Today on ‘What can Possible go Wrong Next For Sarah and Al’ (by sarah)

Well the dishwasher wasnt working and we kept getting misterious wet patches - obviously the dishwasher - again right? Wrong! No some idiot in the past had failed to put an olive on the compression joint under the sink - Dad (mum and dad are staying with us this week) said 'oh whys it dripping from there when the problems the dishwasher' touched the joint and bam wam thankyou mame we have flood time as the joint falls to peices and we play hunt the stop cock. Finding the stop cock eventually after the down stairs is a river/me stupidly forgetting where the stop cock was ie the sensible place behind the freezer that fits in ;ike a cupboard - mass movement of much furniture had to ensue before we could get to the stop cock. Fearing dad would give himself another heart attack I have currently sent him out with Babara to get water sucky up things 🙁 More money litteraly down the drain! Hehehe a bad pun I know! The ladder cupboard in under an inch of water so I had to rescue the 20kg bag of rice - I hurt lots - physio will kill me - oh well best get back to the mopping I supoose! Again disaster stricks on the day Al is away on long journey ;(

Sigh

How far will one dish stretch? (by sarah)

I decided to make a huge rat-a-toeey so in went the six tins of chopped tomartoes, four cloves of garlic, four large oinions, four cougettes, an aubergine, two peppers and half a bottle of tomatoe suace. Slow cookers are so handy 🙂

Then I thought well I can use this as a base of other dishes instead of freezing it and lo!

First of all we were going to have tacos so in went in some of the rat-a into a frying pan followed by some canallini beans and a tin of re-fried beans. Add some fajita seasoning and away we go!!! This was tasty and was great cold the next day as an accompaniment to salad.

Second, I served it actually as ratatoee with some rice.

Third, I used it as a base for pasta bake - now I was also planning on turning it into a soup but we've had lots of guests including Als cousin Phillipa and her boyfriend and my mum and dad - so I sort of run out!

Too Much Worm Food!!!! (by sarah)

Well Al is off feeding the worms rice and egg shells - we produce way to much kitchen waste for the wormery to cope with, this will sort it self out to a certain extent as the worm population increases. I only got the minimium amount of worms so they could build their numbers up.

But even then we just cook to much stuff from scratch! Well unlike most people we tend to have three meals a day at home, at least one of which tends to be complex and involving vegatables.

The solution!

When we have enough money we will get another wormery and have more little freinds to feed, and more compost! The only issue we are having at the moment is that we have more 'Worm Juice' than we need. This is the liquid you drian of at the bottom (this has to be done regularly or the worms drown and the environment is two damp and little white disturbing worms appear - I think they might actually be the type that produce condrities for those Geologists out their - or at least that type of thing!). This liquid is excellent plant food - unfortunatly there is more of it than we can currently use - but it does get better with age!

We're thinking of selling it - 4ltr bottle for £1!!!!

Rain Rain Rain (by sarah)

Yesturday it rain not constantly but in heavey quick down pours of the sort that you cant see anything and the rain hurts!

When we went to leave to take me to my appointment we discovered that we had an extra river running under the van - and an extra waterfall next to the little garage!

Though this stopped shortly after the rain the waterfall was fearsome and strange brown foam about 1 ft high appeared in the stream were the chicken wire is?!? What was this stuff? Was it were the water was so turbulent full of mud and cow doodoos?

Babara said she had never seen th water like that ever and she's lived here for more than 50 yrs!

Today at the ‘farm’ (by sarah)

Today I went out to try and harvet more dandilion flowers for the wine but alas I got about five individual flowers compared to the buckets full I was bringing in a few weeks ago - I am not worried as I know that there will be more flowers shortly its just that they plants all currently have 'clocks' but these will soon go and the yellow will be back.

So instead I harvested some dandilion leaves to dry for the tea and as a seasoning - I havent picked anywhere near enough but it is a start and I have to be careful not to pick more than I can process anyway - as the leaves all need washing etc....

I was going to pick some Cow Pasley or wild chervil but then discovered that I wasnt happy with identifying it - though I am definate that I can tell it from Hemlock and fools parsley it turns out that there are several other similar plants which are all mildly poisonous! So that project has been put on the side until I can ask an expert 🙁

Still I got out the peat pots and seed trays and planted sweetcorn, cualiflower, courgettes and lemon coriander.

Our cherry tomartoes are about ready to go in the ground though we are going to have to do some prep for that first! On the plus side we found out that the 'weeds' that appeared to have taken over the veggy patch are acyually potatoes and Fat Hen both of which are edible so we are calling them a crop instead!