I'm feeling low and down on myself and crappy after work, like the writing is all lame, I'm wasting my time here, everything is a waste of time, just want to do nothing -- so to hell with that voice, I'm going to set myself a target of going to the shops for some real food and cooking it and writing about it and then going to bed.
I've been eating badly recently. Had very little time between working and getting the blog posts done, and I've let my diet slip. Been ordering takeaways, eating at work, buying ready meals, soups, snacks, whatever requires the least time and effort. Nuke something in the microwave, eat it in front of my PC screen, get back to writing.
This can't always be helped. But I've got the night off tonight and I really should cook a decent meal for once.
The recipe
I write out my the plan in my Google Docs, feel instantly better, and so go play a level of Rayman Legends on my Playstation to reward myself. Then I finish the level and it's 20:00 and I'm falling asleep at my desk, and, dammit, can't I just order Domino's?
No! Let's do this!
I pick pretty much the first veggie recipe I find on Google that isn't curry or chilli or risotto, because I make those all the time, and so end up with a root vegetable, smoked aubergine and walnut ragoût.
I don't know what a ragoût is, but it sounds swish. I reckon I can find most of the ingredients in my local Sainsbury's. Fine. Good. Go.
I walk out into the warm evening air and up to the high street and into Sainsbury's. I get sweet potato, butternut squash, carrots, onion, cherry tomatoes, aubergine, walnuts, lemon. I can't find fenugreek seeds, and I don't even look for pomegranate molasses -- what the hell are pomegranate molasses? -- and I sack off the goats cheese because it tastes like goats, which is to say repulsive. There should be some alternative in the fridge. The recipe asks for mint and parsley, but fresh basil in the best I can do. Whatever. Basil is fine. I'm done.
I spend £7.40, which isn't bad to say the meal should stretch to two or three days. Shopping is much cheaper when you're not buying four bottles of craft beer every time you go.
The cooking
Back home and it's 20:44 and my eyes are drooping. Gotta get this done.
I stare down at the ingredients. Old impenetrable butternut squash stares back up at me. Do I have the energy to peel all these bastards and cook them all up? I don't. I don't know what I'm doing. I feel crap.
Ung, just get to work. Chop Mr Onion and Mr Garlic, they're nice easy fellas, you know where you stand with them. Fry them up with cumin seeds and ground turmeric. Good stuff. Now get going with the big daddy veg. Can't find a peeler so hack at the skin with a knife.
My hand slips chopping the carrots and I slice open my finger. I bleed everywhere.
Life is so hard when you're suffering with depression. You get so fragile. The tiniest setbacks feel gargantuan. It's so much effort just to fight to keep your head above the water, and any wave, even one that mentally healthy people would ride with ease, feels like it will drown you.
I've cut my finger, and I look down at the carrots and they're chopped too small, the recipe said to do 2cm cubes and I've done thin quarter slices. Why have I done that? They're going to cook wrong. And the recipe doesn't say whether to halve the cherry tomatoes or put them in whole or what. I don't know how to do any of this. I'm so tired. I want to lie on the kitchen floor and cry.
But I push through. I plaster my finger. Finish the chopping. Check a similar recipe that contains tomatoes, decide to halve mine. Put everything to simmer. Add some garam masala, because why not?
I crumble the walnuts and dry roast them. I char an aubergine over an open flame on the hob. The recipe doesn't really explain this, but I mean it's a vegetable and some fire, how complicated can it be?
Except when the skin seems sufficiently crisped I cut it open lengthways... and it's still rock hard inside. I'm supposed to be able to spoon out the soft smoky flesh, but there's no way that's happening. Did I do it wrong? Just not long enough?
I put it back under the flame, but now moisture is escaping from the slit I made in the skin, hissing and dripping all over the hob. Eeeee. Life.
I keep flaming the bugger, and eventually, about six hours later, the flesh does finally become soft enough to scrape out, though the skin is burnt so much I'm worried it's going to set alight.
I scoop the aubergine guts into the food processor along with the walnuts, lemon, and... there's no soft cheese. Bugger. I bung some cheddar in, the hell with it, and a few tablespoons of water, zhuzh it up, spoon the sticky paste into the stew, add salt and pepper. I wash up, chop basil, throw that in. I'm about done.
I've made a pan of vomit. It literally looks like puke. It is thick and lumpy and beige, oh-so-beige. It smells pungent. It's a disaster.
The eating
Resigned to my failure, I splodge a few ladlesful into a bowl and sprinkle some more basil on top sadly -- because why not tie a bow round my turd? I butter some rolls and take the meal upstairs to my room.
I nibble a forkful tentatively.
It's... actually not that bad. I try some more. It's... well... it's banging!
It's banging. A genuine success. The toasted notes of the walnuts combine with the gentle spices and the comparatively sweeter vegetables nicely. The tomatoes add a plump pep to the dish while the lemon cuts through the nutty thickness. The basil softens and lifts.
OK, it's not going to win awards, but it's a decent meal with loads going on, it's fairly well balanced, and it's healthy and hearty. And, crucially, it's not a bowl of vomit.
I'm taking that as a victory. Imperfect, but much better than not doing it. Much like this blog. And life in general, I guess.
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