Daily Archives: May 30, 2009

Why does “weedy” imply puny?

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Anyone know what one of these is? We have several …

I do know they propagate like anything, they have a propensity for growing in stonework, and they grow out of massive woody clusters of roots – so much so that I was very wary of pulling them out in case I brought the walls down. Seriously. So I had to make do with breaking the stems.

“On Saturday,” I said carelessly to Best Beloved, “let’s blitz the garden.”

“Okay,” she said with a confident and knowing smile. I was thinking: pull up the tall weeds, cut the grass, rake it all up. Easy.

You know our garden needs work when I, of all people, feel moved to do some, even in this kind of weather. That’s the problem with shared gardens, especially ones in properties that only have 50% owner-occupance and 50% of them are probably moving soon.

I started on the taller weeds and moved down. Our garden only currently rates about 4 or 5 deciHeligans so I’m sure it could have been much worse. It also became clear it needs more than an afternoon. It’s been mowed before but rarely raked. So it needs raking. Then it needs the weeds I didn’t do today being pulled up. Then and only then can it be mowed, and raked again. It’s going to look scrappy, but it will be short and honour will be satisfied.

I also came across this little chap nestling beneath a leaf. Not the glove, that’s for scale, but what’s on the glove. Perfect and untouched.

I’m not aware of any ground-nesting birds in the area, so it probably fell from a tree or got carried there. I’m reasonably sure it won’t be hatching, anyway. I’m guess pigeon. Again, anyone?

Occasional recipes: fish with a chorizo crust

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Originally from The Hairy Bikers, whence this is lifted with my annotations. Very rich and of course totally missing the point about eating on fish on Friday to be penitential. Anyway:

Ingredients

  • ½ lime, juice only [half a Tesco lime produces about 3 microns of fluid. A whole lime. Much better.]
  • 4 firm white fish fillets (not steaks) such as haddock, monkfish or cod
  • 150g/5½oz day-old white bread, crusts removed
  • 250g/9oz cured chorizo, skinned and chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced [as usual they totally underestimate. I used 4. Minimum.]
  • 1 unwaxed lime, zest only
  • 2 tbsp flatleaf parsley
  • 2 tbsp parmesan cheese
  • ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 50g/2oz butter
  • lime wedges, to serve [put another way, you need at least two limes, one to juice and zest, one to get the wedges from. I forgot this last night and only got one lime, so sacrificed the wedges. Not such a big deal, except that the bread/chorizo crust is very rich and you really need the extra lime juice to cut through it.]
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
  2. For the fish, pour the lime juice over the fish fillets. Leave for half an hour while you prepare the crust.
  3. For the crust, cut the bread into chunks and place in a roasting tin. Place the chorizo on top of the bread.
  4. Transfer to the oven and cook for 15 minutes. As the heat increases, the fat from the sausage will run into the bread chunks. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
  5. Once cool, place the bread and sausage into a blender or food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles fine crumbs [whee! They go round and round! Again!]. Add the garlic, lime zest, parsley, parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. Process again to combine the ingredients.
  6. Place the fish, along with the juices, skin-side down in a roasting tin. Press on a thick layer, about 0.5cm, of the crust.
  7. Cut the butter into small cubes and dot over the crust.
  8. Tightly cover the roasting tin with foil and bake the fish in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.
  9. Serve with chips or [barbarians] new potatoes and a rocket salad, and the lime wedges.