Tell me why! I don’t like Mon_day_ays. Tell me why!

Because they are bloody hard work! No, I’m pulling my own leg…. I LOVE them. This is the fourth week of having Monday off since I cut back my hours at work and it’s taking a bit of time to adjust. I’ve had this all consuming feeling that I have to pack as much into my Monday as possible to justify why I made the choice. Thankfully that’s diminishing somewhat,  but I am I; I do like to make sure I get as much value as I can from any day. It did cross my mind once today that I could actually sit down and read a book but that just isn’t me unless the weather is foul and I can do it with a nice bottle of something while sitting in front of the fire. That’s probably overkill at 9.30m!

So here is the outline of what I did today, Monday mine number 4!

I baked 2 loaves of sourdough that had been bulk fermenting in the fridge since Saturday night.

Pretty happy with these. I rarely get to taste them fresh from the ‘Toy Oven”, but I could today. Wish I’d had some smoked salmon in the fridge, beautiful.

I ripped out a bit more of the kitchen. That is so satisfying!

For lunch I had a leftover pastie that I made last night.  If anyone remembers an IMK post I did a couple of months ago, I bought an amazing rolling pin that measures 750ml end to end (I didn’t really take note of the size when ordering), I’ve named her Big Bertha. Well Bertha got her first workout last night making the lard pastry that the pasties were wrapped in. I’m in love with Big Bertha! My god, how much better is it working with a tool that is brilliant? I can see why massive rollers are used on roads, a pissy little one just wouldn’t work!

The pasties were lovely, standard filling of mince (just corrected auto spell of mice), carrot, turnip, swede, potato, onion etc and I added a couple of teaspoons of my Middle Eastern Spice Blend.

I started reno work on some of the beautiful cedar (Australian Red) door architrave. This poor old timber is a bit sad and sorry but it is amazing what a sand, some metho and a steel wool scrub can do. Followed by the first coat of  Feast & Watson Tung oil  to rejuvenate it. Pictures to follow!

Spice Queen!

When we went to Sydney a couple of months ago so I could participate in one of Herbies spice appreciation and blending classes, towards the end of the day we had to create a spice blend of our own. I quickly scribbled down what I included as I mixed my blend, (I’m impressed I found this scribble),

and have been waiting for a reason/opportunity to use it. I had defrosted a small pork shoulder at the weekend so I used the blend as a spice rub on the pork and thrown it into the slow cooker with a stubby of passata plus a sliced onion and 1/2 a teaspoon of smoked paprika. Smells wonderful, I’m not sure when we will eat it but I can’t wait. I’m hoping to make some flatbread from the Indian atta flour I bought last week at the Dandenong Market.

Pork rub before adding passsata, onion and smoked paprika.

I really don’t not like Mondays, I think I had better start not liking Tuesdays too!

Have you cut back work hours? How have you changed what you do?