Badger-friendly Chilli

I'm furious that the government and the NFU are pressing ahead with the pilot badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire. My MP is writing nonsense to me trying to justify it all by saying badgers are killing all the hedgehogs and bees (! honestly - smacking of desperation there, Nick Boles!)

I refuse to support beef farmers who are supporting their union in wanting to exterminate badgers and therefore I won't be eating or buying beef in the future.

I don't eat much meat as it is but I will miss a nice hot Chilli Con Carne. I have therefore devised a delicious meat-free vegetarian alternative for those who want to join me in boycotting beef. Here's the recipe (barring the oil for frying the onion and garlic, it's also sin free on a Slimming World Green Day!)

Serves two greedy adults with enough left over for lunch for two the next day with a buttered jacket potato, DH says he prefers this version to the one I make using beef mince.

• Slurp of olive oil
• 1 large finely chopped onion
• 3 rounded tablespoons of green puy lentils
  
• 3 rounded tablespoons of red lentils
  
• 1 500g carton of passata (or large can of tinned plum tomatoes including juice)
• Half a pint of stock (preferably vegetable but if you don't mind it not being vegetarian, chicken would be fine too) I use half a teaspoon of Vecon (available from bigger Holland and Barratt shops) but go easy on the salt if you use it because it's highly seasoned already
• 4-5 medium carrots finely diced (around 400g)
• Sliced green pepper
• Can of red kidney beans drained and rinsed
• 2 level teaspoons chilli powder (or add however much you like to make it as hot as you prefer!)
• 1 rounded teaspoon of cumin
• A little salt to taste

1. Fry the onions and garlic on a low heat until softened
2. Add lentils and stir til coated in the oil
3. Pour in the passata or tinned tomatoes and the stock
4. It will seem quite liquid at this point but don't worry, the lentils will swell and absorb a lot of liquid
   
5. Add tomatoes and green pepper
6. Season with chilli powder and cumin
7. Bring to the boil and simmer for around half an hour, checking it's not getting too dry - add a little more Water if it needs it
8. Add the kidney beans, simmer for a further 15 minutes
9. Check seasoning, add salt to taste if required
10. Served in my photograph with boiled brown rice

By adjusting the seasoning and some of the ingredients, this can also be adapted for spaghetti bolognaise or cottage pie.

Enjoy!

Where did two months go to?!

Not much blogging lately! Two months have just flown by!

I've been a busy bee making beads though, as the photograph shows, these are the latest ones for sale in My Etsy bead shop. I'm calling them Cosmos beads and there will be lots of different colour varieties in the future. Why Cosmos? Because they remind me of photographs taken by the Hubble telescope.

So what's been happening on the house renovations? Some but not as much as we'd like! The scaffolding is still up around the new ensuite, the external cladding was finished some time ago. It's all watertight now and we've had several downpours which have held testimony to that definitely being true!

The cladding is green oak which will darken overtime as it weathers and then gradually lighten up again.

We're waiting for Jed to come and put on the roof tiles, guttering and then remove the scaffolding. It's a tiny job for him and he's busy at the moment and so he's going to fit us in when he can. 

We could be getting on with the inside ... here it is all insulated and looking silvery ... quite like the look actually. Next job is the plastering, Geoff hasn't got any plastering contacts who are working at the moment, so he's putting feelers out about that but once that's done, our electrician and plumber are ready to get the second fix underway. Just decorating and blinds to put up then! 

Geoff's business has taken a clobbering with the economy and unfortunately hasn't had that much work to keep him occupied and so you'd think he'd spend more time on it but he's spending all his time looking for more clients/work so we don't run out of funds! He gets very nervous when we use our savings to live on, I guess I should be grateful he's so conscientious but I'm so CLOSE to this ensuite, I'd really like to get it finished ... (hint hint, in case he's reading!!!) :-)

Gardening surprises

The received wisdom when you move into a new home with an established garden is to wait 12 months before doing anything drastic to it, mow the lawn, remove obvious weeds (leaving unidentified seedlings) and see what comes up/sprouts into life.

I wasn't terribly hopeful of anything wonderful appearing in my new garden, it's not been particularly well maintained and consists mainly of big trees and a lawn like a field (Spike loves all the weeds though and having a weedy lawn is always on our list of desirables for him!) But I have had some surprises already!

Mint is springing up through the gravel where I put my patio furniture set. Have to keep an eye on that, mint is so vigorous, it really needs restricting in a pot to stop it spreading out of control. That might become one of the on-going battles of this garden.

Some surprises are nicer than others ... this very shady rockery was growing nothing more than moss, cleavers, and a silver leaved rockery plant I can't remember the name of but everyone has it (someone help me out with the name!) I just noticed yesterday that it's got all these little shoots all over the place. I am hopeful that it's Lily of the Valley. The rockery is right next to some steps going down into the garden and would smell wonderful if it is.

This surprise - the retaining wall on the lowest of the existing terraces collapsing when DH sat on it (no injuries except to his dignity), well we could've done without that one! As you can possibly see from the photograph, it was obvious that this will need rebuilding in the long term as it's leaning over quite a bit, we had hoped to leave this til after the work in the house was finished (to give us time to save up a bit!)

This made me jump when I came across it under one of the overgrown conifer trees ... it's completely hidden until you get under the canopy. I'm not quite sure what it is, it's made of painted terracotta I think. I have decided it's a Japanese lion (with broken legs poor thing). I've found one of the legs, if I come across the other I may attempt a repair and bring him out into the sun.

The best surprise though was spotting a fish for the first time in the river from the jetty! The Inspector from the Environment Agency who came round last week confirmed what the previous owner had told us, that there are brown trout and crayfish in the river. This fish was only little, a couple of inches or so and had vertical bands on its side, we only got fleeting glimpses of it as it went about its business in and amongst the stones and weed on the bottom.

I didn't get a photo of it but here's one from the jetty where we spotted it from anyway; I could've watched it for hours!

Got rid of the rubbish!

Well some of it is gone, all the burnable stuff left over from the building of my studio and bits and pieces left by the former occupant were collected on the area that will eventually become my vegetable garden and we had a bonfire yesterday evening - it was during a light shower so we knew no-one would be sitting out in the garden or drying clothes. We chose yesterday because the weather forecast is so nice for the weekend when everyone is off work, we didn't want to force everyone back indoors with the smoke.

The high winds put paid to having one last week and as the new materials for the ensuite are going to be stacked here, we needed to have the bonfire first. So, the "conservatory" is still in place awaiting disassembly (not allowed to say demolish, one of my readers is sensitive to that word - you know who you are!!) :-)

So, just as well the joiner isn't coming next week now!

Enjoy the lovely weather everyone!

Scaffolding

Jed has arrived! Poor love had his house burgled and then problems with the back axle on his van hence the no show last week. So this "conservatory" is going to be knocked down, DH is doing the demolition himself to save money; I have pleaded with him not to start that until we get a skip ... I don't want any more rubbish lying around in the garden. He's not committing to anything though so now I have put it in writing, he can't deny he "didn't realise"!

In its place will be an ensuite bathroom, the door that you can see to the extreme right hand side of the picture goes into our bedroom. We did have a joiner booked for a week on Monday to start making the structure but he's let us down and hasn't given us a date when he can do it so DH is looking in his little black book to see who else we can get to do that.

Here's what it looks like from the inside

I'm looking forward to having an ensuite. At the moment, if I have to get up in the night (and at my age that seems to be every night!) the only bathroom is at the other end of the house and involves going down two lots of mini steps and through six doors.

We had a surprise visit from the Enforcement Officer of the Environment Agency yesterday. He asked to see the bit of the river that goes through our garden and mystified, DH takes him down. "It has come to our attention that you have a jetty without permission" Eeek! Further he adds "Did you know you're not supposed to erect anything within 9 metres of the river" Dismayed, DH estimates that the fence that he only just put up is only a couple of metres away (fortunately my studio is well outside the 9m).

Now the good news, although he does have the power to make us remove such items, because DH was so amiable he has said he will write a letter giving us retrospective permission. I wasn't there so I have no idea how DH managed to be so charming ...!

They have to investigate any obstructions (quite rightly) which might interfere with the flow of the river as in a time of high rainfall, it could get in the way of water getting away and cause a localised flood. I didn't realise such people existed or that they paid such close attention to the river. Good to know and what a great job!

I have lots of photographs of sets of renegade beads like this to put in my Etsy shop so I must get on with processing them and adding to my listings. Hope everyone enjoys a nice (and warm) weekend. :-)