A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

Softstuff

Possession wrote: »

Hi Softstuff, Tesco don't have a bad selection of Japanese ingredients, but it mostly fits sushi or temaki-zushi making, eg miso soup sachets but no miso itself. I lived in Japan for 3 years many years ago so I have a soft spot for Japanese food.

I've developed a soft spot for it when we started visiting places near here with a high population of Japanese folks and I discovered even on my restrictive diet I could eat a lot of different meals. I'm quite envious of your living there 3 years, I'm enjoying the food and learning a bit of the culture too.

I'll be sure to check tescos out while I'm over for the odd bit, over here we're fortunate enough to have rather a lot of Asian supermarkets and there's even a fair sized section in the regular supermarkets, you can buy a couple of varieties of straight miso here and about a half dozen varieties of miso soup sachets, not to mention a couple of types of dashi no moto... and I find myself still complaining that I can't get bonito flakes for example (but then I'm spoiled ).

Possession

Do you know I completely missed that you were in Australia, LOL. *mentally slaps head*. I believe you are a lot better off there than here for Japanese ingredients, here we can only really get good stuff in specialist shops - at least they do have mail order now though.

Softstuff wrote: »

I've developed a soft spot for it when we started visiting places near here with a high population of Japanese folks and I discovered even on my restrictive diet I could eat a lot of different meals. I'm quite envious of your living there 3 years, I'm enjoying the food and learning a bit of the culture too.

I'll be sure to check tescos out while I'm over for the odd bit, over here we're fortunate enough to have rather a lot of Asian supermarkets and there's even a fair sized section in the regular supermarkets, you can buy a couple of varieties of straight miso here and about a half dozen varieties of miso soup sachets, not to mention a couple of types of dashi no moto... and I find myself still complaining that I can't get bonito flakes for example (but then I'm spoiled ).

Softstuff

Possession wrote: »

Do you know I completely missed that you were in Australia, LOL. *mentally slaps head*. I believe you are a lot better off there than here for Japanese ingredients, here we can only really get good stuff in specialist shops - at least they do have mail order now though.

Yep! It's pretty good here for most Asian countries ingredients, I was just concerned that I was about to post recipes with ingredients no-one in England would find.

But now you're here, maybe you could post some recipes too? (doesn't matter what as far as I go, I can adapt to suit my limited diet).

stiltwalker

meme30 - courgette plants are fine in the fresh air although they do like some sun. They are hungry plants and will need either very rich soil or feeding regularly. They will provide masses of courgettes - in fact you will probably be fed up of the d*mn things by the end of the summer. You need to keep picking them otherwise what you have on the plant will turn to marrows and no new ones will grow. HFW says to pick them when they are the size of your longest finger - I usually do this with the first ones as I can't wait to have home grown courgettes but let subsequent ones grow a little larger (mostly). It's a bit late from seed now though so you will need plug plants from the garden centre but even at a couple of quid a pop they will still give you great value. Be warned home grown will totally spoil you - my OH was convinced he didn't like courgettes until he tasted home grown now he eagerly awaits the first little ones appearing!

GreyQueen

Afternoon all.

meme30, know what you mean about the sun. I've never had prickly heat but I'm a redhead and can get a bad sunburn even in 10 mins at this latitude so have to be very careful. I also don't like doing manual labour in the heat as it makes me feel proper poorly. I was on the lottie from 6.15 pm to 9.25 pm last night and was back up there by 8 am this morning and headed off home by 10.15 am. Too darned hot for me. I plan to head back up there at 6 ish to do a little more work and to water a bit.

Today, I planted the second batch of broad beans, the ones which had been soaking for nearly 72 hours. Some of them had germinated and the top of the root was sticking out like a wee beak. I made sure I planted them scar-side down so that they won't waste time sorting themselves out. I did once sow half a dozen courgettes in pots and 5 came up with their broad, fleshy seedling leaves and one looked......a bit odd, to put it mildly.

I studied on it until the penny dropped; it was upside down with its roots in the air. Carefully pulled it out and yup, there were the leaves in the soil. I turned it back the right way and it grew properly and was indistinguisable from its brethren. I expect I had got one of a batch of seed destined for the Southern Hemisphere.:rotfl:When I got this PC I couldn't plug the monitor in and took the lead back to the shop; I'd got one of a batch of Samsung monitors packaged for the Russian market with different leads which had somehow got jumbled up in the warehouse with the UK stock. That kind of thing happens to me a lot.

I have planted 5.5 rows of broad beans, having carefully calculated how many beans I'd need and I'm still 12 short of a row. Suppose it's better than being a sandwich short of a picnic. The lower part of the lottie is looking like the real deal at the moment; there are things in straightish rows and it is recognisably under cultivation. The upper part is a meadow almost hip high in grass. I'm being menaced on either side by derelict plots so will have to fight to hold the line, even if the poppies next door in the long grass are heartbreakingly pretty.

I started to extract the missing two strawberry beds from the meadow. It's very very bad, ladies, I haven't weeded up there this year and it shows. It will be several hours' hard labour before I can see all the beds and I will have to extract some docks with surgical precision; i.e. not walloping them with a mattock.

Am now hiding out indoors for a few hours doing exciting things like defrosting my wee freezer. Hope everyone is having a lovely day. GQ x

PS. Lidl have 4-packs of Branston baked beans at the mo. I have acquired some more to replenish the underbed storecupboard.

Margo, it'll be 5 feet tall.

Byatt

Thanks for all your good wishes and advice. :A I do have a dr's appointment on Tuesday morning, and as it's unlikely that I'll get in sooner, I should be ok. The pain is not excruciating, unless I have a very high pain threshold which I doubt! Splitting headache now, but that could be due to the early start for the boot sale. A bit chuffed with my recycling of things effort. I had a door curtain made of plastic beads and pom poms, very kitsch, and I loved it but it kept tangling to the point it was so tangled I couldn't untangle it. I didn't want to throw away, so last night, painstakingly removed all the beads and pom poms, and put them separately in a jar. Took them to the boot sale, and one person wanted the beads (a huge jar full) and later another unbelievably wanted all the pom poms! I have kept the wooden dowling as I have a use for it, so all in all, a good recycle.

Softstuff, interesting about the appendix, I still have an appendix. I suspect that it may be some time before I find out what's wrong...I'm almost 100% certain it's not muscle pain, I have had bad backs in the past so have an idea what that is like...it's also come on very suddenly. Actually, I'm a bit worried now. Just remembered something a friend said.

It could be that my body is protesting as I hurtle towards my 60's though!! I still think I can do stuff I did in my 30's.

Mardy, thanks for the PM. Shall look forward to looking...I may buy from your shop as it's always good to build up your feedback. I'm sure the build up to Christmas will be good.

Off to bed now, with a couple of paracetemol for company and a good book I got at the boot sale. Well two good books from two of my favourite authors and usually hard to find, so well chuffed, as they were £1 for both.

Had my dose of vitamin d via the sun, hopefully anyway, as I was wearing a hat, dark glasses and slathered in sun cream! Looked quite enigmatic.:cool::rotfl:

meme30

Thanks for that Stiltwalker I will get a couple of plants then. If I do end up with loads of them, will the excess freeze? or am I better off looking to combine them in a chutney with the masses of tomatoes I am bound to produce!
:rotfl:

Mrs_Chip

Good Afternoon Everyone!

Great excitement here this afternoon as the Olympic Torch went thought the village at a about 14.45, right past our door! There was a great deal of kerfuffle, lord alone knows why they need quite so many police (they all went on ahead anyway and did not do a very good job of controlling the traffic ), but it was fun to see.





The lady carrying the torch is called Jill and she has had Ankylosing Spondylitis since her teens. She brought the torch down the hill on her mobility scooter. She did ask to do the stretch before which was on the flat, but they would not let her swap, which I think is not quite in the spirit of things? Anyway she had a great time, and is having a big party tonight. Gawd knows how much this is all costing though, it seems to take so many people and big vehicles, a bit of overkill I think.

The handsome divil (:D) behind Jill in the second pic is OH - I didn't see him sneak into the picture at the time, he is a terrible show-off:rotfl: .

The weather is still warm, but nothing like as hot as it was yesterday, at one point it was 33 in the shade, I don't remember it being so hot here. We were like limp rags when we finally went down from the garden, and we hadn't actually been doing anything, as it was just too hot. The plants love it though and everything is rocketing away, as long as they are kept watered.

We grew PSB last year in London, and I gave some plants to Mrs OG. She has only just pulled them up as she left them to flower for the bees - great if you have a big space, but she only has a tiny garden. The did get attacked by Cabbage Whites, but we just picked off the caterpillars and fed them to the birds. The plants did flop about a bit but found their own way of growing and were fine in the end. If you have space it is worth growing as PSB is delicious freshly picked and usually expensive. I have grown that and Cavolo Nero which is Black Kale (sorry about the K word mar) which makes a lovely sturdy plant with delicious leaves, and seems to come back each year if you leave it in.

Herbs seem to be doing well this year, so far I have got chives, parsley, thyme, basil, chervil and dill all grown from seed within weeks, and that will save me me lots of money (or actually I should say will mean I will have lots of fresh herbs to use as I probably would not buy them they are too expensive). I always have mint and lots of it, as this is the herb I use the most. Favourite use is in Mojitos

Sorry to read about your break-in SDG, I remember how awful I felt when someone broke into our lock-up garage, and that was not even the house.

Hope the kiddleys are not playing up too much Byatt. I have had renal colic twice and it is the most awful pain, so much so I was knocked out with the chemical cosh drug Largactyl for a fortnight (didn't know what the drug was at the time, it was two weeks of bliss ) so please the gods it's not that!

Hugs for everyone else that needs them, and lets hope this fine weather continues!

bupster

Quiet on here when it's sunny, isn't it?

I got a bit pink on the lottie yesterday and then over-trained a little at the pub watching Eurovision wearing a glitter wig. So today has been in the flat, interspersing some very lazy housework with watching TV and reading books. Have got as far as being able to see most of the kitchen floor - maybe I'll even clean it!

Hope everyone's okay

Byatt

Mrs C, love the pics, and yes your hubby is a handsome divil...funny how you imagine people and they are nothing like your imagination!

I'm not in a huge amount of pain, so I know it's not renal colic, could be a muscle I suppose, I can't tell anymore! Just baffled.

Hiya Bupster, yes, I guess everyone is making the most of the weather, although I popped into Mr T's this afternoon to get some YS stuff, and it was manic! I haven't seen it like that even at Christmas.

Life size scarecrows looking like real people are popping up all over the village at the moment, and in a field there is a huge replica of the Queen and Prince Phiilip made out of bales of hay!