Lazy Sunday

I haven’t written in here in a while, so I figured I should type something. I’m using a PC terminal and it reminds me how much I love my Mac. There’s nothing wrong with the PC, it works, but it’s not customized to my liking. Even using someone else’s Mac is slightly annoying because it doesn’t have my short-cut corners. I have really come to rely on that feature.

I had some bunion pain yesterday and a few days last week. I don’t know why. I think I’m going to try to run today even though I really do not feel like it. I feel like going to sleep, but if I do then I won’t be able to sleep properly tonight, so I have to keep myself suitably occupied so I don’t drift off.

My apartment doesn’t smell like smoke anymore. Last week I left the stove on and went out and didn’t come back for 8 hours or so. I did not leave it on on purpose, it was an attempt to save time for a future meal, which never ended up happening because the rice turned black during the 8 hours I was away. I’m lucky it didn’t catch on fire, it just turned all black and emitted a very dark smoke and put about a 2-inch black mark on my pot lid. I also have scattered black marks inside the pot. I was supposed to turn the stove off when I left the house but I forgot. It is the first time I have left the stove unattended. I hope it will be the last.

This weekend I have discovered curried yellow split peas. They are very good and very easy to make. The first batch I made was really good and gone in less than a day and I decided to scale up and change the recipe, which is a bad idea, but I did it anyway. The results were just okay. It’s definitely edible, but not as tasty as the first batch.

Here’s the good recipe:

1 cup dried yellow split peas, or equivalent legume/bean item

2 green cardamom pods

4 whole cloves

1 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

4-5 pieces cinnamon bark

1/2 tsp whole cumin

1 onion

3-4 canned tomatoes + some juice (that’s individual tomatoes, not the number of cans of tomatoes)

1 zucchini

Bring the peas to a boil in about 4x the volume of water. Turn the heat down and simmer for a while, until the start to fall apart.

Heat frying pan, add oil, add the cumin seeds, fry them for a bit. Crush cardamom and clove, add to pan. Add the red pepper flakes and cinnamon bark. Fry in oil until it smells nice. Add turmeric. Fry some more. Then add onions. Cover and cook for a while. Then add tomatoes + juice and zucchini. Cover and cook.

After the peas have taken up all the water, add the frying pan contents to the peas.

Eat.

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Continuing on with random tidbits, today I learned that Soy Joy is a real product. I first heard of it on 30 Rock and assumed it was a fake product (as did other people), sort of like Sabor de Soledad, which I probably would buy. I probably would not buy Soy Joy, even though I am in their target demographic, women aged 18-49. I just don’t like the name. When I first saw the show I thought that can’t be real, no one would name a candy bar “Soy Joy”, but someone did. It was not a joke. I just checked out their website, it’s not a candy bar, it’s a snack bar. I also spelled it wrong, it’s all one word and all caps: SOYJOY.