Post a bad thing that happened in your life today

[Ed Rooney]

 

It's taken me a long time to realise that the NHS distributes my meds every 28 days and not once a month, Allan and Steve. I have a booster covid shot and a flu shot scheduled for next week. 

[Bryan]

Yesterday I stripped out the tomato plants from my greenhouse, they were still fruiting, but the tomatoes were beginning to split, the season is over. The stack of green fruit will be used to make chutney, maybe by one of our friends, or we'll give them to the local pay as you feel café if they can use them. So back to tasteless supermarket tomatoes, until next summer. On the positive front the late sowing of peas I made is beginning to ripen and swell, so we should get some sweet new peas before the frosts arrive. 

 

Back to the toms. I grow them in buckets that require filling with compost every year, normally a mixed brew of home made leaf mould, sharp sand and commercial compost. It seems so wasteful to just use the spent compost as a mulch, but tomatoes are choosy plants, and soil borne infections will wipe out a crop. In the past gardeners would light a big wood fire and roast the soil to sterilise it, but I guess that's not the thing to do these days. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Bryan

[Allan Bell]

3 hours ago, Bryan said:

Yesterday I stripped out the tomato plants from my greenhouse, they were still fruiting, but the tomatoes were beginning to split, the season is over. The stack of green fruit will be used to make chutney, maybe by one of our friends, or we'll give them to the local pay as you feel café if they can use them. So back to tasteless supermarket tomatoes, until next summer. On the positive front the late sowing of peas I made is beginning to ripen and swell, so we should get some sweet new peas before the frosts arrive. 

 

Back to the toms. I grow them in buckets that require filling with compost every year, normally a mixed brew of home made leaf mould, sharp sand and commercial compost. It seems so wasteful to just use the spent compost as a mulch, but tomatoes are choosy plants, and soil borne infections will wipe out a crop. In the past gardeners would light a big wood fire and roast the soil to sterilise it, but I guess that's not the thing to do these days. 

 

Re chutney. Dad used to have two greenhouses and one was given over to tomato plants. So many that we often had surpluses of red, yellow and green tomatoes. This is going back to the 50's, 60's and 70's. Mum used to make up jars and jars of the three colours chutney from the surplus so we had a good winter stock. Really tasty too.

As an aside mum used to produce blackberry wine too when there was a surplus of blackberries and if there wasn't she would send us kids out scavenging in the hedgerows.

 

Re sterilisation. When Dad was setting off seeds and for young seedlings ho would always sterilise the soil mix by baking it in the oven in the kitchen. The smell was not objectionable either.

 

Allan

 

[spacecadet]

17 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

It may depend on one’s insurance plan

In the UK that's the one thing it doesn't depend on.

[Ed Rooney]

 

Chutney is virtually unknown in the States. As with most any cuisine, you can find it in NYC. But you have to hunt for it.

 

Someone gave me a jar in Oxfordshire long ago. Tasty. I'm gonna see what M&S has. 

[Allan Bell]

8 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

Chutney is virtually unknown in the States. As with most any cuisine, you can find it in NYC. But you have to hunt for it.

 

Someone gave me a jar in Oxfordshire long ago. Tasty. I'm gonna see what M&S has. 

 

Let us know if you find any tomato chutney.

 

I know Tesco sell Mango chutney.

 

Allan

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Allan Bell

[sb photos]

22 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

It's taken me a long time to realise that the NHS distributes my meds every 28 days and not once a month, Allan and Steve. I have a booster covid shot and a flu shot scheduled for next week. 

That’s why most pills are in packets of 28 or 56. My flu jab is the second Saturday of next month. Could have had it a few days earlier but I prefer booking the first appointment of the day and none were free. That way there’s not been someone in the consulting room before me possibly breathing out Covid.

Edited October 23, 2021 by sb photos

[sb photos]

23 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

I am gradually building a stock too. When I order this time I will have Three and a half weeks still in hand.

 

My surgery were good when I told them I was going away and would not be around to either order or collect so They gave me two months supply.

 

Allan

 

The easy one for me to accumulate were insulin pens. I would typically use 4 in 28 days, but they come in boxes of 5 and the pharmacy wouldn’t split boxes. I rotate so the oldest, still well in date, gets used first. Am now in a position where I didn’t request any on my last repeat prescription. 

[Bryan]

16 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Re chutney. Dad used to have two greenhouses and one was given over to tomato plants. So many that we often had surpluses of red, yellow and green tomatoes. This is going back to the 50's, 60's and 70's. Mum used to make up jars and jars of the three colours chutney from the surplus so we had a good winter stock. Really tasty too.

As an aside mum used to produce blackberry wine too when there was a surplus of blackberries and if there wasn't she would send us kids out scavenging in the hedgerows.

 

Re sterilisation. When Dad was setting off seeds and for young seedlings ho would always sterilise the soil mix by baking it in the oven in the kitchen. The smell was not objectionable either.

 

Allan

 

My grandfather grew tomatoes in a greenhouse that he built from scratch but the gardening bug skipped a generation, my father kept the garden neat and tidy but he wasn't a keen gardener. The first time I had tomato chutney was when I made it myself, but since then my wife has taken over the chutney production,  this year she has been using apples of which we have a surplus. I guess you can make chutney from lots of different types of fruit. 

 

I don't think that I would get permission to bake soil in our cooker, but, for a small quantity I guess it makes sense. We've got used to proprietary products and people have lost some of the DIY skills.

 

Re wine making we tried it years ago with very mixed success, the best results were obtained using concentrated grape juice, but the worst was my attempt to make orange wine, which was execrable. I had a work colleague who competed successfully in the British Master Winemaker challenge, but he used specially imported grapes. I remember drinking some of his dessert wine, made from damsons, that was delicious. Coincidentally I've just sold all of our old home brewing kit using Gumtree, including 7 demijohns a filter and other kit. It had stood unused for over 30 years. The advent of good quality but reasonably priced imported wine killed off my interest in home brewing. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Bryan

[Ed Rooney]

 

M&S had sweet mango chutney, no tomato chutney.

[Bryan]

4 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

M&S had sweet mango chutney, no tomato chutney.

I've had a quick look at the Internet and can't find any commercially available tomato chutney, but I'm getting the idea that the concept of chutney comes from India, which may explain why it doesn't appear to be available in the USA?  Chutney, bungalow, wallah etc all Indian words ?

 

As for our stack of green tomatoes, my wife relented and converted the lot into apple and tomato chutney, which tastes delicious, although I believe that the flavour improves with time. Should you ever visit this windswept and chilly part of the UK Edo, we'll give you a jar.

[Ed Rooney]

"chutney comes from India, which may explain why it doesn't appear to be available in the USA?"

 

That's exactly right, Bryan. Yanks do not have the long history with Indian that you do. And tomato chutney seems to be a British variant, like pineapple pizza in the States. And thanks for the offer, but a trip to Yorkshire seems unlikely. More likely is another lockdown. 

[Mr Standfast]

Thinking to myself whilst doing  the dishwasher... Isn't tomato chutney nearly ketchup? 🤔

[Ed Rooney]

 

Oh oh. A chutney civil war afoot?

[Michael Ventura]

3 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

"chutney comes from India, which may explain why it doesn't appear to be available in the USA?"

 

That's exactly right, Bryan. Yanks do not have the long history with Indian that you do. And tomato chutney seems to be a British variant, like pineapple pizza in the States. And thanks for the offer, but a trip to Yorkshire seems unlikely. More likely is another lockdown. 

 

Chutney can be bought here, in the U.S., but it is not nearly as popular as may be in the U.K..  It can be found in specialty international stores or in aisles, in regular grocery stores, that have Indian foods. My daughter's best friend, from childhood, is an Indian American, who's mother has an Indian food catering business.  My daughter worked for her friend's mom right after high school and got hooked on a store bought mango chutney that she adds to a lot of her foods at home now.  

[sb photos]

I must be the only person reading this that doesn't like chutney.

 

My father used to grow wonderful tomatoes in his greenhouse, so did our adjacent neighbour. We enjoyed eating ours, there's nothing like a freshly picked tomato. The next door neighbour used to make chutney with his green tomatoes. He would boil or cook them in a huge pan, and the vinegar smell would pass through a dividing cavity wall into our property, and linger for ages. Not everyone likes vinegar, we didn't, and the smell from the vinegar used to turn our stomachs. I realise I'm likely in the minority here, but it's a smell I can still remember from from 60 years back. My wife enjoys vinegar in moderation, that's no issue, but what we used to endure in the late 50's and early 60's was unbearable to us. I wish our Neighbour Ron had simply bought jars of chutney.

 

Years later when I was around 18 I was playing an album by Blue Cheer pretty loud, must have been 1968 as that was when Vincebus Eruptum was released. My  parents were out and Ron knocked on our front door asking if the volume could be turned down as it was putting him off his dinner. I never mentioned the vinegar fumes that put us off ours.

Edited October 25, 2021 by sb photos

[Ed Rooney]

 

After surfing the Net, I walked over to Bold Street and a little shop that specialises in exotic condiments. They had Geeta's Premium Tomato & Chili Chutney. It, like the jar of mango chutney I got yesterday, is a condiment -- like pesto, salsa, and mustard. I'll try some in a couple of weeks.

 

When I lived in Rome, the culinary high spot of the year was a fresh tomato salad in late summer. 

[aphperspective]

I'll throw my hat into the Chutney ring, a glut of Beetroot this year made me try making Beetroot Chutney and it's turned out very very nice with cheese.

[John Morrison]

4 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

A chutney civil war afoot?

 

That's almost poetry, Ed...

 

19 minutes ago, aphperspective said:

Chutney ring

 

...While that sounds vaguely smutty...

[Ed Rooney]

 

2 hours ago, John Morrison said:

 

That's almost poetry, Ed...

 

 

Hey, wait a minute — nobody's every accused me of that before! 

[Bryan]

9 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

And thanks for the offer, but a trip to Yorkshire seems unlikely. More likely is another lockdown. 

 

Our elder son lives in Yorkshire Edo, but to claim your jar of chutney, you would need to head even further north. 

 

You may be right about the lockdown however, so few people wearing masks on public transport or in shops now, a tad worrying.

[Betty LaRue]

6 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

After surfing the Net, I walked over to Bold Street and a little shop that specialises in exotic condiments. They had Geeta's Premium Tomato & Chili Chutney. It, like the jar of mango chutney I got yesterday, is a condiment -- like pesto, salsa, and mustard. I'll try some in a couple of weeks.

 

When I lived in Rome, the culinary high spot of the year was a fresh tomato salad in late summer. 

I’m still getting beautiful tomatoes off my 3 vines. They are much slower to ripen, but I bring them in to finish at first blush. The most prolific vine produces a size from golf ball down to cherry tomato size. I use them in salads, and they are delicious sautéed in olive oil with seasonings.

I also have cooked them down with onion, bell peppers and garlic, and freeze in freezer bags for later use.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Betty LaRue

[sb photos]

21 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

You may be right about the lockdown however, so few people wearing masks on public transport or in shops now, a tad worrying.

I’m saving scanning for archival for the next lockdown. I’ve been in to London only 5 times since the first lockdown ended, via quiet trains to Marylebone, then on foot. Good excercise, I clocked up 14.8km according to my iPhone last Saturday. Today only 6km in Oxford so far. Mask wearing definitely becoming less.

[Allan Bell]

46 minutes ago, sb photos said:

I’m saving scanning for archival for the next lockdown. I’ve been in to London only 5 times since the first lockdown ended, via quiet trains to Marylebone, then on foot. Good excercise, I clocked up 14.8km according to my iPhone last Saturday. Today only 6km in Oxford so far. Mask wearing definitely becoming less.

 

I heard on the news on TV that the covid infection rate is slowing down and even topping in some places. Can only be GOOD news.

 

Allan

 

[spacecadet]

23 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

 

Hey, wait a minute — nobody's every accused me of that before! 

J'Accuse!