Weekend : Celebrations, revelations, a missing link and the bees knees :: Oh and pan fried sea bass with puy lentils

There aren't any pictures of windy lanes parting sheep inhabited hills and vales, even though we travelled them. But  there are lots of images of wattle and daub (I think) and timber and stone. My mind was on floors and walls this time, not the countryside...Oh, and of course the food...

It was A's last day at work before we move and my sister B and husband arrived Friday evening to help us celebrate...also to drive my little old car down with us to the new house. She'll wait for me until we move in properly...my car that is, not my sister. The oppressive heat gave way to rain, lovely heavy cooling rain but as we reached our little house after calming our rumbling tummies with a plougman's lunch  here, the rain had subdued and in true Incy-Wincy fashion the sun was shining brightly.

It was the first time we'd shown Corner House to anyone else. It was a bit like introducing a teenage boyfriend to your mates. You think he's the bees knees and don't notice the pimple or the whiskers on his chin. You've seen him (maybe only in your imagination) without either, and have more than a bit, of a crush on him. Even though it doesn't really matter if they love or hate him, you really, truly want everyone else to think he's the bees knees too...

Well I think they can see the attraction...

There was much climbing on things, other than ladders to inspect out of reach corners, banging of walls and pulling off bits of wallpaper to discover what secrets were lying beneath. Our lovely new neighbours and a stone mason friend joined in too. The air was thick with ideas, beams that could be exposed introducing light and space; and revelations, like lovely old wide wooden floorboards that had been hiding under 1970's carpets, possibilities of hidden fireplaces or stoves, and even more excitingly the potential missing link that may confirm definitively, that we share the footprint with our neighbours of a large medieval hall house, that is circa 1430-50. Photo's are going to be sent off to a historian who can hopefully verify this. 

Tons to do...but the infatuation continues...

We suppered here (great Indian food), passing this amazing shop and planned to return soon. 

After a very late Saturday night we woke to brilliant sunshine and fresh produce  and flea market shopping. Bargains were found by everyone including a studio pottery jug and copper coffee pan for the new kitchen. BBQ lunch thanks to A and a pottering afternoon.

Busy weekend...but oh so good...How was yours?
debx

joining karen of pumpkin sunrise to share our weekend




Ps. This is my current favourite quick supper dish that I made Friday evening. I don't think I've shared the recipe before...

Pan fried sea bass with Puy lentils

Ingredients for four generous portions:

• enough sea bass fillets for four people
• two cups of uncooked puy lentils
• six cups of stock or hot water
• three medium sized sweet potatoes
• two medium sized red onions
• a few cloves of garlic
• crushed chilli flakes
• a little ground turmeric
• a little ground coriander and cumin
• a handful of swiss chard or spinach (optional) 
• sea salt and fresh black pepper
• olive and oil and butter 

Method:

1. Peel and finely slice the onions. Cook them with a little olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan until caramelised.
2. Meanwhile peel and cube the sweet potatoes.
3. Peel and crush or finely chop the garlic cloves and add to the caramelised onions, cooking carefully so as to avoid burning.
4. Add the spices and seasoning then cook for a couple of minutes, stirring well.
5. Wash the lentils and drain. Add these to the pot too. Stir well and then add the water or stock. Bring up to the boil, add the sweet potatoes and reduce the heat. 
6. Cook for about twenty minutes or so until the potatoes and lentils are both tender. 
7. If using spinach or swiss chard add in the last few minutes to wilt.
8. Turn off the heat and cover and then quickly pan fry the fish seasoned with a little salt in a  olive oil plus a generous nob of butter. Allow the oil and butter to heat up to a gentle sizzle sound but not burn, then add the fish skin side down. Cook for about two minutes. Turn over and then flash fry on the other side for a couple more minutes. 
9. Drain the lentils and place in the centre of a dish and then place the fish skin side down on top to serve.

This is nice just like this or for a more substantial supper served with new potatoes and green salad or seasonal vegetables. 

This week in my kitchen 15 ::

Capturing my love of whole foods, combined with the activity of a bustling kitchen.

A weekly collection of photos from the center of my home. 

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There is so little time for cooking or writing, even photographing at the moment. Especially as the knob has jammed in my camera and I'm using A's. But the door to the little portal holding in the batteries of his, came off in my hand so his is broken too, and I've had to Sellotape it in. It isn't very efficient and keeps switching off when I use it. 

Even so, the kitchen is busy and when I have a spare hour I've been making Persian Polows like this one, as they last for one or two days. Or quick chilli prawn spaghetti.  'A' keeps foraging on his way home from school. Bringing home wild greengages or plums that become crumbles and plum sauce, to eat, or freeze. 

The kitchen table was very tidy for one day but now it looks like a volcano has erupted on it, spewing out book and paper and cardboard box magma. So sometimes we are eating store bought sushi or naughty KFC for 'A', who thinks he's in heaven. The kitchen table is spending more time holding the mini library of school exercise or art books that H, whose home from uni is sorting out. But we are having fun as she reads out the essays she wrote ten or more years ago. But very embarrassed at the untidy state of the house as we prepare to move, as this week seems to be, the week for unexpected visitors deciding to drop in and say 'hello' or 'good bye' to us. 

I am joining with heather for her weekly blog hop

...but what about you, are you coming too?
debx

kitchen romances

image via

last two images via

via

Eek, where does it all come from? H would probably call it the detritus, or crumbs of life. Or something similar. Really though, how have we managed to pack so many things into one little house. You bring one tiny box down from the loft, open it up and it's like those cans with pointy nozzles that builders use to fill cavities in walls. All this stuff squeezes out that is ten times bigger than the container that it came in. The temptation is to pack it all back into the same box and put it to one side until we move.

We are gradually peeling our personality from  the house that was our home for the last twenty two years.   We leave at the end of the month. It's only the 2nd of July and that may sound like plenty of time to an experienced mover. But if like me, when you open up a drawer and find the pattern  for the miniature babushka doll overalls that you made for a cheeky little golden haired girl with dimpled cheeks and elbows; or the photograph of the exotic young man with dark, dark hair and big brown eyes who climbed out of a wooden boat nestled in a blue-green sea and headed for the beach with an unrecognisably skinny girl in a white bikini balanced on his shoulders, both wearing shiny new gold bands on the third finger of their left hand; it's hard to move quickly because you just want to slow down and remember those moments that were a life time ago yet only seem like yesterday...

But it's time for a new chapter and it's no wonder that I came down at 2am last night, I am so EXCITED I can't sleep.  My life if full of boxes but when I'm not tripping over them, any spare moment you will find me looking at interior tumbler blogs or the kitchen sections on peoples pinterest pages. ( Yes at 2am.) Mostly my favourite my little things, rhubarb in the garden   or  local milk  for the higgeldy piggeldy kitchens with miss-matched old cupboards and odd pots and pans. Functional, practical, homely ones. I want our new home to be comfortable and livable. 

I re-discovered Sibila Sibella Court. I've  kept an old magazine that I take out every so often and pour over the images of an apartment, that's a bit like a cross between a museum and a stage set, not realising who the owner was.  Then I discovered her books and her website and I can't stop peeping at it all. 

I've begun to collect some things that I don't want to use until we move. Old stoneware jugs that no one seems to value, that you can buy for a few pounds at flea markets. A massive white bowl for making bread. I think it once lived with a jug on  a wash stand in some old house. There's the bargain Georgian full-length stand mirror, and the wooden coal scuttle. Old table and bed linens, and the horn handled carving knife for Sunday lunch.  Even the cherry red, enamel Wee-Willy-Winky lamp, all rusty and chipped to burn candles on winter nights, and the Scandinavian socks from my sister P to hang by the fire on Christmas eve. Mostly projects waiting for a new coat of paint or for me to dye them. It will be a while before they get done. But there's no rush. There may be holes in the roof to repair first or broken floor boards to change. We want to get to know the house first to get the feel of it, and then to start all over again...

...I can't wait...

...do you steal time for a little bit of late night blog reading too? 

debx