Ready, Steady, 'Chinglish'?

The ‘mrs’ and I have been doing a bit of a ‘ready steady cook’ thing recently. We have to buy an ingredient we have never cooked with and make something, ideally edible. I went first with stuffed aubergines. Yes I know it seems odd that after 31 years on the planet I have never cooked one, well I hadn’t. The recipe (well I wasn’t going free style quite yet) said to boil the vegetables for 10 minutes. How can you boil them? It’s like trying to boil 2 buoys! In the end the underside which got boiled stayed a lovely purple and was tender, while the top went brown and tough. I triedkeeping them under the boiling water with a less than successful scaffolding made out of spatulas, chop sticks and bowls (best not ask). Despite this the meal was a triumphant success and appreciated by all!

Next was the ‘mrs’ turn. She had to do battle with a butternut squash. Un-chartered territory indeed. The meal of choice was a vegetable curry. I wasn’t involved in the preparation so I can not report on the most appropriate cooking method. Anyway the curry was really nice and the big chucks of orange squash were uber nice; much nice than suede which it reminded me of.

Last night was my turn. A few weeks ago I had gone into the local tiny Chinese supermarket and had picked up some packets of bean curd. I love the bean curd I get at the Chinese takeaways and have always wanted to know how they did it. One of hard things about being a vegetarian is finding something for dinner you can have a good chew on. What also attracted me to the products was the ingredients; bean curd – that’s it! Unlike quorn and other veggie alternative there is a list of ingredients as long as your arm. This has one ingredient.


So my challenge last night was to do a 5 spice stir fry. I prepared all the ingredients such as onions, mushrooms, fine green beans, 3 colours of peppers and pok choi, all in separate bowl in a Blue Peter stylee. Following the strange instructions written in Chinglish (the word used for Chinese badly translated into English), I boiled the bean curd (packet in the middle) for only 3 minutes. After draining I added it to my stir fry that was coming along nicely (I’m sure the burnt bits on the bottom of the wok just add to the flavour). It was another success although I think I should have added them earlier to absorb some of the flavour or maybe marinated the bits first. Oh well I look forward to more trial and error.

As a side note, why not google images of Chinglish, they are very funny. This is a good one.

It’s the ‘mrs’ turn next to cook something different. Any suggested unusual vegetarian ingredients would be welcome!

A Fortnight of Firsts

Well it’s been a while since I have blogged, and obviously the nation is waiting in baited breath to see what mind blowing adventures I have getting up to. Well nothing that will change civilisation as we know it, but there have been a few firsts; good and bad:

Cinema: The ‘mrs’ and I went on our first outing to the cinema to watch Shrek 3. We saw it on the preview weekend on a Saturday afternoon, so you can imagine how many small people were there. Despite wanting this to be a positive blog, I am going to have a rant here. As part of the Shrek promotion every child received a pair of FREE shrek ears with their ticket. When I asked if I could have a pair I was told “NO” because they only came with a child ticket. NOW HANG ON A MINUTE! I paid nearly twice the price for my adult ticket so by rights those ears should be mine. Don’t assume that just because I am an adult I wouldn’t want to have some fun with a pair of green felt ears. I did think about mugging a small child but then thought better of it. After the film had finished I waited until everyone had left the auditorium, but unfortunately no careless child had left any behind; just a frightful gunky mess of popcorn and spilt drinks! I feel discriminated against for the movie industry amusing I was a mature adult – the cheek!

Massage: As part of a ‘buy one get one half price’ promotion at the salon, the ‘mrs’ treated me to an Indian head massage. I had never had a massage before and was a bit anxious on what they would do. However an Indian head massage didn’t sound that invasive. Anyway I arrived and went into a room the size of the CBBC broom cupboard (those of you over 25 will know what I mean), and was greeted to candles, pan pipe music (like you hear in hippy shops) and the smell of lavender oil. I took off my t-shirt and wrapped myself in a towel and placed my feet onto a rolled up towel on the floor. I was then subjected to 45 minutes of pressing, squidging, pummelling and rubbing on my head, neck, shoulders, upper back, hands and arms (a bit odd for a head massage!). It was a bit awkward when the CD stopped and she had to change it with oil covered hands. I kept thinking “poor sod, I bet she’s listened to this 400 times today already”!. I left feeling all sleepy and quite relaxed and ready for an afternoon of doing nothing at all!

Chinese meal: As part of the spontaneous ‘let’s pamper me day’, after the massage I was treated to a sit down meal as a Chinese restaurant. Technically this was not our first sit down Chinese together, but last time we had a meal as a foursome with two friends, so I am calling this ‘our’ first Chinese meal on a technicality (ooo I could be a lawyer). The restaurant had a special lunch time menu, which was beyond appalling for vegetarians. After telling the waitress that it wasn’t really suitable and we should go somewhere else, she suddenly gave us the full menu and said we could choose anything and she would count it under the lunchtime special. Ha ha, the power of the vegetarian – I wonder if I should get a cape and sword! After scoffing satay mushrooms, black bean tofu with noodles and battered pineapple we returned to the flat cursing ourselves for not bringing the car and having to walk up the hill.

Books: Now reading a book is not a first for me, but it is a first in many years. I am not a big reader, choosing the lazy option of a film every time, allowing the story to be fed to me with no effort on my part. Being an unemployed bum at the moment and having some moments where I need to kill time, the ‘mrs’ introduced to me to the idea of books. After the initial shaking in my boots, she persuaded me to read ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon. It is sold as a mystery book, but really it is a wonderful insight into the mind of the 15 year old Autistic boy who is telling the story. Having spent a few years with Autistic young people, much of it made me smile in recognition. It is a very good book, with good font size and line spacing, which I think is often just as important as the content! I am now reading ‘Does my Bum Look Big in This’, which is the diary of a 30 something and her thoughts about dating and views on her own body and self esteem. If this is a true reflection on how women think….god help us all! I think this paranoid women is boarding on schizophrenia! Still an interesting read even just as a social insight. Nearly 2 books in a week; this is SO not like me!

Hotel: The ‘mrs’ and I had our first night away together than didn’t involve staying with relatives, friends or sleeping under canvass! She had a conference to attend some distance away warranting a night away in a Travel Lodge (o.k. not really a hotel). Not one to throw the away the opportunity for some free shower caps (good for dying ones hair) I decided to tag along. Not much to report really, except there was no free shower caps – BUM! The ‘mrs’ wasn’t happy with the standard of the room and rated it 2/10 in customer feedback. The bed was over soft, the room was dusty and being on the ground floor we couldn’t open the window. Still it does go down as a first!

Missed Opportunities: Due to other commitments and forgetting we both managed to miss our ballroom dancing class. There is often repetition from the week before, and although we were learning some new moves I reckon that because we are so bloody good (couch cough) we should be able to catch up easily. Secondly we forgot to put out the bins and so we have 2 weeks works of rubbish and recycling stacking up. Ooops we shouldn’t have prioritised sleeping over putting out the rubbish! Sorry forgetting these, is another first!

Pancakes: Although this might be scraping the bottom of the barrel saying it was the first time the ‘mrs’ and I had pancakes together, but I feel there was real significance. She was adamant she not going to cook the pancakes as all attempts in the past had resulted in a battery splodge in the middle of the pan. With some encouragement and tips on the best way to wiggle the flippy thing (I think it’s called a spatula, but answers on a postcard please), we had success. She cooked 7 pancakes all of which were perfect, so BIG gold stars for her. Does that mean from now on I can sit on the sofa watching morning television waiting to be served? Mmmm possibly not!

Let's see what happens next week!

My life is NOT over!

Ha Boo – Sucks to you! Mr Masterfoods thought he could get away with it, if it weren’t for us pesky kids! According to the BBC news pages “Mars has abandoned plans to use animal products in its chocolate, and has apologised to "upset" vegetarians.”

Now call me an old cynic, but I think the “feelings” of vegetarians were not really at the core of this decision change. Possibly the 6,000 complaints received, the petition from 40 MP’s, the bad publicity and the prospect of loosing oodles of cash may have had something to do with it. Oooo my cynicism chip is working overtime!

Regardless of the motives, I must not lose site of the positive outcome. So I must now open my mouth and await the lorry loads of snickers! YUM YUM YUM!

Mood: Joyful

My life is over!

O.K. this might seem a tad over dramatic, but when you hear the terrible news you will understand my pain. MARS HAVE STARTED TO USE ANIMAL PRODUCTS IN THEIR CHOCOLATE!


As a devote vegetarian of nearly 15 years, the idea that the evil powers-that-be are going to deny me the indulgent joy of a snickers, maltesers, bounty, minstrels is just too much for one person to cope with. Why did this happen?

Apparently the sources used by Masterfood have changed and so will now be using whey powder used from non vegetarian cheese production as a bulking agent. In order to produce cheese, a coagulant is added which separates the milk solids (curds) from the liquid (whey). The coagulant commonly used is rennet, which is an enzyme extracted from the lining of a calf’s (yea baby moos) stomach……niiiiiiiiiiiiice!

In this day-and-age where 9% of the population are vegetarian, and many people avoid animal products for personal reasons and various faiths, it makes NO economical sense to ‘de-vegetarianise’ a product. I delight when a product which by rights need not have animal derived products in (such as crisps and ice cream), becomes vegetarian, such as polos and Doritos to name a few, but I rarely have seen a product revert back!

Apparently anything with a best before 1st October 2007 will still be veggie, so if anyone wants to buy me a gift, I will have 5,000 snickers and a HUGE freezer please! Sweety companies already deny me skips crisps, ferrero rocher and refresher sweets; when will the assault stop? Did I do something really evil in a previous life that I am being punished for?

I must leave now, before I am blinded by the tears of my pain. *sniff*