Bish bosh - lots of squash, some soup, a curry and a bit of a rant

I do love squash. Not the drink kind, but the veg kind. The foodie blogs are full of it at the moment - pumpkin, roast butternut squash - lots of soup. I love the way it grows in the garden sneaking its way across the veg patch, spreading leaves and tendrils all over the place. I remember reading a book called The Bongleweed by Helen Cresswell when I was a child about a plant that eventually takes over a village and wreaks havoc. Everytime I see a squash plant, it reminds me of this story.

The Husband didn't grow any pumpkins/squash on purpose this year (apart from the courgettes) so we were intrigued when triffid-like plants started appearing in the patch. What would result? Would it be edible? Squash do have a  habit of cross-pollinating (I am told) and producing interesting, but generally inedible,  offspring, so when these beauties appeared, well, we were all set to consign them to either the chickens or the compost heap.

 
I know they look a little like yellow courgette from the outside (albeit of marrow-like proportions), but the flesh is more like butternut squash. It's anyone's guess what crossed with what to produce them, but to our surprise, they are quite edible. We had 3 to start with, but one (over a kilo's worth) went into chutney, along with some of the green tomatoes and a whole load of windfalls from a friend, fairly early on. By the way, we were so disheartened by the green tomato problem (i.e. what to do with all of them) that we tried a tip that my mum passed on, and put them all in a drawer. And guess what - they ripened. Magic.

 
Anyway, the squash. So last week, after exhorting everyone to make nice simple leek and potato soup, and finishing my own vat of it, half of the next biggest one went into a squash and chorizo soup - I can't quite remember what went into it, except (you guessed it) squash and chorizo. I guess there was an onion, some celery, and veg stock, and after I'd bubbled it all to cook the veg, I took out some of the chunky veg before whizzing the rest up then putting the reserved bits back in. 

cheese & spring onion all melty in the middle,  honest!

It was very good on Saturday lunchtime, along with some quesadillas (toasted tortilla sarnies, which I make in a dry frying pan if you haven't come across them - the kids love 'em), but then I reverted to my soup making roots on Sunday and added the leftover veg from Sunday lunch (cabbage, carrots and leeks) plus some more stock and whizzed it all up again to keep me going through the beginning of the week. You see, you don't need a recipe or a clean pan to make soup.


So, 1.5 squash down, 1.5 to go. Now the Sunday lunch I mentioned earlier was a particularly gorgeous roast leg of lamb. The left overs have been in the fridge, alongside the 0.5 squash, since the weekend. Yesterday was a bit of a challenge in more ways than one, not least because after taking Blue for a routine check up at the hospital (he's 'horribly healthy' - apparently that is a medical term - such a relief) we discovered that we were stranded. No cabs to be found so we headed for the bus, but guess what -  no buses from hospital to town between 4.30 and 4.56 - which in turn meant we would miss the 5 p.m. bus from town to home, and have to wait till 5.30. For a 40 minute bus journey. And with Pink due out of Rainbows at 5.45. You do the maths. 


After raging incoherently - much to Blue's embarrasment and to no one who would admit to listening to me - about the lack of an integrated public transport system, and on the insanity of trying to live with only one car, enlightenment dawned and I threw myself on the mercy of my friend who had taken us to hospital after school in the first place. Her daughter was still in her swimming lesson so she came along and picked us up afterwards. I have some wonderful friends.

A quick meal was required, something that I didn't have to think about. I'd had to feed the beast that is Blue's stomach with a vastly over-priced toasted panini thing from Costa at the hospital, and Pink had been fed by a friend before Rainbows, but they were both still hungry, but also utterly exhausted, so I cooked them some pasta which they ate with grated cheese and chopped ham (I don't apologise - needs must), but what about for the Husband and I?

I'm not hugely good at using up cold lamb. It doesn't appeal to me for sandwiches, and the only recipe I've really taken to for it is a Rose Prince one called Cold Meat Pilaff where you basically cook it up with some cooked rice and spices, tomatoes and pine nuts. Very yummy but I wasn't in the mood, after all that raging. I needed something comforting. Then I remembered a random jar of Rendang Curry Paste that I'd bought on one of my rare trips to a supermarket. It's a Malaysian inspired curry paste, lemon grassy and lighter than some of the Indian curry pastes - more like a Thai curry paste. A quick forage through my impeccably arranged (not) cupboards later, to locate the paste and a can of coconut milk, a bit of chopping and bingo.

Lamb & Squash Rendang Curry

1 onion, chopped as you like
2 tablespoons Rendang Curry Paste (my jar was 185g and I used about half of it for 2 of us)
300g squash, peeled and cut into similar sized chunks to the lamb
1/2 can coconut milk (or thereabouts)
3-4 mushrooms, cut into chunks
4 tomatoes, quartered
350g cold cooked lamb, cut into bitesize chunks

Cooked rice to serve, and parsely/coriander to garnish if desired

Heat up some oil in a pan, add the onion and fry for a few minutes till softened. Add in the squash, stir in, then add a couple of tablesppons of rendang curry paste, and pour in about 1/3 can coconut milk. Bring to the boil and then simmer gently to cook the squash. Chuck in the chopped mushrooms and tomatoes after about 10 mins. When the squash is cooked, add in the lamb, stir through and then serve. 

You may or may not need to add in more coconut milk as you are cooking - keep an eye on the pan. I ended up using about 2/3 of it. If you have any curry and coconut milk left over, like I did, heat it all up the next day, add a bit of stock powder and a little water, bring to the boil whizz up and bingo - soup.

So two down, one more to go. Anyone got any suggestions? 

I'm adding this to the October Simple and In Season in the hope of getting some more inspiration. It's hosted by Franglais Kitchen this month, nad here's the link to Ren Behan's lovely Fabulicious Food blog

Is this what you meant, Cherie?

I don't just cook.

Last night, I commented on a blog about that speech Cherie Blair made. The one in which she “criticises career yummy-mummies” . I was mad as hell. I had to stop work because my son was diagnosed with leukaemia when he was 2 ½ . Does she consider me a bad example? Perhaps I should have spent the 3.5 years of his chemo and regular (scheduled and unscheduled) hospital admissions carrying on furthering my career to set him (and his sister, who was born 3 months into his treatment) a good example. May be I should have employed a nanny to do all the shit stuff with him, comfort him when he was sick and frightened? If she (Cherie) read this she’d say (may be) oh, well of course that’s exceptional – but I would argue that my reason for stopping work is no more valid than any of the many reasons any other woman gives (although why a reason is necessary) for working or staying at home (although granted, it’s slightly extreme).

I have been quietly stewing about this over night. Not working, or stepping back in a career while children are around, is a big decision. Some people take to it like a duck to water, for others it’s harder. That doesn’t mean that those who found the decision to stop work easy or straightforward were secretly plotting it all along. Pregnancy does funny things to you. It didn’t come easily to me, and although it was absolutely the right thing to do, I raged about it silently (and sometimes not so silently). It took me a long time to get life back on track – albeit that it is now a completely different track. Who is she, Cherie, to judge me for the choices I made – for the choices any woman makes – when it comes to how they bring up their children and manage their lives.

But I calmed down a little and re-read some of the articles again, and the point I wanted to come back to was this. One of the things that she highlighted was a culture where young women – those who perhaps are highly educated and have every advantage, but not necessarily limited to them  – are choosing to actively seek out marriage to the right sort of man (one who earns heaps of cash) with the sole aim of not having to work, and simply to bring up children (or, in fact, to be able to hire the right nanny to bring up the children while they ‘retire’) rather than even thinking about a ‘career’. I hope she wasn’t I don’t think she was necessarily talking about women who began their adult life pursuing a career, or working, because they were interested, passionate, single-mindedly focussed, wanted to change the world (or just a little part of it), but then for whatever reason – be it financial, lifestyle or other - chose to step back.  

Now, I have a friend who works in the sort of educational establishment where such breed of the former young women exist. Those wannabe ‘yummy mummies’. We’re not actually talking about a huge section of society, but those who are offered every educational advantage and are driven to achieving excellent exam results. They need these results to get to the right sort of university. Why? So that they will meet the right man –a rich man. And this is OK with their parents. It is kind of expected. After all, doesn’t a career make one frightfully dull? A little job’s OK for a while, something nice in publishing or the art world, but a career??  My friend has been advised of this by her pupils.

I appreciate that this is ‘hearsay evidence’ (get me, Cherie – I used to be a lawyer myself, once), but I can believe it. While I was slogging my guts out (some of the time) to get a good degree, so that I could have a high-flying career and save the world, I was aware of some of my peers who had this type of attitude. I can also see that for women in less-privileged circles, marriage to a rich man might seem like an easy route, and  something to pursue. The media does of course propound this. Look at how they venerate the Middleton sisters  – but if you choose to believe some of the nastier comments made about them, they are just such a type: boarding school, the ‘right’ university, a stint at Jigsaw (I believe it was, Kate?), marking time in her parent’s business until she bagged a rich guy...  but I don’t want to get into a bitch about her. It’s not just the Middleton Sisters though. Look at the WAGS. I try not to, so I will probably say something uninformed and be shot down in flames, but my impression is that they are never ever really portrayed as doing anything other than being out to bag a rich guy, and yes, girls, you too can do this if you look like a carbon copy: Be thin! Be tanned! Wear the right clothes! Be vacuous! It’s the continued peddling of this sort of nonsense in the media that encourages this attitude at all levels in society. How are career women portrayed? Do you need me to remind you?

If this is what Cherie is railing against, then I agree that this is an enormous waste. It is a waste that  education will never be put to any use in the world, and it is a crying shame that these girls will not necessarily develop the resources to fall back on should they find themselves on their own.  I’m not talking financial, but the kind of inner resources you need to survive these days. It is also a shame that many will not even concentrate on their education because they believe that it is possible to marry a rich man/footballer and everything will be fine - and I think this applies across the board, not just the rich girls. If you are not committed to what you are doing because the end game is not to work, you are unlikely to reap the benefit of all the experiences (bad as well as good) that come from your working life. If it’s all a bit of a game, a time-filler between parties and suitable social engagements, you may not develop the inner resources to fall back on when times are tough. And you do need them. You never know what life is going to throw at you. My experiences at work helped me enormously when I was navigating the minefield that surrounded my son’s illness, Not the treatment itself, but how to deal with consultants, various agencies, pre-school and then school – to make sure he was properly cared for in the widest sense of the word.

However, Cherie, if you read this, please bear this in mind: If you are criticising women who choose to stay at home with their children, or to take a step back, having begun a career; those, like me who started out with thoughts OTHER than marriage on their mind, then my earlier comment stands. Women who have committed to work and then step back for a time, have a huge amount to offer to their children. They know about work and about the work ethic, and can share this with their children. They can (as they get older) talk to them about what they did and the choices they had to make. They can keep their skills going by volunteering - I used my skills to run the voluntary parent committee of our local pre-school for a couple of years – and can gain new skills. Can you imagine all the things that would fall apart without these women to offer their support? My experience currently is that more and more women are going back to work out of necessity and it’s noticeable that those voluntary groups that do amazing things but rely on volunteers, are suffering.  This is all part of setting a good example to your kids. Please don’t forget that.