When your cat has an emotional support hamster
Month: January 2024
The dog is a weirdo
First off, he’s a giant cuddlebug and doesn’t like the cold.
He’s also obsessed with busses, so walking past a bus stop can sometimes be an exercise in getting him past the benches and waiting for a bus to come take him home.
Did I mention he’s a giant cuddlebug who would live in my pocket if given the chance?
He loves going to La Rive and licking milk foam.
He’s the bestest boy. He’s a nutter, but he’s our nutter and I love him.
psycho-kitty, qu’est-ce que c’est
We can’t call her kitten of Doom because Reenie had that TM’ed, so psycho-kitty it is for now. Once she’s realized that hissing doesn’t do shit, she actually turns into a fusspot. Katy thinks that one night we’ll just find her sleeping on our face or something.
[recipe] olive oil orange poppy seed cake
210g (1.5 cups) plain flour
2.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
200g (1 cup) caster sugar
2 tbsp poppy seeds
Zest of one orange
60ml (3 tbsp) fresh orange juice
120ml (1/2 cup) olive oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120 ml (1/2 cup) Greek yogurt
60 ml (1/4 cup) milk
Preheat oven to 180C/350F/160C fan. Grease and line a loaf pan with baking or parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, add flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, poppy seeds and orange zest. Stir briefly to combine.
In a separate bowl, add orange juice, oil, eggs and vanilla. Whisk briefly just to break up the egg yolks.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, along with the yogurt and milk, and gently mix until combined – but be careful not to over mix. Spoon batter into prepared pan.
Bake cake for approximately 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Transfer cake to a wire rack to cool completely.
Pretty stabby pointy cutty thing, done!
It has character flaws, it’s far from perfect, but for a first fully completed knife, I’m very happy with the end result.
Now I need to think about what I want to do next.
Dry January
How do you solve a problem like Maria?
With lots and lots of patience.
[recipe] Potato soup
1kg russet potatoes (about 4 medium), peeled and cubed.
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp neutral vegetable oil
>2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp kosher salt, divided, plus more as needed
500ml low-sodium chicken broth
375ml whole milk
Freshly ground black pepper
SERVING OPTIONS:
Thinly sliced green onions
Shredded cheddar cheese
Sour cream
Crispy bacon strips (reserve fat if using)
Place the 2 tablespoons bacon fat and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter in a heavy bottomed Dutch oven and heat over medium heat until the butter is melted. Add the onion and cook until translucent and lightly browned, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the potatoes, and 1 teaspoon of the kosher salt. Cook, stirring to coat the potatoes in the fat, for 2 to 3 minutes.
Add broth, stir to combine, and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer, reducing the heat as needed, until the potatoes are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Add whole milk and stir to combine. Turn off the heat.
Using an immersion blender, blitz until smooth. Add the remaining kosher salt, season with black pepper. Stir to combine. Cook over medium-low heat until slightly thickened, 3 to 4 minutes. Taste and season with more kosher salt as needed.
If the consistency is too thick, add 60ml water or chicken broth. If the consistency is too thin, continue to simmer until desired consistency.
Serve the soup topped with the bacon and thinly sliced scallions, shredded cheddar cheese, and sour cream if desired
[recipe] Creamy mushroom soup
50g butter
1 tbsp oil
2 onions diced
750g fresh mushrooms, sliced
125ml wine (any dry red or white wine)
45g all-purpose flour
1L chicken broth or beef stock
salt and pepper to taste
250ml cream or half and half
Chopped fresh herbs (chives, parsley, tarragon, coriander, to your choice) to serve
Heat butter and oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until melted. Sauté onion for 2 to 3 minutes until softened.
Add mushrooms, cook for 5 minutes. Pour in wine and allow to cook for 3 minutes.
Sprinkle mushrooms with flour, mix well and cook for 2 minutes. Add stock, mix again and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low-medium heat, season with salt and pepper.
Cover and allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes, while occasionally stirring, until thickened.
Reduce heat to low, stir in cream. Allow to gently simmer (do not boil). Adjust salt and pepper to your taste.
Mix in fresh herbs.
Serve warm.
Back in Switzerland
We left Leicester on the morning of Jan 2 and made good time to Dover with no issues. On the way, I wanted to see if there were issues at the port, but the website is a bit shit so I googled and found the Twitter feed of the port. This is what I saw:
My heart skipped a beat, until I noticed that this post was 3 years old, pre-Brexit. FFS.
Once we made it to Dover, things started to go wahooney-shaped. We got there at 1115. Our ferry was scheduled for 1430. It took us over 1h to make it past the 1st (French) border check. There were 8 lanes of traffic, filtering into only 2 border gates.
After finally making it through, we got singled out for a random security check, huzzah. We discovered that no one knew how to pop the car hood open, so we looked like idiots, but besides that, everything was fine. Navigating the port was much simpler, and we found the right lane easily. Unfortunately, the weather made the ferry late for arrival, later for boarding, and even later for departure. The captain even commented that the weather would make things a bit exciting. We made it through fine, even the byby. In the end, we made it to the hotel for 7pm, which is mad because it took us less time to get to Calais from Morges on the first day of travel…
We had dinner at the hotel, like last time, but this time both Katy and Ben started feeling a bit green after dinner. This did not bode well. I got super anxious, with visions of food-poisoned family stuck in the hotel, with dog, until things got better. In the end, after a few hours of sleep, Katy felt that she was ok-ish enough to make the drive home.
The weather was truly horrible. There was a wind warning, flood warnings for Pas-de-Calais and the roads were rain soaked to the point where we couldn’t see the road markings and had to use the force a few times. Passing lorries, with all the spray, was anus-clenching at times.
Once the sun came up, driving became easier. Ben and the dog were sleeping in the back seat, so that was good. We confirmed out first impression that French services are a bit shit, and for reasons unknown, the toilet seats are all squat toilets, with no toilet seats. This is not pleasant. We finally found services that had an open Burger King for Ben. Another negative hit for French services – people don’t pick up their dog shit so there are landmines EVERYWHERE. In the end, the drive back was unremarkable. We tried to chew up the miles when the weather was dry and sunny, and stopped every 1.5-2h or so to stretch legs and let the dog pee. We made it over the Jura pass while it was still daylight, which was the reason we left so early, and crossed the French/Swiss border around 3pm. We were back “home”. Shortly after, we caught the first glimpse of the lake and a big weight lifted off my shoulders. It felt that my anxious thoughts were the only thing holding everything together. The A1 welcomed us home with a traffic accident between Morges Est and Morges Ouest exits, but we made it home.
And then the dog barfed on the carpet.
We were home.