Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Farway

Very frosty here, with freezing mists, according to my PC it's -2c outside, but I'm not going out to check or take photos right now

Venursky, on desktop, has web cams, Truro & Sunderland are sunny right now & I O Man A18 is snow covered

It also has Aurora watch for mobiles, I keep checking for DGD up near Aberdeen, so far the nearest has been the Shetlands

I do have to creep out later and get the gas meter reading before I get an estimated bill with all the possible hassle I can do without, but apart from that I'm indoors looking out

Nice sheep pic Dusty, can nearly feel the cold

Farway

YoungBlueEyes said:

Thanks Farway, I might be alright then. Time will tell- next year, next year!

12 years to sort out baked beans good for growing here?! I wonder if anyone will even notice…

Seems it's harder that it appears, perhaps like you, I thought just bung a bean in a tin, but seems those with better taste buds than mine can readily tell the différance. Same way they can differentiate between cheapo budget beans & Heinz

Actually longer term I suppose it could be a selling point, Union flags on the tins etc

YoungBlueEyes

Oh aye, I forgot Venstusky does aurora watch. I'll keep my eye on that too now. I shouldn't think my taste buds will discern a difference either tbh, but I'd still buy a British tin if I saw it in the shops. Unless they get all greedy with their 'novelty value' pricing....

I couldn't tell you why the ice is that shape on my conservatory. Possibly a little warmer near the bottom from the protection of the fence...? Don't know. Pretty though

Well I've watched the Irish climate vid (she said, carefully), and I'm a bit perturbed by it tbh. I did chuckle a bit, and snorted derisively a bit, and sighed a bit, and I might have said "oh for christ sake" more than once. I mean, really? Really?! 

Anyway. Back to dogs. Handsome went for a teeth cleaning and general sort out at the vets yesterday, and ended up having 5 teeth taken out. So I text Lovely Neighbour "how's the toofless yokel this morning?" Her reply suggest she doesn't think I'm funny  

-taff

I didn't realise haricots were so difficult to grow, or do they mean grow commercially?

greenbee, omg how cute! Yes, put me in the cats are cute until they're hanging off your nexk with their claws embedded..Is the angle or is the first one one with shorty legs?

2p, well done on your bargain tree..ybl, your tom soup recipe nearly made coffee spat out of your nose the accessory de jour...Dusty, very bucolic dawn there...

Farway

-taff said:

I didn't realise haricots were so difficult to grow, or do they mean grow commercially?

I think easy to grow, but there's something about British grown that makes our ones not suitable for normal baked beans, maybe weather or soil or whatever. 

Like British wheat not really suitable for modern bread making without cheating on baking, milling methods, loads of fertiliser, due to lack of protein or summat.

YoungBlueEyes

That's true about the wheat. People see fields and fields of it growing away happily, without realising it's pish (relatively speaking) and only fit for biscuits. And that's been true for donkeys years actually. 

I'm glad my Vonny's tom soup recipe made you chuckle taff! Try it, it's lovely  

ArbitraryRandom

YoungBlueEyes said:

Boston beans sounds delish Arb, you sharing that recipe..?  This isn't off topic cos a big boy mentioned them first, so here's my tom soup recipe. Empty 2 tins of whole toms and a tin of baked beans into a big pan and mush it about a lot with a stick blender. The end. Credit goes to my friend Vonny who makes that for her grandkids. I'll sometimes put a wee dot of brown sauce in it, or a dip of wholegrain mustard, and grate a goodly amount of cheese on top. Yummy

Sure - though it's not really a 'recipe'... 

About 2 cups dried beans (soak or boil to soften and drain) I've used pinto, navy, cannaneili, kidney - whatever's cheap, just make sure they're soaked according to their instructions (and old beans take longer).
1 chopped onion 
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
A pack of smoked bacon (I use about 250g/half a pack of misshapes) or sausage/gammon
(optional) 2 chopped red or yellow sweet or bell peppers
400g of chopped toms (or passata, or 2tbsp of puree and stock if you want a smoother sauce) 
1 tbsp of brown sugar or treacle
1 tbsp of worcestershire or brown sauce
1 tbsp of mustard (or an amount of chilli flakes to taste)
I've also previously used paprika, cinnamon, allspice, Chinese 5 spice, cumin and coriander (which made it like chilli)... 

2 methods:
1 fry the onion, garlic and meat, put everything in the slow cooker and leave overnight 
2 fry the onion, garlic and meat, put everything in the instant pot/pressure cooker for 25 mins then allow to naturally release  

(you might need to simmer for a little while to thicken the sauce). Good on toast or with spuds - or a complete meal by itself, if your okay with the texture being a bit samey. 

Your soup recipe reminded me of an old slimming world recipe that's actually quite nice. Apocryphal, but it's said it's how some chippies make their curry sauce using leftovers - 1 tin beans, 1 tin mushy peas, 1 tin tomatoes. Blend together until smooth (and they go that orange curry sauce colour) and add curry powder to taste. 

YoungBlueEyes

Ooh that does sound good, thanks very much Arb. I’ve screen shotted it in case it disappears… 

Now I know what to do with all those cheaply tins of Caribbean (?) beans I bought the other week in Aldi. Hurray! 

ArbitraryRandom

YoungBlueEyes said:

Ooh that does sound good, thanks very much Arb. I’ve screen shotted it in case it disappears… 

Now I know what to do with all those cheaply tins of Caribbean (?) beans I bought the other week in Aldi. Hurray! 

Should say you might need to add a bit more stock/water (maybe the liquid from the tins) just to make sure the beans are covered - and if you're beans are already cooked (in the tin) then you might want to half the cooking time? you want them to go a little mushy with their starch thickening the sauce, not completely dissolve into sauce. It's been a while since I made it so hope I've remembered it all right  

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

Nice sheep pic Dusty, can nearly feel the cold

I could feel it, still in my PJs, with just a fleece and wellies. The idea was to release the hens and scarper back quick-sharp. Sadly, the hen house pop-hole was iced shut and needed a good kicking to free it, and their water was solid. So, ideas about capturing the first shafts of sunlight through the trees were shelved, and I didn't even go into the field!  Hurrah for zoom lenses!

YoungBlueEyes said:

Well I've watched the Irish climate vid (she said, carefully), and I'm a bit perturbed by it tbh. I did chuckle a bit, and snorted derisively a bit, and sighed a bit, and I might have said "oh for christ sake" more than once. I mean, really? Really?!

Programmes like that are so extreme, they turn people off who might otherwise be sympathetic; me, for example. It wasn't clear exactly what the UN Green Helmets would do if “sent in to enforce climate action,” but it was intended to sound sinister. Would they be cheerfully searching houses for power-hungry vacuum cleaners, like our original Henry, or would people with 'excessive' energy consumption on their digital ID profiles be hunted down and taken away for re-education? It wasn't well thought through either, because if a city on the West Coast had been re-located inland due to rising sea levels, how come Curracloe and its dunes were apparently untouched? Bonkers. And there was the old farmer guy, retired by the invention of artificial milk, wandering through his 're-wilded' field with one of the best hay crops I've ever seen! Not only that, but his oak trees were doing marvellously well in the Mediterranean climate. Never mind, at least it sounded like the traditional school dinner had somehow survived, albeit made from bugs.

OT: Returning from a trip south today, the temperature steadily rose, and there were spots of rain as we put the hens to bed. I can't see any stars, and we're promised more rain soon, some heavy, as we head into a positively tropical Sunday with temperatures maybe reaching 8c.