TARRAGON & THYME

Well tonights roast dinner turned out pretty well and the meat was definitely tasty.  I shall definitely do belly pork joints this way again.  This type of cut would also be good for Rilletes. Anyway here are the photos - I think they speak for themselves. I have also cooked the ham for pack ups  this is now cooling down in the pan; the beauty of this is I have more stock for gravies and soups with lots of flavour which is heading into the freezer this time in individual ice cube trays which will when they are frozen then be bagged up with labels. Tea was late as I had not started it until later  - I fell asleep again this afternoon on the settee and have lost another couple of hours.  Watched Poldark and then started pottering in getting things ready for tomorrow. I was going to pop up a post this evening about what we were experimenting with but this will have to wait until tomorrow when I will pop up a post tomorrow evening. ...

Its been quite busy here today and I have been really full of energy - must be the sunshine it so glorious to have the benefit at long last. I have spent the best part of the day engaged in housewifely duties, washing, dishwasher on, cleaning the kitchen. So quite an industrious day.  Really I want to be in the garden but that will be next week weather permitting as before I can start on the herb garden there is some junk that needs sorting and then taking to the tip. I have been shopping in the freezer and we have a piece of plain belly pork for tea this evening  not a rolled piece a flat piece which is going to be simply roasted (hopefully with lots of crackling) and I have also got out a gammon joint for pack ups during the week.  I am going to serve some roasted veggies with the Pork and whatever veg I can find in the fridge I think there is a cauliflower, carrots and some peas in the freezer so enough to make a meal and some  fresh home made apple sauce...

After  the sun being conspicuous by its absence yesterday I have woken today to bright sunshine shining through the window; a sight to warm the cockles of your heart.  I have been sat just enjoying the moment and the quietness of the house whilst OH walked Missy.  Sometimes we need the quietness to help restore energy levels. Just to be able to sit and simply be. A lot of the time I do not get the opportunity and I relish it all the more when I do.  Sometimes we just need peace quiet and solitude to simply grow and to unravel information and experiences that come our way.   It is on mornings like this that I want to be down in Cornwall in the countryside not far from the coast.  A chance to chill in beautiful surroundings and the chance to go to the beach and feel the sand between my toes and a quick paddle - there always has to be a paddle.  There is something oh so wonderful about the light in Cornwall even on the greyest day. But it ...

I use a lot for fresh mint as both other half and I enjoy a mild curry every so often with which we serve home made mint Raita which cools the taste buds down after the onslaught of the heat from the spices. However there is always mint left over which gets wasted which I absolutely hate at the best of times.. Therefore jut recently  I have taken to drying the leaves.  I simply use a tea tray and man sized tissues starting with a layer of tissue I then strip the leaves off the stems and lay then flat on the tissue.  Pop a layer of tissue on top and carry on in this fashion and leave to dry.  After a week the leaves should be dry but  still retain their mint smell at which point I decant into jars. I have been using it to make mint tea.  Will carry on doing this a it comes up very well. Catch you soon Pattypan x

Nothing much has has happened for the rest of the day apart that from in the first instance I was watching the TV - the next thing I knew I was out for the count;  three hours later!  Probably due to the fact that it was cold outside lovely and warm inside I think I got a little too snug!  Never mind.  As a result I was late to the shops and the veg shop had closed.  But I nipped to the Co-Op and managed to snap some bargains up, a couple of bread loaves white and brown for about 60p, four nets of peelers at 55pence per net, two bags of new potatoes 35p per bag, a bag of everyday potatoes for 30pence, two trays of sausages 8 per pack 51 pence per pack 2 packs French beans at 33p per pack 3 packs of onion bhajis for 50p per tray so I have not done too badly.  I always try and take advantage of reductions where I can as it saves on the housekeeping and what I cannot use there and then goes into the freezer for another day. Because it was so cold I decided...

Its very cold here in Peterborough today bitterly cold a complete reversal to yesterday the beginning of the Spring Equinox and the day when we had an eclipse of the sun.  I walk into work every day and so gradually saw the eclipse little by littlea; it was  special and emotional time full of hope for the days to come.  My colleagues and I also kept checking through the window at work until we saw the complete cycle everywhere went dark but there was a purplish goldeny clouds round the outline of the sun so much so that we (my colleagues and I could empathise with people years ago thinking it was a bad omen and that the world was coming to an end. That was yesterday today has been an early start. Neither us really wanted to get up because it has been a long week.  However we had an invitation to go out. My step-son invited us out to breakfast to the Iron Horse Diner in Market Deeping the men had fried breakfast, but us ladies - Louise had a bagel with bacon egg ...

I popped round to the shop this evening to pick up one or two bits and whilst I was there they reduced the flowers in the shop.  I love flowers and because they are so pricey I do not very often indulge despite growing up in households where a bunch of flowers on the bureau or on a side table was the norm. In fact my grandmother had a cutting garden and there were always flowers in the house.  The flowers that were reduced were pretty bunches that were £10 per bunch for three of the bunches I eventually bought and the biggest one was £20.  That is in total £50 for all four bunches - it is for this reason I do not buy them as that amount of money is a lot which could do a lot more for things that we do really need.  So it comes down to practicalities in the end and a conscientious decision at the end of the day to get more for my money.  Its not because I do not love flowers because I do I think they cheer up a room no end. Needless to say I am ov...

Well I am trying to ressurect my mojo it seems to have walked off in a huff at the moment!  However in an effort to try and get things organised and to make me feel as though I have achieved something I have purchased some little tiny books that can be kept in my handbag as aide memoires for what I actually need or am after.  Each book has different contents i.e. Ingredients for making Gravlaxs, Bacon, etc just marked up with the ingredients required.  Another one is Garden orientated with a list of seeds I already have, plants I have, seeds and plants would like, fruit bushes and canes, fruit trees etc so that if I do come across some bargains I will be poised to make the most of them.  List after list, but all concisely kept and not too much of a nuisance in my handbag (I have a bottomless pit of a handbag). I have also sorted out a bag of seeds I had into an old shoe box so that they are easily accessible and out of the way of the cats (they have a pench...

Can you not feel it excitement in the air as the sap rises the more I want to be out of my winter cocoon.  I hear the birdsong first thing a sure sign that  Spring has arrived.  From early on in the morning you can hear all the chattering and squabbling and the bird song.  I would hear it more in the countryside.  The more the sap rises the more I want to be out and about - I still have not managed to get out into the garden to get stuck in hopefully shortly.  And soon we change the clocks again to make the most of the daylight hours.  I think it is the 28th of this month. I have today bought 8 Lily of the Valley plants.  Lily of the Valley is my birth month flower, but my mum recounts a story about just after I was born.  I was destined to be born at Lincoln Hospital however for one reason or another they were full.  Mum was therefore shipped to a local cottage hospital with roses around the door and with a big garden.  Mum...

After my post yesterday I went shopping and hit some bargains in the reduced counter.  A chicken for £3, 2 packs of Hunters chicken @ £2 per pack = £7.00, 2 packs of Hereford Beef mince @ £1.60 per pack = £3.20 Total  £10.20 so I did not do too badly.  So that has all gone into the freezer apart from the chicken which is being cooked for pack ups during the week i.e. Chinese chicken wraps and /or ordinary sarnies. For the rest of the day I was doing some research on the Internet and just had a generally lazy time for once.  I felt completely drained when I came home on Friday evening and I am no now starting to feel a bit more with it a bit more charging on all cylinders although I did flake out on the settee again this time for about three hours.  So although I could ill afford the time doing nothing for once I had to listen to what my body was telling me and just rest.   I can play catch up during the week . Today has likewise been leisurely alth...

Thank goodness I slept well last night playing catch up on a week where I have not really slept when I needed to.  I feel much more refreshed.  However it is grey and chilly at the moment  (2 degrees C) and I have a Jack Russell grumbling at me because she thinks I am in "her" seat!  So I do not think that today will be a day for "mud pies" unless the sun comes out a little.  I am itching to get on with some gardening though.  Maybe some planning and plotting instead a little later.  . So far today has been lazy.  I have had a new book arrive which I have been poring through and which I am really chuffed with. By Fiona Bird ..... and what a cracker lots of lovely ideas. The book is split into sections: Flowers and Blossom Woodland and Hedgerow Fruits and Berries Herbs Sea and shore Recipes include Elderflower Scotch Pancakes, Wild Elderflower and Gooseberry Curd, Honeysuckle and Sorrel Sorbet,custard tarts wit...

Today did not really start very well.  I did not sleep well and I was awake at 5:00pm (call of nature) got OHs clothes sorted "mufty day" at work (jeans had been in the tumble drier) and then got back into bed.  Promptly fell into a deep sleep slept through two alarm calls and by fluke woke up at 8:30am.  Mad dash to get ready feed the menagerie and then walk a good half mile to work. I have to be in work by 9:15am got into work for 9:18am but it put me wrong-footed for the rest of the morning playing catch up.  Never mind these things are sent to try us. At lunch I met up with a very good work colleague and friend and we hit the Beehive a pub literallly just round the corner from where I work in Peterborough.  We take it in turn in paying; this week it was my turn.  The Food really is tasty and moorish all produced in their own kitchens.  Today my friend had fresh salmon and cucumber sandwiches and I had fish  finger sarnies with mayonnaise ...

How often do you go by the reduced section in a supermarket cast your eyes over what's in there and there are the remnants of some spring onions - not very inspiring or is it. If I take them, what am I going to do with them once I get them home?  I tend to grab them as in my kitchen they are extremely useful. You can use Spring Onions wherever you use onion and you can blend a couple of different types of onion to really get a full flavour  Its a green vegetable full of flavour quite frequently used in salads or as an accompaniment to Peking Duck.  Yesterday I found a load of spring onions reduced so I brought them home and then went to Farm Foods yesterday and got 3 bags of Peking Duck with Hoisin Sauce and pancakes for £10.  So that is what we had for tea on Sunday together with cucumber sticks.  Yummy it was too. You can make  relish, use them in a soup, pop them into Coleslaw, in Champ, in dips, just substitute them instead of using ordinary on...

Spring is starting to put in an appearance the sap is rising and the Sun has started to put in an appearance hurrah.  The photos above are of the plants I bought last Saturday and are due to be planted up this weekend.  So cheerful so pretty. Its been a sunny day here but the wind has had an edge to it which has been a bit nippy. I was glad to get in to the warm.  However  I fell asleep on the settee again after I got in, this is becoming a little bit of a habit of late.  There is someone else who has been catching up on a bit of shuteye too.  Pampered pooch does not come into it. I think she has her humans well trained! Catch you soon. Pattypan x  

I am preparing the shirts that I have bought for making patchwork throws/quilts by cutting them down and liberating what fabric I can.There is quite a bit of fabric in a man's shirt and I have been buying the extra large shirts so far as there is more yardage in the shirt which means more uses on the patchwork front for me.  I intend to use any small remaining pieces of fabric in Dresden plate designs and also folded patchwork with the bulk of the fabric going towards squares or blocks.  I am starting simply but I see the potential in the fabric for even the smallest scraps.   The first batch of shirts is a mixture of blues, reds, whites. I intend to use like a strip pieced quilt in the first instance from this colourway.  The second batch is pinks and lilacs in small squares and this third batch is pinks/reds, greens and white which will be a medium sized square.  Most of the fabric has been sourced from the charity shops.  I have paid no ...

Especially after a busy weekend.   However work aside, I popped into town at dinner on the look out for crafty things.  I have two new books one on cushions and in particular there is a cushion created from Suffolk Puffs that I am quite interested in.  I have also seen a bed throw created in the same way.  These two projects would marry up very well and could be worked a little at a time. I have some small pieces of pretty fabric which I think would look lovely made up like this.  I also bought another crochet book.  In fairness they were from the cheapie book store in town The Works so I have paid nowhere near the full price. When I was younger I liked everything to match as I am getting older I like things to blend hence my interest in patchwork and my crochet projects.  Colour is important to me.  Refound items are being used along with items that I have had from new. Over the years I have found some beautiful needlework items whe...

Its been a bit wet n miserable here today and I had asked OH if he would take me to Farm Foods today - they have extended our local store and I had not been since they upgraded.  Potentially we went just  going for a look around.  However there were a couple of pit stops before arriving there. OH decided that the car needed a real good clean and we have a very good local hand wash service which is not too ridiculous once a month and so we went there first.  There was a queue so I left him and went and had a look around Dunhelm whilst he waited in the car and then once that was done he would come and fetch me. So I had a little time to have a good mooch around in Dunhelm.  I am going to need some new bedding shortly so I was having a good look at what they had sheet wise and I think I may well be having a closer look in a month or so. I love soft furnishings of any kind and I was also having a good look around the section with the cushion pad blanks as I...