Domestic miscellany

[urocyon]

It's been a pretty lazy day here. vatine had to head to Bracknell this morning for work, and is still not back. Extra fun, trains weren't running between here and Liverpool Street, so he got to leave earlier to deal with rail replacement buses. So, I've had the day with the cats and Max.

There's been some improvement there! Mirrors and Max have spent several days with free run of the house at the same time, with only one faceoff so far. Mirrors just stared at Max, who finally went away whining--it's no fun when the cats don't try to run off so you can chase them! (He doesn't seem very clear on what to do if/when he catches up with them, so it's a lot less worrying than it could be.) With any luck, this will soon work with Punkin and Feist too. Mirrors has been the least impressed by Horrible Dog all along.

Some cleaning and reading got done, and antihistamines made me zonk out for a couple of hours. I tried to get some writing done, but got distracted listening to music. (Not my day for multitasking, oh my no.) At least Max got to go for a walk a little while ago, which he greatly enjoyed. The exercise probably did me some good, too.

Since I was alone for supper, I felt compelled to pull out items vatine doesn't like: today, some really nice zucchini/courgettes and sweet yellow pepper. :) The way I love summer squash and peppers, he is liable to be horrified at what happens when we get enough room to grow them. >:) (In a better climate; I've tried growing squash here, and was underwhelmed. I haven't dared to try any kind of pepper, even fairly cold-night-adapted varieties. Cloches? Bah. Snug little tents for slugs.) I was originally thinking of a quick pasta dish with veggies and some feta, but stared into the fridge and wound up throwing together the tastiest leftover casserole I've had in a while.

We had some leftover tomato pasta sauce, and some buckwheat with onions and mushroom (basically gluten free, no pasta kasha varnishkes). So I sliced the squash lengthwise, fairly thick, and seared it in a pan with a little olive oil and salt and pepper until it softened a bit. Ditto with the sliced pepper. Plonked a layer of squash in the bottom of a pie pan, and proceeded to layer it with the kasha, tomato sauce, and cheese (we had mild Cheddar and Emmentaler, so that's what I used). Ended with a layer of squash and peppers, covered it with foil, and baked for about half an hour. Pulled it out to add more cheese, put it back in uncovered to brown a bit. Yum, light fresh-tasting supper with a salad.

I think I'll try something similar again with rice, possibly brown for the extra texture and flavor, but the buckwheat worked better than I thought it would. And as these things usually go, it won't turn out nearly as good again. ;)

Not surprisingly, cooking is a lot more pleasant now that I've got the clutter cleared off most of the counter space in there! Especially since it's not the biggest kitchen ever. I'm hoping to get the rest of the junk cleared off the counters tomorrow, and start decongesting the cupboards more seriously.

Comments

[arkady]

Oh, I don't know; I've had quite a bit of success with my Black Pearl chillies - but then again, they've been growing on my windowsill in the kitchen which probably makes a bit of difference. Then again, I know a couple of people who grew butternut squash & courgettes successfully this year, and the teens' stepmother used to grow sweet peppers in her green house without any problem, so it's do-able. hennes grows several varieties of pepper and chilli on his windowsills, but he's in the Netherlands.

[urocyon]

I grew yellow crookneck squash, and tried some Costata Romanesco courgettes and marrows. Marrow plants got cut down by slugs before they even bloomed, and the 4 or 5 fruit the Costata Romanesco set were devoured by gastropods. The yellow ones did OK, but didn't yield as much as expected and got slug-munched. The slugs were the biggest problem overall. Maybe I just need to put out a bunch of crushed eggshells, and adjust the yield expectations. :)

OTOH, we did have really good luck with one unknown variety of dwarf decorative chile (yummy too, some kind of Scotch Bonnet parentage) rescued from Tesco's "we can't be bothered to water the plants" reduced section. That did well in the windowsill and outside on the patio, and yielded tons. I wish I could find another like that one. May have to check out the Black Pearl. :)

[freyakitten]

I have capsicums in my garden that are quite happily producing; now that winter is almost over, they're producing more than they did in summer *headdesk* albeit the fruit ripens more slowly (slowly enough that I'm harvesting them green - they're a generic variety).

It helps that we've had no frost this winter :) The trick is to establish them early enough, and to not insulate the soil with mulch when it's cold and wet.