AAAAAH! NORMALITY HAS RETURNED!

Sorry, this is a couple of days late.

Well, it was rather satisfying to get back into the rhythm of things today with a clean out of the fridge, veg rack and fruit basket in preparation for the veg box order.  I was pleased to discover that the veg rack is finally empty apart from a half head of celery which was looking decidedly brown and unappetising, so was fed to the worms in the wormery and the rack wiped clean ready for new goodies.  The fridge had been emptied of all its mouldering items as well, so apart from jars of half eaten preserves, a bit of blue cheese and a quarter of an Xmas pudding there is now nothing left to betray that there was a festive season.  Salad trays contained a fresh box of mushrooms, 3 lemons, 2 Little Gem lettuces and about half a dozen baby plum tomatoes; all were ok, so the worms didn’t get any other treats today.

Blood Oranges - Yummy

Box arrived and after giving the fridge a final clean down I could empty the gorgeous fresh stuff into the respective areas.  Firstly, a fine bag of blood oranges; mine, all mine, I might add.  I patiently wait every year for January and the availability of organic blood oranges from Sicily and woe betide anyone who sneakily nicks one.  They are my favourite and only available for such a short time. They were added carefully to the fruit basket along with apples and satsumas.  The bananas were removed swiftly and put aside for banana bread later as they are beyond eating as a snack but will be wonderfully sweet and gooey for a cake. More cherry tomatoes, sweet bite tiny peppers and chestnut mushrooms were put in the fridge and 1 fennel, bag of Brussel sprouts (yeah I know you’re probably all sick of them, but we love them), 4 sweet potatoes, leeks and a bag of Cavolo Nero were housed in the veg rack.  I know that there are still leeks, curly kale, parsnips, swedes and turnips in the garden along with various herbs such as rosemary, sage, bay, thyme, marjoram and mint.

Menu plan for the week is as follows:

Monday – Quorn sausage, tomato, mushroom, pepper, garlic, onion, plenty of dried oregano, splash of gluten free Worcester sauce and big squirt of tomato puree cooked to form a sauce and served with pasta for the boys and buckwheat pasta for me.

Tuesday – slow cooker of quorn mince, mushroom, walnut and rice filled Cavolo leaves (apparently these parcel type things are called Dolmades and I’ve made them before with cabbage leaves).  Stock and lemon juice will be poured over to cook and keep them moist – this didn’t quite go to plan as the Cavolo leaves were so thin I couldn’t stuff them, so layered them with the quorn mince filling like a lasagne.  Clean plates again tonight.

Apologies for the quality of picture; it really did taste better than it looks

Wednesday – chicken and vegetable pie made with the leftover roast chicken & the remaining roasted veg from Sunday and mash potato.

Thursday – a layered potato, sweet potato, fennel and cream concoction with plenty of cheese including the last of the blue cheese; wasn’t as much cream left as I’d hoped so topped it up with milk.  As there was plenty of cheese I knew it wouldn’t matter and the potatoes easily soak up the liquid.  

White Orchard - a touch of beauty in the drabbest month