Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

Well, how fortuitous. I started back taking pictures in time to enter Click: Au Naturel…and actually took a picture in that month.

Here, I’m submitting the lovely sweet potatoes mom and dad grew.

Wish me luck! :-)

In my post on sweet potatoes I mentioned our new home-growing incentive.

inflation! prices on the rise! everything oh so expensive…Flour and rice scarce (maybe). All our veggies cost so much.

Well, of late, we’ve been trying to use out our supplies. Our cupboards are finally getting barer. We try not to buy anything new unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Of course sneaky mommy bought some channa (chickpeas) the other day because we ran out. Dad doesn’t eat channa. I told her don’t buy it! We can survive without it. We have tonnes of peas! We have lots of other food. But does mom listen? No, she’s sneaky!

Back to growing…we have a backyard. I remember when we were young we’d be growing LOTS of pigeon peas in the back. We had avocado, guava and who knows what else. We have a mango tree, a plum tree and loads of fig (silk fig, banana) trees.

Not only did mom and dad plant sweet potatoes but cassava (I think).
She finally got her celery to plant.
We’ve got some potatoes I think.
My brain can’t think what else…peas…we’re planting some peas.

Mom says she doesn’t have the knack for tomatoes. They always die. But we’re going to try again regardless. I told her I’ll take my “black” or “colour unknown” thumb and plant it and see.

And today we went to the Orchid Show and we bought a lemon basil plant and a rosemary plant so we have more seasoning plants. Yay!

Who knows what possibilities await in our backyard.

But I hate the sweat! ;-)

I posted five of them :-)

Here’s the whole set.

Mom and dad planted some sweet potates in the backyard a while aback.
They reaped about 5lbs of it!

Mom boiled/steamed? some to eat with fry chicken and fry rice one Sunday lunch and yet we still had the rest of it…4.5lbs

Continue reading Home-grown Sweet Potatoes

But when I look in the mirror once in a while and something looks off…I worry…until I figure it out. Some people think I’m a bit of a hypochondriac. Sometimes I wonder if I am…then don’t take some medicine and lo and behold I’m reassured.

If my face looks pastier than usual, browner than usual, puffier than usual…one day it will look bonier than usual ;-)
I mean I must be a worry-wart or something.

I just washed my hands and looked up and it looked rather browner than my pasty hardly sees the sun tone underneath the brown …now I know some of my friends can’t tell…they think it’s always the same colour…they wouldn’t even know when I’m tanned and when I’m not…but I know and so does my family.

Well my evil parents dragged me out in the backyard today.
They gardening.
And I wonder why my skin is darker.
*sigh*
I’m not a fan of gardening and flowers (what’s the point?) and sweat and dirt and overexerting myself and heat…I’m not sure what I’m a fan of.

But anywayz I told mom if the plants don’t grow…don’t blame me and whatever colour my thumb is because she dragged me out. And if you drag me out…don’t let me contemplate all those plants that we don’t eat. What’s the point? Wasted space when we could be growing food. Okay…I accept orchids. They’re pretty. I like them. And I will let the anthuriums (if I could spell it) pass but I much prefer if the latter never make it to a vase on the table. Flowers and vases on the table get so huge they obstruct the view. They bother me.

And how can someone who is so crazy about her garden and her flowers put plastic and other fake flowers around the house? I mean seriously, isn’t that contradictory? I think I hate fake flowers more than I hate green plants.

Hmm…but I guess I’m not into real green or fake green so if I exist then so can mom.

*sigh*

But really, I hope the food plants grow nicely.
The sweet potatoes I promised to show you ages ago tasted GREAT.

I still haven’t uploaded the pictures anywhere oh oh.

You think this post is going to be about chocolate don’t you?
Maybe brownies?
Or some ganache bars.

I can feel you thinking it.

But it’s not….!

I made Lemon Bars. I’ve always wanted to make them…since Kit sent me some.
I followed the Cooking For Engineers recipe (which really is a Baking Illustrated recipe?) and it came out yummy.

When the crust was baking, it smelled like gulab jamoon…and I hadn’t even got to the filling yet.

I just really hate clean up.

Next time maybe I’ll try making my beloved lemon meringue pie.

:-)

Will update with pictures soon…I actually took them off the camera this time :-)

Edited on 18th May, 2008 1:05 AM

There are a couple more pictures if you go look. They’re not the greatest! ;-)

We’ve been working on the renovation of our masjid. I think it was opened in 1959.

Many years ago we added a real kitchen.

Last year we tiled the kitchen and redid the sisters’ wudu and washroom area. I picked these tiles. I liked them :-)

In the last few weeks we redid the ceiling, the roof, painted, got new carpet, got an AC unit, tiled the hall, redid the windows/walls and who knows what else. A lot of work you know!

And today, we had the first Jummah (Friday congregational prayer) in the masjid. It was nice. It was very pretty. I had to tell myself to stop staring at the masjid and concentrate on the khutbah (sermon).

It was great :-)