So August has turned into September. It’s one of the key months of change in the year, with it being the beginning of Autumn and children returning to school – or starting school for the very first time. We start to make plans for Christmas, and it’s my birthday month! I used to get enthusiastic, but once you’ve passed your 60th it’s not so exciting. I don’t want to count again until I can claim to be the oldest woman ever.
What I do like about Autumn is the changing of colour in nature. Everything starts going from green to orange, red and brown tones. Fruits are harvesting and we wear more snuggly clothes, we start putting warmer bedding on, thinking of turning on the heating and getting out fleeces and throws.
If you’re a decoration lover like me, it brings in fresh scope for your creativity. I’ll be changing the door wreath (I have the beginnings of a decent collection now) and starting to make up Autumn leaf garlands for the fireplace mantels. I also need to bring the pumpkin ornaments out. Next month, the grandson and I will be enjoying preparation for Halloween – making ghosties to hang etc. We can also start putting the (in our case fake) fire on in the living room.
What I didn’t enjoy was dawn on 1 September bringing us the start of a week of rain. Rain, rain, rain. The dog refuses to go outside to toilet (she’s a Dachshund; it’s Dach law) and the cats basically hibernate. I also didn’t enjoy my cooker going POP and blowing the fuse box mid-way through cooking a roast dinner! It did mean I had to think on the spot, what to do with parboiled potatoes and swede. I was cooking for a vegetarian so had meat substitute cuts ready that had defrosted so couldn’t go back in the freezer.
Thankfully, both the potatoes and swede could be frozen ready to continue once I had a cooker to use again, so I drained them and let them go cold, popped them into freezer bags and froze them. The remaining prepped but still uncooked veg as well as the meat substitute were put into the fridge with crossed fingers it wouldn’t be for too many days.
It was a couple of days before I had an electrician out – he had to replace the cooker switch on the wall as it had blown. He managed to get the cooker mostly going again so I can now use the hob and top oven/grill. But the main oven was the cause. I’m still searching for a reasonably-priced cooker engineer as we believe it’s the heating element that’s blown. So far all we’ve found is the equivalent to half the cost of a brand new cooker! So the search continues and I have to rein in my cooking quantities in the meantime – reducing my baking!! Anyone who knows me, knows the pain I’m suffering.
So now I’ve shared my pain, I can confirm it did make me have to be a bit more creative for that few days. My slow cooker and air fryer are currently residing at my fella’s house, which would have made life so much simpler to have with me. Thankfully the blowout waited until payday, just, and I have my microwave so I was able to grab some additional salad and cold food items, and some ready meals (which completely goes against the grain for me). My lesson now is, have some things in the cupboard and freezer that you can eat in similar circumstances.
What I did manage to do was grab some bits for a curry for one of the nights. I bought microwaveable ready meals of Bombay Potatoes, Saag Aloo and Vegetable Tikka curry. I also grabbed a microwave Pilau rice pouch. To top these up, I was able to make a mint raita and red onion chutney. I had mango chutney in the fridge already. We accompanied them all with a bag of mini poppadums and naan bread warmed in the toaster, plus a vegetable samosa each that I also heated up in the toaster using toaster-bags (they’re amazing for making toasted cheese sandwiches!). The raita and chutney are so ridiculously easy to make I thought I’d share the recipes for you:
Mint raita
- Greek yoghurt
- Mint sauce/mint jelly
Spoon both ingredients into a bowl – equivalent of 1 teaspoon of mint to 1 tablespoon of yoghurt. Mix very well – especially if using the jelly as that takes quite a bit of time to fully blend into the yoghurt. The jelly is sweeter than the sauce, so it depends whether you want a sweet or piquant raita taste.
Red onion chutney
- ½ Onion (red or white as preferred)
- 1 tablespoon Ketchup
- 1 teaspoon Chilli powder
- 1 teaspoon Paprika
- ½ teaspoon Cumin powder (optional)
- ½ teaspoon Lemon juice (or vinegar)
Firstly, chop your onion into small approximately 0.5cm sized chunks. A red onion would produce a slightly sweeter chutney than a white onion, but either is fine. Set aside.
In a bowl, squeeze in the ketchup. 1 tablespoon per ½ an onion, but you can increase the quantity if needed later. Add the dry spices, and stir to combine. Taste the sauce to see if you’re happy with the spiciness and use more chilli or cumin if you want it hotter. You don’t need to add sugar or salt as both are already in the ketchup. Add the lemon juice for acidity. Stir the liquid into the sauce, then add the onion. You need all the onion fully covered by the sauce, but not sitting in a pool of liquid. If you need to, simply add more ketchup and/or spices to suit.
I have to say, whilst the red chutney was a nice deep red rather than the pinky colour from the local takeaway, they were so nice and much better! I dread to think what additives are included to attain that colour.
The following evening, we had mushroom pappardelle ready meals heated up in the microwave. I used the toaster bags again to toast some garlic bread slices to have with the pasta. I grated some fresh cheese on top of the pappardelle directly before eating. A simple, quick and tasty meal.
I do have some feedback for supermarkets – please up your game with the ready meal selections for vegetarians (let alone vegans!). The options were pitiful, and I’m so pleased we only had a couple of days to manage without proper cooking. Vegetarian food is not difficult, most meat meals can be replicated with a vegetarian version. Vegans would have had almost zero choice! Curry or, well, curry!
I will be collating recipes to use when harvesting my apple tree in the forthcoming weeks. Sadly, we have no pears this year. But we do have lovely home-grown potatoes which are so tasty. If you can manage to, growing some of your own vegetables is very satisfying and I highly recommend it on mental health, as well as organic, nutritional, grounds with no use of pesticides or other chemicals.
I look forward to sharing my special month with you, over a cup of cream-topped hot chocolate and yummy home-made ginger cake.
Love
Maggie x