Funny old
week! It’s very grey and miserable in
the South East of Blighty. February has
arrived! Although on the bright side
bulbs are beginning to push green shoots out above the soil so the promise of
colour is there.
Alfred the garden
spider has decided to move home and taken himself off to the corner of the
kitchen between the above sink cupboard and the wall; maybe he’s thinking of
looking for a mate which is rather sad as he won’t find one. If he lasts long enough and the warm weather
finely arrives, I’ll reinstate him into the garden.
As to food
and menus; I’m still finding little inspiration but then it is the ‘lean’ time
of year.
The garden
has a few turnips and leeks left but that’s about it although rosemary, sage,
thyme, young mint and a few fronds of fennel are still there for the picking. Talking of the garden I’ve had a tidy up and
cut back a few bits as there is less risk of frost now. Also found a few bulbs, that I hadn’t got
round to planting in November, in the shed which were sprouting so risked
planting up a couple of pots to see how they fair. Next week will be checking over seed packets
for dates and ordering new strawberry plants as the old ones have become far
too old to produce much crop.
The
festival of Imbolg was this week so I decided that Wednesday would be the day
that I decorated the house with fresh flowers (supermarket unfortunately),
greenery from the garden (eucalyptus needed a cut back), and candles and did a
yellow and green themed dinner of smoked haddock, spring onion and pea frittata
along with a fresh salad of lettuce (not iceburg I might add; more about that
in a min), onion, watercress, apple, walnut and cheese. I also took half the rhubarb out of the
freezer and made an orange and rhubarb ‘cake’ with one of the blood oranges I
had left and served this with custard.
Now to the
lettuce issue! Apparently the UK imports
more than half its fruit and veg from abroad, which personally I find
astonishing and rather worrying, and, as there is currently unusual weather
conditions in Southern Europe, it’s affecting their ability to produce veg and
this has meant a shortage of foodstuffs like courgettes, spinach, iceberg
lettuce and now broccoli reaching our supermarket shelves. My issue here is that why are we trying to
buy courgettes, spinach, iceberg lettuce and broccoli now anyway? To be honest why would you buy iceberg
lettuce at any time of the year; it’s foul! Those are summer veggies! Why? Because
we have become so used to buying anything at any time of year that we have
become distanced from what we truly should be eating at any specific point. I
often wonder if this is why illnesses have increased. Our bodies are attuned to
eat certain things at certain times and to eat seasonally has a huge impact on
our health and, obviously, the planet. Now I’m not being all evangelical about
it; I love my blood oranges from Sicily and, of course, I’m still eating
tomatoes in February which is silly unless canned, pickled or dried but I’m
trying to eat as seasonally as possible and to grow my own or buy mainly from
the UK and preferably local. I wonder how others would fair if they did the
same. Perhaps if we did we wouldn’t be panic buying lettuce, yes people really
are, with one supermarket rationing them to three per person. On that point; to whoever is buying three at
a time, all I can say is you must be eating a hell of a lot of lettuce as it
wouldn’t last in my house and would go off before we could use it up. Hmmm, more food waste I think. May I make a suggestion? Eat cabbage!
Red cabbage is around and that’s lovely and crunchy raw. Finely shred it, shove in some grated carrot,
possibly a chopped onion, maybe a few raisins or grated apple or both, add a
light dressing and you have homemade coleslaw; tastes much better than lettuce
anyway!
For further
information I’ve added a couple of links below.
Cya
Menu plan
for the week is as follows:
Monday – Roasted veg pasta
Tuesday – Turnip and chickpea casserole
with mashed potato
Wednesday – Smoked haddock frittata
with salad and rhubarb and orange cake for pud
Thursday – Mushroom curry with rice
