Another day

Good morning all It was a bit blowy yesterday but nothing unusual we seem to miss out on the horrid weather down in this little corner of the country.  What we don't miss out on is the cold coming from Siberia when that arrives.  Yesterday I had a peaceful day pottering but I am having one of my dizzy, nauseated turns and everything and everywhere smells of petrol which is horrid.  Fortunately, I have some of the medication left and have started taking it.  Each time this happens it seems to be for less and less time so I am hoping that it will continue in this way.  I should have smelled a rat when I had an earache a couple of days ago which is usually a precursor.  That I am going deaf is one thing but I really don't need the additional symptoms to go with it. Ok, I am going to keep this short as moving my head up and down is making me feel pretty sick.  I have a coffee and I think I will take it back up to bed with me and wait for the ...

Good morning all a bit wet and windy this morning but nothing dramatic just miserable.  Yesterday's good intentions came to nought by the time I had showered, changed the bed linen and cooked the lunch I had run out of gas.  So for supper, I fell back on the wonderful rice paper pancakes I had cooked some chicken thighs so they got stripped and an assortment of salad bits where shredded and the peanut sauce made the whole thing taking all of 5 minutes to prepare.  Then it was every man for himself and we each built our own summer rolls.  So, did the floor get washed? sadly not so it is on the list of chores for today.  Mind you with the rain I think it might be silly as the dogs are in and out and will just make the floors filthy.  I might just run a cloth over the worst bits and call it quits. This will make you laugh, last night I decided I was having a heart attack as I had the most awful pain in my left arm and there was no position in which it was...

Good morning all, sorry about yesterday but I overslept and had to make a dash for breakfast with Sandy.  I didn’t get home until lunch time and by then it was too late.  Anyway you may be interested in my foray into Korean fried chicken.  It has a slightly different method as the meat is first marinated in soy and stuff then directly into cornflour and then double fried before being tossed in a sweet sauce made with the marinade and the Korean chilli paste.  As I was unsure of the degree of spiciness I was tentative with the paste.  As it turned out it was not as vicious as I anticipated and was well within our comfort levels. When you see bright red chilli paste you automatically assume mind-blowing spiciness. This was as you can imagine delicious but quite a calorie-heavy meal but once in a while worth the effort. Needless to say, I managed to find two irresistible things in the butchers first real ossobuco and secondly real pork chops from proper f...

Good morning all another chilly start to the day but not freezing.  I had a lovely day in the kitchen yesterday and after skinning I chopped the haddock up into jumbo fish finger sizes then egg and breadcrumbed and shallow fried them - they were delicious dunked into a homemade tartar sauce.  For supper, as it was just James and I, we went halves on a large baked sweet potato.  Neither of us like sweet potato so I scooped out the flesh and added spring onion and cheese to it before putting it back in the skins and covering with more cheese and flashing under the grill.  There was enough cheese to cover the sweetness of the potato and a bit of green salad made it tolerable. This morning my mind is blank I have no idea what we are going to have today.  I have some braised daikon radish so I really need something to go with it.  Perhaps some sticky chicken or better still crispy chicken if I can be bothered.  Either way, I will ha...

Good morning all, a gentle day yesterday with a dash to get a couple of needed ingredient.  What for you ask?  Well, I am going to have a go at making a homemade medicine.  It includes all those things supposed to be beneficial so garlic, fresh turmeric, ginger, chilli and black pepper, cloves and cinnamon all submerged in cider vinegar and allowed to ferment.  I have a shrewd idea it will taste terrible but isn’t that what medicine is supposed to do. Actually, I think it should be called a tonic rather than medicine. I also had braised daikon for the first time and I must say that it was delicious.  It took 2.5 hours of gentle simmering to get it tender but definitely worth it.  This is something I will be doing again.  I only did a couple of pieces and now I wish I had done more. This picture is taken from the recipe  On the menu today I have a beautiful fillet of haddock which I intend to simply pan fry in butter.  This ...

Good morning all a bit warmer this morning but the forecast keeps threatening us with all sorts of mayhem from storms to snow but as yet nothing interesting has happened. Yesterday I finally made the trip to Woolwich and the oriental shop and wow what an assortment of stuff none of which I have the first idea about.  Anyway, I have stocked up on things I do understand like soy sauce which costs the same for a litre as it does for a tiny bottle in the supermarket.  As I have been looking at lots of Korean recipes there is one ingredient which seems to find its way into every dish and that is the red chilli paste.  Well, now I have some so I can attempt some of the dishes.  By the time we got back, it was lunch time so we sat and ate the char siu pork and a portion of kimchi which while spicy is not the blow your head off type spicy.  I had ordered some meat from the alternative meat company and that had arrived so I had lots of putting away to do but in the ...

Good morning all a tiny bit warmer this morning after a really cold day yesterday.  Once you get cold it is really hard to get warm again especially if you are not able to run around.  In the end, I decided to make burgers for the boys and I had some stuffed mushrooms and then with the pork mince I made oriental type meatballs which I poached in some stock and served with my favourite vegetable, curly kale.  This kale came from Riverford and so had not been chopped to pieces like the supermarket stuff.  This meant I could remove the tough centre stem of the leaf and just lightly cook the leaf.  I have bought some of the supermarket stuff and then spent 20 minutes picking through it to remove the tough stalks.  Why do they do that?  If you cook it straight from the packet it takes ages to soften the tough stuff by which time the delicate leaf is destroyed.   Today I am hoping that Denzil is going to take me to See Woo the oriental grocer ...

Good morning all, well the last of my magic stock ended up in some leek and potato soup.  The end of a sourdough loaf made crisp crunchy garlic croutons.  Then I quit, I was all cooked out and for supper, I had a truly naughty old-fashioned fish and chip supper.  Plenty of greasy batter and soggy chips.  The fish was lovely and I had some help with the batter and chips.  Dogs are very good at saving you from yourself. It is another perishingly cold day today down to 1ºC we have been so spoiled with the lovely autumn weather I think we might even be in for a white Christmas. Today I have an appointment to have my nails done.  I have not had them done all summer which has allowed them to grow out nice and strong.  I am in a bit of a quandary as to what to have for lunch I have some pork mince and some beef mince which really gives me endless things I could make.  The boys like burgers so some homemade ones with the beef would be ap...

Got there in the end:- It only took three days to make the stock which had 3 roast chicken carcasses 2 raw carcasses, duck leg bones and a ham hock bone plus assorted vegetables and a 12-hour simmer.  Was it worth the effort?  I think it was.  Bigger bowls would be good!!!  Anyway, I have proved to myself I can make this dish so I am happy and both boys, who have eaten the real thing, were complimentary.  By the way these are wholemeal ramen noodles hence the brown colour. My new magic ice cubes came in handy for the eggs so after their 6 minutes in boiling water they were plunged into icy water to stop the cooking immediately and as you can see a perfectly set white and a runny yolk just as needed. As it turned out this meal with all its goodies was sufficient for the day and no one was interested in supper.  I went and had my hair cut in the afternoon so that is one job off the eternal list and tomorrow I am having my nails done, so that is me re...

Good morning all a bit earlier this morning after yesterdays lie in.  I have been playing in the kitchen again and am still in my oriental cooking mode.  This is my first attempt at Tamagoyaki which is basically an omelette.  This is the correct pan for the job but it is perfectly possible to use a normal frying pan As you can see I wouldn't win any prizes for food photography.  Each omelette is made with 4 eggs and I added a little ham, some carrots and spring onions and a sheet of nori seaweed.  They were very nice with a little chilli sauce and more filling than you would think.  Because the egg spends so little time in the pan the additions must be cut to a very small brunoise size so they get some chance of cooking.  I think my next attempt I might add spinach to one layer but I was too lazy to go to the freezer last night so I used what was to hand.  I can see why they are popular as they look difficult but are in fact ve...

Good morning all sorry to be so late but I had a bad night and finally gave in and took a sleeping tablet at 5am so slept for hours and woke to find Dennie here and working.  I had forgotten she said she was coming on a Monday.   I had a good day yesterday and got most of what I wanted in the kitchen including the salmon plait which was so easy it was untrue and yet very tasty.  No real cooking involved frozen puff pastry frozen salmon and frozen spinach so actually an assembly job.  I did add a little garlic and oil to the spinach and egg washed the final result then 25 minutes at 200ºC but which time the salmon was not only defrosted but also cooked.  It made a very small amount of fish go a very long way.   Now today I still have the mega stock to sort out as it spent all day yesterday simmering slowly so degreasing and straining today.  Then with any luck, I can make the ramen soup for the three of us tomorrow. I will...

Good morning all it is a bright but cold day here.  I got out bright and early and did the shopping and bought a couple of cheap chickens which I have dismantled into useable parts and put in the freezer.  Years of working in an operating theatre mean that my butchery skills are none too bad as I understand the construction of the animals.  I then set to and made some tomato pancakes which looked good on the youtube video but actually they were a bit on the bland side and could have used some pepping up.  They use no liquid except the juice from the skinned tomatoes together with egg and flour and some spring onions.  Anyway, they got eaten so they were not that bad.  For supper, I went down the rice paper pancakes filled with some leftover cooked ham hock and some duck legs which had been through the pressure cooker and an assortment of vegetables and the wonderful satay sauce made from peanut butter and equal quantities of hoisin sauce let down with...

Good morning all well I am back in the land of the living having had a very nice time with my ex-workmates. This is a photo of us all at the Dragon Tan in Tunbridge Wells so you can put names to faces from the left is Shiona, Bernard, Di, Patrick and me.  It was lovely to get together again after some 30 years since we worked as a team.  Bernard being Chinese had ordered all the food and it just kept coming, in the end, we were so stuffed we couldn't finish it all and it was packed up for our respective dogs.  I drove us back to Shiona's so she could have a drink but was able to navigate which was just as well as it was horribly foggy.  I hardly managed to sleep at all and set off back home bright and early to avoid the traffic but when I got home I went straight back to bed and slept for a couple of hours.  The dogs were delighted with their Chinese breakfast even though Dan was quite unsure it was edible once Tubby had devoured his Da...

Good morning all another quiet and balmy day again today.  The washing machine is fixed apparently the problem was due to our very low water pressure.  The engineer changed the pipework which seems to have made a difference.  The next major job will be to get the interior painted but that can wait until next year it is not a job to do in the middle of winter.  I am past the point of slapping paint on walls.  Today I am off to Shiona's again as we will both be going to the Pembury reunion this evening.  I have a nice pair of sparkly trousers to wear but I need Shiona to help me shorten them a bit as I have no intention of wearing high heels.  I will be spending the night there I will not be on the net tomorrow morning as I will be driving home.  I have some sausages out for lunch today I did have visions of making scotch eggs but I don't think I can be bothered with all the messing about so I think it will be sausage egg and chi...

Sorry about yesterday but I had to leave the house at dawn to get to my appointment with the consultant.  The traffic was terrible but we just made it in time and as Denzil was driving we managed to avoid the town centre in rush hour.  I was seen very quickly and efficiently had my hearing tested and saw the consultant who had good news and bad news basically there is nothing badly wrong it is just degeneration and nothing to be done.  As for the dizziness and nausea, all you can do is treat the symptoms which is a bit of a pain. I now have to make the decision if I want to go down the hearing aid route.  At the moment I don't think my hearing loss warrants hearing aids, yes I have to turn the TV up a bit but I can hear normal conversation OK so I think I will put that on the back burner for the time being. After the hospital, we went and had lunch at Shiona's as she lives only 20 minutes away so it was an opportunity to catch up.  By the time we ...

Good morning all it is a quiet still morning here with no weather to speak of.  Yesterday I decided to make a pink grapefruit jelly and use my new ice cubes to cool it down quickly but guess what the cubes worked fine but the jelly refused to set so now I have pink grapefruit cordial instead.  The ice cubes come in a convenient plastic net bag so you can dunk them in one go and also retrieve them easily.  However, you are then looking at probably 12 hours to refreeze them so I think you need two sets so you always have one frozen and ready to use.  I will be buying a second set for just this reason.   I converted some of the smoked mackerel into a pate which we had with a sort of Asian inspired salad, well I had coriander and chillies which were on the blink so they ended up in the salad and actually it was rather nice.  What did amaze me is that I had some sesame seeds which I had toasted for another dish and sprinkled a handful over th...

Wow, what a storm we had last night there were a couple of claps of thunder which seemed directly overhead and shook the house.  Interestingly the dogs were totally unphased natural noise must sound different to them.   I have some mackerel left over from yesterdays lunch so I will make that into pate and it will be served with toast for supper tonight.  In the end, I succumbed to bubble a squeak as I really love it, especially with sprouts.  I love anything made with mashed potatoes as they are so nice and comforting on a cold winter day. By the way, Marjorie, thanks for the recipe for the butternut squash and coconut milk soup.  I think I have all the ingredients so that too might be on the menu either today or tomorrow.  I was thinking of you as I played with the duck legs and remembered your delicious confit duck. Since my sister has disappeared from my life I have been able to ignore all the political nonsense but I did have...

Good morning all it has rained overnight but it is bright and sunny now.  James, of course, is on a different planet or should I say time zone so he slept most of yesterday and was up most of the night so it will take a couple of days for him to settle into the usual routine.  He is bundled up like Nanook of the north as it is pretty cold here compared to the 30+ degrees he has been used to. After all my good intentions of doing the mackerel yesterday, I ended up making some sweet corn chowder and some courgette pancakes for supper.  I had bought two duck legs and put them in the pressure cooker and given them a swift boil so I had nice duck stock for the chowder.  I then put the legs in the oven to crisp up and we had them for lunch with some of the Vietnamese pancakes and some finely sliced vegetables and a Korean recipe for the bag of spinach which was languishing in the fridge.  So I guess the mackerel is for lunch today with a side salad....

Good morning all well the wanderer has returned from his month in Thailand with a lovely tan and in a much more relaxed frame of mind.  So the break has done us all good I too am more relaxed as there has been no tension in the house for a whole month.  Tubby is like a dog with two tails to have his dad back.  He didn't pine but he was upset. After seeing on Facebook that the fishmonger [Shane] has in some wonderful smoked mackerel I placed an order and they arrived all beautifully boxed up and delivered to my door.  Guess what is for lunch today?  I also intend to freeze some for later use.  So nice job for me today to fillet them and debone them ready for eating. It crossed my mind to use the offcuts to make a smokey stock but I think that is one job too far.  Denzil and I were going to go to See Woo the oriental grocer this morning but as James has returned I am not sure if we will go ahead with the trip.  There is nothin...

Good morning all what a wet day we had yesterday but today it seems to be dry.  Yesterday was a sort of lucky day for me, first of all, I got a lovely hardback book from my vegetable supplier completely free. It is beautifully set out with instructions on how to store and prepare each vegetable followed by lots of recipes and hints as to what to serve them with and freezing instructions so very comprehensive.  In this weeks box, there is a butternut squash and I have all but run out of ideas as to what to do with it but there is a recipe for having it roast and stuffed with a black bean chilli which appeals to me.   Then to my surprise, I found a wheelie bin parked outside the front door.  It was brand new so I asked the passing bin men if it was a mistake but apparently not.  They suggested that if I didn't want it to ring the council but actually I do want it as it fits in a gap in the garage and will allow me to store my...

Good morning all a much better day yesterday and I spent a very happy morning making sushi for our lunch.  It is an extremely clever way to make very little go a very long way.  I know that they all look the same but actually they have different fillings some with raw salmon and some with cooked red pepper, cucumber, spring onion and carrot slivers.  I didn't have any pickled ginger but as usual, there was a recipe on Youtube which explained it is just thin slices of ginger in rice wine vinegar so that is what I did.  The commercial one is pink but that is food colouring.  Anyway, it was a little too much for us so the dogs were invited to lunch and much to our surprise they decided that despite having fish and vegetables they were still worth eating. Keith got stuck into the bamboo and cut out a nice pile of 6-foot canes for seasoning and using in the garden.  I took a couple of bits of the smaller branches and put them in a vase for d...

Good morning all at touch warmer this morning and I had a better day yesterday less dizzy and sick so I hope it is on the wane.  The oxtail stew was worth the effort even if it was spread over two days and the thermomix made light work of making the polenta.  With the leftover polenta, I added loads of butter and cheese then set it aside to set firm and for my supper I had some of it cubed and then poured the remaining oxtail gravy over it, very tasty.  I did have a little chuckle when I thought about it, there are two fillets on a beast and that is why it is so expensive but there is only one tail and it is cheap as chips so it really doesn't make sense.  The real difference is you can flash fry fillet but tail takes lots of cooking. It seems to me that the longer it takes to cook something the cheaper it is.  While I was doing the oxtail I put some pork ribs in the oven with a homemade barbeque sauce over them so they are now ready for today an...

Good morning all.  Yesterday was long and tedious with me feeling like a dead dog all day.  I went and did a bit of shopping but my heart wasn't in it so I ended up with a strange assortment of stuff and couldn't wait to get back home.  I bought some oxtail which is in a pot making an oxtail stew which still requires a couple of hours before the meat is tender.  I thought I might serve it with soft polenta and some courgettes which are languishing in the fridge.  I also got some pork ribs which are going in the oven with some sort of a barbeque type sauce.  I also got ingredients to make sushi which I rather fancy at the moment.   I felt so rough that I didn't bother eating until Denzil was home but kept myself well hydrated.  It is very difficult to eat when you are nauseated but I did manage some pasta and salad so I am not likely to fade away anytime soon.   I had to laugh at the dogs who as...

Good morning all.  It is jolly cold here this morning and I am up before the heating is on so it is pretty chilly in the house.  I do have a nice gas fire which I can put on to warm the place up a bit so I don't freeze while I wait for the Stematil to kick in.  Fortunately, the nausea doesn't bother me at night I sleep as badly as normal.   There were lots of fireworks last night and Dan decided he was afraid of them, silly boy, he is not gun shy so why they bother him I don't know.  Anyway, it was a good excuse for some extra cuddles.  Once I was medicated yesterday I had a go at making a Japanese omelette.  In Japan, they have rectangular frying pans to make them but I discovered a video showing how to make one with a round pan so I had to give it a go and it was much easier than I thought, though how they manage with chopsticks I don't know.  I do enjoy watching Japanese cooking as they...

Good morning all,  the car took longer than expected so, in the end, we cancelled our trip to Woolwich and the oriental grocer.  As luck would have it I was just as pleased as I am having another bout of the spinning head and seasickness.  I do have some Stematil left from the last time so at least I can mitigate the worst of the nausea.  I really do hope that when I eventually get to see a consultant he can give me some hope that there is a cure as it is pretty miserable. Just looking from the keyboard to the screen is enough head movement to make me feel sick. On the menu today all I have is a packet of sausages and though I had ideas of toad in the hole or a pasta sauce I think it will be sausage egg and beans which is the bare minimum.  From past experience this sickness only lasts a few days then passes so I hope that is the case this time.  It does, however, rather curb my enthusiasm in the kitchen.  I have some courgettes which if...

Good morning all it is another chilly one here after a day of rain yesterday at least it is dry.  I had some fun in the kitchen yesterday making the pommes dauphine.  First, was it worth the effort and the answer is yes, even the fur babies were impressed.  I cut the recipe by half but it was still too much for us so the dogs had a portion too.  Imagine if you will all that is delicious about chips and all that is delicious about mash and combine the two.  It seemed quite weird to make a choux dough and add mash to it but the end result was very nice.  As you can see I didn't use a piping bag just blobs off a spoon. If I ever make them again I think a small piece of cheese in the middle would be great.  Anyway, I think they were a success.  I was a little concerned as halfway through making them I remembered that I had promised to visit my Japanese friend so dumped everything midway and dashed up to see her.  Anyway, nothin...

Good morning all it is raining this morning but the temperatures are up so it is nowhere near as cold.  Now I must tell you about the bread soup which was much nicer than the sum of its parts.  The recipe is idiot simple and the result most acceptable.  In a reasonable amount of olive oil fry very finely sliced garlic until just golden.  I used two cloves but they were particularly large so the equivalent of about 4 normal size and this was for one baguette.  Once the garlic is golden throw in the chopped up stale bread and about a litre of stock.  I had no homemade so made do with Knorr chicken stock cubes.  Then you boil it like the laundry as my mother would say until the bread disintegrates.  I finished the job off with a stick blender then threw in about 100mls of double cream and served it up.  Denzil and I guzzled a bowl full each and the leftover was gravy for the dog's biscuits and everyone was happy and full so fu...