May

So here we are, the start of May.

I have heard people saying that, in their worlds, March had dragged along for umpty zillion years while April had vanished in a flash.

In my world the opposite would have been the case.  Mind you, March in my world did include a flight to the UK, a couple of weeks of relatively calm holiday, followed by quite a bit of drama, a rapid retreat back to Oz and quarantine at home. The quarantine had a kind of restful peace about it. and passed quite quickly  April, on the other hand, seemed to last interminably. Not sure why. We could, and did go out from time to time. There was plenty to do.  Each day passed surprisingly quickly.  There just seemed to be an awful lot of them. I wait with interest to see what May has to say for itself.

Jim and I went out to the Spring Creek Vegetable Farm this week.  Primarily I wanted milk and yoghurt and the Inglenook Dairy is stocking their produce in a fridge at the farm gate stall.  I wasn't planning to buy much veg.  And then I saw these

At $5 each they were a definite bargain

Very fortunately, before I headed UK-ward, I picked up a book at the pop up Book Grocer in the shopping complex the surgery is in.  I wouldn't ordinarily have bought such a book but it was only $5 and it seemed like a fun thing to buy.  It might have just come into its own :D

The problem with buying an enormous cabbage is that the outer leaves are slightly too big to fit in my larger stewpot. I parboiled 8 of them in two lots.  Then I made "cannelloni" with them, filling them with a bolognaise that I had in the freezer.  I baked them with passata and grated cheese on top. My grandparents would probably have called it stuffed cabbage leaves - and been puzzled by the Italian style flavourings, and especially by the garlic. I only used 4 of the cabbage leaves.  I might make a "lasagne" with the others, although I have used all the pizza cheese mix.

I have also been doing a lot of slow cooker meals.  Lindsey acquired large quantities of various different cuts of slow cooking beef recently. She has been making stews in her pressure cooker but not making much of a dint in the supplies.  So I brought some down here and have been making Japanese style curries, beef stroganoff, beef bourguignon, beef stew, for my freezer and for the freezers at Hill House.  The weather is playing ball too. The temperatures have plummeted in recent days. The rain, it has rained. The wind has blown with enthusiasm.  Perfect for slow cooked stews and casseroles and buttery mashed potato.

They had bunches of rhubarb and bags of seconds apples at Spring Creek.  $5 each.  $5 seems to be the price de rigueur at the moment.  

Yes, yes.  Of course I bought some. I can feel a Sunday crumble coming on.