Glad you are better today @Heavenlyannie , but your slow and bumpy recovery does make me wonder how some people have suggested that Johnson could be back at work next week. @MMM , that curry sounds wonderful even if I couldn’t eat the lamb. Maybe we should scratch a Croydon curry night after lockdown and all descend on you instead.
Today we are going to have a second attempt at our re-creation of Millais’ Ophelia. I’ve got to try to look more like Lizzie Siddal.
@MMM - your screen name is well chosen, as that's exactly what I thought when I read your post - mmm!
Laundry has been accomplished and is flapping about (actually, no it isn't, as there's hardly any wind) on the whirlygig. A little amble will ensue shortly, and then I'll have a consideration of tonight's supper.
After yesterday's delivery from M&S via my brother and s-i-l, the fridge is full to bursting, but tbh I'm still very much a beginner when it comes to pescatarian food, and would really prefer if the "pesc" bit could be confined to salmon or prawns - I don't think S. is ever going to turn me into a fish lover!
The tutorial went well, I was covering themes like a ‘good death’, autonomy in end of life care and the grieving process so some interesting reflections on how covid impacts on these.
Just look through Twitter for some re-creations, saw a great one of the Last Supper by a group of doctors and an inventive Henry Moore King and Queen in dark jumpers.
I saw one of the Moore King and Queens in the Glenkiln Sculpture Park in Scotland many years ago (no longer there after decapitation!) I think they would have been grateful for jumpers - in any colour - in such as exposed location!
I presume the "virtual wine tasting" means that you all taste wines at home and compare your experiences via Zoom,Skype or whatever; rather than all connecting and watching each other pouring virtual wine out of virtual bottles into virtual glasses and then virtually sipping and enjoying?
The former, of course! I don't know anyone who'd be interested in the latter option. Certainly not me or Mr Nen.
Today is a Zoom free day and I'm enjoying time in the garden and hoping to make some progress on a jigsaw that we broke out on the dining room table at Easter and have made very little progress with.
Japanese takeaway for tea, from one of our favourite restaurants. Mine was a Japanese-style chicken chow mien (!) accompanied by edamame beans, with some sake followed by mochi.
Pasta and pesto tonight. I accidently got far too much basil in my supermarket order so we had it last night too. Tonight's was better as my husband who made the pesto both nights remembered the garlic and used the pestle and mortar rather than a blender to make it.
We've been trying to have a weekly interfamily quiz via zoom, but tonight's didn't happen as husband didn't realise he'd been nominated to run it (perils of dyslexics and texts). It's been rescheduled for tomorrow night.
Nenlet1 and her husband do a quiz with friends every Friday evening and it sounds as though they have great fun.
I've had time in the garden and made a bit of progress with the puzzle. Tomorrow is a busy day - online church at 10.30, Zoom coffee afterwards with friends, Nen Family Catch Up at 1pm, another church meeting at 5pm. Mr Nen attends another meeting at 7pm but I'll have had enough by then and will be in front of the TV with cheese, biscuits and wine.
I had a nostalgic saturday today. Lunch was sausage, tomatoes and fried bread, in front of 1970s wrestling on the telly. Supper was apple and cheese with a crisp sandwich, malt loaf and a bottle of brown ale while watching Carry On Up The Khyber.
That makes me feel quite culturally virtuous - we watched The Favourite this evening, and it was really rather good - Olivia Colman definitely deserved her Oscar.
I made ratatouille with a yoghurt and Parmesan topping for supper; it was quite flavoursome, but I think next time I'll top it with a proper cheese sauce.
I sowed a variety of, mostly, salad seeds today, but I am a bit stuck for moving the plants I've already got growing on into permanent pots and tubs as I have a shortage of potting medium.
I have one big bag of multipurpose compost, but with four big pots to be filled for the tomatoes, an ex-recycling-box for cucumbers, one for salad leaves and one for herbs, and a couple of tubs for surplus courgette plants, that will not go far.
I have coir compost on order from two different sources, but no idea when they will arrive.
Elder Son has passed on to me Middle Grandson's 'old' iPhone, for the purposes of family video calling and WhatsApp messages, and is slowly teaching me how to use it - over the phone (landline, as this iPhone has no sim card).
Slowly, because I hate techno-kit, and it hates me!
Dinner tonight was a couple of confit Gressingham duck legs (courtesy of the Co-Op's reduced counter, as the box had been damaged). totally delicious, but not the wisest meal considering our health issues. Luckily confit duck isn't found the reduced counter very often, and I'm too mean to pay full price!
Three things you can almost guarantee will be in the near date section of the local Tesco are duck, salmon and seafood. The locals don't seem to trust anything that has been in water. I couldn't eat duck personally, I used to have a Welsh Harlequin that walked on a lead and followed me everywhere. As the late, great Tim Brooke Taylor said, a man's best friend is a duck.
Our local Tesco "reduced" chill cabinet invariably contains lots of fish; today number 1 son picked up 2 nets of mussels and 2 dozen oysters for under a tenner. Supper this evening was oysters, followed by moules mariniere (without cream) with pain rustique, followed by salad, then a homemade tarte au citron.
The "reduced" fruit and vegetable section also provides rich pickings: today it was overflowing with asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli, chantenay carrots and raspberries. Guess what features on the menu for tomorrow.
Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Sadly all the restaurants were closed but the bottle shop is open and provided a vintage Bollinger so we made the best of things 😎
The menu was constructed around the bottle:
Entrée: fish consommé with St Pierre and crustaceans
Main course: chicken in cream sauce with morilles (fancy mushrooms that I don't know the English name for) and asparagus
CHEESE: truffled Brillat-Savarin (which for connoisseurs is the only cheese one should serve with Champagne)
Dessert: a chocolate wonder from the good patissier (served with vintage port because chocolate with Champagne would be an aberration)
My stomach is now a bit tired. Husband en rouge had bought lamb to eat today but it's going in the freezer.
Happy Anniversary @la vie en rouge . Even though I'm a vegetarian that doesn't particularly like chocolate that sounds a lovely meal. I'd happily swig the champagne though. Are the mushrooms morels, sort of wrinkly dome shaped things?
It's our anniversary with my birthday two days later in two weeks time. We'd booked the poshest restaurant in the area which happens to be a French one. Last time we went their vegetarian options were pretty good, and this time they were promising a five course vegetarian dinner with accompanying wines. Hopefully we can re book for later in the year.
@la vie en rouge morilles are morels in English. Very rare because not farmed and not often found for sale because they can be confused with "false" morels, which are toxic.
Happy anniversary, La Vie and M. en rouge! Your celebratory banquet sounds amazing!
I think leftover ratatouille, perhaps with some extra CHEESE grated over the top will be on my culinary horizon this evening; there isn't really enough for two, so I'll suggest to S. that I could cook the other two sea-bass fillets for her, with potatoes and some of the humongous* asparagus spears that came with the groceries the other day.
It seems to be yet another lovely day; although there's a cloud or two scudding across the sky, it should be nice ambling weather.
* They really are - at the root end they're almost an inch across. Not so much "spears" as "tree trunks".
@TheOrganist I've learned something. As the French say, je dormirai moins bête (I shall be better educated when I go to sleep).
Meanwhile I saw a very nice recipe in the Grauniad for apricot and lemon curd CAKE. Having made said lemon curd thus afternoon, I am adding it to the list of things that Sounded Easier In The Recipe.
Yes, I like lemon curd but there are bits of the recipe I know that I find onerous, like rubbing sugar cubes across the lemon to collect all the zest oil.
Talking of Grauniad recipes, there is one in this Saturday's for pancakes made with gram flour then topped with stuff and finished in the oven. I have an under-used bag of the stuff so I shall give that a go for lunch and, if successful, scale it up for a dinner.
Talking of Grauniad recipes, there is one in this Saturday's for pancakes made with gram flour then topped with stuff and finished in the oven. I have an under-used bag of the stuff so I shall give that a go for lunch and, if successful, scale it up for a dinner.
Any chance of a link? I've also got a very good recipe for gram flour shortbread flavoured with rose & cardamom (and pistachio crust if you're that way inclined...)
I don't have gram flour, but I have lots of oats. Something nice I've been making is scrambled egg with oats in it, with nettles and wild garlic, that I pick when I walk in the woods.
We have taken to eating the Allium triquetrum (three cornered leeks) that are resident in our garden and spreading, in spite of constant weeding.
Eggs seem to like them, so they are now being added to scrambled eggs, omelettes and egg and mayo sandwiches, but they will soon be setting seed so will all have to be pulled up.
Not that there will be any fewer for culinary purposes next sping
I am finding lots of three cornered leeks in the woods as well as the regular wild garlic, so am picking and eating both kinds. I wonder if there is an easy way to get them to grow in my garden.
Funny you should mention wild garlic - one of S's neighbours mentioned on their Whatsapp group that there's wild garlic growing not far from here, and would we like some? I've never tried it, but I love the flavour of garlic, so it should be interesting.
We still had some elderly bananas, so I made another banana loaf this afternoon. It still sagged in the middle but it tastes fine.
In other news, did any of you watch the new Van der Valk tonight? We thought it was pretty good, but they rather messed about with the signature tune ...
Talking of Grauniad recipes, there is one in this Saturday's for pancakes made with gram flour then topped with stuff and finished in the oven. I have an under-used bag of the stuff so I shall give that a go for lunch and, if successful, scale it up for a dinner.
I had my eye on that recipe too and also a full bag of gram flour. Would definitely be interested to know how it turns out.
I don't think I've ever cooked with wild garlic, but I remember the woods in the school I was at being full of ransoms and bluebells in spring, and the scent of the bluebells mixing with the gentle aroma of garlic from the ransoms was something never to be forgotten! They are a much leafier plant than commercial garlic, and the leaves can be used for a milder flavour. You can grow them in a garden, but they tend to spread like wildfire.
My foodie son, when aged ten, picked wild garlic from the B&B we were staying in to wrap round his sausages. He said it was very nice. Our experiment with nettles the other week was OK, but not one I'd care to repeat too often, or perhaps we need a different recipe.
I've made gram flour pancakes a few times and have most of a packet of flour in the cupboard. I think they may well be on the menu this week. I'll go and track down the Guardian recipe.
I had a lovely walk with the pup in the woods today - I went really early so that we were on our own. His recall is suffering a bit due to the postponement of the op which, when it eventually happens, will take a weight off his mind! 😜
fineline: I guess it's illegal to dig up the bulbs from the wild, or gather the seed.
Three cornered leeks are rampant in gardens around here, and I'd willingly send you a bunch (depending on location), but they are so prolific I wouldn't recommend deliberately introducing them to your garden.
Piglet:
I watched Van Der Valk, having enjoyed it in the nineties (didn't watch much TV in the seventies, so probably not then).
I too missed 'Eye Level', and also Barry Foster's curls - but mostly the Amsterdam of those days. Apart from the canal it could have been anywhere.
It also seemed quite a bit 'darker' than the earlier series, as I recall it, but that is the style modern taste seems to dictate.
My foodie son, when aged ten, picked wild garlic from the B&B we were staying in to wrap round his sausages. He said it was very nice. Our experiment with nettles the other week was OK, but not one I'd care to repeat too often, or perhaps we need a different recipe.
I've made gram flour pancakes a few times and have most of a packet of flour in the cupboard. I think they may well be on the menu this week. I'll go and track down the Guardian recipe.
I wonder if nettles would work like spinach in a saagwala curry? 🤔
Funny you should mention wild garlic - one of S's neighbours mentioned on their Whatsapp group that there's wild garlic growing not far from here, and would we like some? I've never tried it, but I love the flavour of garlic, so it should be interesting.
We still had some elderly bananas, so I made another banana loaf this afternoon. It still sagged in the middle but it tastes fine.
In other news, did any of you watch the new Van der Valk tonight? We thought it was pretty good, but they rather messed about with the signature tune ...
On the banana loaf topic, having had similar disappointments I made an interesting discovery. I bought a set of four mini loaf tins and shared the normal amount of mixture between them and have had the best banana bread ever since!
I enjoyed the 'original' Van der Valk series, and, as it happens, spent quite a lot of time in The Netherlands (mostly, but not entirely, in Amsterdam) during the 70s.
It's been the best part of 25 years, though, since I last visited what I used to think of as one of the most attractive cities in Europe, so I hope it hasn't changed too much for the worse!
Has anybody tried "rhubarb broccoli" i.e. the rhubarb flower. I usually remove these ASAP and chuck them on the compost heap, but our veg box supplier suggests breaking them into small florets and using them in omelettes etc.
Never thought of doing that... I have a nasty feeling most of mine are in the compost heap right now, though.
BF, I suspect that Amsterdam has got a lot more touristy since you were there last but, despite visiting on cricket tour where there was a fairly heavy emphasis on late-night drinking, I found it somewhere that's very easy to find charming out of the way corners with off-the-wall stuff there.
BF, I suspect that Amsterdam has got a lot more touristy since you were there last but, despite visiting on cricket tour where there was a fairly heavy emphasis on late-night drinking, I found it somewhere that's very easy to find charming out of the way corners with off-the-wall stuff there.
AG
Thx - the charming corners, and off-the-wall stuff, were (and are) part of the attraction! Along with barges, and trams...
Thanks for all the info about wild garlic; I love that the binomial name allium ursinum means "bear garlic". @Roseofsharon - I agree that Van der Valk was a lot "darker" than the 70s version; I think Amsterdam looks wonderful (I've never been there, but it's making me want to). The tune is Eye Level, but only just - it's been quite drastically rearranged!
I suppose it would be too much to expect a 2020s crime drama to feature a policeman who's happily married to a lovely wife (and doesn't sleep with the suspects) ...
I still haven't tried a nettle recipe and will ask an innocent question... When we were young we distinguished between stinging nettles and dead nettles, which didn't sting. Which one is edible? Having said that, I don't think there are any of either kind around here at all.
Comments
@MMM , that curry sounds wonderful even if I couldn’t eat the lamb. Maybe we should scratch a Croydon curry night after lockdown and all descend on you instead.
Today we are going to have a second attempt at our re-creation of Millais’ Ophelia. I’ve got to try to look more like Lizzie Siddal.
"It's enough to congeal yer
Posing for Ophelia"
Laundry has been accomplished and is flapping about (actually, no it isn't, as there's hardly any wind) on the whirlygig. A little amble will ensue shortly, and then I'll have a consideration of tonight's supper.
After yesterday's delivery from M&S via my brother and s-i-l, the fridge is full to bursting, but tbh I'm still very much a beginner when it comes to pescatarian food, and would really prefer if the "pesc" bit could be confined to salmon or prawns - I don't think S. is ever going to turn me into a fish lover!
Just look through Twitter for some re-creations, saw a great one of the Last Supper by a group of doctors and an inventive Henry Moore King and Queen in dark jumpers.
I saw one of the Moore King and Queens in the Glenkiln Sculpture Park in Scotland many years ago (no longer there after decapitation!) I think they would have been grateful for jumpers - in any colour - in such as exposed location!
As regards @Heavenlyannie's tutorial, just how much more appropriate or timely could you get?
Well done, indeed.
<notworthy>
The former, of course! I don't know anyone who'd be interested in the latter option. Certainly not me or Mr Nen.
Today is a Zoom free day and I'm enjoying time in the garden and hoping to make some progress on a jigsaw that we broke out on the dining room table at Easter and have made very little progress with.
Now, where's the corkscrew?
*hic*
We've been trying to have a weekly interfamily quiz via zoom, but tonight's didn't happen as husband didn't realise he'd been nominated to run it (perils of dyslexics and texts). It's been rescheduled for tomorrow night.
I've had time in the garden and made a bit of progress with the puzzle. Tomorrow is a busy day - online church at 10.30, Zoom coffee afterwards with friends, Nen Family Catch Up at 1pm, another church meeting at 5pm. Mr Nen attends another meeting at 7pm but I'll have had enough by then and will be in front of the TV with cheese, biscuits and wine.
I made ratatouille with a yoghurt and Parmesan topping for supper; it was quite flavoursome, but I think next time I'll top it with a proper cheese sauce.
I have one big bag of multipurpose compost, but with four big pots to be filled for the tomatoes, an ex-recycling-box for cucumbers, one for salad leaves and one for herbs, and a couple of tubs for surplus courgette plants, that will not go far.
I have coir compost on order from two different sources, but no idea when they will arrive.
Elder Son has passed on to me Middle Grandson's 'old' iPhone, for the purposes of family video calling and WhatsApp messages, and is slowly teaching me how to use it - over the phone (landline, as this iPhone has no sim card).
Slowly, because I hate techno-kit, and it hates me!
Dinner tonight was a couple of confit Gressingham duck legs (courtesy of the Co-Op's reduced counter, as the box had been damaged). totally delicious, but not the wisest meal considering our health issues. Luckily confit duck isn't found the reduced counter very often, and I'm too mean to pay full price!
The "reduced" fruit and vegetable section also provides rich pickings: today it was overflowing with asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli, chantenay carrots and raspberries. Guess what features on the menu for tomorrow.
The menu was constructed around the bottle:
Entrée: fish consommé with St Pierre and crustaceans
Main course: chicken in cream sauce with morilles (fancy mushrooms that I don't know the English name for) and asparagus
CHEESE: truffled Brillat-Savarin (which for connoisseurs is the only cheese one should serve with Champagne)
Dessert: a chocolate wonder from the good patissier (served with vintage port because chocolate with Champagne would be an aberration)
My stomach is now a bit tired. Husband en rouge had bought lamb to eat today but it's going in the freezer.
We’re about to go to a Zoom meeting at church and then I envisage a very lazy day as we are feeling quite drained. Possibly some board games.
It's our anniversary with my birthday two days later in two weeks time. We'd booked the poshest restaurant in the area which happens to be a French one. Last time we went their vegetarian options were pretty good, and this time they were promising a five course vegetarian dinner with accompanying wines. Hopefully we can re book for later in the year.
Happy Anniversary - the meal sounds wonderful.
I think leftover ratatouille, perhaps with some extra CHEESE grated over the top will be on my culinary horizon this evening; there isn't really enough for two, so I'll suggest to S. that I could cook the other two sea-bass fillets for her, with potatoes and some of the humongous* asparagus spears that came with the groceries the other day.
It seems to be yet another lovely day; although there's a cloud or two scudding across the sky, it should be nice ambling weather.
* They really are - at the root end they're almost an inch across. Not so much "spears" as "tree trunks".
Meanwhile I saw a very nice recipe in the Grauniad for apricot and lemon curd CAKE. Having made said lemon curd thus afternoon, I am adding it to the list of things that Sounded Easier In The Recipe.
Any chance of a link? I've also got a very good recipe for gram flour shortbread flavoured with rose & cardamom (and pistachio crust if you're that way inclined...)
And also Jack Monroe's gram pasta recipe
I too have a bag of gram flour I'm using for pakora various, but could use better.
Eggs seem to like them, so they are now being added to scrambled eggs, omelettes and egg and mayo sandwiches, but they will soon be setting seed so will all have to be pulled up.
Not that there will be any fewer for culinary purposes next sping
We still had some elderly bananas, so I made another banana loaf this afternoon. It still sagged in the middle
In other news, did any of you watch the new Van der Valk tonight? We thought it was pretty good, but they rather messed about with the signature tune ...
ETA link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_ursinum
AG
I've made gram flour pancakes a few times and have most of a packet of flour in the cupboard. I think they may well be on the menu this week. I'll go and track down the Guardian recipe.
Three cornered leeks are rampant in gardens around here, and I'd willingly send you a bunch (depending on location), but they are so prolific I wouldn't recommend deliberately introducing them to your garden.
Piglet:
I watched Van Der Valk, having enjoyed it in the nineties (didn't watch much TV in the seventies, so probably not then).
I too missed 'Eye Level', and also Barry Foster's curls - but mostly the Amsterdam of those days. Apart from the canal it could have been anywhere.
It also seemed quite a bit 'darker' than the earlier series, as I recall it, but that is the style modern taste seems to dictate.
I wonder if nettles would work like spinach in a saagwala curry? 🤔
On the banana loaf topic, having had similar disappointments I made an interesting discovery. I bought a set of four mini loaf tins and shared the normal amount of mixture between them and have had the best banana bread ever since!
It's been the best part of 25 years, though, since I last visited what I used to think of as one of the most attractive cities in Europe, so I hope it hasn't changed too much for the worse!
BF, I suspect that Amsterdam has got a lot more touristy since you were there last but, despite visiting on cricket tour where there was a fairly heavy emphasis on late-night drinking, I found it somewhere that's very easy to find charming out of the way corners with off-the-wall stuff there.
AG
Thx - the charming corners, and off-the-wall stuff, were (and are) part of the attraction! Along with barges, and trams...
@Roseofsharon - I agree that Van der Valk was a lot "darker" than the 70s version; I think Amsterdam looks wonderful (I've never been there, but it's making me want to). The tune is Eye Level, but only just - it's been quite drastically rearranged!
I suppose it would be too much to expect a 2020s crime drama to feature a policeman who's happily married to a lovely wife (and doesn't sleep with the suspects) ...