A Cull, A Box and A Lasagne

This morning I performed a major cull of the contents of one of my kitchen cupboards. It's a particularly difficult cupboard for me to get to, being at floor level and in a corner. It's the cupboard where I keep baking tins, accessories for my milky food processor, salad bowls, random Tupperware boxes and my fish griddle. Things had got into a tip because it's on the floor and I have to get down on my hands and knees and then virtually climb in to put things away...not good for my back at all! It had got to the point where I couldn't close the cupboard at all and I was ramming it shut because things kept falling out. I had had enough! So I plucked up courage, pulled everything out of the cupboard and then sat on the floor surrounded by stuff, totally overwhelmed and at the point of no return. I threw out all the skanky Tupperware boxes that had missing lids, or were covered in unspeakable things. I slung out the rusting cake tins and other dubious items, cleaned out the cupboard and put everything back. I filled a whole black refuse sack and sat back on my knees looking at my pristine cupboard and felt extremely virtuous. I wonder how long it will take before I'm ramming things in and forcing it closed again?

I received my first organic box today from Abel & Cole. I was tempted by their introductory offer which came through my letterbox and promised me a free 250 page cookery book with my first order.  I couldn't resist (because of my bad cookery book habit) and subscribed to a weekly box of organic fruit and veg delivered to my door every Wednesday, thinking that this may encourage me to use seasonal local items rather than refrigerated chill blasted veg from Kenya. I have to admit that the whole package was very attractive when it arrived. The box was wrapped in string, there was a welcome booklet, some recipe cards, and of course my free cookery book which looks really good. Its's divided into seasons and then describes various fruit and veg and how to cook them in original ways. There was a really good selection of fruit & veg in the box, including baby squash, courgettes and broccoli, as well as grapes, bananas and some really tasty apples. I think I'm going to make a batch of Bircher muesli with the apples and there was a really interesting broccoli soup recipe which I'm going to make tomorrow. 

I didn't cook tonight! Ethan offered to make a veggie lasagne and very tasty it was too. He is a really good cook with an excellent palate, knows instinctively how to combine flavours and is not afraid to experiment. He did have a slight anxious moment when he discovered that there wasn't enough milk to make a béchamel  sauce.  I found a pint in the freezer and proceeded to defrost it on full power in the microwave...two minutes in and the bottle exploded, leaving a milky mess in the microwave and a blob of iced milk left in the container. I have a history of exploding things in the microwave but that's another story for another day......

Ethan's Lasagne