Having me free at home without anything to do is always a risky business, because chances are that I will either go into a cleaning or organising frenzy (which is admittedly sorely needed), or into the kitchen. This Sunday found me in the kitchen, making not one, but three batches of brownies - the first with walnuts that my parents bought back from China, the second with baking chocolate chips and ordinary chocolate chips, and the third being a combination of the first and second, i.e. walnuts and chocolates.

It was a fun Sunday afternoon all in all and quite an experience because it is the first time I am doing any baking in this kitchen and I have no idea where most of the baking apparatus have been stashed. The fact that we no longer have an electric mixer at home means that I now have to beat the eggs and sugar manually which I guess qualifies as exercise, and I had to figure out how to melt butter over direct heat since we no longer have a microwave oven. We were short of about ten grams of butter towards the end, but  I improvised with olive oil *fingers crossed that no one will have food poisoning from this*. My father provided some comic relief by coming in and out of the kitchen asking plaintively, so can we eat the brownies yet? And finally went off to sulk in a corner when he was given some toast instead (well, the brownies were not ready just because they are out of the oven, they need to cool down first).

( Pictures of the baking exercise! )

Work and studies (and of course the US elections which I was following avidly) made this week one that has left me exhausted - even more than I have been for the past few weeks.  I slept most of Saturday away and decided to further destress myself - I will cook dinner! Of course, it helps that my parents are out of town because they find my cooking rather, erm, exotic, shall we say? My younger brother tends to be less fussy.

( A Can of Coke, Some Chicken Wings & A Dash of Port... )