Day 6: The Happiness Project

Now that Sir Thwackezoid has matured sufficiently in his meagre 8 weeks of life to sit patiently in his little vibrating chair by the French Doors in the kitchen, blurrily observing the impressionist happenings in the garden while I cook, I’ve been super busy cooking up a storm.

A couple of days ago, after a few rather lazy months of newborn baby wrangling and not enough sleep and too many afternoons of home made muffins and tea and Sunday pub lunches, we decided to get our acts together to do a one-month no-crappy-food diet of sorts- mainly just cutting out the usual suspects of sugar, grains, dairy, processed stuff.

That sort of thing can be a bit labour intensive if you don’t want to be bored senseless eating salad and grilled chicken every day. I’m not that kind of girl though.

Today’s happy moment is actually just one aspect of what has been really lovely: I’m making my own grainy mustard from scratch, to use in salad dressings and marinades (did you know that commercially prepared ones have sugar? They do! Madness!). This reminds me of my giddy experimental days back in Shanghai when I was constantly trying to figure out how to make things from scratch out of necessity. The heady Wok With Me Baby years when everything felt culinarily possible. I hadn’t delved much into such things in the months since I left China, as, well, I can get almost everything here quite easily. The challenge just wasn’t there.

After leaving in July, I delved into sourdough bread making (we haven’t bought a loaf since sometime around September) and the use of mashed root veggies in lieu of butter in baked goods (fabulous, surprisingly) but failed to be excited about figuring out how to, say, roast a chicken in a wok or make marshmallows with only chopsticks for a whisk/egg beater.

Apparently, I’m back in form.

Mustard today; mayo tomorrow?

There is currently a hearty coconutty chorizo and veggie soup simmering on the stove and a massive chicken marinated in lime, cilantro, garlic and chilies in the slow cooker. The house smells fab.

My brain is whirring away, thinking of what to make next.

The whole Happiness Project collection of posts can be found here.