Some announcements

Good evening! I'm in bed with cold toes and a stomach ache.

1 - I tried drinking some tea to help with how gnarly I feel this evening. It did not help. I must be terminally ill.

2 - I met roughly three thousand new people today here in Cowboy's small home town in Montana. All were very lovely. I remember no names.

3 - I was expecting turkey and roast potatoes for Christmas lunch. I got prime rib and pasta salad. America is so strange.

4 - Cowboy is disappointed that there isn't more snow. He wanted me to be as cold as possible while I was here. I'm just pleased I brought my long johns. It is quite cold enough, thanks.

5 - I'm in the process of moving my blog from Blogger to its own domain name. This is more complicated than I first thought, but I'm nothing if not stubborn, and I'll get it done, by George.

6 - Who is George??

7 - Nothing like a bit of Bach Cello Concerto to soothe the brain after a busy day meeting people, but it's a little odd to be able to hear Yo Yo Ma breathing in my bedroom.

8 - I miss the heck out of Richard. I imagine he is spending most of his time like this:

9 - It seems Cowboy and I are the only people in the world who like a good firm mattress on a bed. I have struggled to sleep since we left our home in Washington, as every bed we've been put up in has been about as firm as a wet sponge. I'm developing kyphosis.

10 - I love the word kyphosis. It makes me feel clever.

11 - I'm going to bed now. The end.

Mexican rice and black beans - cheat food

Earlier on this week, I met up with my best friend for supper. We plumped for our favourite Mexican eatery, where I stuffed my face with fish tacos. On the side was a small pot of black beans and rice.

I've been craving black beans and rice ever since. No other beans would do. There must be something in the black beans that I need. This afternoon I cobbled together this cheat* meal in about four minutes flat. It was so good.



*Why is this a cheat meal? Because I used packaged rice, that's why. Uncle Ben's Mexican rice with lime, to be exact. Don't judge me!

Here's how it happened:

Half a packet of Mexican rice
Half a can of black beans, rinsed and drained.
2 tablespoons of water

All of these went into a covered pan over low heat to warm through, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, I halved an avocado, added a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime juice, and roughly mashed. I then quartered some cherry tomatoes.

Ta-da! The rice and beans were lovely and hot and mushy! Shoved it all into a bowl, and gorged myself silly.

In future, I resolve to make my own Mexican rice. But given that I was in a post-gym state of jelly-limbs and questionable stability, quick and easy was what I needed.

Enjoy!

Ridiculously easy and delicious smoked salmon samphire pasta

I discovered this by accident the other day, in one of my "throw everything in a pan and cook it" experiments. This meal is so obscenely delicious, it almost shouldn't be allowed. It's also one of the easiest things you'll ever make. And you will make it. Because it is amazing.

You will need:
Pasta (I like fusilli, but any shape will do)
Smoked salmon (that's lox, to my American readers)
Broccoli
Broad beans or peas (optional)
Samphire (Americans, I believe this is known as Salicornia. Try and get fresh, pickled will not be the same)
A lemon
Butter

Put your pasta on to boil, with a pinch of salt (don't add too much, there's a lot of salt coming). While it's starting to cook, chop up the broccoli into small pieces. Chunk up the stalk into cubes - it's good stuff!

When the pasta is about 5 minutes from being cooked, throw your broccoli and broad beans or peas into the water with it.

Shred the smoked salmon into generous pieces, and smother with lemon juice and black pepper. Rinse the samphire well.

When the pasta, broccoli and beans are done, drain off the water and return them to the pan. Add a serious chunk of butter (I'm talking a chunk the size of an egg, here. A large egg...) and stir it around to melt and coat the pasta and veg with goodness. Stir in the samphire to warm through. Add the rest of the juice of your lemon. Avoid the temptation to add salt - samphire can be extremely salty, and the salmon will also add to the flavour.

Serve up in bowls, and then throw the smoked salmon on the top (or you could stir it in to get that hot smoked salmon finish - equally delicious). Add more lemon and pepper to taste. Devour. Wonder how you ever functioned before.

Any leftovers are wonderful as cold salad, aided by a good squeeze of mayonnaise.

Enjoy!

Worlds apart

It's getting close to the time when Cowboy will be arriving in the UK for Christmas, so naturally there's a bit of PVP starting to kick in. I am restless and irritable, and scrabbling about for ways to make the days go quicker. It's harder to do that without uni or a job to take up the bulk of my time.

If I had my head in a sensible place, I'd be working on the businesses (mine, and Cowboy's) behind the scenes: adjusting websites, planning updates, drafting letters etc. My head being in an insensible place, I tend to drink a lot of tea and faff about.

Yesterday I joined one of my oldest friends for her birthday celebrations. I drove from the Oxfordshire countryside back to Tooting (where I could park for free as I still have my resident's permit), hopped on a bus to Clapham and wandered down Northcote Road. It was cold, but not bitter. I didn't wear gloves or a hat and I was fine.

We went to the pottery painting cafe and had tea and cake while we dabbed paint on to the various pieces of crockery on offer. I had to resist the teapot with a capacity of an entire gallon. I went for a more demure one pint mug.



The mug features a rope around the bottom, three emblems of London (pictured), a black and white cow (inaccurate, because Cowboy doesn't work with dairy cows, he works with beef cows, which are usually black Angus), a yellow horse (Sunshine) and a blue dog (Blue Dog).

I've never been artistically accomplished, and I'm hoping Cowboy will like it for the sentimental value and its generous tea capacity.

After our pottery escapades, we had a lovely dinner at The Breakfast Club (pie and mash, a side of mac and cheese, banoffee pie), and some drinks in the bar next door. On the way back to Tooting, I went past lovely shops and restaurants, and I wondered why I had left London. I drove back to the Oxfordshire countryside.

Cowboy messaged me from Montana, where he is taking some time out to see his family before he comes over here. All it said was: It hit -40 this morning.

That's in Fahrenheit, but it happens to be exactly the same temperature in Celsius. Minus forty. Minus forty degrees. What alien ice planet is he on?? Hoth?

The only suitable response I could come up with was: No thanks. No minus forty for me. In his little hometown I expect the wind is whipping across the prairie, and there aren't hundreds of lovely shops and restaurants to take refuge in.

I realise I have never been to the US when it's been cold. It worries me more than a little. I will need to invest in a space suit. I mean, in a really good coat.

Spinach soup, rawhide, and a comedy of errors

The last few days have seen a series of errors on my part. Some were innocuous enough: turning up to the wrong class at university because I thought I was in Group 2 (like all of last year) and I'm actually in Group 1. Others were marginally more serious: discovering that the reason my company hasn't been receiving mail as promptly as it should is because somebody put the wrong address on the website. And that somebody was me.

Anyway, no lasting harm done. I spent a rainy afternoon in the kitchen, where I promptly made this error:



I was peeling a potato, happily thinking about good it was that we only have a cheap peeler and there's no danger of peeling through half a fingernail like I've seen other people do. I immediately peeled through half of my fingernail.

Once I had jumped around the kitchen, sworn a few times, stuck the nail back down and trussed it up in first aid supplies, I got back to cooking, and made this lovely spinach, nutmeg and potato soup. Souper (sorry) simple, delicious and terribly good for you. There are no photos of the process because I was concentrating on not peeling any more fingernails.



Chunk up one onion, two peeled potatoes (do not peel your fingernail off whilst peeling potatoes), and fry in some oil over medium heat. Add around half a litre of vegetable stock (I like Kallo, it's less salty than others), and let it simmer for about ten minutes to soften the potatoes. Then cram in as much spinach as you can muster. I had a big bag of true spinach - the sort with huge leaves and long stalks, not the baby kind you get in supermarkets - which needed eating, and I just threw all of it in there. It was probably a good 400g, maybe more.

Put the lid on the saucepan for a little bit to get the steam into the spinach to help it wilt. When it's soft enough, stir it into the water with the potato and onion and give it another few minutes. Remove from the heat and blend it up. Season well with lots of black pepper and fresh ground nutmeg, and it will likely need a good amount of salt too. Give it a few tastes and adjust as you like it. The potato bulk makes this soup quite thick, which is how I like soup, but you could make it go further and thin it out with more stock if you wanted to.

I'm trying to cut back on my plastic waste (First World Guilt), so instead of my usual method of freezer bags, I portioned it out into three Kilner jars and stuck these in the freezer. Make sure your soup has cooled completely before you freeze it in glass containers, to prevent cracks. Mine appear to be intact. Phew!



In the meantime, Cowboy has a new project on his grubby hands. This, my friends, is a cow hide:



He's been commissioned to make some custom tack for a few riders in his area, out of braided rawhide, so the first step is to obtain a cow hide from the butcher, and stretch it out somewhere far from where you live to keep the stink away. He's borrowing a friend's barn for the process. I have no idea what you do next.

In other news, the banana oat cookies freeze wonderfully in freezer bags, and defrost nicely inside the plastic bag (guilt). They still taste soft and delicious once thawed. Hurrah!

Heart-warming broccoli and cheese soup

First up, here's a heart-warming, romantic exchange that Cowboy and I had early on in my trip out there this summer. I had asked him what he wanted from Walmart, and he said he needed shower gel.

B: What kind do you like? Irish Spring?
C: That's worked so far. If you want to get me something else, go ahead.
B: Do you want me to get something else?
C: If you want me to use it, sure.
B: It's nice that you're making an effort when I'm around...
C: That's what I'm saying - if you want me to use something else, you buy it and I'll use it. I'll let you make my effort for me.

See? Who says romance is dead? In the end I bought him the same shower gel he's always used (because it's cheap and I like the smell of it these days).

Soup! I had some broccoli pining in my fridge and some onions arrived in my vegbox today, plus soup is always a comforting thing to have in the freezer. I also really wanted something comforting in my stomach today. It's been one of those days.

Being conscious of the fact that I can't afford to buy new jeans and I need to stay the size of my current jeans, I like to steer away from recipes involving cream. This soup ends up a creamy consistency, and packs a lovely flavour, but is a touch less sinful than the cream varieties.

First up, slice up an onion and set it frying over some low heat in a little oil. I had half a courgette (that's zucchini to my America readers) hanging about in the fridge too, so I threw that in.



I love making soup in my one Le Creuset saucepan. It's indestructible and orange.

Chunk up the broccoli, stalk, leaves and all. It's all good nutritious stuff.



Throw it in with the onions and give it a good stir.
Then dice up some potato - I used a small baking potato, because I'm not educated about the differences between varieties of potato, and didn't care - and throw it in too.



I also suck at chopping, so I tend to use big chunks of stuff.

I only had the remains of a chicken stock cube, so that's what I used! Throw it in the pan, and cover with a little over half a litre of boiling water. Essentially, enough water to just cover the veg and make sure those potatoes cook through.



Add freshly ground black pepper, and some freshly grated nutmeg. There's nothing more marvellous than nutmeg.

Look at those fabulous stripes. I don't know about you, but I sort of see Totoro in them...

What was I saying? Seasoning! Don't worry too much about amounts just yet. The tasting and refining comes later.



Look at that lovely goodness... Mmmm... Let it simmer on a medium-low heat.

Cheese! Get your cheddar out. Grate a good handful or two.



(Side-note: there's a traditional soup recipe which is broccoli and stilton. Blue cheese isn't really my bag, plus it's expensive... Feel free to use stilton instead of cheddar if you love that blue cheese thing)

I like to use strong cheddar - at least a 4 or 5, because that way you get more taste from less cheese, and that's cheaper (in my head). This cheese came from Aldi. Don't dismiss Aldi when you're shopping - they have some wonderful products that I fill my stores with, and they are wonderfully cheap.

Once the potatoes are soft, blend your soup up. I use one of those stick blenders because I like how little washing up it generates. I don't like how much it splatters me, but you can't have everything.



It will be this gorgeous light green colour. Put it back on the low heat. Throw in your cheese!



Stir it around so it all melts in and becomes smooth and glorious. Taste, and add more seasoning if you need it. Mine needed more pepper, and, due to my low stock concentration, a little salt.

Serve it up. I ate mine without bread because I didn't have any to hand and was too hungry to defrost any. I didn't even need any - this soup is filling and delicious all by itself. I actually went back for seconds...



Enjoy!

Banana and oat cookies

I'm useless at eating bananas when they're fresh and ripe and just the way I like them. I leave them too long and as soon as they get a little bit brown and spotty, I have to find an alternative method of using them up. Wasting food gives me guilt.

I had bananas in my vegbox this fortnight, and forgot all about them. Guilt.

I often turn old bananas into cake, but that's usually when they're good and black and have a lot of sweetness and mushiness to them. This time I decided to make a slightly less sinful treat, and combine them with oats, which are my friends (wheat isn't really my friend...). I found this recipe on Pinterest a while back, and I'm still working on tweaks and improvements.



What's even better, is that this recipe is vegan, which means my best friend can also enjoy them. If I decide to share them at all, that is.



They take hardly any time to put together and cook in 10 minutes, and if you make a double batch like I did this time, you end up with a quick and simple glut of 80(ish) calorie goodness...



Mmmm. Hello, darlings...

You will need:

1 cup oats (I use quick cook oats and they are just fine)
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 tsp ground flaxseed (I use the ground flaxseed with extra berries and nuts added for some more flavour - if you don't have any flaxseed, you could substitute with one beaten egg to bind the mixture)
1 cup flour (I use whole wheat self-raising flour, but any other kind would do)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup raisins (if you fancy)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated, please. Unless you don't have any whole nutmeg. In which case I'll forgive you)
1/2 tsp each of salt, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder

Combine ground flaxseed with two tablespoons of water and set aside to thicken.

Combine oats, flour, baking soda, baking power, salt and spices in a large bowl. I adore spice and banana, so I throw in a bit of everything, but if you're not sure about all the spices, go easy on the allspice and nutmeg, or leave it out. They give a lovely warm wintery taste.

If you're adding raisins (or mixed fruit, or chopped nuts), stir them in to the flour and oat mix.

Add maple syrup, lemon juice, vanilla and mashed banana to the flaxseed mixture and combine well.

Pour wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently to combine.

Drop by heaping tablespoons on to greaseproof paper on baking tray and flatten the tops slightly. I usually get 12-15 cookies from a batch.

Bake at 190C/375F for 8-12 minutes until they are just golden around the edges. Set on a cooling rack to cool.

Perfect whilst still warm, with a cup of tea.

I have frozen most of this batch in bags of 6 cookies, in the hope that I won't eat them all at once. I've never frozen them before, so I'll let you know how they turn out once they're thawed...

Pre-Visit Psychosis (PVP)

Just a few short days now stand between me and Cowboy. I've entered the phase which I like to call "the pre-visit psychosis" which means I can't remember anything, I do a great deal of faffing about, and I generally cease to function well.

I spent yesterday in the kitchen, using up all of my vegetables in soup. One of my creations was the fabulous Beetroot Haters' Soup which smelled and tasted quite divine. If I hadn't been suffering from pre-visit psychosis (PVP) I'd have taken a picture or two.

Today I need to finish a project that I started a few weeks ago, which seemed like such a good idea at the time.



Cowboy and I will have been together for a whole year when I go out there on Monday, which certainly defies my expectations. To mark our anniversary, I'm putting together a scrapbook of pictures from my trip when we met, and what we've been up to over the year. This is partly for my benefit too, as I don't want to forget how we came to be together when it's such a ridiculous story.

I have a few pages left to do, but with PVP they've become quite difficult. I only have a couple of days left to fill the remaining space in the book. It's been a lovely experience to sit and take time to look back at my photos, think back to our earliest conversations and interactions, and remember all over again why I fell so hard for him.

We had a curious coincidence of thoughts last night. I dreamt that he had turned up in England and surprised me. When I told him about it this morning, he paused and then said "That's weird. I actually thought a little while ago about what it would be like if I just showed up in England and surprised you. I imagined doing it."

More likely, we've both got seeing each other on the brain and it's inevitable that we think the same things at around the same time.

I'm pretty excited. One of the strangest things I'm excited about is seeing Cowboy's dog, Blue Dog.



I'm firmly a cat person. Or I used to be firmly a cat person. These days I'm not so sure. I made friends with a stranger's pitbull on the tube the other day, and played with my brother's dog while nobody was looking last weekend. I have an overwhelming urge to shove my face in Blue Dog's stinky, grubby fur and give him a big hug. He hasn't had a bath in goodness only knows how long. I can only blame the PVP. No rational person would want to go within three feet of him.

Apart from how he is blindly adoring and obedient (mostly), and just loves attention. He gets a whole double page spread in the scrapbook.

Passing the time

Sixteen days until I fly off to see Cowboy, which means sixteen days of finding ways to pass many hours without losing my mind.

Today, I watched five episodes of The West Wing back to back. That was a good start.

I've also peeled eight pears and three apples, cored and diced them, and I'm currently stewing them with some cinnamon, sugar, sultanas and the juice of a small orange. Look at the golden, bubbly goodness... Mmmm...



Meanwhile, over in Washington (State), Cowboy is spending his days building fence. I don't know the technical details about fence building - no doubt I will very soon learn - but as I understand it, it involves a lot of posts...



It's back-breaking work, so I think he is most excited about getting a massage when I get out there. I don't really blame him.

I'm going to go spend my afternoon rearranging my possessions and pretending to be productive.

Tomatoes

I get an organic, mixed fruit and veg box delivered every fortnight. I occasionally feel guilty about this, as it seems decadent and foolish when there is a big Sainsbury's around the corner packed with bargain food in plastic bags. But when I shop there I feel guilty about the obscene amounts of plastic packaging.

I use two companies (Abel & Cole, and Riverford), and like to pick and choose the better box depending on what they're offering each week. This week, because of the ridiculous English heatwave (not ridiculous), I ordered an extra salad box from Riverford to keep me going through the warm weather, when hot food is offensive.

What they sent me included this scrumptious box of tomatoes.



My natural reaction was to immediately shove my nose in the box and get a good long sniff. I adore the smell of tomatoes, especially when they're still on the vine like these bad boys. Reminds me of my Grandpa's greenhouse.

Then I set to work making a simple, but glorious, lunch. It's a kind of fake bruschetta. Bruschetta alla Bee? Something like that.

Here's how it happened:

1) Grab two slices of thick sliced multigrain bread from the freezer

2) Throw large chunk of butter into a frying pan over low/medium heat.

3) Fry bread on both sides, adding more butter if needed, until golden, sizzling and smelling like heaven. Ensure butter has soaked into entire bread surface. Set aside to cool slightly.

4) Dice tomatoes into reasonably large chunks. Put in a bowl.

5) Season to taste with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a glug of balsamic vinegar.

6) Add a good handful of torn basil - mine was frozen in olive oil in, which meant I snapped off a bit and let the oil melt into the tomatoes. If you have fresh basil, all the better, just add a glug of olive oil to the tomatoes along with the seasoning.

7) Pour juicy, crisp, fragrant tomatoes and the juice all over bread.



I then ate this a little too quickly, because it was so very, very good. You could add a little garlic if you wanted. I sometimes cheat and spread garlic and herb Boursin on the bread for a cheesy, garlicky, wonderful addition. But often I find the simple tomato, basil, butter combo is just right as it is.

This meal takes about ten minutes to throw together, and is also a really good way to use up bread that has gone a little stale, because the butter makes everything soft and wonderful.

Enjoy!

One month to go

It's thirty days until I fly out to Washington State to see Cowboy. It doesn't sound like long, but it's astonishing how long a day can be when you are apart from the one person you want to see more than anything.

Cowboy is a Scorpio, I am an Aries. If you buy into this sort of thing, we should be a pretty good match - my parents are the same combination and have been married (mostly happily) for well over thirty years.

It means, in this waiting period, that I am prone to random, ridiculous outbursts of frustration, rage, loneliness and love. Cowboy is prone to be stoic, calm, logical and quiet about his feelings, although he is starting to admit that he might be having trouble sleeping because he's just as impatient as I am for our summer together to get started.

Here are some things I've been doing to try to keep busy now that university is over for the summer, and I still have time to kill before I can pack my bag:

1. Cooking - I love to make food, and I will often spend a day in the kitchen. Last week I spent twenty minutes peeling chickpeas because I'd read that it would make my houmous smoother. I'm not convinced yet. But it passed the time.
2. Moving things around - my room in my shared house isn't huge, but it's ample if you're a normal person who can throw things out. I happen to be a hoarder. I have recently re-jigged my storage options around my room and found homes for things that previously lived "in that pile there". I'm still a chaotic mess, but it passed the time.
3. Xbox - I am a girl who games. Just a little. I'm terrible at shooting and driving, so my game options are limited to things with auto-aim, and things with no vehicles. My games of choice are: Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age and Fable. Good games for passing the time and questing about, doing good in the world.
4. Pinterest - as if this needs an explanation. Possibly the most efficient time-waster ever invented.
5. Moping - I try not to overindulge in moping, as it loses its edge. Sometimes just lolling about on my bed, wishing I was in America, can kill an hour or two.

Not entirely productive pastimes, but there's a limit to what you can do when you have no income and a lot of time on your hands.

I have also been volunteering at a Riding for the Disabled Centre for the last couple of weeks, and I have one more week with them. I do three days a week, helping out with yard work and leading in lessons. I have discovered my "sweeping" muscles, and I'm feeling pretty sore. Morally, I feel super.

How would you fill thirty days?