veg box v.greengrocers

As regular readers (all three of you :) will know, we have a weekly fruit and veg box from Riverford.  The price has recently gone up one pound, to  £14.75.

I understand this - their costs have increased a lot due to fuel increases. But it seems that the box, for us at least, is giving less value.  I also really object to having to choose between paying online, with a (admittedly small) surcharge, or paying by cheque and having to use a stamp.

Last week’s box contained: 1 bunch black grapes, 5 bananas, 2 large sweet potatoes, 1 cabbage, 4 (I think) courgettes, tomatoes, a lettuce (which we hate), 2 red peppers and 4 apples (I think this is right - don’t have the list any more).

Yesterday, we went to the greengrocers in Bedminster, and £14.54 bought us:

4 pears
5 small plums
1 bag spinach
1 cauliflower
3kg organic potatoes
1 punnet of blueberries
1 red pepper
2 bulbs of garlic
1 bag carrots
1 large handful of green beans
2 sweet potatoes
1 bunch spring onions
1 aubergine
1/2 red cabbage (all they had)

I have suspended the Riverford order for now - that sort of saving is too big to ignore, really.

I’m still not going to plan meals - that would be very restrictive!  I shall just buy what looks nice in the greengrocers.

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let them eat cake

Using up: half a lemon, dried cherries

I fancied a cake - both making one, and consuming it.  We don’t have them often, but last night I decided I would.  And it would use up the half a lemon that was in the fridge :)

This is based on a Nigella recipe, and works really well.

Cream 250g marge or butter, then beat in 200g golden caster sugar.  You really do need a food mixer for this - or a very strong arm.

Sift 210g of self raising flour, and 90g of plain (or just use plain with 3tsp baking powder - less faff).

Add three eggs to the butter/sugar mix, one at a time, following each with a tablespoon of flour (does that make sense?).  Then fold in the rest of the flour.  Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

The recipe says 4 tablespoons of milk at this stage, but I don’t bother measuring - just pour it in slowly until you get a soft, dropping consistency.  Then I added a handful of dried sour cherries (I bought a big bag full in Costco, and forgot about them), and the juice of the aforementioned half lemon.

Put in a loaf tin, and ust the top with more caster sugar if you like - it gives a nice shiny sugary finish. Bake at gas 3 / 170° for an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Tip: I buy loaf tin liners from Lakeland - I’m not very good at cake, and this means the beasts emerge from the tin with no hassle.  Well worth it, IMV.

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kind words

This came to me in an e-mail - I won’t say who from.  I was dead chuffed!

I have to say that my renewed interest in using up what’s lurking in the fridge is mainly down to reading the very inspiring recipes on your reactive cooking blog - thank you.

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potato and leek bake

[Sorry - no photo]

Using up: elderly spuds, some cream

Scrubbed potatoes (we never bother with peeling) and sliced very thinly.  There was a bit less than we hoped for because one spud had gone over, unfortunately.

Washed one leek - a handy tip from Jamie Oliver is to slice the leek in half lengthwise from the core, then run it under the tap; gets all the mud out easily.  Sliced it up fairly small.

Greased an ovenproof dish - I use a sunflower oil spray for this, Layered in half the potato slices, sloshed in some double cream, seasoned.  Added leeks, sprinkled on grated gruyere cheese.  Layered on the rest of the potato, more cream, more seasoning, more gruyere.

I always start this kind of thing in the microwave for 5 minutes - it cuts about 20 minutes off the total cooking time.  Then into the oven on gas 5 for about 30 minutes.  Put it on a tray, because it might ooze a bit.

You can substitute all sorts for this - chicken stock instead of cream, spinach or courgette or whatever instead of leeks, breadcrumbs on the top.  Excellent standby for using up stuff - I’ve even put leftover chicken in the middle sometimes.

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beef stroganoff

Using up: ribeye steak, mushrooms

Along with the three sausages, we also returned from Summer Camp with a heap of ribeye steak, which simply didn’t get eaten.  I flung it in the freezer in the general melée of dealing with wet tents, missing cats, etc., but a carton of organic mushrooms in the fridge gave me pause for thought …

So: cut a big onion in half, and slice it as thinly as you can.  Sauté that with lots of butter (this is not a good recipe for cholesterol haters) and oh, about a tablespoon of paprika until the onion is soft.  Then add mushrooms, sliced, and continue to cook until the mushrooms are soft.

Decant this paprika-y mess on to a heatproof plate and keep it warm.  Wipe out the pan.

Take steak (it really does need to be good quality for this, trust me), slice it into 1/4″-1/2″ strips across the grain. Fry this in batches in sunflower oil until it’s done as you like - we keep it fairly rare.  Drain out the oil from the pan, put everything back in, add soured or double cream, lemon juice, seasoning and chopped flat-leaf parsley.

It may be thought of as heresy, but we always eat this with chips.  I know, I know, but if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly.

By the way, chips, peas and ice cream are the only frozen goods I buy - everything else I freeze myself.

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stir fried broccoli with almonds

Using up: a head of broccoli, and some of a tin of roast salted almonds we found in the depths of the cupboard

Chopped the florets off the broccoli, and then sliced the stalk into rounds about 1/2″ thick.  Blanched for about 4 minutes.

Mince up garlic and ginger, chopped an onion.  Put some groundnut oil in the wok (not too much - I’m trying to cut down on oil and salt and stuff [sob]).  Added a teaspoon or so of sesame seeds when it was hot, then the garlic / ginger / onion.  Stirred them about until they were looking cooked, then added the broccoli and almonds; about 2 tablespoons of almonds, I would guess.  Then added a goodly sloosh of shoyu, and a little water.

Boiled up some egg noodles to go with it - stirred them all round in the wok together before service.  Quick, light, lovely.

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sausage, runner beans and stuff

Using up: runner beans, sausages

Apologies for lack of posting - we have been camping for a few days in West Wales, and we should have taken an ark rather than a tent.

I brought back three fat butcher’s sausages, and this is what I did.

Drizzled the sossidge with a little olive oil, and set them in a tray in the oven at gas 6.

Headed, tailed and sliced up the runner beans that were ten days old {mea culpa], put them in a pan with cold water, brought to the boil, and simmered for 8 minutes.

Chopped up an onion and some garlic, removed some of the sausage-y oil from their pan, added a bit more to it, and sauteéd it in a pan.  Chopped sage and rosemary from the garden, and added to the pan.

Drained the green beans, and put in about 2/3rd of them - the rest will go into a wrap with some other bits for a lunch.  Looked at it all and decided it wasn’t quite right, so opened a jar of roast yellow peppers, cut up about half, and slung them in.

Cooked some macaroni, and while that was going on, cut the sausages into 1″ chunks and put them in the frying pan.

Then macaroni and cubed feta added, with a good grate of black pepper.  It really was *delicious*.

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no freezer?

An article in today’s Guardian claims that “foodies” don’t have freezers any more.  Can this be true?

We have two* - a huge USanian fridge/freezer in the kitchen, and an upright in the shed outside.  Inside is used for things we’ve cooked and frozen - at any time, it will contain some permutation of chilli, casserole, lentil dishes, bolognese sauce, Indian chicken dishes, etc.  It also holds sausages, turkey mince (for the cats), duck breast, breadcrumbs, peas, vanilla ice cream.

The outside one is more for bulk stuff. We buy our beef from the inestimable Mr Rawlings’ Dexter farm - only about once a year, because we don’t eat much meat these days. We buy lamb in half an animal at a time.  I freeze stock, too.

I wouldn’t be without our freezers, myself.

*we used to have another small upright one under the stairs, which we used for frozen ox cheek for the cats. You had to buy a lot at a time - 100lbs or so - so a dedicated freezer was the only way.  Then our supplier stopped doing it, so the cats had to eat something else.  I’m not sure Iggy has got over it even now …

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from veg to meatballs to pasta bake

Using up: veg

As stated last week, we are over-vegged, and need to use it up before we go away for the long weekend that’s coming up.

So, on Friday night, I chopped up four red peppers, two onions, several mushrooms, and four (I think) courgettes.  These were sautéd down in my huge shallow Circulon pan (the one that’s too big to go in any of the cupboards) with some olive oil, a fair bit of garlic, and sage and oregano from the garden.

Then I took a bag of Ikea meatballs (great standby for the freezer!) and turfed them into the mix, and added a carton of creamed tomatoes (another great standby).  Bit of salt and pepper, and left to cook through for about 20 minutes.  We consumed two goodly portions with spaghetti.

On Saturday morning, I put another 3 meals’ worth into 2-portion tubs, and froze them, keeping back about 300ml of veggy sauce.

And on Sunday evening feeling, as we were, rather depleted, due to an *excellent* party on Saturday, 120 miles from home, we boiled some pasta shells, dumped a can of borlotti beans into the leftover sauce, and mixed the pasta and sauce together.  A mozzarella chopped over the top, and some basil from the garden, 20 minutes in the oven - bosh.  Dinner.  Hardly any effort, and really nice.

So, one bag of meatballs, an assortment of tired vegetables, a tin of borlotti beans and a carton of passata - 10 meals.  Gotta be good :)

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green cleaning

I try very hard not to buy proprietary cleaning stuff - they’re stuffed full of chemicals, cost a fortune, and are usually not needed.  What we do buy - washing up liquid, washing powder - we try to have eco-friendly stuff.

Normally I get buy with bicarb of soda, and vinegar (but not together!).  Bicarb is a magical thing - you can clean almost anything with it; I used it to clean some tarnished silver earrings the other day!  For bad stuff - perhaps a burnt-on pan (but not an aluminium one, please) - just make a paste of bicarb and water, and brush it on.  Leave for an hour or so, then clean it off and voila - no burn.  You can get grease off a cooker with it, too.

Vinegar is a great cleaning substance too - and don’t worry about the smell, because it will disappear within 20 minutes or so.  I use it for worktops and so on.  Also, for cleaning the floors, I have a handy steam mop, which uses no chemicals at all; it’s also terrific at cleaning the bathroom tiles, windows, and so on.

Also for the bathroom, I can strongly recommend the bathroom set from Deeply Clean -  the sponge cleans the bath with no added chemicals, and gets all the horrid soap scum off.  You can get this from Sainsburys, and I think Oxfam shops sell it too.

And this post was actually inspired by Sharon’s post on Finding Simplicity, about making your own multipurpose cleaning fluid innabottle, which I shall try out forthwith - thanks!

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