HelenofTroy

Good morning folks.

Hope everyone is doing well. I've joined the book club thread so I am reading like mad trying to finish up the book I am on so that I can get started on the club book. Whew! Who knew leisure time could be so much work! LOL. Having said that I have to say that reading is so much easier when your eyes aren't crossing and seeing double. Just sayin

Have a good one everyone.

Martin1

Thanks for the support and responses guys.

Almost 10 days sober.

Still very anxious. My dad went to the gym at 7am this morning and I went along though stayed in the car.

HelenofTroy

Good morning folks.

Martin, I'm glad you got out of the house. Baby steps - you'll get there.

Just had a nice breakfast of home made sausage (first time I've made it and it turned out really good) and now I'm going to relax with my book for a bit.

Have a good one everyone.

Martin1

Sausage sounds good. Do you cook regularly?

HelenofTroy

Martin I do cook a lot. I love trying different things. I inherited a meat grinder earlier this year and have been wanting to try making sausage. I just did it as a loose sausage and made patties out of it instead of putting it in casings. I figured I would get the spices down first and then worry about making it into links another time. Today I did a recipe for breakfast sausage and it had maple syrup in it. It was really good. Next up will be sweet Italian sausage.

Do you cook much?

WhiskeyBent

Hi September crew. I was with you back in Sept and lasted for a couple of months before the wheels fell off. I didnt really have the courage to say hi till now. I have been reading your posts and glad to see we are still fighting the good fight.
I joined the January class because I like the main forum page, but I will continue to pop in here as September was when I gave this a real go. And i think i learned a few things along the way.

Be well

Dee74

welcome back whiskey bent

Martin1

I had considered making sausages before but have no meat grinder so never bothered. Sounds good though and no doubt much better than shop bought ones. My favourite sausages are Lincolnshire if you've ever had those.

I do, I learned quite young because I didn't want people messing with my food so wanted to do it myself, mainly South Asian (specifically Indian & Pakistani). I've always been around this stuff and wanted to learn it, it's taken me a few years trying to perfect things and get it exact but I can do several mains and different kinds of rice, and the snack food like onion bhajis from scratch. It's been worth it.

The next thing I'm going to try are Biryanis, these are more difficult.

I hope one day to cook a meal for some friends and impress them.

HelenofTroy

Welcome back WhiskeyBent. For what it's worth my sobriety date is no longer September but this is my SR family. Glad to see you back here.

Martin the sausage cookbook I am using talked about using the pulse setting on a food processor to chop the meat for small batches if you don't have a meat grinder. Or you could buy ground pork again in small batches and then just add your spices. The bonus is no preservatives. Kind of like making a meatloaf. Just some ideas. I've never made South Asian food, that sounds awesome!

Martin1

Didn't think of using a processor. That could work.

The sausage patty thing is quite common here btw, they do it in Scotland. Square sausage.

SomeSortOfHuman

Hi WhiskeyBent! Good to hear from you. Hope your 2017 is good so far.

Martin & Helen - I'm actually salivating, reading your posts. Sausages and South Asian food are two of my favourites - probably not together, but you never know...! I'm not massively into cooking myself, but am very impressed by people who do! I'm quite slow at basic skills like chopping / meat prep etc - so it always takes me ages and I get frustrated. I think if I could speed up those skills, I'd enjoy it more!

How did you learn, Martin? From family, or from books / internet?

Martin1

The part of the UK I live in has a large South Asian community so I had got some tips off people I know but I also used the following resources:

Sanjeev Kapoor's YouTube channel
Madhur Jaffrey's recipes
Chetna Makan on YouTube

I'm not great at chopping either but you need a decent knife and I haven't got one. You could take your chopping knife to your butcher and ask him to sharpen it for you, if you're friendly with them they'll do it.

HelenofTroy

Good morning folks.

Haven't been posting much as I've been completely engrossed in reading. I finally finished the final "Outlander" book I have been working on for months (they are really long) and I just finished the book club thread's book "The Couple Next Door" in less than 24 hours lol. I should probably get dressed and go shovel some snow.

Have a good one everyone.

HelenofTroy

Good morning folks.

I have a physical today. I am actually looking forward to it - especially as I can't have my coffee until it is done as I am fasting for bloodwork lol.

Have a good one everyone.

Martin1

Good luck Helen.

Dee74

Hope all went well Helen
How are you Martin?

D

Martin1

hi, two weeks sober now. Still trying to work towards fixing everything.

HelenofTroy

Good morning folks.

Congrats on two weeks Martin! You are definitely back in the saddle

Thor decided I should be up early today for some reason known only to him. Nothing like a 100lb German Shepherd standing over you licking your face at 5:30am to wake you up to the day lol. So I might as well go get productive.

Have a good one everyone.

Martin1

How are you doing Helen? Should be about 83?

SomeSortOfHuman

Ha! We tried to see if our young Spaniel could be calm enough to sleep in our room last night... Nope! Still running around trying to play tug of war with slippers at midnight, so she had to go back downstairs!

Good work on 2 weeks Martin. Hope you're having a good day today. Was the organisation you contacted able to offer any help or advice?