anticipation to the air. I'm feeling very happy and lucky right now.

wonderful week-end

• Saturday morning market shop
• Saturday still morning two and a half hours of dance class
• Saturday evening alone with costume making, dancing, wine, dance DVDs, costume making, dress ups, dancing, DVD watching, dancing, etc.
• Sunday morning sleep-in
• Sunday afternoon drive to Sandringham, romantic strolls along the beach, bread, dips, chips and beer at the pub and cosy dinner at home
• Early to bed, not so early to sleep
• Life has been so good to me lately.

good value Wednesday

At lunch yesterday, I went to the library to find my book and read the last few gripping pages. Of course I went to the shelf only to find that the last copy had been borrowed. So I crossed the road to Dymocks where I located my book and sat down and read my way through the final chapters ("I'm fine thanks, just browsing"). I finished and replaced the book with a sense of accomplishment akin to what I would have felt had I written The Blind Assasin myself.

I then went and used a voucher to aquire myself a gratis latte. I went back to work feeling positively affluent.

a full weekend

• The Simpson's Movie. Best bits: pizza and beer before, sickly doughnuts during, a walk through Southgate after, finally warmth and scotch at home.
• An afternoon with surrogate niece and nephew. Family time. Well fed.
• A constructive and enjoyable 'buisness' meeting, with food, wine and belly dance porn.
• Home-made jam on home-made scones. A new baby passed around. Cups of tea.
• Being an audience member for a change. Being entertained. Brimming with pride to watch a beautiful girl shine.

thursday

• 6:00pm The Simpsons
• 7:00pm Futurama
• 7:30pm The Simpsons
• 8:00pm The Simpsons
• 8:30pm Arrested Development (on DVD)
• 9:00pm Arrested Development (on DVD)
• 9:30pm Arrested Development (on DVD)
• Etc.
• I'll never get anything done after work at this rate
• But it's so good
• Tommorrow: The Simpsons Movie.

a lunchtime epiphany

At lunchtime I often take my book down to the City Library to read. During winter it's the only warm and comfortable place where I can read in peace without having to buy something. I love it there - sitting amongst shelves of books, people around me reading, studying or quietly conversing; it's a good place to escape to.

I went down yesterday and found a little spot in the library's gallery on the mezzanine level. As I was reading, a small old lady shuffled past me. With her bent body, white seaweed hair and intensly black eyebrows, she looked like an eccentric bag lady and perhaps she was. She reminded me of my grandmother actually, who, I suppose, for all intents and purposes, was a bit of a crazy old bag lady. I loved her for it.

I peered over the top of my book to see her park her trolly and remove several layers of tattered woolen clothing, before seating herself before the library's shiny black piano. I watched her knarled hands, contricted with arthritis and age, touch the keys. And then she began to play. I know very little about music, and less about piano, but the music that she drew out of that instrument was the kind that you felt in your insides - the kind that feels like a flock of birds in your chest that are trying to fly out.

I watched her crooked body rock back and forth with the music, watched that mane of hair falling across her face, watched her creased hands move across the keys and watched the subtle expressions of disbelief in people's faces as they paired the sound with the image of this woman.

I walked back to work with a smile on my face and a little less fear of growing old.