Tag Archives: vegetables

Day 74

On reaching home (after a journey featuring many red lights – I am definitely paying for my satisfaction at so many greens last week) – I started on pizza. Or, to be accurate, I started slicing vegetables for the topping – all the hard work had been done by the supermarket, who had provided the bases in a convenient, though ecologically disastrous, plastic bag.

Green peppers, spring onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and bacon – the theme being “oddments I found in the fridge”. I then made a green salad consisting of ten sorts of vegetable-based food source. Rocket (arugula), spinach, coriander (cilantro), pumpkin seeds, olives, tomatoes, spring onions, celery, cucumber and pomegranate seeds. I’m fairly sure that even the most desperate counter would not include sesame oil and lime juice, though I did add some. Still not sure if flour in the pizza base counts, though I’ve already covered it by eating sandwiches if it does. If you can count oatmeal in porridge, wheat flour in bread should count.

When Julia eventually returned home, after yet another unsatisfactory staff meeting, I popped the pizza in the oven and we had hot, nutritious food. If only all our meals were this good, fresh and timely. I would add “additive free” but sadly the tomato sauce was from a jar and the pizza bases were baked by a factory, so this probably isn’t true.

We had two excited men in the shop. They had a 1921 Gorge V penny which, according to eBay, is worth £41,000. That merely, of course, means that some idiot/con man/money launderer has put a penny up for sale at £41,000. It hasn’t sold and it isn’t worth that, but that’s not what people see when they read the story. We must have had a dozen calls this week on the same theme.

They wouldn’t believe the shop owner that it wasn’t valuable, and they wouldn’t leave, so to get rid of them he went through a bag of pennies and gave them one with the identical date. At that point you could see it dawning on them that people just don’t give you a coin if it really is worth £41,000. I suppose you could say that the penny dropped . . .

(I have included a link to the dictionary as I’m not sure if that is an American expression or not).

Coins in the picture are half-pennies of Elizabeth II. They were the first pre-decimal coins I found when looking for George V pennies. They aren’t rare either, so I thought it would do.

Day 50

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What a nice round number. You can almost imagine Number 50 wearing a waistcoat and a watch chain, can’t you? Or maybe that’s just me.

I had a go at celery soup today, as I have been threatening for weeks. I got the celery out and searched for a potato . . .

There are none. My attempt to reduce carbs and wrinkly veg has left us with no spuds. That’s why the soup is very orange. In the end I didn’t use celery, because in my search for potatoes I found several bags of carrots. I decided that carrot and ginger soup sounded nice, and the celery plan was, once more, put on hold.

In went half a leek (I had one hanging about and couldn’t be bothered to peel an onion). Then the end of a bag of carrots, garlic paste, stock cube, some swede to take some of the sweetness out of the carrots, and some ginger. Not enough ginger, as it turns out, as you can’t actually taste it. Maybe I should have gone with the thyme. The only thing that stopped me was fear of overkill but now, on looking it up, I find there are recipes for carrot, ginger and thyme soup. Presumably these were written by people like me who throw stuff at a pot and seek to justify it later. I really ought to take a more serious attitude to soup and start with a recipe instead of a pile of random ingredients.

However, as random as my soup is, it still has a long way to go before it becomes as bizarre as some of these soups.

The soup in the header picture is a swede, carrot and parsnip soup. Not the restrained colour. Now look at the one below, which is today’s soup.

Carrot & Ginger Soup

Day 8

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Up late, quick breakfast and off to work. Still first to arrive. Got a parking space, though customers from the hairdressers had used the spaces in front of the shop and parked two cars in three spaces. As usual, fought off the urge to park in front of the hairdresser and see how they like it.

We packed the parcels, I put two medallions on (one an Alcan medallion which features the Kitimat smelting plant and the Kemano power plant. It’s all very interesting, and proves, once more, the benefits of collecting for expanding the mind.

During the morning Julia texted to tell me I had a small package. At first I thought she was just being generally disparaging about my physical attributes, but further reading revealed that the Post Office had delivered a small package for me at the house. It just goes to show how modern written communications can be misunderstood.

Today was my day to have a half day, so I went home at 1am. For lunch we had the last of the Spiced Sweet Potato soup followed by the leftover vegetable stew and red cabbage from the last two days. For tea we had potato and paneer curry. I am now made up of such a high percentage of vegetables that a vegetarian cannibal could eat me without troubling his conscience.

This state of affairs won’t last – I’m planning on eggs and bacon for breakfast

and a roasted gammon joint for tea. We put two gammon joints in the freezer in case the reported possibility of Christmas food shortages became real, but they didn’t. Experience shows that if we leave them in there we will forget about them, so we are going to start eating them as part of a determined freezer clearance exercise.

Soup

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I made more soup this week, using a 1kg pack of frozen casserole mix from TESCO. It comes ready chopped and by the time it has been left to thaw in the fridge for 2 days all the veg is nice and soft and doesn’t take as lot of cooking. It cost £1, which is probably expensive compared to buying the veg separately, but cheap when you consider the time it saved me chopping and cleaning up.

Recipe: Boil the bag of veg with stock and seasonings, liquidise, dilute, eat. Or drink. We had a discussion at work about that – do you eat soup or drink it? My view is that you eat it if you use a spoon, but drink it if you sup it directly out of a receptacle. Anyone have any other views on what is a long-running topic in the shop? (We tend to avoid politics and religion in favour of coin design, soup consumption and the various roadworks in the city).

It came out a little bit beige, due, I think, to the presence of potato and swede and the low quantity of carrot. Apart from that, the basic soup turned out well. The seasoning left a little to be desired as I used garlic, ginger, lime juice and too much chilli. I must buy lemons, as the lime isn’t quite right. I must also restrain my tendency to add a bit more chilli. It never looks to be enough. However, a little goes a long way and soup is supposed to be nutritious rather than a test of fortitude.

Quantity? Well, I had a soup flask of it for lunch yesterday (a bowl and a half or thereabouts) and we had two bowls of it last night for tea. We will be having it for lunch today and for lunch tomorrow (I’m trying to cut more bread out). After that I think we should be about finished, though lunch on Friday is a possibility.

Tips for next time – only use half the bag, add a carrot and use less chilli. Possibly add turmeric, which is always good to bring the colour up.

Making soup always reminds me of the soup sessions we used to do on the farm. I used to do one with schools making vegetable soup from a supermarket bag. Out of a dozen kids it was rare that you could get more than one or two to taste the soup. They claimed to eat soup at home, but didn’t trust anything that had been made in front of them from vegetables, stock cubes and water. They preferred “proper soup” from a can or sachet.

A Cheap and Easy Meal

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Take a bag of ready chopped stir-fry veg, a pack of noodles and some sauce. Put them in a wok, mix them together and let them heat through.

It takes ten minutes, is very simple and is safe for those of us with poor knife skills.

I ordered it from TESCO as a special offer package deal on our last Click & Collect order but they didn’t have any sauce so they just sent me the veg and noodles. I wasn’t happy and really, if they don’t have all three offer items, they shouldn’t just send you two. Fortunately I had suitable sauce so we were OK.

Cost about £2 for two large portions. It could have been cheaper if we’d cut our own veg into little strips but a few pence seems good value to avoid cutting my fingers. It’s healthy, though I’m sure the sauce has a lot of sugar in it.

Stir Fry Vegetables

Note how I have avoided mentioning flavour. It’s quite bland, even with a good helping of plum sauce, and the bean sprouts can be overpowering. It would probably benefit from some prawns or meat, but as we are trying to cut down our meat consumption, we are trying to like the taste of vegetables.

That isn’t quite fair, as I do like the taste of carrots, parsnips, peas, beans, chickpeas, broccoli, cabbage and onions, to name just a few. It’s bean sprouts I’m not that keen on, they are watery and they somehow seem to kill the flavour of the meal. They aren’t just tasteless, they seem to drain flavour and make everything else seem less tasty. When we are doing our own stir fry we tend not to use them, though I suppose we really should start growing our own as they are cheap and easy.

Another Routine Sunday

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I eventually prised myself from bed just after mid-morning. I had been up earlier but my back was so stiff I’d gone back to bed to get some warmth and do some straightening exercises. At that point I fell asleep and, as I say, reluctantly emerged. I’m tempted to say “like a butterfly from a chrysalis” but that wouldn’t be an entirely accurate picture.

We breakfasted on what was supposed to be smashed avocado and eggs on toast but Julia is such a gentle soul the avos were no more than moderately roughed up. It’s a shameful thing to do, offering any sort of violence to an avocado – they should really be filled with prawns and thousand island dressing. Or mayonnaise with ketchup, which is my version. However, this is the modern way and Julia likes it so who am I to complain?

After that we had toast and marmalade whilst watching The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was the 1988 TV version with Jeremy Brett. I like him as Holmes, but there are several other versions of the story which I prefer. Holmes really should be in black and white.

Then it was off to the laundry for Julia and off to the supermarket for me.

Shopping

The laundry was crowded, because it was a dull wet day. The supermarket was not crowded, but the people in it all seemed to be on a mission to get in my way.

That was the first part of then day. On our return I wrote the first 240 words in twenty minutes as I cooked pie and beans for a meal that was a mixture of late lunch and early tea.

View from the Driving Seat

I then frittered the rest of the afternoon in front of a fire, watching quizzes, snoozing and drinking tea. No, not all at the same time.

It is now 8.00. Washing up is done, the roast vegetable as are in the oven for tonight’s meal and the ones for tomorrow are boiling as I type. We will be having gravy tonight as we eat roast veg, Lincolnshire sausages and Yorkshire puddings.

Monday night’s veg will, with the addition of last night’s rice (which is currently frozen, to avoid food poisoning) and some other bits, will provide another go at veggie burgers. I will have two on Tuesday night with ratatouille (Julia is dining out for a birthday celebration) and on Wednesday we will both have veggie burgers and ratatouille. My capacity for repetition of meals means I can happily eat the same thing for three or four days if necessary.

You could chart my life from pictures like these

The timer just went off – time for a trip to the kitchen, where mounds of steaming vegetables are waiting for me.

Later I will return to load some photos and publish the post.

The writing has taken 37 minutes according to the kitchen timers I had running at the time. I bet the photos and Tagss take at least another 20, if not more.

This blog hates me – it’s just taken twelve trouble-free minutes to do the photos and Tags. It’s trying to make me look like a liar by doing everything the easy way…

More of the Same

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More parcels. More London School Attendance Medals. More rain.

I have moved on, from the London School Board to London County Council. Edward VII has given way to George V. The medals have become smaller and hang from colourful ribbons. But the tedium remains the same.

Fortunately the World of WordPress beckons and everything seems so much better when I am at home. Tonight I am going to catch up on some WordPress Reading. I’ve been lazy recently and need to get round and see what people are doing.

Goldfinch Concert in Sherwood

Three Hours Later…

We’ve eaten (Vegeburgers, jacket potato and roasted aubergines, onions, courgettes and tomatoes – all from the garden). We’ve chatted. Julia has had several texts from work – they have a fixation about texting on Fridays. She has made some pithy comments. We spoke to her brother, who rang for a chat. Finally I made it back to the computer and realised I hadn’t done any reading.

The aubergines, or eggplants as the Americans say, are a miniature variety and the first real success we’ve had with them as our seasons are a little short and unsunny for them.

I have caught up with Laurie in Maine and Whippet Wisdom in Scotland but the rest of you, I’m afraid, have been neglected yet again. I will do better!

I have to go now as we are in negotiations about who makes the next cup of tea and I need all my wits about me.

Main picture is a pigeon from the park. The others are the Goldfinch that sang for us earlier in the week.

Not where you’s expect to see a songbird in full song…

An Easy Meal

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Cut some veg into bits.

Tonight I used sweet potatoes, carrots, swedes, onions and sprouts.

Oil them and chuck them in the oven for 30-40 minutes at 180 C (250 F or Gas Mark 4)

Then add the chicken thighs.

Give it another 30-40 minutes.

Whip up some gravy (Julia insists on gravy) and serve, pretending it’s a proper roast dinner.

Make a mental note that next time I’ll put the sprouts in at the same time as the chicken.

The timings are approximate, as I was watching the Strictly Come Dancing results. That’s why it looks a bit burnt. I think burnt food is more tasty. Apart from sprouts. Burnt sprouts aren’t an improvement.

So there you go – roast dinner, negligible thought or work.

My sort of meal.

Loose Ends

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The header picture shows the bag of oats Julia bought from Heckington. They are produced at the Maud Foster Mill in Boston (yes, American readers, we have one too). She is determined that I am going to benefit from slow-release carbs and extra roughage in the coming year.

You’d have thought they would have stocked oats from their own mill, but it seems not.

I’m thinking of doing a series of posts on mills as there are plenty in Lincolnshire, and the surrounding counties, with many of them having tearooms attached. I’m trying to work a joke into posts/mills, or post mills but it’s not quite working yet. I’ll work on it as I think the world of mill blogs needs a joke or two.

Today’s work consisted mainly of washing windows and serving customers. This is a picture of the new shop, illuminated by sunlight streaming in through the newly cleaned windows. Once the building work is finished they are going to allow me to clean all the glass in counters and cabinets. As you can see, there will be a lot of work.

The new Collectors’ World in Nottingham

After work, we had roasted vegetables with belly pork and kale. It marks the start of my new healthy eating campaign. Well, healthyish. It’s a start.

Belly pork with roasted vegetables and kale

A Day for Small Jobs

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I started off by delivering Julia into servitude at 8.30 this morning. She’s not fond of Thursdays as she has to rush across town at 4pm to get from one job to another before finally being allowed home at 8pm.

Then I went to Newark. It was cold, business was non-existent and the tale of the last two weeks was one of cold, snow and poverty. After an exchange of cards, a cup of tea and a laugh about old times (there’s nothing to laugh about at the moment) I went browsing in W H Smiths looking for writing paper. I didn’t find any. The notes in my Christmas cards will, as a result, be written on paper torn from a spiral-bound notebook. To be fair, this is a more accurate reflection of me than smart writing paper.

A trip round Wilkos netted a tin of Vaseline lip-care products for Julia, a bucket of fat balls for the birds for £4 and a chicken and stuffing sandwich for £1. Yes, I know, I’m not supposed to be eating bread. However, as I’d already treated my self to a sausage and onion cob for breakfast I didn’t think a chicken sandwich was going to do too much extra damage, either to my waistline or my digestion.

From there it was a quick trip to the doctor to put in some prescription requests and on to TESCO for healthy veg and new gloves.

Resisting the urge to go home I visited the shop to drop off Christmas cards to my new colleagues (I’m such a creep) and helped with the delivery of two new cabinets for the new shop. It’s starting to take shape.

I then went home, supposedly to post on the blog but actually to engage in a variety of displacement activities, including sleeping in front of the TV, watching TV, checking ebay, picking Julia up from work, browsing the internet, writing notes to go in Christmas cards and warming up soup. I was tempted to say “cooking” but I’m pretty sure preparing soup and a sandwich isn’t cooking. We normally have something more substantial but after a day that saw us both deviating from our diets we thought we’d cut back a bit.

I even managed to do a bit of reading, having bought the Kindle edition of Maya and the Book of Everything by Laurie Graves. It’s going quite well so far. We’re right into the action and moving along nicely and there’s no boring stuff about chivalry or whales. She is therefore already ahead of Cervantes and Melville in my estimation. On the minus side there’s a definite lack of talking animals, though Sir John Oldcastle is about to make an appearance. I like Sir John.

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Life after the Care Farm