Recipe for Fiona’s fabulous watercress soup
Watercress is packed with vitamins (A, C and K). It is a great source of iron, calcium and is full of beneficial chemicals such as glucosinates. It’s also quite pricey to buy, so when I saw a couple of packs reduced to 20p on the Tesco *CFC, I grabbed them with a chortle. Most summers we grow our own watercress in pots in a shady area of the garden but our plants are still babies at the moment. If you like watercress it’s well worth growing your own. You can see how to grow watercress at home and an update here. The secret to the deeply...
read moreEggy bread and cheese toasties recipe
Reading a review of a biography of Eva Braun at the weekend, I discovered that I have something in common with Hitler. He rarely got up before midday. Since developing CFS a couple of years ago, I tend to spend my mornings in bed. Propped up with my laptop and the Min Pins I do a bit of reading, writing and planning. The latter is generally not plotting world domination but rather what I’m going to prepare for brunch. This morning it was going to be toasted chicken club sandwiches until D confessed that he had picked the carcass...
read moreRecipe for leftovers: broccoli, cauliflower and Stilton soup
A few years ago I woke up one night. I could hear a loud crunching coming from the bottom of my giant 100 year old bed. What on earth could it be? I hastily groped for the light switch and discovered that Inca, our youngest Min Pin, was gnawing a head of broccoli. She had stolen the head from the kitchen and dragged it upstairs. Inca loves vegetables and often thieves from the pig bin but this was the first time that she had stolen from the vegetable basket. I was too tired to take it from her. In the morning I was surprised to find that she...
read moreHow to harvest and store walnuts and cobnuts
“I’m going down to collect some walnuts. Apparently there are masses under the trees.” “Is it OK to pick them up from the ground?” “Yes. I used to collect them on the big estate when I was working there. They used to call me down from my ladder to gather them so that they could mow. The shells mucked up the mower.” We were sitting at the top of our allotment. On two ancient chairs that we inherited with the plot. We spend quite a bit of time perched on these. Looking down the hill and on to the flat area on the other side of the...
read moreVegetarian Polenta Bake recipe: easy, cheesy and delicious
Lots of people at the party asked me for my new polenta bake recipe. Danny and I had spent some time tweaking Anne Mary’s recipe and I think that we’ve created a winner. This dish is packed with vegetables – I reckon that the sweet corn is essential but if you don’t have/like sweet peppers substitute tomatoes and grated courgettes. The word ‘bake’ has Danny feverish with horror in a second. Perhaps somewhere in the far distant past someone gave him a ‘bake’ that he loathed and felt that he had to force down. Unlike D, most good...
read moreSimple baked eggs recipe. Halogen oven recipes.
When I lived at home with my mum, we always ate lunch – main course and pud. Supper was an ad hoc affair – we could have whatever we liked that from the bounty of the fridge and larder as long as we prepared it ourselves. Quite canny of my mum as she could put her feet up and enjoy the evening without having to cook a proper meal. One of my favourite supper snacks were baked eggs. Delicious and dead easy to make. If I dallied up in my room they were quick to prepare. We’d eat our supper on trays balanced on old coffin stools (don’t...
read moreTasty spring frittata with new potatoes, rocambole, cheese and parsley recipe
Well I finally cracked it. My meat loving partner announced with delight. “That was the best frittata that I’ve ever eaten. I’d be happy to eat it twice a week.” “Did you realise that it was entirely vegetarian?” “No. It was just sublime.” Thoughtful pause. “I don’t care about the meat and still would guzzle this twice a week.” A result! I’m trying to cut down on our meat intake. Healthier and cheaper meals. Delicious is a bonus. The magic ingredient was rocambole . I had never used this before but after I...
read moreMaking Your Own Cheese: How to Make All Kinds of Cheeses in Your Own Home by Paul Peacock. A review
This year is the year that I’m determined to start making my own cheese. Ever since I’ve watched the progress of Suzanne McMinn who writes the addictive Chickens In The Road blog describing her progress on the cheese making front, I’ve been curious and a bit envious of her endeavours. Last year her partner bought her a cow for her birthday. Now let’s get things straight immediately, I do not want to actually own a cow and would be horrified if Danny led one up the drive on the next big birthday day. A cow is a massive...
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