Not quite so lazy weekend

I'm not sleeping too well at the moment, which means if I get the chance (like at the weekend), I'm sleeping a bit later in the morning.  The rain continued all day yesterday so I knew not much would be happening in the garden.  I did need to go there though to return a book to somebody.  First I went to the market to pick up the suet I had ordered - not there for the second week running.  I have to ring the farmer in the middle of the week to remind them to put it aside for me.  I bought some beets so that I can make some of these brownies, got some hazelnuts to make honeyed hazels and a couple of sausages to put into a bean casserole this week.  Then I dropped a pair of trousers off to be repaired and headed to the garden.  There were, as expected, only a couple of people there, having a coffee and a chat rather than really doing much work.  I hung around there for an hour or two and was happy to take a few leeks home with me then and took a small red cabbage as well (need to start expanding my range of 'kohl' recipes - let's face it, in this climate eating locally in winter means eating a lot of things from the cabbage family!).  But then before leaving one guy went out to pick up windfalls so I ended up also bringing home a bag full of them.  Will have to try and find time to do something with them too.  I get my dehydrator back from the person I loaned it to tomorrow so will have to put that back in action.  And I want to give the chili apple cheese mentioned here a try too.

After getting back from the garden all I wanted to do was soak in a hot bath and get some of the cold, clammy, wet feeling out of my feet but before I did that I decided to put another wash on, then I hung up the washing that was done, swept the floors, washed the floors, cleaned the bathroom and after all that decided a shower was all I had time for before heading out to film club.

This morning I slept late enough then got up, hung up the rest of the washing, thought about doing the washing up and went to work instead. Only intended to stay for an hour or two but got stuck in to clearing out my to-do tray, which was mostly full of already done stuff just waiting to be filed properly. So I didn’t actually get the two things done that I wanted to but it’s a huge relief to have done what I did because it means I’m sure that there isn’t something lurking at the bottom of the pile that I should have done and forgot about. Never mind the fact that it took me closer to six hours either. I have a nice tidy to-do list ready for tomorrow so that’s something anyway.

I ate an apple on the way home but since all I’d had all day apart from that was a käsebrötchen, a few kinder schokobons and spicy peanuts (very healthy I know) I was pretty hungry. But I had bought a couple of bread rolls this morning on the way into work and so didn’t let myself just stop somewhere and pick up a pizza or chips or anything and came straight home. Took the cheese out of the fridge and then decided to just do the washing up before I ate. So now that’s done, I put the beets on to boil, sat down to have some bread, cheese, turkey salami, chutney and a beer.  That was about two hours ago, I've been reading blogs and catching up on emails so now I have to get up and make some brownies.  And chop up the beet leaves to add to the onions and tomatoes I'm also going to use to make a sauce for pasta.  And cook some pasta.  Then put all of it into tupperware for lunches this week.  And it's nearly half-nine.  I must be mad.

Edited to add a couple of photos.  It's eleven o'clock now but as well as cooking I also spent 20 minutes on the phone to a friend who phoned and have done almost all the washing up. 

Sauteed onions, garlic and the stalks from the beets.  Added the three tomatoes from the garden and a tin of tomatoes with some pepper and herby salt.  Then added the rest of the beet green and have covered the pan and turned the heat off.  The residual heat with be more than enough to steam the greens.  I cooked some pasta in my tupperware poacher while all that was being prepared so I'm all set for lunch tomorrow.

The brownies were incredibly easy to put together.  They're supposed to go into a 20x25 cm baking tray but I just used my flower shaped tupperware, which is 23 cm across so close enough.  Looks good and smells good.  And I have two boiled beetroots leftover - I may make another half batch tomorrow :)