Sarah

As an update to my earlier post I have just realised how large Tom and Gemma’s allotment is. 30ft x 80ft. Wow.

I think our growing space is about 1ft x 10ft.

We will probably get one meal out of ours.

As we live in London we have to make use of every available cm of the space we rent. We don’t have a garden but we do have seven window boxes and are currently deciding how get the most out of them by growing a little bit of food. I wonder how much rent we are paying per window box? I wonder if we will be growing the most expensive fruit and veg we have ever had…although no…Borough Market exists for that.

So to compliment Tom Smith (who had a birthday yesterday - happy birthday!) and Gemma and their ambitious plans for their new allotment I would like to present our plans on a smaller scale. Tom and Gemma have acquired a greenhouse…we have two Tupperware bottoms, one on top of the other. Tom and Gemma have a shed…we don’t have a shed. That’s where is ends actually. But I bet they haven’t got their bed directly next to their strawberry patch.

Warning: don’t sneeze near your plans or your plants fly away.

The good thing about the last post was that when writing a shopping list just now I was able to look on my blog and see if I needed to buy eggs. Perhaps I should take a photo of the contents of my cupboards every morning to remind me what I have.

It’s not about the chocolate but when you get such lovely chocolate as this it’s worth a mention.

From La Fee Cabosse in Dinan, France, via mum and dad. And you can see bigger pictures in Sarah Snaps.

It’s 11.15am on 7 April. Deliaonline still isn’t available. What if I wanted to make a special Easter cake? I just don’t know what I would do.

We just enjoyed a Roman holiday and you can enjoy the photos in my gallery.

I hope this won’t be the end of the much loved littledelia head.

I wonder if I can eat cake for every meal today. There is enough left over but I don’t think I will survive, or sleep. None of us could sleep last night due to the amount of cake consumed in the afternoon.

On Saturday night Tom and I turned my kitchen into a pasta factory.

We turned this:

into this:

It took ages and we barely made enough for two but it tasted quite nice. A lesson if you are making pasta is to make big pasta shapes like lasagne for example and if you are making small filled pasta shapes for a dinner party for eight allow at least 4 days.

Pancakes with sugar and lemon (made with handy egg and powdered milk)

Eggs, ham and holiday cheese

Boiled eggs eaten with a shared tea spoon

Pasta with pepper relish

Paella

Sausage and bean casserole (my favourite)

Steak, pots and salad

Ferry picnic: Tine cream cheese, Kaptaein crackers and smoked salmon

The camping season started well and served as a good practice for cycling the North Sea Cycle route in Norway.

Despite there being a very high percentage of rain in Norway I am hoping it doesn’t rain too much as with my rain covers on my panniers my bike looks like a fairground ride. My front pannier covers are bright yellow, my back ones green and if I take my handlebar bag that has a red cover. So fairground ride or traffic light. Oh and I did I mention I also have red flashing lights?

The campsite was great. We were the only campers. It was a small organic farm in Broughton with a small farm shop to match.

We camped in a field next to some chickens…some jumping chickens. Did you know chickens jumped? They were very free range and ranged in a field with bushes. The bushes obviously held some delights for the chickens because they would crouch down and then lauch themselves like cats at the bush and try and catch something. Even when we weren’t watching them we would be accompanied with the soundtrack of jumping chickens. They were also surrounded by an electric fence - as Tom found out when he tried to take a picture of the chickens and got a little shock. Unfortunately the chickens don’t seem to have very good memories and seeing a chicken get a little shock (probably quite a big shock to a chicken) is a little disturbing.

Our bathroom was in a little glade and included a tap and an outdoor solar powered shower. Unfortunatly because there wasn’t really any solar power to be captured this weekend the shower was a bit cold and a bit drafty. Nice power shower action though. The privy (that what the farmer called it) was a little wooden hut at the end of the field with a lovely view of the farm. As there were no other people around many a sit on the privy was enjoyed with the door open looking at the view.

As a practice camping cooking weekend it was very successful. Friday night Tom cooked carbonara - very good for camping due to the minimum preparation required. Saturday night was lovely steak from the butcher in Stockbridge, John Rob’s. He employs 11 butchers and it certainly was crowded. Then we had salad made from lettuce from the farm we were staying on, tomato, olives and feta. Finished off with pan roasted jersey royals. All cooked in our new pans, with the aid of our home made stove wind break. It matches the utensil case.

Breakfast this morning was sausage and eggs. Sausage from John Rob’s and eggs from the chickens in the adjacent field. We asked the chickens to look away while we ate but they seemed to be happy just jumping around.

When is the official British Strawberry season? Am I allowed to eat them yet? Well too late I already have and they were delicious. I made a promise to myself to make strawberry jam at least every 2 weeks to keep me going through the winter. That challenge starts today.

The craft challenge is going well though projects may have changed slightly. The sewing machine is coming out today. Blimey - while making jam? How sickening.

Yesterday I realised why I hate the smell of wild garlic. It’s because it has an underlying aroma of rubber bands and I hate rubber bands.

I have been thinking about marmite lately, in fact I can’t stop thinking about it. On the train yesterday I realised I had been thinking about it for a good 5 minutes.

Last time I was in Brighton I thought I would give it a go for breakfast and it didn’t repulse me but I didn’t really get it. Ever since then though it has sort of caught me and I find myself going into shops and looking at it. I went into a shop with 4 different sizes of jars and I liked the smallest one but I haven’t found it since. I can only see the second jar up which is too much. So I just go and stare at the jars but don’t buy it.

Because I didn’t go to Wells yesterday it meant I could go to my butcher and spend extra money on a really nice free range chicken. Taking inspiration from a book I want (but haven’t read) New English Kitchen (about how you can get loads of meals out of one thing) so actually it wasn’t that much help because I haven’t read it (my brackets are all over the place). Um…so I wanted to see how many meals I could get out of my chicken.

Yesterday I roasted the chicken and had it with cous cous and feta, olives and stuff. Then today I made chicken stock, which I am yet to see the benefits of as it took 2 hours to make 2 pints of stock. Then I decided I wanted to make a pieminster pie so I copied their Chicken of Arragon ingredients and made some filling. Then I decided not to make pie today so I froze the filling but it tastes lovely. Then I engineered a boxing day feast tonight and had cold chicken with bubble and squeak and pickled onions. Oh and I cooked my roast potatoes (this may start to get a bit graphic for vegetarians) in the chicken fat saved from yesterday and I put the chicken juices in the Chicken of Arragon pie filling.

I just browsed Delia for more leftover chicken ideas but started to feel a bit sick.

Chicken sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.

I made three bags today, one for me, one for my mum and one for Tom. I can’t tell you what they are like as it is a surprise for Tom though I am concerned he won’t really like it. When I voiced my concerns to my mum she said “well it hasn’t got flowers and girlie things on it” and when I voiced my concerns to Tom he said “why won’t I like it? Does it have flowers and girlie things on it?”. It doesn’t by the way but obviously if I ever want to make something horrible for Tom I now know what to make.

So during the last few weeks of sewing etc people have been telling me I should sell the things I am making. I have always been very hesitant about doing that and today I realised it really is a waste of time as it took me about 6 hours to make all three bags, I spent about £6 on materials and I wouldn’t sell them for more than £5, or at least I don’t think people would buy them for more than £5. So does that mean I would be earning £1.50 per hour? I couldn’t buy any vegetables to fill my bags on that money.

So I have decided I am going to make stuff for trades (and for presents). I made my mum a bag in a trade for some marmalade she made today. I think she only got paid about £1.50 an hour for making that too. It made her say visious things about tescos again. I think Tom is brain washing her.

If there is one thing I made in 2004 that you should make too it is - for the meat eaters - Libyan Soup with Cous Cous, and for the non-meat eaters - Chickpea, Chilli and Coriander cakes. That is two things.

If there is one thing you should buy to make your life more enjoyable it should be anything from the OXO Good Grips range. I would recommend the tin opener.

If there is one thing you should do (unless you already do, which it seems many people do) you should re-join your library. You can get all sorts of things such as DVDs and OS maps and of course the traditional book.

If you haven’t made any resolutions you could use those.

I just bought some Organic Spicy Bean Pate which among other things listed in the ingrediants is 31% tomato puree and 188% red kidney beans.