What do you get when ............

................ you cross radish seeds, chinese red leaf salad and a month of rain?

Well four foot tall plants of course.

Here is Thea modelling the salad poly tunnel, in the foreground the chinese red leaf that is now over a metre tall, and just behind her are the radish plants, gone to seed but again over a metre tall. You can see from the hoop height how tall the plants were supposed to be.

Today has definitely been a gardening day, what with an hour and half of grass mowing, then some potato care, first a bit of colorado beetle squashing, then a quick spray around with copper sulphate solution. After all that rain, and now the temperatures rising, the risk of mildew is very high.

Day 3 of the Larder Challenge - Carrot and Potato Thai Green Soup

It seems ridiculous that I am considering making a hot soup to eat in June, but with the constant rainfall, a winter warmer soup is just what I need.

And with the Rayburn lit for the hot water as the solar panel is 'resting' (posh actor's euphemism for not working - due to lack of solar input), I thought a hot soup bubbling away on the hot plate would raise our morale from the sodden depths.

Raiding the depths of the veg basket - I should have considered stocking up on fresh veg before starting this challenge, oh well too late now, I found a handful of sorry looking carrots and a couple of spuds.

Carrot and Potato Green Thai Chili Soup


Peel and chop into smallish chunks a handful of decidedly limp carrots and a couple of spuds about to sprout (you could use fresh ones but this is what was left in my larder)
Boil in a litre of chicken stock until they begin to disintegrate, then either blitz with a stick blender or use a potato masher to achieve a puree
At this point you may need to add some water, taste to see if you need just water or seasonings as well, a strong stock would be fine but if you are using a cube you may need the additional seasonings.

Now stir in a heaped teaspoon of green Thai chili paste

Leave to simmer away gently for half an hour  until serving or cover and stick in the oven for later, then serve with some bread.



To make your own paste:  Green Thai Chili Paste

Blend all the ingredients together to make a small
jar's worth that will keep in the fridge for a couple 
of weeks, or can be frozen in teaspoon sized dollops
on a tray in the freezer to use another time.

• 1 small onion or a shallot
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-size piece of ginger
• 1  cup chopped fresh coriander leaves & stems
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. ground pepper 
• 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
• 3 Tbsp. fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbsp. lime juice
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• 3-4 Tbsp. coconut milk or double cream
• 1 stalk lemongrass
• 1-3 green chilies depending on how hot you like your curry

Another rainy day

With the skies leaking all over the shop again, I thought I might take the morning to sort out the files on the computer, but I am not having great success. I have now backed up everything, I have deleted, de-frag-ed and scanned registry files but the damn thing still will not work properly. It needs to be formatted but without the disks I can't reload the operating system, and I can't decipher enough Dutch to set up the partitions. I am so frustrated by it now, that I just want to commit acts of violence on it.

The frustrating part about it is, when it works it works fine, I have two photo-editing programmes and it will flip between the two, it will upload files, it will even play some music at the same time, but then it freezes and all your work is lost, transferring files are lost, photos are lost and there is no warning when it will happen. Sometimes it works for as long as 45 minutes, then at other times you have to reboot it 3 or 4 times in the space of 10 minutes just to get to the desktop screen.

I feel that I have just wasted a couple of hours on nothing.

At least I spent the 30 minutes while it was trying to upload some photos drawing up plans for my next attempt at a maxi dress.  ( I hope Thea does not notice that I ripped a page from her magazine for inspiration -  Glamour is her bible at the moment.)

I have an idea of how to fix a dress that I butchered last year, but before cutting it up I am experimenting with the theory on some pink voile that used to be curtain material for Thea when she was into pink, and hope to continue with this once I get home from work this afternoon.