Bit of a change of direction.

I have had a bit of a not so fantastic Monday morning so far.

At work, the nice lady one notch up from me, told me that I wouldn’t get the training that I wanted. Well, not until we had moved buildings at least. And we have been just about to move since I first sat down on the job almost a year ago.

Now where I work is convenient. VERY convenient. It’s a short toddle from home; I need not use public transport. It’s so close to home that, even if there is rain, which let’s face is there is a lot of in Ireland, so I don’t get too wet on my way. The people at work are lovely, really, I would be hard pushed to pick a nicer bunch.

So, why am I having a gripe?

Well it’s like this. My last job made me feel important. In my last job, I was actually playing a large part in keeping people alive, and I felt that I was making a difference in people’s lives. Although I had a bunch of arses to deal with, I liked it. Here, I feel that I am of little consequence to anyone really. Not that I felt that I was passionate about the industry that I was in before, I REALLY do not like the consequences that I am working towards now. I answer the phone, I do a little typing, blah blah, and there is little chance of the role growing with my talents and capabilities.

Basically is it time to do something or to get lost in the corporate collective.

So, I will, over the next few days do some research, and then I will take some courses myself, fund myself, owe nobody, hopefully earn more so that I can afford to go part-time.

On the non-work front.

I was grazing the internet this morning and I took a look at an ex-boyfriends website. Now, he treated me fairly badly.

I am not wounded, I am not knife wielding angry, and I am not longing for anything that I don’t have and I am certainly not searching just out of curiosity, let’s just make that clear.

He admitted himself that by the time that I had had enough, he thought that we might just really have something, even though I was the scarlet woman in this scenario. If not to his work, then to the woman living in his house.

Now, I had a secret thought in my head or even a wicked little angel on my shoulder that every so often said “What if??”

Well, I have answered that question! If the “What if??” had happened, I sincerely believe that I would have been treated no better than he had already treated me. I would be much less happy than I am now, I would be taken for granted completely, and who knows, I may still have been that other woman.

It really puts me in the mind of the Tori Amos song “Another Girl’s Paradise”. Indeed, I’m sure that there are a gaggle of women who would adore to have been in the lap of the situation that I was in. But indeed, it wasn’t for me.

Where I am now, I am so completely happy. Happy, in a really holistic way. I am with a sensitive, responsible, intelligent, funny man who both respects and loves me and I love him, lots. It’s a no brainer really.

MEH!

I must admit to this.

Since I have turned vegan, I have really lost enthusiasm for food. I know that there are lots of fantastic vegan and vegetarian blogs to be schmoozsed over. Schmoozse I do, but I don't seem to have the real want that I had for food before.

Totty has been really nice about me cutting out the fish and dairy. In fact he has made sure to cook vegan when we are eating together, which is sweet of him.

I didn't plan well enough for such a big change of lifestyle, and I do find that I am eating food that does feel rather rubbishy. I can't really see how very sugary peanut butter is proper food. Especially when you open the jar and it doesn't really smell like peanuts.

This is a bit of a whine really, and I can't really say that I am complaining. I'm just not doing as well as I would have liked.

Edit: To the blogger spell check Schmoozsed and schmoozse are words because I just wrote them.

Last Okara Ploaf!

It was so nice to be sat at work and know that my little oven womb was working away making me a beautiful loaf, and the thought of coming home to that fantastic smell of baking bread. YUM.

Well, this was the last time that I will use okara in bread. I have tried, and tried, and tried. I have made about 6 loaves of okara ploafs. I will make no more ploafs, or at least of the okara variety.

For whatever reason, substituting some of the flour for okara isn't working. Perhaps it's because the okara isn't milled fine enough, it could be that the substitution is throwing the gluten content out. Most likely, it's because the moisture content is all wrong, to start with my okara is damp. I am far far FAR to lazy to dry it out in the oven. I'm sure that because it doesn't absorb water at the same rate of an equivalent amount of flour thats the problem.

Perhaps finer grinding would help, but oh well. Easy come easy go. I saving money by making soy to start off with, so a little wastage isn't w big deal. No wastage would be fantastic, but thats not going to happen at this point.

So there you have it. If someone tells you that you can make great bread using okara, they are most probably not telling hte truth, or they know something that I don't.

Bread Machine

This morning before I left the house I set the bread machine at it's task.

Although there is enough bread in the house, I thought that it would be nice to come home to that nice bread smell.

Whats even better is this. I am sat at my desk at work knowing full well that any minute now the bread will start baking.

SHORTS!!! You "Fashonista" Feckless Feckers.

I see them everywhere at the moment. And you know what, I don't think that they do anyone any favours.

Once, when me and Totty were walking through Dublin city centre, we saw a woman sporting a pair of tight, knee length shorts. Now this woman, who was other wise stylishly dressed, had a great figure, that she had obviously gone to great lengths to maintain. The shorts she was wearing were doing her the turn of making her legs look shorter and actually rather chubby.

In fact I confess, that I have never seen any woman wearing shorts and looking good in them. There is no length of short, no wonder fabric, no colour that will magically make shorts look good. Even more, there is no "perfect boot" or really thick black tights that you can wear with your shorts, that will improve the overall look.

There is nothing that can make shorts look good.

Just take them off, put on a proper pair of trousers, or if you really feel the need to wear something short, there are some fantastic skirt shapes around this winter season.
It being the depths of winter, and the temperature's infrequently going into double figures, this perhaps isn't the time of year to bear all and freeze for fashion, if the subject matter were something more flattering then that would be another storey.

I'm sure that there will be plenty of time in the summer for the more slight amongst us to wear very little, and look fantastic. So ladies, lets be a little more thoughtful about what we wear, and not let the catwalks dictate what we should wear. I'm sure that there is someone chuckling to himself every time he sees a woman wearing shorts, knowing that they are fantastic for business, as they use about a third less fabric, but of course, retail cost will be roughly the same as a pair of figure flattering trousers.

As a footnote, I will add this. Trousers, or "pants" for those living west of England, should be long enough to reach to at LEAST an inch below the ankle, and probably longer if you will be wearing heals. If you are ever tempted by a "fashion spread" that tells you that the new "black trouser" is seven eights length, I would advise you to do this.

1 Tear out said page.
2 Attach post-it note to page explaining that Tintin would like his trousers back.
3 Send the whole page back to the publisher concerned.

They should indeed know better, and have obviously forgotten that fashion is meant to make us all look fantastic.

I know that this is another fantastically long post with no pictures, but I didn't want to post a pic of a woman who I thought looked bad.

So here is a picture of my cat, and she always looks good.

Okrararara Bread

So. When you make soy milk, you are left with ground up soy beans, otherwise known as okara. Rather than put this to waste, I googled about the internet and found that it can be used for a number of things, one of caught my interest; bread. People who have far more time than I, have listed recipes where they have pounded their work surfaces with hand cared and crafted dough.

So I did this.

1. Find list of ingredients
2. Adapt it to my own successful bread machine recipe
3. Make loaf in the bread womb (otherwise know to you as a bread machine)

The general consensus was to exchange a cup of flour for a cup of okara. Not forgetting to decrease the amount of liquid that you use. No don't forget that.

In fact, when it came to press the start button, I panicked. Not only did I forget that I shoud DECREASE the amount of water, infact I did the total opposite. I was worried that all that okara just might decide to suck up all of the water that I had put in the pan, so I may just have put in two more tablespoons of water "just to be on the safe side"

WHOOPS!

As Totty takes a look into the bread machine window close to the end of baking
Me - "how is that bread looking?"
Totty - "Ermm, you might want to take a look"
Me - "Oh ok"

Not only had the top sunk, but it had really sunk. You know how a brick has an indentation on the top? Well my loaf of protein rich okara bread had that. A big whopping indent on the top, big enough for a medium sized kitten to sleep in.

Even worse, the kitten size indent wasn't quite cooked! So I had to turn on my house womb(oven to the rest of the world) and let the loaf finish off.

Apart from the indent, the loaf didn't look too bad, yes I did forget about it while in the oven. Unlike other bread, it did brown very quickly. Perhaps a tad too brown.

Now this morning, when Totty had left, I sliced myself a couple of slabs to see if the verdict was as bad as the diagnosis.

Remember when I should have reduced the amount of water? Remember that? Well I really should have, this loaf is just too moist. The flavour isn't fantastic, it could use something in the mix. The okara is rather bland, so I should have expected this.

Overall, this is a "not bad" failure. I would really prefer not call this a loaf. Rather a ploaf, because this ploaf is an insult to a good looking loaf, with it's high crusty crust, and it's dense flavoursome innards.