Red Algae

After a week or so of cabbages, or rather, frozen cabbage, and some carrots, I thought it was time for a change. So during my last shopping trip on Friday I snapped up a swede and a pumpkin, forgetting my previous troubles with chopping up pumpkin.

I succeeded in halving the pumpkin and chopping it up yesterday night. Using the cleaver, I gave it a good twack. If the story was as simple as the pumpkin then fell apart like the pineapple in the advert for some blades that looked much like samurai swords, this post wouldn't even make it here. Using as much force as I could generate with whatever muscles I had in my upper arms, I pushed and heaved against the cleaver, hoping to get it through partway. Not a single movement. Puppy, using tried to help, but then I doubt if human hands are actually meant to be hammers in the first place. Talking about hammers, I recalled having dumped the blue ice blocks in the cupboard under the sink just then. And they were there! And they were essentially the heroes in this story. With much heaving and grunting and sighing, I finally split the darn orange thing into two. I won't speak as well of the looks I got from my flatmates, and they certainly weren't looks of admiration, more along the lines of 'Yy's gone mad/ What a cave(wo)man!!' than anything else.

I thought that would be the end of my troubles. LOL, how wrong I was. I hadn't counted on the stupid round swede to give me the same problem! ARgGhh! The swede was harder to halve than the pumpkin *faints*, a fact that I realised as soon as the cleaver went in, for the cleaver just wouldn't come out again! In the end, RJ had to tug at it while I held down the swede just to get it out. And again, blue ice block was the hero of the day. Even so, it took even longer than the pumpkin because the swede was a full block of swede goodness, while the pumpkin had a big hole in it where it stored it's seeds.

The guy working in the vegetable section in NW had suggested boiling the swede or boiling and then mashing it with carrots. But hey, aren't potatoes just boiled as well? I need potatoes for the chicken kurma I wanted to make for next week, but I don't have potatoes. You started to get my drift here? Heh heh. After testing to see how long it would take to boil a piece of swede, which wasn't too long, the rest of swede halve was cubed up and in it went along with the chicken drums to make the kurma (I did microwave the swede cubes a little though, just in case :P!). Haven't tasted it how it's like this way yet, but if plain swede was mildly sweet (and un-starchy unlike potatoes, which was why I ended up using cornflour just to thicken the whole thing) I guess it should taste good. But I doubt if I would want to cook swede again in a hurry, considering how much work it is just to cut it up.... *eeps* and I still have half a swede left to work on!

The pumpkin I curried, with some mix I came up with all the spices I had on hand, along with the belacan powder, and came out not too bad. Probably a little more dried shrimp, some ginger, and a little less pumpkin (which was sweeter than I had thought it would be) and lots less microwaving and simmering, and it would be close to what mummy's curried pumpkin is like. Needless to say I think that I shall be feeding quite happily next week ^^!