a hideous frozen pizza for dinner (seemed like a good idea at the supermarket) and dark chocolate halva with honey for dessert, all washed down with a can of indian tonic water and i'm thinking, while they were food items that i ate already, i could've made better choices. i've been making some excellent choices during the past week, see. not counting the spicy hot enoki noodle soup i meant to enrichen with an egg — this one:

(the egg landed on the floor the second i turned my back after snapping this pic)
(the contents, however, remained mostly inside the shell)
(so i used it anyway)

it turned into something resembling an omelette because while i mopped the yolk from the floor the rice noodle cooked into a mush... the taste was all right, but the consistency...icky is the word.

but here's the deal, while in edinburgh, i bought this smoky cheddar disc that needed polishing off, and i wanted to make something special with it. without further ado i present:

↓ ↓ ↓

ta-dah!
potatoes hasselbacka style on sea salt bed,
stuffed with cheddar, garlic and rosemary,
topped with parmesan crust

the tatties, which were not too big, were washed but not peeled. several incisions were carefully made almost all the way through and slices of cheese and garlic, as well as rosemary leaves, shoved into the slits. a small oven dish was half filled with coarse salt and the spuds planted firmly in place. brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with thyme and paprika, they were baked in the lower part of the oven at 200°C /400°F for 30 minutes with a foil cover on, then the finely grated parmesan was sprinkled on top (probably a pinch fine salt too) and they laid in the oven, bare and baking until done, about 15 minutes tops. some stowaway garlic cloves and slices of lime made it that much more merrier.

although the potatoes were moderately sized, three in one go was a whole lot for just one. but they were that good. in finnish, by the way, they are called peruna. all of a sudden i became aware of just how exotic that sounds.

i also made a delicious pot of couscous & spinach, but have no clue how that happened.

if i was buying frivolous things, the polaroid SX-70 fadetoblack film sounds like something i might enjoy.

one more
because i'm so fond of
the reserved pose + suspicion in her eye...
(click for larger view to see the eyes, if you dare)