Sunny Sunday, zebra plant, culinary capers

I emerged from my darkened boudoir* this morning expecting to be greeted by a gloomy Sunday but, to my delight, the sun was pouring into my flat and the sky was blue. A gleeful start to the day. 

I put a chicken in the slow cooker then headed into the city. I went back to Vic Market to buy a little potted succulent that caught my eye when I was there with Luke yesterday, partly because my mum had one when I was a kid (incidentally, that's my mum and dad in the photo behind the plant). 

I asked one of the men at the stall what the succulent was called and he said it's a haworthia attenuata, commonly known as a zebra plant or washboard plant. Then he asked me if I knew what a washboard was - no doubt thinking a *cough* young whippersnapper like me would have no idea - but he was wrong. Ha! It's a musical instrument! Just kidding - these days it's used as a musical instrument by bands with a country flavour, but once it was used to scrub dirty laundry clean. 

I had planned ahead how to get the zebra plant home safely - I took with me the little bag made from newspaper that I got in Clunes in April. It did the job perfectly. 

I got my nails done again, this time a dark slightly iridescent blue. I keep looking at them. It's such a novelty for me to have painted nails.  The manicurist liked my newspaper bag and said my zebra plant was cute. 

I bought some bright pink gerberas and then headed for home. 

I never seem to have a vase that's just right...

When I came in the door of my flat, it smelt like chicken. I'd forgotten all about it! Yum. The chicken, which we had for dinner, was just the beginning of my Sunday culinary capers. I also stewed some rhubarb. I'm allowed to have a small serve of rhubarb every second day on my low-allergy diet and I always look forward to it. I have to wait for tomorrow to sample this lot. 

Then I made meringues in the microwave. Yes, the microwave! I found the recipe on Pinterest a while ago and thought I'd give it a go because it's allergy-diet friendly. It's so simple and easy. You sift 300g of icing sugar over one egg white and mix it until you have a ball of pliant icing mix. Then you put a couple of small balls of the mix (about grape-sized) on a plate lined with baking paper, and nuke them for 1.5 minutes on high. Then just watch as they spread and slowly puff up into clouds of meringues. Fun!  

I'm planning to make a variation of Eton Mess for dessert tomorrow night with the rhubarb and meringue and lactose-free whipped cream. I'm salivating already. 

I also made some bread in my breadmaker, which I haven't used in ages. It's cooling down as I write.  

All in all, quite a productive day! 

*Did you know that boudoir comes from the French 'bouder' meaning to sulk? So a boudoir is a place for sulking. I think I read that in The Etymologicon.   

While I'm being word nerdy, I'm almost finished The Superior Person's Second Book of Words and one of my favourites is 'obambulate', which means to wander aimlessly.