A Wet UK Saturday . . .

Now here we are again and just for a change it's raining! Yes that was a note of sarcasm there due to the fact our Met Office cannot get even the simplest forecasting right and from loudly proclaiming at the start of June it will be a "barbecue Summer" whereupon after a two-day heatwave it has rained and rained and rained some more, they have now agreed this will continue for August and most of September!!!! This is because apparently the Jet Stream is locked above Scotland in the North Sea and won't come "unstuck" until Fall . . . I think that's a clever way of saying oh gee we got it wrong and don't really have a clue!!! OK - weather rant over!!!! So today we're cooking comfort food for dinner . . . this means baked chicken (a proper one that was raised on a local farm and allowed to run and peck and be happy for its short life and yes it's expensive but as I freeze the carcase to turn into stock later in the year for soup it works out good value) along with roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, carrots, runner beans and marrow. This last for my US readers is a giant zucchini which is steamed in chunks then finished off in the oven with a little shredded cheese . . . all this and gravy will provide dinner for me this evening (and my Big Sis via the magic microwave although we haven't quite worked out how to send ourselves yet!!) as well as meals for the week. Dessert will be English strawberries with none of this fancy sugared balsamic glaze or general messing about that TV chefs seem to think is necessary. Fresh berries in my opinion need nothing more than themselves and MAYBE a light dusting of sugar along with a little cream if you need extra pampering!!! My fave TV chefs are Delia Smith who is the UK equivalent of dear Ina Garten in the US. When I visit my Big Sis I'm agog at the Food Network Channel as we have nothing like that in the UK. I'll watch Giada and Paula Deen but Ina is my fave US chef. Jamie Oliver is very enthusiastic but he has "gone Hollywood" a tad and as for that Gordon Ramsey - no thank you!!!! *fans self and munches a restorative strawberry* Now both my Big Sis and I have declared this a Stitchalong Weekend which means getting comfy in our PJs and stitching!!!! Happily the food will look after itself pretty much and a good thing too as I don't want to hop up and down every five mins to pray over it!!! And I know perhaps I shouldn't grumble about our weather here cos I know folks in parts of the US are experiencing hard droughts with extreme high temps . . . I'm grateful my Big Sis has a picture-perfect day and doesn't have to run the AC!!! It's back to stitching for me along with a few strawberries till dinner is ready!!!