A rainy kitcheny kind of day

I thought my eyes were deceiving me this morning as I stood in the kitchen chatting to my Mum on the phone and a flock of long-tailed tits fluttered through the garden. They scampered around from the giant fir two houses down across our hedge and apple tree and into the cherry two doors across the other side and then back again briefly alighting on the apple. Of course, as I cut my chat with Mum short and grabbed the camera the little blighters disappeared - not sure whether they have camera or rain sensors but they didn't return. I'll just have to keep an eye out but usually they're a winter sight around here not summer.

As the promised rain duly bucketed down all morning I decided to go through the fridge and fruit stores to cook up anything that was looking a bit sad and not likely to keep over the weekend. Now I'm up 2 pots of mixed berry and apple sauce - great for pies, crumbles or for stirring into yoghurt or warmed over ice cream; a pot of peas; a tray of roast tomato and pepper sauce cubes and half a dozen roast courgette and mushroom cubes plus a tub of cooked beet leaves for adding to soups, stews or pie fillings. I'm shattered but at least nothing's going to waste.
The vegetable cubes are really simple to make, use up slightly-less-than-best veggies and provide wonderful little flavour bombs for adding to pie fillings, pasta sauces, soups, stews and bakes throughout the winter. They also make great use of any gluts you might have or even left-over roast veg from a meal.

Quick and Easy Sauce Cubes
Ingredients
Tomato and Pepper
Roast equal quantities red pepper and tomatoes with basil, black pepper and onion powder.

Courgette and Mushroom
Roast equal quantities of mushrooms and courgette with thyme, black pepper and onion powder

Next steps
Allow to cool slightly and then tip into a deep bowl or pyrex jug and blitz with a stick blender ( or tip into a food processor if you prefer but I find stick blenders easier for small quantities).
Once thoroughly blitzed, spoon mixture into an ice cube tray and either cover with lid or with a sheet of foil and freeze.
Once frozen they can be popped into a box or bag to free up the cube trays for future sauces.

Red pepper and tomato

Mushroom and courgette

Blitz

1 tray = 14 flavour bombs

Not as pretty but definitely tasty

Cover tray and freeze -don't forget to label