Discovered some new dishes

 Been a bit bored with our repertoire of meals lately so have taken on the challenge of finding two new dishes. Especially as there is no eating out in sight and a long time to wait for talented daughters in law to visit and cook for me!

In the freezer we had about 8 lbs of green gooseberries (we also have sweet red gooseberries in abundance too) and were a bit fed up with crumble and sponge toppings. An old school friend runs a Facebook page of "Lockdown recipes" and I appealed for ideas. Someone suggested Gooseberry Fool which it turned out using Nigel Slater's recipe was quite simple.

Double cream whisked with sieved and sweetened gooseberry "pulp". My first was too runny and the second try, too stiff. Think I should be able to get right balance with the next carton of cream. I topped with whatever was lurking in cupboard - granola and honey or granola and mini marshmallows. As the fruit is free it cost caster sugar and cream - about £1.50 for 4 servings?

My next dish was savoury. We were watching a YouTube about live aboard sailing couple whose Chinese wife cooked fried egg rice in her very limited galley/kitchen facilities. (The Wildings).  My Husband said "that looks nice" and I thought I can do that! Checked a few recipe/cook sites on the WWW and it was a lot easier than I had always thought  and I developed a way to use up left over long grain rice and bits of mixed veg with 2 eggs for a protein content. Has made a couple of nice, very cheap, warm lunches.  I had dark soy sauce to hand and that added the taste but I think I will try to get some Oyster sauce recommended for the extra kick on one cooking blog I read.   No real cost beyond the 2 eggs (20p?) as rice and veg were all left overs or home produced (onion, garlic, carrots, etc).  I have stopped buying those pouches of ready made friend rice for a £1 each now I know how to do it!

Husband not doing too well with "Kung Flu" vaccine. He is running through all the side effects on the leaflet. Currently "holding down the settee" with the heating turned up and ignoring the snow (and sunshine) outside.