Superb food from great blogs: Chef at Large – Sid’s Meat and Oatmeal Stew
I found some Tesco Finest British 28 day matured beef rump steak at the weekend. It was half price in the condemned food counter. I was shopping with Seraphina and she goggled when I filled my basket with loads of root vegetables to pad it out and make a stew. However this didn’t really appeal when I returned home. The good thing about root vegetables is if they are stored at a low temperature they keep very well. Our lean to barn is perfect. So I hung the bags of vegetables in the barn as I’d decided to cook something completely...
read moreNot feeling very well tonight
The decorating is going well but suddenly I have broken out in an itchy rash that is slowly driving me nuts, so I’m off to bed with the Min Pins and an inorganic hottie. We still have snow on the ground here in the village. Danny went on a 240 mile round trip to the M4 corridor today. He saw no snow from the time he left until he returned to the cottage. It’s nice but a bit tawdry now, just like our kitchen before I began painting it. By this time next week the snow should be gone and the cottage kitchen should be glistening.
read moreHow to increase the light in your home with a paint that reflects up to twice the light
One of the depressing things about being a decorator is making other peoples’ houses look beautiful and not having time to decorate our cottage. As a decorator, my eye is instinctively drawn to the necessary repairs and the state of the paintwork as this can contribute significantly to the labour costs and could spell disaster if I don’t spot them on the assessment visit. I can’t switch this off when I walk through the cottage door and have been longing to decorate our kitchen for over a year. It’s quite a big job because we have...
read moreBest great budget recipes for 50% or less: Crispy fried sprats recipe
When I lived in London I often ordered whitebait as a starter. I thought that they had to be deep fried and would be a palaver to rustle up at home. Also I rarely found them in the shops. Eventually I discovered that they can be fried in a little oil and were fun to prepare shaken in a bag of seasoned flour. Danny sprang in through the front door brandishing a 450g bag of sprats last week. Reduced from £2.49 to just 36p. I have never tried sprats. It’s the sort of dish that I imagined Peggotty’s family would sit down to in their converted...
read moreUpdate on our Senior Min Pin – Dr Quito
When Dr Q returned from the vet last month after his dental drama he was furious with me. It was the first time that I had seen any of our dogs looking really hurt and angry. I had, after all, taken him to the vet on that fateful day. Danny had collected him and paid the bill. So I was clearly the baddy. The black jet eyes were blazing. Despite the after care pills he was clearly in pain He lay in an igloo basket on a chair beside the warm wood burning stove for four days, with brief trips to the garden to relieve himself. Twice a day he ate...
read moreGuest Spot: Sam Raithatha’s veggie lasagna recipe (without pasta!)
Do you remember that I wrote about Sam’s. The best fast food takeaway in Newmarket and maybe all of Britain (back at the end of November?) Sam’s spotless wagon serves only organic food and feeds the hundreds of tradesmen and a lot of other discerning visitors that just drive into Ridgeon’s car park to scoff his food. He also runs Queen’s the event company. Well it turns out that he’s also an enthusiastic vegetarian chef. I just had to have a ‘Sam fix’ yesterday lunchtime. Luckily I needed to buy paint so motored over to...
read moreThe face of the sun
“Is that sun made of gold?” The little boy was five. I was living in a two up two down cottage in the next village. But in that wonderful fairy tale world of childhood, I could easily have an eighteen inch gold sun face hanging on my kitchen wall. I bought this brass sun face about twenty years ago, on a visit to Devon. It was quite expensive as it was made in an Indian community supported by the Dartington Hall Trust, where craftsmen were paid a decent amount for their artefacts. It glittered on the wall of their shop. I had to buy...
read moreBest great budget recipes for 50% or less: Cottage Smallholder 2009 Challenge January review
So how did we do? This is quite a tough challenge as it involves buying ingredients for 50% or less or being given food. Luckily D is honing his hunting skills at the Tesco condemned food counter and I am happy to try any transform these ingredients into something tasty. Or bung them in the freezer until we have enough to make a meal. When I go shopping my trolley whizzes to the CFC in Tesco before I venture anywhere else. In the other supermarkets my eyes are now trained to spot the small red labels that indicate marked down prices. This...
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