Sunday means food

A big grocery excursion today made for a helluva lot of cooking so far. I'm planning on making a peach pie later this week with the absolutely fabulous "doughnut" peaches I picked up this morning. I'm also going to be making a pizza-inspired casserole later today. I'm still undecided about how to serve a starch with it, 'though. Maybe I won't bother. I'm basically looking to get a tomato-garlic concoction with a lot of variety in the vegetable department.

I've cooked up the breakfast sausages which were 1/2-off, for freezing and reheating whenever I feel like having a few with whatever I'm eating. They're great for the insanely high-fat weekend breakfast binges. :)

I've also grilled two pieces of halibut steak, one of which I had for breakfast (the other of which is going into tomorrow's baon). I served these with some store-bought dolmadakia. As expected, the lemon in the dolmakia balanced the fish nicely, and I didn't have to make a pot of rice. I also used up the last of the frozen peas by making a non-dairy mushy peas dish, which used coconut milk in the place of the heavy cream. As awesome as the fish and dolmadakia were, the peas were the highlight of the meal. I must remember to make these again. All I had to do was boil the peas, mostly drain them, add a little coconut milk (which was lightly sweetened yesterday), some non-dairy margarine and sea salt, then mash them lightly with a fork.

This is why I had sweetened coconut milk lying around. I made pinindot yesterday, and was pleased that it was every bit as easy as mom and my titas said it would be. After Obachan made some up, partly based on my suggestion, I just had to make some for myself!

This is the glutinous rice flour paste. I let it sit for a minute or two after this, and was surprised at how the water the seeped in during that time. While the mixture had been somewhat lumpy when I first made it, it was considerably more liquid-y when I started rolling the rice balls. I'm going to have to remember to use a little less water next time, so they're easier to handle.

Here, the pinindot is boiling in the sweetened coconut milk. I added 3 tbsp. of sugar to a can of coconut milk and found it wasn't quite sweet enough (which worked out well when I was making the mushy peas with the leftover coconut milk). Again, I'll have to remember to add a little more sugar next time. All in all, I think the pinindot experiment was a success. I cooked the balls long enough for them to be the right consistency, despite the fact that I made them a bit too big. Again, I'll have to change that next time, just because I like them smaller (they're easier to eat if they're bite-sized).

In Memoriam (or: Ghanima's Blog Gets Sombre)

Today is the anniversary of my beloved Lola's (grandmother's) death. I think it happened 3 years ago now, but I can't remember too clearly, off the top of my head. In a lot of ways, it was a lifetime away. I was living with Emma at the time, I was still at AKA, Matt and I had been dating for a while, but weren't anywhere near sorting out the permanence of our relationship. I made a lot of changes in my life, dealing with her demise. It was a really hard time for me, I can only imagine how terrifying and sad it would have been for her children.

What I'm really trying to say is that it probably had such a big impact on us all because she was so important to each of us. As much as it hurt to have her leave us, I think we all ultimately had to accept that it hurt because we loved her so much, because she was always caring about us and proud of each of us. I don't think any of her family and friends would exchange the love she had for us for an easier time dealing with her death.

If this were a family party, this would be where I raise my glass in honour of my Lola and the legacy she left in those she loved. Cheers.