Oct 19

 I have evened out a little today. Carefully taking my meds. Careful all round. Such care doesn't amount to shit if the wind decides to blow. But for today. It is a little easier. Just enough. Albeit I have slept long. Very long. But it has given me space to breathe. I wonder if the stress and then Andys follow up bullshit this week have had a hand in unbalancing me more. It wasn't only Andy. The PM was trying to entice me to do more work on my day off. It doesn't matter what you do. How helpful you are. They will always want more. Squeeze.

Today I have made a soffrito. My first ever proper soffrito. Despite having cooked a wide range of italian dishes for a few decades at this point, weirdly, I have never made a proper soffrito. Probably because I almost never pay any heed to recipes or the correct way of doing things.

That I had enough energy and oomph to cook a little is remarkable.

I tried out my new mini food processor. I am loathe to buy new things. Even when I think it's a good idea I know I will almost certainly never have the energy to make use of them. But. I reasoned. This might help. It would ease any cutting and chopping. Maybe.

Today I tried it out. It's amazing. Carrots, celery, onions, all blitzed in a few seconds. And a very quick sluice out of water and it's clean. This is absolutely a must for me. It must be things that I can finish off in quick order so as not to burn out of energy.

I threw a monstrous amount of soffrito into the ninja. Browned it off. Pulled a mix of things from memory from great chefs online. Garlic. A healthy pinch of paprika. Plenty of salt. A pinch of pepper. And then something for my suffering gastro. A pinch of ginger. A good pinch of cumin. Both are good for soothing problematic digestion.

And then lastly. A tin of mixed beans, Red Kidney, Black eye, Borlotti, Pea Navy and Baby green lima. A tin of tomatoes. Chicken stock.

Rice thrown in after my labour free rice washer. And stuck on a pressure cook for a short while.

All of this is cooking with the most minimum of energy burns.

I have a simple plastic rice washer. Japanese. You can't get them here. It's amazing. Leave it under some running water. And it washes the rice without dropping a single bit. I find washing rice to be borderline too energy intensive for me, as sad as that is. Washing rice flattens me out. But this. I can load in rice. Stick it under a tap. And do something else for a minute. Or sit down.

End result was lovely. Way way better than I imagined with a simple vegetable, beans and rice combo. It's a simple kind of low effort rice dish I have done in the past. But the soffrito really made it.

Which will be no surprise to generations of Italians. But here we are. I have finally caught up.

I will try in future to have a hand made source of soffrito always in stock in the freezer. Just make a big batch and freeze it. It's a bit of a shame you can't get it ready made and frozen.

Despite having slept a lot of today. I am tired. And bruised. I feel like I have been beaten up. I am fragile. I need I think of lots of TLC. Not that I am about to get any.

And despite the slightly better day.

Still. I close my eyes. And wish for death. 

A simple thing I heard today. I think I've heard it before.

Your dog is your best friend for part of your life.

You are your dogs best friend for the whole of their life.