Beltain Blessings friends
although with the grey sky, heavy rain and thunder it has not been very Beltain like!
i had hoped to get out with my fire but last night we had heavy showers, thunder and lightning and today is forecast for the same.
swampy was able to get out for a few hours break in the rain to do a bit more to our garden-laying the groundwork for the grrl-cave and getting the wildlife pond in properly.
i had plans to get out into Pretty Pagan to organise the cupboards...swampy finished all the interior wood work last week and it looks just beautiful!...but i was just not feeling well enough.
i am still feeling really poorly from this virus, still coughing but not as much or as badly.
but i think a lot of it now is my m.e and fibro reacting to the virus and so i could feel like this for goddess knows how long now.
still so long as i can do a little a day thats fine by me!
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my body has been having food cravings.
this virus has made me seriously go off my food for nearly three weeks now and i have mostly been living on tinned soup (i know!) and greek yogurt.
yesterday i really, really, really wanted miso soup so asked swampy to take me into lymington where i knew i could buy what i needed (our village is so small we cannot really get anything more than well known basics-certainly not miso!)
well i had a pack of mixed dried mushrooms in the cupboard so bought some spring onions and tofu to add to the soup.
they did not have the miso soup paste so i had to resort to buying miso soup powder with sea vegetables and a jar of miso paste to add to the soup (i am so glad i did because the soup powder was so weak but had some lovely seaweed in).
the end result was just lovely and it felt, if it is at all possible, that my body was really feeling that it was taking something good into it.
so i will be making another bowl today.
i also spent a while yesterday hunting down some new recipie ideas and found some really nice ones on the post punk kitchen, all recipies and the vegetarian society.
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going onto the post punk kitchen remined me of seitan o' greatness
now some of my older readers who were with me when i started my blogging journey may remember my experiments in making seitan (wheat meat).
back then it wasnt so easy to get the vital wheat gluten here as it was across the atlantic (where most of the recipies were) but i found a supplier of high gluten flour that would have to do and started my journey.
the results were not too bad-my first, immersed in a boiling broth, were a bit grim to be honest making a spongy texture which i was not after.
the one where i baked it in a big roll in my rayburn was nice~good texture and flavour and made lovely sandwiches when i was off camping (that big ole roll lasted me ages!).
then i just stopped making it, although back then we were so broke i could not justify me buying 'special' things for myself and so it fell by the wayside.
well now, looking at the price of tofu these days, not wanting to keep buying the mass produced offerings (have you noticed by the way how quorn is taking over?! although linda maccartney foods are nice, especially the cranberry burgers), seeking out a good dense texture and wanting a 'cure-all' for making stir fries, sandwiches, and stews has made me start looking again at making my own seitan.
doing a bit of research i found that veggiestuff sells vital wheat gluten~the holy grail~that i could not buy all those years ago.
so i bought a pack, some marigold nutritional yeast flakes and stock and have been researching more upto date 'experiments' in seitan making to see how things have progressed.
it seems that now the general consesus is to simmer and /or bake it to make a good, solid, chewy seitan.
so now i am waiting for my delivery~keen to get creating...i shall keep you posted!
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well thats it for today, i am feleing a tad better than yesterday and determined to get out and do that organizing!