eggplant bhurta and cravings

we had 1 small eggplant that was starting to go past it's prime sitting in the fridge and needed to be used for dinner last nite. it wasn't big enough to make eggplant parma with so i flipped through some cookbooks for ideas and decided on eggplant bharta from la dolce vegan. it was quick, easy and was really tasty. i love all the spices in this indian dish. next time i might try it with quinoa instead of brown rice, just to add more protein.
i also made chocolate pudding for dessert. i hadn't made chocolate pudding in ages and ever since a co-worker was talking about it last week i've been craving it. now that craving is satisfied but i have a new one (and no i'm not pregnant)-- i want to try a grilled 'cheese' and asparagus sandwich. i ran into a co-worker yesterday on sydney rd. just as she was heading to radical grocery for the first time (she's vegan and wheat intolerant and i've been telling her to check out radical grocery for ages and she finally made it there yesterday). she sent me a text today saying how excited she was to have grilled 'cheese' and asparagus sandwiches for the first time in 10 years now that she has cheezely. i've never had asparagus on my grilled cheese. it sounds like it would be really good though. i have cheezely but no bread or asparagus and i'm to lazy to do anything about that this afternoon.

please sign

below is a link to sign a petition. this petition is to get the government to fund the one effective treatment available for the life-threatening disease PNH. it is a rare but life threatening disease that basically causes red blood cells to be destroyed. this causes major health issues that can lead to death (35% of PNH patients die within 5 years of diagnosis if they don't receive effective treatment). zac's cousin's wife was diagnosed with PNH in january (2 months before her and her husband were married). she has had to undergo several blood transfusions since diagnosis and was depending on the one drug treatment that is known to effectively manage PNH to be funded by the government in this year's budget. the government did not provide that funding for the 70 australians who have been diagnosed with this disease. the PNH support group is petitioning parliament to pass legislation to give PNH suffers access to life-saving treatment. the age (as well as other newspapers and online news sources) printed an article on this issue.

click HERE to sign the petition. (the petition is only for Australian citizens)

cold

it's 6C out right now. it's supposed to get to 20C today. i'll believe it when it happens. for some reason the weather people keep putting the day's high about 2 degrees above what it actually gets to. they've been doing it for the last couple weeks. why do they get my hopes up? why don't they just put the high at 2C lower and then we'll all be surprised when it gets warmer than predicted. at least even if it gets to 18C today, that's reasonably warm if i stay in the sun.

velo

velo cycles came to my rescue again today. this morning i realized part way to work i had a flat tire again (this is the second one in 2 weeks plus a third time where i pulled the valve off the tube while pulling off my bike pump-- i'd only had 1 other flat on this bike before this month). i decided just to lock it up and walk the rest of the way. i picked it up on the walk home for lunch and after eating i decided to try to fix it (i still had 15 minutes before i would have to start walking back if i didn't finish fixing it). the hole was really easy to find so i patched it, checked for sharp pieces in the tire and quickly re-assembled it. i was only gonna be a couple minutes late getting back from lunch but as i was riding in my bike was bumping up and down. i had a quick look but couldn't figure out what i'd done wrong so i called work and said i was gonna be a bit late cuz i was going to go a block out of my way and take my bike to velo. i went in and the guy noticed right away i hadn't put the tire on the rim right. he deflated the tube, fixed it and re-inflated it on the spot (and added a bit of air to the front tire as well) . velo is really good like that (i've seen other people walk in with quick issues they've fixed right there and they've replaced a snapped gear cable for me on my way in to work). so glad our closest bike shop is a really good one (they also sell microcosm bike related t-shirts, patches and stickers which is really cool and they used to have pamphlets about with reasons to go vegetarian on the counter)

nachos 'n' cheesecake

i couldn't be bothered cooking last nite so we decided to stop by the east brunswick club for dinner on our way home from our afternoon wandering sydney rd. i convinced zac that he would be full if we split the nachos and then got dessert (we've never had dessert there because every time we go, we're too full from dinner and don't hang around long enough afterwards to be hungry enough for dessert). i was impressed with the nachos but i didn't get any photos cuz the room was extremely dark (and i realized we were sitting in the darkest corner of the dark room). i can't even say exactly what was on them, cuz it was so dark: beans, jalapenos, salsa, corn, guacamole, vegan cheese and sour cream.... they were good-- and loaded with toppings. for dessert i went with the berry "cheese"cake and zac went with the chocolate coconut "cheese"cake. it was one of the best vegan cheesecakes i've had. it even had a cream cheese aftertaste to it. sooooooo good i really didn't want to finish my beer afterwards and wash away the cheesecake taste (i did though). we'll just have to go back again so i can get more cheesecake. fortunately we have some omni friends who have been saying they want to go back to the east with us and it didn't work out this weekend so maybe next weekend will have to go back with them.

smoked tofu

i was inspired by this post and decided to make smoky vegan lasange tonite (no photos cuz i didn't take any before i cut it up and i can't cut and serve things like lasange without slopping them everywhere--there are good photos on both links though). i've had smoked tofu at CERES and forgot that i really liked it. i've never actually cooked with it though. when i was reading through the recipe the woman stated that her husband commented that it tasted a bit like smoked salmon (and it sounded like he is an omnivore t00). i loved smoked salmon and i thought how can tofu taste smoked salmon-y? i tasted a bit as i was crumbling it--- wow, it is like smoked salmon!! i think i've found a new favourite food. the flavour worked great in the lasange.

case moth

this case moth lives at work:

one of the children found it one afternoon last week. the 2 afternoon staff didn't know what it was but one of the other children told them it was a case moth. the teacher (very gently) squeezed the case a bit and decided it was empty so they brought it inside. the next day i noticed it sitting on the edge of the counter. i asked one of the staff about it and asked her if that was where they put it when they brought it in (it wasn't-- the larva inside had moved the case along). i took it outside and just placed it in a large planter box of lavender. a couple days later we noticed it attached to lavender near where i'd placed it. today it was hanging from the outside of the planter box on the opposite end (about 2m or more from where it was last week)-- that's where i took the photo above.
a bit later, i was standing near it with some children and it popped its head out! i've never actually seen the larvae before, just their amazing cases.
it carefully unattached it's case from the wall so it could move. unfortunately a gust of wind came past and knocked it to the ground. that scared it and it went in its case. we moved it back into the box so it could come out and move when it felt safe.

what is it?

does anyone know what this is? we (everyone at work and zac) all wanna say witchety grub but we don't think i actually is that. a child we had at work last year knew what they were called. we have a lot of them living in the soil under the tan bark at work (and this one was in the soil in our digging patch).

cUcumber

i'm going through all my photo files to delete/organize them. i found this one from mid-march of one of my cucumbers that grew in the garden. the oddest part is that i didn't even notice it growing on there. the day i found it was the day i picked it. i had a couple big ones (and didn't notice them until they were fully grown-- i don't pay much attention to my garden sometimes-- just throw some water on it and walk away. i'm surprised anything grows in there sometimes).

huntsman

saw this huntsman at work the other day-- trying to camouflage on a camouflage-print tarp. wasn't really working for it. i think he/she needed to find a tree.

Wombat

i'm testing out my new phone's ability 2 blog. I took this photo of Wombat the other day. Right now she's being a lazy beast tucked under the covers in our bed. She's smart- it's warm there.

busy possums

this morning a child noticed a nail hammered in (poorly) in a brick wall of a building at work. it's been there for years but he's never noticed it so he decided that last nite some possums must have come and hammered it in. when another child came over and asked how the nail got in there i told him that henry had a pretty good idea. henry told him and as he finished the second child got a big smile on his face like "that couldn't have happened, you're making that up" but he turned to me and said "possums would have accidentally hammered their fingers if they tried to hammer a nail."
when they aren't driving us crazy the kids at work are funny sometimes.

4 seasons

this morning it was warm- unusually warm for autumn. i went to work wearing sandals and a light jumper over a t-shirt. it was 23C when i came home for lunch. mid afternoon the sky got REALLY dark. cold wind started blowing in the windows at work. i rode home in the pouring rain (and if i hadn't decided to leave work 10 minutes early i probably would have missed the huge downpour and just got a little damp in misty rain). i also didn't bring a rain jacket (just a wind breaker) even knowing it would probably be raining when i came home from work-- i figured maybe if i didn't prepare, it wouldn't happen (i should know things don't work like that). melbourne is a 4-seasons-in-one-day sort of place but it hasn't happened much the last couple years. i always forget that it will happen and i need to prepare for every kind of weather almost every day.