No Prizes

Mooching around the remote southerly village of Kattavia recently, snapped the one above. That's about it for that one.

•

The next three photos mark a milestone in my efforts to become a 'new man.' When I was in the UK last July, my brother-in-law (my wife's brother), with whom I stayed, showed me how to cook what the recipe book called 'One Pot Spaghetti.' It looked so easy that I had no excuse but to say, "OK I'll surprise my beloved by offering to cook the dinner one evening when I get home."

It took me until now because, and it's a genuine excuse, we needed spinach and cherry tomatoes, both of which have only just become available, and we make it our policy to try and eat everything in season, and thus avoid having to recycle unnecessary packaging, because the produce is all fresh, and thus we don't take home tons of cardboard and polystyrene from the stores. Oh, I feel sooo virtuous sometimes.

Anyway, once you've got your ingredients ready, it only takes 15 minutes to create a truly amazing and tasty pasta meal, which can be vegan if you use vegan cheese, but I'm afraid we're nuts about Parmesan (or we often use the Greek equivalents, like Graviera or Kefalotyri), so it'll just have to be vegetarian, OK?

The photo below truly delights and amazes me, because that baby spinach in the foreground is straight from our newly created raised veggie beds. I planted it as seeds a few weeks back and look at it now. Nature is truly miraculous. Who wouldn't want it to rain, eh?

OK, not quite Jamie Oliver, but not a sight you'll see very often. The other person in my household was one happy bunny that evening I can tell you.

 Basically, it's cherry tomatoes, spinach, the zest of lemons, olive oil, sea salt and spaghetti. It all goes in together and comes out like this...

...topped with strong cheese, grated, of course.

All we needed now was to taste it. I was hoping desperately that it was going to turn out as it had at my brother-in-law's house. Guess what, it did. Boy did I score some points that evening, chaps!

If you want to give it a go, here's the recipe, if you can make it out...

And, finally, the next two photos (taken this very morning) ably demonstrate what time of year we're in now. No prizes for guessing that we're well and truly into winter mode, and it's great. Days spent logging and chainsawing are not only excellent exercise, but they're just a very 'good craic,' as my Irish friends would say.

Hmm, yes, it may just be winter!!