Dumplings and blogs

Yesterday I took the opportunity to get a bit of head start with cooking for the week. We had Thai Curry for lunch and then in the afternoon I made two fruit crumbles for puddings, a bowl of egg mayonaisse for sandwiches and a casserole for todays dinner. When i got home from work this evening I discovered that the peice of beef in the casserole had shrunk to a fraction of its former size so I made a dozen dumplings to fil everyone us a bit. This was a real success. I made too much dough so we have enough for another day because I find it really difficult to judge and ofcourse I never weigh anything. Anyway I formed about a dozen little balls of dough and then dropped them into a metal roasting pan which contain a half nch of gravy from teh casserole. I then put them under the grill for 15 minutes. I know this is odd but they are really nice when the top goes a bit crunchy instead of soggy. If i had made them earlier I would haveadded them to the casserole an hour from the end and then not replaced the lid, so they browned off a bit. Anyway, they were really lovely and no-one complained about the lack of meat, so I will make an effort to make them more often in future.

On the subject of casseroles I read on the website http://www.livingonadime.com/ that a casserole means any meal made in a single pot in America, as opposed to an casserole in the British sense, which is more like a stew but cooked in the oven. This explains why I have always imagined Tuna Casserole (which I have read about as an economical meal on US websites for years) as tuna fish chunks in gravy with potatoes and onions. No wonder I didnt like the sound of it. Now I know it means something completley different I am quite interested again. I read a lot of websites and blog from other English speaking nations and I love that the same words mean different things in different countries. I also like that there are such different ways of describing the same thing. Makes it all a lot more interesting! Another good thing about reading all these blogs is having a little window on someone elses life and their corner of the world. You can watch movies and documentaries but it really isnt the same as reading a blog, which is pretty much a daily diary with photos. I will write about some of my favourite in future & hopefully this will guide me towards some new blogs to read.

So now I know what I need in my life, more dumplings and more blogs.