Darkginger's Lair

Today I decided that the 23 litres of Merlot I’m brewing has finished fermenting – the hydrometer says it’s ready to bottle (though it isn’t), so I laboriously dragged the Swedish instructions through a translator again, and transferred it all to a secondary fermenter, added stabiliser, and stirred hard (If there is carbon dioxide remains in the wine walls explanation langsammare and can fail completely in certain cases, as the translator told me!).

I’ve chosen to let it clear by itself as opposed to using finings, because those instructions say “red wine becomes a little bit “pale” said if you have time you can let them clear up by itself”. So there you go. Should take 2-3 weeks, and then it’s bottling time!

Still eating low carb – lots of roast chicken, pork, eggs, some Halloumi fried in olive oil today, fish for dinner. Hoping to get a half leg of lamb for Easter, if the price is right No chocolate, no hot cross buns!

Not blogged for a few days (nothing new there, then!) so I thought I’d post a quick summary of the past few days. It will be quick, because, truthfully, not a lot has happened. Carl’s beer is bubbling away nicely, my wine is frothing, but there’s very little bubble action. The nettle beer is ready to bottle today – tasted it last night and was pleasantly surprised, so I hope nothing awful happens to it in the bottles! I should be drinking it this time next week.

The weather was great over the weekend, but we woke up to rain again this morning. It’s sunny now, though. Roisín’s asleep at my feet, the other two are happily snoring too, and I’m about to cook a late breakfast.

Still eating on plan – roast beef yesterday with some frozen mediterranean veggies, which I didn’t like much, so didn’t eat We had roast chicken on Friday night, and Carl brought crispy duck home for me from the Chinese on Saturday (no pancakes, no hoisin sauce). Breakfasts have been either burger, bacon and egg, or just bacon and egg. Lunches, I usually don’t bother with.

There seems to be some deflation going on in my tummy area, which is encouraging – just got to keep on going now, I’m back in the swing of things. What about the forthcoming glut of booze, you may ask. Well, never have and never will worry about carbs in what I drink. Red wine and vodka (especially the vodka) are low in carbs, and no one seems to have included nettle beer in their carb counts, so I’ll just not concern myself with it. I’m in this for the long haul, so a week or so’s delay in my ongoing shrinkage is neither here nor there. I am not orthorexic!

Wonderful day here – sunny with very little wind, which is wonderful after the past week of nothing but rain and gales. The dogs and I took full advantage of the weather and spent a lot of the day outside – me, gathering nettles for nettle beer – that’s a link to my other blog, more food orientated (is that possible?) than this one – and the dogs sunbathing, rolling on their backs on the grass, and generally having a good time. Carl took Roisín off to the beach for an hour, where she discovered a small stream, and came back wet and happy.

Today’s food was 3 eggs, scrambled, and grilled bacon for breakfast, and then braised lamb shanks for dinner. The dogs got the leftovers (minus bones) with loads of lamb juices poured over their usual kibble. Carl got 2 cheeseburgers

We’re forecast another beautiful day tomorrow, and the plan is to muck out the chickens, and get around to planting some veggie seeds. I have enough honey for one more gallon of mead, so might get around to starting that off tomorrow – I’ve got some dried orange blossom to flavour it with, should be nice.

If you’ve never cooked nettles, by the way – they start off smelling like dog pee (yes, really, but I did wash them thoroughly before boiling!), but soon change to something reminiscent of spinach. I might pick some more tomorrow and have a go at cream of nettle soup.

In other news, we spent yesterday evening playing Scrabble online with a couple of friends in the UK (hi Pip and Gary!) – a LOT of fun. The internet is truly an amazing thing. Carl’s asking me for another game now, so I better publish this and humour him (he likes to win).

My kit to make 23 litres of wine arrived on Friday. I bought a couple of large fermentation bins with bubble locks and so on as well, so
I was all set to get going with it yesterday. Until I opened the packet, that was, and discovered the instructions were in Swedish. Now, I know a bit about how to make wine – it’s not my first time, but all the same, I would like to know I’m doing the right thing. Anyway, I found an online translator, and typed a load of the instructions in – I managed to get enough done to at least begin the wine – so I now have 23 litres of merlot fermenting away, complete with oak chips for flavouring. In the next 3 weeks, I need to find a proper translation, or make a Swedish friend.

In other news, it’s Day 14 (I think) of the change in eating, and all is well. We had that roast chicken on Friday night, then yesterday it was my usual breakfast, followed by a massive mixed grill of lamb chops, a pork chop, a small steak, a sausage, a burger and some mushrooms for dinner. This morning I had 2 burgers, 2 rashers and 2 (hens) eggs, and I’ve had 2 more rashers and some mushrooms mid-afternoon. The piece of belly pork I got out of the freezer hasn’t quite defrosted yet, so we’ll probably snack later – me on cheese, a couple of tomatoes (am craving tomatoes) and perhaps 2 or 3 pickled chillies. Tomorrow, it’ll be the belly, with loads of lovely crackling, and some green veg or other, because I feel I should be eating more veggies.

I had fun last night – a couple of old friends were online (on Facebook) – and I was streaming music at them – all the old tunes from the 90s plus some more recent Scottish tribal drumming type stuff (Albannach, Saor Patrol etc.). I’d forgotten how much I enjoy sharing my music collection with others. Must do it again sometime!

My leg is currently in danger – it’s between Cain and his bone, and Roisín – who doesn’t actually want Cain’s bone (she has one of her own), but wanted to look at it. He’s growling softly – but if she gets much closer he’ll snap at her, and I just hope my leg ain’t in the way! Roisín went out fishing with Carl this morning – 2 hours of running around like a mad thing and she’s still not tired. Between the two of them, they caught one small crab. Hohum.