Food

I managed to cook several new recipes recently, as per one of my goals that I set at the beginning of the year. In February we had Goulash Soup based on a recipe which first appeared in Delia's Frugal Food back in the '70s. This is a book that I got two of for Christmas, so obviously rumours of my tightwaddery are spreading! I've loved goulash since we first ate it in a Hungarian restaurant in Ross-on-Wye almost 25 years ago, although one of my favourites was in Prague when it was served in a hollowed out loaf. Anyway, we had goulash soup a couple of times in Austria and Germany, so I thought I'd try cooking it and it was extremely good. I made a couple of changes to the above recipe: I added a carrot, I used pork rather than beef and I added a bit of celery.

March's new recipe was Jamie Oliver's Cheat's Pizza which was great. I seem to recall cooking an similar Elizabeth David pizza base (without yeast) and it came out tasting like pastry, but Jamie's version tasted like a thin pizza dough. Our toppings were ancvhovies, olives and chilli. I've got to say that I've enjoyed watching back-to-back re-runs of his Jamie's 30-Minute Meals on Sunday afternoons whilst I've been doing the ironing. I may have to invest in the book.

April's new recipe was Simon Hopkinson's version of Janssen's Temptation from Week in Week Out, but this one by Jane Grigson isn't too different.

Instead of going to Syria we went to one of our favourite hotels, Northcote Manor in Devon. This time in Jon's Dad's MX5 rather than George's Morgan - one day we'll go in our own car! The food was as wondeful as last time. And for my birthday we're off to At the Sign of the Angel in Lacock. I can't believe that we've lived 5 miles away for 22 years and have never been there yet - I hope I'm not disappointed!

Goals update

I'm doing quite well at knocking a few of my goals for the year over:

3. Cook a new recipe each month January's new recipe was yet another stuffed pepper/tomato one - when I've visited Greece I've just lived off these for a week or more, only picking other dishes every few nights just so I don't seem wierd (OK, make that TOO wierd. Anyway, this has been lurking in my recipe file for many years and may have been cut out of Woman and Home magazine. This must be the most expensive stuffed pepper/tom recipe I have; because of the cheese, lamb and eggs, but it was very nice. I noticed that my supermarket now does a value brand feta-style 'salad cheese', so that might help bring the price down a bit.

Greek stuffed tomatoes

Serves 4

Note: I used peppers and, as they tend to be larger than beef tomatoes, I added an onion with the garlic and added the chopped sliced flesh from the stalk end when I cut off the tops. Peppers don't always sit nicely on their bases so lie them on their flatest side and slice the upper side off - that way they still keep the stalk for aesthetic effects. If you're using largeish peppers you may need to add some rice when you put the wine in for extra bulk, or perhaps use twice as much feta. Instead of breadcrumbs you can use a plain unsweetened breakfast cereal like bran flakes or Weetabix. If you're using peppers then finely chop 8 tomatoes (or a tin of them).

Oil for frying and drizzling
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
4 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves (or 1 tablespoon of dried - try marjoram or parsley if you're out of oregano)
500g minced lamb
150ml dry white wine
8 ripe beef tomatoes
salt and ground black pepper
50g breadcrumbs
2 medium eggs
100g feta cheese, crumbled or diced

Heat the oil and fry the garlic (and onion and pepper 'lid', if used) for a few moments.
Add the oregano and stir.
Add the mince, break it up with a fork and stir until it changes colour.
Add the wine, turn up the heat and bubble until the liquid evaporates.
Turn the heat off and leave to cool.
Remove the tops from the tomatoes and carefully scoop out the insides, being very careful not to puncture the tamato.
Cut the woody bitter core from the tomato innards and chop them and the lids very finely (or puree in a food processor).
Stir the eggs, breadcrumbs, seasoning and feta into the meat mixture (I put the tomato innards in too, but read on for a different option).
Stuff the meat mixture into the tomatoes.
Put the tomatoes into a shallow casserole dish, tightly packing them in will help stop them splitting.
Pour the tomato puree around them.
Cook covered in a medium oven (gas 5-ish/190c) for an hour.
Uncover and cook for a further 30 mins to become golden on top.
Remove from the oven and let them stand for 15 mins.
Serve at room temp drizzled with a little olive oil and scattered with some chopped parsley.

4. Get a hair cut - sounds easy but I've always hated going to the hairdressers and the last time I went was Sept 2009! Done - the hair is once again short and has blond highlights. It's the first time it's been short since April 2007. The hairdresser thought it was very funny when she asked why I was getting it all cut off and I replied, 'Cos it's blocking the hoover!'. Other reasons are: will cost less in gas to heat the water to wash it; will take less time to wash; will cost less in shampoo and conditioner; will take less time to try to comb the knots out after washing it; etc etc etc

Goals

Last January I did a 10 year round-up and set myself some goals for the next 10 years and some one year ones. I did an update in June http://lazyferret.blogspot.com/search/label/goals. So, how have I done since then?

10 year goals:
1. pay off mortgage in 2012 (13 years early) This is on track to be paid off by Aug 2013
2. travel more – possibly by volunteering on archaeological/environmental projects Off on a tour of Syria's archaeological delights in the spring - I can see lots more trips like this happening, money and health permitting
3. perhaps do more studying At the moment it's more informal learning through WANHS lectures and trips like the one above
4. work less Ummmm, need to work on this one a bit more...
5. enjoy life more Am basically a miserable git so I'm battling against my nature here, but still persevering!
6. do more draft/scary things to prove I’m still alive See no. 7
7. use the motorbikes more – preferably abroad, preferably Libya, Iceland and Morocco Details of trip to Germany was posted in July

Goals for 2010:
1. re-mortgage in Feb when our 10 year fixed rate ends Done
2. over-pay mortgage to allow us to pay it off early Done
3. do at least one long motorbike holiday this year, even if it does rain all summer, again Yes, 2 weeks in Germany. It did rain and was very hard work. Maybe do an organised tour in future. But didn't die and had no major disasters...
4. get more exercise Needs more work

Goals for 2011:
1. Get more exercise
2. Do some track days/driving 'experiences' at local motor racing circuit
3. Cook a new recipe each month
4. Get a hair cut - sounds easy but I've always hated going to the hairdressers and the last time I went was Sept 2009!
5. Worry less
6. Sort out a new boiler

2010 Goals Update

I posted some goals in January, and I just thought I'd look at them again to see how I was doing.

They were:

1. re-mortgage in Feb when our 10 year fixed rate ends
2. over-pay mortgage to allow us to pay it off early
3. do at least one long motorbike holiday this year, even if it does rain all summer, again
4. get more exercise

So, 1 & 2 - we've re-mortgaged. The chat with the mortgage girlie was very positive, in that her figures matched the ones we'd worked out before-hand, so that was good.

3. Have booked a ferry and the first 2 nights' accommodation of a bike trip to Germany before the schools break up for the summer. So expect the nice weather to end soon and it start raining!

4. Have moved offices at work and it is slightly easier to walk up the stairs now! We have been trying to get out for a walk round Dyrham Park or to walk to Lacock on a weekend. Training walks with Claire as she prepared for her trek helped too. But could do better.

There's been some progress toward the goals I set myself for the next 10 years:

1. pay off mortgage in 2012 (13 years early) On track, but it'll be 2013 instead. We will have paid off the mortgage in 3.5 years - 12 years early and only 23 years after we took out the mortgage on our first house.
2. travel more – possibly by volunteering on archaeological/environmental projects
3. perhaps do more studying
4. work less I think this and no.s 2 and 3 will be more do-able once 1 is sorted.
5. enjoy life more
6. do more draft/scary things to prove I’m still alive
7. use the motorbikes more – preferably abroad, preferably Libya, Iceland and Morocco Trip to Germany planned. Although we've mostly enjoyed our trips abroad in the last couple of years, we've REALLY hated the flying - airports and airlines seem to do all they can to make travel as unpleasant as possible. So I think that our hols for the next few years will be on bikes and trains (hence the rail map of Europe I got for my birthday).

5 and 6 still need a lot more work!

New Decade, New Dreams

A forum I belong to started a thread recently on the start of the new decade and reflections on the past ten years. I'd forgotten that ten years ago we were all relieved to find that the Millennium Bug hadn't brought the world to an end. We all started posting on our past 10 years and hopes for the future; here's mine...

10 years ago we were just coming to the end of the house move from hell. We had a bet on with some friends, who were also having problems with the house they wanted to buy, as to who would move in first. We lost as it only took us 7 months to move, whilst it took them almost a year! The final straw for us was our buyer dropping out on the day of exchange just before Christmas ‘99, we looked around our house stacked with boxes ready to move and just couldn’t face staying there, so we went into Bath and spent the night at a hotel. That turned out to be a bit of a disaster too and when I was telling my counsellor the following week of all the awful things that had happened, he said, “Do you think you’re getting a bit paranoid?”. I think he was a bit taken aback when I shouted, “Paranoid? Paranoid? Of course I’m f****** paranoid! I’ve got every reason to be f******-well paranoid!”. I’m a firm believer in the old saying that, ‘just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’.

Anyway, luckily the vendors were buying a brand new Barratt home and Barratt bought our house to stop their sale falling through (for a tiny bit more than our buyer had offered, plus it was a private sale so no estate agent’s fees). We moved in Feb ’00 and we’re still in the house and have no intentions of moving (well, unless our numbers come up and the house of our dreams comes on the market at the same time).

Jon had just started a new job and was very happy. His old job had been a bit rough towards the end and also had him working late 2 nights a week and alternate Saturdays. The new job was 8.30 to 5 and no weekends, so a significant improvement, although a slight drop in salary. He’s still there, despite being out-sourced and the company changing hands several times.

I was less happy with my job. That’s probably an understatement. But I did manage to negotiate a couple of periods of going part-time, which probably helped me hang on to what little sanity I had left. One period was where I moved sideways into a project role for 18 months working 2.5 days a week – that was an eye-opener: people actually said, ‘Thank you’, ‘That was really good work’, ‘You’ve really helped us a great deal there’, etc – it’s amazing what a morale boost someone just saying ‘thank you’ is. It also made me realise that so much of my normal job entailed banging my head against a brick wall, it was nice to do a job and not have people putting barriers in your way. The other 2.5 days a week were spent teaching Adult Literacy, researching some local history for a small family company, yoga lessons, volunteering at my local museum and starting to do an A Level in Art History which finally led to me getting a First in an OU degree in Dec 2006.

When the project finished and I had to go back to my old full-time job I decided to swap jobs with a colleague on a different campus, in the hope that I would feel better. But the organisation made half of all the library staff redundant, so that made things worse rather than better! I managed to negotiate another period of ‘part-time’ work, where I took Mondays off in return for working an evening, short lunch breaks and getting a bit less pay. When this was coming to an end in Jan ’08 the organisation started another round of redundancies. I applied for redundancy and got it. Started a new job in July ‘08, outside my interests and skills, and am thoroughly enjoying it.

We did a charity motorbike ride in India in Oct ’06. This was my idea, decided on the basis that I spend the majority of my life frightened of, well, just life really, that I might as well do something genuinely scary now an again ‘cos it’s not going to make me feel any worse and, hopefully, the wonderful experiences I come back with should actually make me feel a lot better. We raised £2,000 and had a brilliant time. Unfortunately, it also cost us around £2k each to do it, so it did contribute towards my minor debt problem that finally got cleared in July ’08 (it was worth every penny). Oh and, on the subject of charity treks, have you sponsored my sister-in-law yet? Click on the Just Giving link on the right to read about her trek and donate to Diabetes UK.

Jon's brother got married to Helen (and provided us with a nice photo to go on the top of our blog!) and we got a gorgeous little nephew in Dec ’06.

After 19 years of road-testing, we got married in April 2007 on my 40th birthday. That was something the pair of us, let alone all our friends and relatives, never thought we’d see.

BUT we’ve seen colleagues and people we admired be struck down at such stupidly young ages with debilitating illnesses which have led, in some cases, to an early death and in others to permanent incapacity. Sadly we’ve also lost 3 grand-mothers in the last 12 months and the last remaining one isn’t too well either. So, I suppose that what we'd like to do in the future is to find a balance between working and enjoying ourselves (the latter does need work as, by nature, we’re both miserable gits!).

The decision not to over-extend ourselves when we bought our new house has proved very useful, as we are slowly being able to afford to do more enjoyable things that were previously out of reach. I hope that the emotional problems have settled down and that we can enjoy the next ten years, rather than just existing, as much of the previous 20 seem to have been.

So goals for the next 10 years:

1. pay off mortgage in 2012 (13 years early)
2. travel more – possibly by volunteering on archaeological/environmental projects
3. perhaps do more studying
4. work less
5. enjoy life more
6. do more draft/scary things to prove I’m still alive
7. use the motorbikes more – preferably abroad, preferably Libya, Iceland and Morocco

Goals for 2010:

1. re-mortgage in Feb when our 10 year fixed rate ends
2. over-pay mortgage to allow us to pay it off early
3. do at least one long motorbike holiday this year, even if it does rain all summer, again
4. get more exercise

Happy New Year!