planning ahead

Me and himself have been a bit unwell this week, and not up to cooking.  We are thus building up a bit of a glut of vegetables, and we are away this Saturday night, and Friday/Saturday/Sunday next weekend.

I’ll cancel next week’s veg box, but we have about 6 courgettes, 4 red peppers (I foolishly bought some on Saturday, then more arrived in the box), an aubergine, half a cabbage and a stack of runner beans to deal with.

The thought of having to chuck any of this away fills me with horror, so I’ve been giving some though on how to deal with it all, especially as I’m not likely to have much time before we leave for the Bank Holiday weekend.

There’s a bag of naked meatballs in the freezer, so I’m going to make a sauce with tomatoes, red peppers and courgettes (and onions and herbs from the garden) and freeze some portions of that.  I’m going to have a bash at a lentil moussaka filling, which will see off the aubergine, and the runner beans will be cooked up in an Indian style, and a portion or two frozen.

The cabbage we will see off tonight, with some mozzarella and bacon (which also needs dealing with).

Oh, and there’s a pak choi left - I have a vague plan to stir fry it with some other bitsa, and put it into wraps for lunch tomorrow.  I feel really quite remarkably organised!

[edit] Aaargh - there’s a stack of fresh peas too!  Help …

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I love my freezer …

It is the Summer; and thus it is cold, and raining, and generally bloody miserable, weather wise.

In the fridge I have some peapods - mostly empty, because Pete got to the bowl of peas, but still. I have a plan for these pods tonight, which I shall reveal to you later. I need some chicken stock for this plan, and I was just going to use an organic stock cube.

But … I also have a bunch of carrots that need using.  And the chickie! remains from June were in the freezer, enrobed in tin foil.  So the carcass is now sitting on a very low heat on the hob, and I shall take some stock from it for tonight’s supper, and the rest will be turned into shoop, with the carrots and some elderly spud.

Hurrah for the British summer, I say, and bring on the warming soup.

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not so much Reactive, as desperate

Having been diligent in using up absolutely everything before we went away, we found ourselves with hardly anything to eat when we returned on Friday night.

We got home just after 7 p.m., and I’m ashamed to say we had a Chinese takeaway that night.  Pete manfully cycled off to North Street and got a stack of fruit from the greengrocer on Saturday (the car is off the road while it waits for a no doubt expensive piece of pipe to arrive from Mitsubishi).  I did a big Sainsburys order for delivery yesterday (Sunday), and the Riverford box will be here tomorrow.

So Saturday was a tub of Indian lentils from the freezer, with basmati rice, and Sunday was a tub of chicken and chickpeas from the freezer, with brown rice.  And tonight will be black-eyed beans with tomatoes, and still more rice.  I’ll give you the recipe later - it’s very nice.

[edit] Here’s the recipe as promised.

But I *yearn* for some fresh veg … and to get back to actually cooking.

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frozen freezer

I had a quick scud through my Nibblous favourites this morning for some ideas, and decided on Balsamic Duck with Cep Lentils. We have all the ingredients in - the duck breasts were in the outside freezer.

And when I went out to this frost free upright freezer, I was met with a sheet of ice - somehow, the handle of the cool bag had got caught in the door, and air was getting in. The temperature was ok, but frost free it wasn’t …

So we spent a happy hour with Pete chiselling the ice out of the freezer, and me brushing down all the contents, and cleaning and drying the drawers. Thankfully, everything seems fine.

I found a pack of Charles’ Pearmaine’s bacon in there, dated 2001. Wonder if it’ll be alright … :)

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clearing the freezer

We collected half a salt marsh lamb on Sunday, from www.thoroughlywildmeat.co.uk. We are collecting a quarter of a cow on Saturday, from www.dexterbeef.co.uk.

This has caused some anxieties re freezer space, and thus we are eating a sort of lucky dip to try and make way for all this meat.

This morning, I found half of a small rye loaf (which Pete is going to eat for lunch), and a tub of prawn stock. So tonight will be prawn, chilli and ginger risotto, followed by a blackberry and apple crumble (blackberries from the brambles at the bottom of the garden). I’m rather looking forward to it!

Apologies for the lack of updates - v busy at the moment.

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