Oct 28 - To Market To Market

  I woke up at 10am today, a bit late for breakfast I thought so I skipped it.  It was probably another hour before Captain Cupcake arose and we were ready to commence our shopping venture for the day.  We headed out on this gorgeously sunny spring day, to the Mulgrave Farmer's Market which is held every Sunday until 1pm.  I'd been before but not for a long time and Captain Cupcake had heard good things about the farm fresh milk available there from friends of hers.
  We got a park immediately after driving in which was a huge bonus.  It is a very popular local event and parking can sometimes take a little while.  We took a stroll up and down the length of the market.  I ended up getting two things: a very cute little magnetic clipboard for writing my shopping list on for $8 and a 350g jar of Purcell's Tomato Chilli Jam for $10.

  I've had the jam before and despite the price tag, it is very good.  It goes wonderfully with savoury flavours so I'm thinking of using it for a 'bring a plate' do I'm going to next weekend.  Cheese and pumpkin scones with tomato chilli jam perhaps...
  Captain Cupcake bought a litre of 'Real Milk' to try.  At $4 for one litre it was quite expensive compared to what we get at the supermarkets but I'm very curious to hear her report on it.  Milk is one of those things where I truly believe our farmers are getting a raw deal.  With Coles and Safeway price fixing their own-brand milks at $1 per litre, the farmers get paid a ridiculously low price for their product.  For some small producers it is even below their cost to produce the milk!  As a result I won't buy the Coles or Safeway branded milks, but as I've mentioned before I buy long-life milk anyway as I don't use a lot so that limits my waste.
  By the end of our market stroll we were both a bit peckish, not having eaten any breakfast, so Captain Cupcake had a serve of Poffertjes with chocolate Mars Bar sauce and I looked up and down for something reasonably healthy to eat myself.  After yesterday's blowout I didn't want to end up eating anything too greasy or calorific today.  There were only three or four options for food and none of them really appealed to me so in the end I opted to go to the Kebab Joint on our way home.
  After a scrummy lunch there, during which I successfully avoided having coffee and cake, we went home.  It was a beautiful sunny breezy day today so I left the front door ajar and opened up a few windows to air the house.  This sort of day always seems to motivate me to move and clean so I started going through the crap on my kitchen table while chatting to Captain Cupcake.  Soon it was time for her to head to her Sunday afternoon job so we said our goodbyes and I went back to cleaning.
  I sat down at my desk and flipped on youtube.  Episodes of QI played in the background while I started tidying my desk.  My cluttered desk is the bane of my home life and it's something I constantly battle with.  Today however, the motivation was with me and I started to tidy away various bits and pieces.  Filing, chucking and laying away things that had long lay collecting dust.  It's still a mess, but no where near as bad.  I am writing tonight's blog with my elbows on actual desk top!
  I wasn't sure what to make for dinner tonight so I asked Mr Smart what he was having.  Tuna and salad came back.  I pondered a moment.  I had salad leaves, check, tuna, check, so I decided to follow suit and make a salad similar to the one I made last Sunday.  It worked out just as nicely. 
  After dinner I loaded an audio book, Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton, onto my player and settled myself in the kitchen.  My kitchen like my office, is a room I badly want to see uncluttered and clean.  I loaded the dishwasher and set it going then cleared the bench to indulge in a spot of baking.  Last night Captain Cupcake set me a challenge; prove that my Mum has the best banana cake recipe.  Bertie happened to have on hand, the requisite blackened bananas so she handed them to me before I left.  I'm quietly confident.  I've shared the recipe before and have always received happy responses to it.
  I was happy with how my eight mini-loaves turned out.  I am reserving one for Mr Smart Snr and a couple for work but the rest shall go to Captain Cupcake and her crew.  I will be looking forward to her feedback.  For anyone who wants to try the recipe I will just say, the black bananas are the key; you must wait until their skin is almost totally black.  As a big plus of all this recent kitchen creativity, I seem to be getting the hang of cooking with my crappy oven.  I'm still musing about getting a new one but it's nice to be able to bake in the meantime.

   I didn't take them out of the oven until just before 11pm so it's been a bit of a late night, however I feel like I made a lot of progress today, both in the office and the kitchen, so I'm a happy kind of tired at this point.  Work tomorrow will be interesting as I've got a deadline which I have to train my offsider to do and I need to leave early for physio too.  I'm sure I'll manage but it's around now that I always start to get anxious about the coming morning.  The silver lining for the moment is that Gub is home safe and sound from China, so if I really get worried I have someone to call!

  Today's food was:

• Lunch at the Kebab Joint was a plate of doner lamb with rice and nuts, tabbouleh, hummus, eggplant dip, toasted Turkish bread and a 600ml Coke Zero.  It was delicious.  Purely because I was full, I left uneaten: slightly more than half the rice and nuts, about half the bread and a little bit of hummus.
• Dinner was a salad of mixed lettuces, continental parsley, a large diced portobello mushroom, two sliced gherkins, a drained 95g tin of Sole Mare Tuna in olive oil dressed with a tablespoonful of Heinz Salad Cream diluted with milk then topped with two soft boiled eggs and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper and ground rock salt.
• Dessert was a 170g tub of Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy 98% Fat Free Vine Passionfruit Yoghurt topped with a few slivered almonds, pumpkin seeds and half a diced dried peach.

  

 

  One thing I didn't get done today was my weekly planner so that will have to be a job for tomorrow evening.  I have at least thought as far as tomorrow's meals so hopefully I'll get day one right.  Hopefully I also won't have tape on tomorrow night so I can get back on the cross trainer while I've still some motivation left!  The back was good today, but I didn't do as many back arches as I should've.  I did stay upright and moving for more of the day than normal though so I'm hoping that will have worked in my favour.
  Good night all and enjoy your Mondays.
  Jess