Quick update: life, love & manic-depressive mayhem

The Vegan Boy and I broke up near the end of March. Found out I have atopic syndrome or commonly known as hyperallergic. No this is different from being a hyperchondriac thank you! This means, I may have allergic reactions to food stuff unexpectedly. So I'm not really allergic to prawns or shellfish or pollen. I can just be allergic to anything! YAY! Great medical discoveries abound, I'm slowly developing a fear of being allergic to something while out eating. Oh, and then my day job became a lot busier - hence the post title. Yup, no excuse. Actually it makes not much of a difference to my TM adventures. I am a self-confessed stress baker - see the previous posts on bread and hot cross buns. Plus I have been cooking LOTS, just not keeping up with the blog posts. Photographing less of the stuff I cook, I tend to forget during teh cooking process and only have "end results".

Shall post up some of the stuff cooked in the last week - Easter being a holiday, I took a break too! From the Internet.

•  I've done several cocktail slushies over the weekend out of town with some friends *(we were so busy drinking it and having fun that I don't have pitures of it except with people holding the glasses drinking!)
• Made my own butter! (EDC recipe)
• Made Hollandaise sauce using the said 'fresh' butter! (EDC recipe)
• Soffritto in the TM (my way... sadly over estimated the amoutn of liquid which results from soffritto and ended up cooking on the stove anyway)
• Pizza dough (I am proud to say I followed the EDC recipe to the letter!)
• TM'd my own cheese blend for the pizza
• Made a garlic & chives cream cheese dip (minor variation to herb dip - I really don't like parsley)
• re-made the mushroom soup, again with my variations (using the TM butter and additional cream)

I have my first demo coming up soon! Quite excited, trepidated and well, in general hoping everything runs well without major mishaps that's all.

Just because I'm no longer in a relationship with a vegan is no excuse not to explore alternate healthy food option where I can. In the plan for this month:

• re-doing the chilli mussels sometime this month, it was fantastic except for the washing of the mussels - anyone know an easier way to de-beard and clean these things?
• the char siu pork recipe to be tested
• gluten free scones (I'm thinking will cheat and use pre bought gluten free flour and then do this recipe again with TM made gluten free flour)
• pineapple sorbet
• try a pasta recipe my "I'm not picky" father will eat.
• Brazil Nut & Banana Brownies (vegan & gluten free)
• tempted to try TM Milo (two links, I've yet to find the original post by Cathy), I think I'm missing the Rapadura. I didn't know the 'English' term for it until now.

I think that's all ambitious enough for the rest of the month - to be juggled with my day job and other social commitments. It's definitely hard to juggle the pre-existing life/free time with being a consultant. Some days I just want to 'vegge out' and do nothing and I find that I can't *sigh*. Ahhh commitment... I'm so c-phobic. Wish me luck!

What are you cooking this week?