Guy Fawkes, Laundry Savings, Saturday Dinner, Kindle Charger

I actually forgot that today is Guy Fawkes Day. Not until I read, on Facebook, of people attending bonfires and fireworks displays in the UK did I remember. In fact the first mention of fireworks I wondered why they were having them, duuuh. For those of you who don’t remember, Guy Fawkes is famous for a conspiracy to blow up the British House of Parliament (which doesn’t have a basement so not sure how they were going to do it). The British, to quote a friend, being a peaceful and forgiving nation, have been burning him in effigy ever since. I rather like this drawing I found showing Guy Fawkes thinking (plotting?). I do somewhat miss the celebrations that take place on, or around, the 5th. As kids we used to poke baking potatoes into the fire which would come out burned on one side and raw on the other, we didn’t care, we ate them anyway. Sausages were also cooked that way. You couldn’t get near enough to most of the bonfires for very long. At the yacht club, run by my parents, we used to have fish and chips for everyone too. Several times if was my job to go and collect them.

Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

On Saturday Matt discovered that the dryers on our floor (we have two washers and two dryers on every floor in the building) had free showing in the money slot, nothing loath, he did some washing to make sure, then, when he was sure, he ended up doing three loads of wash. Saved us $6. I know, woman’s work, but I have trouble walking that far. He was busy that day because he also cooked dinner, we had a London Broil and a Potato and Spinach Galette. Delicious. The links are to previous blogs where I gave these recipes. We love both these recipes. I especially love the crispy potato slices on the top of the galette. Yummy. The hardest part of making it is taking the stems off the spinach leaves which I don’t think is really necessary any more, but Matt insisted so I did it. Jacques Pèpin, who’s recipe it is, says remove the stalks. However, I have been noticing a lot of recipes don’t do so, the Chinese sautéed spinach at the Mandarin doesn’t have the stems removed either. Sunday night we had cold beef and the Roasted Parsnips with Horseradish Sauce from a blog last week. We both enjoyed them even though its not Matt’s favourite vegetable. There are enough for a meal tonight with some more beef.

I just bought a charger for my Kindle. It does come with one, but that has to be plugged into a computer, this one I just ordered, can be plugged into any power outlet. Its called a Home Wall Travel Charger and is actually suitable for several ereaders. I bought mine from Amazon.ca but I am sure Amazon.com have them as well. I paid $2.75 flat. Pretty good deal I thought.

This is a somewhat different recipe. Don’t be put off by some of the ingredients, they taste very good. I like seaweed properly prepared, very tasty. Used a lot in sushi rice for instance. I thought the recipe looked quite refreshing.

Cucumber and Daikon Radish Salad with Hijiki

By The Nourished Kitchen
WebMD Recipe from Foodily.com

Ingredients

• 1 large cucumber
• 1/4 cup dried hijiki (seaweed)
• 4 small daikon radishes (or 1 large radish)
• 2 red scallions
• 2 tablespoons gomasio (Japanese Sesame Salt)
• Asian-style ginger vinaigrette to dress the salad or plain tamari

Instructions

1. Soak the dried hijiki in water for ten minutes, then boil it for fifteen minutes. Drain the seaweed and reserve it.
2. Now, slice the cucumber. Peel and slice the daikon radishes. I like to use a spiral slicer for this dish, but it’s far from necessary. Mince the scallion. Mix all the vegetables together with the sesame salt and dress the salad very lightly with either an Asian-style ginger vinaigrette or with a touch of plain tamari. Basically soy sauce.

Have a great day