Polka-dot, saint-paulia, anko.

I realized I also had some photos of anko-making and I thought to share them, because nothing annoys me as much as using a recipe that's not easy enough for a first-time maker to use. I tend to find myself wondering "how long to do what and why and how is it supposed to look like", so just in case you had actually never cooked beans, here's the things I found. I googled.

Do remember I'm the worst cook I know. I should probably make another blog about cooking when you yourself are the worst thing that could happen in the cooking of macaroni and cheese, and how to make something you never made before.

Namely what threw me off was that the recipe said: "You will see a lot of foams forming on the surface." but in fact, the first time I boiled the beans this is as much foam as I ever got out of them. I was beginning to wonder if I was doing something wrong, but on the second time of boiling them I got a lot more. I boiled and rinsed them for a third time just to make sure even though the recipe said I only needed to do it twice, but only the second and third boiling brought out a lot of foam, so...

Aaand this is how it looked like towards the end of  the simmering -stage. My anko never became smooth-looking like in the recipe I used and I don't know if I was supposed to do something about it or not. The beans were soft enough but was I somehow supposed to get rid of the skins? Puree them? Sieve them out? Oh well, it was delicious even if it was a bit ugly. :D

On a different note, my flowers are still blooming! This polka-dot baby is constantly trying to grow leggy and I keep trimming it down, but now it has come up with the ultimate weapon against my scissors: a bunch of flowers along the stalk. I can't bring myself to cut them down. Besides the boyfriend thinks I should give the plant's ambitions a chance.

But seeeeee how pretty? :3 

The other blooming one is my saint-paulia, and this is why I love saint-paulias so much. They blossom easily and never give up - usually there's always a next stalk of buds coming along and if not, cut away an old, wilting bunch of flowers and then the plant will make more buds.

I love the look of the petals.