big ideas from a little garden

tales and stories of how we make the most of our garden and our terraced house.

Thursday 17 November 2011

Cook-along-a-boglin

Nesty Boglin
The latest tinyholding venture is to get the childerlings cooking. Not such a problem with the Nesty Boglin, as she has always loved to cook. She adores making cakes and, to be honest is rather good at it. One of her ambitions for a future career (and there are many) is to become a Chef. Of course, in true Boglin Style she does not want to be a boring, ordinary Chef.  She will be a TV Chef, with a chain of cake shops that will make her wealthy.  The idea being to fund her life style of rescuing the worlds neglected hounds, pooches and mutts. She also wants to be a zoo vet, a singer, an actress, a teacher, and a world renowned eccentric. That's my girl! She's clearly going to be busy.
Well, to encourage (or exploit) this desire it has been decided that the Boglins will cook once a week. As you probably know already, dear reader, we are nothing if not meticulous about the provenance of our food. We are fussy about our ingredients and we cook from scratch. Not for us is the world of ping food. Y'know, into the microwave (popty ping) for two minutes and you get an unappealing bowl of slop with all it's phytonutrients zapped out of existence. In fact we do not own a microwave, and we will not in the future. (Being a bit of a phytonutrient fanatic that I am)
Last nights fare was a heap of Spaghetti bolognaise. Delicious, it was too. I had planned on cooking it myself. But Nesty Boglin had asked "when is tea?"  The unanimous answer was "when you cook it, madam".  This rather sarcastic remark was greeted by a very excited Boglin, who then insisted she was to cook.
So, armed with the statutory, onions, garlic, peppers, mushrooms, fresh tomatoes and the left over homemade tomato and basil soup as a sauce, she set too. We had one or two worrying questions from her, such as  "do I use a whole garlic or just one clove?"  I thank my lucky stars she asked.  She made a sterling effort. She also seemed amazed at the amount of mince required to feed four.  Good quality mince, procured from our local butcher, Simon/Jason (one day I'll get his name right)  A jolly and chirpy chap who now greets me with "Shw mae". A wonderful addition to an otherwise typical Derbyshire village, The farm Gate.
Of course, in an ideal world we would have a freezer full of meat from Rob Rose, but we can't always have everything we want, and Simon/Jason is a wonderful local business. With first class service and products.
Upon my casual saunter into the kitchen, just to look you see, not to interfere. I was sent with my tail between my legs from HER KITCHEN!  I see she is practicing the stroppy chef persona already.
She even laid the table. Napkins and pepper mills at the ready.  With a chorus of "compliments to the chef" and "cheers", a fine meal was had. Even Huck Boglin couldn't find a reason to complain. And lets face it, if the 12 year old boy can find a way to torment his 11 year old sister than it is good evening!
It's his turn sometime this week. Frankly, I'm a little more worried about that meal!  As for Nesty Boglin practicing her chef skills once a week. Bring it on!

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations to the chef! Here's hoping that the sib-chef does as well!!

    verification word...cookey!!!

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