New Pantry and a quick and easy fish recipe

First cucumber seedlings coming through.


Brendan has finished my pantry so I can move all that remains of my food stocks back inside from the barn - the mice were having a field day in there.

Yesterday I recovered the old shelves with a second hand vinyl tablecloth so they now have lovely and cheery yellow wipe down surfaces - very reminiscent of the 50's interior design styles.

Then today it was all hands on deck moving crates of preserves, flour, pasta and rice, not to mention all the bottle and bottles of alcohol back indoors.

Feeling utterly wiped out at the moment, and a bit blue, even though the sun is out and it has been lovely and warm for a few days.

I am not sure what I need to lift my mood (apart from some good news) so I am taking tomorrow's project to pamper myself a bit. After work I am going to meet a friend, I will change my clothes so I look a bit smarter and put some make-up on, maybe that will help.

In the meantime - after lugging jars and jars of my homemade chutneys and jams and those umpteen bottles of elderberry vodka back into the pantry I am going to make a quick and easy creamy fish dinner with some of last year's harvest of spuds and this years new growth of parsley, accompanied by a vodka cocktail.

Cocktail:

1 generous shot of elderberry vodka
1 generous measure of blackberry syrup
Half a highball glass of lemonade
Pour over frozen lemon slices and elderflower syrup ice-cubes

Creamy fishy dinner:

Boil some spuds and set aside in an oven dish to keep warm - I do this because I like my spuds quite dry when making a delicate flavoured sauce, and I can put them in the Rayburn oven leaving me the hot plate free to make my fish sauce

take 3 fillets of a boneless white fish
add some french beans
and simmer gently in half a litre of vegetable stock, until reduced to about half the volume

when beans are tender and liquid has reduced add a generous amount of cream and stir through while it warms
finish with a couple of grinds of black pepper and a big handful of fresh parsley - mine is now just big enough to harvest straight from the garden


As a cheer me up tonight I intend to eat on my lap in front of the TV, cheering on Daphne in Eggheads!