A slippery slope

Slippery indeed.. went out shopping this morning for my much anticipated outing to Aldi's for cheapies and the Gyle shopping centre - in my slippers..! I have a feeling this is where it all starts to go wrong, but I feel embracing it will be far easier and more rewarding than fighting the inevitable. Bring on the crazy hats and saggy socks, I am ready!

Quickly briefed by Stu on his curry-sauce-from-scratch experiments so that I can continue tonight. Cook off a finely chopped onion, garlic and chillies in water and simmer until soft; blitz in the blender, return to pan and cook on until pretty much pureed and brown; blitz again and store in a tubbie. To make a curry or other aromatic sauce (herb/spice dependant) , heat some oil in the pan and fry off some tomato puree, add spices as desired and cook till the fragrance is released (last night Stu just used some powdered and seed cumin and coriander) and stir in some of the onion etc. puree. Cook on and season if needed. To this we added last night some finely diced and fried butternut squash, salted and drained aubergine and good old green peas; reallly tasty and interesting to see how something really good can be knocked up with pretty basic ingredients. That's the best bit of cooking for me; alchemy.

Tonight the same oniony mix will be plucked from the fridge and transformed into a sauce for meatballs, which I have been defrosting from our stash of mince creations. Using the same puree and oil start, adding the base puree and some sun dried tomatoes, fine diced veg. and lots of fresh herbs from the now overflowing herb box; not sure what I will serve it with but I did get some gnocchi in good old Aldi so that could be a go-go.

Spend a blissfully warm day pottering in the patio potting up the crazy fennels - I seem to have a knack with them and they just grow like triffids in this soil. Potted up some random plants that are not rocket but I have no idea what they are too - they have buds, so flowers may be forthcoming for identification and hopefully to give more colour to my tree and herb heavy garden. I do like a bit of green, but a few flowers would probably be good too. I have now coaxed two blooms out of my 'dinner plate' clematis; great white sheets of crinkly parchment sunning themselves today. I killed the last one so this is a replacement, and has taken two years to produce anything other than leaves. Painting wise I have actually been hard at it too, finishing Joy Garden Siesta and starting two more, one of which I will be continuing in the gallery tomorrow. Both are of a nautical theme, so either is good for Leith; I shall see how the mood takes me once the cold sweats have subsided.

Using some more new tricks on these two pics; underlaying the biro and coloured pencil on purpose to show through the acrylic and adding some texture to the under layers of acrylic with scratchy tools and a comb on the water. Kept it nice and loose to avoid too graphic a look but it should give some good depth to the water, over which I can print; spuds are at the ready....