Thursday 3 May 2012

Neglect

tr.v. ne·glect·ed, ne·glect·ing, ne·glects
1. To pay little or no attention to; fail to heed; disregard: neglected their warnings.
2. To fail to care for or attend to properly: neglects her appearance.
3. To fail to do or carry out, as through carelessness or oversight: neglected to return the call.
 
What I am, apparently, doing to my blog. And what happened to this hanging basket - although to be fair, it's hanging outside a pub that is a victim of the recession, rather than wilful neglect. And in my case it's lack of time rather than wilful neglect.



We had these Sicilian onions the other day with some lamb chops - definitely on the repeat list. Even though they spattered oil everywhere and left C a big clean-up job on the hob afterwards.


Sicilian caramelised onions
12 oz / 350 g small or pickling onions
2 tblsp olive oil
2 fresh bay leaves torn into strips
thinly pared rind of one lemon
1 tblsp soft brown sugar
1 tblsp clear honey
4 tblsp red wine vinegar
Skin onions - blanch in boiling water first if needed.
Heat oil in a frying pan, add bay leaves and onions and cook for about 6 minutes, turning occasionally, till onions are browned all over.
Cut lemon rind into thin matchsticks (I used zester thingy). Add to the frying pan along with sugar and honey. Cook for 2-3 minutes till the onions start to caramelise.
Add wine vinegar, being careful as it will spit. Cook for about 5 minutes till onions are tender and liquid is almost all evaporated/absorbed.

I used shallots, being what I had. Next time I think I'd just fry the bay leaves whole in the oil - I think you'd still get enough flavour from them, and they were quite chewy and we ended up picking them out. 
 
I promised some owls. I still haven't finished editing my photos, but here are some of the long-eared owl, along with one of the barn owl and the only good one I was able to get of the Snowy. Since the Snowy Owl was still in its cage, and you couldn't get close enough to the bars to really lose them with a wide aperture, it was very difficult to get anything worth keeping.
 


 


Tomorrow - or Saturday - I'll try to sort out a new blog header for May and some of my favourite April cards...

3 comments:

Sabriel said...

love those owls! I have also been neglecting my blog - sooooo busy, hopefully the bank holiday weekend will bring us both some free time!

Lorraine said...

Life does get in the way of blogging doesn't it! The owls are spectacular. I bet the dinner was delicious - something about caramelized onions....yum!

Claire said...

Hi Sabrina, couldn't agree more, my baskets are still sitting next to the compost heap with all the dead stuff in. Even blogging hadd to make way for work.
Love the look of these onions, might have a go at them today, got some great meat from the farmshop this morning.
I love the pictures of your owls,They'd look great on cards.
Enjoy the week-end
Claire xxxxx