Things I Made Thursday (and update!)

It is a beautiful day today.  When we left for school at 8.30am, it was 0°C and I had to scrape ice from my windscreen.  But now it is about 8°C out there and there are big blue skies and plenty of sunshine.  I hung my washing out to dry for the first time (so it is officially Spring yeah?!) and the guinea pigs are happily wheeking about on the grass in the sun.  I haven't been too good this week at doing my 20 minutes per day in the garden, but that is because it has been so darned cold!  I am very glad to see the sun and hope to get out later.  Dylan has started work on making adjustments to the garage roof, which currently overhangs one of the veg beds and floods it when it rains.  Hopefully there will be a gutter on there before too long!

My early seeds are starting to germinate too!  I now have chillis and tomatoes germinating, as well as the coriander.  I am especially pleased about the chilli seeds as these are our home-grown seeds, from chillis I grew last year, then dried.  I gave some seeds to some friends and was most miffed that their seeds germinated faster than mine!  I think this is testament to how chilly our house has been recently (trying to spend less on fuel!) and one of my friends used a heated propagator, which I am now totally sold on and I fully intend to purchase one at some point!

I tend to cook on Thursdays.  In winter, this tends to be a little dull due to lack of garden fodder to cook with, but a necessity to ensure my tribe have interesting things to go in their lunch boxes!  Today I made a flapjack.  The preferred option is usually chocolate flapjack and our favourite recipe is this one, which I gather was originally from the Green&Blacks website (no wonder it tastes good!), although today I opted for change and made golden linseed and chocolate chip flapjack!  Smells good.  I just need to chop it up and freeze it in portions to serve four, so I am not tempted to nibble at it!  (If I freeze in portions of four, I can't eat it as this would mean I won't have enough for all four lunch boxes on one day!  This has backfired on me before when I decided to eat all four pieces, so no one was without, d'oh!!)

Golden Linseed & Chocolate Chip Flapjack
500g porridge oats
250g butter
4-6 tbsp of golden syrup
180g sugar
50g of golden linseeds
good handful of chocolate chips

Mix the oats and seeds.  In a pan, gently melt the butter, syrup and sugar.  Mix this into the oats/seeds.  Allow to cool for a few minutes before mixing in the chocolate chips.  Pour into a 20cmx30cm buttered tray and cook in the oven around 180°C for about 25 minutes.  Cut into squares whilst still warm.  

Golden linseed & chocolate chip flapjack

I also made a soup for my lunches for the rest of the week. This week it was spiced parsnip soup.  Sadly these were not parsnips I had grown.  The wet Summer we had meant lots of our vegetable growing efforts failed last year, and parsnips were one that failed to get passed June.  But, parsnips are cheap in the shops at this time of year, so I bought about 1.5kg today and made soup.  I spiced it with spices from a jar and dried coriander leaves to keep it low budget and quick-to-make:

(Very Easy) Spiced Parsnip Soup
1.5kg of parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks
1 onion, chopped.
1 clove garlic, crushed.
1 tsp of garam masala.
1 tsp of hot paprika
2 tsp dried coriander leaves
1.5 litres of stock

Add all ingredients to a large pan. Bring to a simmer and put a lid on.  Simmer gently for 15-20 minutes until the parsnips are cooked.  Blend in batches until smooth.  Season with care.  Please note, all quantities are approximate as I do tend to make it up as I go along!

Very easy spiced parsnip soup

 

I also bought the March edition of Kitchen garden because there were ten packets of free seeds included which made me very happy!  Most of the varieties I already have, but they have long dates on them, so they will keep for another year!  Free seeds, good food and sunshine.  Good day so far!