Aubergine parmigiana with garlic flatbread

Today I went out. Properly out, too, not just in the garden: due to a snafu with a repeat prescription of one of my many meds (about which I will be having serious words with someone on Monday), I had to get an emergency prescription, which meant a trip into the village. As neither mum nor I drive atm (mum willingly, me less so), and the community bus runs on weekdays only, that meant arranging a taxi.

My favoured taxi “company” (in inverted commas as, like the majority of taxis on the Island, it’s a one person operation) is excellent: always on time, with reasonable prices, and a thoroughly informed and interesting conversationist. Which is the only downside: that man can talk. He only talks about things he understands (no mansplaining here), raises interesting topics, and doesn’t monopolise the conversation – or rather, he does, but not deliberately: he just has so much to say. This introverted blogger thoroughly enjoys our conversations, and always learns something from them, but is thoroughly exhausted by the end of the journey!

Mum at first didn’t want to come with me, as she gets very anxious about going anywhere now, but then realised that meant that I would have to go alone. Her fear of “losing” me if I go anywhere without her eventually proved greater than her fear of going outside, and she decided to come with me. The lure of a side trip to the little supermarket next door to the pharmacy might have helped, too.

This is where I do a “long story short” moment, much as it annoys me when other people do it, because I’m in danger of dozing off before I finish.

We collected my emergency prescription, wandered round the supermarket picking up things we needed (bread and milk), and quite a few things we didn’t (chocolate caramel cookies, chocolate Hobnobs, cereal bars (which, miraculously, didn’t have chocolate in)), then came home. We were out for less than 25 minutes, and I walked maybe 75 yards in total, and I’m utterly exhausted. My plans for going into town for lunch may have to wait a while.

And so, very briefly, to dinner, which was a homemade (sort of) aubergine parmigiana: it was put together and cooked by me, but the tomato sauce came from a jar. The aubergine was of course fried before going into the dish, and I don’t recommend frying things when you’re so tired you can barely stand, as you end up frying your hand as well. 😬¹

I wish I had taken a photo before mum and I dug into it, as it looked rather lovely, all golden cheese and bubbling tomato sauce. Which was actually pretty good: it was just basic Tesco range tomato pasta sauce, but it tasted very much like a homemade sauce. The aubergines were fall-apart tender (thankfully, as undercooked aubergine is just nasty), and the ready-grated mozzarella didn’t have a great deal of taste but did give a very satisfying cheese pull when fresh from the oven.

The flatbread, from Sainsbury’s equivalent of the Finest range (I’m too tired to remember what Sainsbury’s call their upper-class food range) which we bought because it had a yellow discounted price label on it, was just OK: nicely absorbent for mopping up tomato sauce, but without much garlic flavour imo.

For dessert I had some grapes and a choc-nut ice cream cone which could be from Iceland, or Tesco, or Sainsbury’s: at this point I have genuinely lost track of what comes from where. It was very tasty, though: chocolately all the way down, with a really solid bit of chocolate at the point of the cone which is always the best bit.

So that’s that. I apologise for any and all typos, grammatical errors, and non-sequitors: I’m too tired to re-read what I’ve written, which is my usual practice, so I’ll just hit “publish” and hope for the best. 🤞

1. I’m exaggerating for effect, I promise: I just caught the edge of my hand on the edge of the pan, and ten minutes in cold water took the worst of it away. It could have been much worse, though, so… yeah, don’t do it. ↩︎