Levitating cat....or not

Louie needs fingers. I've spoken earlier in the blog about his bizarre requirement to chew methodically through your fingers first thing in the morning, but I think, today took the biscuit.

Today, he couldn't wait for me to get my morning coffee, so in a desperate attempt to multitask, I hoisted (yes, hoisted, he's a BIG cat)  him up into my arms, with his  rear paws and butt cradled in my left hand and his back against my left arm and crook of elbow so I could feed him fingers inbetwixt pushing buttons on the coffee maker.

Apparently, the length of time it takes to push a button is too long to be bereft of fingers. Before I knew it, he'd managed to invert himself in an attempt to simultaneously balance on and chew the fingers of my left hand.

<facepalm> or should that be <faceplant>?

I wish, I wish I'd had a camera. Louie is currently nursing his wounded dignity on a cushion on top of my crafting box next to the radiator. Fingers no longer have priority in his world.

Cookie cravings

I haz cookie cravings. Lots of cookie cravings - and as there is no such thing as 24/7 supermarkets here, I just had to satisfy them myself.

Whilst I swiped the base recipe from an online site, I had to make some variations on ingredients - given the limited resources in my larder.  So :

200g butter
90g dark brown sugar
90g granulated sugar
1 egg
225g self raising flour
175g mix of chocolate chunks, cranberries and pecans

Cream the sugar butter and egg together, mix in the flour and remaining ingredients, and spoon the mix onto a well greased baking sheet in large blobs. Heat oven to 190 degrees and cook for 12-15 minutes. They will be very gooey when they come out but harden up as they cool. If you don't thoroughly cream the butter/sugar/egg mix, you get a crunchy texture to the biscuit from the sugar crystals.......

Remove from oven, acquire a glass of chocolate port, and enjoy.

Cat chaos.

Louie has taken a great liking to sitting on top of my pc. It keeps him warm, and he gets to jab me in the leg with a claw when he wants. The PC however, is not so keen : the graphics card regularly overheats once or twice a day and crashes now. In an attempt to save my technology, I've taken to nudging Louie off when I notice him. He has, however, discovered an even better way to interfere with computer usage : he now comes and sits between the keyboard and me, with a languid claw monitoring mouse usage........

My Keralan chicken curry

Yesterday, I had a great success improvising a Keralan-style chicken curry  from my store cupboard.  If you like mild curries, I recommend you have a go!

Ingredients :

1 thumb sized fresh ginger piece
4 cloves of garlic
6 green cardamoms
1 stick of cinnamon
10 methi grains (fenugreek)
7 curry leaves
1 tsp tumeric
1sp garam masala
1 pinch cumin seeds
4 tomatos, diced
2 chicken breasts
1 onion, diced
1/2 tin of coconut milk
salt to taste


Heat some oil in a pan, add cardamoms, cinnamon, cinnamon, and methi ( fenugreek) to the oil and cook for a couple of minutes to flavour the oil. Add onion, cook till softened. Grind or crush ginger and garlic to a paste, add to oil, cook for a couple more minutes - don't 'burn' the garlic so keep it on a low heat. Add chicken and all the remaining ingredients and simmer gently until chicken is cooked and flavours are developed. Add salt to taste.

Voila! Ultra simple and very quick to make, served with a flavoured cardamom rice with toasted cashew nuts.