Home Cooking

It rained yesterday evening. Not a remarkable thing even though I did get 25 mm, it’s just that when it rains, I tend to lose my telephone and Internet connection. So that’s my excuse for not posting yesterday.

Yesterday was an iffy sort of day, too wet to get on the land, and that was before the actual rain but I Ann and I went off to get my truffle oaks. I failed at my first attempt at not impulse buying though. Also available were truffle hazel trees so along with the 20 oaks I bought 5 hazels too. I now have to source the plain trees and as soon as the field is dry enough to cut, get out there and get started.

Today the ground was squelchy so I looked for other things to do. I wanted to be out as it was a lovely 12 degrees. I looked out the telescopic tree pruner and started with that…. Not as efficient as I had hoped but then I do really need to get into the trees with the chain saw first and sort out their basic shape and reduce their height to something manageable.

So I gave up on the tree pruning but the sharpness of the new blade cutting prompted me to sharpen all my secature blades. Note mud encrusted shoes in the background!

When I got my scythe I got the sharpening stone and spent some time learning how to sharpen that blade well. By comparison the secature blades were a doddle. Once back together a quick squirt of WD40 and they were like new.

I moved inside when the sky clouded over and thankfully had cleared up everything outside before the heavens opened.

Tonight I decided on a reasonably home produced meal and got my homegrown ratatouille from the freezer along with my savoury beef and lentil. While the meat may not be home produced, I do mince it myself, that way I know what sort of meat has gone into it. I’d decided it was time to start using up the Vegetable Spaghettis as they have a shorter storage life than the other squashes I have.

A whole vegetable spaghetti is a bit much for me to manage and they’ve been sitting there while I thought about how to get round that. Cue different cooking process to the usually quoted ‘boil it whole for 25 minutes’. I now halve it, scrape out the seeds from the half I’m cooking and then brush the cut surface with a little oil. Then it’s into the microwave with the plastic plate cover over it and nuke it for 20 or so minutes. It then shreds beautifully, and I can cook the rest another day.