Life is too short to drink bad wine.

I had a slow start this morning, I think I'm going to try to get to be a bit earlier today, 10:30 lights out will hopefully do it. I've been working my way through various sleep meditations on InsightTimer and some are really excellent but few are exactly what I want. There's way too much you feel sleepy, very sleepy, you deserve to be sleepy, your definitely sleepy. On the other hand, I want something more exciting than the average body scan with relaxation. I don't want to do too many chakra meditations for fear of conditioning myself into falling asleep whenever I do one. I guess I'm just picky. Toaster kept me company for a lot of the night lying right next to my feet, after I went to the bathroom she decided to perch on my shoulder and proceeded to slowly slide off as she fell asleep.

Were' trying a new dish, a beetroot, salad with feta and those bitter salad leaves the name of which currently escape me. I've also recently found a split lentil dhal recipe I'm dying to try, it's simple but I think will be very yummy. Maybe I'll try making roti again to go with it.

My nervous eye twitch is still bothering me, it's been well over a year now and it's getting worse rather than better. All I can see online is sleep more, reduce stress, and drink less caffeine. Which I've done a lot of but apparently not enough.

Need to motivate on making more mustard for yule presents soon, need to add that to my Google tasks.I need to start inventorying my stores to prep for holiday baking, this weekend perhaps.

Last Friday I got 4 litres of raw unpasteurised milk, having heroically stopped myself from just drinking the stuff straight (if you have never tried raw milk I recommend it, the store bought stuff tastes like water afterwards though) we made 1ltr of yoghurt and used 2 more litres to make paneer which is an Indian soft cheese used in the cooking from that region. I was reminded on Sunday how little cheese you get out of a lot of milk, financially making your own cheese is really only feasible if you have your own cow or goat or if you are living next to/related to a dairy farmer. It was however enough for the Sag Paneer I made and tasted amazing especially since we have some absolutely gorgeous spinach in the garden right now. I also made some Aloo Gobi as well as fresh Naan bread and we had a lovely diner. The Naan turned out quite well except that next time I will give it less time in the oven as it was a little crisper than I like it. Naan is generally made with Nigella Seeds also known as Black Onion Seeds which gives it a lovely savoury flavour perfect for dipping into the rich veggie dishes I was serving. The next thing on the Indian food list I'm going to try is a spicy Eggplant dish that can be served cold.

The yoghurt by the way turned out very well, I would consider buying the expensive raw milk and hauling it home from Dublin every week just for our yoghurt production, we can go through 1-2 ltrs of the stuff each week. It was incredibly smooth, creamy, rich and tangy without being sharply sour. I wouldn't generally eat our unflavoured home made yoghurt but this one I could definitely go for.

Brian has been making various different country wines and though they are not ready for drinking yet and won't be for a while the colour of the beetroot/parsnip is a rich ruby red, quite attractive just to look at. I wish we had the wherewithal to distil our own hard liquor because I love making fruit liquors, currently I have a jar of rhubarb brandy on the go, inspired by krkhst. I think I'll give it another month and see how it is then.