I realised yesterday that since I returned from Istanbul and was sufficiently over the food poisoning, everything I had cooked had been from scratch. For a few days now? This is a new record; I have previously proclaimed genetic inability to cook and stuck to frozen curries and inistant pizzas. Then on Sunday I realised it was 6pm, and every shop within a 50 mile radius was shut, so I scoured through the fridge, stuck things into Supercook found some delicous meal ideas.. and then remembered I still had a pan of nettle soup to finish. yum. It looks like I’ve liquidised the Hulk.
So tonight I picked up a few things from Market Town, and cooked a very simple pasta with halloumi – onion, garlic, halloumi and tomato, all gently fried and mixed in with a bit of balsamic. You’ll notice the original recipe calls for other stuff I don’t have, so I left them out. I’m good at improvising like that. Also, I added balsamic vinegar because I’m middle class. As if eating halloumi and downloading recipes off the BBC wasn’t enough.
MEANWHILE at work today I couldn’t stop thinking about the garden, so when I got home one of the first things I did was to change into rough clothes, pick up a spade and a sack and head into the woods at the back of the garden. There, I dug up a load of wood sorrel to transplant under the sycamores in the border. I then went online and bought £30 worth of English Bluebell, Aconite and Lily-of-the-Valley bulbs, as recommended in my “Gardening For Wildlife” book; it’s easy to shop locally – yes there’s a Co-op and a Tesco in Market Town, but there’s also 4 butchers, 2 fishmongers, a grocers and several very good delis (and 2 choclatiers, a spirit merchant, ice cream parlour and a Semi-chem). I’ve not found a decent garden centre yet though.
