Written by Christer.

A rather nice day.

The rain is pouring down and all it took to make it start was my neighbour going outside working on their cottage 🙂 🙂 We did have some sunshine during the early day but clouds arrived pretty early and we had some drizzle as worst. Ten minutes in on him going outside and the rain started to pour down 🙂 🙂

I noticed some gaps in the cloud cover after we’ve had our breakfast so I felt it best to go outside on our morning walk as soon as possible. The rains were predicted for arriving around 8 am and I do like some sunshine while we’re outside. It had rained during the night so I wasn’t surprised that the wild life camera didn’t have any photos of Doris the badger. It did have a few of the dogs and the Monster though 🙂

We hadn’t walked far when I noticed that the Monster followed us and she kept us company the entire walk. She only complained twice and that was because she took a detour and thought we had left her behind when she couldn’t see us.

I’ve done all my chores, baked bread, two rounds of laundry and made the tomato sauce. I picked way too many tomatoes so I’ll have to have sliced tomatoes with everything I’ll be eating for a long time 🙂 I also added some purple bell peppers and leeks from my vegetable garden. I filled up my slow cooker as much as I could and kept it boiling for over 4 hours. I added some spices and herbs fifteen minutes before I stopped it all. Someone said on the radio that at least herbs should be added that late because after fifteen minutes they just don’t give any more taste. I have no idea if that’s true but I did that anyway.

The day has been really nice even though two moose flies landed on my hoodie when we were out in the forest. Those two are no more 🙂 I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and it would have been nice to have some digestives and blue cheese with it. I do have some blue cheese but it’s not the same on hard bread or even the newly baked French rolls. Well I do have a few meatballs and that goes well with blue cheese and I think I even might have two sausages as well, I could slice those and add them to it 🙂

Have a great day!

7 thoughts on “A rather nice day.”

  1. Your sauce looks nice and chunky. You could probably spread it on bread and eat it that way as a meal.

    I’ve heard the same thing about adding spices late, and I think that’s true if it’s a weak flavor that might cook away. I would do this with dill, for example, which I usually sprinkle on at the end.

    But I know the Italians in my family added their strong spices like garlic, onion, and oregano at the beginning of cooking and the flavors stayed.

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    1. Hi catsworking!

      It looks like one could spread it but the truth is that I probably should have boiled away more water. It tastes nice so it will be great to have when I need it. I have loads more tomatoes so I’ll most likely make more already this weekend.

      I rarely use dill but my grandmother loved it 🙂 As I remember she put it in already from the beginning. She was a big fan of Italian food so I think she did the same as the Italians 🙂

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  2. Yes that is true about fresh herbs in the slow cooker. It’s also true, to some extent, about peppercorns or fresh ground pepper but for a different reason. Pepper gets bitter when it sits around in the slow cooker for hours and hours. 

    I hate when rain lies in wait for for us to decide to do something outside and then opens the flood gates just after we’ve started.

    My last cat, also named Monster, used to go on walks with my old dog Tegan and me. Mostly it was because we were going his way and he’d accompany us until he got to his stop and then he’d disappear on his own business. Sometimes he’d actually go all the way with us and then come in the house and sleep.

    Back to Fennscandia. The Swedish Mountains and the Appalachian mountains used to be part of the Pangean mountain range before Pangea broke up. But there’s all kinds of patchwork going on underneath us. I think my house is on a bit that used to be part of Poland. The eastern coast of America was formed by bits of the broken continent washing up like waves and attaching to North America. I saw a map that showed where all the bits in my state of Massachusetts came from and it looked just like a patchwork quilt.

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    1. Hi Caryn!

      I didn’t know that about peppercorns, good to know!Also I mostly used dried herbs this time but still added them at the end, sort of made taste test rather boring 🙂 🙂 I let it stand for 24 hours and the taste had grown considerable and it will work well the day I need it 🙂

      It’s so typical 🙂 It just waits and waits and then all of it comes at once 🙂 🙂

      If the Monster (good name 🙂 ) decides to come she follows the entire way. We have however been joined by her on our way back so she must be out checking the forest on her own as well now days 🙂

      It is fun to learn about these things 🙂 I have a map that shows what parts of the mountains used to be the same mountain range, so even the Scottish mountains were a part of it. I think that all of Sweden never was anything more than what it is now, no interesting maps showing that here I’m afraid 🙂

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