Mr Omneo Blogs…

Well, it’s funny about the coincidences we notice in life. While thinking that thought i also thought of how often coincidences must pass us by as we are too busy focusing on other things to notice them.

Observant readers will notice that i have entitled this blog ‘Free range pt2′ and that yesterdays was entitled ‘Free Range’ there is indeed a link there, allow me to explain. Whilst I was leaving work today I mentioned to my colleague, Smokey McPot, that i had blogged on the matter of Waitrose using free range eggs in the mayonnaise they use in their coleslaw. I knew Smokey would appreciate knowing this ‘ethical’ supplier of foodstuffs because he’s a veggie and wears veggie shoes and collects scraps to take to the recycling depot, or that could just be his excuse for sloping off a few times a week.

Anyway, mention of the blog was made and I arrived home to find a padded envelope awaited me, the franked mail label proclaimed it to have been sent from …”Free Range Records” What a funny coincidence I thought to myself and opened it up, inside was a copy of Free Range Records Colour Series: Red 03. At first I puzzled where it came from then I realised it was probably one I won it in a competition on Unknown FM it’s bloody good!

So, consider free range, good for chickens, good for your ears, good for you!

I’ve just sat down in front of the PC after raiding the fridge. I had a craving for food (what’s new?!) and so opened up a tub of Waitrose coleslaw. it was mighty tasty let me tell you! But as I was reading through the list of ingredients I noticed that the mayonnaise used in the coleslaw was made with free range eggs, how’s that for caring

In other news, it rained again today. HP kindly replaced my monitor, how jammy was I to have my monitor go on the blink with only 3 days left of my guarantee in place! It may not be a brand new one they replaced it with but it has a 90 warranty.

Looking forward to Donna coming down for the Editors gig, have to find something to do that is cheap for when shes here tho. With luck it’ll be sunny so we can sit in the garden and get drunk

After so much chatter about ‘the garden’ I thought it was about time I took some photos so people had an idea of what I’m talking about. From some of the comments I receive it’s obvious that some people think I have a garden the size of a football pitch, the reality is quite the opposite.

First a little background. The garden is shared with the upstairs neighbours, they have half and I have half. When I moved to the flat my half consisted of 2 rose bushes, a fuchsia and enough grass to keep a small goat entertained for the summer months. The neighbours have a small man made pond and have used old pallets as decking to have a nice area to sit out in, more-so because of overhanging trees. They asked me if I it was OK for them to use pallets as decking for part of my half of the garden and given I didn’t have to contribute any labour I said yes!

The End result was better than I expected. I had often discussed growing a few veggies and so they managed to deck half, add a water feature using an old zinc iron bath and leave me some soil to plant with. The growing I attempted last year when i grew potatoes, basil and mint.

This year i decided on red onions and I noticed 3 potato plants sprouting from last year so I thought I’d just add basil and garlic to join the already flourishing mint. As you know from previous entries. Cats have been using my soil as a toilet so I decided to use green plastic mesh to cover it, little did I know that when a cat wants to go, it’ll go!!

So here is the view from outside the kitchen door. The mint is growing in the bottom right of the photo, the fuchsia on the bottom middle is just starting to turn green after spending the winter disguised as a bundle of twigs. Notice my failed vodka tree nestling between them? I planted that bottle last year but sadly still nothing! And there you’ll see to the bottom left where a cat had a shit, right in the middle of the mesh?! You can also see the 3 potato sprouts at the top left of the soil patch, then hiding behind all that greenery (weeds!) lies the old metal batch with some plant life in there too and the the ‘decked’ area.

Now, here is the view of the neighbours half and my half. Notice the rose bush in my half and the overhanging trees in their half? I used to have a lot of trouble in my half with ivy from next door but thankfully they ripped up the trees last year, I wish i had pictures from when i moved in, it was a nightmare!! I picked up the bamboo lantern from B&Q and it’s nice in the summer as there is a bit of a barbecue in the neighbours half, built into the pond, so we sometimes sit out and citronella oil in the lantern keeps the mossies away (well i did sit out with the old neighbours, I assume the new ones will be just as social)

And finally here is the neighbours pond. If you look over to the left you’ll see the outline of a table. Bridgette made it by using mosaic tiles over an old cable reel. That’s where the little fire/barbecue are is. It’s more a fire area but with some metal grill it suddenly becomes a barbecue area! These three photos were taken on 10 May 2006

So, six days later and with the aid of some sunshine and some rain the garden is looking good. Here you can see where the red onions are sprouting and there on the right is one of the cats who visits the garden. I should explain that i do encourage the local stray cats to visit the garden as I usually leave a dish of fresh water or milk out and in the evenings usually leave out some fish for them, on the odd occasion one of the neighbours cats comes to scoff the lot!

Here the rose bushes are flourishing, I’ve already snipped a few off which brighten up the kitchen, even tho I use an empty milk bottle as my vase of choice!

Here two of the local cats have a little chat over whose food supply this is, I have to intervene and give both a lecture on how if they both share neither of them goes without and eventually they decided that it made sense. Notice it had just been raining.

I haven’t attached names to the marmalade/tabby moggy that you see sitting by the pond. She was a bit reluctant to the let the black and white cat, who i call Smudge, anywhere near the tuna I had put out, so I put some in a separate dish and she relented and let smudge eat from that one while she looked on, when he had finished she then resumed eating ‘her’ portion. By the way, I’ve never figured out the sex of the cats, I’ve just ascribed my own gender to them based on their attributes…

There has been a lot of talk about some of the things made in the omneo kitchen, one thing that seems to be popular is Mr Omneo’s World Famous Rhubarb and Cheese Pie. Why is it world famous I hear you ask? Well, because for one thing it’s not really a pie, it has no pastry lid, resembling more a flan or tart. Other than that, it’s not very famous at all but it is very tasty and as a colleague thought the last one I made was ‘store bought’ (heaven forbid!) I decided to take some photos along the way.

So, what actually goes into this ‘pie’? Well, rhubarb for one thing as well as some cheese! the exact ingredients are as follows:

Pastry to line a 9″ diameter cake tin

Rhubarb filling
300g rhubarb cut into 1″ chunks
75g sugar
3tablespoons of plain flour

Cheese filling
200g low fat cream cheese (usually 1 small pack)
150g sugar
1 medium sized egg

Now, for the pastry you can either buy pre-baked shells at the supermarket, Tesco, Sainsbury, Waitrose all sell them and they are an easy way to have pastry without the mess of making your own and let’s not even go there on how much quicker it is!

However, if you feel like making your own follow your favourite recipe and line your cake tin. Bake it blind for 15 mins at gas mark 4. Remove beans/peas and bake for a further 5 mins then remove from oven.

Here’s my pastry with the chick peas weighing it down. I use dried chick peas when I bake blind, you can buy baking beans if you want to spend money but even rice works well.

Here is the pastry without the blind filling

To make the cheese filling mix the cheese, egg and sugar in a bowl until you have a lump free liquid. Here’s what Mr Omneo made.

In a small pan, mix the rhubarb, sugar, flour and 1 tablespoon of water/pineapple juice/vodka/brandy/whatever liquid you like. Let this simmer in the pan for about 10-15mins or until the rhubarb is soft. Some like it cooked to a stringy pulp, others like it fairly firm so that its cooked more in the oven, the choice is yours. Mr Omneo favours mixing everything over a high heat until the sugar dissolves and the rhubarb starts to soften around the edges but is still fairly firm in the centre. This is what Mr Omneo’s mixture looked like

After that its simply a matter of adding the rhubarb filling into the pastry case, like so:-

Then pour over the cheese filling to give you something looking like this:-

Pop this into the oven at gas mark 4 for 30-40 mins. you should then have something looking a lot like this :-

It’s worrying, for two days now the sun has shone so brightly I’ve bravely left the house for work sporting a polo shirt and forsaking a jacket, so sure that I wouldn’t need it and touch wood (touches head) I’ve not needed it. Is this summer time approaching or is nature fooling us and suddenly at around 5pm when all the short sleeved shirt wearers leave the office the skies will suddenly darken and within seconds we will be soaked in a deluge?! Bah who cares? As long as it’s at the end of the day I don’t mind, i just need to get home, and change. What I detest is getting soaked on the way to work, then you have to spend the morning trying to dry out.

So, how about a garden update? The slugs have dispatched to slug heaven along with a few snails. A colleague brought me in an article which explained about some ‘natural’ cure for slugs, some tiny slug eating worms and it sounded good however the smallest pack was £15 and suitable for an area of garden 5 or 6 times the size of mine so I’ll stick with the £2.97 slug pellets! My new problem is the cats! Whilst I like having the local cats visit my garden, i usually have a dish of milk or scraps out for them, i do get more than a little annoyed when they decide to use the scrap of land i propose planting my crops in as a toilet. It seems that no sooner have I weeded it and raked it they pop along and shit in it. So, today I moved things along a bit.

A quick trip to the store founded by Mr Block and Mr Quayle and I returned home with some plastic mesh and some plant sticks. After raking and de-weeding I planted the red onion bulbs I purchased a week ago and then covered my beloved patch of soil with the mesh, i even covered the mint that is flourishing as well as the garlic that is just starting to sprout. Let’s see how the moggies like that!! Tomorrow when there is some daylight I shall photograph said beloved garden and let you all see just what it is I treasure (OK, perhaps treasure is too strong a word, but I like my little back yard haven)

Last night was tres bizarre, I called Jennifer in Fargo, ND and she didn’t want to speak to me!! The feeling of rejection was shocking so I called Julie in San Francisco and chatted to her as she left work and walked to the bar but that was all of 10mins before she said, “Hey, I have to go I’m at the bar” so much rejection so soon, what’s a guy to do? I went to sleep.

Tonight I’m not sure I’ll bother calling anyone, I can’t bear the thought of being told my entertaining conversation is not wanted. I need to find some desperate friends who are happy to be called by a wit such as myself!