I’m going to try and keep a record of as many recipes that I cook on the site, so that when I’m trying to rack my brains for “that great Mackerel recipe I cooked last year” I can just browse through this blog, and find out where I got the recipe from.
Anyway, this is the second time I’ve done this one, and its still great, never thought I’d like Mackerel, reminds me of baiting fish hooks on the Pembrokshire coast.
The recipe is from Nigel Slater's "The Kitchen Diaries - p. 222., and is very simple, a bed of sliced ripe tomatoes, with some Mackerel cooked under a very hot grill then dressed with olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and thyme. Delicious, (need more practice with the photos though).
For Liv I baked some Bream, roughly following what the chap at Fishworks recommended. Put the fish on some baking paper, drizzle with olive oil, sea salt, garlic and a squeeze of lemon, wrap in tin foil and bake in a very hot oven for 20 minutes. I had some fresh parsley, so sprinkled a handful of this on top and baked open for a further 5 minutes. Not bad, served with some oven baked tomatoes (with Olive Oil, Thyme & Seasoning, another Nigel Slater recipe).
My camera decided to pack up recently, my trusty Canon IXUS 400, so I was forced to buy a new model, in the end stuck with what I like and got the latest IXUS the Canon IXUS 800 IS. Anyway thought I’d try it out on my favourite subject George, after treating the whole experience with the disdain it deserved he eventually warmed to it and gave me these photos…
We went away over the Easter break, and put George in the cattery for 4 days, on our return we discovered he had managed to inflict himself with a huge cut on his back leg.
The cattery owner, who is usually very good, could not provide a reason as to how this could have happened, so alas we won’t be using them again.
This did mean we had to keep him indoors for nearly two weeks while the wound healed, and he hated it. Begging all hours of the day to be let out. Doing his very best ‘Cato’ impression when he got most frustrated, diving out from behind the sofa, rugby tackling me round the thighes. I’m beginning to wonder if he was attacking the cattery staff, and they took some revenge…
The plus side to all this is he lost some more weight, after a week in the cattery on a strict diet, then two weeks not being able to go out and hunt (or visit his ‘other’ owners).
George loves cheese, so popping the pill (or bits of pill) into small pieces of mature cheddar works a treat, and he wolfs them down, thanks to the vet for that tip.
I can’t believe how easy it used to be to give George pills – see That Cat Pill Thing, where I said “Round one to us, this game is too easy”…
Well George’s been scrapping a bit over the last few days, and managed to grow himself a little pet of his own – an abscess the size of your thumb on the side of his head.
I picked him up on Saturday and showed him to Liv asked her if he looked okay,
“No he looks fine to me”.
“You don’t think he looks a bit, er, lop sided then?”
Anyway took him on another trip to the vet, no weigh-in this time. But the vet was taken by surprise by a hot jet of stinking yellow puss that shot out of the abscess whilst she was examining him. After cleaning him up giving him a quick shot of antibiotics we leave with our weeks ration of antibiotic pills to feed him over the next week.
Well he doesn’t do pills anymore. Full stop end of story.
Reminds me of Terry Pratchet's Unadulterated Cat:
You take the pill in one hand and the cat in the other…
Er…
You take the pill in one hand and in the other you take a large kitchen towel with one angry cat head poking out of the end. With your third hand you prise open the tiny jaws, insert the pill, clamp the jaws shut and, with your fourth hand, tickle the throat until a small gulping noise indicates that pill has gone down.
You wish.
EDIT: We eventually did get the pill down him, after locking him in, starving him, etc. he promptly went out and caught a huge rat and bit its head off to celebrate his freedom.
September 30th, 2005
Paul
Always
heard that Frogs were a favourite with some cats, surprisingly this is George’s first (and last?) and also the only animal he’s left alive without me having to pick him up and wrestle the poor beast out of his jaws.
It’s possible the frog’s screams actually scared him off, but equally likely he just didn’t like the taste.
Liv decided to tidy up the garden today, done a pretty good job by all accounts 
. During this process she managed to find two rodent holes that George has obviously been digging at, two ‘half’ rodents on the lawn, and a hell of a lot of feathers. No sign of the dead adult blackbird I had to throw out of the bedroom at 3 o-clock in the morning though…
Last year when George was bringing loads of animals still very much alive and kicking, Liv used to jump up every time he came bursting in through the cat flap, obviously concerned he was about to let loose some noisy, feathered mess of a Magpie in the front room. I would just sit there smugly knowing that he had not got anything because he was meowing, and if he was meowing he ain’t got anything in his mouth, right?
Well he’s learnt a new trick, meowing with a mouth full of blackbird.
Wonder how long it will take me to learn all the nuances of his “Meollowls”.
Had some old friends over last weekend, who have a 2 year old son (who George is usually terrified of). Their son behaved impeccably, the same can’t be said for George. Apart from leaving half eaten corpses everywhere (a blackbird carcass, a couple of mice and a grass snake), he brought in a vole to play with and a blackbird chick – both severely mauled.
I managed to make him drop both outside and they made good their escape, to live another day I don’t know, I guess their son now knows what cats prefer to eat.
To make matters worse, later that weekend, the blackbird parents had relocated their chick right outside the conservatory, feeding it worms as if to say “look what your damn cat’s done to our only offspring!”. It was only a matter of time before George would eat them both. So I caught the chick and made a show of moving it into the woods where the blackbirds continued to try and raise it.
I’m obviously spending far too much time on the computer lately (Liv has been telling me this for years), but now even George is pestering me when I’m online, or perhaps he wants me to update his blog more frequently?
Classic George pose of the moment, taking up as much space as possible on the desk, “annoying” is one word for it. Begs the question how can an animal that looks this obese manage to catch so many birds and rodents?
After a relatively kill free winter, and a brief spell of catching loads of mice coming out of their winter hidy holes, we are back into nestling bird season.
Either the birds are getting thicker or George has learnt some new tricks, on the way to work this morning noticed two freshly killed blackbird fledglings lying in the front garden.
This adds to the mounting pile of corpses, 3 other blackbird fledglings and one wood pidgeon so far this month
I can only assume they are picking very poor nest sites, as we had any poor weather that might have dislodged them. Hopefully he has now found the easy ones and should be it for a few months.
Been trying to redress the balance slightly by providing a good supply of nuts and seeds, unfortunately its more a case of feeding the ever growing families of squirrels. Their latest trick is to pull the 4mm thick bar out of the bottom of the peanut feeder, which is holding the base on – then all the nuts just fall onto the ground for them to feast on. They are usually eated in one day if this happens, 1/2 a kilo of nuts between a handful of fat squirrels.
About a week ago, George managed to slip his collar (or at least that’s what we thought), he’s done it before and last time I managed to find it, give it a quick wash and put it back on him.
This time there was no sign of it, and resigned myself to having to get a new one and start building up my bell collection again. Then, rather creepily, yesterday he suddenly comes back in with his collar on.
After a brief “did you?”, “no, did you?” exchange with Olivia, we came to the conclusion that someone else must have George as a frequent visitor, reminding us of a certain Spaced series 2 episode.
Well George has been driven mad by the catnip, had to wrap it up and hide it upstairs, something for him to have at Christmas.
Whilst doing my Christmas shopping, noticed a few things George might like, the only one I have so far ordered is some Organic Catnip. Can be a bit hit and miss, have bought Catnip toys in the past that are obviously well past their sell buy date, we’ll just have to see…
Came home yesterday to find the kitchen floor covered in feathers, and in the middle under the table a very dead Collared Dove, George got short shrift last night.
Just noticed the RSPB Web Site, sure it didn’t used to be so useful, or at least perhaps Google hadn’t indexed it. Anyway some useful bits include a guide to feeding birds in the garden. As well as a guide to more common birds fond in the British Isles, which is where I found the page on the Collared Dove
Woken to the sound of tooth on bone, that slow horrible realisation that the sound your hearing…
This isn’t a dream…
That sound? What is it?
Its the cat. He’s eating something…
That something is on my bed!
Jump out of bed to find the cat chewing on a headless mouse at the bottom of the bed, quickly despatched, wrapped in toilet paper and dropped in the bin.
After my breakfast, just driving off the work, notice George has caught another one in the wood and is still ‘playing’ with it. Groan.
He is currently wearing 3 bells on his collar, what more can I do, tie his back legs together?
Not sure I should be encouraging birds to visit our garden, but thought by feeding them, it might redress the balance somehow.
Found some goose fat left over from last Christmas at the back of the fridge, so thought I’d have a go at making some bird cake, basically made up of a load of fat, sun flower seeds, pumkin seeds, oats, raisons, flour and anything other seeds/nuts I could find in the larder. Followed the recipe on the BBC Website
Had some fat left over so made some ‘fat maggots’ as well, also on the website above.
The fat maggots were gobbled up, but not sure the birds can handle my inverted fizzy squash bottle bottom.
Been a reasonably quite month, he’s caught a wood pidgeon and a handful of mice, most of which I managed to get off him and they escaped – the wood pidgeon took a while to recover but eventually flew off.
We also had a small storm, which caught a few birds off guard, George took advantage of this and brought in a Magpie that was obviously soaked through, and could barely fly. After locking George in the Conservatory spent a good 5 minutes following the Jackdaw round the kitchen – somewhat smarter than the Wood Pidgeons I usually have to deal with.
Anyway this spate of killings prompted me to put his collar back on (he had managed to lose it in the garden, but I rescued it), even with the bell he still managed to catch one more mouse…
George has been pretty inactive over the last month, or at least he has stopped bringing animals into the house, however over the last few days that has changed.
Over the last couple of weekends we’ve had a lot of friends & family visit (finished the DIY), some with children. So we’ve discovered that George can’t handle kids, power tools, knocking walls down, hammering, the hoover, all no problem, but a 3 year old going “Meow” scares him stupid.
Anyway, this must have triggered something as he has been bringing in lots of mice of late, some alive, some not so. Perhaps they are more active this time of year, getting more nest material now the weather has turned colder.
George must be okay now, he caught a Wood Pidgeon in the early hours, feathers everywhere. I think the collective now for lots of feathers is a ‘carcass of feathers’. Took me a good 15 minutes to clean up, significantly less than the time George probably tortured the poor animal.
One more indoor kill, and I think I’ll put the collar back on.
