
Tea, what’s in the fridge? Vegetable quiche, tomatoes, gherkin, silver skin pickled onion, yellow pepper, light mayonnaise and….. Left over black cherries. Finger painting using the Sketchbook app on my phone.
New paintings and regular art updates.

Tea, what’s in the fridge? Vegetable quiche, tomatoes, gherkin, silver skin pickled onion, yellow pepper, light mayonnaise and….. Left over black cherries. Finger painting using the Sketchbook app on my phone.

Just managed to cook! A simple recipe, two carrots chopped, half an aubergine chopped up, half a courgette (zucchini). I set a pan of basmati rice boiling while I put a couple of chicken breasts in another pan and fried them. Then I added the vegetables, added a large flat mushroom, added salt, oregano, and garlic granules. When the chicken was part cooked I cut it up into small chunks. I had some cooked mussels out of the fridge that had defrosted overnight, I added them to the food.
Then I deseeded a single chilli and added that, I spooned cooked rice into the pan and added half a tin of peeled plum tomatoes. In all everything cooked on a low heat for about half am hour.
Did I mention? I stood up to do it, put my crutches to one side. I felt a bit unbalanced, but I’ve got to try and do things. And the meal was lovely. Hubby carried the plates into the living room for me.
The

Crackers, cheese, butter, banana.
No vegetables, no other colours
No salad, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce?
Not tempting, maybe tasty?
Cheese is salty, crackers are salty.
Not sure if I should eat the banana
Butter is salted.
I’m thirsty!
Give me time
I’ll try and teach him
Meanwhile? Yum?

I just made a vegetarian stew for dinner. I could have made Staffordshire Lobby which is a beef based stew, lobbing all sorts of things into the pot. But I used a meat substitute, Quorn pieces.
Basically I put two small chopped potatoes, two small sliced carrots and half a sweet potato, peeled and sliced, into a pan and covered them in boiling water. I let them simmer for a few minutes, then chopped up a small red onion, chopped some slices off a cabbage (about a sixth of it) and two sticks of celery sliced up. Then I added half a pack of Quorn and a couple of teaspoons of Lazy Garlic. I let everything simmer for about twenty minutes. Then I added a couple of vegetable stock cubes. Let it cook for a few more minutes before serving with a hunk of brown bread and vegetable spread. I didn’t add salt, but if you do add it on top of the stew when you serve, that way it sits on the food and doesn’t get absorbed into it. That means you don’t eat too much salt. You can also add pepper at the end.

A sprout tree, that’s what my hubby bought for Christmas Dinner. I wasn’t sure how to cut the sprouts off this knobbly stick. I don’t have sharp knives so they are hard to cut off. When I tried the springiness in the branch they were on I suddenly had a sprout popping up the air! It flew up and landed on the floor, rolled sideways, and ended up under the fridge freezer. Cue some scrabbling with a spoon to get it back out! It happened again with the next one so I realised I needed to hold the sprout with one hand and cut it off with the other. I didn’t want to use the whole sprout tree today, ten ot twelve sprouts are enough, but the branch was too long. I could not cut it in half so hubby snapped it across his knee after I’d tried to cut through it.
I part cooked them in the microwave and now I’m toasting them with out Christmas chicken (the turkeys for sale were four times more expensive).

My friend ordered some food on the Internet for home cooking. I saw what was in the box. There were various things:
Lots of herbs, chick peas, box of tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, sweet potato, garlic bulb, two carrots, baby carrots, two bags of potatoes, a shallot, two onions, green beans, a small pouch of honey, spices, an aubergine, an avocado, sumac?? And other stuff. Including bags of ice to keep two packets of minced meat and two chicken breasts cool.
There was also a tiny block of cheese, two inches by one inch by one inch, that made me chuckle…. Oh and a Partridge in a pear tree!

The tiny green tomato was plucked off our tomato plant today. The surrounding ones are large and shop bought and the apple on the top right was a windfall off my sisters tree…
I can grow flowers, but not vegetables or fruit. I spend too much on seeds, and get plants from sales and swaps, but I don’t have good conditions to grow them in… Too much shade. Too many shrubs!

I would show you a photo, but I’ve eaten it!
Anyway I didn’t want to spend a long time preparing a meal, we have had simple food today.
This meal we had a mixed vegetable omelette with Stilton and coleslaw to go with it.
Ingredients and method
I fried up a whole chopped red onion. Then I added a handful of chopped olives to the pan. Then cut up three flat large mushrooms and added them. Then I added a couple of chopped celery sticks to the meal. I added a pinch of salt and pepper to the pan. While this mix was softening over a low heat I whisked up a few eggs and a bit of milk (depends on how hungry you are). I poured the eggs over the vegetables. As it cooked I moved the egg around so it didn’t burn on the pan. Eventually it was cooked through so then I took some Stilton cheese and crumbled a layer onto the omelette. Once it melted a bit I plated the food up with a spoonful of coleslaw and a hunk of chunky bread. Tasty..

I decided to make a curry tonight. It’s not a proper one and not pretty, but it was tasty.
Ingredients :
Four chicken thighs
Half a butternut squash
Half an onion
A small head of broccoli
A courgette (zucchini?)
Two fresh tomatoes
Half a large (or a small), sweet pepper
Three cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Half a jar of tomato and garlic pasta sauce
Two or three teaspoons of curry sauce
Small pinch of salt.
Method:
Roast the chicken thighs in an oven with the half butternut squash cut into half. Put on gas 7, or a medium high heat for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile chop up the onion roughly. Put on a low heat in a frying pan. Soften in oil and add crushed garlic. Cut the courgette into small cubes, add to the pan. Then cut two tomatoes up and add together with the curry powder. Cut up the half sweet pepper and add to the pan. Finally cut up and add the broccoli.
In the meantime the butternut squash should have softened in the oven. Remove from the baking tray and put the chicken pieces back in for about another twenty minutes (if you want a vegetable curry just don’t cook any chicken).
Cut the rind off the squash, then dice the pulp. Add to the pan, add the pasta sauce and cover with a lid. Simmer on a low heat while the chicken finishes cooking.
Finally take the chicken thighs out of the oven. Remove the skin and discard if you don’t like it. Carefully cut the meat off the bone (the chicken will be hot). Make sure the juices are clear, if it is slightly pink, you can put it in the microwave for a minute to make sure it’s cooked through. Cut up the chicken into bits and mix into the curry. Dish out onto plates. Add a small amount of salt to season.
I like this because of the texture of the squash. If you don’t want meat, it makes a pleasant meal. You could add a dollop of plain yoghurt. Also you don’t need rice with it so it’s less carbohydrate.
Serves two or three.

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was vegetables, so I decided to draw some new potatoes. Metallic pen and pencils on black cartridge paper background. Makes a change from felt pens. Probably could have taken more time over it but I like the effect.
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