So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

What is everyone having for dinner tonight? I am being very lazy! I stayed at work until twenty to eight, so I order a pizza on-line for delivery, specifying when I wanted it delivered with a bit of margin so that I was sure I would have time to cycle home. Actually, I ended up with a bit more margine than I needed, so despite the fact that I have been home for 15 minutes, I still have another ten to wait for my dinner...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We've just had chicken curry with butternut squash & lemon juice (which we're using in place of rice) and cucumber & mint raita. One of our standard meals but enjoyable, nevertheless.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I love butternut squash! Do I understand correctly that you use it and the lemon juice in place of the rice? If so, can you explain further? It sounds intriguing!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Yes, in place of the rice we used to use as the carbohydrate source. (We were both on a diet for 4 or 5 months earlier in the year and gave up rice & potatoes [Mr EA gave up bread, too], and although we're not calorie restricting any more, we're sticking to not eating rice or potatoes.)

We steam the squash in cubes in the microwave, which is really quick, and pour freshly squeezed lemon juice on it when it's hot, then use it as a side dish to the curry. It's very tasty but it only works with curries that aren't too wet (as it doesn't absorb fluid) or too hot (it's not as cooling as rice). We use it in place of potatoes/potato salad, too. We tried it with stir fries but it didn't really work as well there. It's much lower calorie than rice, and it counts as a vegetable portion too. (I'm not very good at eating fruit/veg.)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

That sounds very interesting; I mostly roast butternut squash, with quite a lot of oil, which isn't helpful when aiming for low calorie content. The idea that this way of cooking it would also be quicker, is good too. I find myself rarely cooking dinner on a week night, because by the time I get home I want dinner quickly. For this purpose, when I do cook I try to make a large batch so that I can have ready made meals in the freezer. But sometimes it is nice to have a meal that hasn't been through the freezer!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We used to roast it with olive oil too, but this way is tasty, much less oily and quicker (tho' cubing it does take time and needs a great big knife).

With the curries, we often make a big batch and eat one portion, freeze another and sometimes even refrigerate a third. The curry usually improves for refrigeration overnight though freezing doesn't do a lot for the meat texture -- not a problem for a vegetarian, though!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I noticed my local Tesco selling precubed sweet potatoes and butternut squash; I might be lazy and go for that option... It also has the advantage of giving me both of those two vegetables which I love, in a quantity that is (semi-)reasonable for a one person household.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's an excellent idea -- we've been buying precubed pineapple to make fruit salad, which is a huge time saver.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I love pineapple, but rarely buy the fresh stuff, partly because of the effort involved in getting to the eating. The other part is that a whole pineapple is usually a bit much for me on my own. When I have bought pineapple in recent years it has mostly been the precubed stuff, though I find my shop often doesn't sell just pineapple; rather you have to buy their selection of fruit salad which is sometimes to my taste and sometimes not.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We used to buy whole pineapples but too often they went off before we got around to using them. Also we have granite work tops which are sensitive to the enzymes in pineapple so it is particularly difficult to cut them!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I had that problem, too, and I hate throwing away food, which is why I stopped buying them. I have mostly been satisfying my pineapple cravings with not-from-concentrate pineapple juice, which tastes properly like pineapple, unlike the concentrated stuff which is often just sickly sweet.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Throwing away food always seems like a crime, though we do it all too often.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am usually far more ambitious about what cooking I will actually do in a week, when I do the grocery shopping, than what actually happens, which does lead to very sad food wastage. I do believe in ignoring 'best before dates' though, and using my own judgement about whether food is still OK to eat, so I don't throw out as much as I might.. Still far too much, though.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I take the view that with a lot of food, if it isn't obviously foul smelling or mouldy then it's fine, though with chicken or prawns it's more of a problem. We've just finished some overlooked cherries that were dated best before 6 September and they were absolutely fine.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Yes, shellfish and chicken are definitely foods one should be extra careful of; being a vegetarian myself these days, I luckily don't have to bother about those. ;-)

Finding some forgotten cherries sounds a very happy thing to do, when they are still edible. I have had grapes, which I forgot about to the point where they turned into delicious raisins!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I gather it's perfectly possible, and indeed common, to get food poisoning from bought salads, but somehow shellfish always makes me more nervous than other foods. Being vegetarian does have a lot of advantages.

I think there might be another slightly less old batch of forgotten cherries, too -- will have to dig them out.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Gobbling up samples!! Tomorrow is the real life party, but I worked all day today and will be working tomorrow till noon, too, so I had to make the cheesy buns, the sausages in puff pasty and the phenomenal apple-cheesecake tonight. There was much testing and sampling, and now I'm both full and dead on my feet.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Tasting the product is definitely one of the best things about cooking/baking! Though I do also very much like seeing other people eat it with enjoyment.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

That, hopefully, comes tomorrow.

[sammydragoncat]

Sampling is the best part of baking - It's best to do most of the prep work the day before the party, it's just so exhausting. I'm sure your guest will love everything you've made.