Glanbrydan’s Weblog

Having failed to grow our own courgettes so far this year we have been supplied by our friends Aura & Martin. This regular supply has encouraged us to work our way through our own short list of recipes that contain courgettes and borrow further recipes to give the veg a continued appeal. Although I think T.W.O may have had enough already. He has been heard to mention, ‘oh courgettes. What a surprise!’ more than once. They can also be added to quiches and tonight I am going to try using them instead of pasta in a savoury mince dish – but as a vegetable dish here are my 3 favourites.

Courgettes roasted

 Aura has been cooking this for weeks so here’s my version

Oven to 180 degrees C or gas mark 4 Slice up a courgette or two depending on Size and how many you need to feed. We use one enormous courgette for the 2 of us.

Slice up an onion

Crush and chop a couple of cloves of garlic

 Slice up a sweet red, green or orange pepper into thin strips

Place these in a roasting dish and pour over a few table spoons of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix it about to distribute the oil and then cook for 45 minutes to an hour. Keep an eye on it though as you want the courgettes softened but not charred.

Courgettes griddled

Aura served this cold to us but you can have it warm. Take a few courgettes and slice longwise so you have thin but long slices. Either grill these for a few minutes, use a griddle pan on the cooker top or put them on a BBQ. They 5 to minutes, turning once to get some nice charred lines down them. When they are just softening take them off and drizzle in olive oil.

Courgettes and tomatoes

Slice up 1 big or a few small courgettes thinly Slice one onion Crush and chop a couple of garlic cloves Tin of chopped tomatoes A sweet pepper (green or red) Small tin of tomato puree Dried Oregano seasoning

Using a large frying pan gently fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes. Then gradually add pieces of the courgette allowing them to sit on the base of the pan for a few minutes before moving them to the side of the pan to allow more pieces of courgette to be cooked. Once all the courgette has been cooked put the pepper in and give all a good mix up letting the pepper cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the can of chopped tomatoes puree tomatoes, a good teaspoon of the oregano, a good pinch of salt and pepper. Allow to bubble gently for at least half an hour stirring every few minutes to make sure it doesn’t stick. Serve with any meat, fish or veg dish.

  It has taken so long to get this far but we have been sleeping in our new bed for some weeks now. The house is really taking shape and having run out of money and energy we forget to look around us and take in the transformation of our little cottage.

Snuggled against a Welsh hill side with a copse of trees across the lane to protect us from the worst of the weather the little cottage sits. It was white and now is almost the colour of milk on 3 sides waiting for us to find a match to repaint the front.

The garden sits half covered in buttercups, bits of left over things from the build and a large container. The parking across the little lane also houses another container and these have held our lives worth of things for almost a year.

Slowly we have been bringing our possessions back indoors to the half painted home muttering every evening that we must do more painting. The upstairs is almost painted if you ignore the door frames and skirting while the downstairs is not even a quarter painted – another little job on the long list.

Jescat is sleeping in the study, he likes the smaller room while Vickie dog (or the Vicklar as we have nicknamed her since the comedy TV series Gavin and Stacy as in the Gavlar) is still in her kennel and run where she keeps an eye on us from the garden. The good news is that we have doors, windows, walls and floors. No home kitchen or stairs as yet but Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say. Although we could do with a battalion of men to help us get this place finished I guess we will have to wend along doing it bit by little bit.

Whilst we have not properly returned to living in our cottage we have started to move things back in.
More excitingly our new baking kitchen is being delivered. Everything is stainless steel, the cooker, the fridges, the sink and even the new scales! Slowly are little baking room is filling up and we will begin to install the new gadgets and gismos next week.
Now the baking business is a little more serious because it has to pay for the shiny new toys so we have a target each month to bring in so we don’t end up loosing money. As much as we love our pies and pasties sometimes the reality of following our little dream brings responsibility too.
In a way it has helped us to focus more on how we can improve the time it takes to produce things, after all you cannot just go spending money on everything you fancy (mainly because we don’t have it in the first place).
We have received a bit of help from our local council towards the cost of some of it and we are very grateful.

Life has been very hectic recently.

This morning T.W.O. woke me up a lovely hot cup of tea, I rolled over and kept my eyes firmly shut. I’m not sure if the excess of red wine last night or the busy weekend have caught up with me but what ever it is I wanted desperately to just go back to sleep! But with the carpenter coming to seal the living room floor I had no option – just another ten minutes.

Now sleep is such a pleasure as we have moved back into our own bedroom. The 6ft bed we purchased before we spent every last penny on the house renovations has pride of place in our new bedroom.

The light airy room with the wooden floor and French windows that overlook the garden make the room feel comfortable. We moved the rest of the bedroom furniture in last night and I’m currently deciding what I should put away in the chest of drawers.

This little haven is currently the most finished part of the house except for the bathrooms. The bathrooms have all the facilities and we have risked wooden floors throughout the upstairs so I invested in the biggest bath mat I could find.

Little by little our new home is coming along although we still have no stairs cannot use the living room until the floor has been sealed and are camping in the kitchen it feels like a long road to the finishing line.

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Introducing Jess Cat

I mentioned some months ago that a little black stranger had come visiting us one dark winter evening.

We were performing our evening inspection of the builders work in the extension. There were no windows and no electricity just breeze block walls, joists and a roof.

I cannot describe the noise that came out of a dark, damp corner but I think you can imagine a scared, hungry jet black kitten might just have wanted us to go away. Sadly my girly response was to scream.

A day or so later we were walking from the caravan to the wood cabin in the dark and the same thing happened but this time we caught a glimpse of the little thing. Fur all on end terrified by us disturbing his new hiding place. He had chosen the BBQ which has a shelf to keep him off the floor and a waterproof cover to keep the rain out.

Over the next couple of weeks we placed bowls of food and drink just under the caravan and slowly the little cat came to trust us but just a bit. I would sit on the caravan step and wait for him to peep out until one day he let me touch his head.

Just a few months later our farm kitten has moved in. Jess cat sleeps on either my rocking chair or TWO’s recliner as both are covered with blankets and cushions. He loves a morning fuss from TWO who gets up early and I enjoy him sleeping on my lap at some point in the evenings.

He has brought us so much pleasure. He is friends with the more outgoing of our 2 semi feral cats, Smudger, and they enjoy chase me games. He also enjoys trying to stop us typing and jumping at things that move on the television. His favourite programs include wildlife shows and football games.

Currently the garden is unloved, covered in builders junk and the veg patch in particular looks more like an unloved allotment infested with weeds. From the middle of June last year the lawn has not experienced the blades of the mower while the flower beds have not seen a trowel and to add that touch of something special we have a container filled with our possessions in the middle of it all. The picture is grim!

I am overwhelmed by the tasks that 6 months of neglect have piled up. It’s like all those things in life that just seem to big to tackle. The task is just too big.

When I studied for my degree I studied the basics of manufacturing processes and the principles of Taylorism (Frederick Taylor, 1856-1915) which is the process of breaking every task down into individual actions. This process was adopted by business & lifestyle gurus through the 1980’s to help us focus on those illusive goals in life. I think we all know the principles these days.

So with a heavy heart I need a plan for getting my garden back to life. Just to add to this we are now ankle deep in mud as the snow has all melted and the rain is now (as I type) continually tapping it little fingers on the roof of the cabin above my head.

I have made a start though. I have been shopping! And yes I do know that is not the way to get stuck in but rather the way to avoid what needs doing.

However I did buy my first ever heated propagator (and I haven’t confessed the unplanned spend to T.W.O yet) as well as 3 packets of seeds

So my ‘big task’ list begins like this:

v    Tidy up builders mess (or get them to)

v    Move the big pile of stones from under the washing line

v    Weed the veg beds

v    Weed the flower beds

Then I think we can start to plan a new garden.

And yet I really want to plant those seeds now………..

Hi

I thought I would take the chance while Sam was doing other things to slip in this post about the last few weeks and the weather as it has been quite eventful.

Firstly to get away from the caravan and cabin we spent Christmas up at Carrbridge which is around four miles outside of Aviemore in Scotland. The weather was perfect for a ski-ing resort, only a shame we didn’t go there for the ski-ing but we did have great fun on the Rodel Bahn (sledge run) which brought back memories of the German Alps at the millenium. My little mishap wasn’t a reminder although I shan’t forget it in a hurry. The head has just about recovered!

We then spent New Year seeing daughters, son in laws, partners and grandchildren having a great time at each.

When we returned home however it was to a very different scene with the hills and mountains carrying their coat of snow which transferred them to a new world.

That was the good side for the bad side was that we became effectively cut off as the council viewed gritting the lanes around us as very low to no priority so they were quite lethal. With care however we found we could get down into the valley and back again so could get into town for the essentials uch as wine. We weren’t prepared to risk going any distance as we couldn’t be sure of getting back again so the cars have had something of a rest.

We also had problems getting supplies for the farmers markets as two suppliers declined to chance the minor roads so we were left wanting. happily that worked out ok though as the farmers market was cancelled due to the weather. Hopefully those booked for later this month will be ok as we don’t want to lose the momentum built up before Christmas.

Talking of farmers markets our reputation must be growing as we have been invited to become part of the Aberystwyth farmers market which is one of the more successful.

Going back to the weather a real problem hit us when the water supply froze up and stayed in that way for over a week. For a couple of days we had no water at all and then we had to cart it up from the house. Most things have no unfrozen but that wasn’t without incident as yesterday we heard strange banging noises outside which was followed by a bang and water shooting everywhere as one of the pipes had been frozen off by ice and when the ice thawed the water flowed. happily one of the builders sorted it our for us and we are now dry!

Talking of builders, the reak advantage of this weather is that they have been working non-stop on the house as they can’t work outside so lots of progress has been made. Currently they are building wardrobes and plastering following the first fixes for plumbing and electrics.

Plumbing raises a problem for us as due to the weather all plumbers round here are working flat out, including ours and whilst the builders need him to do jobs so they can progress we are finding it almost impossible to coax him around here.

Going back to electrics for a minute, have you ever had to have your power supply to the house moved? I ask as we are having to pay somewhere between £530 and £800 for them to move our power supply and meter from inside the lounge to the outer wall imediately adjacent! Money for old rope or what?

That just about brings us up to date except to mention (and I don’t know if Sam has already mentioned it) that we have been adopted by a young cat who has wormed their way into our home and affections. As we don’t know the gender we have called it Jessie although it seems totally reluctant to answer to the name. Also Vickie now spends most of her day whining as she would like to catch it and despatch it. Little does she know that she would get little change out of Jessie and she would probably come off worse.

I shall leave you in peace now and just leave you in the hope that you are not being troubled too much by this inclement weather.

T-W-O