The obsession with soup is continuing, yesterdays was cauliflower and brocolli and todays was sweet potato.  In both cases they were prepared exactly the same way, by simmering the veggies in stock until they were very soft and then mashing them until the soup was more or less even in consistency - I like my soup more chunky than the blender normally produces.  In the case of the sweet potato soup, I added a couple of spoonfuls of natural yogurt, to take the edge off the sweetness, which is a little too intense for me.  
This was facilitated by the fact that the weather seems to have finally turned and the snow is beginning to thaw.  I had someone come to view the house today and there are another couple of viewings tomorrow and Saturday.  The estate agent prefers to show potential purchasers around, so I finally got to the supermarket, having been snowed in since I got home last Wednesday (6th).  Just in time too, I was about to run out of catfood, which would never do!  In addition, having houseviewers was very useful to motivate me to clean the place up - it had got a bit messy!

 One of the advantages of being at home is that I have more time and inclination to cook.  However, since I'm snowed in, there's some creativity going in to the recipes, especially since I'm doing the classic New Year thing of addressing my weight, which is well above where I like it to be.  

Soup has some advantages, it's ridiculously easy to make and can contribute to keeping satisfied - especially vegetable soups.  And looking in my current store cupboard, I had some great ingredients for different types of soup.  The first one was made yesterday and was carrot and cumin.  Quite literally, I peeled and chopped the carrots (about 500g), put them in a saucepan, covered them with half a litre of vegetable stock, made using Sainsbury's Basic range stock cubes (2), added a pinch of cumin and one of nutmeg and then simmered until the carrots went mushy.   I then mashed the carrots until it was a nice smooth consistency.  One portion to eat and one to save.

Today's effort was onion.  I peeled and chopped 500g of onions  (co-incidentally blessing my v-slice mandolin, as I didn't get any eye irritation at all), put a couple of tablespoons of vegetable/olive oil blend in a saucepan, with a generous pinch of ginger, about two teaspoons of mixed herbs and a little salt and then stirred in the onions.  It was gently heated on the lowest setting of gas and occasionally stirred for 30 minutes, after which, I added half a litre of beef stock, again made with stock cubes.  I simmered it for a further ten minutes and then stirred to break the onion a little further.  Again, half to eat and half to save.  I crumbled a small chunk (maybe 20g?) of wensleydale cheese left over from Christmas into the top.  And it was so delicious that I'm now fighting the urge to eat the second portion right now.

Left in the store cupboard are leeks, broccoli and potatoes,as well as more carrots and onions.  These are probably going to end up as soup too!  

Just to say that my employers have changed their mind, only one week later.  They're now looking for a further redundancy, to come from the four of us that were assured last week that our jobs were secure.  This does mean no four day weeks just yet, but of course the longer term is less rosy.  I'm feeling particularly vulnerable, as of the four of us, I have NO fee paying work lined up over the next few weeks...

I woke up early, since my bladder was full.  I slipped out of bed, visited the bathroom, returned and got back into bed.

"hello" said my beloved
"hello" I replied.  He grasped my left breast.
"You have my boob", I observed.
"It's steerage"
"What?"
"I'm chasing the aliens across the fried plain"
"You're making no sense"
"What do you mean?"
"You're using my boob for steerage, chasing aliens across the fried plain?"
"That makes no sense!"

I realised at that moment that talking to someone that's dreaming can be somewhat hilarious...