Learning to cook

Tim is vegetarian so I never cook meat, and have fallen into a real cooking rut, tending to rely on the same few recipes over and over again. One of my new year's resolutions was to try out more recipes and increase the variety of what we eat at home. Today I made the aubergine and french bean curry from River Cottage - Veg everyday. I had to make curry paste from scratch (using the final shallots from last year's allotment crop), which made me feel a bit domestic-goddessy and it was delicious! Definitely one to make again.

Missing the allotment

I realised when I was a few months pregnant with B, that I really wasn't going to be able to do our allotment justice over the next couple of years, so made the tough decision to give it up. I really agonised over the decision because I really loved it up there, loved growing our own food and even sort of loved the occasion slow-worm encounter! I was trying to be practical and sensible by handing it back, but I really do miss it so much! At this time of year, I would usually be so busy planning the plot (endless scruffy drawings in my notebook, trying to work out crop rotations and where I could legitimately sneak flowers in), starting seeds off and looking forward to spending time up there in the sunshine, and instead I'm just looking at my books and searching online for houses to move to with a big enough garden for a vegetable plot. It will happen, eventually...