CrumpArt

Tonight I had one of those slightly awkward moments where I was forced to be geeky in front of other people. We had dinner with Mr Crumpet’s mum, his sister and her partner. And I had to take a photo of my dinner in front of everyone… but, free food! Yay! The others had steak, and we had some sort of bean burger. I don’t know why everybody couldn’t have bean burgers, but, yeah, whatever. We also had scallopy style potatoes, fried onions and salad with lettuce, mushroom, cherry tomatoes and avocado. Yum.

I started painting today for the Summer Studio Challenge. 15 paintings by March. Or 28 in my case. Some may think I’m crazy. I think I paint fast. It helps that my main focus in my art over the past year was to try and be less precise. It’s been a good thing for me, I think.

I still have a bit to do on this, but I should finish it tomorrow.

Here’s what we’ve made so far from our grocery haul.

Last night was baked tofu with satay sauce. As mentioned, we already had the tofu and many of the condiments used in the sauce, but the peanut butter and vegies were from this week. I think I got this recipe from Vegweb a long time ago. It’s shithot, and also, you know, like totally 100% gay! What you do is get some of the really firm tofu and marinate it in garlic, soy sauce, rice wine and rice vinegar. After a few hours, you take out the tofu with a slotted spoon, and bake it at 200ºC for 20-25 minutes, and make a satay sauce by simmering the remaining marinade, peanut butter, more garlic, water and coconut cream until it’s smooth. Add some steamed vegies and you’re good to go. As I’m a freak, I like to eat the leftovers for breakfast the next day.

Tonight I had a work thing, so Mr Crumpet had to cook. Our normal deal is that I cook and he does the dishes, but he does know how to make spag bol. This one we got from the side of a box one day, and I’ve edited it over time to use more fresh ingredients instead of canned. It uses an onion, fresh garlic, basil, 3-4 tomatoes puréed to a slightly chunky state in the food processor, some bought tomato purée, TVP (textured vegetable protien) and pasta. This makes enough for lunches the next day as well.

So there you have it. Extremely exciting, yummy and cheap dinners.

Well, maybe someone will care about what I’m having for dinner.

Today, instead of driving down to the crappy chain supermarket, I walked to get our groceries. I bought bread from our local vegetarian bakery* and stopped in at the chain supermarket to buy meat for the dogs, peanut butter and some frozen vegetables. I knew I couldn’t get these things from the local Islamic grocery that I planned on buying the rest of our food from. The Islamic grocery is only two blocks from our house, and after a visit there the other day to buy some coffee and free range eggs, I realised that I could buy most things we needed from there, and we’d save on money and fuel. I keep thinking about this experiment that Kelli did back in November last year. No matter how many times I hear it, I just can’t get over the apparent unavailabilty of inexpensive, fresh and healthy food in the USA. Living in Australia, where fresh produce is abundant, I have real difficulty comprehending that a lot of people just can’t get this stuff.

Anyway, this is what I bought today from the Islamic grocery to feed two adults and two dogs** (in combination with some lentils, split peas, rice, TVP and tofu that we already have).

I spent $26.90, which would have been $24.40 if I hadn’t been seduced by the gorgeous wrapper on this chocolate. I don’t actually care about the chocolate, but I do want to use the packaging for some crafts I have in mind…

All up, at the bakery, the supermarket and the grocery store, I spent $40 AUD. That’s around $31 USD, and it will feed us and our dogs healthily for a week. Add in soy milk and cereal, which I don’t have yet, and you’re looking at around $50 AUD. We normally spend $80-$90 at the supermarket, so I think I’ll try and keep this up, especially considering that if I lived in Arizona on my current wage and was single, I’d qualify for the food stamps…

*Lunch was a vegan mushroom pie from the bakery, if yr interested.
**We don’t feed our dogs canned food — they get dry dog food in the mornings, and a couple of times a week we cook up a big batch of vegetables and meat for their dinner.

I just got an email saying that Marta, of Marta’s Yarn passed away on Thursday, as a result of the cancer she’d been battling for almost a year and a half.

I bought my first pair of Addi needles in her shop. Glittery 12mm circs, to make the scribble lace scarf from knitty. I bought beautifully dyed DK weight yarn for an Amelie inspired fair isle hat. I still have some of that left. I bought sparkly things and more sets of Addi Turbos than I care to think about. And the tops that I spun into the yarn above. I might knit it up tomorrow. On my Addis.

Thank you, Marta.

Take the camera down to The Doll’s House tomorrow, then post about it here.

EDIT:
Dammit. The exhibition was down by the time I got there… it was heaps of knitting needles bound into crazy scaffolding around the doll’s house (a gallery in a shop front window). Cool stuff.

Ever since seeing Clerks II last year, I’ve been slightly obsessed with the song ABC by the Jackson 5.

So, surprise surprise, I got my learnin’ on and made a list.