Home Grown

This may not look very exciting but it really, really is. This is a lovely big bunch of spinach, which happens to be the first thing that we're eating out of our garden! It turns out that in addition to being quite strict with the plants, Rocco is also a bit sneaky and secretly planted spinach in one of our flower beds. I noticed the similarity to the spinach in his garden, so I didn't weed it out and the whole story came out today when I asked his opinion on whether our leafy things were edible.

And they are ever so edible when put into Turkish style baked eggs, which is what I had for dinner. The original recipe used rocket instead of spinach, but I like spinach better. Also, we now have a bunch of it growing for free in our back yard, so we're going to be eating a lot more of it. That said, I think you could probably make this with any cookable leafy green.

Baked Eggs with Yogurt and Chilli

300g spinach (or one bag of pre-washed)
4 eggs
150g plain yogurt
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
50g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp kirmizi biber (or chilli flakes mixed with paprika)
6 sage leaves, shredded (or a good shake of dried sage)

Pre-heat oven to 300F/150F. Wash the spinach and cook in pan over medium heat for 5-10 minutes - the water from rinsing should be enough to cook it in.

Transfer the spinach to a small, ovenproof dish and make four indentations in it. Carefully break an egg into each crater, taking care not to break the yolk. Place in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the egg whites set.

While the eggs are in the oven, mix together the yogurt and garlic along with a pinch of salt. Set aside - but do not chill.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan, add the kirmizi biber and fry for a minute or two or until the butter foams and turns a nice golden-red. Add the sage and cook for a few more seconds, then remove from the heat.

Once the eggs are done, take the dish out of the oven. Spoon the yogurt mix over the centre and pour the hot chilli butter over the yogurt and eggs. Serve piping hot.

This makes a nice brunch item but I feel it isn't quite enough to go it alone. It needs accompaniment, by big mugs of tea or hot chocolate(!), fat slabs of toasted granary bread, a big bowl of oatmeal or muesli, and maybe some nice sausages. Or whatever you have for breakfast. That sounds really good to me and now I want to have breakfast for dinner - except that I've already had dinner. Oh well. A big mug of hot chocolate will be a pretty good dessert.

Battle of the Bins

We live in a terrace house divided into three flats. We own and live in Flat A, which is the ground floor, the basement and back garden. Flat B, on the first floor (2nd floor to readers in the US), is vacant. Flat C, on the 2nd and 3rd floors, is rented by three girls. We have never formally met them, but in the past few months they have become an increasing part of our lives. Some of the reasons include:

- We have been awakened several nights by loud noises. Specifically, the noises of several people staggering up the front walk, banging the front door open and closed, then slowly making their way up the stairs while shouting drunkenly at each other. This normally happens between 3 and 5 in the morning. It's been a total of 5 times over the past few months and each time I vow that the next time I will get up and yell at them. And next time I very well might.

- Also, they never shut the front gate, which I think makes the front of the house look sloppy.

- Someone keeps throwing cigarette butts from their terrace into our garden. This doesn't happen that often, so I think it must be visitors rather than the girls themselves, but if their friends behave this way, it certainly speaks ill of them.

- They do not recycle. The house has four large recycling bins out front provided by the Council, but we are the only people who use them. This would be a bit of eco-self righteousness except that we find that recycling drastically reduces the amount we throw away, whereas...

- They fill up all the bins so we don't have room for our garbage! The Council provides recycling bins, but not rubbish bins, so residents have to supply their own. When we moved in, there were two bins out front. We thought, two occupied flats, two bins; should be fine. Lately, though, we take our rubbish out to find that both bins are completely full. And not only do they not recycle, they don't even crush their cardboard boxes to take up less space - and I know this because they don't even tie their rubbish bags closed! Honestly, I'm surprised they even bother with bags and don't just toss garbage out the window whenever they empty a milk carton or finish a roll of toilet paper.

To date, I have written them a note, spoken to one when we met on the front walk, and confronted one (with her mother!) as she was actually shoving rubbish indiscriminately in the first bin she could find. I've only raised the bin issue; I decided to concentrate on the biggest problem so they wouldn't think I am a cranky old lady griping all the time. However, now that I keep griping at them everytime I see them, they probably think that anyway. I don't care!

And now, as a cranky old lady, I am going to drink some hot milk and go to bed. (Actually, I'm going to have a 7-Up and watch Dr Who, but it's the same thing, really.)