Hubby and I enjoyed our first trip of the year to the Zoo.  It was bitterly cold and the light was fading fast and I had completely forgotten how to photograph moving animals… Here is the best of the bunch.  The Lions are new, just getting used to their enclosure, there was one spot where you could take a sneaky peak.

Isn’t that veg box from Riverford  a thing of beauty.

One of the perks of having someone to cook for means I can increase the variety of foods in my diet, but mostly I can increase the vegetables.  This is the bumper sized box, will we get through this in a week? I think we will, we did the last one.  It certainly makes you concentrate on what your going to eat for lunch, what vegetables you can squeeze in, which is no bad thing. Hubby had got the beetroot on the boil for his lunch before I’d put all the veg away! – he does like his beetroot.

I think I am very lucky to have been bought up in an age where it was normal to cook from scratch, but I only made this by the skin of my teeth.  My Mother bought her first freezer in the late seventies, her cooking style changed dramatically and I was left high and dry not liking the produce produced by Iceland the freezer centre, –  crispy pancake or potato croquette anybody?, No, don’t blame you.  But fortunately my Dad clung to his beef and vegetable stews and roast dinners and my Nan’s lamb stews with the globules of yellow fat floating on top were just heavenly, well they were to me.

My Nan was quite daring, I remember watching her cook a curry using garlic and fresh ginger and the smells that came wafting from that simple curry she made were just lovely. I must get my adventurous love of cooking and vegetable growing from her and Grandad.

I hope I have managed to pass on my love of vegetables and cooking, certainly son no.2 is an accomplished cook and seems to enjoy his time in the kitchen cooking huge pans of curry or stews. The tales that come from son no.1 recently seem encouraging, he’s venturing forth with cous cous and pasta styled vegetable dishes. I hope my love of cooking wafts through their senses and in their dreams of home cooked meals enjoyed, inspiring them, teaching them and enabling them to create culinary masterpieces of their very own.

 

 

 

Towards the end of last weeks veg box I still had some luscious looking broccoli left in the need of eating.

What to do, what to do? And then an idea emerged, a verdant, mineral rich lunch with a hint of a  naughty sauce to enrobe those tasty florets with.

I lightly simmered the broccoli until just cooked whilst at the same time cooked off a packet of egg noodles. Next I made a simple satay sauce.

Which consisted of,

2 very heaped tablespoons of economy crunchy peanut butter.

1/2 lemon

1 heaped tsp of cheats chopped chilli in a jar (you could use fresh)

A good splosh of soy sauce

A tablespoon of sugar

4 large cloves of garlic crushed, (you could use less, you could use more!)

1/2 a glass of water, to get a nice sauce consistency.

Mix it all together and bubble it up gently for a few minutes to take the rawness of the garlic away, stirring, it will stick if your not careful because of its sweetness, I used a non stick pan.

Put to one side and toast off half a packet, or a couple of oz of seasame seeds.  Your using these as a good crunchy ingredient, if not available roughly chop a couple of oz of peanuts and if they are raw peanuts toast them.

And toss together.

Makes a brilliant lunch and the leftovers are brilliant eaten cold.

Total cost approx £4.00, I got about six portions out of it = 66p a portion.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, I wouldn’t have had a blog for nine years if I didn’t, but whether I am any good, well, I don’t really think I am, I know my grammar is pretty poor and  I think I am too long in the tooth to do much about that.  I was never any good at learning the ‘rules’ of grammar preferring to bumble along in my own sweet way and really is there anything wrong with that?

But, I’ve often fancied doing more in the creative writing way of things, so when a free full days workshop came up on Eventbrite with Amy Mason as our tutor hubby and I thought we would tootle along to Walthamstow library to see what we could see.  And do you know what, it was the best fun. We sat in a room full of like minded people and spent all day just exploring our own written words just because we all wanted to. I don’t think I have ever experienced that, at school quite a few of us didn’t want to be there on any given day and at college and university those were skilled based units I was studying with more of the people that didn’t want to be writing.  But this time, well, every word was relished and enjoyed.

Amy Mason has been funded by the Arts Council to bring alive stories about E17 which will then form part of an Anthology with readings at Walthamstow Central Library to form part of a community celebration.  From the sounds of the group I was with much fun will be had. Now I must go, I have some writing to finish.

 

 

 

Ta Da!!! One completed greenhouse ready for full occupancy. I know this garden is small and the greenhouse is a very tight fit, but I think that is the way with London gardens.  They are either cultivated and used to within an inch of their life or neglected and not used at all.  One of my favourite games when I travelled on the Overground almost daily was to look at the unkempt gardens and wonder why nobody wanted to play in them.

But play we shall, long into the summer and autumn. We are thinking raspberry canes next, the most prolific of all fruits per square inch, over a long period of time and the least bothersome, not least, they are hubby’s favourite too.  I’ve just got to find somewhere to squeeze them in.

Last Friday we tootled off to Central Street Cookery School, to enjoy an event baking cakes organised by Stork Margerine  I’d seen this event on Eventbrite and thought it would be perfect for us, not least to allow hubby to get into the kitchen and bake his very first cake.

The kitchen was a beautiful space to work in,

so well organised and pretty.

with lots of ingredients,

that looked very yummy,

and lovely old wooden spoons to work with.

The cakes we could make were a strawberries and cream cup cake or a lemon and elderflower drizzle, we both chose the lemon.

Recipes at the ready and we got to work with Jemma from Iced Jems who was a lovely host to the evening, we had many a cake based conversation during the evening, her knowledge and enthusiasm for all things cake was wonderful and her web site looks pretty good too.

Hubby carefully measures out his ingredients,

Such a thing of beauty,

and beats for all his worth.  I must say that even though the stork with butter was fresh out of the fridge, it comes together really easily, even with the all in one method and a wooden spoon.  It would be quite handy to have on standby in the fridge should the urge for cake making strike late into the evening, which it often does with me. 

Hubby and I making our syrup for the cakes.  I must say he did seem to be enjoying himself.

And then we reached the critical stage of any cake making, the decision making of whether its ready or not. Because we had doubled the recipe to better suit the pans that were available, this was a bit of guesswork, testing, more guesswork and then testing and testing again.   It doesn’t take me to tell you, all those that have watched Bake Off, just how tense this moment is.  Not least that there had been a couple of tricky moments for the other two ladies cooking this evening and I certainly didn’t want a disaster for a first cake.

Whilst waiting we made the butter filling.  It was at this point that hubby said to me, ‘Id no idea there was so much involved!’ – and we hadn’t even done the washing up, we had an army of washer uppers attending to our every whim.  I laughed, ‘yes dear’, I replied, ‘that’s why I’m all… ‘what did you think of my cake..’ and badger you for more detail  of what you think when you give a single word response’.

The cakes came out of the oven, hubby’s was well risen, actually it was the best risen out of the four and without the addition of baking powder.

Mine had suffered in a too cool oven, but we had rescued it and all came good in the end.

We then allowed them to cool in the tin for a while, then on a rack, cut them in half and slavered one half with butter cream and one half with lemon curd and put together.

Hubby on the water icing, we added a capful of the elderflower cordial along with the lemon juice which made it even more delicious.

Ta Da !!! Hubby’s first cake. How wonderful is that.

And together.

We packed them up as carefully as we could with my parting comment, ‘if you hear about a cake disaster on the underground, you’ll know whats happened’.

However, we did manage it, nearly intact.

Quartering it up for the freezer, we are hoping the buttercream will be fine, whats the worst that can happen, we may have some very tasty sponge to go with custard.

Thank you so much Stork, we really enjoyed this opportunity and Stork with butter is definitely a winner it made our cakes lovely and light and the buttercream was divine.  I also had no idea about the recipe section on both Jemmas and Storks web site, I will be having a good look at them when I am looking for my next cake recipe.

 

This may not be your idea of a Mother’s Day treat, but its certainly mine. Now that I have doubled the occupancy of the mandycharlie household, it allows me to cook with a wider variety of ingredients. Previously a chicken would practically last the week and cooking vegetables for one for a meat and two veg meal is just too much work along with that the vegetables seem less flavoursome and more watery.

So I’ve treated myself to the Riverford veg box.  We used use them before and found them very good and was one of the reasons why we first started our allotment, we loved the fresh veg so much, we thought we would try our hand at growing our own.  Allotments are a thing of the past but the desire for squeaky cabbage and the first pickings of the spring vegetables never goes away. I am a bit of a veg freak, I love all types of vegetables and am quite happy to indulge in the freshest vegetables of the season.

So having a lie in on Mothers Day, all I could think about was the bag of mixed salad that was laying in the cooler of the fridge. (Yes I know I’m a bit odd!)  And then it hit me.

Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches with tomato juice and a large slice of the Lemon, Elderflower Drizzle cake we made on Friday – more about that tomorrow.

It was the most perfect of Mother’s Day brunches and has kept us going all day.

The best ham sandwich shop in London, apparently.

Next time, I promise,

Next time.

 

As I am sure you are all pretty much aware London tends to be a bit pricey.  Now we are retired our adventures must be within a certain price range, but fortunately it is London and free opportunities or almost free abound, if your prepared to look for them.  So far, we have seen two theatre productions on the cheap, two free talks at Kings College which included a very nice reception with wine flowing by a very generous waiter and along with those we have many plans already booked in for the next couple of months which involve the theatre, marching bands, being part of a television production, cake making and creative writing, its all go and all practically free.

A few days ago we went to Kings College to see The Geometry of Soap Bubbles in Action by José L. Rodriguez Blancas.

As soon as I saw this event on Eventbrite I knew it was for us. Bubbles for me, some mathematically minded geometry for hubby, what was not to love.

As we settled into our seats and saw the professor playing with the bubbles before he started his talk I knew we were going to have a good time.  Yes there was the mathematical side of the geometry, but it was the passion for his work that came shining through and I absolutely loved it.

There was holes in bubbles created with a thread due to surface tension.

And more holes, that slowly roll around as you move the string.

There were illustrations of two dimensional and three dimensional but then there came the geometry that explained it all, illustrated in bubbles.

And it was a thing of beauty. Look at those sharp lines, who knew a bubble could do that!

It was when the professor dipped this complicated shape I knew we were in for a treat.

Just look at that, I think we all gasped in the audience.

He proceeded to show us how to build the same structure with just the bubbles. 

After the talk we went on to the reception, which was very generous with tasty food and plentiful wine and we were able to play with the bubbles.

And silliness was had through out.

Afterwards a quick peek at Kings College Chapel which was just so pretty,

there was so much of interest everywhere one looked.

Then we were out into the bright lights of London, homeward bound, replete with food and wine, laughter and wonder and very, very happy.

 

 

I wish I’d known just how much more enjoyable my life would become when I started writing my first blog post some nine years ago.  At the time I was in a very low place, I had lost my hair that summer in the space of six weeks and was struggling to keep a toe hold on reality. My reality had been completely blown out the water and that combined with friends and strangers who constantly told me that my hair would grow back and then pronounce that it was all from stress  meant I was slowly backing myself into a suicidal state of mind that I could find no relief from.

Deciding I needed an occupation to fully engage with I taught myself to knit socks from surfing the internet.  It took three months to knit my first pair but while I was learning how to turn a heel, ripping my work back and trying again, I found a whole new world. There were knitting blogs and sewing blogs, utube and videos and Ravelry which is facebook for knitters, it was just incredible, I had no idea.  I started to engage and they were chatty and friendly and nice and unless I told them, no one knew, I was just a chatty girl in the UK.

Then I decided to start my own blog and talked about my allotment and knitting and it gave me pleasure to spend most of the weekend at the allotment with hubby and then to relax with a glass of wine and write on a Sunday evening.  As I started to focus, to really look at the changing seasons, week to week, even day to day I felt my mood begin to lift.  There were still the stupid people, the comments hadn’t gone away every time I stepped out of my front door but mostly I began to deal with them in a  better way, helped no end by a stint with a psychologist who gave me a few tools to use for the particularly bad moments and the love and support from my family.

The more I photographed and wrote, the more I wanted to and the more I wanted to the more observant I became, I had concocted the perfect pick me up, by accident.  During the years I’ve upgraded my camera, started a knitting group, gone to college as a mature student in her mid to late forties, then onto University in London leaving her family in the countryside. Created jackets and trousers and dresses and skirts, blankets and quilts,  jumpers and cardigans and socks, lots and lots of socks, taught myself computer packages and found my way around the underground. My blog has comforted me in my darkest of hours and made me laugh with the purest of joy, it has taken me to places I never would have gone and allows me to see just how far I have come.  It has protected me and grown with me and is to me a dear, dear friend.

If only I’d known all that was to come, when I made my first tentative post nine years ago.

 

This post is linked up with Finish the Sentence Friday, hosted by Kristi Campbell at Finding Ninee, the prompt this week is, I wish I’d known…