Blow in the bag for freshness
The shed saga continues this week. If you remember I bought
a “buyer to dismantle” log cabin from Kill in County Kildare, painstakingly
dismantled it and am now in the process of putting the bits back together in
the back garden. I waver between bursting into tears and jumping around for joy
in admiration of my progress, depending on what stage I am at. I have spent
another seven days (10 hours days) working on it and tend to forget to eat and
drink, so when I am near to tears I know it’s time to stop for a rest. It’s
coming along but I do need to buy a new tongue and groove floor as I couldn’t
salvage the old one. It’s a hidden cost, along with a few new panels of wood
and thousands of nails and screws and decking planks for the ‘veranda’. It
could be bit of a money pit as I have spent a good 300 euro on replacement
bits. We had some guests come to visit the other day and although they liked
the new blot on the garden they did say that sheds such as this one are usually
given away free when the buyer has to dismantle it. Now why didn’t they come to
visit me before I had bought it? I keep telling myself that it will all be
worth it when it’s up and painted. Another week should see it ready for the
electricity to be wired up.
Family Party
We attended a big family party this week, just ten doors
down from us and we had lots of relations up for the weekend. The gazebo was
set up a couple of days before and all was well until the day of the party,
when the wind decided to pick up. These cheap gazebos aren’t meant for any type
of adverse weather conditions and when I say ‘adverse’ I mean a slight breeze
or a few spots of rain. For the first few hours of the party family members
stood by each of the corner poles to stop the white plastic cover lifting off
the ground and ending up in one of the neighbours gardens. Thankfully the wind
eased off and people could start talking to one another as opposed to waving
and smiling at each other from the four corners of the gazebo.
We did our bit for the party food by producing a wonderful
salad. I took full credit for the three large bowls of greenery but in reality,
barring the stronger leaves like rocket, basil, parsley and mustard, everything
else came from Lidl. There were some
trays of lettuce in the shop I have never seen for sale, it was the cut and
come again leaves and packaged like cress in so far as the roots were in soil
and they grew in their own containers. It was very presentable baby leaves and
I had no reservations for taking the credit. “It’s all about timing” I gleefully
commented, “planting the seeds 6 weeks before the party so the plants are at
their best”. There was a load left over
at the end of the night though, so maybe I will admit to it not being all my
home grown produce, most people went for the hot fish chowder (it was a cold
day).
Boiled Eggs
A couple of the bowls of lettuce were decorated with halved
hard boiled eggs. I don’t know about you but I think eggs are harder to peel
than they used to be when boiled, the membranes seem thinner. Maybe it’s just
me being impatient, especially as I had about thirty eggs to do. It was time to
do a bit of research and find the best method for removing shells. I found a
great video on YouTube where the bloke put the boiled eggs into a bowl of iced
water then showing us how the shell just falls off when cracked. He suggested
we left the eggs in the iced water for at least four hours before attempting
the peel. We left ours for ten minutes as time wasn’t on our side. Needless to
say it didn’t work and some of the eggs looked a bit battle scarred.
I did see another video (like you do) as I was looking for
the boiled egg top tip. It’s how to keep salad lasting longer. Get a plastic
bag, put the leaves in and then fill the bag up with your own breath. The
carbon dioxide keeps the food fresh all week. I tried it at the end of the
party to save some salad but for some reason it didn’t go down too well. I
think big companies use pure compressed Co2 in bottles and don’t get the
employees to breath into every bag of pre packed salad on the supermarket
shelves. Well that’s what my relations tell me.
