Weekend Update

It rained and rained and rained all weekend in my neck of the woods. No lovely autumn drives in the country for us. 

My organizational skills this weekend took the form of changing  out the seasonal clothes. My goodness! I have a lot of clothing; but there are still a few summer-ish things in there that will get put away later.

Frenchies had a 50% off sale today, so I took the girls for clothes and me for anything but clothes! So I stuck to books and things for others. "Cooking Light" cookbook and "A Moveable Feast" for $1.45 each, Madhur Jaffrey for $1 and the "Food" magazine for 50 cents.


I also bought this costume -- Woody from Toy Story -- for my grandson to wear in a couple of years for $3 (similar to this one but not exact). He's already the cutest little buckeroo in town!




I made a delicious Japanese soup with squash, kale, tofu, udon noodles and a touch of red chili paste. Really tasty.


But my favorite meal was our Sunday night dinner -- Rasam -- from my fairly new-to-me "A Taste of India" cookbook, $4 at Value Village. (Recipe to the left if you're interested.) It was a lot of work: toasting and grinding spices, chopping, frying, baking.  But well worth it.

The dish was marvelous! Really quite spicy (so we cooled it down with Greek yogurt) and served with mixed veg and rice. Lena was content with an egg instead of the Rasam.

Then Lena taught me to make Weckmann or Stutenkerl which are traditionally made in Germany for St Martin's Day.  They are a sweet bread dough shaped into a man; and Lena's mother's version has the addition of gently heated water with mashed apple. 

It's a sad, sad day when I have to make my own man!

Lena made the traditional fat guy at the far right; mine is the slender gent in the middle with the debonair moustache and goatee; and Nagisa's man is actually a Japanese cartoon character.  


They tasted very, very yummy: golden and crusty on the outside but soft and tender on the inside.

Now it's off to bed to catch up on some cookbook reading.

Yup, if I'm not cooking or eating, I'm thinking or reading about cooking and eating.