Tere

I feel for you - much of my land is compacted clay loam with couch grass in it, so digging it is hard hard work. It's a luxury to go to the community garden and be able to dig so easily. We harvested kale and salad greens for the community shop and planted early and maincrop potatoes today. The "course" leader (it's structured as a course for some arcane funding reason) is into her biodynamics. Apparently it's a root day today. So there you go. I reckon it's probably all a lot of woo

Planted some oka that I snaffled from the community garden when digging last week, since we've decided we like the flavour. Also planted a very leggy sage nice and deep so it bushes out and is less leggy. Need to pick it more! I am going on holiday on Thursday (safari to Botswana and Zambia, I may travelblog the food in the camps if it's interesting enough) so having dealt with planting the numerous things I had in pots I need to plant All The Things in the veg and cut flower beds beforehand. They will have to take their chances on a late frost. I have plenty of seeds if they don't take. Also weeded my new asparagus bed, as well as raking and sowing the bare patch where the soil was brought in for the beds with grass seed. The shoots on the asparagus are just starting to show. All the fruit trees and stuff in the fruit cage are showing signs of life now. Also $16 for blackberry cuttings? *faints* I, of course, could have all the wild ones in the world and get more than enough from the hedgerow, but even the commercial stuff was 3 for £5 in our local supermarket at the start of the season.

I am amazed at how far on your stuff is! I am planning to plant out some seeds this week, so they can take their chances while I am away on holiday. I can always sow more when I get back.

You can never have too many rare roast beef sandwiches. With butter and creamy horseradish. Just saying

Just so. I generally graze in the week on salads and the like because of a combo of doing 5 and 2 and lack of drive to cook just for myself, but I always always have some decent home made soup or similar in the freezer in small quantities for complete lack of spoons days. And a couple of ready meals.

wow, what a view!

I've been frightened off ever ordering lamb shank as a test dish after a truly horrible experience a few years back, which manages no 2 on my worst meals eaten in the UK. No 1 has thankfully gone the way of the dodo.

Thank goodness! UHT pots give me a sad.

Funnily enough, I have hares but not rabbits. My farming neighbour reckons they don't live well together. Regardless the new veggie patch has a large and deep fence around it

No fresh milk for the tea aiiieeee! /Brit

When I was growing up, beef dripping from the roast with plenty of salt on toast was most definitely a thing. It's not the healthiest, but it's very tasty. I usually opt for it blended into the gravy these days.

So pretty, Nina! I need to do some serious dandelion foraging sharpish. I love a Ligurian recipe from one of Antonio Carluccio's cookbooks that is tortellini stuffed with wild herbs and served with a nut sauce. Pure peasant food making use of available ingredients. I generally get a bucket or two of dandelion each year and portion it out for the stuffing.

Stuff wot I have around, always Marmite Good quality dark miso. This keeps forever. I mean forever. I am still using up stuff I bought in Hida Takayama on honeymoon on 2006. No really. It's perfectly fine. It's ace in soups and stews and I am partial to a miso and mirin marinade for pork chops. Anchovy paste or salted anchovies or both. Lea and Perrins Worcester Sauce. Worcester is indeed pronounced Woosta / Wusta / ugh I cannot do phonetics. Mushroom ketchup is yummy but I don't keep it in. I probably should. Or save the garlicky juices from the Sunday breakfast portobellos. I usually just nom them. Dried porcini granules Dried porcini full stop. I love mushrooms and cook a lot with them. I may well be a hobbit I also have mushroom powder and some weird thing called umami powder. We can get a thing called umami paste here too but I wasn't in love with it when I tried it. I think it got loaded into a stew. Tomato puree in basic and posh forms Sundried tomatoes Parmesan, Pesto of some kind - I make my own from jack in the hedge, hazelnuts, local cheese and local rapeseed oil but have others when out of season. Tinned little fishies of some sort Various balsamics To me, only the miso is exclusively "Eastern". I got turned on to miso when living in Japan. I do have nori and dashi stock, but I really only use those for Japanese dishes.

I like the look. It looks very clean and inviting to me. Perhaps I am projecting having just done this massaman curry where it's really unclear whether she wants you to put the paste ingredients in to cook with the beef initially or not (which I would have expected, but doesn't appear to happen - I tried adding later and it came out OK so possibly?) I can ask her later and probably will. http://www.eat-the-midlands.co.uk/chefs-recipes/curry-recipe-for-national-curry-week-beef-massaman-curry-by-chef-suree-coates-king-thai-restaurant/ (also dear Eat the Midlands, not including the massaman curry paste recipe that's in the cookbook is basic schoolboy error). I guess I am saying assume nothing and explain everything

Currently riffing a beef massaman curry from leftover massaman paste and the sad contents of my veggie drawer plus some stewing steak. Steak and coconut milk went in for 35 mins NR, and then apparently we have to put the spices in, which seems backward to me but there you go. Currently on a 4 hour slow cook for the rest. Smells seem promising although I imagine I will have to reduce at the end as I lost patience with the dried tamarind and lots of tamarind water went in instead.

Presumably you go into what species of oak are OK and what, if anything, you need to do to get rid of the tannins somewhere else? Reading through the recipe, I am not sure what you do with the panko fritter balls, is the intention to deep fry them and serve with, or do they bake with the cashews?

I'm curious, did she grind them up or just chop them up into it?

Yeah, that chicken looks super yum! The rest of it looks pretty good too

I had to search what you meant by Sunday sauce. This sort of thing? http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/recipes/a6230/pasta-sauce-recipe-0909/ I am guessing there are as many recipes for this as cooks. This one does use sausages, but ones that are a far cry from hot dogs I would think, lol.

Yum, ready made dripping. This is a really good idea from the other angle as well

Yeah, I use press together style bags rather than ziplock ziplock too, if that makes any sense? And try to keep it above the water line at the opening, just in case. But I mainly just cook small cuts of meat and fish.

I like my Sousvide Supreme Demi - very easy to use. But it does take up a fair bit of cupboard storage. I use mine for pasteurising and finishing jam jars and the like as well, so it works for me. Seconding the ziplock recommend - that was a game changer for me and I almost never drag out the vacuum sealer now, just use regular ziplocks. Just one less prep / faff step.

It is strange that beef dip isn't really a thing in the UK, given our national gravy obsession. Or poutine. I only got to try it a few times when an exchange student just over the border with Montreal, but I loved it

Leftover Yorkshire pudding, cold roast potatoes and gravy, clean up breakfast of champions

I find Mateus in this discussion fascinating - I've always thought of Mateus as budget wine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateus_(wine) - was very heavily marketed in the UK when I was a teenager (cough, about 25 years ago ) so it's interesting with what Deryn's saying. Mostly I use locally produced oil for this reason. I use cheap "EVOO" and I have a herb steeped "EVOO" but mostly I use the local premium rapeseed. And a cheapish rapeseed for when I want to fry potatoes.