Day 61/6 Déconfinement - Lettuce make Lunch

Saturday 16 May 2020

Food from the garden: radishes and the first lettuce.   I have to thin out both.

But back to lunch and evening meal..... Food glorious food.
The fridge/ freezer has gone for repair.   Fortunately, I didn't have much in it when DARTY took it on Wednesday. and left me a smelly but clean one that even when the doors were left open for 18 hrs one day and again the next day after cleaning with vinegar, is UNsuitable for storing food.  Smelly!

Deciding on what to eat for lunch I planned ahead to eat the last of the white naff bread rolls. Imagine a flower shaped loaf with 5 or 6 rolls attached to an inner one.  The shape was what attracted me!
I tried a different boulangerie last Saturday.   Their patisseries are to die for,  but their bread is naff.   I must eat the last one from the freezer even though the white flour isn't good for my digestive system.  Warmed for a few seconds in the microwave,  ladled with butter before adding beetroot to one half and half a tin of salmon pate from Lidl (small sized cans ideal for picnics) on the other half and folded together.  Eaten with a lettuce of about 7 leaves and radishes from the garden it was FINE FARE indeed with a cup of girly grey black tea.  Excellent lunch!

Then the daisy 'lawn' took 2.5 hrs to mow, walking back and forth, collecting cuttings. Normally these go onto the roses and lavender stretch,  BUT I must weed this 25 x 1.5 m bed to plant butternut and pumpkins in the gaps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   So it's piled onto plastic until I decide what to do with it!!!!!!

For the evening meal I planned ahead & took from the freezer the last half of chicken breast bought at the meat van about ten days ago.  Cost 2.50 euros perhalf of one breast.. but better value than the discounted ones i found at Super U where four small ones equated to this.

I mashed steamed in water white sweet potato and parsnip which was cooked yesterday and not eaten,  added butter, sage and thyme whilst reheating it, then added sautéed and steamed rescued parts of a large tomato which did not like being out of the fridge.  

A red pepper was sliced and cooked on the griddle pan. for the charred look / chicken garlic and shallot were cooked in the iron frying pan. 

Assemble.

Silly me made a mistake and opened one of my three Gratien & Meyer Saumur Champigny 2017 bottles that I bought from the chateau when I attended a seminar there!   VERY, VERY NICE!!!!!!!!

What can be finer in a continued sort of LOCKDOWN than dining out al fresco in my courtyard for lunch and evening meal in temperatures about 20C....

Fine dining indeed!!!!! That wall could do with a scrub! 

I am told Poitiers shops are open..... & evidently this village has tourists ... thank goodness they don't come up here as yet!
However, I noted this early afternoon that 6 motor bikes in one cavalcade passed by and 4 in another where one guy waved to me!  I lile to occasionally stand by my gate ...'cos that's what old ladies can do!
We shall soon be back to normal I guess with French residents from within 100km distance wondering where to go to ...  and deciding here would be rather nice. IT IS!!!!!!