Fish soup

In the margins of stocking up on white puddings yesterday, I noticed a box of white smoked haddocks, so took a couple of those as well. Maybe three pounds weight together.

This being a little more than the two of us take at a sitting and there being a supply of left over vegetables, indicated soup for tea yesterday, watery hot soup being an oddly good thing when it is hot outside.

Start with somewhere between two pints and two litres of water. Add the left over mashed potatoes and brown rice. Add a bit of chopped onions and cross-sliced celery. Simmer for a bit. Add a tail - maybe six ounces - of smoked haddock - and simmer that for eight minutes by the timer. Remove, skin, flake and set aside. Flake a piece of left over salmon and set aside.

About ten minutes before the off, add the left over crinkly cabbage, chopped into (roughly) half inch squares.

About five minutes before the off, add the fish.

About two and a half minutes before the off, add a modest amount of mushroom. Cap in segments, stalk chopped.

Very good it was too, taken with a little brown bread.

The bit of fish skin was put on the back lawn, thinking that after the crows' performance with the beef scraps ten days previously, the skin would go fast enough. In the event, no action after half an hour, so into the compost dustbin it had to go, not wanting to attract nocturnal foxes.

PS 1: this morning's queue scene: healthy pedestrian queue, snaking back to and into Waterloo Road, for the town centre Wilko. Town quiet otherwise. Healthy car queue, backing up into the by-pass, for the Ruxley Lane Aldi. Quite a lot of cyclists about, but nowhere near as many as on the bank holiday Monday just past.

PS 2: a small piece of discarded tail from today's ration of haddock went in under 15 minutes. And the rather larger amount of fish skin from our portion went in less than an hour, although we missed the actual action. Perhaps crows prefer to eat in the middle of the day. Perhaps they were attracted to the parsley sauce which had been served with our portion. Balance to be turned into fish pie tomorrow.