. . . And we're back!

I noticed the other day that I hadn't blogged for 4 months. The main reason for this is our PhDs. The blog had become a big distraction, a nice one but a still a distraction. Plus I started a new job and needed to concentrate on a different challenge.

Andrew had his viva (oral examination) on the 5th of November and passed. I was due to have my viva on this date as well, but the internal examiners pulled out. So I had to wait until the 30th of January for my viva, which I passed. The last few weeks have been spent making the corrections and getting it hard bound. On Friday I handed it in, which means that our PhD ordeal is over and I can start blogging again.

The graduations aren't till June, so I don't feel we can call ourselves Dr until then. But believe me that when we do that our names on our bank cards will be changed.

I saw this comic strip and can relate to this. It has been a struggle to get it finished but now I see our theses in their hard bound glory it does feel good.

So what did we do with all that fruit? Part 2 Fruit flavoured vodkas

In August we picked a whole lot of berries from a PYO. The main reason for this was that I wanted to make some jams. But we picked ALOT of fruit. So we had lots leftover for other uses. So we made some flavoured vodkas. We have made strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant vodkas. The recipes for the raspberry and strawberry vodka were based on recipes from the Cottage Smallholder Blog. For the blackcurrant vodka I used 500g of blackcurrants, 250g sugar and 1 litre of vodka. These were started in August and I think I might strain the fruit in November, so they would have 3 months of steeping.

Its quite funny to think that as part of my PhD I have been extracting fruits (mainly apples) for analysis and at home I am using that same principles at home!

We have made both raspberry and blackcurrant vodka before. The blackcurrant was our favourite before we made the rhubarb vodka, which is now my favourite. The raspberry was a little bitter but I think this was because we added lemon peel which still had some pith attached. Strawberry is new for us.

We had a few people over to the flat for a celebration of the theses being submitted and I have to say that the rhubarb vodka was well received. We will definitely be making more next year.

A Tale of Two Theses

We are back!!!!

After an intensive month of thesis writing, we have finally submitted the theses.


It meant that I had to neglect the blog but now we are waiting for our viva dates. Just in case you were interested it has taken us just under four years to do the scientific work and write up our theses. Andrew's is bigger (around 250 pages) mine is about 150 pages. Hopefully I will be able to catch up on what we have been up to whilst we have been writing.

A quick update

In May, we started our little window garden. Unfortunately our theses have been slowly taking over our lives, so the plants have been a bit neglected. Our window box full of herbs have bitten the dust, as has our tigerella tomato plant (sorry Lynn!)

Our window box with the three tomato plants are doing OK. We did think that we had bought bush tomato plants, but they are not. They are huge! The other day as I was daydreaming whilst writing my thesis, I notice that we actually had some tomatoes on our plants!!! Very exciting. We are moving in a few weeks time, I am not sure how we are going to move them. It could be challenging.

The cut and come again salad box is doing really well too. Its right by the dining table so we just rip off a couple of leaves for dinner.

In the autumn I made some spicy apple and walnut chutney which is running out. So to keep us going I made some rhubarb and raisin chutney. I got the recipe from my Women's Institute preserves book.


And finally for this rapid roundup. In this weeks box:

• Broccoli
• Broad beans
  
• Kohl rabi
• Courgettes
• Spinach
• Cabbage
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes

Yet more brain food!!!

OK, I may now be taking the fish is good for your brain too far. But we had hot smoked salmon pasta from Waitrose.com.


Hopefully my efforts to eat more fish will be seen in more words being added to my thesis files!!! The things you do to finish a PhD!

Frittata for the climbers

It's amazing how bored I get in front of laptop these days. This week I have doing data analysis, which is as boring as it sounds. On Wednesday I wanted something different for lunch so I made some different salads. I made Jamie's pasta salad, potato salad and a carrot salad. I had it with some tinned tuna and some bread. Of course making the salads did allow to spend sometime away from the laptop, which was a happy coincidence.


The Veg Box arrived this week:

• Baby Cauliflowers
• Spinach
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Parsely
• Rhubarb
  
• Carrots
• Onions
• Potatoes
  

The presence of spinach was a happy one, as I was going to Dumberton with Andrew and Stuart. I remembered a recent post from cottage smallholder for frittata. I thought it would be good crag food. We had a great evening in the sun and they actually managed to climb something too. The frittata was great way to finish the evening. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the frittata but this one of the boys enjoying the frittata will have to do.

Home Alone!

We had a long weekend at home with Andrew's family in Oxfordshire. Whilst we were there we tried some of Andrew's dad's wide variety of flavoured vodkas, from grapefruit, lemon, black cherry and rhubarb. We got some good tips and cocktail recipes, so watch this space.

Andrew went to Fort William for some site work on Tuesday for a couple of days, so I am home alone!



Last week before we left for England, I managed to give my supervisor chapter 1, so now I have moved on to chapter 2. Woo hoo!

The veg box arrived today with the driver running to my door to escape from the rain. When I was down south it was 22 degrees. I was thinking that I will have to stop making soup for lunch. The weather has changed again, so I think we will be OK on the soup for a little longer.

In the box this week:

• Purple sprouting broccoli
• Leeks
• Salad leaves
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Beetroot
• Swedes

I made some leek and potato soup and soda bread rolls for lunch. Here is picture of my table on a Wednesday lunchtime, this is actually tidy for me. Hmmm, maybe I wasn't working hard enough today. . .

Waste not want not

After a Saturday morning and early afternoon in the lab, I had a bit of a lazy afternoon. Now Andrew has a full time, he can only spent evenings and weekends writing his thesis. So thats what he did on Saturday.

For dinner we had chicken curry from Nigel Slater's Real Cooking. I love this dish so much. One of the things that makes this dish is that you take the chicken thighs out of the sauce after they are cooked and put them into the oven to give a crispy skin. I love chicken skin so much, it's the first thing I have taste of after a chicken has come out of the oven after a good roasting. As Nigel says its not authenic but who cares when it tastes so good. Andrew prepared some flatbreads to go with the curry, which was also accompanied by a beer for a hard days work. Oh, and some mango chutney from the Jam Kitchen @ Craigie's Farm. Its the best I have tasted! There was loads of sauce left over from the curry so we kept it for dinner on Sunday.



Today we made our way to Loch Lomond so Andrew could do some climbing. I held the rope as the climbs at Ardvorlich were too hard for me. It was so nice to be outdoors after being in the lab all week.

When we got back and I prepared a vegetable curry by boiling potatoes, carrots and swede. Then I fried them with some mushroms and then added the sauce and left it simmer for a while. If possible the sauce tasted better today and it meant that the sauce wasn't wasted.

Brain food

After a day sat in front of the laptop scratching my head and not getting very far, I decided that I needed some brain food. So I went hunting in the freezer and found some trout fillets. So I decided to cook them in parcels. I also made some potato boulangerie to go with it. Basically I peeled some potatoes and finely sliced them. I finely sliced an onion too. I put some of the onion at the bottom of a greased small casserole dish then half of the potatoes. I then put some more onion and some finely chopped garlic, seasoned with pepper. I then finished with more potatoes. I poured over 250 ml of vegetable stock. Seasoned with pepper and dotted some butter over the top. This was covered and put in the oven @ gas mark 5 for 60 mins.



I then made the parcels. Chopped a leek and divided it between two sheets of tin foil. I placed the trout fillets on top, then some lemon slices on top of the trout. I also placed some butter on top of the lemon and seasoned. I then folded over the tin foil and sealed two sides. Then poured in some vermouth and sealed it up. After the potatoes had been in for 60 mins, I put the trout in for 20 mins and took the lid off the casserole dish to brown the potatoes.

I can't really say that I feel any brainer, but fingers-crossed that I will feel the effects of the fish oils soon!

The Veg Box arrived, this week we have:

• Purple sprouting broccoli
• Beetroot
• Cauliflower
• Leeks
• Swede
• Celeriac
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions

My brain has started to think about what to with the veg, thats not good it should be thinking about my PhD!!!!

Keep on swimming . . .

Yet again, I sat in front of my laptop trying to get on with my thesis. At the moment I feel like Dory from Finding Nemo. Keep on swimming, keep on swimming. I have to finish this thesis in 6 months otherwise I don't get, sounds simple!

Anyway, the veg box arrived. This week we had:

• Celeriac
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Parsnips
• Cauliflower (don't tell Andrew!)
• Spring cabbage
• Leeks

Tonight we had a risotto, I haven't had one for ages. So I raided the freezer and found some chicken. So we had a risotto with leek, chicken, sweetcorn and cabbage.

I also pickled some beetroots which was left over from the box. I got the recipe from yet another blog, Fresh as a daisy. I made 3 jars, I will try and leave them to mature for about a week. Not sure that I can wait that long but I will try.

In the need of something comforting

The weather in Glasgow on Tuesday was awful. The normal for Glasgow really, wet and windy. As I was looking out of the window in the office at Uni, I decided I needed something comforting. So whilst on the way home, I bought some honey and mustard ham from Kember and Jones. Andrew was home before me so he started making some potato wedges. Yep, we had ham, egg and chips (well wedges). This dish reminds of the leftovers at Christmas. But it was just what was needed after a busy day.



I also started a batch of lime and lemon vodka, used this recipe from guntheranderson.com. It just uses the zest of 2 limes and 2 lemons, so I need to think of something to use the juice of the fruit. It should only take two weeks. We will taste it after 2 weeks and decide whether it will need some more time. Everytime I am in the kitchen I give it a good shake.




Wednesdays battle with thesis went much better this week. I started the 2nd chapter, as I needed to run a couple more samples before the 1st chapter is finished. In our veg box this week:

• Cauliflower
• Spring Cabbage
• Celeriac
• Swede
• Parsnips
• Potatoes
• Onions
• Carrots

I made soup from the vegbox recipes website for the rest of the week. Dinner was a ham and pea frittata after the boys getting back from climbing.

An easy weekend!

We have spent the last few weekends away from home or with people visiting us. So this weekend we decided to take it easy.

Andrew did some work on his thesis and I made some quick visits to the lab, just a couple of hours. Basically to check that the machines were working and to do a small amount of lab work. On Saturday I came back via Kember and Jones with some bread for a cheesey lunch. Normally we would have this kind of lunch with an nice English cider for example Westons or Dunkertons but we wanted to do some work afterwards. The cheeses were Cornish Yarg, Shropshire Blue, Arran Blue and Somerset Brie. With this lunch we had some fennel salami and hazelnut saucisson, also some homemade spicy apple and walnut chutney and Andrew's mum's spicy pickled onions. Yum, yum, yum. I may have a cheese addiction!


We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out, looking through our theses (or whatever the plural of thesis is!) and watching Britain winning lots of gold medals in the cycling. For dinner that night we had a beef stew made with Guinness, containing carrots, celery, parsnip and swede. We washed it down with Arran Sunset Ale.


Today I popped into the lab to check that everything was ticking over. Andrew continued to work on his thesis. I am wondering what we will do when we finish our PhD's they have been such a big part of our lives. I am sure that we will find something to fill the gap.I made lunch for the next couple of days, a vegetable broth containing swede, carrot, parsnip, cabbage and pearl barley. All I did was slowly fry the veg for 5 mins then added vegetable stock and pearl barley cooked for one and a half hour, adding the cabbage ten minutes from the end.

Dinner tonight was inspired by a blog I read regularly The Cottage Smallholder. Andrew and I try only eat meat that has not been subject to intense farming. We get the majority of ours from Farmers Markets. This means that we can't afford to eat meat everyday. I personally don't think that this its a bad thing. So I made Delia's (before she went to the dark side) vegetarian shepherd's pie. We didn't have the correct beans so we used a tin of pinto beans and also yellow split beans. It was still delicious. This was accompanied with an onion gravy and purple sprouting broccoli. The onion gravy comes from one of my favourite food writers and possibly one of my favourite cookery books. Its from Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. I love this book some much, when I got it for Christmas I read it cover to cover. Nigel writes so beautifully about food. Its a great book!


By the way we will be creating a separate blog for our climbing exploits, so this blog will be purely about our food.

Not quite there!

It was going so well until my laptop decided that it done enough on my thesis for one day. So it prceeded to stall and so I had to restart and all the joy that goes along with working on computers. I had finished all the wordy bits and just had to complete two figures, typical!!! The veg box arrived, this week its:

• Purple sprouting broccoli
• Cabbage
• Beetroot
• Swede
• Parsnips
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes

I know that Andrew will be pleased to see no cauliflower and also that we got some more PSB as promised to do a pasta dish with blue cheese and PSB. Bellfields must have read my mind cause there was a recipe for such a dish in the newsletter. I think I might steal a few things from it.

The first chapter is the hardest, is it?

Yesterday I continued to work on the same chapter of my thesis that I have been working on for quite a while. Its quite annoying that I haven't managed to finish it yet but hopefully I will finish it next week. So I can start a new one!

The box arrived, this week we got:

• leeks
• spring cabbage
• purple sprouting broccoli
• parsnips
• potatoes
• onions
• carrots
• swede
• cauliflower
  

To break up the chipping away at my first chapter, I made leek and potato soup for tomorrows lunch.

I met up with Andrew in Glasgow centre. We went to Two Fat Ladies for dinner, which was lovely. Its definitely one of my favourite restaurants in Glasgow. I always look forward to dessert as I know I will have the sticky toffee pudding, which never disappoints. We then went to see Dara O'Briain, who was very very funny. Even if he did mention the Scotland V England rugby score :(

Today I was in the lab for the morning and some of the afternoon. After seeing the lovely purple sprouting broccoli in the veg box, I decided to use it for dinner. So getting some inspiration from the newsletter with my box, I decided to incorporate it into pasta. So dinner tonight we had creamy tagliatelle with leeks, bacon and purple sprouting broccoli (PSB).

So I fried the bacon in a frying pan until crispy and brown. I then added one sliced leek. When the leek was soft I added some vermouth, some gruyere cheese and the leftover double cream from the soup I made yesterday. Meanwhile I cooked the pasta according to the instructions, adding the PBS for the last couple of minutes so it was just cooked. I put a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking water in the frying pan to loosen the sauce. Then drained the pasta and PSB, then added to the frying pan. I made sure the pasta was coated with sauce, and topped with some more gruyere and toasted pine nuts, yum yum.



I also made a bacon, cheese and pea frittata for Andrew's lunch as he is doing a lot of site work and apparently soup isn't compatible with site work!

Not such a successful day

My weekly routine of working from home on my thesis whilst waiting for the veg box has been working well until now. I had to go into the lab to start my instruments running. Then I came back to the flat, unfortunately I spent most of today doing work on other things! Which is quite annoying. I had a goal of having 2 chapters handed to my supervisor by the end of month. I don't think this is going to happen. So I have decided to work from home again tomorrow and try to make some progress on the current chapter.

The box arrived. This weeks contained:

• celery
• onions
• parsnips
• potatoes
• carrots
• swede
• kale
• spring cabbage
• leeks

I made bubble and squeak, as I got a jealous look from Andrew when he saw picture from last week.

I am really enjoying the regular delivery of vegetables. The only problem I have is the peelings. Andrew and I recycle everything that we can and take our own bags to the shops. But we have nowhere to put our peelings, of which there are lot! If we had a garden then of course they would go on a compost but we don't. I think that this may need some investigating. . .

Thesis Writing and Veg Box Delivery

We have been in Scotland for over 3 years. Andrew doing a PhD in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry in Edinburgh and I've been in Glasgow doing a PhD in Nutrition and Food Science. Last August, Andrew and I moved in together in Glasgow. Before that we had been spending our weekends in both cities. We have always enjoyed going to Edinburgh and Partick Farmers Markets. For a while now we have been buying the bulk of our veg from Bellfields Organics. The only problem with this was that the Partick Farmers Market is fortnightly. So we decided to get a weekly box from Bellfields. Last week was the first week.

Andrew got a job as an environmental consultant in January and has written the majority of his thesis. I am in my fourth year of my PhD and have till the end of September to finish my thesis. So I decided to work on my thesis at home on Wednesdays and be there for the delivery of the box.

So I am sat at the computer eating leek and potato soup with soda bread roll made last night. I have made some good progress with my chapter this morning. So I am enjoying my lunch break and thinking about what to cook with the veg that arrived this morning:

• Spring cabbage
• Beetroot
• Parsnips
• Onions
• Carrots
• Swede
• Celeriac
• Potatoes

Unfortunately, I should get back to my battle with Word . . .