Viva Veggies

The other night we had a power cut at home. It followed a very short but rather extreme winter storm with high wind, pouring rain and some loud thunder and lightning. First we thought it would be really quick, as we were assured engineers were already on site when we called the electricity company. But it started to get dark, and still no sign of electricity. It was rather nice and atmospheric to have the house lit with candles, and the Culinary Consultant soon started snoring on the sofa. But I started worrying about what would happen with all the stuff in the fridge, not to mention the freezer in case we would have a longer power cut. And then I realised we have an even bigger problem - the snakes! They are dependant on electricity to keep their tanks warm. So we started to plan for what we could do in case the power cut would be long. Over the Christmastime, I know there were households without power for days. Luckily the power came back on after about six hours, several of which we actually spent at a friend's house enjoying wonderful Cosmopolitans. But after the incident we made a contingency plan for future power cuts. We will buy hot water bottles and get some equipment so that we can boil water even without electricity to keep the little ones warm comfy in case of an emergency. Things I never thought I would do: make plans for snake re-heating.

The power cut was a great reminder that it is always good to keep some emergency food at home you can eat even if you don't have any electricity at all to heat things up. Crackers, jams, tinned food... Although I guess we could have driven off to the nearest Tesco in case of an emergency, but you never know. It could be extreme weather, or something else weird. We already learned last summer during some problems with the water supply that having a few gallons of drinking water always stocked in the garage is a great idea. And there are probably a few other things we should stock up on, such as a few flashlights and batteries for them. So remember to keep safe out there and plan for unexpected emergencies. Particularly, we are so dependant on electricity that it becomes quite hard to imagine life without it, but extended power cuts do happen. 

Well, after the above public service announcement, on to more interesting subjects. Such as today's yummy dish. Looking back at my food diary from the last few years, I used to eat much more veggie dishes than I do now. I guess having a dedicated carnivore in the house has shifted my cooking to include meat or fish at almost every meal. I'm not sure I'm happy with this, I would love to eat more vegetarian. The Culinary Consultant will eat anything I put in front of him, but I know he prefers a meal which contains something from the animal kingdom. 

I got this recipe from a friend and she said this was the best vegetarian dish she had ever had. So obviously I had to try it out. And tell you all about it!

Viva Veggies (serves 4-6 as a side):

1 bunch broccoli

1 bunch cauliflower

2 tbsp butter

225 g (1/2 lb) mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup mayo

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup Parmesan, grated

Salt and pepper to taste

3 tomatoes, sliced

55 g (1/4 cup) butter, melted

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

The howto:

Precook broccoli and cauliflower until tender crisp. Sauté mushrooms in 2 tbsp butter. Grease a 20x20 cm (9x9 in) dish. Mix mayo, sour cream and parmesan and mix the sauce with the veggies. Transfer to an oven proof dish and cover with tomato slices. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix melted butter with breadcrumbs and sprinkle over tomatoes. Although not in the original recipe, I sprinkled some additional grated parmesan on top. The original recipe instructs to cook for 20 minutes at 160 C (325 F), I cooked for about 30 minutes at 180 C to get to my desired result.

The verdict:

As my friend suggested, this was a rather tasty meal. I'm not sure I would go quite as far as calling it the most delicious vegetarian dish ever, as there was a oven roasted aubergine I had in an italian restaurant once which is pretty hard to beat. But this was definitely delicious. I particularly liked the topping with the cheese and buttery breadcrumbs. I also liked the combination of mayo and sour cream, it was tasty and yummy but at the same time refreshing because of the slight sourness. And the Culinary Consultant ate it without complaining, so I think it had to be quite good as he prefers things from the animal kingdom.

I made this as a light (well, light as in no meat, but not necessarily light as in low calorie) lunch and served it with bread. This makes a good lunch or veggie main on it's own, but both me and the Culinary Consultant agreed that it would also make a wonderful side to any meat or fish dish. This will definitely go on the list of dishes I will make again. The only change I will make is to add a bit more mushrooms, but I guess the proportion of mushrooms to cauliflower and broccoli depends on the size of your bunches of veg. Mine were rather big so there was a lot of cauliflower and broccoli compared to the mushies, but that is of course easily remedied. I very warmly recommend you try this, it's very yummy!

A small salad and big frustration

I try really hard to focus on all the good things in life. Right now I have so much to be happy about. The sun is shining, I will soon (soon is a relative concept) be in my own home, have my own kitchen, my own garden and my own craft room. Ok, so the home, kitchen and garden obviously are only half mine, but what I mean is that they are ours, but it's so annoying when people speak 'we' talk all the time. Anyhows. Today I just have to vent. I am so frustrated I seriously don't know whether to laugh or cry. I know from time to time you get bad customer service, and even the most recommended companies will have some dissatisfied customers. So usually when I get bad service I just try to get over it. But this just broke the camel's back. So the story goes like this...

We were supposed to pay our deposit (10%) of the house on Friday. I tried, but my online bank will only allow me to transfer a certain amount of money per day, which is a bit less than the deposit. So I transferred that on Friday, thinking I will transfer the remaining small sum on Saturday and be done with it. Now, on Monday evening, I still can't use my online bank as it claims I'm going over my daily allowed limit. I have made at least 5 phone calls to Natwest, and today I have been chatting to their advisor for over an hour. The result of all of this? I was told there is nothing they can do, and hopefully it would all clear for tomorrow. Which was the same I was told on Sunday, and it hadn't cleared this morning, so I'm not all too hopeful. But the worst thing? When I suggested to the online "customer service" person (more like customer non-service) that it's a bit frustrating that my online bank won't actually allow me to do any banking she hung up on me. Or whatever the chat equivalent to hanging up on someone is. Good thing we have an appointment with another bank later in the week, we were going over there to chat about opening a joint account, but seems like right now not only will there be a joint account, I will also move my business over there from CrapWest. I'm just so incredibly frustrated as this again sets back all the business with the house. The moral of the story? Never ever sign up with Natwest, they are useless.

But then onto nicer things. The sun is shining, and that is great (as long as you aren't in a train for many hours without air conditioning). We have finally got our little sliver of summer over here on the godforgotten island. I just hope this is how August will be, so that I get maximum benefit of my new garden. Assuming we have been able to pay the rest of the deposit and actually been able to move. Whoops, let my mind get all negative again, bad bad mind! I have certainly noticed that the hot weather has affected my appetite, I crave crisps and ice cold coke (as in coca-cola, just making a point...) and can't even think about eating proper hot food. Did you check out my recent tzatziki and potato salad hybrid? Well, this is another ridiculously simple salad which you could prepare as a side for a barbecue, which is exactly what I did. 

Broccoli and tomato side salad (serves 3-4):
1/2 head of broccoli
2 large tomatoes
1/2 small red onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp black pepper

The howto:
Steam the broccoli until slightly softened but still al dente (really, don't let it go soft, you want it to be nice and crisp and not soggy at all). Chop to desired consistency. Also chop the tomatoes, and finely chop the onion. Mix olive oil, balsamic and pepper, and toss with the salad. I'm pretty sure adding a herb like parsley or coriander would be really good, too!

The verdict:
Obviously, this is not the most original recipe out there. But it was a really nice side with all of the other things we had going. BBQd chicken, sweet corn and sweet potato. The salad was crunchy and refreshing. I made it a few hours ahead to give it some time to marinate, I think the onion is nicer that way when it has a bit of time to absorb the oil and vinegar. I also warmly recommend trying the mango-mayo salsa type sauce with you BBQ, it's really nice with chicken, and would probably go great with pork as well.

Card of the day:
This is yet another one from the archives as I'm still in crafting exile. I expect I will start dreaming about crafting any night now. I'm also worried because the only outlet to my crafting needs is buying more crafting stuff on ebay. Which I really can't afford... And I'm afraid soon I'll go crazy with the new Stampin' Up catalogue as well. But until then, maybe looking at this picture will sooth my soul a bit. Or not. 

These are four cards I made using Tim Holtz distress inks and the Kanban butterflies stamp. I stamped using different coloured inks and markers: the top left stamped using Walnut stain and embossed using clear embossing powder, the top right one Vintage Photo for the text and markers Barn Door, Victorian Velvet and Spiced Marmelade for the butterflies, bottom left text using Antique Linen for the text and Broken China, Bundled Sage and Victorian Velvet markers for the butterflies, bottom right was stamped using Tim Holtz clear embossing ink and clear embossing powder. For the backgrounds, I used different distress inks and applied with blending foam and an applicator tool for the backgrounds as follows: top left: Worn Lipstick, Spiced Marmelade, Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo around the edges, top right Worn Lipstick and bottom right is the same as the top left with some Broken China thrown in there for good measure. The matting was done using papers from the Dovecraft Back To Basics III pack, some which I stamped on using the Hero Arts Flourish stamp. The brown paper on the bottom right one is from my stash. The sentiments are from my trusty Hobbycraft General Sentiments set, apart from the Big Day! which is from another set which I can't identify at the moment. I finished by adding some gems and ended up with quite a summery set of cards.

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