Fall must be here!

I can't stop thinking about the change of seasons this year. This is possibly due to the fact that I have been witness to the enormous, ancient oak trees in Highbury Fields and beyond, going from brilliant and vibrant greens to the many shades and hues of yellow and brown. Even in our own backyard the change has been wonderful to see.

Back home in Seattle we also have these changes and they are just as awesome to see. What has changed for us, is that we walk everywhere now and we take the time look at the trees and foliage in a way that we never made time for in the past.

Silly I know. Stop and smell the roses and all that. It's true, we all need to take the time to slow down and absorb our surroundings wherever that may be and enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells that accompany each season.

The main reason that I have been so close to all of this and have had the time to really embrace the changing season is that when thousands upon thousands of leaves have fallen in your path every day you really start to think about it. When thousands upon thousands of leaves have fallen in your own yard and garden area then someone gets to rake them all up and stuff them into bags for recycling day. And when every other day there seems to be twice as many as the day before, you rake them up quite regularly.

Now back home I would have gotten out the trusty gas-powered leaf blower/mulcher and moved them all into a ginormous pile and maybe blown a few into the neighbors yard or down the street and then bag them all up.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on ones perspective, I gave up all of those wonderful and manly tools when we packed up to move over here. So it's a small push broom and rake for me now. I can't complain though, as no one will listen, and I am finding that it is a great overall feeling to get outside and just take care of the leaves or anything else that needs doing and as the Nike ad says, "Just do it". I am in great shape too because of all the walking and yard work so it feels good too!

Moving on, I am now taking an English 101 course for creative writing, studying the French language, practicing scales on my guitar, and lifting weights four days a week. I know, when will I find time to get a job right? I have applied for my National Identification Number, NIN, so one day soon I can legally work here and have medical without all of the insurance hassle that we have in the states. This is not all I'm doing of course: I cook (some meals), clean, shop, care for Haley, walk Lynne to the station and meet her at the end of the day when I can. Plus the many things and details that need to be taken care of daily at our flat here in Highbury. There are also repairs and deliveries that need to be handled. So I am keeping myself busy.

Here's an interesting fact. Did you know that when you walk into a pharmacy over here (they are everywhere) you simply hand them your scrip and in less than five minutes you are on your way with meds in hand! No waiting around for your insurance provider to give the OK. Depending on your circumstances you may or may not have a co-pay. Easy!

There are many things here that just seem easier but there are things too that just seem crazy to an American. Visiting the doctor has actually been easier for us over here. Far easier than we had anticipated or had even been told. The walk-in clinic near us has around 17 rooms with either a doctor or nurse practitioner to see you quickly or you come back at an appointed time when they are swamped. It has been a quick in and out for us thus far.

But some things over here are just so different from what we are used to. Mainly it's the language if you can believe that. I know right? Both countries speak English but it's the little things. We all know that it's a "lift" over here and an "elevator" back home. As Americans we like to use euphimisms for things like the "restroom" when over here it's either the "loo" or my favorite, the "toilet". You ask for the toilet because that's what you need right? They tend to call it as they see it over here and besides who really takes a "rest" in the "restroom" or do you really need to go to the "bathroom" when one does not intend to "bathe". Other differences in speech may occur when you arrive at at counter or bar and someone asks "Are you OK?" or "Is everything all right?" They aren't asking if you feel well or that you look off or something, they are simply asking, "May I help you?" 

There are many more differences than that and I think I'll spend more time on that subject after a bit. (that's another one) Bits and bobs, which means many things but usually refers to accesories of some kind. "Did you sort out all the bits and bobs that you needed to start your project?" Or something along those lines.


Anyway, we have been busy cooking over here and I can't wait to share the recipes and pictures with you next time I sit down to write from over the big pond. So for now it's...

Cheers!

Baked Bramleys

     As my wife Lynne was working from home yesterday, I decided it was best for me to keep quiet and take care of Haley and our flat while doing the many things I do while she is normally away at work. I like to read, write, study the French language, play Tatiana (my black cherry 1996 Custom 22 PRS 6-string electric guitar), research on the Internet, and numerous other things I do to occupy my time while figuring out my next band and/or career move.

Cooking is one of those "things". And since we all need to eat occasionally, I decided long ago that cooking should be one of the skills every man should have.

Now I'm not saying that I'm a great chef by any stretch of the imagination (though I do know personally and have worked with several great chefs, some in the Seattle area!) but no one has been poisoned by my cooking either.

Let's get started, shall we?

Lunch:

So yesterday I prepared a simple lunch for us that was really a late breakfast. Eggs, back-bacon (the bacon over here is a different cut than we Americans are used too, but it's still bacon. B-A-C-O-N! I just love it in almost anything. Ahhh.) Sooo, and hash-browns. With purple carrots and a yellow onion. It's what was in our ice-box. I would have added celery but alas, we had none.
I have found a great way to make hash-browns that involves slicing and cutting the spuds into small chunks and boiling them first so they are tender inside, then they are crispy and crunchy outside after the frying pan.

Well that was a great "lunch"! Later though, once again feeling the pangs of hunger I decided I would just head to kitchen and see what I could rustle up. It's easy to plan a meal if you already have the main ingredients for it. And since it was Thursday and our Abel & Cole order shows up on Wednesday, I was prepared!

Dinner:

Our shipment included Swiss Chard. Now what am I going to do with these giant, thick, rubbery, green, beautiful, leafy things? I'll tell you.

Fry a slice of bacon in a frying pan. Add crushed garlic, an onion, and a chili. (American spelling). Next, add stock or water if you haven't any stock. The bacon should be cooked and sliced into small bits. Then when it starts to boil, toss in the greens. They will shrink down to almost nothing faster than you can mix your next martini. Done. Everything tastes better with bacon. It's that simple.

I also prepared Partridge breasts for us in a simple saute of olive oil and spices and herbs. Easy stuff.

Dessert:

Now for the best part.

While dinner was almost ready I started on dessert. Clever me. This blew us away! Totally!

So here it is:


Baked Bramleys:

Prep: 10 mins
Bake: 30-45 mins
Serves 4

Bramleys are delicious with dried fruit, nuts and a bit of chocolate and spice. Here is a great stuffing mix but feel free to experiment with what you have.
One note: Bramleys are not to be eaten raw. They need to be cooked. They literally become applesauce.

Here you go:

• 4 Bramley apples
• 6 dates, stoned and finely chopped (a reminder of my carefree youth)
• 20g dark chocolate, finely chopped
• 4-6 tbsp almonds, toasted and finely chopped
• A pinch of cinnamon
• 2 tbsp brandy or orange juice
• Cream or vanilla (or butterscotch!) yogurt, to serve

Preheat oven to 200 deg C/Gas 6 (you can convert this, I know you can)

Core the apple. Make a shallow cut (no deeper than 1cm) around the middle (circumference) of the apple - this lets it expand without exploding.

Mix the remaining ingredients. In a roasting dish, pack the mix into the cores of the apples - be generous!

Bake for 30-45 mins, till the apples are tender and plump. Serve with yogurt or cream.


Now I halved this recipe, we had only two of these apples left. I used the other two in a Braised Red Cabbage with Apple recipe that I may one day share with you too! But I still used the 20 grams of chocolate!

This was easily the best dessert we've enjoyed in many moons! And it was so bloody easy to make!


I will be headed to our local market today as I need some chicken stock for tonights Dial-a-Cabbage-Wedges! The recipe looks good so if it's a hit you can read about it here!

If you ask me, I might just tell you about the night we were hunted down by Zombies just south of London Bridge.

Stuffed Squash Recipe

Stuffed Squash Recipe:

Let me start by first explaining to you how this simple little recipe made it into our lives.

We basically knew what we were getting ourselves into moving over here to the big city of London, and we were prepared to embrace and accept the many differences and changes (should that be challenges?) to our daily routine.

That said, it’s still a bit of a challenge to grab the three or four bags of groceries and that DeLonghi espresso maker, Dyson vacuum, and cute black toaster we need to have and haul these items up the street then down the almost two hundred stairs to the tube, wait for it, maybe find a seat and then back up another set of stairs (some have escalators it’s true) then make our way up another street, wait for a bus, get on the bus, and again maybe find a seat. Then it’s off the bus and down another street to carry all of these wonderful items the remaining way back to our flat. The fittest among us will have difficulty with this daunting task.

Or, thought I, couldn’t you just purchase all of these items online? Of course you can! We can get most everything delivered directly to our front door! (Don’t worry, the dog doesn’t bite. She is just very loud and happy to see you strange person). But what about delivery fees you ask? Who cares? It’s totally worth it from where I’m standing and besides some of these fees are only a paltry 99 pence so there! (We always have to remember that we no longer have the payments and maintenance bills we once had with our automobiles. We are saving a small fortune. Yea!)

Now our fresh organic produce and meats show up every Wednesday morning. They take the packaging from the week prior and reuse it too. And it’s all from local, organic farms, wild game, and meat suppliers. We are also enjoying organic beer and wine with our weekly purchase.

We have chosen a CSA for our foodstuff supplier. CSA is the acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. This simply means that your food isn’t traveling around the world to get to you, so it’s very fresh when it arrives at your door. It also means you are eating food “in season” not that mushy flavorless asparagus shipped from New Zealand in the wintertime. Yuck! It’s local and seasonal which is how our ancestors ate, you know the ones that didn’t suffer from all of the cancers and food allergies that we are all now inflicted with. Yes they have them in the states too. I suggest you contact one near you. Besides, you will be supporting your local farmers and economy and that’s always cool.

Anyway, we have found one here that fits our needs perfectly and name of this company is Abel & Cole! Each week we get to choose our groceries online and change, add or modify as we see fit. Each week we also receive a small fruit and veggie box that works for us. They have different sizes and different items depending on your choice of box. We stick to this box and add or subtract as our needs change.

Abel & Cole then fills our box with local, fresh items that are ready to be harvested from the local farm(s). This way we get a variety each week and there is always something new to try! It’s fun to see what will be our box each week and it’s so easy to do!

But sometimes you open the box and say to yourself, “I have no idea what this is or even what to do with it”. That’s why they give you recipes. They are clever that way.

So when my lovely wife gets home and sees the two little “Gem Squash” in the refrigerator, she gives this look like “You’ve got to be kidding? The one food I could never eat as a child and never plan to eat again as an adult. What the hell is a squash anyhow?”

Well it’s a fruit as it has seeds and can reproduce itself. (Insert euphemistic joke here)

And it came with a recipe…

This means that we at least know one other thing to do with it other than using it as a grenade or a holiday decoration.

As it turned out, they were amazing! One of the best dishes ever prepared for me by my wife or anyone! And she couldn’t believe it either! We both made yummy sounds for twenty minutes. We paired it with some partridge breasts that she simply cooked on the range top in a frying pan with olive oil.

So, here it is:

Stuffed Squash with a Zingy Tahini Dressing

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 35 mins

Serves 2-4

• 1 harlequin squash or 2 little gem squishes (is that not the plural form of squash?)
• ½ red chilli, finely chopped (I have license to use American or British spelling or measurements as I see fit)
• 3-4cm chunk of fresh ginger, finely grated
• ½ mug quinoa or bulgar wheat (we used white rice because we had some leftover)
• 3-4 spring onions, thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove finely chopped
• 2-3 tbsp fresh orange and/or lime juice, plus a little zest (not the soap)
• 1 tsp honey or agave syrup
• A dash of soy sauce (we substituted tamari)
• A handful of fresh mint, coriander and/or parsley, chopped
• Olive oil
• Freshly ground salt and pepper

For the tahini dressing:

• 2 tbsp tahini
• 1 orange
• A drop of soy sauce
• A bit of freshly chopped red chilli (optional)
• A good pinch of finely chopped parsley

Heat your oven to 200 deg Celsius/Gas 6. Halve your squash. Spoon out all the seeds. Rub all over with olive oil. Season well. Add a little chopped chilli and ginger to the hollow. Roast for 20-35 mins, until tender.

Toast the quinoa or bulgar wheat in a warm pan for a bit. Add a drop of oil and season. Stir. Sizzle for a sec. Add a mug of water. Let it bubble. Cover. Reduce heat, simmer for ten mins or till it absorbs the water. Cover for 5-10 mins till fluffy. Mix in all the other ingredients, a splash of oil, the remaining chilli and ginger. Adjust seasoning to taste. Add the herbs.

Once the squash is cooled a bit, spoon in the stuffing.

For the dressing: Slowly mix the tahini and orange juice in a bowl till smooth and drizzly. Add a drop of soy sauce and chilli, to taste. Finish with the parsley.

Lovely with a salad of juicy tomatoes, avocado slices and seeds.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did! Have fun and let us know how it was.

Thank you. Peace.

Jumping through hoops!

Loving it over here living in England! It's been five weeks now and it can get overwhelming at times what with all of the differences, big and small, in doing or completing similar things back in the states.

Take our dog Haley for example:

• 6 months quarantine. Done at home so not a huge deal.
• She needed shots. Rabies, titer, and an International microchip.
• She needed a crate that fit her.

All well and good. So she is here and doing great and we want a vacation so we head to a kennel where she can stay for a ten-day and lo and behold, she needs more shots.

So I had to:

• Locate a new vet and make appointment
• Walk her there as we went from a two car family to a no car one skateboard two kick scooter family.
• Get new shots which consisted of a cocktail of things some of which she just recieved back in the states.
• Go back in two weeks and do it again.

Now she is ready for her booking and subsequent stay.

Health Care.

Hey they've got National Health Care over here.

• Had to call to get info and application in the post.
• Sent back and wait for response
• May need to go for an interview
• It's free! (but you are taxed so much you may think so)

Did I mention we are loving it over?

Well it's true we do, despite all of the differences we do!

Back soon. Peace