We - the Dear Leader, the temporarily-home-before going-off to-Gozo Sternest Critic, and your humble servant - are on a weight loss quest for a time. Well, weight loss and health drive. That means the occasional 800 calorie day, and generally eating somewhere between 1000 and 1500 calories, with a day off every now and then. That may sound restricting, and in the mathematical sense it is of course, but to be doable without becoming boring it does mean getting creative.
Our breakfasts, except when staying in hotels or at Christmas when bacon and sausages rule, are usually pretty healthy. Currently they are - thanks Donald - bigly so. And not in a bad way - no kale smoothies, in fact given we learn from Michael Moseley that smoothies go straight through the gut and mean a sugar rush, no smoothies at all. But every morning for the past fortnight we have enjoyed a bowl of fruit (along with e.g. poached egg on wholegrain toast of some sort). Again I've tried hard to avoid that being dull, leading to me hitting the local Asian supermarket, and looking out for what's good in Morrison's, Waitrose and Sainsbury's.
Today, for example, we had cherries, kiwi, blueberries, and golden plums (£1 for a punnet of eight or ten), with a squeeze of perfumed Egyptian lime, tiny little fruits that lift flavours even more than ordinary lemons do. Tuesday we had dragon fruit and guava with some more workaday stuff. I love guava, in spite of ripe ones smelling like men's locker room sweat. The local Chinese shop had durian in, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and fruit that smells like poo is one good place.
What is austerity in this? Eating fruit is not expensive. It takes a bit of effort to seek things out, but Morrison's wonky blueberries that contributed to two for the three of our breakfasts cost 84p. I defy anybody to explain how they were wonky too. Wonky kiwis (maybe 1.358mm shorter than non-wonky?) I think were 70p for a pack of eight. I use one sliced into six to add luminous green to the plate. Little oranges another bargain; likewise grapefruit reaching its sell-by-date and no different to full price ones in feel or as it turned out flavour for 25p. I buy full price stuff too, and dragon fruit are not cheap, but overall breakfasts for the week don't break the bank.
It's cheering to see something so lovely on the morning platter. Great for the body too, with loads of fibre (kiwis for me qualify as superfoods, though shops aren't allowed to use that word now) and vitamin C, and stuff that is good for the eyes but I can't spell. Blueberries are supposed to help the memory, per clinical tests, but they taste fab with lemon or lime on them. Cherries have some special phytonutrients that you don't find in many other foods. It won't harm your - what a very British word - regularity either.
Reading Michael Moseley's Clever Gut Diet book - he is to diet and health what HFW is to ethical food - as part of the current drive to lose a bit of weight one tip was to help your biome's diversity by eating 30 different fruits and vegetables in a week. We did that in two days, and after three are on 42 and heading ever onward. Tinned stuff in there for pennies; our own veg still (PSB, swiss chard, sprouting seeds, kale and leaks at present, we had too the last of our stored squash on Monday and some of our own stored garlic, along with loads of herbs that I haven't counted in the total); wonky or (per Sainsbury's) greengrocers' F&V are super cheap. And some fruits are reduced in price (like cheese) when they are approaching ripeness.
[Standing up] I am not Spartacus. Nor am I vegetarian. Friday's evening meal will be steak for SC and me, fish for the DL. But for our own good, and with more than a nod at helping the only planet we have to live on, and because they are so tasty, F&V make up the bulk of our nutrition. If that sounds poncey, my apologies. Lunch today will be baked beans on toast. Demotic and delicious.
Showing posts with label beans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beans. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Thursday, 8 November 2018
Healthy Fast Food?
We rarely eat fast food in this house. Put that down to meanness, not liking the smell of the places that serve it, and preferring healthier options. That's not to say that I despise the foods that fall under the fast food umbrella (a brolly made of burgers then?).
When the Dear Leader was in the Great Wen recently I took the opportunity of making myself some relatively healthy hot dogs with all the fixin's, as we say in deepest Fulwood. Of late I've been baking a lot of bread, so in that day's run I included two torpedo rolls that were still warm from the oven when the meal hit the table. They were adorned by a pile of fried red onions, made with a minimum of oil; a massive bowl of fresh-made coleslaw; and some very spicy chili beans. All told at least four of my 387 a day. Even the hot dogs were relatively healthy, some proper German frankfurters with 70% pork, bought from Waitrose (I am a great label reader - the best ones I could find in Sainsbury's last time there were less than half that meat content).
It should have been a nicer meal than it was. That sort of food - for filling up and pigging out - needs to be eaten with friends or family, partly to slow down the gorging process with conversation. Cooking for yourself can be pleasure, but not that sort of cooking, if that makes sense. It ended up feeling rather sad, and I ended up feeling very bloated. Contrast that to a meal served up some time back (that I may have mentioned previously), made for the Dear Leader (may her foes writhe in torment) and Sternest Critic.
The focal point of that meal was chicken not a million miles away from the KFC style, though mine was baked or roasted, depending on how you look at it. The breadcrumb coating mimicked the Colonel's formula (you can't go far wrong with lots of ground fennel seed, clearly the dominant flavour in the big-o-bucket). If memory serves it was also accompanied by lots of coleslaw, not one of those micro-containers you get with KFC. I will recall that meal with great pleasure; maybe it is the approval thing; maybe just sociability. The hot dogs, however accomplished in their way, were missing the ingredient of company; perhaps I felt guilty getting outside such a hefty feast. The next time the DL is absent I'll keep it a bit more sophisticated.
Tuesday, 23 October 2018
Necessity, Simplicity and Invention
Returning from Anglesey yesterday to an under-stocked fridge I had to rely on the garden, what little we had left by way of supermarket veg, and the store cupboard. I enjoy such petty challenges, making something with not very much to hand. It also seems healthy, using what is in season, and enjoying (relative) simplicity.
What resulted was what we decided was a sort of Mexican bean soup. Onion, garlic and carrots as the major part, Swiss chard (I guess not very Mexican at all) stalks and leaves, and a big handful of herbs - basil, parsley, sage, tarragon and chives - plus what was the defining ingredient, a green chili picked fresh from the conservatory. It was surprisingly hot, maybe because unlike previous pickings from that plant the chili was used in seconds, rather than kept for later. Liquidised carefully to make a satisfyingly velvety bowlful, and eaten with that staple of serving suggestions, good bread, the meal only needed a bit of cheese to round things off.
Prompted by the Dear Leader, we again discussed cooking and education, this time musing that given our litigious culture it would be very difficult now to teach large groups of kids the basics of cookery, even were the schools to have the teachers required, and the facilities. Little Jimmy gets a minor burn from a hot pan and his parents see the prospect of a six figure payout. Sad. So school reports will feature media studies instead of meal-making skills.
I missed a trick with that soup, I decided today. The fridge did (and does) have a packet of cooking chorizo tucked away at the back, and still in date. Adding fried slices of that as croutons would have finished it nicely, added to the nutritional range, and been in keeping. As my own school reports so often said, must try harder.
What resulted was what we decided was a sort of Mexican bean soup. Onion, garlic and carrots as the major part, Swiss chard (I guess not very Mexican at all) stalks and leaves, and a big handful of herbs - basil, parsley, sage, tarragon and chives - plus what was the defining ingredient, a green chili picked fresh from the conservatory. It was surprisingly hot, maybe because unlike previous pickings from that plant the chili was used in seconds, rather than kept for later. Liquidised carefully to make a satisfyingly velvety bowlful, and eaten with that staple of serving suggestions, good bread, the meal only needed a bit of cheese to round things off.
Prompted by the Dear Leader, we again discussed cooking and education, this time musing that given our litigious culture it would be very difficult now to teach large groups of kids the basics of cookery, even were the schools to have the teachers required, and the facilities. Little Jimmy gets a minor burn from a hot pan and his parents see the prospect of a six figure payout. Sad. So school reports will feature media studies instead of meal-making skills.
I missed a trick with that soup, I decided today. The fridge did (and does) have a packet of cooking chorizo tucked away at the back, and still in date. Adding fried slices of that as croutons would have finished it nicely, added to the nutritional range, and been in keeping. As my own school reports so often said, must try harder.
Friday, 17 August 2018
Numbers for Dinner
Do you find yourself at the end of the evening meal totting up the number of fruits and vegetables you have ingested that day? I all too often do, partly because I am far more aware of health matters these days than used to be the case, partly because of a residual sporting competitiveness.
The trouble is I get a bit confused about what counts, according to the official rules of the game. How much is a portion? Does a medium tomato count as one, or do I need (daftly) to suck up another couple of cherry toms to hit the tape? A few weeks back I ended up googling whether nuts (a frequent ingredient and my snack with post-prandial coffee) counted - as I recall there may be a committee working on it, though meantime the sane think of course they bloody do.
Another part of the game that bugged me was the smoothie dilemma. Not whether Hugh Grant should use Grecian 2000, but why a smoothie only counts as one, whatever you put in it - when the Dear Leader (may her enemies suffer watching reality TV for all eternity) is absent planning world domination my breakfast tends to be just coffee and a smoothie, with three or four good portions of fruit. Apparently it's because of the fruit sugars released, but given I process to a lumpy consistency does that apply?
I read yesterday that only one in four Brits reaches the five-a-day target, which is sad in health terms but also taste, and culture. Are we still brought up here to think meat and potatoes, or bacon and eggs, or fish and chips are good everyday? Nice on occasion, but missing out on so many great flavours in fruit and veg, so many options. And cheaper options too - we are not short of cash but I reel at the price for meat currently, or good meat anyway - you can buy cheap grey mince for example for not very much, except your long-term well-being.
On the competitive side, we hit eleven yesterday by my reckoning, ignoring the smoothie rule and counting ours as two, and (I'm not sure if this works according to Hoyle) counting the lettuce eaten at lunch and in the evening as two. Yet more bloody French beans were part of that total, as was kale with anchovies, boiled eggs, garlic and olive oil. Delicious. But yes, we did nail the duvet down.
The trouble is I get a bit confused about what counts, according to the official rules of the game. How much is a portion? Does a medium tomato count as one, or do I need (daftly) to suck up another couple of cherry toms to hit the tape? A few weeks back I ended up googling whether nuts (a frequent ingredient and my snack with post-prandial coffee) counted - as I recall there may be a committee working on it, though meantime the sane think of course they bloody do.
Another part of the game that bugged me was the smoothie dilemma. Not whether Hugh Grant should use Grecian 2000, but why a smoothie only counts as one, whatever you put in it - when the Dear Leader (may her enemies suffer watching reality TV for all eternity) is absent planning world domination my breakfast tends to be just coffee and a smoothie, with three or four good portions of fruit. Apparently it's because of the fruit sugars released, but given I process to a lumpy consistency does that apply?
I read yesterday that only one in four Brits reaches the five-a-day target, which is sad in health terms but also taste, and culture. Are we still brought up here to think meat and potatoes, or bacon and eggs, or fish and chips are good everyday? Nice on occasion, but missing out on so many great flavours in fruit and veg, so many options. And cheaper options too - we are not short of cash but I reel at the price for meat currently, or good meat anyway - you can buy cheap grey mince for example for not very much, except your long-term well-being.
On the competitive side, we hit eleven yesterday by my reckoning, ignoring the smoothie rule and counting ours as two, and (I'm not sure if this works according to Hoyle) counting the lettuce eaten at lunch and in the evening as two. Yet more bloody French beans were part of that total, as was kale with anchovies, boiled eggs, garlic and olive oil. Delicious. But yes, we did nail the duvet down.
Thursday, 16 August 2018
Gluts and Coping With Them
This year's great glut - greatest glut, we have had several including globe artichokes (not something to decry) and courgettes (as ever) - is French beans, so called because they come from South America. Coping with that involves freezing some, as they are ok for a few months like that, but also a bit of creativity and some delving into cookbooks.
French beans, btw, as opposed to the 'fine beans' ubiquitous in supermarkets now, which it seems are actually a type of runner bean. To my palate 'fine beans' have more than a hint of stewed tea, or had the last time I bothered to buy some, several years ago.
Salade Nicoise is a good starting point, especially earlier in the season when our new potatoes were at their best. There are (a link to the last post) many variations on that theme possible with little effort. More toms no spuds. Substitute pancetta cubes for the anchovies. Fried or grilled courgette instead of the cucumber and/or tomatoes. Beyond that I came across an idea for a sort of sauce in the Moro cookbook that took my fancy, though it was intended there to go with asparagus and I think globe artichokes. It used a lot of chopped boiled egg, plenty of herbs (we've had gluts there too, happily, even of basil), some pine-nuts, along with garlic, olive oil and perhaps a few other odds and sods. It made a main course of the French beans, boiled to retain a bit of squeak, and had the virtue of requiring a lot of them but not feeling like it in the eating.
As we're giving up our allotment the need to be less cavalier about planting, one of the reasons for the gluts, is in our minds now, with plans for successional planting and reducing quantities (do we really need five sorts of summer squash?) to the fore. But as a cook it is actually quite fun finding ways to use such bounty, without the Dear Leader threatening to declare me an enemy of the state.
French beans, btw, as opposed to the 'fine beans' ubiquitous in supermarkets now, which it seems are actually a type of runner bean. To my palate 'fine beans' have more than a hint of stewed tea, or had the last time I bothered to buy some, several years ago.
Salade Nicoise is a good starting point, especially earlier in the season when our new potatoes were at their best. There are (a link to the last post) many variations on that theme possible with little effort. More toms no spuds. Substitute pancetta cubes for the anchovies. Fried or grilled courgette instead of the cucumber and/or tomatoes. Beyond that I came across an idea for a sort of sauce in the Moro cookbook that took my fancy, though it was intended there to go with asparagus and I think globe artichokes. It used a lot of chopped boiled egg, plenty of herbs (we've had gluts there too, happily, even of basil), some pine-nuts, along with garlic, olive oil and perhaps a few other odds and sods. It made a main course of the French beans, boiled to retain a bit of squeak, and had the virtue of requiring a lot of them but not feeling like it in the eating.
As we're giving up our allotment the need to be less cavalier about planting, one of the reasons for the gluts, is in our minds now, with plans for successional planting and reducing quantities (do we really need five sorts of summer squash?) to the fore. But as a cook it is actually quite fun finding ways to use such bounty, without the Dear Leader threatening to declare me an enemy of the state.
Tuesday, 3 June 2014
Smaller Giant Beans
I love Greek food, the simpler the better. A plateful of char-grilled lamb chops with dried origano, lemon and garlic eaten with chilled wine at an outdoor taverna is pretty close to perfection. To round the meal off a little I'd order potatoes baked in chunks with the same flavourings as an accompaniment, Greek salad, and gigantes beans.
The latter can be bought at the supermarket in rather stingy jars that cost about £2.50. Very nice, very easy to present as part of a mezze, but given it's a few beans and some tomatoey sauce Jack's bargain with the family cow was not much worse, so I had a go at making my own. They turned out to be, if not magical, pretty delicious.
The tomato sauce was just a tin of pulped toms, 35p from Lidl, some ground cumin and pepper, dried origano, 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika and 1/2 tsp of sugar, plus four cloves of garlic bashed under a wide knife-blade and added to the pot to bubble gently for 10 minutes. Two tins of butter beans were needed to retain the right bean/sauce ratio, heated through in the same pot then seasoned before serving. That gave us a warm version with Saturday's BBQ and cold with Sunday lunch. Butter beans at 55p a tin, so the full cost of the two servings (both more generous than one of those jars) was say £1.60.
They were not exactly like the shop-bought ones, as butter beans are not gigantic, but were still reminiscent of taverna offerings, especially as an accompaniment to lamb chops on the barbie. I'd use less sugar next time, and add some thyme leaves, but there will definitely be a next time.
The latter can be bought at the supermarket in rather stingy jars that cost about £2.50. Very nice, very easy to present as part of a mezze, but given it's a few beans and some tomatoey sauce Jack's bargain with the family cow was not much worse, so I had a go at making my own. They turned out to be, if not magical, pretty delicious.
The tomato sauce was just a tin of pulped toms, 35p from Lidl, some ground cumin and pepper, dried origano, 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika and 1/2 tsp of sugar, plus four cloves of garlic bashed under a wide knife-blade and added to the pot to bubble gently for 10 minutes. Two tins of butter beans were needed to retain the right bean/sauce ratio, heated through in the same pot then seasoned before serving. That gave us a warm version with Saturday's BBQ and cold with Sunday lunch. Butter beans at 55p a tin, so the full cost of the two servings (both more generous than one of those jars) was say £1.60.
They were not exactly like the shop-bought ones, as butter beans are not gigantic, but were still reminiscent of taverna offerings, especially as an accompaniment to lamb chops on the barbie. I'd use less sugar next time, and add some thyme leaves, but there will definitely be a next time.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
The Taste-Calorie Equation
There is no equation.
What I mean is if you are being a bit more careful with the calories, what you do eat needs to be good and extra tasty. The lamb chops - one apiece whereas previously I'd probably have done two - last night were a case in point. Henry Rowntree's meat tastes so much better than even the generally good stuff from Booth's, and certainly better than what JS have to offer. Bone-suckingly excellent.
More tasty means more satisfying. Less temptation to eat crisps and chocolate to fill a sensation gap.
There are substitutions involved here too - but still not a formal equation. Instead of the butter that would normally have moistened the flageolet beans accompanying the lamb I used a small amount of cheaty stock, and two cloves of garlic crushed to max their flavour.
And a subtraction - the meat griddled on a ridged pan allowed some of the fat to run off, whereas my normal method with this would have been to fry the chops and use the fat to give some flavour to the beans in the same pan, a dollop of butter to finish and give a nice gloss.
Somewhere in 'An American University' (the source quoted for most stupid survey results) a dweeb in a lab-coat is even now trying to work out the formula. While eating a massive sandwich filled with reformed ham and turkey and drinking gallons of the appalling dishwater that passes for coffee in that otherwise generally blessed country. Forget the figures, find the flavour.
What I mean is if you are being a bit more careful with the calories, what you do eat needs to be good and extra tasty. The lamb chops - one apiece whereas previously I'd probably have done two - last night were a case in point. Henry Rowntree's meat tastes so much better than even the generally good stuff from Booth's, and certainly better than what JS have to offer. Bone-suckingly excellent.
More tasty means more satisfying. Less temptation to eat crisps and chocolate to fill a sensation gap.
There are substitutions involved here too - but still not a formal equation. Instead of the butter that would normally have moistened the flageolet beans accompanying the lamb I used a small amount of cheaty stock, and two cloves of garlic crushed to max their flavour.
And a subtraction - the meat griddled on a ridged pan allowed some of the fat to run off, whereas my normal method with this would have been to fry the chops and use the fat to give some flavour to the beans in the same pan, a dollop of butter to finish and give a nice gloss.
Somewhere in 'An American University' (the source quoted for most stupid survey results) a dweeb in a lab-coat is even now trying to work out the formula. While eating a massive sandwich filled with reformed ham and turkey and drinking gallons of the appalling dishwater that passes for coffee in that otherwise generally blessed country. Forget the figures, find the flavour.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Roast Beef Rides Again
One of the supermarkets has been running a campaign - actually a rather laudable one - showing people that a roast will do more than the Sunday lunch for which it was bought. Roast chicken is an austerity staple, as a decent bird will give you the roast, a curry/risotto/wrap/sandwiches, and broth or at least stock made with the carcase. Beef is no slouch on the second coming front either.
Tonight we will be having one of my takes on leftover topside, and almost as importantly on the gravy that graced it. We ate this a fortnight back and it was enough of a hit for there to be requests for it to be repeated with the excellent beef (Henry Rowntree's superb Aberdeen Angus, and no he doesn't sponsor me, it's just that even a teenager notices the difference) remaining after we feasted post the England - Wales match.
The gravy (ultra-garlicky as I roasted a whole head with the beef, and squidged the soft contents into the meat juices) will be flavoured with smoked paprika, a chilli chopped very finely, Worcestershire sauce, some ground cumin, cayenne, and plenty of pepper. The beef, chopped into 5mm dice, is mixed with its gravy and a tin of Heinz beans, and the resulting mass used to fill wraps that fill a 300mm x 200mm cast iron dish perfectly. Atop this goes a sauce made with tinned toms cooked with a chopped onion and flavoured like the filling, with loads of grated cheese - cheddar and Parmesan - on top.
Cooked in a 180C oven for 30 - 40 minutes (when the cheese is browning it's ready, though I tend to warm the Le Creuset cast-iron dish over a low flame first to speed things up and ensure it is piping hot inside as well as out-) it has the added benefit of looking rather lovely.
The result is filling, rich in vegetables, and tastes good. But then in our family lore most things taste good with Parmesan. And it doesn't need a £1 packet of ready-mix fajita magic dust to give it a Tex-Mex touch.
I'll try to remember to take a photo or two.
Tonight we will be having one of my takes on leftover topside, and almost as importantly on the gravy that graced it. We ate this a fortnight back and it was enough of a hit for there to be requests for it to be repeated with the excellent beef (Henry Rowntree's superb Aberdeen Angus, and no he doesn't sponsor me, it's just that even a teenager notices the difference) remaining after we feasted post the England - Wales match.
The gravy (ultra-garlicky as I roasted a whole head with the beef, and squidged the soft contents into the meat juices) will be flavoured with smoked paprika, a chilli chopped very finely, Worcestershire sauce, some ground cumin, cayenne, and plenty of pepper. The beef, chopped into 5mm dice, is mixed with its gravy and a tin of Heinz beans, and the resulting mass used to fill wraps that fill a 300mm x 200mm cast iron dish perfectly. Atop this goes a sauce made with tinned toms cooked with a chopped onion and flavoured like the filling, with loads of grated cheese - cheddar and Parmesan - on top.
Cooked in a 180C oven for 30 - 40 minutes (when the cheese is browning it's ready, though I tend to warm the Le Creuset cast-iron dish over a low flame first to speed things up and ensure it is piping hot inside as well as out-) it has the added benefit of looking rather lovely.
The result is filling, rich in vegetables, and tastes good. But then in our family lore most things taste good with Parmesan. And it doesn't need a £1 packet of ready-mix fajita magic dust to give it a Tex-Mex touch.
I'll try to remember to take a photo or two.
Monday, 30 September 2013
Money for Nothing and Your Chick Peas for Free
Except we don't grow chick peas. No reason to spoil a good title for that though (it's a Dire Straits line).
This morning I started a project that will last a year, recording expenditure on growing food and the value of food grown. It seemed logical to start when I put in our annual seed order via our allotment association. We get 50 per cent discount from King's Seeds, but the food ones still cost just over £25.
Any editors out there wanting an article based on this, please get in touch!
That was done on Friday. On Sunday we spent two hours tidying up the plot, weeding and removing plants that are past it. But we still harvested a huge amount: 2 x giant parsnips; 2 turnips; 3 beetroot; a sugar-loaf chicory; about a dozen courgettes and patty pans; loads of runner and French beans; some apples; parsley; kale; a large kohl rabi. Enough for the veg for at least three days, though they'll be topped up with odd things from the garden - a few ripe tomatoes suddenly appeared this morning, and we have lots of small peppers left on one plant.
Also on Friday I did my regular run to the chicken man for a sack of layers' pellets and another of mixed seed to keep our two birds happy for five or six months, an outlay of £16.50. They provide on average 1.33 eggs per day through the year, which in Sainsbury's (medium sized organic eggs) are £1.90 for 6. So we get £150+ of eggs for £40 of feed and maybe £15 of bedding etc. A profit margin that I would have killed for in my industrial marketing days.
I was reminded of how good our eggs were when I bought a tray of 36 small ones for £1.50 from the chicken man (I wanted to do some baking and to go large on scrambled eggs at the weekend). His birds are kept in big sheds, free to run about but not as far as I can see to get out. The yolks are an insipid beigey-yellow. Our pair, frequently let out to eat grass, insect eggs, worms, dandelions, wood-lice, the occasional frog if we are not quick to intervene, and even once the decapitated body of a mouse left by the cat, give eggs with bright yellow to orange yolks. Even when we can't supervise them outside (we have foxes over the stream from us) they eat our leftover starches, veg peelings, and any fruit that has gone over. The chicken version of the good life/Good Life, as we on a small and partial scale enjoy the human equivalent.
This morning I started a project that will last a year, recording expenditure on growing food and the value of food grown. It seemed logical to start when I put in our annual seed order via our allotment association. We get 50 per cent discount from King's Seeds, but the food ones still cost just over £25.
Any editors out there wanting an article based on this, please get in touch!
That was done on Friday. On Sunday we spent two hours tidying up the plot, weeding and removing plants that are past it. But we still harvested a huge amount: 2 x giant parsnips; 2 turnips; 3 beetroot; a sugar-loaf chicory; about a dozen courgettes and patty pans; loads of runner and French beans; some apples; parsley; kale; a large kohl rabi. Enough for the veg for at least three days, though they'll be topped up with odd things from the garden - a few ripe tomatoes suddenly appeared this morning, and we have lots of small peppers left on one plant.
Also on Friday I did my regular run to the chicken man for a sack of layers' pellets and another of mixed seed to keep our two birds happy for five or six months, an outlay of £16.50. They provide on average 1.33 eggs per day through the year, which in Sainsbury's (medium sized organic eggs) are £1.90 for 6. So we get £150+ of eggs for £40 of feed and maybe £15 of bedding etc. A profit margin that I would have killed for in my industrial marketing days.
I was reminded of how good our eggs were when I bought a tray of 36 small ones for £1.50 from the chicken man (I wanted to do some baking and to go large on scrambled eggs at the weekend). His birds are kept in big sheds, free to run about but not as far as I can see to get out. The yolks are an insipid beigey-yellow. Our pair, frequently let out to eat grass, insect eggs, worms, dandelions, wood-lice, the occasional frog if we are not quick to intervene, and even once the decapitated body of a mouse left by the cat, give eggs with bright yellow to orange yolks. Even when we can't supervise them outside (we have foxes over the stream from us) they eat our leftover starches, veg peelings, and any fruit that has gone over. The chicken version of the good life/Good Life, as we on a small and partial scale enjoy the human equivalent.
Monday, 5 August 2013
Humous (Be Joking?)
As these two things are not made with chick peas can they really qualify as humous (hummus, hummous and probably several other acceptable spellings)? Hence the pathetic play on words of the title. It does sound better than vegetable spread, though, an unromantic if more accurate name.
As so often the inspiration for these comes from the most excellent HF-W, whose books I return to regularly.
With a glut of broad beans to deal with on our return from hols - you can only freeze so many - I made a batch of something like humous: about a pound of podded beans were cooked (boiled for maybe eight minutes) and then skinned - the grey skin has little to offer in the way of pleasure or taste - to leave the little jade jewels that are far more appealing. Four or five cloves of garlic were crushed and added to them, then the lot zapped in the processor with a glug of olive oil (one glug being nine standard dribbles) along with a big pinch of salt, several turns of the pepper mill, and the juice of half a lemon, plus a tsp of cumin seeds that had been reduced to powder in the grinder and a tsp of paprika. Zap again until it looks nice and slutchy and it's ready to serve on toast, with a wrap or on its own.
Another current glut is beet, that before our hols was tiny, after has grown just beyond the tennis ball dimensions that are generally ideal. The process is the same, except the beet (three makes a batch) is boiled unpeeled so it retains the juice and colour for 25 minutes or more, until a knife-point enters easily.
Two slices of stale bread (crusts removed) are wetted with cold water and squeezed, then the pap added to the processor with a handful of walnut pieces and worked to a paste. The peeled beets are zapped with that paste plus olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, sea salt, lots of smoked paprika and two tsp of ground cumin, one of ground fennel seeds, and half a tsp of ground pepper corns. Garlic would be good, but as my wife prefers for diplomatic reasons not to stink out her office (and indeed the entire floor if I had my way with the quantities) that last lot was free of my favourite flavouring. Serve with a lemon slice to add some extra sharpness if wanted. Texture can be according to taste, just process the paste until a fingerful is to your liking - for me it cries out to have some coarse graininess to it, but a more sophisticated smooth style (sounds like a brain-dead late night dinner jazz programme) would only mean running the motor for another couple of minutes.
A bonus with both of those humouses (humae? humice?) is their fantastic colour, especially in the case of the beetroot version, like looking into a deep glass of rich burgundy. For those not used to much beet, your wee the next day will be like a watery version of the same, so don't call 111 or 999 when you see it.
As so often the inspiration for these comes from the most excellent HF-W, whose books I return to regularly.
With a glut of broad beans to deal with on our return from hols - you can only freeze so many - I made a batch of something like humous: about a pound of podded beans were cooked (boiled for maybe eight minutes) and then skinned - the grey skin has little to offer in the way of pleasure or taste - to leave the little jade jewels that are far more appealing. Four or five cloves of garlic were crushed and added to them, then the lot zapped in the processor with a glug of olive oil (one glug being nine standard dribbles) along with a big pinch of salt, several turns of the pepper mill, and the juice of half a lemon, plus a tsp of cumin seeds that had been reduced to powder in the grinder and a tsp of paprika. Zap again until it looks nice and slutchy and it's ready to serve on toast, with a wrap or on its own.
Another current glut is beet, that before our hols was tiny, after has grown just beyond the tennis ball dimensions that are generally ideal. The process is the same, except the beet (three makes a batch) is boiled unpeeled so it retains the juice and colour for 25 minutes or more, until a knife-point enters easily.
Two slices of stale bread (crusts removed) are wetted with cold water and squeezed, then the pap added to the processor with a handful of walnut pieces and worked to a paste. The peeled beets are zapped with that paste plus olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, sea salt, lots of smoked paprika and two tsp of ground cumin, one of ground fennel seeds, and half a tsp of ground pepper corns. Garlic would be good, but as my wife prefers for diplomatic reasons not to stink out her office (and indeed the entire floor if I had my way with the quantities) that last lot was free of my favourite flavouring. Serve with a lemon slice to add some extra sharpness if wanted. Texture can be according to taste, just process the paste until a fingerful is to your liking - for me it cries out to have some coarse graininess to it, but a more sophisticated smooth style (sounds like a brain-dead late night dinner jazz programme) would only mean running the motor for another couple of minutes.
A bonus with both of those humouses (humae? humice?) is their fantastic colour, especially in the case of the beetroot version, like looking into a deep glass of rich burgundy. For those not used to much beet, your wee the next day will be like a watery version of the same, so don't call 111 or 999 when you see it.
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
The Other Benefit of Good Food
My English reticence fights against what I want to say here, but the topic is one worth mentioning, so apologies and onwards.
Good food isn't just about the minerals and vitamins that it puts into our bodies, but the way it helps take out the unwanted stuff.
On the Michelin-starred restaurant trip last week we ate some very creative and superbly cooked food, drank excellent Gaillac wines, and lived well. Except that my innards felt left out of the fun, and though they didn't strike they certainly worked to rule. No wonder, as though I was eating perhaps 15 different fruits and vegetables a day, one leaf or a paper-thin shaving of asparagus doesn't hack it on the fibre front.
Yesterday I calculated our evening meal alone - Salade Nicoise of a sort, and fish baked in a crumb and Parmesan crust - had seven full portions of good f&v. French beans, lettuce, peas, sweetcorn (ok it's a grain, but...) tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and a few other salad leaves into the bargain. The plates did not resemble late period Monets, but they did satisfy stomach, soul and my digestion.
It isn't just the posh plates that lack fibre. On a long airport bus trip in Florida in 2007 we were horrified by an early morning phone-in programme. A 'nutritional expert' was promoting his expensive wonder-tablets for American women who only troubled the sewage-system once a week.
This chap's pitch was the miracle drug would solve all their problems. Having watched such women eating nothing but meat, starch and sugary stuff during our stay in the sunshine state it was clear they actually needed an occasional piece of fruit, or a salad worthy of the name. If they'd only opened their minds it would have opened their bowels. And it's all in the best possible taste, as Kenny E used to say.
Good food isn't just about the minerals and vitamins that it puts into our bodies, but the way it helps take out the unwanted stuff.
On the Michelin-starred restaurant trip last week we ate some very creative and superbly cooked food, drank excellent Gaillac wines, and lived well. Except that my innards felt left out of the fun, and though they didn't strike they certainly worked to rule. No wonder, as though I was eating perhaps 15 different fruits and vegetables a day, one leaf or a paper-thin shaving of asparagus doesn't hack it on the fibre front.
Yesterday I calculated our evening meal alone - Salade Nicoise of a sort, and fish baked in a crumb and Parmesan crust - had seven full portions of good f&v. French beans, lettuce, peas, sweetcorn (ok it's a grain, but...) tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and a few other salad leaves into the bargain. The plates did not resemble late period Monets, but they did satisfy stomach, soul and my digestion.
It isn't just the posh plates that lack fibre. On a long airport bus trip in Florida in 2007 we were horrified by an early morning phone-in programme. A 'nutritional expert' was promoting his expensive wonder-tablets for American women who only troubled the sewage-system once a week.
This chap's pitch was the miracle drug would solve all their problems. Having watched such women eating nothing but meat, starch and sugary stuff during our stay in the sunshine state it was clear they actually needed an occasional piece of fruit, or a salad worthy of the name. If they'd only opened their minds it would have opened their bowels. And it's all in the best possible taste, as Kenny E used to say.
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Store-cupboard Necessities
Last night's main course made me think about what things are the absolute store-cupboard necessities in this household. That was because I was making fish pie, one component of which for me has to be smoked fish, tinned kippers the easiest way of doing that (cheap, no bones worthy of note, bags of flavour).
Tins of anchovies would have to be up there too: to make my own pizza or add to bought-in; in fish soups to give background; used in a stuffing for veg like peppers; and with discretion in salads. Baked beans another: tonight we are having a rib-fest, so a tin of Heinz with some spice and BBQ sauce will fill out the meal, but they are great added to stews at the end of cooking to sweeten and bulk out, and have numerous other uses though please not the 1970s thing of serving them cold as a salad. Bleaugh. Green lentils in a tin, however, do make a fine salad with some not very delicate slices of onion, a load of crushed garlic, and if to hand some tomato and cucumber, the lot doused in a mustardy vinaigrette.
And no cupboard of mine would ever be without pasta and rice, both the basis of rapid and good meals. In fact I have at least three of each so the changes can be rung.
Ah! and tinned tomatoes, how could I forget? The sauce (with a bit of fiddling) for that pasta, an enhancement to stews and curries, a topping (once reduced) for a pizza...
Some look down on tinned food, and of course fresh is very desirable. But on a wet Thursday when you have forgotten your fridge was nearly empty they are a godsend.
What would you not be without in the larder?
Tins of anchovies would have to be up there too: to make my own pizza or add to bought-in; in fish soups to give background; used in a stuffing for veg like peppers; and with discretion in salads. Baked beans another: tonight we are having a rib-fest, so a tin of Heinz with some spice and BBQ sauce will fill out the meal, but they are great added to stews at the end of cooking to sweeten and bulk out, and have numerous other uses though please not the 1970s thing of serving them cold as a salad. Bleaugh. Green lentils in a tin, however, do make a fine salad with some not very delicate slices of onion, a load of crushed garlic, and if to hand some tomato and cucumber, the lot doused in a mustardy vinaigrette.
And no cupboard of mine would ever be without pasta and rice, both the basis of rapid and good meals. In fact I have at least three of each so the changes can be rung.
Ah! and tinned tomatoes, how could I forget? The sauce (with a bit of fiddling) for that pasta, an enhancement to stews and curries, a topping (once reduced) for a pizza...
Some look down on tinned food, and of course fresh is very desirable. But on a wet Thursday when you have forgotten your fridge was nearly empty they are a godsend.
What would you not be without in the larder?
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Something on Toast
One of my favourite pieces of food criticism was an off-the-cuff remark by Alan Bennett. It is said that years ago when he saw the fancy salads and international cuisine in the BBC canteen he remarked in exasperation: "You don't want that, you want something on toast."
As with his plays there are layers of thought behind simple words. Simplicity is good; toast is comforting and provides a carb boost (though he would never stoop so low as to use the non-word carb); and there is something very British about 'something on toast.' Sardines, beans, egg, cheese...
My wife and I - before we in contemporary parlance 'hooked up' - both spent three months in what was then the USSR. She was in provincial Voronezh where food was scarce and facilities limited: the thing she still talks about craving was toast - bread, generally the black bread beloved of the Russians, was available if you looked, but no means of toasting it. She claims that dreams of toast haunted her sleep.
This morning, our youngest hen having kicked in at last with an egg, we celebrated the fact with scrambled eggs. A dash of milk, a lump of butter, and five eggs whisked together in the pan. I won't do them now in the microwave, as these invariably end up as a solid mass. So creamy scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast, and all is right with the world for a few minutes of satiety. It does not take much. Just something on toast.
As with his plays there are layers of thought behind simple words. Simplicity is good; toast is comforting and provides a carb boost (though he would never stoop so low as to use the non-word carb); and there is something very British about 'something on toast.' Sardines, beans, egg, cheese...
My wife and I - before we in contemporary parlance 'hooked up' - both spent three months in what was then the USSR. She was in provincial Voronezh where food was scarce and facilities limited: the thing she still talks about craving was toast - bread, generally the black bread beloved of the Russians, was available if you looked, but no means of toasting it. She claims that dreams of toast haunted her sleep.
This morning, our youngest hen having kicked in at last with an egg, we celebrated the fact with scrambled eggs. A dash of milk, a lump of butter, and five eggs whisked together in the pan. I won't do them now in the microwave, as these invariably end up as a solid mass. So creamy scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast, and all is right with the world for a few minutes of satiety. It does not take much. Just something on toast.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
One Flame Cooking
A recent comment about having to cook on one burner while kitchenless made me think about my year living in France during my degree course - living in a disused school accommodation block at the Lycee next to the one where I worked, and cooking on a single calor-gas burner (with a kettle too). Youth of course made it easier to accept a restricted diet - often wine, cheese, and fabulous French bread from a bakery 200m distant - but I learned a huge amount about food and cooking in that year. Austerity, restrictions, can teach us coping strategies and the value of what we have. Variations on beans with big thick smoked pork sausages when it was cold were great, the sausages already cooked, but benefiting from the heat, their flavour enhancing the beans (not at that time Heinz in France, but some sort of cassoulet flavoured versions, often with chunks of petit-sale in them.
The big thing that I learned there was the value of great bread. Sadly it is still, 30 years later, almost impossible to find really good bread in this country. Waitrose makes an effort, Booth's sadly has very expensive stuff without a hint of crispy crust, and Sainsbury's is a disaster zone. So I make my own when moved to do so, which at least is free of additives, and for a brief moment has a crust worthy of the name.
It is totally impossible to find good French sticks here. They need a Vienna oven, and should have both crispy crust and a very holey interior. Not one that supermarkets go for as they are stale within three hours at most, but when fresh there is IMHO no better bread anywhere. The stuff I bought when living in France was inevitably nibbled on the short walk home, nobody could resist that aroma surely?
The big thing that I learned there was the value of great bread. Sadly it is still, 30 years later, almost impossible to find really good bread in this country. Waitrose makes an effort, Booth's sadly has very expensive stuff without a hint of crispy crust, and Sainsbury's is a disaster zone. So I make my own when moved to do so, which at least is free of additives, and for a brief moment has a crust worthy of the name.
It is totally impossible to find good French sticks here. They need a Vienna oven, and should have both crispy crust and a very holey interior. Not one that supermarkets go for as they are stale within three hours at most, but when fresh there is IMHO no better bread anywhere. The stuff I bought when living in France was inevitably nibbled on the short walk home, nobody could resist that aroma surely?
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