Okay, so maybe 11.30 at night when you’re feeling quite tired isn’t the best time to be writing a blog. But I was just sitting here taking stock. That’s right bitches. TAKING stock, not making it.

So I feel like I’ve made loads of recipes already, but to keep track I wrote out a list of all the recipes in the book to cross them off as I go. This was a BIG mistake. HUGE.*

I think I’m 15 recipes down and 100 left to go. Or maybe 16. Who knows? It’s semi-late at night. My maths fell out of my head hours ago.

But it freaked me out. I’ve got friggin’ far to go.

It also doesn’t help that I’ve made the grilled peach salsa twice and the black bean dip three times. I gotta quit playing favourites! If this were a club, we’d only want new members. No time for old familiar faces. Snub those assholes. Gotta move on. What I need is a wham-bam-thank-you-mam-attitude. A real, ‘are you done? Good,then get out’ kind of attitude. One recipe, one time. No coming back for seconds…unless it’s second helpings. YUM.

And it also doesn’t help that there are ingredients I haven’t been able to find. Like hibiscus tea. I’ve searched high and low…So many stores…So many towns. No hibiscus tea. Therefore no watermelon hibiscus coolers. What a goddamn waste.

Then today, I was at the store, and I’ve pretty much given up on finding hibiscus tea EVER, I was just in there buying lemons, or toilet paper, or some other randomness, when I notice they’re selling hibiscus flowers. I think it’s the universe’s way of flipping me the bird. Like a real fuck you for your hibiscus efforts. So I bought one of the plants and now it’s sitting on my window sill laughing at me.

In fact, it’s doing more than that. Look at it. Is it me or does it look like one of the flowers is totally doing the other flower from behind? The one at the back looks like it’s having a bit too much of a good time if you ask me. And right in front of me! How disrespectful!

Okay, so maybe I’m more tired than I realised.Seeing flowers copulating, that’s got to be some sort of symptom of needing sleep.

Anyways, I made the broccoli millet pilaf yesterday and managed to burn the broccoli. I swear, I used to be able to cook normally before I started this blog. Now I’ve burnt three things in a row. WTF….I mean really. WTF. But shit happens in threes, so maybe it’s over now.

I’m almost embarrassed to post a picture of my so called “broccoli”. But as the British would say: in for a penny, in for a pound, so let’s go the whole hog. (They don’t say the hog part, I’ve added that shit myself. I sprinkled artistic license all over that shit)

And here’s a picture of the final result. I feel like I’m bringing an ugly old hag in tattered clothing out onto a catwalk to supposedly flaunt the latest fashions. Where once this healthy crunchy vegetable was green, now it’s blackened. The Thugs said to char it a little, not cremate it. I swear if they knew what I was doing to their food, they’d be shaking their heads with disapproval. Like you know when you’re a kid and you’ve done something wrong and your parents give you that whole, ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed’ speech? And you just wanna slump your shoulders and slink away? That’s how looking at this broccoli makes me feel. It tasted better than it looked, but it still tasted tough and like burnt kale.

So those are my burnt broccoli adventures for today. Tune in next time for the lemon quinoa, where I’ll probably end up zesting my own finger into the dish. Not so vegan now, is it?

*  and yes I was totally quoting ‘Pretty Woman’. #Ifyouknowyouknow