Food Archives - Jenny May

Apologies, peace and sweet treats.

Hi there

I want to start today with an apology, well actually, two. Firstly, I know my last few pieces of writing have laid out some pretty heavy stuff that perhaps has been hard for some people to read and I am sorry to cause anyone pain. But, I didn’t feel I could carry on with my writing without being honest about where things currently stand. The last hard thing for now is I’m going to answer a question I’m sure a lot of people are wondering about, although, actually, I’m not really going to answer it. When you know someone has incurable cancer thoughts are going to gravitate to: how long left… so for anyone wondering, I don’t know and I’ve decided I don’t want to know – not until I absolutely have to. I’m not daft, I know the stats and parameters, I know what’s going on in my body better than anyone else, I know I’ve been dealing with this cancer for seven years now and I know what currently treatment is/isn’t doing. On bad days I feel I am at the lesser end of the scale, on good days I feel entirely hopeful that I can claim back something rather better and it is that hope that I wish to live by. There, that is the last of the really difficult bits.

The second apology is to all you lovely, lovely people who have been in contact in various ways – and I just haven’t got back to yet. I sometimes end up in a state of absolute overwhelm and become like a rabbit in headlights and freeze. I then feel so horribly guilty about taking so long to reply that it makes me freeze further – a terrible trait and one I shall work on. But thank you to everyone who has been in touch – I will be getting back to you all – slowly but surely.

I have to admit though that part of the not sorting out visits and get-togethers is because I am feeling very self-conscious about how I look and becoming less confident about being out in public. I still have hair, but having started a second chemo, and one I lost it with before, I am expecting it to fully go soon. But this time my cancer is behaving differently. Previously it has all been very hidden but now it is very much only just under the skin of my neck, back, shoulder and now chest. Not only are tumours clearly visible but the cancer is making my skin look as if I have been burned in a fire. Add to this redness and swelling and nerve damage that means I cannot move the lower right hand side of my mouth, and well, you can begin to imagine that it is hard not to feel like hiding away. There is a particular difficulty in seeing your face be changed, a thing that very much defines you and you have lived with all your life, to look in the mirror and no longer see a person you fully recognise is upsetting and is a step I am trying to learn to live with in the knowledge that it may still get worse.

But, believe it or not this brings me on to a nicer thing I want to come back to. Last time I wrote, I left a pondering on the word ‘softening’ that was for some reason coming to me often. And it continues to do so and has been helping me. To me, this softening is a place of stillness to step into when anxiety or overwhelm start knocking. It feels like a pocket of time-out where I am neither fighting with exuberant positivity nor dropping down in to low mood. It is a neutral place of calm where I can view the world with a gentle clarity and even curiosity. I find within it that I don’t have to be anything at all except present, I don’t have to be happy or sad, scared, anxious or a warrior. This softening is a place I can allow my thoughts to gently morph like clouds slowly changing from one shape to another; no discernible movement yet they transform and slip easily from one state to another. The softening, a place without hard edges where nothing has to be yes or no, hard or easy, where what we think and what we feel can interplay or not. It is an allowing of everything and yet letting nothing be all consuming. And with this softening comes a freedom to allow anything to have the chance to be. It has also instilled in me a security of belief in myself and my place in the world. Anyone who has followed my writing over the years will know that I am a bit of a hippy nature nerd, it is where I find my peace and my place. I like the thought of being the tree that bends with the wind rather than trying to stand against it and then snap. And to stand as that tree that bends you need to have confidence in your roots that you know to be true to you. I know that I am at my best self when I am open, curious and hold peace at my centre. I know that I love and that I am loved and it is with these things that I plant my roots into the ground and if I soften into them I can bend with the storms.

I would love for each and every one of you to find your softening. I’m sure it will look and feel different to everyone. But I thoroughly recommend it. Next time you are feeling the pull of anxiety or stress or even over excitement, say to yourself, ‘soften’ take a breath and step into that gentle place and be curious as to where you go.

There is a breath visualisation I like to use sometimes to get into this place that you may like too: take a breath in and imagine it going into your headspace, breath out and drop that breath to your throat. Breathe in and on the exhale drop your breath to your chest. Breathe in, then allow the next breath to drop to your stomach. Breath in and this time, on your out breath imagine it dropping through your legs and out through the soles of your feet and as this happens think of the things that you know to be true to you and that keep you grounded. Feel yourself soften.

I mentioned that one tenet true to me is curiosity. I have been in a strange place at the beginning of this year where so many difficult things were happening that I lost all my usual interests, but I find that I am slowly crawling out of that dearth now and small snippets of curiosity are coming back to me. And it seems it has a hunger! I have found myself wanting to try new recipes and food ideas – some have worked better than others but the best two of late come with a sweet tooth and if you are that way inclined here they are.

Firstly, dates filled with peanut butter then coated with dark chocolate. Warning, these are immensely moreish and do not last long.

Secondly, and bear with me here: butternut squash chocolate mousse. Trust me, I don’t know how or why it works but it does. What I did: 400g butternut squash steamed until soft then blended until as smooth as possible. 200g chocolate, half dark, half milk, melted. Then add the squash to the chocolate, whisk together, pour into a dish and let set. I dare you to try it!

I think next time I write to you lovely lot I’m going to talk a little on anger and love. But I shall leave you now, hopefully with thoughts of softness and peace and sweet chocolate treats.

Death of a Garden

I feel the pain of sap drying in stems as assuredly as I feel the sharp prick and spike of dead grass.

I am sure that I am not the only one who is currently feeling a sort of grief every time they look out at their garden. I have felt immeasurably lucky over the last few years to be blessed with a large garden. It has been my sanctuary, my nemesis, my workout, my joy and my healing, many times over. But at this time of heat and drought, I feel the pain of sap drying in stems, petals curling and falling before full colour has blushed, and the tightening and constricting of green just as assuredly as I feel the sharp prick and spike of dead grass under my bare feet.

Things I have planted, pruned, tamed and nurtured, I now mutter apologies to as I pass them: “I just can’t water you all,” I say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

We prioritise the food; peas, courgettes, onions, potatoes – anything we are going to eat gets watered – but still, it is not enough. Beans that normally flourish all through August stopped producing before the month began. The flower borders near the house and the pots on the patio get an irregular dousing from grey water we collect from the sink. Again, it is just not enough.

It is not about aesthetics. Of course, it is far more pleasant to look out on colour and vibrancy, but it is as ever, the breaking of the chain. No plants producing pollen and nectar – no insects. No insects – less food for birds. Fruit dropping off early and unripe – again leading to famine for wildlife. We move up the chain; no insects – no pollination – no food – for us.

I feel that since an early age I have been scared and worried for the world. At the age of about nine and without fully understanding what it was all about really, but with a sense that it was important, I did a sponsored walk for wildlife. I bought ‘save the whales’ notepads and when peers were wearing band t-shirts, I had ones about global warming. But this is the first time I have ever felt that perhaps we have gone too far to turn back. I always had a slight militant feeling that the world could be saved; but now I’m not so sure and my heart breaks for my niece and nephews because I don’t know what world they will have to grow into.

But, it is a funny thing that despite this fear and grief I find myself collecting seeds. To collect seeds is still to hold hope. It is a way to try and preserve what can be saved from this year to try again. It may be that we have irrevocably lost some of our plants and that we might have to rethink what is going to be possible to grow in the years to come. For now, I can do nothing about that. But I can hope and so I will keep collecting seeds and as an invocation to carry on and to encourage you to do so too; I will leave you with the beautiful spell of their names:

Clary, aquilegia, salvia, snapdragon, nigella, sweet peas, silver moon

Nothing but food

Mealtimes have become the main event rather than the punctuation. But here is a danger; the comfort or boredom snacking.

There is nothing to talk about but food. Oh, and – when is bins? I don’t know about you, but between the amount of time we have been in lockdown and the weather being so bad that even the allowed daily exercise has been put largely on hold, it feels that there is very little to say about what anyone has done each week. Living rurally, we were completely snowed in and so I didn’t even get to my blood or chemo appointments this week. They may not exactly be highlights but at least they mean I get to leave the house.

I love having catch ups with my closest ones on various on-line platforms but they, as well as phone calls can end up a little like this: “Anyone done anything this week?” “Not really.” “Pretty much the same as last week.” “Yep.” “Yep, me too.”

At least before the snow we were able to start talking about what was coming out in the garden and the things we were thinking of getting planted, but even that has been thwarted until things improve. The snow itself, did of course, provide a new topic of conversation for a while especially when wondering just who had left trails up and down our garden when I wasn’t looking – turns out, it was pheasants.

But it’s not as if there is nothing to do, it’s just that somehow, in our long confinements, everything just feels a bit samey. If it weren’t for all my hospital appointments the calendar would be redundant; even weekends have no meaning anymore as, because MOTH and I have been working from home, work is an any day, every day, any time thing.

And so food seems to be the thing that is keeping us all going – literally and figuratively. The highlight of most days is the coming meal. It is a marker of time passing and something nice (hopefully) to look forward to, something that is different to the previous day. Mealtimes have become the main event rather than the punctuation. But here is a danger; the comfort or boredom snacking, accompany this with not being out and active and you can understand why a rotation of jogging bottoms are becoming my staple wardrobe. I’ve not helped myself by coming up with a dangerously easy, tasty quick bake, the recipe for which is below. The cats appear to be in on it too and I couldn’t count the number of times a day I refill their biscuit bowls. They, however do not have jogging bottoms. And the birds are no better.

On an unrelated food note, do you ever feel like you have the same things over and over again? After feeling like this a while back, I started keeping a list of the different meals I cook and it’s now in the seventies. And yes, I realise this is a very nerdy thing to do. But trust me, when you have the mind-blank of writing the shopping list for the week – it helps to be a nerd.

For a life writer, this lack of doing anything makes it very hard to write about, well, doing anything. Before you know it I’ll be telling you about the ironing or how I’ve re-labelled all my wallet files (and just how is it that in a supposedly going paper-less world there is still just so much blinking life-admin paperwork?) or even tidying the stationery drawer, which is on my radar to do. Perhaps we will all end up with a new level of tolerance of the mundane where every-day activities are the height of excitement. On a serious note, we might all be learning to find a new joy in smaller less exuberant activities, which actually, I think could be a good thing in a way.

Whatever you are all not-doing this week, I hope it is punctuated by some lovely food. I for one am off to have supper after posting this and to think about what we need to get out of the freezer to cook tomorrow.

And, just when is bins?

For my easy soft-bake flapjack recipe, click here

Easy soft-bake flapjack

This is a really quick and easy basic recipe that is perfect for adding in whatever you fancy as little extras.

Ingredients:

4oz oats milled or blitzed in a blender or just as they are (I use gluten free)

4oz ground almonds

5oz butter (melted)

3oz sugar (caster or soft brown, whichever is your preference)

Method:

Mix together the dry ingredients then stir in the melted butter.

Cook for 20 minutes at 180 degrees (fan)

Little extras:

So far I have tried:

Orange zest and cinnamon

Cranberries and apricots

A layer of cooked apple in-between two layers of flapjack

Chocolate chips

Pre-baked Potatoes

I have become mildly obsessed with TED Talks and have to ration myself to only starting one when I know I have time to listen and watch many. Like others might binge a Netflix series, I can do the same for these presentations. And it’s not just about the interesting subjects, it also has to do with a strange fascination I have with confident speakers. As much as what they say, I am drawn to the gesticulations, expression, rhythm of speaking and the movement that goes unplanned with their words. It is something we all do, to a greater or lesser extent and I find it an interesting thing that when (in theory) words should be enough to convey what we are saying, our bodies give these impromptu extras.

Recently, when watching a news presenter giving a report while wearing a face covering, MOTH made a passing comment about the gesticulations looking odd without seeing the mouth moving too. My brain being what it is, I now can’t stop thinking about why and how our brains deliver these non-verbal expressions without our conscious instruction to do them. Have we always done it? Does everyone gesticulate? Do all cultures? What is the impact of not doing so? And so on. Perhaps there is a TED Talk about it. (I’ve just looked. There isn’t. Could someone do one please?) A moment to say, please, please wear a mask. No, none of us like it but we do things every day that are annoying, uncomfortable or we don’t like, so let’s all just crack on with this too, shall we.

Speaking of coverings (yes, exceedingly tenuous linking of thoughts – my mum will appreciate that) it is too blinking hot and I am longing to live in the lightest billowing cotton kaftan that will magically never actually touch my skin- does anyone have one I can borrow? I know I am most likely to be in the minority here, but I really don’t like this extreme heat. As someone who is cold ninety-nine percent of the time, you’d think I’d be happy when the sun was blazing. But it’s as if, when I finally get warm, my body doesn’t know how to cope with it. I literally swell up and ache and get very, very grumpy. (MOTH will attest to this with ‘help, get me out of here’ subtle eye movements.) I am longing for days of rain and snuggling up in a jumper. I am writing this in my study with the curtains half-drawn and a fan on while I am sure most of you are probably sunbathing and maybe even at the beach. The fan, by the way, is precariously close to the hanging tendrils of a flowering spider plant and I am aware that there may be a shower of little white petals blown my way at some point. Still, I usually have bits of garden in my hair or down the back of my t-shirt so it won’t make too much difference.

Speaking of the garden – it is wilting and crisping and we are hoping our main crop potatoes aren’t going to be pulled up pre-baked. We lifted our onions recently and are still feeling abundantly smug about the haul. Quite possibly over one-hundred; and ten garlic bulbs as well. As ever we are running out of ways to eat excessive amounts of courgette, it is currently being added to pretty much every meal – and still they come.

Every year I say I am never going to make jam again. This usually happens when I have been cleaning and sterilising jars, prepping huge amounts of fruit and standing over a boiling pan of bubbling fruit and sugar – all in the hottest months (merely adding to the heat I already can’t deal with – yes, I’m still grumping). Well, I have been making jam. And there will probably be more to come. The first large batch has been greenage – it seems we have a bumper crop for the first time. Most years we barely get any as, just at the point of nearly ripe, every single one gets utterly devoured by wasps. So this year, I took my cue from the stripy sugar-loving beasts and at the first signs of them boring into the fruit, I picked a basket load and finished ripening them in a paper bag. Then realised I would have to do something with them all, now that they were picked. Next up; the plums. And damsons. And apples. And blackberries. Oh dear.

It is amazing how much time it takes dealing with a mass of homegrown produce to make sure it is kept well enough to last into winter and beyond. My grandparents had the most amazing cellar which was full of jars upon jars of bottled fruit (as well as Grandad’s home-made wine – of varying successes) and I can only imagine how much time Grandma must have spent getting everything picked, prepped and stored because I don’t remember there ever being a time when there weren’t fruits to choose from, whatever the season. The exciting feeling and glorious scents of going down into the cellar I don’t think will ever leave me. It was the place where the surplus cake tins were kept, the extra cups, jars, large sieves and all manner of not-quite every day items – including (we found when sorting their estate) a teacup, with a special lip to guard the drinker’s moustache from getting wet. (Here is a
terrible picture.)

Back to the courgettes, because, as any vegetable gardener will attest – they are too numerous to ignore. One approach to use a good amount while being able to hide the quantity from those who are not so keen, is to make courgette potato cakes. Make your mashed potato as usual and let cool. Grate as many courgettes as you think you can get away with and wring them out in a tea towel to get rid of as much moisture as possible. Add the courgette to the potato and season: salt, pepper and chives works well, then squish down into a pastry cutter to create the ‘cake.’ Alternatively, make the mixture into balls and roll in flour. Both of these freeze brilliantly and cook from frozen and you can totally deceive doubters by not telling them they contain large quantities of courgette – especially if they are served with a runny-yolk poached egg on top.

All about the birds and a little undead rhubarb

Once again we have reached the point where the areas of our garden we leave wild at the start of the year need taming. I always leave a large patch of comfrey at the bottom of the garden as it is such a good source of early nectar for bees and pollinators, but this pretty, although prickly irritant of a plant, romps away and before you know it, everything has been swamped. Now that the bulk of flowering is over I have begun to reduce the area by at least half – and found a lovely surprise under it all – a patch of wild garlic which I had no idea was there. Next to the fenced grass pile (which has been phenomenal at giving us mulch at this time when garden centres have been closed) there peered up at me some rather light-deprived wild garlic; rather sorry leaves but lovely delicate white flowers. I am hoping it will recover now that it is not weighed down by comfrey and I might try transplanting some to a place a little easier to get to and keep clear.

At the same time, I had to re-find the access to the grass pile as the hedge next to it had bulked out somewhat. A lot of people will think I am mad, but I always cut my hedging back by hand with secateurs (although MOTH does do the hedge at the front but only after I’m convinced nesting season is over). Cutting by hand may take longer but to me it feels so much kinder and less intrusive and I am more convinced of that now as, once more, I was given a wonderful surprise. As I edged along gently taking pieces of hedging away, I came across a well-hidden nest with four beautiful small bright blue eggs – a dunnock’s nest. Naturally, I immediately backed off and I am happy to report that I have seen an adult on the nest since, so I am no longer worried about having disturbed it.

The line between gardening for us and for nature is weighted heavily in favour of nature at the front of our house too (much to the neighbours’ horror I’m sure; those that allow nothing for wildlife save an extremely mowed lawn).
We always get a bit of a meadow of dandelions and do you know what – I leave them. The bright yellow is simply gorgeous to see and they are great for pollinators. When their heads turn to clocks, I still can’t get rid of them because when I look out I can see many goldfinches perched on the stems pecking away at the seeds that are attached to the iconic, delicate parachutes. I was watching a line of goldfinches on the telephone wire connected to our house the other day and they were themselves acting like parachutists. All in a row, one by one they dropped off, straight down to the awaiting dandelions below.

As an aside, did you know that the name dandelion comes from the French, ‘dent- de lion’ – lion’s tooth, although, apparently this is not what the French call it, their name for dandelion is pissenlit. The attached name ‘clock’ which appears when the head dries and turns to delicate seeds, has its root in an old bit of folklore when to divine how long you had left to live, you would blow upon the clock and count how many seeds still remained attached.

The song thrush is in full evidence – but this time, not only in its absolutely bonkers song; the garden is littered with smashed empty snail shells, the remains of the mollusc homes left in pieces on paving stones and large rocks. And it is no surprise there are so many takeaway shells about, because we now have two thrushes, the juvenile of which is often hopping about the pots on the patio looking exceedingly pretty and plump.

More elusive birds this week have been the stunning kite that occasionally does a fly-by over the house but which never hangs around long enough to be captured on camera other than as a tiny speck in the blue and also the unseen cuckoo whose call I heard this week for the first time of the year.

The enormous and increasing number of wood pigeons however, I shall not be waxing so lyrical about, although one did entertain me the other day be seeming to get stuck on the second part of its infamous call: whoo whoooo hoooo hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo…

The house martins are about more, flashing their white stomachs as they zip about aerial feeding, I saw a swallow sat on a telephone wire over a field, the great tits with their Pulp Fiction ties are feeding heavily again, the male blackbirds are scrapping at every opportunity and we have two plump juvenile blackbirds always bobbing about the garden together, rotund and with thin little legs, they remind me of Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum; the garden is busy!

But I promised you rhubarb, and if only I could actually give it to you. There was a rhubarb patch here when we moved in. Not being the biggest fans of the vegetable, I have tried to remove it several times; believing last year that I had finally succeeded – but no; it lives again, rising from the earth with triumphant red arms, defiantly waving enormous leaves at me. And so, as I write this, I have a huge amount of rhubarb chutney simmering away as well as three crumbles ready for the freezer. It is the spider plant of the garden – un-killable!

Observations on a week including athleisure and cake

I find I have been regularly wearing my running leggings – with absolutely no intention of going running whatsoever. Let’s face it, with the way things are at the moment, no one is going to see me, I could just as well be wearing a shark costume and party hat for all anyone would know. But they are comfortable and there is always the possibility that I could, if the spirit took me, spontaneously launch into exercise (pause whist taking a moment to haul self, up off the floor from laughter at this idea.)

A year or so ago we saw the spread of athleisure and I, like many, scoffed. But frankly, right now I see the appeal. Clothing, athletic in its heritage, but worn for leisure and comfort. It reminds me of a black and white tracksuit I had when I was about eight, I loved it. I don’t know why as, although obsessed with ballet, I wasn’t exactly sporty even then.

The odd thing is, even though I have in the past been out running in my sports leggings, I still wouldn’t conceive of just popping out casually in them. Why? Surely jiggling about, wobbling uncontrollably in them would be worse than just wandering down the high street (ok, a notion not on the cards right now anyway) and yet it feels as if it is okay to show every bulge and bump, as long as it looks like you are making an effort to do something about it.

I am also at this juncture, once again marvelling at the truly frightening way advertising manages to hack right into life because, of late I have had many adverts turn up anywhere I log on line all luring me to buy leg sculpting, bum lifting, waist restraining sports leggings How? I don’t know, I’m pretty sure I’ve haven’t written or looked at any before now, but merely mentioned them in passing to MOTH who wondered if I might be about to do something dangerous, like jog. And, as much as I would like a pair (for the aforementioned possibility of spontaneous sport or for ignoring such) this is not a time for frivolous shopping. If any companies spot this blog and want to send me some for free, fair do’s otherwise, it’s the old faithful pair and stop showing me things I am not going to buy. Stop it!

But I am also hankering after a house coat for completely the opposite end of the wearing clothes spectrum. Before we went into lock down, I was making a concerted effort to wear some of my nicer clothes more often, particularly dresses. But I am a clumsy person, to say the least. Despite craving clear surfaces, calm rooms with no clutter and an easy way around the place to just ‘top-up’ clean – I am, by nature a creative mess maker. And clumsy. Very clumsy. Hence, the fancy for a housecoat. But a nice one – with pockets. Something I could feel almost as glamourous in as a nice dress underneath. Actually, I’ve always been quite taken with 1920’s fashion and so a pair of flouncy silk day pyjamas under a fabulous housecoat (with pockets) would be ideal especially now it is a rare occasion to leave the house.

Speaking of housework. With us all in lockdown and the weather flip-flopping between spring and winter, it feels as if it is the perfect time to have a good old sort out of the house. Overflowing cupboards, wardrobes and drawers could be purged and the house given a jolly good spruce up. But, there is one huge flaw in this plan. What to do with all of the things you decide to get rid of? We can’t take things to the recycling centre or to charity shops and unless you are lucky enough to have a spare storage shed sitting empty to stash it all in, the only option is to have it hanging around in boxes and bags getting in the way – or just putting it all back where it came from.

I thought I’d found a perfect thing to crack on with sorting out that wouldn’t cause too much excess to get rid of. That was to finally gather up all my hand-scribbled recipes, together with those I have torn out of magazines or printed off and get them sorted and all in the same place in some discernible order. And that is what I did. Or rather, that is what I started. Two recipes written up neatly and then a glance at the huge pile to go and I gave up. And wrote this instead.

But, one of the two recipes I did manage to write up was for what I am calling, ‘Molly’s Muffin Loaf.’ For the recipe and to find out why it is called that, just click on the link here.

Molly’s Muffin Loaf

It was my niece’s birthday recently but with us all in lock down we were, of course, unable to be with her. But, that did not stop cake in our family, oh no. It merely increased it. We held a remote family bake off with the theme of ‘fruit’ chosen by the birthday girl. We shared pictures of ourselves with whisks and spatulas held aloft and aprons donned as the start time approached and then many, many more as the baking continued. In all, seven bakes were made – one even all the way in New Zealand. The thing we all came to realise though, almost a week later, was that not being able to share our cakes with each other, we had to eat them all by ourselves. Oh well.

Here was my contribution which only seemed fitting to be named after the birthday girl.

Molly’s Muffin Loaf: An orange, blueberry and cinnamon muffin cake with orange glaze – gluten free

Ingredients:

170g (6oz) gluten free plain flour

50g (2oz) gluten free oatmeal

170g (6oz) butter

170g (6oz) soft brown sugar

3 eggs

2 tbs flaxseed

1 ½ tsp gluten free baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Zest of 2 large oranges

Small punnet of blueberries

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar together

Beat in the eggs, one at a time

Fold in the dry ingredients and then the orange zest and the blueberries (I like to slightly crush the blueberries to make sure some of the juice mixes with the cake.)

Bake in a oven pre-heated to 160°C (fan) for 45 minutes, or until knife comes out clean

While the cake is baking, simmer the juice from the oranges with some brown sugar until it is thicker. Remove cake from oven and prick all over with a fork then spoon the glaze over. Leave in tin for ten minutes to really soak in.

If it’s not on the list, it’s not going in

A couple of days ago, I found myself getting rather irate with teabags – and I don’t even drink tea; well, black, green or white anyway. I do like a black coffee, but long gone are the days when I could swig it back without a care and now it is just the one; the glorious first thing in the morning life-affirming, granting, saving cup that I allow myself. Unless I’m feeling daring, then perhaps two. (Any more than that then I have to have a shaky lie down and pep talk from MOTH to assuage the jitters.) In lieu of these staples then, I amass a large selection of herbal teas because, although many of them are very nice and I do enjoy them – mostly; they are just not as satisfying somehow and can become, quite honestly, boring!

But why have they annoyed me so much of late? Well, apart from the frankly quite ludicrous price of some of the trendier branded ones, it’s because I rather naively have spent the last couple of years putting them on the compost heap.

Now, before any more-experienced composters (compostitioners? Compostees?) out there start tutting and shaking their heads, this is still quite new to us and yes, there were mistakes. I don’t know why, but I had mistakingly assumed that teabags would decompose thinking they were made from paper. They do not. They are not. Bah!

I have been feeling the rise of gardener’s itchy fingers; not an ailment requiring medical attention, but more the pricking of the yearn and need to be out awakening the garden from its winter sleep and readying it for the year ahead. I feel as if I am in the blocks, sweat band on, starting pistol raised – and yet, we are not quite ready for the off. I may be thinking of potato chitting and seed sowing, but not only is it still slightly too early, I don’t trust the weather. This time last year we were being hounded by The Beast from the East and after what has felt like an incredibly mild winter, can it really be that the worst is done?

So instead of the fun stuff, I have been doing some of the less exciting jobs; including sorting out the compost pens – back to teabags. Our first year’s compost is ready to use; it is dry and crumbly, fragrance free – perfect – apart from one or two things that have now solidly entered the banned list and will never be going on again. The reason I will be particularly firm on this is, that I sifted through every spadeful that came out of the pen and removed the non-decomposed detritus. In the rogues gallery, first and foremost we have teabags, followed by corks (again, naivety came into play where I thought cork, that’s natural, it will be fine – nope!) and mango stones. Due to having a prolific plum tree, the prep for pies and preserves producing mountains of stones; this year, I will also not be adding all these to the heap for their tendency to hang about somewhat.

But, it wasn’t having to sift out the teabags that annoyed me as such, it was realising that they were not biodegradable. A quick look online and it seems as if in the UK alone, there are around 62 billion cups of tea drunk a year – 96% of which are made from teabags, which begs the question: where are they all now?

Like so many people I am sickened by the sheer volume of rubbish and waste that we produce as a species and, although we are not huge consumers and take care to recycle as much as we can, MOTH and I are increasingly trying to put into effect where possible, the two factors that are even better than recycling: firstly – reduce, secondly – reuse.

The first point is one that is getting a lot of people up in arms because it feels as if we are fighting a losing battle sometimes. When even a pomelo (a fruit which comes with THE thickest natural wrapping) comes in shrink wrapped plastic, then what chance do we have? Our weekly food shop is fast becoming a time of exasperated swearing and huffing.

The second point can at least be a little more fun; or if not fun, perhaps satisfying and you should never underestimate the creativity people can muster when they put their minds to it.

I am madly obsessed with Pinterest at the moment – a place where there is something for everyone and you can end up chasing down a glorious rabbit hole of interests. If you want to be inspired about things you can re-use, regularly thrown away items for, I very much encourage you to look around. There is everything from sublime works of art made out of pre-used items to practical, useful objects or cleverly mended and altered clothes to extend their life.

Have fun and in the meantime, I will leave you with a few of my own.

Tales from the kitchen: Not-at-all Cottage Pie

This week, I found myself one morning in my pyjamas waiting for potatoes to come up to the boil and pondering upon the difficulties of naming food. I don’t mean pointing at a long yellow fruit (or rather more botanically accurately, herb) and pronouncing it to be a banana but rather giving dishes/meals a name.

I was in my PJ’s cooking because my singing group, The Kettle Girls, would be round that evening for tea and practice and due to being back at the hospital in the afternoon (once again to the Pain Clinic – a name I still find bemusing and think perhaps the word ‘Management’ really does need to be added into the middle), and various other things, there wouldn’t be time to cook later.

After wandering in from heading down the garden to open the greenhouse, MOTH said, “Smells good, what is it?” The only reply I could think of was, “Not-at-all Cottage Pie.”

Cottage Pie is an iconic dish, we all know what it is and despite there being some variants, the main constituents are, as standard. What I was making was Quorn mince, mushroom and chickpeas in an herby vegetable gravy with sweet potato mash on top. Similar enough in end-result-looks (apart from being quite a vivid orange), but if you were to put ‘cottage pie’ on a menu and then serve this up; I think there would be rather a lot of grumbling.

Short of listing all the main ingredients and how they will be presented or put together, it seems tricky to come up with meal names. Growing up we had variations of ‘slop.’ This sounds terrible but it is a term I have continued to use, forgetting that from the outside, it could be considered the least appealing of descriptions. In essence, it just means, something, in some sort of gravy or sauce, for instance: chicken and vegetable slop, mince slop or perhaps, sausage and bean slop. Then, it was either a gravy or tomato choice for the wet part. These things are then accompanied by rice, pasta, cous cous, bread or whatever suits you or the meal best.

And here’s a question: if you have come up with a name that is quite accurate and descriptive, what happens if you change an ingredient? Is this a new meal? Do you need to give it a new name? I am always swapping things about and I more-often-than-not, don’t measure anything, so amounts change each time I cook – this means the dishes I make are often never the same.

Social media regularly throws out images of ridiculous trendy menus which now leave the customer having to guess at not only the price (it would seem it is not ‘cool’ to use the pound sign or decimal points and so you get a generic numeral hovering somewhere about the menu), but also, the food choices are written in such sparse form it’s a bit of pot-luck what you may end up with. For example: Chicken 11. This is the extreme-end far removed from the thorough listing of all possible ingredients in a dish.

I really enjoy cooking but I think that if I were to appear on Masterchef, the only round I would stand a chance at would be the invention test and I’m not sure that presenting John and Gregg with a dish called ‘beef slop and rice’ would cut the mustard. But, unless I ever decide to release a cook book; in our household, we will continue to have meals with names that do a job, even if they are not the best.

Click here for my recipe for, ‘Not-at-all Cottage Pie’