Two Aubergines

 You'd think that I knew there were two large aubergines on my one plant in the greenhouse but they grew without me really noticing. Probably due to rushing in and out of said greenhouse in the heat, with watering can and not really stopping to examine. Watering into a flower pot sunk between the two plants in each grow-bag is really quick and easy.

The flowers at the top of the plant aren't setting and I had noticed several flowers had dropped off  but these two were down at the base, under some large leaves. I used them with an onion and two tins of tomatoes to make a big batch of aubergine and tomato sauce for using with pasta. 

Grated cheese over the top when eating makes a quick and easy meal. A nice piece of home-made focaccia bread to mop up the excess juice goes well with it too.

Sweet and Sour Cucumber Pickle

It was a case of use them or lose them because last week there wasn't just 1 cucumber from the greenhouse...................

or two........................

or three......................

but four!

So I bought Cider vinegar and  some celery..............

And turned the largest three cucumbers, one and half bottles of vinegar, some of the celery and a large onion into 5 jars of Sweet and Sour Pickles.

The recipe is on the separate Recipe page. I didn't put mustard seed into the mix this year. Trying to avoid things with seeds in.

Despite giving the 2 cucumber plants in the greenhouse plenty of water, they've started to shrivel. Perhaps the extreme heat has done them no good at all and there might be a shortage of cucs later.....typical.

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Another bad day at Wimbledon. I think just two men through to the second round, I lost track when I abandoned watching for a while  to watch the first two of the new series of Countdown. They used to take a break for summer but now roll right on. I worked out I've been watching this words and numbers game since about 1986. I had a small portable black and white TV in the kitchen and used to watch while getting a meal ready for the children..... it was on at 4.30pm back then. I didn't know what colour their set was until many years later!

Back Tomorrow

We Are Gathered Here Today....................

...............to make a Thai red fish curry

 2 tins coconut milk, 1 tin of plum tomatoes, 1 green pepper, 1½ onions, few small potatoes, ¾ pack mangetout. Most of the jar of Thai red curry paste and a pack of Basa fish fillets.

Approx costs £1.50 + 43p + 36p +12p + 25p + 80p + £1 + £1.75 = £6.21 ÷ 8 = 78p each portion

Another choice in the freezer.

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Saturday 16th

 Halfway through May.

I'm an idiot.......... you'd think I'd been growing stuff long enough to know not to plant things out before late May so why did I put the 2 courgette plants out in the garden in early May? Without covering them.

Monday morning there were two very frost damaged plants sadly drooping and turning black. It was cloudy Sunday night and I wasn't expecting temps to drop so low..........but they obviously did. Thank goodness there are plenty of courgette plants for sale at car-boots. On Monday night and the rest of the week I made sure to put fleece over the tomato, cucumber and other mini plants and seedlings in the greenhouse, the forecast was for more chilly nights. Two new courgette plants will be coddled in the greenhouse until 'all danger of frost is past'. Daytimes this week have been cold too with a N.E wind, not very nice after the warm weather. 

The gumpf with all the information about the new Recycling system starting in June arrived in the post this week. A more detailed look at what can go in which bins and a calendar so we know which week is which bin. 

At the moment I have a basket in the under-the-sink cupboard for all the dry recycling which can just be tipped straight into the bin, but now paper and card need separating from cans and plastics so either I stand outside sorting or I find somewhere in the kitchen for the different things.

I know this is a government initiative but I can't help thinking that some people won't be able to manage to sort or remember the correct days and will worry about the dire warnings that bins won't be emptied due to  putting 'the wrong thing in the bins'  and more stuff will end up in the general rubbish bin and landfill than there is at the moment.

I've had a week of  restocking the freezer with batch made meals after realising that there were just 5 boxes of Quorn korma curry and 3 boxes of pizza topping left- don't like getting that low on choice.

 I started with 8 boxes of salmon, brocolli,sweetcorn and pasta bakes while the bread machine made two more pizza bases but before finishing  off the pasta bakes I had to turn a bag of bits of crusts into dried breadcrumbs for the cheese/crumb topping.

(Note to self - if you keep adding bits of crust to a bag in the freezer you do actually need to dry them and turn them into crumbs before the morning you want to use them)

Next up was two nut loaves using the recipe on the recipe page and I remembered to use the jar of cranberry sauce that was still in the fridge - after being unopened at Christmas.

I squashed the mix down in the tins a bit more and gave it a bit longer in the oven than last time so it all held together rather than falling apart. I cut into 8 chunky  pieces as they turned out to be not very deep for slices.

Finally several servings of Bolognese sauce using Quorn mince, cans of tomatoes, onion and a red pepper will be made today or tomorrow. 

There's nothing in my diary for anything happening to visit this weekend except for a small craft/plant fair in the village. 

Have a good weekend - I shall be back Monday.

Two Things in My Kitchen................

.............that I didn't have a few years ago but now wouldn't want to be without.

The filter jug that fits in the fridge door . Bought in 2023 it came with 3 filters. The filters each last about 3 months.Filters come in packs of 3 and I bought replacements in 2024 and 2025 and I've just one left in the cupboard so will reorder again soon.

I drink more water than I used to as it tastes so much better than from the tap...........and I never thought I'd say that because the hard water from the below ground aquafers that we have in this part of the country is quite drinkable. Filtered water from the fridge is also nice and cold and seems more refreshing.

The bread machine.

 I make loaves of bread and pizza bases. Mostly  I use 250g wholemeal Bread flour and 250g white strong bread flour and  for the  white half I mix the expensive Allinsons strong bread flour (from Asda 3kg is around £3.20) with the cheaper Aldi bread flour 1.5kg for £1.09. Aldi don't always have wholemeal bread flour but when they do it's 99p for 1.5kg . 

A loaf made from 500g of flour just needs 1tsp instant yeast, 1tsp sugar, 1tsp salt and a small chunk of butter about  ½ ounce +  370ml water. Cost is around 70p.

No extra ingredients. 

This is the label from online of what's in a Medium Sliced Wholemeal loaf from Aldi - quite a few 'extras'.

When the bread is made I cut the loaf in half and freeze. It doesn't slice well without freezing as it's so soft. One loaf a week is usually plenty, although I occasionally bake an extra loaf  to freeze in case something happens and I miss a week.

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Towards the End of March

Weird weather week here in Mid Suffolk and Wednesday had a really cold wind. Thursday morning a very thin layer of snow on the car roof. March Many Weathers for sure. 

It's good to have all the new ladies at Keep Moving Group but they all know each other so tend to only talk amongst themselves - difficult to get them to help with things too and to get them to stop talking!! Oh well, it's my fault for putting the group details on the local villages facebook pages! but previously it's just been one or two new people at a time. 11 is a bit overwhelming. The lady who has been leading our exercises for  a year now has been poorly so me and another lady have been sharing the leading. We have all the exercises written down and have been doing them for 3 years now so it's just a case of standing at the front and  working through them.

Being short of blog ideas I've already posted about virtually everything done in the kitchen this week except for making a big pan of pizza topping. It was two tins of plum tomatoes without the juice, onion chopped small and almost all of a red pepper, I saved a piece for my salad. Seasoned the mix with  oregano and divided into 5 portions.

I walked up the road to post a letter and saw this bundle of rhubarb for sale out the front of a house, luckily I had £1 in my pocket. I wiped them all and chopped and popped in the freezer. I shall add to some apple I have in the freezer and make a big crumble for when family are here after Easter.

This book below was a good read, a small girl growing up during the war years on the edge of London. 

In 1939, Valerie Braunston and her family hoped the war would pass them by in the quiet neighbourhood of Bush Hill Park, Enfield. But as the Blitz began, her carefree childhood became a daily fight for survival. Valerie endured air raids, rationing and a fractured education while London was battered for eight relentless months. By 1944, V-1 and V-2 rockets forced her evacuation to a pig farm in Lincolnshire, but she quickly plotted her return to London to pursue her dream of becoming an actress.

Years later, after Valerie moved into care at 88, her son found a manuscript while clearing out her house. Discovered beside a jammed-up typewriter, it captured her memories of that time, infused with her humour and resilience.

I've also finished the book by James Rebanks - The Place of Tides.

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on.

Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly: her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island.

This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for gathering, like feathered gold.

Another excellent book and the last of my library books until next week- reading from my shelves for the next few days then.

 Clocks Forward this weekend, have to remember how to do the car clock again - it's easy - once I remember. Have a good weekend - I'll be back Monday.

Eventually Using The Parsley Honey

  Writing that post about parsley  for yesterday  reminded me that I'd  written about making parsley 'honey' back in 2023 HERE and still have some in the cupboard. It was too runny to use on toast and I've thought about tipping it away a few times but then hung onto two small jars, 'just in case'. It's still perfectly OK and that old post told me that I was going to bake some loaf cakes and use the very runny honey like you would lemon drizzle mix to pour over the top after it comes out of the oven. I'd completely forgotten that plan.

So that's what I did. I usually do two at a time when making lemon drizzle loaves but thought I'd better just do one honey drizzle cake 'just in case'.....again.

I skewered a  few holes in the cake when I took it out of the oven and spooned over some of the very runny 'honey'. It worked  well. 

Very delicious.

Back Tomorrow

Compost Jelly

 I'd been saving apple and pear peel for about 6 weeks and popping in the freezer, until I had a big bag full. I  added the bag of raspberries that were put in there last summer before I found the dry weather had made the raspberry seeds very hard. My jam pan was full . 

When everything defrosted and settled down in the pan I added about a pint of extra liquid and cooked until it became a pulpy mixture.

Then strained through a jelly bag all day. The basin of juice was put in the fridge overnight and next day warmed  up, sugar added and boiled until setting point. It didn't make a huge amount but as I have no jam it will be handy.

 I'll use some of the jelly when I make scones soon - for Easter perhaps- and get some clotted cream to go with them for a treat.........sounds like a plan!

I made this a couple of years ago using blackberries and peel, I  think the original idea for this came from Sue in Lancs - Thank you - it's a fun make.

Back Tomorrow

Food of Many Colours

 I like colourful food.

I thought that I'd done a post about colourful food not long ago but when I searched it turned out to be back in May 2024, so nearly two years and I'm still eating colourful, mostly made from scratch, food..

I thought this meal looked very colourful. It was a home made Scotch Egg, using own dried breadcrumbs and baked in the oven rather than fried. A handful of orange sweet potato fries cooked at the same time as the scotch egg. Then lots of green salad leaves, celery and mini plum tomatoes with a small splodge of mayo.

Not so pretty but very tasty........Leek and bacon pilaff with a chunk of home made focaccia bread, which I'd pulled a piece off to eat while I was waiting for the rice to cook !

I buy the very cheap bacon pieces from Asda (£1 for a 500g pack) and divide up into 5 portions before freezing. So bacon 20p, leek 58p, rice and a stock cube =pence. (At the opposite end of the spectrum - I only ever buy the locally produced sausages from Lane Farm. Two chipolatas of theirs, in the freezer since Christmas, were skinned and flattened and used to wrap the egg for the scotch egg)

Warm pasta salad includes peas, baby plum tomatoes, olives and feta cheese and a spoonful of mayo.

A quiche made using one portion of that cheap bacon mentioned earlier, onions and cheese and 3 eggs feeds me for 4 days, twice with carrots and broccoli

and twice with home made potato salad and mixed salad leaves, celery and olives.

Lots of colour in a chicken stir-fry below. The veg were carrots, onion and chopped cabbage leaves. I buy the pack of  British chicken mini breast fillets for £3.99 for 600g from Aldi - these were bought in February- and were divided up into 5 portions before freezing.

Carrots and cabbage again this time with my penultimate piece of nut roast made several weeks ago - probably just before Christmas and some quick gravy.

 
Back Tomorrow

Shopping, % UPFs and a Closer Look at Ingredients

 Long Number Heavy Blog Post Warning!

Food bought during February...................

Small shop - Leeks, eggs, Burger baps - 3 items

The picture below ............UPFs 4 things out of 13 bought the list is here

Burgers, Linda McCartney Mozzarella Burgers are considered ultra-processed foods (UPF), typically falling into Nova group 4 classification. While vegetarian, they contain ingredients and additives characteristic of industrial processing, such as methyl cellulose (E461), flavourings, and rehydrated textured soya protein. 

Key details regarding the processing of these burgers include:

• Ingredients: Primarily composed of rehydrated textured soya protein (65%), rapeseed oil, mozzarella cheese (9%), and various stabilizers/flavourings.
• Processing Indicators: The presence of methyl cellulose and added flavourings are clear markers of ultra-processing.

 Pringles are the worst..............,

Pringles are a classic example of ultra-processed food (UPF), made from a reconstituted dough of dehydrated potato flakes, corn, rice, and wheat starch rather than sliced, whole potatoes. Engineered for hyper-palatability, they are fried and laden with additives like MSG, emulsifiers, and refined oils, often leading to rapid consumption and potential health risks, including inflammation, weight gain, and metabolic disruption.

 The others two ultra processed  things not quite so bad - Hovis biscuits and Tortilla wraps.

Below are 17 items for the 3rd food shop of February the shopping list is here. 4 items are UPFs - Stuffing mix, tortilla chips, fig biscuits and someone pointed out that the soft cream cheese also has a couple of odd ingredients. 

Key Benefits of Citrus Fiber in Cream Cheese:

Citrus fiber is used in cream cheese as a natural, clean-label stabilizer and emulsifier to improve texture, enhance creaminess, and prevent syneresis (water separation). It acts as a fat replacer and thickener, allowing for better yield and a creamy mouthfeel without the need for chemical stabilizers or added gums. 

Key Considerations for Guar Gum:

Guar gum is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA and not considered inherently bad for the general population in the small amounts used in food. As a soluble fiber, it may help manage blood sugar and cholesterol, but excessive consumption can cause digestive discomfort like gas, bloating, and diarrhoea. 

Rye Flour.

The  final main food shop contained 3 UPFs  out of  15 items purchased the list is here. Frozen sweet Potato fries (borderline), cheese and onion rolls and the Dunkables biscuits.

I wondered about the noodles? 

Does the potassium carbonate in noodles make them an UPF..........

Extensive research into the effects of additives on food products and the nearly 100-year history of using potassium carbonate in food has yielded no results published to prove the risk of this chemical compound for human health. At the Food and Drug Administration, all carbonate salts are on the list of safe substances. So far, no evidence has been provided on the possibility of side effects due to the use of compounds such as potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, calcium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, or potassium bicarbonate.

 

And finally going to the Opticians where I used to live so went in the Co-op to get celery, salad leaves and cheese except they had no celery so I got spring onions instead. Spend £3.98 - jolly expensive for 3 things but no more UPFs.

Adding everything up.......... roughly 53 different  items of which 11 are classed as UPF....More than I thought. Although I'm not worried because I'm not eating them all at once and anyway...........

Based on recent data (2023-2025), the average diet in the UK and the US consists of approximately 53% to 60% ultra-processed foods (UPFs) by calorie intake.

Average Consumption: For many, over half of daily energy intake comes from UPFs

Surely I must be  around 10% a day which is probably OK.

There are several easy swaps to be made if I want - usually involving making things myself rather than buying or, as I'm not strictly vegetarian, buying more meat products rather than 'fake' meat products.

Total food spend for home in February just over £88 which is down on usual and just means next month will be more! No coffees/cheese scones but I ate out once treating YD and OGD to a meal and then fish and chips takeaway for us when doing Nanna duty.

Not sure I shall do these food photos again through March....maybe if I'm looking for ideas for blog posts.

That Rye Flour

 

The rye flour bought for £2.40 from the Farmers Market to make a medieval/Tudor maslin* loaf - just out of curiosity, then needed the purchase of a different blade for the bread-machine, which I'd not realised.

So I bought a spare ordinary blade at the same as they came in a pack of  one of each for £5.99.  AND THEN ........even sillier, when I came to set the menu for the loaf on the bread-machine I found my model didn't have that setting, which of course is the very reason it didn't come with a rye flour blade....Duh!

 I let the machine do the dough making and then bunged it in a loaf tin and cooked in the oven.....curiosity can be more complicated than it was meant to be!

It's taste? Deliciously nutty and different. 

Below is info I found from a blog called Breadclub20. (My loaf didn't include floor sweepings!, just rye and wholewheat flours)

*Meanwhile, down at the other end of the social ladder.....and, really, you couldn't get much lower, the peasants and the lower orders ate Maslin, a bread originally made using barley and pea flours and a fair bit of millstone grit. Not necessary for roughage, but probably accounted for all manner of dental problems as people moved into adulthood. Add to that, chaff, straw and the sweepings-up from the bakehouse floor, and you had a bread fit for only the very poor. 

By the time we reach Tudor times, the 'best' Maslin was made from a blended flour of wheat and rye often grown together. 

Briefly Last Week............

Thanks for all the weather comments yesterday - I always love it when a comment turns into a post and makes lots more comments!

.

Briefly last  Saturday I thought about a week of meal photos, but then the leek and kale fritters served with bacon and tinned tomatoes on Sunday weren't very photogenic (although it was a very filling and tasty meal for a day with snow).

Which started off looking like this, got heavier with huge flakes which somehow settled on the very wet ground for an hour before everything turned to rain - quelle surprise!

I eat my main meal about 1 o'clock-ish nowadays, preferring to eat a much smaller meal later in the day...............sign of old age I reckon!

The famous nutritional advice to "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper" is most commonly attributed to Adelle Davis (1904–1974), a prominent American nutritionist and author. She popularized this phrase in the mid-20th century to promote eating a heavy breakfast, a moderate lunch, and a light dinner for better health. 

Breakfast each morning at the moment, until I fancy a change. Chopped apple/pear and prunes, warmed for a minute in the microwave, toast  (home made bread  50/50 wholemeal/white) and cheats home made marmalade and a large coffee.

 This was one day.............

Main meal - Stir fry carrots, onion and chopped kale with noodles and soy sauce and two each cook-from-frozen party food ....... mini spring rolls and tempura prawns. Small meal - Celery, Hovis biscuits and Blue Stilton cheese.

That was the end of that brief foray into a food blog week!

Last weeks good news was the letter from NHS telling me all was well with my mammogram. Last weeks  bad news was a letter from HMRC telling me I'd earned too much money from my savings so they'd have to tell Suffolk County Council to tax me more on the spouses pension. 

Oh well, I downsized to have some savings - Ha!

I know lots of people aren't watching the Winter Olympics but if you can cope with it have a look today at the GB team in the Men's Curling at 6pm this evening. They did so well to get through to the final. It's a fascinating sport, tactical and more difficult than it looks of course. I'll be cheering them on from Mid Suffolk

Back Monday

Another Batch Make

 More batch meals made last week to pop in the freezer. This time it was Salmon, Pasta and Broccoli Bake. I used two tins of Aldi salmon, value range penne pasta, a head of broccoli plus white sauce made from powdered milk and cornflour. I  made sure to make plenty of white sauce because last time I made it the portions ended up a bit dry when reheated. It was topped with grated cheese and home made dried breadcrumbs.

6 portions made - 1 to eat and 5 in the freezer and now I've no more freezer storage boxes with lids that fit them!. The total cost was around about £4.

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The first piece of news on the BBC News at One yesterday was about that awful Ipswich man who killed five women in 2002. He has at last admitted to kidnapping and killing a young school girl several years earlier. A case that has been unsolved all this time. How cruel that he has waited so long to own up. 

 

Curry

 I didn't have many home-made batch-made meals left  in the freezer and ate the last box of curry last week so gathered up a lot of veg and a pack of quorn pieces, tins of coconut milk and korma paste and cooked up a nice big pan full.

Not sure of the total cost as the tins and korma paste had been in the cupboard a while but it's probably around £9.  Divided into 12 portions.

The hardest bit of making this was sorting the right  lids to match the freezer boxes!

When Life Gives You Lemons...............

..........................I didn't make lemonade.

 Early last week I had a prickly throat and thought it was a cold coming - so had a look in the freezer for lemon slices to make a hot lemon/ honey drink but there were none. The prickly throat didn't develop into anything thankfully, but I still put lemons on the shopping list. 

Aldi don't sell lemons individually - I don't think many supermarkets do nowadays - so it had to be a pack of 4 Wonky Lemons but I didn't want to slice and freeze all four so rustled up a couple of lemon drizzle loaves. 

I've just looked to see who does sell individual lemons and Tesco do for 35p each but the Aldi pack of 4 are 89p so 22p each which is quite a saving - as long as they all get used. According to ads on TV the average family wastes £1,000 worth of food each year. Selling things in large packs is probably one of the reasons.

The top wasted foods (supposedly) are potatoes, milk, bread and cheese.......Cheese? who on earth throws out cheese? ....that really should be a criminal offence!

Back Tomorrow

T is for Two Tins of Tomatoes ............

 ..........tipped all over the floor - not on purpose obviously!

I emptied two tins of plum tomatoes into the liquidiser jug to whizz them up as I was making a large batch of Quorn Bolognese/tomato pasta sauce. I picked up the liquidiser to fit it onto the top of my Kenwood Chef and the bottom fell off - I thought it was screwed on properly and tight...............it wasn't!

Oh My! what a mess the contents two tins of tomatoes dropped from a height can make - everything for several feet around was splattered!

Took me an age to clear up. What started out as a half hour in the kitchen cooking turned into 1½ hours, two soggy tea towels, three soggy dish cloths, one mop and a mucky brush and dustpan and the little mat by the sink is still outside getting rained on to clean it.

Luckily I had two more tins of plum tomatoes in the cupboard and eventually ended up with 9 portions of tomato/carrot/onion and Quorn mince sauce  to pop in the freezer.

This was a couple of weeks ago, the day after the boiler broke down! I waited in trepidation for the third thing to go wrong................

Back Tomorrow

Tomatoes for Chutney

 I've grown plum tomatoes for many years for making chutney. The first were San Marzano and then over the years new varieties have appeared. There was 'Big Mama' and then for the last  few years 'Super Mama', F1 Hybrid for greenhouse growing or outside in a good year. They can be up to 5 inches long and my biggest this year weighed 8oz each, although according to information on websites they can weigh 1lb each- but I've never seem them that big.

They are good for chutney as they peel easily after being plunged in boiling water, have very little juice and hardly any seeds.

I've now got over 4lb in the freezer - plenty for making a big batch of chutney just in case I don't grow any next year although I probably will.

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Boxes, Lids and Coincidences

If you read crime fiction then you will know that at sometime the detective always says  "I don't believe in coincidences".

And I wouldn't have believed this, but it did happen.

This is a blog post I'd written last week right ready for posting sometime this week.

 I've been using these boxes from Lakeland for many, many years. They are so handy as the lids fit all three sizes . They've lasted ages and I've occasionally bought a new pack of one or other of the three sizes over the years when some have split or got discoloured.

But how have I ended up with 9 various sized  boxes in the drawer at the moment but 17 lids??

If they're used to  give away cheese scones to BiL for instance or are in the freezer they would be box and lid.

I know where three boxes are in use without lids.  One large one I use to knock the used coffee grounds into and one medium size is in the cupboard holding the little bottles of food colourings and essences, and another is in the fridge with the latest picking of my mini plum tomatoes. But that still leaves 5 spare lids.

So do I throw out the spare lids or hang onto them just in case?  

 That was where that post ended.

But then I found these at the boot sale on Saturday.

Three more of the larger boxes with lids, thought I might as well add to the collection as they were in one of the house clearance boxes and the lady only wanted 50p for all three.

Writing a post about them and then finding some - coincidences DO happen after all.

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