July 25 - Whole Lot Of Broccoli

  I am looking forward to bed tonight.  I think it may have something to do with the fact that I stayed up until 1am last night to finish my book, We Need To Talk About Kevin.  It's fair to say that some of the thoughts provoked by it were keeping me up later and later so I was keen to get it finished and move on.  It certainly made me think a lot and I found it to be interesting and well-written.
  For breakfast I had two slices of Bürgen Soy-Lin bread toasted with butter and Vegemite because I forgot to defrost my berries again last night!  Mr Smart will no doubt be shaking his head and wondering why I haven't yet cottoned on to the fact that my phone is capable of issuing forth reminders at the appropriate time.  I am aware it can of course.. I'm just not there yet!
  My mid-morning snack at work was a panama passionfruit slurped up in the kitchen.  I noted that the seeds loosen the riper they are.

  Lunch was a toasted sandwich comprising two slices of Bürgen Soy-Lin bread, a little smear of Rosella Sweet Mustard Pickles, about 85g of shaved silverside and one slice of Bega Extra Light Tasty cheese.  I rounded it off with an Afourer Mandarin.  It was a good mandarin; seedless, sweet enough and easy to peel.
  My after noon snack was one of the snack packs I made up last night.  That is, one dried apricot half, two brazil nuts, two hazelnuts, two pecan halves and four almonds.  All of those nuts are skin on, non-salted and the dried apricots are the aussie-grown Angus Park ones.  I tried to space them out to stay full longer.

  I luckily remembered to visit the doctor on the way home from work.  Though perhaps not luckily for her.  They had computer problems at their office today and I imagine it must've been quite a long and frustrating day for her.  She did very well to be running only 15 minutes by that time of evening.  Though I think I may have mentioned before, I never mind waiting for my doctor because at least she treats you properly and with care and close attention.  The test I dropped to Dorevitch yesterday morning showed that my kidney function is fine and she re-took my blood pressure which today was a much more reasonable 130/95, still a little high on the diastolic but I'll get it down eventually!
  I got home and there was a surprise in the letterbox for me!  A CD I had ordered and forgotten about, Old Crow Medicine Show.  They are quite popular at the moment and I can't remember where I heard it, but I came across their song Wagon Wheel which was what made me order it.  The whole album is quite blue-grassy so Dad and I enjoyed it while I chopped up a kilogram of broccoli!
  By the time Dad got here after he'd finished work, I had finished the cross trainer and was about to start on the broccoli soup preparation!  A kilogram of broccoli, as called for by the recipe, is about five heads (or at least five of what pass for heads in the supermarket these days).  I used my Borner V-Slicer to do the stalks but the florets still needed a rough chop by hand.  I think I will need to give in and get a proper mandoline at some point.  My point is though, a kilogram of broccoli is rather a large pile before it becomes soup!  The soup was done in about an hour and made four generous serves.

  While we ate our soup and lightly buttered rolls Dad and I watched the first episode of a 3-part BBC series called Harlots, Housewives & Heroines.  The first episodes focussed on the mistresses of Charles II in the 1660s.  It was quite interesting and a bit tongue in cheek in spots too! 
  After dinner I went through my mental diary for the next few days and realised I would have no time for eating the 'spare' two serves until Monday so I therefore put them in the freezer.
We shall see if they return to the light of day in the coming weeks!
  Until tomorrow!
  Jess