Marie Cookpad

  We were very grateful to have been able to get our hands on a fruit and vegetable box last week.  It was filled with all sorts of lovely things and I have been making sure that I make the most of everything that was in the box.   I have been enjoying eating the apples out of hand, and Todd has been enjoying the bananas.  One night I made us a cut fruit salad with some of the bananas, some cut up oranges, a kiwi and some coconut.   And of course we have been enjoying the potatoes, onions, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower in the box.  I still have parsnips and a butternut squash to make use of.  Not a problem.   There was a quantity of Conference pears, which can be awfully hard to eat out of hand, but they are beautiful for cooking with as they hold their shape well.    Conference pears are a medium-sized pear with an elongated bottle aand are quite similar in appearance to the 'Bosc pear'. A table pear, it is suitable for fresh-cut pr...

  I have become very thrifty over these past weeks. Something I am ashamed to say that I should have been practicing all along.  Nothing is going to waste in my kitchen.  They are saying it could be six months until the present crisis is over and I am keen to make everything we have stretch as far as I can.   Any thing hash is a great way to make good use of just whatever you have in your refrigerator that needs using up and topping it with a poached egg, turns it into a well balanced meal, containing some carbs, plenty of veg and a protein.    It also makes a great vegetarian meal, for those of you who are not opposed to eating eggs.    The hash is composed of whatever you happen to have in the refrigerator that needs using up.  In my case I had a baked potato left from the other day, which wouldn't have fed two people normally, but when you add a host of other vegetables to it, it becomes like the loaves and fishes and magically multiplies ...

  In January I started writing on another site called Home Chef World.   I was hired to provide them with between 4 and 8 recipe posts a month.  This is in addition to what I share here.   I have really enjoyed doing it thus far and I hope this lasts a long longer than my other job did.  One never knows with the unstable world we are living in at the moment, but one thing is for sure, people will always want and need to eat.   One of the recipes I will be sharing on there over this next month required English Muffins.  Do you think I could find any?  None to be had anywhere, and I tried.  We are living in precarious times and I have realised that certain things have become very difficult to find.  One is flour (we won't talk about toilet paper).     I am rationing my flour out very carefully because I don't know how long it will be before I can get any more.  It has become a very precious commodity in this house....