25th February 2010 (Thursday)

Interesting Recipe of the day to share:

'Cod' kebab zingers with salsa tagliatelle

Now, I don't buy cod on principle so it was never going to be as per recipe, but at the local supermarket they had a special offer on something called 'freshwater bassa' that was a nice-looking white fish fillet, so I bought three and used these instead - didn't even bother to cube them up, just stuck the whole thing onto a kebab in a wibbly-wobbly manner and wanged it in. My goodness, they were tasty! We both agreed that whatever Bassa is, it's remarkably like prawns without the hassle of shells, perfectly lovely clean fillets and a mild vaguely seafoody taste with a firm and almost shreddy texture. And the fish part of it came to just over $3 for the 3 of us on a hugely protein-generous meal that we couldn't even finish. I think we'll be seeing this one again! Once again, thanks for Mr Ainsley Harriot - makes a bit of a clown of himself on TV but actually every recipe we've tried from him has been great, and very repeatable - plus it's a sensible type of cooking - easy, doable and really very healthy. So in short, here's the recipe:
Get:
450g (please-don't use-cod) white fish
grated zest 1 lime
Juice 2 limes
225g tagliatelle
150g fine trimmed beans
200g cherry tomatoes (I used cubed ones, as much cheaper, lovely),
1 small red onion (I used a smidge, quite enough)
chopped fresh coriander

Make a marinade of half the lime juice, the zest, and some olive oil, season, and marinade the white fish for 5 minutes.
Thread your fish onto skewers, put under the grill, and put the pasta on to boil. 3 minutes before the pasta's due to finish, bung in the green beans.
Gently fry the red onion and the tomatoes. When pasta and beans are finished, drain and chuck in. Also add coriander and lime juice. Serve at once with the grilled and ready fish.

So, culinary expedition of the day over, where were we. Ah today. Hmm. Well it was still a reasonably quiet day, mostly. Ian went to work and came back just before 4pm for us so we could use the car - which we did. Went first to get the Non's new uniform in town, and a smock (art smock that is) and material to make a suitable-sized library bag for her. She chose a flannelet dark green one with very cute snails, caterpillars and spiders on it (I'm sure Leo would approve) -all I have to do now is sew it. Oh well it's just a bag. At the material shop I got a hankering for some proper napkins (can't stand using these damn paper things, so pikey) so told her she could pick any colour in the cheap gingham section she wanted and I'd make some napkins. Unfortunately I hadn't noted the ones on the bottom shelf, which included pitch-black. Which she immediately chose. Now, this may actually be a very trendy choice, for a napkin, and in fact probably I should have thanked her and bought it but to tell you the truth I couldn't bring myself to get black napkins. So I said please chose something other than black, how about something normal and cheerful so she chose a bright orange with white stars and a bright yellow with stars. So there we are, I've got some sewing not-quite-cut-out for me. As for the uniform..... when we went in and tried it on, and she looked at herself in the mirror with it on she quite literally could NOT stop bouncing with delight and grinning so hard I thought her head might just become a flip-top and swing open on its hinges. She is SO looking forward to going to school, can't tell you. Then occasionally she recollects herself and says - no, I'm not going to have a fantastic time, I'm going to have a glum time (and pulls and very serious face - with some difficulty). At which I say, OK, well that's fine, they'll just have to sit you in the corner and ask Gonzo to come and give you a big hug. Gonzo is our new pet, he's a net-casting spider and is great. Sits in the stairwell to the garage at the moment (but of course there's the slight thrill of not quite knowing where he'll be the next morning, they're nocturnal). He's about - oh - 12-15 cm from tip to tip, and very leggy. These spiders are great because they're slow-moving, non-toxic, and they don't make webs as such - rather they make a sort of gladiator net which they hold between their legs and throw at their prey. So no mess. Mind you, the level of insecticide here is escalating, so I think we may well liberate Gonzo to the outside in a short while or he may end up one day with his long legs turned slightly more skywards than mother nature intended. On the front doorstep, it's a different matter. As we had an encampment of a redback spider sitting quite literally on the threshold of the front door, I was more than slightly uneasy and yesterday went and bought an insecticide that had a redback specifically on the front in a dangerous-looking spray bottle , saying 'for OUTDOOR USE ONLY' on it in large letters, along with many other words of caution. The redback is the name they use here for the universal Black Widow. Says to spray the perimeters of the house to prevent entry, and I did the whole front of the house - three sides remain to be done. Anyway, due to the obvious toxicity of the product I exercised the most extreme caution, wore rubber gloves, shook vigorously and then sprayed a little and stood well back, washed and re-washed, all that stuff. Nevertheless at lunchtime I could still definitely taste a very strange chemically residue at the back of the throat - luckily that's gone but my goodness it's awful stuff. I've forbidden the household from walking about outdoors without shoes for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the chemicals now lying about. This shouldn't be a problem as there's no garden to speak of. We still have to be careful every morning when we open the gate as there are numerous spider webs built over the path, and I have to clear them out before the Non can go forward. Anyway, after spraying there was not one but two dead redbacks lying on the front doorstep. Well I guess at least it works. I don't even want to contaminate a broom with that stuff - mind you I don't have a broom to contaminate but in short not sure how I'll even get rid of the webs and corpses. Perhaps there'll be a windy night and they'll magically disappear. It's pretty wild up here, I think it's safe to say.

Apart from that, we did our work, the usual, and the Mr is still very busy at his grant writing. Poor thing - it's due on the 3rd so I think the weekend's going to be pretty much just work. Oh, we only just today FINALLY found a post box and posted Uncle Makoto's card, which has been waiting in an increasingly forlorn fashion either in my handbag or on the kitchen counter. Many apologies for the lateness, we'll be thinking of you on the day. ... Have to say, the Non chose the card, but I vetoed some others that were reasonably amusing that she chose, but I thought wouldn't be taken kindly... Ones like a sort of Far Side type sketch of a cat being stretchered out of a house into an ambulance with the text 'that's why we don't give people of your age surprises'... stuff like that.. she seemed to have an unerring sixth sense for homing in on the ageist ones. Anyway, many happy returns from all of us.

I think that's probably about it. What a lot of waffle considering the dull life we lead. Lots of love to all of you, V xxxxx