My Red Wellies

Friday, May 24, 2013

Wild Garlic that hid in plain sight...

Sometimes you really can't see for looking. Since moving to the house halfway up a hill I have been on the search for forage able foods. No sign of blackberries or wild garlic until last week. We had to have our septic tank emptied (TMI?) anyway, to get to it they had to remove the bushes at the bottom of our garden...
This has now meant we have extra space in our small front garden but... also meant that I could see under a tree in the graveyard. Wild Garlic! And lots of it!
Now I waited until the council came out to cut the grass in the graveyard. I asked if I could some and was swiftly told 'What? The weeds? Aye, help yourself lass. I'm needing it.'
So, I grabbed a handful and headed to the kitchen.

I made some mashed potatoes first to go with sausages and stirred a load of pungent, chopped wild garlic through my potatoes. Yum!
But... My favourite thing to do with wild garlic is now to put handfuls in my omelette. This one is a 3 egg, splash of milk, pinch of salt omelette with sauteed mushrooms, spring onions (green bits only) and wild garlic.
Also those flowers in my salad? Wild garlic flowers. They are incredible. Pungent and with a good garlic kick.

Has anyone done any foraging? And if not why not? Go on, it's brilliant. Free food (and often much tastier than supermarket equivalent)
Thanks for visiting, lovely to have you here x

Monday, May 13, 2013

Feeling at Home

There is one place that always feels like 'home' to me. And it could be any number of different places... Anywhere by the sea. It's the sound of the ocean, the smell, the view, the calmness I feel as I step onto the sand and if I'm honest it's the only reason I miss Aberdeen.

So, on Sunday we had breakfast, dippy egg on soldiers. My besest breakfast ever!

Then we hit Cullen Beach. Yep, the home of Cullen Skink :) which I also love.

Iona was in her little element. She is just like her Mama, straight at the sea trying to get those feet wet.

Ian insisted on taking his lightweight football, but soon asked to put it back in the car when it blew away.

And I can never resist a bit of climbing on rocks and hunting rockpools for the ever elusive crabs. We found a few shells but no live crabs.

And it would appear that someone else enjoys rock climbing too. He was adament he would climb to the top to see really really really far.

But having failed to impersonate Spiderman he opted instead to watch some Anglers at the sea edge. Although this also left him slightly disappointed that none of them caught any fish. Which led to question 'What will they eat for them supper now?' Ian is taking a big interest in how food becomes food. Which we are hoping will lead to him trying some new foods... Not that fish and apple are too bad as favourite foods of a 4 year old.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

A lazy Saturday

After a busy bank holiday last weekend, a busy filled of stuff week and a (rather wet!) BBQ last night at my Mums I am glad to have a lazy Saturday at home with the kids. The sun is popping out from behind the big clouds now and then too. I have hot coffee, homebaked Lemon and Ginger squares from Campervan Coast (I have no square baking tin so had to make a round one) and this lovely new book... The Surf Cafe Cookbook which so far seems my kind of cookbook.
Hope everyone else has a fun Saturday, wether it's lazy, busy or just crazy...

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Spring is finally here

We spent this afternoon in the garden with a crazy golf set

Iona was giving it a good go, I love the uncoordinated play she still has

This girl can be hard work but these big gappy smiles more than make up for it.

Ian decided he was a blackbird and sat under the bush for nearly an hour....

Which gave me chance to read this book again without Ian stealing it.

I didn't get long before Iona spotted the 'ampavans' and joined me for a read. My kids do love Campervans and books. Oh I wish a Campervan was in my financial reach but until then reading about them in the sunshine will do just fine....

Mint Tattie Salad

The weather is finally agreeing that it is SPRING! Woohoo! This for me means salads. And I love potato salad. Not that horrible, drowning in thick mayo stuff from the supermarket. Proper homemade Tattie Salad

This Mint Tattie Salad is my favourite at the moment. And it's quite healthy too :)

If you want to make it you will need : 8 white potatoes or a bag of new potatoes (cubed, cooked and cooled), 1 tbsp mint sauce, handful of fresh mint leaves, 4 tbsp thick natural yoghurt, half a white onion finely diced and a good pinch of salt & pepper.

Simply add everything to bowl and mix until the cooled (not fridge cooled and still warm, but not boiling) potatoes are evenly covered in minty yoghurty goodness.

Make sure you season the Tattie Salad well to convince the yoghurt it's being savoury today not sweet.

This is great with lamb kebabs straight of the barbeque... hmmmm.... barbeque.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Glad to be home...

This bank holiday me and the kids took a trip to Hull. Whilst it was fun it was also tinged with sadness. My Nana has less than 6 months left to live and she had yet to meet Ian and Iona.

But as it was Ians Birthday on the Saturday we did sneak in a little trip to The DeepDeep. The kids loved it, but as is so often the case in places with exhibitions there was no flash photography. So, I got a lot less photos than I'd have liked.