Currently cooking...

is one of the half legs of jabalí from last weekend.  Alongside that are chunks of calabaza from Paco which he gave us last week.  Actually I did a swop with him for a bag of strawberry plants, we'd heard his tractor working so I said to John I'll go up and ask  if he'd like the plants in return for a calabaza.  He said most of the ones he  had left were quite small but take what  I needed, so I had 2 small ones.  About an hour later his elderly mother came trotting down the road in her slippers (as is normal,  they actually sell slippers for the house or campo)   and she had 2 more much larger calabaza tucked under her arm for us.

Ready to cook later is a pan of kale which has escaped the beady eyes of the butterflies and subsequent caterpillars and the leaves are also totally free of whatever the grey fly thing is.  And not a netted cage round any of it either!    Whereas the brussel plants are going to be a total write-off - completely infested with bugs.

And for  even later,  there will be an apricot upside down cake.  Don't remember buying apricots or being given them,  but there are two boxes in the freezer labelled 'halved, stoned, sugared',  but not dated....     

The nice thing about an upside down cake is that I can cook it in the microwave when we need it.  Ok, so it has a pale top,  but as that then becomes the bottom it doesn't show,  also we don't need to leave the oven on, and anyway  we are usually too full straight after  the main course to eat a pudding.  First we feed the dogs, do the washing up, take them for a walk and then have our pudding.

Tomorrow we are going to have jabalí again as yesterday when I was rearranging the meat in the freezer some got left out by mistake.  Only the fillets,  they are quite small compared to the pork fillets we buy, these weigh about 200 grams each.  Perhaps I've been watching too much Masterchef recently, but I'm going to make 'beef' Wellington.  Or should that be jabalí Wellington? 

And talking of wellingtons, (what a link!!!)  my much worn and loved welly boots have sprung a leak!   I know they've been around a long time and today have found photos of me wearing them at Malham Cove back in 1988.  I wonder if Hunter Wellies will give me a replacement pair after all this time...

And as a footnote - sorry, couldn't resist that -  jabalí is almost a cross of lamb and beef as far as taste goes.  If it's roasted, served with mustard,  horseradish sauce and yorkshire pudding as we did tonight,  you'd be forgiven for thinking that you'd eaten beef.  And if it's roasted with garlic and rosemary then served with mint sauce or mint jelly you'd think you were eating lamb.  But certainly not pork.  It's a dark and slightly gamey meat,  nothing like the pale colour of pork.   Also an excellent substitute for steak in pies and casseroles and what makes it even more attractive is that it's free!