Week 3

As always I am vexingly late to my own party.  For two long weeks I have been trying to post some thoughts but effing Blogger doesn't now support its own effing app, so when I tried to write, the text repeatedly vanished.  And then when I logged in on ye olde computer to try again, freaking Google has so much security that I nearly didn't get in.  Like withdrawing cash over the bank counter, Blogger is now too secure for the only person who actually needs access.

What the EFF.

Where was I?  Oh yes, into week 3 and only scanty notes about weeks 1 and 2 - the golden times, the halcyon days of my build!  But if I get all completist and go back to week 1 I will never get started, so here I am, mid-thought.

It is already week 3 of the kitchen build!  I say that as if the past two weeks have sped by, but in reality living in a building site, riddled with anxiety and decision making, is the utmost best best best way to slow time in the unslowable middle years of life. 

Week 3 so far has a very fun site meeting.  I genuinely love this, and teeter about on planks of wood, or stand in wellingtons with my hands on my hips saying helpful things like 'Is there a reason the downpipe can't just go on the extension roof? How long before you can build over that concrete square?  How much does steel cost?' and more.  I'm practically indispensable.

Whilst building updates make me misty-eyed with pre-emptive sentimental feeling, what I was really noting down here was what to eat when 'between kitchens', as HG says.  To help future me on, say, week 7, when I am showing symptoms of scurvy.

I can't WAIT to go back to weeks 1 and 2 (what days!) however in week 3 I have been very bad indeed about not being prepared.  My budget, you will recall from week 1* is £10 per day.  The kitchen set up you will recall with equal freshness of mind* is a work kitchen, at work; and at home, a microwave, kettle and fridge - but with the added challenge of being in the work place of the building site.  The dear builder even pulled in a sink so there is running cold water, though no drain, so only a bucket beneath.

Weeks 1 and 2 I did so well so it must be inevitable that Monday of week 3, the last Monday in January, I broke the budget. I gorged on a Costa-coffee-cake breakfast; an overpriced sandwich at lunch, eaten in 0.8 seconds; then stayed too late at work, hungry, so ate out.  I decided if I was going to break the budget it would at least not be in the centre of town, I would instead take my money south of the river and eat locally.  The trains were the coin-toss, and the first train I could catch took me to The Station, where I had a Vietnamese vegetable curry, a glass of wine and crumble with cream.  Well, once you start eating it makes you sad when you have to stop again. As I waddled home I decided that for £22 I was both warm and full, so it wasn't a terrible move.  Plus it feels so civilised to eat off of china rather than out of plastic.

My resolution was no better this morning: home made beans on toast at Archibalds, with coffee; a hasty salad from Pret (I wasn't even trying by this point); and a redeeming microwave meal of cauliflower cheese with rice.  Random and at £2.50 bang on budget, had I been sticking to it.

Now I need to don my wellingtons and put on the kettle for a mint tea and hot water bottle. I'm back in my own bed now, after a spell on the sofa, so am making the most of the comfort - while it lasts.



*when I write the posts

Roll on Spring

It is a perfect Spring day - too warm for April, but blue-skied and burgeoning with promise.

I have the luxury of a whole garden day and, not wishing to interrupt the flow of clipping and weeding, ran down the hill for a sausage roll for lunch. 

It is 3 years almost to the day since I first clapped eyes on my home, though it took much longer before I could move in. When a local business opened a Kickstarter campaign to open a community-focused local deli I gladly chipped in, hoping for some variety to the fried chicken shops.  I love fried chicken but a deli would definitely add something useful!

And so it is that on days like today I can pick up a hot-from-the-oven sausage roll just 5 mins from home.  I still don't have an oven of my own, so baked goods are such a treat right now. What a sausage roll it is: soft, plump, delicately flavoured.  And the pastry! It is bigger than the picture but it didn't make it to the plate without being assaulted.

Its companions are fridge-foraged: a little brown rice and flash-fried courgette with garlic, chilli and a squeeze of lime. The drink is the taste of summer 2016: elderflower cordial, made last year with my parents.

Only another month or two before the elders flower, and it all begins again.

Beet poet

And the reason I had leftovers to use up: a TV night in with my friend Mel.

We had Campari soda, naturally, before this salmon and salad. I never usually relish a supermarket cooked beet, but these baby beets with black pepper were luscious! 

I have nothing to say about poetry, I just enjoy a terrible pun.

Radishes are my vegetable of 2016 and at any one time I have a pack on the go. My only complaint is that they are a little mild, but I intend to grow them next year and will try a few peppery varieties. Recommendations gratefully received!

Slugged!

So my lovingly hand-reared courgette plants, and several tomato plants, made a fine delicacy for the slugs and snails. Oy! The remaining two weedy squash plants are now sulking inside next to a window. They would rather be outside in some soil but I have turned protective parent.

A regiment of underdeveloped toms are perched on a radiator (don't ask) in my Steptoe and Son back garden (really don't ask). I am going to plant these out; I can't think egg shells and coffee grounds will deter these Amazonian slimies but the toms have one last chance. Grow prickly and hairy, wee Monemakers!

In a funk of vegetable failure, I gave in to reality and signed up for a veg box delivery. Iam now looking forward to it - hungry anticipation mixed with admiration for large scale growing. Imagine the slug patrols on a farm! The first box arrives this week so to make room I cleaned my fridge and defrosted the tiny ice box. I am also eating everything up.

Tonight I'll eat the final courgettes with pasta. Lunch dealt with the rest:

(A lousy photo but it'll jog my memory for next time!)

June salad with bacon and Dijon potato salad

Scant teaspoon of Dijon mustard, mixed with mayonnaise. Add in cold, cubed, cooked potato (made twice this amount)

Pile up in a dish:

4 radishes (halved), third of a cucumber (sliced), half a yellow pepper sliced, a good handful of mange tout (blanched then run under cold water), a spring onion sliced.

My sister & her family were at a hog roast today so, feeling a little pork-envy, I fried some pancetta cubes and added them - along with bacon fat from the pan - on top. 

A squeeze of lime.

May days

April is the most astonishing month.

From misty to hail to sun, the weather is petulant.  And the garden follows suit! Hidden behind the ungiving frosty mornings the ground must secretly be warming, because suddenly the green flourishes. I had been anxiously seeking my peoney plants, worried they had been carelessly squashed or murdered by boisterous fence & shed replacements. I found them on a bleak Sunday in the gloaming evening, their red alien fists punching up through the soil; three weeks later and they were lush, green and a foot tall! Everything is burgeoning. Even the weeds...

I really enjoyed weeding in winter.  My battle with brambles and that sneaky, tenacious ivy actually seemed to be progressing - in my favour. But bring on the April showers and shy first sun and I have a dispiriting handicap, as if I am now fighting with one hand behind my back.  I see I can no longer be a weekender; it begins to seem as if longer days are provided for the sole purpose of keeping on top of the growing vegetation.

For the first time, I have been nurturing* seeds to life. I thought I had over-watered and rotted them, but it turns out that even they are keen to thrive. After 3 weeks of being ignored they sprang to life and now I am thrilled to be growing tomatoes (moneymaker), courgette, patty pan squash and butternut squash. I have some herbs on the go and Rose & Al gifted me two sturdy strawberry plants they have been bringing on.  

I put the seedlings outside yesterday to harden off, only to find it was warmer outside than inside the house. May has over stretched itself into July temperatures: such hot weather! Like being dropped into summer for a day. So today I shelter inside (ironically less hardy than the spindly, baby tomato plants) and make lunch.

 

Surprise-Summer lunch

1) Discover last year's elderflower cordial hasn't gone off & have with fizzy water & lemon.

2) Rootle in the fridge for salad items.  Layer up in a flat bowl:

Watercress; cucumber, cubed; radishes, halved, a spring onion, thinly sliced; avocado; red chilli which later turns out to be disappointingly mild, very finely diced.

Lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper & salt... you know the drill.

3) Make like the Larkin poem and enjoy it with all windows down, all sense of hurry gone.

* neglecting

Mrs Hubbard

When I looked, on one of those dark days between Christmas and New Year, the cupboard was bare.  When my Mother looked she found this:

Hubbard soup (minimal version)

For making something out of nothing, this beats even the tomato and lentil soup that KK makes. Chop one white onion, soften in oil; add a tin of tomatoes and a squeeze of tomato purée.  Cook for a bit - maybe 15 mins - then blend roughly and season well. Serves 3.

Ridiculously Good Sausage rolls

Caramelise some onions by slicing an onion in half, then slicing the halves into slim half moons. Add to a pan with a little oil and cook on a low heat for 30 mins. Add a teaspoon of balsamic and half a teaspoon of sugar and cook a further 15 mins.

Roll out puff pastry into a long rectangle. You will soon fold this in half, lengthwise, so bear this in mind as you place on sausage meat (from Jonathan the butcher, "hardly any fat in there" as Ma kept telling us): keep it to one side, with space all round. Top the meat with caramelised onion then fold the rest of the pastry over the meat, like a long blanket. Tuck the sausage up cosy, press the edges together, and brush with milk. Slice the roll into big chunks; they need to be pretty hefty or the pastry will bounce open as the rolls cook. Bake hot (190 degrees) for about 20 mins.

This was a very warming lunch.

hello? Is it me you're looking for?

The cooking dry spell continued, making me more grateful than ever for other people's home dishes. Jimmy's classic ham, rice and salad; an Ottolenghi-salad lunch crafted by Mel; Alex's barley and black pudding risotto.

And then, after two days alone in the burnt ochre palette of English autumn countryside, I noticed my cooking mojo sitting next to me.  He looked like this:

I had picked courgette, tomatoes, rosemary and thyme from Rosie & Alex's garden. So I made ratatouille and chipolata sausages for supper, and also a lamb stew for school nights this week.

Mojo Lamb

Brown the cheapest of stewing lamb in Alex's nice, deep pot, then remove to a dish. 

In the lamby pan, add more oil, then in it sweat sliced onion and cumin seeds.  

Add diced celery and cook a bit more, keeping the heat low. 

Return the lamb to the pan, cover with water, then add in rosemary, diced carrot and a few odds of courgette that had gone mushy at one end, but you wanted to rescue the edible bits.  

Leave on low for a couple of hours, happy in the knowledge it will taste even better when re-heated after work.

Pour a glass of wine and let the aromatic rosemary smells sharpen your appetite.