Sunday 5th March - rescued by cream cheese

 I had my suspicions that I had discovered the first 'Bored of lunch' recipe that was going to be a fail. It was the chilli con carne recipe, and I am fairly certain I followed the recipe more or less faithfully. However wheen I tasted it reminded me of my student days, when no chilli recipe was a ' real' chilli unless it left your eyes and nose streaming. We weren't planning to eat it for a day or so, so half sat in the fridge and half went into the freezer.

I was hoping that it would have mellowed over time, but no such luck. The recipe also called for 30g of dark chocolate. I do usually add a little cocoa powder, but 30g? My misgivings were correct; the chilli had a disconcertingly strong aroma of chocolate. This did not bode well for lunch.

I said nothing, but googled 'too much chilli in my stew'. The answer came back 'add dairy, eg cream or full fat milk, or cheese'. Really? I trialled a tiny bit of Boursin melted into a tablespoon of hot chilli, and magically it worked. So I added about half the packet and stirred it through. The chilli was still a bit fierce, but not too much so, and the chocolate aroma less pronounced. 

I have been annotating the recipes using post-it notes as I cook my way through the books; you can be sure I have noted my suggestions for next time around.

I slightly unravelled myself yesterday; woke up cheerful enough, and then a gloom settled over me and I wasted a good hour on youtube and other diversions. What is happening to me? Then I realised that a good deal of the gloom landed as I was reviewing what I needed to deal with, tasks that had been accumulating over several days. 

I set too and made significant in-roads on the list, and am feeling much more cheerful as a result. I have written a Joan Didion quotation in my diary where I can see it

Action is the antidote to apathy