TARRAGON & THYME

Today the Stilton arrived.  A 1kg round of Colston Bassett Stilton, which I think is one of the nicer ones available.  Cannot always source it though.  I had thought that G had ordered this in for Christmas, however it would appear not as he has already opened it.  It is very nice though.  I cannot see that lasting until Christmas itself at the rate he goes through it though.  He is a sod when it comes to Stilton. G often relays stories of going to Peterborough Market when he was a nipper with his Dad Charlie when Peterborough had a market and a proper livestock market back in the 1950s.  His dad used to pick up a whole Stilton for 10 shillings. It would appear therefore that this was a staple for quite a lot of his childhood. This year we intend to have a few choice items in-house however this is chiefly being governed by the base fact of everything in moderation.  Overall I want to make sure that there is a decent supply of good eating in-house,...

On all sorts of things and in real life. It started on Sunday; All my plans for Sunday were scuppered when G decided that he wasn't going fishing after all. I therefore concentrated on preparing our first Sunday night roast in a little while.  It has felt good and I have enjoyed my cooking. As well as buying all the veg from Tallington Farm shop on Friday we also purchased meat from the Butcher who has a van on site.  Some Smoked Back Bacon was purchased normally £10 a pack for 2kg or buy two packs for £15.,  Christmas dinner was also purchased.  We are having Turkey breast for Christmas Dinner. (The Turkey breast £34 for a 2.8kg breast, is now packed up and in the freezer).  One less thing to think of. We also came away with a Loin of Pork roasting joint.  The joints were on offer two for £15.  G chose to swap out a 2kg pack of Bacon instead of buying a second joint.  Next time though will go for the joints as Pork Loin is also ideal for making h...

Monday A bit of a journey as it has taken me a few weeks to get back to the kitchen as other things took priority.  Been niggling at me a bit  and is one of the reasons I have not been able to progress as well as I should have been able. I managed to get the freezer part sorted out in readiness for Christmas.  Still more to do though.  The fridge has been completely gutted and cleaned out.   The fridge  will now  only need a thorough wipe out in readiness for Christmas. I have slowly started to re-stock the fridge with base ingredients that I keep in the fridge at all times.  Baking margarine, butter, lard, tubes of different flavourings and sauces, cold water, fresh meat, fresh veg and fresh fruit and lots of other items which are needed to make the fridge fully operational again moving forward.  I have already mentioned that we are going to a new to us Farm shop at the end of the week in order to stock up on these items, as well as a s...

I think I must be a bit picky when it comes to food and especially fresh veggies.  I suspect it is due to the fact that my family although not always flush with money, always ate well due to my Grandparents' way of life and growing a lot of their own food including keeping Pigs, Chickens, and Geese.  Nothing fancy, just good simple eating which we were brought up to.  My parents never really had an issue with us eating all sorts of veg apart from Broad Beans (which we now eat) and being a bit iffy with Parsnip and Swede (both of which we now eat).  Then again we were brought up to eat what was put before us. I felt the loss of my local veg shop quite badly (and still do) as we used to get all the fresh produce at very reasonable prices and it used to be the good Lincolnshire staples Cabbage, Cauliflowers, Leeks etc. etc.  I used to predominantly buy from them and only bought elsewhere if they were unable to provide an item I was looking for.  Then again I d...

 I am not going shopping tomorrow, as planned, apart from a little food shopping.  I have decided to discipline myself and crack on with what needs to be dealt with whilst G is out of the way.  Well at least as much as I can do whilst he is absent.  I can reconvene the main shopping (not food shopping)for another time.  Will work with what I have and then see what mischief I can get up to in the meantime. There is a lot of work to deal with, and I have found myself "bitting" and "bobbing" about all over the shop in the last couple of weeks or so.  That has to stop as I produce more work if I am allowed to focus on the matter in hand. After all the wind, and torrential rain of the last few days, today we have had the Sun out to play and it has been very welcome, although it has been a much colder day.  The Sun seems to put a different complexion on everything.  Tonight though it has gone bitterly cold. My Cacti is also in full bloom a beautiful pin...

.... found recently, although strictly speaking some of the items fall into lighting category and storage rather than strictly just decorations and then there are the crafting items.  All beautiful items in their own right with the materials waiting to be turned into something special. I shall never go to heaven when it comes to gathering things together to craft. Due to real life events, this post has necessarily been posted out of sequence, to that which was planned.  There is a degree of overlap therefore between the posts for which I apologise. A few of my favourite finds come from TK Maxx.   These ones not necessarily decorations which consist of storage boxes, specifically Laura Ashley and Peppermint & Pine.  When I initially went into TK Maxx on my first visit, I found three different sized Laura Ashley boxes but chose only to buy in the larger box.  Then came home and kicked myself as I realised I liked them a lot.  I subsequently went back...