weekend 29/30 mar 08

Posted 30 March 2008 By mac and has no comments yet.

pastas, pulses and pickles
Originally uploaded by ramtops

On Saturday, I set to with a will, and the determination to complete Project Kitchen. And I won!

  • All pulses and similar enjarred (apart from some odd pastas, where I simply ran out of jars).

  • The the shelves above the cooker – everything taken off, the shelves cleaned with bicarb, then steam cleaned, then new and different and more appropriate Stuff put on them. This was horrible, and involved me standing on a stool, which surprised perlmonger somewhat, as i get verdigris if I’m anything more than 12″ above the ground

  • the crockery cupboards were reorganised – all the bowls and jugs were sorted, and moved to a different cupboard, while the everyday plates were shifted to a cupboard of their own, where they should hopefully be more accessible

  • the shelves by the kitchen door were completely sorted, and now hold only “spare” stuff – all current foods are now properly organised into appropriate cupboards. I also found room on there for the bits of the Kitchenaid food mixer that I rarely use

  • moved said Kitchenaid to the other side of the kitchen – meaning that the Magimix is far more accessible, and the mixer is more usable

This – I think – concludes the kitchen reorganisation, and took me most of the day.

Supper was sausages, with red cabbage and roast potatoes.

Today perlmonger took himself off to the Bristol Cycle Path protest celebration, so I had the place to myself – lovely :) Went to the farm shop for Bits, did the washing, emptied the dishwasher, hoovered (well, yes – the Roomba did it for me), made a silverside potroast for dinner, and watched lots of Jericho – not quite sure whether I like it or not. It’s rather Lost-ish, but intriguing enough to keep watching.

And now to bed – I ache all over in a rather alarming pre-fluey sort of way, soI’m going to take a couple of pills and crash.

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prodded

Posted 26 March 2008 By mac and has no comments yet.

I’m very glad I wrote that last post. It reminded me that the bone from the lamb was sitting in the huge cast iron vat. On the top of the fridge, rather than on the gas, being made into stock.

That situation has now been corrected.

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balance of Easter weekend

By mac and has 5 comments.

We didn’t do much Sunday – ate a humungous fry up for brunch (lamb and rosemary sossidge, apple-smoked bacon, egg, black pudding, beans, sourdough toast), and then some nice fresh home made scones for supper. And slumped.

Monday I decided to go to Ikeal. Astonishingly, perlmonger elected to accompany me. The roads through Bristol were very quiet; this was because everybody in the area was already *at* Ikeal, and it was *packed*. Still, we trundled round, buying 2 wicker hampers to tidy up Under The Stairs, a plastic mat with fish on for the cats’ food bowls, a new step stool, two mats for by the patio doors, and some tealights.

Came home and cooked dinner. We bought half a salt marsh lamb last year, and so we decided to cook the leg (why did we only have one leg, when it was half a lamb? Was it deficient in the leg department?). This leg of lamb was *huge*. And utterly gorgeous. Studded it with garlic and rosemary, and bunged it in the oven with a good sloosh of red wine. Had it with green beans and garlic in tomatoes, and roasted spuds.

While it was in the oven, we did indeed clear out the horror under the stairs, and put down the new door mats. So Project House is continuing well.

Last night, perlmonger chopped the rest of the meat off the bone, and we minced up most of it. We cooked some into Madhur’s Ground Meat with Peas, which unaccountably I have not put online yet. There are two more tubs of mince in the freezer, and some sliced lamb in the fridge, so thats [counts] five exceedingly generous meals from that joint.

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Tescowatch (an occasional series)

Posted 25 March 2008 By mac and has 6 comments.

Yesterday, however, the 7,500 inhabitants of the town on the south Devon coast [Seaton] were readying themselves for a new battle after Tesco bought its largest employer, a holiday village, and promptly ordered its closure. The site also houses Seaton’s only nursery, catering for 35 children, and a swimming pool.

… If Tesco builds a store in Seaton it will be its tenth outlet within 22 miles. Residents have to travel 18 miles to reach one of its main competitors (Sainsbury’s, Asda or Morrisons), but there is a Waitrose seven miles away.

More here.

ah hah – no more cold turkey

Posted 23 March 2008 By mac and has no comments yet.

A quick look on eBay has brought forth 200g of catnip for the princely sum of £9, including postage.

Described as a *huge* bag – I doubt it’ll take our lot too long to get through it …

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Did you get the things we needed? (an occasional series)

By mac and has 1 comment.

We sallied off to Nailsea yesterday morning – it’s a nice little town that has most of what you might need for day to day stuff. I wanted to get some more catnip for the Tribe – they love it, but they want it in a herbal form. Sadly Aaron’s Pets didn’t have any, so the search continues (we are almost out of it). I also nipped (or popped) into the opticians to have my glasses adjusted *again*.

The rest of the haul included:

  • a new cutlery drainer to replace the ancient and horrible dark green plastic thing
  • a shoe cleaning kit wooden box, reduced to £6.50 in Woolies – been after something like this for *ages*
  • a small non-stick saucepan; I don’t like non-stick, but for scrambled eggs and white sauce they’re handy
  • cress, red chillis, eggs, beansprouts, new potatoes, cabbage from the greengrocer
  • 2 plastic bottles from the pound shop, to put my vinegar and lemon juice in (switching to a green cleaning regime, bit by bit)

Then we hurled round to Taste at Barrow Gurney, to pick up some rhubarb, and a couple of their most excellent pasties for lunch. Disaster! – all gone pasties :( So instead,

  • 2 crayfish tartlets – gorgeous, consumed with homemade lentil/tomato soup for lunch
  • some Parmeggiano Reggiano
  • a small sourdough loaf
  • apple smoked bacon
  • a stalk of teeny tiny vine tomatoes
  • organic milk

And that was that. Home for lunch, then the rest of the day was mostly slumpage for me after the disturbed sleep on Friday.

Supper was sublime – we did the Boy Oliver’s Hot and Sour Pork with Rhubarbe, and I recommend it most highly. Really, really lovely. And there’s enough left over to put a tub in he freezer.

Watched the first episode of Dirty Sexy Money, which was just bad enough to be good, if you know what I mean. And I Tivo’d The Day After Tomorrow, of which I had had such high hopes that I actually *paid* to go see it, and it was appalling. I might watch it this afternoon to see if it’s as bad as I remember.

Happy Easter, all!

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Saturday

Posted 22 March 2008 By mac and has 5 comments.

cooking bits and bobs
Originally uploaded by ramtops

I did the kitchen drawers, Removed everything from them, washed the drawers, the cutlery trays, and the contents. Have a box of Stuff to go to the charity shop; many different jar openers that don’t open jars, that kind of thing.

It all took a surprisingly long time, but I’m pleased it’s done.

perlmonger cooked us stir fried chard for supper, then we had more of the hot cross buns.

Not a good night’s sleep -I was awoken at 00:15 by an AA truck, whose driver parked up blocking our (narrow) road, and left his (very loud) engine running for about half an hour, while he did … something to a car down the road. Took me ages to get back to sleep, and when I did, some young people woke me again having a drunken row outside.

Yawn …

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a merry Good Friday to you all

Posted 21 March 2008 By mac and has 3 comments.

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to four days of doing what I want – I might do some work for clients, I might do some work for our sites, I might do NO WORK AT ALL if that’s what I feel like.

I plan to sort out the pulse cupboard – rice and lentils and nice and so forth. Oddments of packets and all that sort of stuff; I have lots of jars in readiness. I also want to do some spring cleaning type stuff, and maybe some gardening if the weather is good enough.

In the meantime, the Roomba is vacuuming the hall, I have hot cross buns rising ready for the oven, and last night I made my first moussaka evah – and it was gorgeous.

Have a good Easter break, everyone.

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yesterday’s cooking

Posted 19 March 2008 By mac and has 10 comments.

Last night, we had the Boy Oliver’s Pasta Bake – the one that’s been on the television ads, I added a yellow pepper, as we had one in the fridge that was going wrinkly. And we had no fresh red chillis, only green, so we deseeded a dried one and used that. My *word*, it was hot – even perlmonger thought so. But very nice indeed.

I also managed to use up the hateful beetroot, in a chocolate beetroot cake, which was very nice indeed, much nicer than you might think. Should the ghastly red beets even turn up again, I know what to do with them.

Large pot of lentil, veg and tomato soup also constructed, to assist in fending off the traditional Easter snowstorms.

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Well worth a look

Posted 17 March 2008 By mac and has 2 comments.

A set of photographs by Chris Jordan entitled Running the Numbers, An Americal Self-Portrait

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