Back to the Drawing Board

It's a Friday night and some sexy black beast of a man (yowr!) at the Noodle Box filled my Spicy Peanut order with a bit too much peanut sauce (oh, boo hoo, cries my stomach while my brain tells it to shut up, the diet starts Monday) and, tragedy of tragedies, I realize I'm not even CLOSE to the Noodle Box's drug-like concoction.

Curse you, Noodle Box, for muddling my cooking attempts!

Okay, so, I sort of forgot the red peppers, may have been a bit heavy-handed in the use of bok choi, and now realize there is one drug-filled elixer I completely didn't realize was there (since I've never had an extra dose of sauce to sample independently): coconut milk!

And some hot red peppers. And less cilantro. Maybe. Could be the Steffism of the recipe... extra cilantro. Spicy, sweet, all the things I love. Or have begun to love in my recently dawned culinary adulthood.

Wait. Did I say not even close? Hey, no, my flavourings are pretty on the mark, actually. My homemade sauce is surprisingly accurate since subbing out the ground peanuts with creamy peanut butter. I just need to kick up the spice, get the veg mix spot on, and add a small can of coconut milk (one of the 135 ml or whatever cans... aprox. a half-cup).

I'll have to make it again soonish. Boo-fucking-hoo. :) God, I'll be a zillion pounds. No, no, I'll work it out. Really! Well, I'm supposed to teach my bro how to make my Noodle Box knock-off, so that might be a good time to guinea pig someone while dumping the remnants of sauce on him to use in other things. Yeah, poor guy, eh?

Anyhow. Friday. Long, painful week, glad it's over. Got to finish off the week with a several-years-old Brit movie that's been remade into shit by the US but the Britsh original was GREAT. Kept making me think of Mom, too. She'd have loved that movie. Just woulda loved it. So, I tapped into the inner-55-yr-old sage woman I know resides in some nethercorner of my mind, and I loved it too. :) kept making me think of Shirley Valentine, which naturally made me think o' Mom again, but not in a bad way, more of a "Steff, want a glass of wine?" kind of way, something we began to enjoy her last couple years among us.

Actually, worked on a number of good shows, and work itself was pretty good, this week. It was just Everything Else that was sort of annoying. I think Monday and Tuesday kind of kicked my ass and I was just keeping my head down and hangin' on till the bitter end this week. Stayed in a good place mentally/spiritually/emotionally but there was that bit of me that just craved tucking-tail and hiding out for a couple days.

Gonna do pretty much exactly that this weekend, but I'd been planning since New Year's day to take this weekend as my stop-and-breathe mid-month reclusing break. As it works out, I need to behave myself and wait and see what comes down the pipes re repairs and such on Monday before I spend money. If the repairs are covered by warranty, then I can spend a few bucks. On the menu? A manicure, one month's membership at a martial arts gym in da hood, and a strip of fit tix for the gym. Yeah, say a little prayer for me that the manufacturer of my hearing aid seems to think a completely shattered shell falls under a receiver warranty. Ha. There's a chance, man. Like they told me today -- "No news is good news", so. Yay lil' ol' me. I think. Maybe. Fingers crossed.

Besides, it'll eat up a lot of my medical insurance that's supposed to last 2 years for aids, but it is covered, and I'll get every penny back, so, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't happen. Next week, though, we're not going to have bullshit like this. Things will Go Better. I know it!

And, in the meantime, there's wine. So... if you'll excuse me! Off I go. (Yeah, I'm in a great mood, considering how the gods have conspired against me this week. Weird. I like this! Not the wine, either... only had a glass so far.)