I made some lovely fritters for dinner yesterday. I grated the last of the carrots, small and wrinkly, fine chopped onion, fine chopped white cabbage and a grated parsnip that was going a bit soft. I would normally grate some potato and add that too, but as we would be having oven wedges, I didn’t this time.Then added a big spoonful of garlic and ginger from the huge jar I got from the Indian shop. I have a huge bag of gram (chickpea) flour in the cupboard that I bought ages ago now. I’ve only used half of it, so am making an effort to use it before it becomes unusable. It is fine right now, and I must have had it several years! I added enough gram flour to coat everything in dust, then added enough water to make a thick batter.

I’ve just taken a picture of the gram flour and thought I would see if there was a best before date on it – wooo, check out that date – best before Jan 2010! The flour looks fine, smells fine, tastes fine and there are no added things in it (bugs, yeurgh) so I’m carrying on using it

So, back to the fritters. I fried splodges of the mix in a frying pan.

Meanwhile, some potatoes were sliced, microwaved until soft, then tossed in oil and liberal quantities of Tandoori powder that I got in a 200g bag from the Indian shop. It’s sweet, spicy and delicious, fantastic on oven wedges. The wedges were blasted in a hot oven for 20 minutes or so, along with some cauliflower and broccoli stems and stalks, with a few florets, also liberally dusted with Tandoori powder and oil and a sprinkle of chilli flakes.

It was a delicious dinner, made from bits of this and that. There were spiced cauliflower/broccoli bits left, and several fritters as I had made too much. No chips left 😉

So this morning, I put the whole lot in a pan, not forgetting to use a spatula to get the lovely spicy oil and crispy bits out, added a big handful of red lentils, covered it all with hot water from the kettle and simmered for 20 minutes. Then I whizzed it smooth. The result is a big pan of khaki coloured soup that tastes wonderful. Spicy, sweet and thick

I had 3 white cabbages at 33p each in my recent Approved Food order, so a bit is going in everything at the moment!

I popped in to Heathfield yesterday to do a few chores and spotted an absolutely beautiful Karen Millen dress in the window of one of the charity shops, and at a bargainous £14. It’s a size 14, whereas DD2 is a size 12, so I may have to take it in. It is beautifully cut and in a charcoal colour. The fabric has a bit of stretch in it, including the lining. I can easily trim one side seam by turning it inside out and taking a little off both the dress and the lining, the other side has an invisible zip in it which will present rather more of a challenge. I can’t really use the centre back seam to reduce the size, as because of the cut, there isn’t a centre back seam! The picture doesn’t really do it justice, it’s gorgeous. I’ll have to take one with DD2 wearing it. It’s amazing what finds can be had in charity shops. I would use it myself, but I don’t wear black, it makes me look ill; even in my dreams, I’m not a size 14, one day maybe if the diet carries on working; I never wear sleeveless dresses, they look awful on me; and I don’t wear knee length dresses any more unless I can also wear opaque tights – other than that it’s perfect – hahaha!!

I have numerous pairs of leather gloves in various colours, collected over the years, including this tan pair. They are rather grubby now and I don’t wear them very often because of that. I spotted this post on Miss Thrifty’s blog on how to clean leather gloves. So this morning I took the plunge. I put them on and run my hands under the tap to wet them, then washed them using hand soap, just as if I was washing my  hands, and rinsed them again under the tap. Then carefully and gently took them off and put them on the clothes drying rack to dry. I keep going to look at them to see if I have ruined them and am keeping my (real) fingers crossed that they will dry alright. I’ll show you later.

Right, I’m off to sow some seeds in the greenhouse, I’ll show you what I’m doing tommorow