I woke up early today (6 am) and felt wide awake which is a good feeling.  I lay there quietly, enjoying the peace and stillness in the house as the weak wintry light slowly filtered in to my room.  I enjoyed knowing breakfast was already made too and all I had to do when I got up was to make a pot of tea.

When I roasted the Crown Prince squash last night, I kept back one of the quarters from the roasting tray.  I wrapped this in foil and baked it at the same time as I roasted the other dinner dishes and left it on the side until it had cooled.  When it was cool I mashed the orange flesh in a bowl, and then added 1/3 of a cup of oats, 1 tsp chia seeds, ½ tsp cinnamon and ½ tsp pumpkin spice mix.  I mixed these ingredients together and then added enough almond milk to cover and mixed that in.  I did not refrigerate but left it covered, on the side as I dislike eating this dish chilled.

The colour of the squash is very vivid to say the least!

This breakfast may not appeal to all of you but a home roasted squash is much tastier than a can of pumpkin puree and I really enjoy it.  The Chia seeds swell up over night which helps to make this very thick.  I used Flahavan’s organic rolled oats, rather than jumbo oats when I soak them overnight and by morning the oats are completely soft.

Once a month there is a farmer’s market in Cranbrook and it was on today.  I always buy some of the meat from Cherry Tree Farm in Frittenden (such a cute name for a farm – like something out of an Enid Blyton book!) so we have a shoulder of lamb for roasting tomorrow and some boneless pork chops for the freezer.

I also bought some goodies from V.J.Game to pop in to the fridge and freezer for later.  Home Gurrown were there today and she makes lovely quiches, pies and Scotch eggs which I bought for lunch.  If you live locally, pop in next time it’s on and support the local producers.

I bought this cheese too which I had to sample while I prepared lunch and it was lovely.  I like my hard cheeses to be hard and this was, with a wonderful creamy rich flavour with strong blue cheese notes too.  That won’t last long in my fridge!

I had to get some bits from the supermarket too and this is the view of the windmill from the Co-Op car park.  Such a lovely sunny morning.

Lunch was a Scotch egg with salad.  Harvey and I shared a smoked salmon egg and a pork with tarragon egg.  They were delicious, with lovely fresh eggs and a very meaty shell which was not at all greasy.  I particularly liked the smoked salmon one although I found it slightly salty today.  That may be me though.  I have noticed that as I eat more whole foods and raw foods, I eat a lot less salt and rarely need to add it any more to food so I have perhaps become a bit sensitive to it.  After I had taken the photo I decided I needed mayonnaise with this so I added a large dollop of mayo which went well with the salad and the Scotch egg.

Smoked salmon Scotch egg is a genius idea.  It works very well.

We had a good walk in the woods this afternoon.  Another bracing walk in the cold but all agreed we felt better afterwards.

Supper was very early again as we are off to a party in Sussex tonight.  I am attempting to copy my success of the other night by eating a substantial meal before going.  I picked up some chicken breasts from Wilkes in Cranbrook and sought inspiration for a recipe in  The Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan.  This is a massive book, with over 700 pages in it.  I cooked the chicken with lemon and parsley.  The chaps had a baked potato too but I ate mine with just carrots, broccoli and cauliflower.

We weren’t sure what the point of the parsley was as it went black, crispy and inedible in the pan and we couldn’t really taste it in the chicken either.  Maybe it added a subtle flavour.  This was a reasonable meal.  Not exceptional but good enough to eat and will possibly be made again.

I have noticed, from writing up what I have eaten today and going through my photos, that nearly everything was yellow!  Off to Sussex now.  Party on!