TARRAGON & THYME

This cold wet weather just reinforces to me how much food we should be squirrelling away on our pantry shelves or cupboard or store whatever is available to you at this point in time.  It also makes me keen to get the last remaining expensive piece of equipment for my preserving cupboard and that is a canner.  My thinking is that if I can spend time putting useful items of food up on the pantry shelf like soups, canned meat and fish etc. It will save me more time during the week with cooking but also not losing that home cooked element.  Preparing my own convenience foods as it were. I am slowly attending to pasta sauce each week buying vine tomatoes until and when my own crop of tomatoes are ready so that is well in hand.  I also want to put some tomatoes up in brine as well as make Salsa as well as Tomato juice to use in Bloody Mary's and tomato ketchup but I do need the canner for that.   However to go with the Bloody Mary's I need chilli vodka. So f...

We woke to rain - in fact I think it rained for the best part of the night, but we needed that rain for all the plants to survive.  The plus side was I did not have to water up.  But it did go cold and I ended up putting a jumper on. I then decided that I needed to go to Mr T's they have a wonderful selection of veggies and fruits at reasonable prices as well,  OH has been buying cherries in a kg box every so often at a very reasonable price £4 for a kg tray.  So I have come home with a load of them to make into cherry pie filling.   The ones I got the other week I turned into cherries in syrup.  So it looks as if a little later I am going to be sat on my stool radio on pitting cherries; but it will be worth it in the long run when we are able to have cherry pie out of season. So if you want cherries these are really lush and cheap at the price.  Everywhere else I have been seeing cherries of a lesser quality for £5.99 per kg. I also boug...

Last night we had gentle rain and it was wet when I got up this morning. I had a bit of a lay in this morning and rested my foot some more and it is a lot comfier than it was. The day then started with bathing the dog.  She gets a yeast infection in her skin which flares up every so often so we have to regularly bathe her with a specific product which costs £30 from the vets.  It does last a while but in the summer she tends to be worse so we end up bathing her more. (I suppose the nearest to it in human terms is psoriasis - which gets worse with the heat).   She is usually quite good when it comes to a bath as long as OH is not around if he is there she misbehaves but when he is not she is as good as gold.  However I always get a good shake from her as she shares the love around and drenches me in the process. Lovely that she is. We have had brunch instead of breakfast (it was gone 12 before I even decided); egg and bacon with fresh bread and butter a...

Something to lift the mood when days are a little monotonous and your mood is down. I think basically I am an old fashioned type of girl.  I like traditional scents like, rose, lily of the valley, lavender etc.  For many years I have not used soap on my face choosing to use just nice hot water and a good mosituriser.  Recently however this has changed as I was in Holland and Barrett and they had an offer on some prettily packaged soap.  I bought it home not expecting much of it and it is one of the loveliest soaps I have come across.  It is beautifully scented and the scent lasts even after constant use.  Very much a ladies soap but very lovely.  I have also found it recently in different scents in Clintons card shop I first came across some nice soap as a teenager when away on holiday and the company who produced it were called Crabtree and Evelyn.  I bought two bars of soap one was called Tudor Rose and the other Damask Rose and oh ...

Its been a turbulent week here at work and at home.  The car went in for a service the other day and was not ready by the time I left work.  My foot had been aching most of the day and because OH was not around and it was late when I found out he could not pick me up rather than calling a taxi I walked home and I think I did a little too much.  The following morning my foot was complaining dreadfully and was swollen and I was hopping about just a little bit.  Yesterday was a bit easier but I fell asleep on the sofa and did not wake up until gone 11 I had crashed out.  The only good thing about this was that I had rested my foot and today it has been a lot lot better.  So am getting there.  I didn't get my lunch until late today as too much work on the system but went later in any event as I needed some fresh air.  It was good to get out. I am therefore looking forward to being home for the weekend. It started with a walk, taking Missy for...

I haven't managed to get much done this evening.  I had some financial matters to take care of and instead of taking a short time it has taken over 2 1/2 hours to sort out.  I haven't even got into the garden this evening.  So have not had any chill out time.  Things have been frustrating at work as well.  Oh well tomorrow is another day. Its just the depth that varies. I nipped to the shop at dinner time as I needed some comfortable shoes to wear to work that looked reasonably smart.  I have ended up with two pairs of mule type shoes  which I think will be ideal in the long run.  They even have a little bit of a heel.  I just needed something that was not enclosed yet would still give support to my feet. I think there is going to be a storm.  Every so often I can see sheet lightning in the distance so even if we do not get it per se it is certainly circling.   Don't like storms.  Too much electricity in the air. ...

It occurred to me after posting the other day that I had  been speaking about what I had been up to but had not really passed on any recipe that I use and which I have found to be successful.  I also suggested that if you were going to start your preserving journey it may well be best to start with something like pickled onions or pickled beetroot and then work your way up. Here is the recipe I use for home made pickled beetroot.  If you don't grow your own fresh beetroot has been readily available (well it has round here) to buy and then process.  Homemade beetroot to my mind is a lot tastier. The thing with beetroot is not to damage the tap root (the bit that comes out of the bottom) and not to trim too much down on the leaf end say to about an inch otherwise the beetroot will bleed and lose all its colour which is not what we want.  It will bleed anyway (but not as much as without the top or the root) so extreme care must be taken when handling th...