What to do on a snowy Sunday morning?

Move the furniture round in your bedroom, of course.  It was all the lovely boyf's idea and a damn fine one it was too.  There are only two options for our room, the bed sat facing the main window and the wardrobe sat to the side (you get a full height wardrobe but you lose one of the two available lights, which has been gently annoying us, especially in the winters) or to swap them around.  

This was option one...

So swap them we did, easier said than done.  Moving bedroom furniture can be, at the best of times, a pain; moving bedroom furniture in a 600 yr old cottage with walls, floors and ceilings that curve, slope and undulate, is a whole other challenge!  The bed could go nowhere but the other end of the room by the front window and the wardrobe then had to be moved to where the top of the bed was (the only other spot in the room tall enough and with enough space to then work), before it could be dismantled and put in place properly. Getting it there involved dragging it, tilted at various angles depending on the ceiling height, frequently getting it jammed and stuck on the ceiling and some swearing and tears (both mine!)   

Moving stuff in tiny places involves a little crazy, Megs was not amused.

Then we, I say we, it was the lovely boyf, but I did take the pictures, set to "adapting" the wardrobe to fit it's new home.  I say "adapted" because it sounds nicer than we chopped the drawers and legs off, which we did!  

Man plus saw =

this used to be drawers +

much, much shorter legs!

And whilst that was happening, I found that the top of the wardrobe was lined with some pretty funky wallpaper!

The architect of destruction... rather enjoying himself too.

Half an hour later, we have a new wardrobe... and to give you an idea of just how wonky our floors are, look at the legs, the difference is nearly 4".

Since moving to this house, I have come to love collecting old weights, they are perfect for leveling everything out.  We have the wardrobe at 3" just now, but will need to go shopping for more; we also need some for the bed, unless we want to sleep with our feet raised!

And that's it.  Our new room.  We will need to find a matching light for the other side of the bed and I am going to take the opportunity to paint the walls as I have a pot of Craig & Rose's Hemp Beige which I've been itching to use somewhere in the house.

I will need to find something to use as a bedside table, as it seems that I may have now stolen, rather than borrowed, the globe lamp (!), and then came the fun bit; finding new homes for all my bits and pieces...

I love the red of these Moroccan slippers.

And the space at the top of the wardrobe to display a few, normally, hidden things.

The Wedding Basket tucks nicely into the gap and makes a good bookshelf.

And it's pair sits at the other end of the room, a depository for the contents of the boyf's pockets! 

I also needed a new home for the picture frames, some sit on the window to the side and this one, one of my favorites of the 11yr old (when she was about seven, I guess), sits on the main windowsill with my Omani silver, my Grandmother's pomander pot (which still smells wonderful after what must be more than 40 years), and one of my memory boxes....  and, yes, constantly foggy windows are a fact of old, cold cottage life....

Finally, my Grandfather's card table, which sat at the end of our bed, needed a new home. Originally it came upstairs because the wood was too dark in contrast to our furniture downstairs but, with the addition of a couple of other pieces, it now works just fine.  

It is, as the decoration suggests, to be a drinks table, and a card table when I find the cards. I feel rather grown up, with a drinks table in the house!

And so, on a budget of nothing (the boyfs stipulation was that we could only spend money, eventually, on a new light and any weights we may need) we have a new room.  It certainly works much better; the bed is no longer near the cold outside walls and window; the full length mirror can be used properly as such and already it's brighter, as the wardrobe isn't blocking the one available light source.  Sleeping with my head to the hallway wall felt a little odd, rather like there was space behind my head, not solid wall, but that's just my crazy talking. The room feels much lighter and airier which, as my old amah Chan would have said, is because the feng shui is "Good!" (not easy in our house) so I'm expecting lots of lovely nights' sleep!  

Risotto Smash

This week has been all about dairy free and I have really enjoyed cooking our dinners.  This recipe has been pottering around the back of my mind all week and I decided to test it out tonight on the lovely boyf; a welcome home present of sorts.

Risotto Smash.

2 shallots, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
200g carnaroli rice
White wine
1.25l vegetable stock
EVOO

1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
1/2 small savoy cabbage, finely sliced
400g tin butter beans
Soya spread
1tbsp mixed fresh herbs (I used sage, chives, parsley and thyme), finely chopped
Salt and pepper

First, I brought the stock to the boil before reducing it to a simmer, ready to add to the risotto.

To make the risotto, I lightly sauteed the shallots in olive oil for 5 minutes before adding the garlic for another minute of two.  I added the rice and cooked it for a a minute before adding a generous splash of white wine and cooking it out.  I then add 2 ladles of stock at a time, letting it cook out before adding more and stirring the risotto 3-4 times each addition.

As the risotto was cooking, I added the broccoli to salted boiling water and cooked for 5 minutes before adding the drained, and rinsed, butter beans.  After another couple of minutes, I added the cabbage and cooked it for a further 5 minutes.  The vegetables were then strained, returned to the pan with a good knob of soya spread and left to stand for a couple of minutes.  Finally, the chopped herbs were added, I seasoned it well and roughly mashed it all.

The risotto was plated with a well in the middle, which I filled with the vegetable smash and everything seasoned with pepper again.

The butter beans and herbs were lovely accents to to the smash, their earthiness softened by the gentler flavours of the broccoli and cabbage, and the creamy and tangy risotto worked really well as a base to the subtler flavours of the smash.  Delish!  I've been picking at the leftover smash all night...

And, if I actually leave any, I can't wait for a plate of reheated smash bubble and squeak for breakfast tomorrow with the latest double yolker on top.

Sleepy, Wordless Thursday, 17th January 2013

Sorry we are late, Blogger doesn't seem to like me uploading photos at the minute... it took a night's sleep to think of how I'd get around it!



Yuck, chicken!

It has become the stuff of legend in our house that, when the lovely boyf goes on his annual January trip to California (or, as is the case this year, Florida), those of us left behind fall foul to illness, accidents, irritations and general catastrophes ;o)

And so it is, not more than two days since he left, that I find that both the dogs have got upset stomachs.  The dobe's I can put down to the meds for her leg and, possibly also, the whole egg (shell and all) that she helped herself to from the coop yesterday morning.  The little one, who is suffering worse, I have no idea about... why, after all, would it be easy?

Switching out their usual food for a day of chicken and rice was a good first step; buying and cooking it in my now vegetarian kitchen wasn't!  The whole drive to the supermarket was spent trying to work out what type of chicken I was going to get - really, it was a major discussion point.  Luckily I tend to agree with myself and we went for diced, organic on the basis that there would be less touching required and, whilst it may seem a little daft for a pair of dogs, the quality of life of the chicken before it got diced was more important than the cost.  The meat aisle was horrible, I can do meat in small quantities but not longer en masse; the smell just gets right to me; and as for the deciding what to cook it in and with....  good lord, there has never been so much fussing!  Thanks mainly to Finn trying to climb my leg and Megs' endless anticipatory whining, I finally went for old non-stick, plastic implements and everything got washed right afterward.   What a palaver, I really am turning into a proper veggie ;o)  Lets hope it at least does the job!

In recompense, the rest of the day has been entirely vegan and dinner was a wonderful mix of HFW's leeks and cabbage in curried coconut milk; roasted cauliflower and rice.

The 11 yr old gasped when I put the plate down and said it was too beautiful to eat, I can't argue with that but went for seconds anyways :o)  We followed it up with sugared Russet apples, her invention, and an episode of Glee; perfect Sunday girls' night in.

Now, if we can have happy tums and I can think of something "just as good" for dinner tomorrow (chips and beans?!), and this is the full extent of the goings on before the boyf's return on Thursday, I will be a happy camper.  I wonder if it's going to snow, as predicted, tonight? 

The World At Night

The boyf has flown off to Florida for the week and when he's not about I like to read for a bit when I get into bed.  Usually it's a torch under the duvet, all very retro, but last night I borrowed the 11 yr old's light up globe. There's something rather wonderful about falling to sleep looking at all that possibility.