Starting cooking again and a great bargain

I'm still having stomach issues, with virtually everything I eat.  Have been having plain simply cooked meat, fish and veg, no spicy stuff, low carbs, higher carbs (a little pasta or brown rice), little or no wheat or gluten, high fibre, low fibre, cutting down on dairy....it's all the same result.  Although sometimes I can eat something one day and it will be absolutely fine, yet if I eat the same thing the next day I'll have terrible gut trouble.  No rhyme or reason to it and it's very frustrating.  Hence why I've still not been posting any meals.....not much one can say about plain poached chicken with green veg and a little brown rice!  I'm now feeling that since it doesn't seem to matter what I eat, I may as well eat whatever I want.  So I might start showing an interest in cooking again.

A few weeks ago my stand mixer gave up the ghost....it had given good service, I'd had it for several years and used it weekly mainly for mixing and kneading bread dough.  I've been on the lookout for a vintage Kenwood Chef and finally found one on our local neighbourhood buying and selling site.  A 901 model (from 1976), in full working order, with all tools including mincing attachment, plus the coffee grinder attachment that was still in the box and had never been used!  All for the princely sum of.....£20.  The lady (it had belonged to her mother who had recently died) said she was open to offers.....I was more than happy to just give her the £20, which she was donating to Children in Need anyway.  So now I can get back to breadmaking....my own semi-sourdough bread doesn't upset my stomach nearly as much as commercial bread, but I find it very difficult doing the kneading by hand as I have weak wrists and arthritic knuckles.  So I'm calling this a 60th birthday present to myself 😁

Apologies for lack of foodie posts

Sorry I haven't made any food posts for a long time.  I'm having terrible gut problems, virtually everything I eat upsets my stomach now, it's not limited to gluten or carbs or dairy.  Consequently, we're just having plain and simple meals, mainly chicken or fish and brown rice and veg, no fancy cooking or sauces or spices.  So there's nothing interesting to write about.

Eating isn't much of a pleasure now, as I know I'll most likely have the runs and be doubled up in pain shortly after.

Roll on next month when I go to hospital for scans!

Buying potatoes and onions in bulk

Gemma's Person, we haven't tried the pickled green toms yet, I'm waiting a few more days before we do.  We'll have them with cheese or ham as a Ploughmans (that's a cold plate of cheese or cold meats with pickles, salad and crusty bread, a popular pub lunch in this country) or in a cheese sandwich.

We went to a farmers market this morning.....we have been before, but a long time ago.  I was hoping to get a half sack (12.5kg) of maincrop potatoes and a sack (10kg or so) of onions.  We've given up trying to grow maincrop spuds, in our soil they get badly eaten by eelworm and slugs so it's just not worth it really.  The onions we started off this year all bolted and went to seed, we lost virtually all of them.  The market had only pickling onions, no big ones in sacks.  They had potatoes, but only in full 25kg sacks, too many for us, we'd never get through them all before they went off.  And the stallholder wanted £9 a bag!  We did get some nice cheeses though, a 350g block of extra mature Cheddar, another the same size of Double Gloucester with chives, and 450g of Jarlsberg, all three for £5 - bargain.

Across the road from the farmers market is a family run plant nursery which has been there for years, we often buy plants there, they're good quality and very cheap.  They also have a small shop selling fruit and veg, so we decided to have a look in there.  Success - exactly the same variety of potatoes as the market, but only £6.50 for a full sack, or £3 for a half sack.  They also had 25kg sacks of onions but were more than happy to split a bag and sell us 10kg of them, which was kind of them.

Harvesting the veg and fruit

We've harvested a lot of our remaining produce now, it's in boxes in the utility room.  We asked in the supermarket if we could have some of their fruit and veg boxes, they were happy to let us have several.  Although it's still been sunny the past few days, and is forecast to be so at least today and tomorrow, the evenings and nights are distinctly cooler and the plants don't like it.  So I now have several boxes full of dessert and cooking apples, tomatoes - mostly green but some rapidly turning red, French beans, courgettes and butternut squashes to deal with.

The squashes will be fine, they last for weeks, months even, we grow them every year and they last pretty much through the winter in the cool utility room.

I've done another large jar of the pickled green tomatoes, in a few days I'll do a 3rd, so we can eat them in date order.  We haven't opened the first jar yet, but will do probably next week.  

The apples which are bruised or damaged I'm either peeling, chopping and freezing as is, or making apple sauce for the freezer.  Yesterday I did a slow cooker full of spiced apple butter.  We had some with thick cream last night, delicious, you don't need much as it tastes so rich.  I shall be using some to fill a sponge cake tomorrow (we're having guests round), the rest will be put in jars - one in the fridge and the others frozen.  

The French beans we'd left to grow big, deliberately - no use for eating whole, but I'm going to pod them all and cook the beans on their own.  There aren't loads but certainly enough to give us 2 or 3 meals.

The courgettes have slowed down considerably the past couple of weeks, so we only have about a dozen left, they'll be eaten over the next week.  We'll be harvesting the last bag of our new potatoes today too.  We still have plenty of carrots in the ground, tomatoes in the polytunnel (we picked all the outside ones), a few baby corn cobs, and lots of leeks which will see us through winter.

After our very wet and cold Spring and all our veg being started off very late, we didn't expect to have such a good harvest, it's been pretty magnificent actually, which we're so pleased about.

Pickled green tomatoes, bacon moussaka

I was googling this morning looking for things to do with green tomatoes, of which we have loads.  I don't particularly want to make chutney as we don't eat much of it nowadays, and I still have several jars in the pantry cupboard from 1, 2 or even 3 years ago.  And sorry to American friends, but I'm not very keen on fried green tomatoes.  Or even fried red ones, come to that.  Well, I came across several recipes for pickled green tomatoes - simply sliced or quartered tomatoes preserved in a briny spiced vinegar, just like pickled onions or gherkins.  What a brilliant idea, they'd be lovely with cheese for a Ploughmans, or in a salad or sandwich.

So that's what I've done this morning.  Washed and thickly sliced a load of tomatoes and packed them into a large sterilised jar (an empty gherkin jar).  Used 2 cups white vinegar and 1 cup of water, heated in a saucepan to dissolve 4 tsp sugar, 3 tsp salt, 2 tsp black peppercorns, 1 each of yellow mustard seeds and black onion seeds.  Poured over the tomatoes right to the top of the jar, stretched over a cellophane cover and screwed on the lid.

Apparently they lose their bright green colour, but remain crisp, which is good.  They're ready after about a week and keep well in the fridge for up to 6 weeks, so I've read.  I guess you could add chillies or herbs to the pickling liquid, and put sliced onions in as well if you wanted.  I'm looking forward to trying them with cheese....I like pickled gherkins but not onions, they disagree with me.

I'm doing a sort of moussaka for dinner tonight, but using diced bacon instead of lamb - as I have no lamb but do have bacon cubes in the freezer.  On which note, must go and slice/grill the aubergine.  

Quiche and spicy wedges

Thank you Joy and TA.  In answer to your question about the beets, TA - no I don't peel them first when I roast them.  I simply scrub then top and tail them, cut into quarters if small, or eighths for bigger ones, drizzle with oil and roast for about 40 mins or so, until done.  I shake them about or give them a stir to turn them over once or twice during cooking.  They're delicious hot or cold.

Lunch today will be mashed avocado and poached egg.  I stir a little Philly-type cream cheese and a sprinkle of smoked paprika into the avocado, along with a splash of lime juice.  Husband will have his on toast, no toast for me, our own fresh tomatoes (thankfully now ripening fairly quickly) sliced on the side.

For dinner I'm doing quiche with roasted spicy wedges and coleslaw.  Pretty traditional quiche Lorraine with cubed bacon, mushrooms and lots of cheese (we like it very cheesy).  The wedges are our own homegrown new potatoes, scrubbed and quartered, tossed with olive oil and that season all spice mix.  The coleslaw will be homemade - white cabbage with our own carrots and yellow courgette grated, dressing of mixed mayo, Greek yogurt and grainy mustard.  Husband wants a pud, so it'll be stewed apples as we have plenty of our own now, with yogurt.

Beetroot & feta salad, chicken risotto, baby corn

Husband cooked Sunday lunch, he did well, roast chicken with roasted carrots and beetroot, new potatoes and broccoli.  The carrots and new potatoes were our own homegrown.  

We had roasted beetroot wedges left over, so we had them for lunch today in a salad.  I mixed them with halved cherry toms, cucumber, crumbled feta and walnuts, on a bed of watercress.  I made a dressing of mayo mixed with Greek yogurt and horseradish, it was lovely.

Plenty of roast chicken left, so for dinner I chopped some up and fried it with a little bit of bacon, shallot, yellow courgettes, sliced baby corn (all the veggies from our garden).  Mixed in one of those fancy rice packets (brown rice, quinoa, pumpkin & sunflower seeds) and some pesto sauce, with a blob of Philly-type cream cheese, and a splash of water to loosen it.  Delicious.

With the remaining chicken I'll make a curry tomorrow.

The baby corn we've grown for the first time this year (I say we, I just chose them at the start of the year, husband does the growing) and it's really nice, we only grew a dozen plants as an experiment.  We've had 3 meals from them so far, with at least another couple to come.  We'll definitely grow them again next year, they're a keeper.