Cooked a sensational Shepherd's Pie for dinner tonight, mainly out of leftovers from roast lamb a few nights back. The meat was a little light on so I padded it out with grated zucchini, carrot, celery, onion and a can of tomatoes as well as about 200g of brown & green lentils...the lentils were a great addition. A little grated cheddar on top of the mashed potato & into the oven until golden & bubbling, just delicious.
It was well & truly devoured Myles even had seconds of everything, a rare thing.
There's something really very satisfying about making a new meal out of the remnants of another...I feel my grandmothers' influence (both of them) when I cook this way. They both hated waste and were very clever about using everything in the fridge or pantry. My paternal grandmother saved everything, buttons, collars & zips off clothing, pieces of string, the paper from a block of butter was used to grease cake tins, scraps of wool, wrapping paper, paper bags, glass jars, tin cans...ad infinitum. I guess it came from living through the depression. My grandfather was much the same with his shed...it was stacked to the rafters with scrap timber, corrugated iron, parts of car engines, tins of paint, lengths of hose & rope.
What I loved most about his shed though were his clocks. Pa was a truck mechanic for most of his life but his one great passion was watch and clock making and jewellery design. He had a zillion clocks in his shed, (well, that's how it seemed when I was little), mostly given to him by friends, most had seen better days but he nurtured them back to their former glory. The mantle clocks were my favourite, he used to let me wind them when I visited on the holidays. I had always yearned for one of my very own and I thought that would happen after he died but sadly it didn't. I don't know what became of them all, my father certainly doesn't have them now, I doubt he realised the sentimental value I held for them. Sad, really.
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