Scraps

of photos, scraps of food.

Lichen on a sign post.

I had a vague idea from my gardening books, and after looking at one again today, I think these little blue flowers in Farmleigh are Scilla (Squill).

They inspired this card with its blue flowers.

We had some lovely corned beef from the butcher recently - tasty and tender- but after having already once reheated it in the cooking broth I wanted to find something to do with the leftovers. I remembered a recipe from Ronald Johnson's An American Table, which made a good dinner for us last night. I think he called it Hashed Corned Beef with Eggs. Corned Beef Hash was a favourite of ours when we were little, but I know my mother always made it with the tinned stuff. This recipe called for about 2 cups of finely chopped corned beef - no problem. Cook some potatoes in their skins in the broth. When they're cooked and cool enough to handle, peel them and crumble them in with the corned beef. Chop and fry some onion in a little butter, then stir in the beef, potatoes, a little cream, plenty of chopped parsley and seasoning. Press into a buttered shallow dish, dot a little more butter on top and bake in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, reduce heat a bit, make indentations in the top and break an egg into each one. Season and return to the oven till the eggs are cooked.
The one I remember from my childhood had the lots of parsley, but it was chunks of meat and potato, and had a tin of tomatoes and some Worcestershire Sauce for a bit of zing, cooked on the stove top.