FISH CHOWDER

To be honest you can put any vegetables and any fish that you like in this dish and it will taste great. Just cut them small and add with the potato and carrot, you can leave out the garlic and the cayenne pepper if you don’t want it too spicy or want to feed to kids. (Kids will love it.)

INGREDIENTS:

2 fillets of salmon - or any meaty fish.

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp dried parsley

black pepper

2 bacon slices - cut into small pieces

1oz/28g flour

1 red onion, sliced and quartered

1pt fish stock (2 fish stock cubes)

4 cloves garlic, chopped. (optional) ½ pt milk

Small tub prawns

1 red caspsicum pepper, chopped small

1tsp salt

¼ tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

I large potato - diced

3 carrots - cut into small sticks

2oz margarine 

METHOD:

1. Prepare all the ingredients. Melt the margarine in a large saucepan. Add the bacon, onion, pepper and garlic and fry for 5minutes.

2. Add the black pepper, salt, stock, dried parsley, diced potato, carrot sticks, cayenne pepper and any other vegetables you wish to add. 

3. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are softened, stirring occasionally.

4. Add the fish chunks, prawns and lemon juice, cover and simmer for another five minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Put the flour in a small dish and mix to a smooth running consistency with some of the milk, then add to the chowder. Stirring constantly. Add the rest of the milk to the chowder.

6.Bring back to the boil for one to two minutes until sauce has thickened. Serve immediately.

Recipe (c) Copyright of C.A. Jones 2010

The Usual Lego Suspects

SUPERMAN GAMES

One day, when my two sons were little, they decided to play Superman. The following conversation ensued:

Duncan(aged 5)  Richard (aged 3) and myself (age irrelevent)

Duncan: "Right Richard, I am Superman and you can be Superboy, because Superboy couldn't fly."
Me:       "Yes he could fly."
Duncan: "Oh, well then Richard, you can be Superbaby, cos Superbaby couldn't fly."
Me:       "Yes he could."
Duncan: "Ok then Richard, you can be Superseed......."

ROFLMAO!

After Madness pt.?

I suppose the upside of having been pretty much off my rocker is that I learned a hell of a lot about human nature in a short space of time.  I learned that human nature is not very nice. It is still rooted in the herd and is like chickens pecking at the one with the black feather, they don't want you to be different to them.

The next ten years was spent learning to recognise this and, hardest of all, learning to live with it.  It has been an isolating experience, but then I discovered the Internet. Yes, I was a latecomer, I AM poor, you know, but I would not like to live without it now. Through it I have met many like-minded people and this has restored my faith in things.  A few people is all it takes.  As it is I meet more every day.

Of course it spells the end for the gravy-train. The govts fear revolution. Pah! We don't want a revolution, we want things run PROPERLY and with integrity for the good of the electorate.  NOT for the good of a few multi-national companies. They can keep most of it, but why do they have to have it ALL?

SPIRITUALITY

I think the search for 'spirituality' is a psychological dysfunction many of us monkeys have. We don't want to be monkeys so we search for the elusive proof of our non-monkeyness. And then everyone apes each other so they won't look like a monkey either.

CHICKEN SOUP A LA CAROLE

serves 2/3

INGREDIENTS:

I chicken thigh - wrap in foil and cook for 1 hour in an oven at 150deg C               

1 banana shallot, halved and sliced

Spring onions, chopped                  

1/4 yellow pepper, cubed tinily

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 mushroom, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely with salt

1 carrot cut into matchsticks

1 med potato, cubed

several small broccoli florets.

1/2 tsp of cumin, turmeric, ginger, fivespice

Dash of Soy sauce

1oz flour
1/4 pt milk

METHOD:

1.  Take all the meat from the chicken bones and reserve; put the bones in 1/2 pint boiling water and simmer for 30 min.

2.  Put the carrot, potato and broccoli in a pan with a teaspoon of salt, cover with 1pt boiling water and microwave for fifteen mins.

3.  Heat a small amount of olive oil in a lge frypan, add the onions, shallots , pepper & garlic to the hot oil and fry for 8-10 mins until soft. Add the sliced mushroom and fry for another two min.

4.  Add the turmeric, ginger, cumin & fivespice to the frypan and cook for one more minute. 

5.  Strain the chicken stock and discard bones etc. Strain cooked veg and keep 1/2pt stock back.

6. Conbine all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring back to the boil; mix the flour and milk to a smooth paste and slowly add to the soup cooking for one minute until thickened.
7.  Serve with crusty rolls.

N.B. This same dish can be made by boiling the leftover carcase of roast chicken.

Once I was a child,

With everything before me;

Then I was an adolescent -

Everything bored me;

Then I was a young woman,

Fertile and ripe;

Then I was a mother

Believing all the hype.

Then I was 'In my prime'

At my physical best,

I deserved much more, but realised

I was settlling for less.