Back outside while the veggies boil-steam, beers and a view of rural tranquility.
Red, the goat nearest was my first that I saved from "slaughter Corner", a tiny thing a few months old that could, and did, regularly squeeze through the 6-inch goat fencing and regularly got a spanking....she's 5 years-old now and just had twins....in this section are 9 adults and 8 newborns (lost only the one this year that I tried to keep alive by hand-feeding all day, but lost her in the night, she is buried next to my palm tree)
One of Red's babies trying to nibble the top of one of my saplings
3 week-old black sheep with mother and father at far end........now you know why so much free manure for veggies
ok....enough tranquility Tarks....back to slaving over a hot stove, and another beer
Layer the bottom of a frying pan with a splash of oil, a tin of tuna or half a tin of sardines or a cup of pre-cooked beans, plenty of cracked black pepper. Splash in anything else lying around (I fired in a generous squirt of Hunts bbq sauce), tip in the partly steamed onions and peas, mashed the partly-steamed carrots in a metal mixing bowl using the old-fashioned metal potato masher and layered that on top.
Lastly the critical bit, and this comes with practise,......guesstimate how much water there is in the frying pan by tipping it slightly in it's juices....take the metal mixing bowl that you mashed the carrots in and wash a cupful of dried rice (40p a kilo here, dirt cheap), wash two or 3 times until water is clear (dump the cloudy rice water outside on the onion bed or save to use as a base for a sourdough bread starter mix)
Now the golden rule is if you are using a cupful of dry rice you need 1.5 cups of water in the pan....basically you need 50% more water than rice with a tight-ish fitting lid with a steam vent hole....so add more if needed....layer the rice that you washed to remove excess starch over the top of your veggies and beans or veggies and tuna...no need for it to be submerged but it is handy to get it level or else it will lift up your pan lid as it expands in the steam.
Cover with glass lid, lowest gas flame possible (spluttering is good) cooking time is 40 to 50 minutes or until you've run out of water (tip pan to one side if concerned).....DO NOT KEEP REMOVING LID TO TEST RICE, you are releasing the steam.......my advice is go outside, drink 3 more beers and watch the sunset!!
The beauty of this system is that the rice never touches the base of the pan and get stuck, it is sitting on the veggies and possibly the tuna sucking up all the juice and swelling in the steam.....it's literally foolproof and means I can relax outside.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this meal for two (or in my case, 2 days of food) for next to nothing....free fresh veggies from your garden, 50p for the tuna, 10p for a cup of rice and a splash of olive oil, a squirt of sauce and a couple of shakes of pepper.....I could add a few slices of homemade bread (40p a kilo) which I "prove" overnight and never even knead or remove from it's mixing bowl, mix it, cover it, throw it in the oven........"oooo errrrrr" Tarks I hear you cry, what about all the money you spent on ale.....mmmm.....yes, 8 pints at 50p pint....maybe I need to start growing some wheat and barley, thereīs a thought.
Last pic is last night's cooked pan......spooned a decent portion out onto my plate so you can see the perfectly cooked rice sitting atop the onions, carrots and a few beans (left out the tuna last night as I needed to clear some pre-cooked beans from the freezer....hope this has helped.....toodles.