Vegetable Stock, Flour and Salt

I'm not sure if the ingredients in the title would combine to make anything tasty but, for this post, they are two separate topics.

One

You may or may not remember the bottom drawer of my kitchen freezer, mentioned in the post on using up orange peels, but on a recent Friday I made a batch of vegetable stock from a few cups of compiled ends, peels and bits of vegetables: tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, carrots, onions, red peppers, etc. I'd not made veggie stock before so I consulted Love Your Leftovers, by Hugh Fernley-Whittenstall. I was a bit disappointed that he said to grate a carrot, an onion and rib of celery to cook in a tablespoon of oil, nothing to do with leftovers. So I did this and added a few cups of scraps and a liter, I think, of water. I forgot to take photos - not that it was particularly photogenic. I froze two smaller jars and left the larger jar in the fridge. I cooked rice in it that evening, since it's not really soup weather - or it wasn't that Friday. 

Two

Reading a Treehugger article about measuring ingredients to the side of rather than over a bowl (basic cooking) I got a picture in my mind of my salt jar. Because poring salt into a spoon is too fiddly and wasteful. So I put it in a jar into which I could dip a measuring spoon. This also allows me the space to level the top with a knife and push the extra salt back into the jar. 

For this same reason I put plain flour into an old yogurt bucket. The messes I've made trying to level a cup of flour over a flour bag don't bear thinking about. I've come to realise that measures by weight are far more efficient, but no American cookbook has them.

Mind, this old fashioned kitchen design with a flour bin and all sort of other clever conveniences is my dream. 

Death by Water

I've been re-reading our Phyrne Fisher collection (by Kerry Greenwood). Comfort reading at its best in spite of involving plenty of murder, theft and other crimes. I'm not aware of being stressed, though on some level I probably am, however when stressed my brain seeks familiar territory. In the past I've read the print off Mom's and my Dick Francis collection. I'm now so familiar with the Harry Potter books the words don't make a movie in my head anymore. But I haven't got every plot of the Phryne books memorised yet. 

At the back of Death by Water I found not only a recipe for a 'Perfect Champagne Cocktail' but some post-it notes where I'd scribbled passages I particularly enjoyed - or had no idea about - in a previous reading. If you're like me you read through all sorts of things you don't know exactly what they are about but just guess from the context. It was rather satisfying to look these things up. 

Description of their cruise ship:

"...screens by Tiffany, furnishing by Liberty and William Morris, light fixtures by LaFarge..."

Illustrations on the Tiffany screens:

"...flowering gum and... a pohutukawa" (a New Zealand tree)

Bedspread:

"dark blue morocain" - A fabric; so far as I can tell this is another spelling for Moroccan and may refer to a distinctive print.

Terminology:

"So what were the on-dits?" Definition of on-dit: a piece of gossip or vague rumour.

"Fribble": Noun - a trifle, a frivolity; Verb - to waste something away, to fritter; to waste time.

"Keas" (a New Zealand bird - a very smart parrot) 

a Sou'wester

Chicken Veronique

References:

"Phyrne was in complete agreement with Oscar Wilde about people who were witty before breakfast."

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

                                                               - Oscar Wilde


"She may look like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth but as they said in the eighteenth century, I'll warrant that she wouldn't choke on cheese".  - 'butter wouldn't melt in her mouth' refers to someone who is very cool in their demeanor. Couldn't find any reference to choking on cheese other than literally.

And now, what you've been waiting for:

The Perfect Champagne Cocktail

1. Chill a bottle of dry champagne. It doesn't have to be expensive - in fact this is a great way to dress up cheap champage - but it must not be sweet.

2. Take a big glass and swill about a teaspoonful of Cointreau around to coat the inside. 

3. Drop a cube of sugar in, place three drops of bitters onto the sugar. If you like sweet tastes, put in two sugar cubes but don't add any more bitters.

4. Very gently pour in champagne and fill the glass. Garnish with a thin strip of orange peel.

5. This is the only champagne which can be drunk through a straw. To make a champagne cup, dilute this half and half with Schweppes lemonade. It's worth getting all hot and tired playing deck tennis if there is champagne cocktail in prospect.

Garden

I've been busy making a map of the gardens here, front and back. The back was easy, being rectangular. The front isn't a rectangle and the brick walks are irregular, there was the problem of how to measure the arc of the bay window and the semi-circular (more or less) south facing garden space.

I've been reading a book on garden design and I know I like a cottage style, nothing formal or regimented. I've made a list of plants I'd like to grow and the colour scheme I have in mind for the front. I'm certain that we haven't enough space to do all I'd like, but one has to dream big, right?

Then I contacted the local (ish) garden centre I knew were delivering. I ask for a great number of bedding plants (having looked up the definition) and for potting compost and a picture of any trellis they had. She rang back a week later, the time frame I expected. She thought I was asking for too many plants and she asked for some photos of my garden.

So that was another project, to send photos and explain what they were. Waiting to hear from her again. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the thing we already have in place.

Cole Slaw

These posts are in no particular order. Rightfully this should come a bit closer to the Hillheads fruit and veg delivery. Admittedly I did leave the cabbage til near the end of the veggies to use. I used half to steam and serve with corned beef hash (half a tin of corned beef, fried onions and boiled potatoes all mixed together). Bill thought it an odd combination - not the hash but the cabbage with it - but to an American 'corned beef and cabbage' rolls off the tongue like 'peanut butter and jelly' or 'biscuits and gravy', but those too are American. Perhaps I should say like 'bangers and mash' or 'beans and toast'. Never mind, this is about cole slaw.


Which I think I may have made once before in my lifetime, though I think Mom made it a quite a bit most summers to eat with our weekend barbeques in the back garden, with Grandma and Grandpa and our next door neighbour over the fence, Chris and her Yorkshire Terrier, Laurie. Since including Laurie I suppose I should mention Debbie, Cookie or Duchess, whichever of our dogs we had at the time.

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Anyhow, Bill found a recipe for me, perhaps from his mother's cookbook, I don't know. Translated it says 6 grated carrots, 1 small cabbage shredded, a pinch of caster sugar, 3 tablespoons cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon mustard, 200 g mayonnaise. Mix the carrots and cabbage, season with salt. Add sugar and vinegar and toss, let sit for 20 minutes then add mustard and mayonnaise. I halved this recipe and used regular sugar.

I found the result a bit dry and added more mayo until I liked the consistency better. I expected Bill would be eating more of this than I would, him being able to afford so many more calories.

Gosh that bowl looks close to falling off the counter!

Still, I enjoyed the little I had. And we used up some more of our zillion carrots. Not to mention the cabbage we wouldn't normally buy.

How to Get 81 Squash Plants

I started my first batch of seedlings back in February, working my way through all my ancient seed packets which said 'sow indoors February' plus some flower seeds that were Christmas gifts, to grow edible flowers. Some herbs came up nicely, as did chrysanthemums (which I don't remember if they're edible or not, so don't risk it without some research). There were rows of oldish seeds that didn't produce and one day when I was clearing out the fridge, I found a box of squash seeds. 

I'd put the seeds in the fridge after eating the squash thinking I would roast them, but they had gone a bit slimy, so I thought not. On a whim I stuffed the seeds into the vacant rows on the windowsill and put sticky labels over the previous names (stuck on sticks cut from a plastic milk carton or a plastic file folder). I think it was an acorn squash but for some reason I had 'butternut' on the brain and that's what I wrote on the new labels.

I had moved most of the seedlings of flowers or herbs to other pots and nearly ditched the squash plants quietly growing under the soil but being a procrastinator they were saved. All the sudden I had row after row of little plants. When I pulled one out to re-pot it, two more appeared!  I spent an afternoon moving these things to new pots and finding sunny places to put them. 

The next day I asked Bill to move the rickety old book case in the back porch (full of pots, gardening gloves and his muddy shoes from walking and cross-country) to the potting table under the south facing window in the garage. When that was done I continued re-potting and then he found the old plastic stacking bookcase from the 1980s and put parts of it in the west facing bay window and the front porch. 

I kept wondering where to put these in soil in our garden without sacrificing our chance of growing anything but squash; Bill thinks we have room for maybe 10-12. I keep telling myself he lacks imagination. Also asking myself why on earth I rescued every single one of those plants? 

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I've decided it was because initially they have two leaves sticking up from the soil and those two leaves made me think of baby birds begging to be fed. Sometimes the shell of the seed would stick to one of the leaves for a while and that reminded me of the old cartoons of newly hatched birds with an egg-shell 'hat'. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. So we have more plants than we can possibly use. How many actual squashes they produce is of course yet to be seen, but any squashes they do will be eaten with pleasure - and the seeds definitely roasted!

Anyone want a squash plant?

Shortage of Toilet Paper

In the early months of 2019, in preparation for the first Brexit date, I stocked up on toilet paper, food staples and wine (which was distributed with each of our three Christmas visits to each of Bill's children). I will likely do so again in the months before December 31st this year when the 'transition' phase ends. Given the way this government has managed personal protective equipment and testing for coronavirus, not the mention the shortage of farm labour to pick crops, I feel this practice is fully vindicated. I would recommend you do the same, even start now with a couple of tins with each store trip / delivery.

My upstairs bathroom has very little storage space, so I've long used an old tote bag (a freebie from my most favourite ever magazine, Eve, alas now out of publication) to contain spare rolls nearby their point of use. I keep one one the window sill next to the toilet.

Because of the width of the tote bag I noticed right away when Aldi's TP shrank. When I sent Bill shopping in the loft for the next batch, I thought it was a convenient way to show you the evidence.

Marmalade Cheat

Once upon a time long, long ago we had toast for breakfast each morning, made with store bought bread. I had honey on mine, Bill ate his with margarine spread and marmalade. 

• Before we had a bread making machine and Bill always had marmalade on his toast; 
• Before we gave up toast for cereal (except at weekends);
• Before we put aside spreads for real butter;
• Before the pandemic when we ran low on butter and Bill decided to try his toast with just jam and pronounced it fine. 

But not before I had started experimenting with making jam.

Dead easy to mix the jam in with the Seville oranges.

When shopping for food I'm inclined to choose the cheapest brand first and if that disappoints to then work my way up until the quality is sufficient. I discovered that Bill didn't care for the cheapest marmalade, it was too sweet, so I bought him the special low-sugar brand at 3-4 times the price. Then I discovered Lakeland carried tins of Seville oranges and found that combining a jar of cheap sugary marmalade with a tin of Seville oranges made several jars of just-right marmalade at just under the price of the special brand. This was probably my first foray into jam making. Supermarkets also began carrying tins of Seville oranges.

I don't know about your cupboards now but mine are being whittled down to the out-of-date, I'll-figure-out-what-to-do-with-that-later stuff. Amongst which was two said tins of Seville oranges and a single jar of sugary marmalade. Since the tins have shrunk since the olden days I thought I'd risk it.

I didn't taste it until the whole process was nearly finished as I hate marmalade, with or without sugar. I worried that it might be too bitter but Bill pronounced it as perfect, which was a relief. I got four and a half jars from this, which will mean the jam I like will last longer since Bill will go for the marmalade first as he always did when we had store bought jam. At least that's the plan.

I did express some concern that the low sugar content might allow the jars of this mix to spoil, but Bill seemed confident that since the dimples in the lids had all popped, it would be fine. Hopefully any spoilage will be obvious with green or white growth on the top. This would of course mean that we had four less jars of marmalade. And I wouldn't care a whit.