New Favourite Pasta sauce

When we decided to move into town we knew we wouldn't be able to grow much food this year but I thought I could take advantage of the cheap veg offers in Aldi and Asda. The first week I shopped at Asda they had a selection of things for 39p(I think) but next time that offer had disappeared.There's been no sign of their wonky veg boxes either. Aldi's weekly offer is 6 different things for 59p each but if you look at their other veg some is less than 59p anyway. No help at all. But across the road from Aldi is a old fashioned greengrocers and they have a board out the front with special offers at 29p each!
Which brings me onto my title, because with the board announcing Aubergines for 29p I had to make this


Aubergine and Tomato Pasta Sauce.( 3 Large portions or 4 normal)
1 Aubergine chunked
1 Onion - chopped
1 tin of plum tomatoes
Good squirt of Tomato Puree
2 teaspoons brown sugar
A little hot water
Black Pepper

Soften the onion in a little sunflower/rapeseed/olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the aubergine and cook and stir for a few minutes. Add the tinned tomatoes, squirt the tomato puree into the empty can add third/half a tin of hot water, swish around and add to the pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar and mix in, cover and turn down the heat and leave to cook for about 15 - 20 minutes stirring regularly. Add the ground black pepper and serve with pasta (preferably tagliatelle).You could grate a little strong cheese over the top for extra calories and have some crusty bread or my Tomato and Herb rolls to mop up the juices.

Col's taste-buds and appetite haven't been too bad after this last chemo session ( So Far!) and he really enjoyed this. What he is suffering with is a really awful cold and cough and I've had it too but not quite so bad and everywhere you go around about there seems to be people coughing. He was up at hospital today for the regular blood test and review and most of the results were OK but the doctor doubled his antibiotic dose which he has to take for a week starting 5 days after chemo. He is going back for another blood test on Thursday and a blood infusion on Friday.
We both need to get well by the weekend as our eldest and husband are in Suffolk - their first visit since before Christmas. I have a nice bag of pressies for "bump" and after seeing the jumble sale treasures on my post the other day she said she thought "bump" was going to enjoy visiting Nana Sue and Grandad Colin.
I also want it to warm up a bit as our son had the idea that we might all go and visit the family beach hut and it's been so B***** cold yesterday and today that the idea doesn't seem very appealing!


Big Suffolk welcome to 2 new followers - Jennifer and Judy, hope you enjoy reading.
Thanks to everyone for comments last time

Back Soon
Sue

Nana Sue (to be) went.....................

.......................to a jumble sale.

She walked down the road and round the corner and paid 20p to get into the Scout hall.
Then she spent £6 and came home with all these treasures

And Grandad Colin (to be) said "where the heck are we going to put them? we've only got a teeny bungalow".
But it was OK because most will be given away to the two mums (to be). Except for that brilliant Fisher Price bouncer chair, with a kicky/fiddly play thing attached and that lovely wooden caterpillar and the books which will have to stay here for small visitors (and the one grown up chick lit book).

 What bargains!

Back Soon
Sue

PS. The beach hut was a bit more than £6! but a lot less than Southwold or the South Coast and I can't think of a better way for us to spend time while Col is getting better. The sound of the sea is very restorative I reckon and what a brilliant place it will be for our future grandchildren.

The view from a shed

I just bought a shed

   Not any old shed

    But a wooden shed by the sea

   Otherwise known as a Beach Hut

I am very

Here is the view

It was a bit chilly today

Back when I've warmed up

Sue

Into the second half of April

Something no-one told me about in this Coping with Non Hodgkin Lymphoma thing is how weird it is to live with someone who is eating all the time. Col was  packing in as many calories as he could for the last 10 days because he knows that after chemo cycle 5 he will feel really ill again. He has lost over a stone in weight since January so he's trying not to lose more. He's been eating big meals and grazing in between.
Anyway, he was called in for the 5th cycle on Monday night, they were planning to give blood transfusions Tuesday but decided he didn't need any, then today they inserted a filter thingy into a vein (the thought makes me feel quite peculiar!) to prevent any movement of blood clots into the lungs(or worse), they will get on with chemo tomorrow and let him out Friday. This 5th lot is the short dose but with the nastier side effects.

Just finished this book, another mentioned somewhere (?) on a blog. The first 3/4 of the book was well written, but when the author gets towards the end, the story breaks in a gallop and gets a bit silly.

 

 This is what Amazon says about this debut novel

London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest minds in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street. Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for code-breaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never have imagined-and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Rooms also exposes Maggie to the machinations of a menacing faction determined to do whatever it takes to change the course of history.
Ensnared in a web of spies, murder, and intrigue, Maggie must work quickly to balance her duty to King and Country with her chances for survival. And when she unravels a mystery that points toward her own family's hidden secrets, she'll discover that her quick wits are all that stand between an assassin's murderous plan and Churchill himself.
In this thrilling debut, Susan Elia MacNeal blends meticulous research on the era, psychological insight into Winston Churchill, and the creation of a riveting main character, Maggie Hope, into a beautifully crafted mystery.

There are now 5 books featuring this character, with the 6th due later this year. Decided it was worth another go so I've ordered the 2nd from the library.

This morning after I'd huffed and puffed and shifted my paper storage drawers into the bedroom from the garage, I made a few cards for up-coming birthdays. I've had the paper flowers and leaves for years so it's good to see them used.

After lunch I went in to see Col and take him some more books. I've found I am the most hopeless hospital visitor because after 5 minutes in the ward I start yawning and after an hour I'm keen to get home again. I guess after nearly 37 years of marriage Col knows what I'm like and he never wants me to visit more than once a day - Thank heavens! ( I know that sounds awful- but I am nothing but honest!).
When I got home I was able to spend an hour sitting in the shed/summerhouse, out of the wind but in the sun, it's lovely to soak up a bit of warmth especially as the weather lady said we would be back to really cold weather by the weekend.

The latest Persephone Biannually arrived yesterday. I love to find out what out-of-print books they are planning to republish and was interested to read about one of the October books which is "Long Live Great Bardfield: The autobiography of Tirzah Garwood". I know absolutely nothing about this lady except it says she was married to the artist Eric Ravilious, but Great Bardfield is the next village to Finchingfield in Essex, where our friends live, so just for that reason I shall add it to my wish list.
One of the books our son gave me for my birthday was The Persephone Book of Short Stories, another to add to my Persephone collection -  wonder which box they are in?

Many thanks for the Happy Birthday wishes, although I said I groan about another birthday I don't really feel any older and I'm sure I'm still 25 inside!

Back Soon
Sue

Poor Old Woman

I was another year older on Saturday  *Groan*.

Eldest daughter jazzed up last years wedding photo and shared all round Facebook! Dear Child! She said Mum doesn't do Facebook so won't see it but of course I saw it on Col's Facebook page. I've tried to make this pic much smaller but it won't let me - damn.

I don't often look at my Facebook page but came across someone I hadn't seen since before we moved to Knodishall in 1992. He is the Dad of some children (friends of our eldest 2) I looked after as a childminder - after school and school holidays. But I knew him from way back when I was about 14 or 15. I was very keen on him but he couldn't stand me(Story of my life!). He is perhaps a year or two older than me but now looks MUCH older!
He He He!


For my birthday youngest daughter gave us a garden voucher as she didn't get Col anything for his birthday in March. Eldest daughter also gave me a garden voucher. So I'm thinking a fruit tree or two.Son gave me books from my wish list ( good old Amazon). Friends came up to see us and the teeny bungalow, we'd not seen them since December so there was plenty to chat about. To celebrate my 61st birthday on Saturday and friend A's 51st birthday on Friday we went out to a carvery. A good plate full of veg and some lovely tender pork and beef. The desserts looked SO delicious but we were all full up and anyway I had the chocolate cake waiting at home - which was actually pretty good for a shop cake.

You know all the hassles we had with changes to moving dates? Well my sister and brother-in-law have been surviving through exactly the same experience in their efforts to move back to Suffolk after a few years in Norfolk. They found a buyer for their house very quickly and found somewhere to buy where the owners were going abroad - so no onward chain, but the dates kept changing, from late March to early April, then the 15th April but still no exchange. They kept getting promised progress but nothing actually happening.Eventually they found that a solicitor working for the buyers at the bottom of the chain was very slow. He was an internet solicitor so no office to go into for anyone to find out what was happening, I guess probably cheaper for the people using him but I think I preferred to have a "real" person in a real office to visit and nag!

Col broke a filling early last week and rather than try and find a dentist locally he rang his dentist back in Saxmundham, explained that he needed to be fitted in quickly due to going back into hospital for chemo and went on Friday afternoon, when he said he was on ESA they did it for free - good news- although I'm not sure he should have qualified - we will see.
More good news- remember the small fridge with an ice box that came with the house, well we sold it on eBay for £42. We agreed to keep it here until the buyer can collect in a couple of weeks.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes.
Back Soon
Sue

It's all very well................................

......................................living just 10 minutes walk away from an Aldi, BUT the housekeeping money is zooming out of the purse much faster than it ever has before!

I even bought myself a birthday cake!! I've never done that before. Tut.Tut.

 Must get back in baking mode ASAP........ what with fancy food and charity shop baby stuff, I shall bankrupt us in no time!

Back Very Soon
Sue

Missing.................

or to be more accurate ..............in a box somewhere in the shed

My large cream metal colander
A chopping board
A pile of new tea-towels and  new oven glove
Stainless steel meat carving plate with spikes
and lots of other things that I haven't missed.............yet.


 I've just finished the latest Tracy Chevalier - The Edge of the Orchard. I've read most of her books and I like the way they take a real person from history and weave a story around them. The real person in this book is Johnny 'Appleseed' Chapman who took apple trees and seeds all round the States.
This is the summary from the library website.

What happens when you can't run any further from your past? Ohio, 1838. James and Sadie Goodenough have settled in the Black Swamp, planting apple trees to claim the land as their own. Life is harsh in the swamp, and as fever picks off their children, husband and wife take solace in separate comforts. James patiently grows his sweet-tasting 'eaters' while Sadie gets drunk on applejack made fresh from 'spitters'. Their fighting takes its toll on all of the Goodenoughs - a battle that will resonate over the years and across America. Fifteen years later their youngest son, Robert, is drifting through Goldrush California. Haunted by the broken family he fled years earlier, memories stick to him where mud once did. When he finds steady work for a plant collector, peace seems finally to be within reach. But the past is never really past.

My rating - A Good Book

I've just heard on the news that we have to limit our intake of Dolmio pasta sauces to once a week, that should be simple here as they are something I never buy. A Pasta sauce made from a tin of tomatoes, a chopped onion, some tomato puree, a little brown sugar and some seasonings must be one of the easiest things to make. Vary it by adding in some chopped veg - aubergine for instance-  make a big batch and pop in the freezer.
Simple.

Oh Goody, the countdown to the EU referendum starts today. Odd really as I seem to have heard quite a lot about it already! Are you like me.............the more I'm told what I ought to do the less likely I am to do it.

Thanks for all the comments

Back Soon
Sue