Excess and shortages
11 April 2020 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI split up some of the extra seedlings in my Pot With Too Many Marigolds -- not quite as scientifically as I'd intended, as levering with an ordinary fork out of the cutlery drawer simply sent half the compost flying in a huge chunk! I retrieved and planted three in one large pot and three in another, and threw away a couple of the small ones left over in the spilt earth. Since they grow to eighteen inches or so, I only need two or three adult plants, but survival at this age is far from certain.
I am still finding new slugs emerging from the pansy pots daily -- every time I lift the pots, there's a new batch of inch-long slugs curled up in the drainage holes. I can only assume they must be living in the soil. They seem to be thinning out the poppies ;-p
I made sixteen hot cross buns. I've eaten half of them already :-D
I finally bit the bullet and joined one of the attenuated supermarket queues. (It dawned on me afterwards that one reason why I resent them so much is the same reason I dislike craft/book sales that charge a nominal entrance fee -- I spend a lot of time when shopping in looking at things and deciding not to buy them, and I don't like an enforced upfront investment.)
There are still total shortages of eggs, flour, butter, and dried milk (though the neighbouring 'plant milk' seemed to be back on the shelves). There was no lamb, which I suspect was due to everybody going out to buy it for their Easter dinner, and -- weirdly -- no dill, either fresh, dried or growing in pots, though I only noticed that because I happened to be looking for it. There was simply a gap in the herbs where that particular one ought to be. Poles preparing traditional fish for Easter?
I was rather annoyed to find out that the dried apricots, when I got them home after a great deal of dithering over which dried fruit I should buy, turned out to be 'partially rehydrated dried apricots' that have to be kept in the fridge -- presumably sold for 'snacking' purposes rather than cooking. That seems to me totally pointless; you lose any virtue of the fresh fruit in the preserving process, and then you destroy the main virtue of the preserving process by sabotaging their keeping qualities :-(
The magic mackerel was nice, though -- even made without dill, with parsley instead of rocket, without the hazelnuts, and with frozen broccoli. (I simply couldn't bring myself to buy the Kenyan, and after all a big bag of frozen broccoli will go a long way before the summer vegetables come in...)
And I did have some sunflower seeds, which I 'toasted' in the frying-pan and which contributed a significant flavour.
How to make two helpings of lunch out of one fillet of smoked mackerel and half a lemon ;-p
I am still finding new slugs emerging from the pansy pots daily -- every time I lift the pots, there's a new batch of inch-long slugs curled up in the drainage holes. I can only assume they must be living in the soil. They seem to be thinning out the poppies ;-p
I made sixteen hot cross buns. I've eaten half of them already :-D
I finally bit the bullet and joined one of the attenuated supermarket queues. (It dawned on me afterwards that one reason why I resent them so much is the same reason I dislike craft/book sales that charge a nominal entrance fee -- I spend a lot of time when shopping in looking at things and deciding not to buy them, and I don't like an enforced upfront investment.)
There are still total shortages of eggs, flour, butter, and dried milk (though the neighbouring 'plant milk' seemed to be back on the shelves). There was no lamb, which I suspect was due to everybody going out to buy it for their Easter dinner, and -- weirdly -- no dill, either fresh, dried or growing in pots, though I only noticed that because I happened to be looking for it. There was simply a gap in the herbs where that particular one ought to be. Poles preparing traditional fish for Easter?
I was rather annoyed to find out that the dried apricots, when I got them home after a great deal of dithering over which dried fruit I should buy, turned out to be 'partially rehydrated dried apricots' that have to be kept in the fridge -- presumably sold for 'snacking' purposes rather than cooking. That seems to me totally pointless; you lose any virtue of the fresh fruit in the preserving process, and then you destroy the main virtue of the preserving process by sabotaging their keeping qualities :-(
The magic mackerel was nice, though -- even made without dill, with parsley instead of rocket, without the hazelnuts, and with frozen broccoli. (I simply couldn't bring myself to buy the Kenyan, and after all a big bag of frozen broccoli will go a long way before the summer vegetables come in...)
And I did have some sunflower seeds, which I 'toasted' in the frying-pan and which contributed a significant flavour.
How to make two helpings of lunch out of one fillet of smoked mackerel and half a lemon ;-p