Saturday 9th December 2023

Saturday. And lo, did the rain falleth from the sky, causing great mutterings from the assembled cats. And myself. I mean, you wait all week for Saturday, fill it with plans, and then the weather forecast is so bad that there's no point in going out. Other than to do some hunter-gathering at Tesco.

We managed to spend a lot, but that was with the monthly cleaning supplies too. And wine. And a bottle of Japanese whisky.

All essentials, I'm sure you'd all agree.

Jools was to go swimming and do a tip run at half ten, so I stayed in to do a lot of cooking. Outside the rain began to pour.

I made:

1. Coriander chicken (for Jools)

2. A huge batch of chili

3. A huge batch of Boston Beans

4. Buttermilk fried chicken.

I can make chilli without a recipe, so fried the onions, browned the meat and added the tomatoes, spices and kidney beans, and set it to simmer for two hours before adding 250g of cooked rice, ready to be split into batches for freezing.

The chicken was set to marinade in buttermilk, and set aside for the evening, and I coated the chicken and set it for frying before adding the coriander sauce. That too was portioned up for freezing.

Finally, the pan of beans was prepared, adding spices, smoked bacon, chorizo and pork belly, three huge spoonfuls of black treacle so tomatoes and set to cook low in the over for four or five hours.

By the time it was all done, it was two in the afternoon, so just time for a shower before settling down with Scully to listen to the football and follow the videoprinter on Final Score on the tellybox.

More football after as Villa bear Arsenal 1-0, so at half time I triple coated the chicken in flour and spices, fried them, and we ate one each with a portion of Boston Beans.

That was damn fine eatin.

And somehow, that was the day. Gone.