SPRING HAS MOST DEFINITELY SPRUNG: FRUIT FLIES ARE BACK!!

Well, it's here, finally here!  After tempting us with warmer weather and a few buds and then reverting to dull, overcast days with temperamental rain, I think that Spring has arrived.  Hoorah!! Just wish that my mojo had returned 100% as well though as it hasn't!  Last week was full of quick dinners, freezer dinners and shop bought dinners; not really good, but every now and then it really doesn't matter so I'm not beating myself up about it!

Also had a rather bad experience at work that seems to have escalated completely out of hand and tonight I'll face whatever excess fallout there may be although, might I add, I am not to blame for any of it and did what I could but, as is quite normal for some members of the public, it wasn't good enough and as I'm front line staff, I got the brunt/blame from said parent.  Must admit as far as I'm aware I have been backed up by the powers that be although I haven't received a phone call to say as much and if it wasn't for a colleague I wouldn't know the outcome until tonight.  But I'm digressing and having a moan which isn't what this blog is about, although life does obviously affect moods, abilities and time allowances.

Yesterday I had a quick jaunt around the back garden and a proper clean up and sort of the front yard.

Told you Spring had sprung!

Camelia in flower!

Ready for my close up 😂

I've had to reconfigure pots out there as the Camelia keeps being blown down by the wind and as they don't like a lot of water...... Think I might need to re-pot, but it's now wedged up against another pot so hopefully....

Back garden is also looking good and bulbs/blossom is now blooming:

Muscari bulbs

Blue Lungwort - Bees adore it

Plum Blossom

We've also seen our first flog in our pond.

As to the kitchen; weekly banana bread is still happening although this week it'll be a bit late as I've run out of eggs!!  How did I run out of eggs? I'm never out of eggs!  But it would appear that I am, so tomorrow will be shopping and baking.

Yesterday, admittedly, I did an egg based dish (hence discovering that I had run out of eggs or at least didn't have as many as I thought).  Getting really bored with leftovers on a Monday especially when it's just roasted veg and a few greens.  Soup isn't something that other half considers as dinner so it would be a lunch item and I'm a little fed up with bubble & squeak although can't do that unless mashed potato involved and I'm not cooking spuds just to get mash! So a roasted vegetable frittata was the order of the day with a side salad of mixed peppery leaves, last of last week's tomatoes and half of this weeks cucumber with a mustard dressing.

Not a fab picture and the vultures had descending leaving me with this bit to photograph and eat!

Tonight is a mixed bean chilli in the slow cooker as I have work.  Cooked chickpeas from freezer and last of the dried black beans (soaked overnight and cooked this morning), along with last courgette, red pepper, onion, mushrooms, chilli flakes, ground coriander and cumin and a carton of tomatoes.

I also tray roasted off 2 courgettes, 1 red pepper, a tonne of various tomatos (before I used the last in the salad), red onions, garlic, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and mixed herbs yesterday so I've got the basis of a pasta sauce tomorrow.  Might leave as it or might add some chicken or some tuna depends on what I fancy.  Means I'm not having to worry about dinner tomorrow either and I can concentrate on shopping, baking and hopefully a bit of veg planting!

As to the title of this blog; fruit flies are back big time.  My plastic council compost bin is full of them as it is every year so whenever I take off the lid there is a cloud of them erupting! Just have to remember not to breathe in, haha!  Does make pretty good compost though and the worms love it!  I love my worms and my frog and my crows and my other birds and the bees and, and, well you get my drift, but I DO NOT like fruit flies; they get everywhere!  Hey ho!

NEW WEEK! RAIN! SPRING MAYBE SPRINGING (includes recipe)

Weekly posts are getting too long and as I don't tend to cook at weekends anyway it does seem a bit pointless to wait a week.  Plus if I do a quick daily, I can include a recipe if I think it deserves one.

So today; weather is awful!  Raining, dull, miserable and not really making me want to go out and about.  So I stayed in and did the housework instead; catching up with washing, dusting and sweeping.  Oh and writing up this of course and last week's, haha.

This week's box delivery

I have tried to be a bit more organised this week by going through some recipe books and ordering just what I needed to get me through the week, so ordered individual items rather than a random box. I still have a couple of beetroots, half a red cabbage, a celery, some mushrooms and some tomatoes leftover from last week so will use those up somewhere along the line.

Planning on using up the slow cooked boar with veggies from yesterday and turning it into a shepherd's pie type dish tonight so all I need to do is some mashed potato and I'll serve it with the kale from the box.

First bulb of the season

Spring may seem a long way off with regard to the weather but this little beauty popped it's head out over the weekend and another one looks like it's on its way so, hopefully, it isn't that far off.


SON'S FAVOURITE BANANA BREAD

200g plain flour (obviously I use my grass free mix, but you can use anything you like)
2 heaped tsp baking powder (gluten free of course)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (although I tend not to measure this out and you could replace with mixed spice)
75g butter/marg
115g caster sugar
3 ripe bananas, mashed (I tend to wait until they are beginning to go black and aren't really suitable for eating as is)
2 eggs, beaten.

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4
Grease and flour an 8.5 x 4.5inch (21 x 11cm) loaf tin.

Mash the bananas in one bowl.

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into another bowl then add the butter/marg and eggs; beat until combined.

Fold in the bananas and spoon into the loaf tin.

Bake for 50mins or until skewer/knife comes out clean.  Cool for 5 mins and turn out onto a wire rack to completely cool before eating.

This is rather nice slightly warm with butter :-)

WHERE IS MY BRAIN? BRING ON SPRING! (includes recipe)

The non-plastic plastic bags my veg come in

Well that was an odd week.  I was a week behind in my head.  Both my partner's and daughter's birthdays are this week and I was convinced they were next week (or as I'm late with this post; this week).  Confused yet?

Anyway kitchen duties weren't too bad but I'm still suffering from non inspiration.  Been thinking that maybe I'm awaiting Spring and am getting a bit fed up with Winter food.  Looking forward to asparagus and spring greens.

Had a few bananas left over and as we had run out of apples and my son loves his bit of fruit in the evening, I made a banana bread.  Not that healthy I hear you say; why not just give him a banana? However, my son doesn't like bananas as bananas; as he says "the only way to eat bananas is in banana bread".  So I cooked one and he was delighted and snatched a slice before I could photograph it, haha.

Son's favourite Banana Bread

This wasn't the only cake made this week as partner likes a coffee cake so a coffee and walnut cake was made for his birthday.  Luckily I found some chocolate butter cream in the freezer which I must have put in there over Xmas; I don't waste anything if I think it might be worth keeping and butter cream freezes beautifully.

Partner's Coffee and Walnut Cake

Whilst rummaging around in the freezer I came across one last batch of frozen pastry so thought a roast vegetable and bacon pie was in order to use up the leftover Sunday veg.

Roast Veg and Bacon Pie with mashed potato and greens

Rest of the week wasn't as inspirational and my shift of dinners ended with a rather quick and easy storecupboard dinner of tinned hotdogs, tinned beans, scrambled eggs and toast!

Am hoping next week will be a bit more exciting.

This week's box delivery

COFFEE AND WALNUT CAKE - you will need a food processor or something similar

140g walnuts
150g caster sugar
5 eggs, separated
55g flour
1 tbsp instant expresso powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp boiling water
pinch of salt

Butter cream and some sort of jelly/jam to fill.

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4 and grease and line a 9in x 2in (25 x 5cm) cake tin.

Grind the walnuts with 3 tablespoons of the sugar and when ground blend in the flour (hence the need for a food processor or something similar).

Beat the egg yolks and the remaining sugar until thick and pale yellow in colour.

Sift the cocoa powder with the coffee powder and dissolve to a fairly runny paste (not too runny though).

Fold the walnut mixture and coffee/cocoa mixture into the egg yolks.

In a clean bowl and with clean whisk(s), beat the egg whites with the salt until they form stiff peaks and then carefully fold this into the yolk mixture with a spatula.  You can always slake the mixture by folding in 1 tbsp egg whites first and then folding in the rest.

Pour into the cake tin and bake for approx 45mins (check after 40mins to see if cooked).

Leave to cool for 5 mins before slicing in half horizontally and filling with the jam/jelly and butter cream.

Tah Dah!

BUSY WEEK AND A TON OF BOXES AND TOMATOES

Oooops!  I missed a week.  Sorry about that but it was a pretty uneventful week on all fronts anyway.

This week a lovely pile of boxes arrived from my veggie delivery although as you can see from the contains I probably didn’t need that many boxes just as you never need the amount of carrier bags that they put things into when you get a supermarket delivery unless you shop with one that gives you the option to be carrier bag free.  Bonus for my delivery is that all the boxes and 90% of the packaging can be returned and reused, even the string.  Must admit I tend to keep the string as it’s handy for tying up plants in the garden and some of the plastic trays are useful as seed trays or pot holders, haha.

A pile of boxes and their contains

It’s been an odd week of ‘in and out’ the house, so dinners have been as quick and as simple as they can be with the exception of Monday when I felt like doing a full on curry using left over chicken from Sunday to make a korma and the left over pumpkin to make a dahl.  I still marinated the cooked chicken in the spices and yogurt and I replaced the lentils in the recipe for the smashed up pumpkin.  No-one died of food poisoning and there were clean plates all round.  And before you ask; no I did not make the poppadums!  They were bought and are gluten and grass free; I checked. 

Chicken Korma, Pumpkin Dahl and Poppadums

Tuesday’s slow cooker recipe was a huge tomato sauce as I appear to receive a ton of tomatoes this week and still had some left from last.  Red onion, courgettes (yes Abel & Cole had some), the last of last week’s mushrooms, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper, oregano and thyme were added and set on high for about 5 hours.  Then served with pasta and grated cheese on top!

Weds I went all Asian again and did stir fry fish with lime, leek, remaining cooked carrot and green beans from Sunday, Aldi mangetout and baby sweetcorn.  I sloshed in some fish sauce, rice wine, spattering of sugar, ground cloves, fennel, coriander and sesame seeds, then served with mushroom, egg fried rice.

Mushroom, egg fried rice with spring onion

Fish with Lime, Carrots, Green Beans, Mangetout and Baby Sweetcorn

Apologies for photos; it was a bit steamy, haha

Yes I know! I had rice! I only normally eat rice about once a fortnight, if that, as it bloats my stomach and I feel awful, but I needed something a bit more exotic this week and rice just happened to be in the cupboard and I’d run out of my noodles. L

Thursday, as always, was busy backwards and forwarding to trampoline centre with an extra lengthy session in the afternoon as son had group lesson followed straight away by private session.  So time was short and having prepped Tuesday night’s dinner on Monday night and sticking it in the fridge to shove in slow cooker in the morning, I did the same on Weds night by prepping layers of sliced potato, Jerusalem artichoke, celeriac, leek, chopped ham and grated cheese.  In the morning I poured over a combination of cream and milk and switched it on and walked away.  Next time I won’t add equal quantities of milk to cream as it did produce quite a lot of liquid.  However, it tasted fab!

Alfred on the move!

In other news; the bulbs I hastily planted a couple of weeks ago are growing rather well.  The potatoes that The Potato Council sent us are chitting away nicely on the window sill and Alfred, after moving about and deciding to stop on the ceiling right above the kettle and abseiling up and down with the inevitability of eventually landing on someone’s head and thus causing panic and death, was carefully removed into the garden to find a new home.  I’ll miss him, but hopefully he’ll find a comfy spot and a decent mate.

ENERGY LEVELS UP AND DOWN AND SUPPLIES RUNNING LOW

Had a brilliant start to the week; woke up at a reasonable time, garden was all frosty and beautiful and I felt I had some energy.  Garden was so pretty I rushed outside in pjs and bare feet just to get some photos. Needless to say that my tootsies were a bit ‘cold’ by the time I’d finished, so wrapped up in slipper socks and boot slippers under a blanket with first morning’s coffee.  Roasted off a whole pumpkin; cut it in half around the middle, rubbed with salt, pepper and oil and cooked in the oven for about an hour. Half of it was used for the pumpkin polenta and the other half will be made into a pumpkin and walnut loaf (I still have 1 very large and 2 medium pumpkins left from Halloween, but as I hadn’t cut them due to their decorative skin, they’ve kept perfectly fine in my chilly utility room).

Was a bit slower on the energy levels on Tuesday, but that was mainly due to having osteo the evening before.  Took an age for me to decide what to do for dinner as was slightly lacking in inspiration; yes it does happen to me!  So after ploughing through about half a dozen cookery books, not finding anything that totally grabbed my attention, I decided that a couple of recipes could work if I combined them and added my own flavours, so roasted roots with chickpeas, feta and Moroccan spice.

Still struggling for ideas on Wednesday; it’s the end of the month and the cupboards are getting a little bare and because I’m trying to eat as seasonable as possible I’m finding that I’m getting a little bored with the same old thing; time for spring!  Cleaned out the freezers (I have one large one that gets full quite quickly when we are harvesting, but remains half empty if I’m not filling it up with baked goods when garden isn’t over producing) and a small upright one in the kitchen which is used for open packets, breadcrumbs, leftover meals, etc.  Now I have two clean and tidy freezers and I know exactly what I have in them which should help a bit when planning meals.  I’ve also had a chat with partner and should be taking full control of food shopping again as of next week!  He took over the shopping nearly 10 years ago when I broke my leg and has been reluctant to let me take it back even though I’m constantly shopping as he only ever buys the basic boring stuff as he’s a meat and two veg kind of guy when it comes to cooking.  Ended up cooking six of the bubble and squeak patties I made before Xmas, grilled bacon, fried mushrooms and eggs and whizzing up my own version of baked beans (we didn’t have any; like a said, it’s the end of the month) using an inch of chopped chorizo, 2 finely chopped tomatoes (no tinned toms either), squirt of tomato paste and ketchup, splash of balsamic vinegar for sweetness and a tin of cannellini beans.  Actually I rather liked them and, although wouldn’t necessarily want to do them every time I used baked beans, I would definitely do them again.

Bubble & Squeak Patties

Thursday was mega busy with loads of online grocery shops, son’s trampolining group and then work, so slow cooker back in business with sweet and sour fish.  I’ve used the recipe for chicken before, but didn’t have any so thought ‘why not’ fish! As it was it worked!  Phew!

Biggest excitement of the week apart from Monday’s frosty garden was the fact that Alfred the spider isn’t dead as we first thought but very much alive and well! I hate spiders normally, but I’ve become quite attached and was slightly over excited by the fact that after spending 3 days curled up in the corner of the window with no new webs being built he was back in the middle of a brand new web and looking healthy again.  Hoorah!

Alfred the Spider (old picture)

Menu plan for the week is as follows:

Monday – Garlic chicken with pumpkin polenta and peas.

Tuesday – Oven roasted roots with chickpeas and feta

Wednesday – bubble & squeak patties, fried mushrooms, fried eggs, grilled bacon and home-made baked beans

Thursday – Sweet and sour fish

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to you all.  Hope you intend to have a fab 2017 in the kitchen and maybe the garden if you have one, although a few pots on a window sill would suffice :-D

We started the New Year with an old friend coming for dinner so no cooking for me again as it was Sunday!  Roast duck stuffed with clementines and a couple of halved lemons plus a bouquet garni which made the gravy have a hint of citrus to cut through the meat.  Roast tatties, carrots, broccoli from the garden, leeks also from garden in cheese sauce and a red cabbage cooked in apple juice and raisins.  Yum!

To be honest I’m getting rather sick of all the leftovers now and, as I don’t eat much meat normally, I’m also getting a bit sick of meat so beginning to crave fish and veggie food, haha. So Monday was going to be, hopefully, the last whack it all together leftover meal. In this case I added together the remaining mashed potato from Saturday’s fish pie with the leeks in cheese sauce and the odd bits of leftover cooked carrots and broccoli from yesterday and heated it through in the oven until bubbling; this was served with cold cooked ham and the remaining duck and a choice of pickles.  Even after that I’ve still got cold ham left, but, at least, it can be used up in sandwiches.

Tuesday I awoke with a chronic stomach ache and a rash on my elbow which normally indicates I’ve eaten gluten (would also account for stomach ache) but unless the gravy had had flour added or stock granules which partner swears he didn’t do or the so called gluten free crackers weren’t as gluten free as they indicated I can’t think of where the suspicious gluten has come from.  Oh well I suffered for the day and did a much more ‘normal’ dinner of frozen bought pies for them with mashed potato and celeriac with peas on the side and the gravy from Sunday as there is never enough gravy in the pies.  Stomach felt even more swollen afterwards even though I, obviously, didn’t have pie, but I did pour gravy over the mash and peas.  Hmmmm, me thinks partner may be telling a porky which I’m not too happy about, but if he does ever admit to it it’ll be ‘but it was only a tiny bit to thicken it up’.  Not the point mate.  Anyway, son came down and was ecstatic to have a ‘normal’ meal and even stated that it looked yummy!!!  I have to admit, I’m definitely now craving veg and salad and soup even more.

Luckily I’d had the aforethought to order some sustainable trout for Wednesday night and after the past week of rich food and leftover mishmashes I can safely say that the trout was very much appreciated and not just by me. I wrapped it in foil with a bed of onions and a cover of lemon slices and dill seed and then cooked in the oven for about 15mins.  Was rather proud of myself as I managed to debone the fillets of the pin bones so no-one got any; I think I can safely say that my knife skills are obviously improving.  Did a stir fry of mushrooms, courgette, carrot, ginger, red pepper and a handful of salad leaves plus a sorry looking and lonely Little Gem lettuce was finely sliced and whacked in with some lime juice and tamari for flavour; the whole lot was served up with noodles for the boys ( I just had the veg and trout).  Yum!!  And my stomach is now singing songs of light and healthy food again.

Thursday was back to work so slow cooker was back in business with a chickpea and root vegetable curry which served us three nicely and gave me a small bowlful left for Friday so I didn’t pig out on chips which is normal Friday fare as Friday is the first day of partner cooking.  I do have to admit, however, that his chips are homemade and he’s got the crispy chips down to a fine art.  I can never be bothered to do chips from scratch so if I ever feel the need to do them they are frozen oven ones which are nowhere near as nice, but a damn sight easier.

Weekend has been his shepherd’s pie and another roast dinner as he never feels like it’s a Sunday unless there is a roast, even in summer which I hate.

Plus we celebrated Twelfth Night by going to a Wassailing Event at our local fort, so plenty of Morris Dancing to watch, a Mummer’s play, storytelling, cannons being fired and raising of glasses of cider with a shout of ‘Wassail, Drink Hail’ and a bumping into old friends.

'Wassail; Drink Hail'

Mummer's Play with a modern twist

 

Photos courtesy of local Moot member/s

CHRISTMAS WEEK!

I had a lovely Christmas weekend of not cooking as Xmas Eve was Saturday and partner cooks anyway and Xmas Day the man feels like it’s his job and always takes over the kitchen. Woo hoo!! 

So, slow cooked haunch of venison (I put money in the local butchers Xmas fund every month so we can have a decent bit of game as no-one likes turkey in this household) along with roast potatoes, parmesan parsnips ala Delia Smith, Brussel sprouts cooked with bacon, mashed potato, carrots, homemade gravy, Yorkshire puddings (normal and gluten free for me) and gluten free chipolatas (courtesy of the butcher).  He also insisted on steaming the Xmas pudding we’d made and defrosting a pavlova even though I knew none of it would be eaten as we’d all be stuffed with the main course; which we were.

Barmbrack

Boxing Day was cold cooked ham, leftover venison, cheese, salad and pickles; traditional I know, but rather lovely and I actually prefer it to the big event day’s food as I do like to pick.  Barmbrack was also served up, but very little was eaten as, once again, we were all stuffed.

Tuesday I decided to check out what was left in the fridge; plenty of cheese, mushrooms, leftover meat (still!!!), salad stuff and the remaining cooked veg from the big day, so I decided to blitz the veg and some cooked bacon and make, sort of, bubble and squeak patties which I froze flat on a tray ready for removing individually as and when we need them.  As I was off out early, I left them to fend for themselves as there were still plenty of leftovers.

'Bubble & Squeak' Patties

Wednesday, son had a mate round so I thought pasta would probably go down well all round. Fried off some chopped mushrooms, a courgette, one onion and some garlic in butter, stirred in half a glass of flat champers and then whisked 2 egg yolks into rest of tub of the cream and topped up with milk before pouring into the pan to make a creamy sauce.  I then added the last of the ham which I’d chopped up into smaller strips.  Once pasta was cooked I strained off the majority of the water and stirred in the cream sauce.  As it was still hot and only just cooked the pasta soaked up the sauce pretty well and was promptly devoured by all.

Didn’t feel too great on Thursday so knew it was going to be a chuck it together dinner again.  Veg tray contained a ton of veg still including carrots, celeriac, red onions, celery and red cabbage.  Also still had quarter of a sack of spuds, so used up the last of the carrots, half of the celery and celeriac, 3 red onions, garlic, potatoes.  Chopped up into cubes and shoved into a roasting tray with chopped rosemary and oil and roasted off for 40mins before lightly crushing and roasting for a further 10mins.  Served this with the last of the venison in which I stirred half the remaining gravy and a huge dollop of hips and haws jelly.  Wasn’t the most complicated of dinners, but was rather tasty. Froze the remaining gravy as it won’t get used up otherwise and I hate waste.  It’ll get put into a pie at some point in the future.

So I still have half a celeriac, a red cabbage, onions, mushrooms, salad leaves, tomatoes, half a red pepper, leeks and celery left!  Also cheese, nuts, cake and half a Xmas pud!  Hmmm, nut roast I think is required and probably a couple of pots of soup! As I have plenty of chocolate in the baking part of the cupboard I can see Xmas pud truffles being made if no-one eats it up soon.

Have a great new year people!!

SINUS, HEADACHES AND A DAY IN THE KITCHEN

Well, we are still getting kale, parsnips, cabbage, swede, leeks, chillis and turnips from the garden although it is all beginning to look a little bedraggled as we’ve had some early morning frosts and a fair amount of fog this week.  There is also fresh mint, thyme, oregano and marjoram, sage, bay and rosemary.  Rest of garden needs a good tidy which might have to wait until after Christmas now as I have to get on in the kitchen.

This week hasn’t been too brilliant as I ended up with sinus problems which made me feel like I’d been punched in the face and the headaches were awful.  Also not sleeping too good; combine the two and you’re not looking at a very productive week.

So Monday’s leftovers were turned into a pasta dish with the remaining roots in the cupboard.  Tuesday’s slow cooker dish was a white fish chowder using up the oddments of frozen fish, some green beans, potatoes, onions, leftover cream and veg stock with a bit of mashed potato added to help thicken. Wednesday was a fry up of bacon, gf sausages, eggs, beans and mushrooms and Thursday’s slow cooker meal was a Sumatran Lamb Curry which I found in my new Farmhouse Cookery book.  Used my spice grinder for the first time on this and I think it is now my favourite piece of kitchen equipment along with the zest grater.

Started feeling a little more with it by the weekend and after a lovely woodland walk with a mate on the Friday to clear the cobwebs I made Chilli Chocolate Brownies and soaked the fruit for Barmbrack on the Saturday.  Partner was out most of the day and all of the evening which meant a free kitchen.

Started on the Xmas decs at the weekend too; we have a real tree and I don’t like my decs up too early, so it’s normally the weekend before Christmas that they all go up.

Anyway, as promised, I can now list the flour combination that I use.  So if you are gluten free and/or have a problem with rice (as I do) this is it:

1 cup of potato flour

1 cup of gram (chickpea) flour

1 cup of soya flour

1 cup of buckwheat flour

½ cup of coconut flour

I’m sure that you could replace the coconut flour with ground almonds (need to experiment), but I would definitely include some sort of nut flour (unless you are allergic) as it seems to keep the moisture so I can now, eventually, make a decent shortcrust pasty.  If you are worried about using soya or can’t use, up the ratios of the other flours; as long as the potato, gram and buckwheat are of equal quantities you could miss out the soya.  I make this up as I need it and this quantity gives at least 8oz-10oz of plain flour (depending on size of the cup).  I have a large Kilner jar that I measure it all into and shake the crap out of it to mix it up.  I then top up as and when I need it, so if having a baking day that could be several times.  Most of these flours are of reasonable cost.  You could replace the soya with quinoa flour, but that is rather expensive in comparison to the others.

Cya next week

KITCHEN BLITZ AND PLANNING

Hi all,

This week has been clearing out the fridge and freezer of any bits and bobs and frozen 'half' dinners so that I have a fresh freezer to fill with baking and all the final leftovers have been used. I try and do this at the beginning of most months, but definitely at the beginning of December as there will be cakes, extra bread, Christmas Day meat, pastry, biscuit dough and all the other extras that will be needed over the festive season, although I'm sure that some of it will be still there in January.  Also the kitchen itself gets a winter clean with cupboards and drawers cleared out of 'stuff' and washed down along with double checking on cleaning tiles and those hard to reach corners.  Why I do a winter clean I don't know, but it's become traditional for me to do a pre-Christmas blitz.

So after a mega blitz, Monday's dinner was a big moroccan spiced 'stew' made from a fairly large, already moroccan spiced, veg dish I found in the freezer, last week's sweet potatoes, tomatoes and carrots, quorn pieces, lambs lettuce (in place of spinach) and more spice.  This was basically shoved in the slow cooker all afternoon whilst I cleaned the kitchen.

Stores cupboard (left side)

Stores cupboard (right side)

Tuesday was breakfast with a friend I hadn't seen for a while, bit of shopping, posting a parcel and some Xmas cards and then work in the evening.  I have to admit that after a very large breakfast I wasn't that hungry before work, so I passed the responsibility of dinner onto my partner and requested he bunged a pizza in the oven for me for when I got home.  Sainsbury do a rather good gluten free pizza and I do tend to keep a couple in the freezer for those days when either I really fancy one or when the boys are having them themselves; normally a Saturday when it's partner's turn to 'cook'.

Mushroom 'risotto' on Wednesday as I had a tonne of mushrooms in the fridge.  The risotto is in quotation marks as I didn't have risotto rice so used quick cook long grain rice instead.  After frying off some onion and the tonne of mushrooms in some olive oil, adding plenty of fresh thyme from the garden and a twist or two of black pepper and salt, I added this and a large mug of rice to an oven proof casserole dish, then added two mugs of boiling water, gave it all a stir and put in the oven, covered in foil, for 20mins on 180C.  Another stir and more boiling water, about another mugful, and back in the oven for another 10mins whilst I grated a largish piece of parmessan and a big chunk of cheddar.  Out of the oven again, check to see if rice cooked and then stir in all of the cheese.  Check seasoning, add a little more water if dry and back in oven for another five mins to melt the cheese.  Voila!

Thursday was another slow cooker day as it was son's weekly group trampolining lesson and then back to work a couple of hours later.  This time it was an 'anything goes' stew, meaning leftover roast veggies from the weekend, couple of spoonfuls of mashed potato which thicken the stew, sweetcorn, any veggies that were found in the bottom of the fridge, tin of tomatoes, tin of beans and some water.  Plenty of salt and pepper and herbage and I've finally got rid of all the odds and sods.  Hoorah!!

Friday is my first day of not cooking dinner, so after a private lesson in trampolining for my son, it was home to wade through a pile of cookery books with a cuppa and plan out some menus/dishes for the next couple of weeks so that I don't have to think too hard about what to cook whilst I get on with baking, present wrapping, decorating and card writing.  Shopping lists written and I can relax for the weekend. Although I actually did a fair amount of visiting, shopping and a rather lovely amble around a Christmas Fair where I bought a rather ingenious bowl that folds flat when not needed, so not a huge amount of sitting and relaxing, but was a well spent weekend.

Chicken Bowl

Chicken Bowl flat

Do you think this lot will fit in the bowl??