Category Archives: Cookery

My Day in Vegetables

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The day comes, the day goes. In the kitchen I cut carrots, potatoes and parsnips, slice leeks and spring greens and consider if I can force more vegetables into my diet. I have already had blueberries and raspberries in my porridge and had beans on toast for lunch. That comes to eight, against a target  of five a day, so I decide I have done enough.

It is a confusing time of year. My head tells me it is five pm, but the clocks, having gone forward last week, tell me it is six pm. Sometimes, despite all the clocks, instinct still governs my thinking. We still haven’t worked out why the clock on the Tv is still an hour behind as all other devices have set themselves to the new time. Perhaps the TV, like me, prefers the old ways. Viewing was, as I recall, much simpler when we had two black and white channels. Then there were three, and then we had colour.

After that, the floodgates opened. Four channels, five channels, daytime TV . . .

I could, I suppose, put sweet potatoes in with the roast vegetables, but if I do that it will have almost exactly the same ingredients as last night’s vegetable stew. This isn’t a problem for two meals in a row but as tomorrow’s evening meal is going to be vegetable soup it could be. The soup, you see, will be the blended leftovers from the stew. There are many complexities in life, and menu planning on a budget is one that gets little notice. If TV journalists and politicians were forced to work for minimum wage I’m sure we would see many more stories about this sort of thing.

Anyway, I’m off to finish cooking tea. I will probably come back for a second post later as i have something to moan about, and Julia has had to listen to me moaning all day.

Oddly shaped, but grown with love

 

 

32?

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This morning I remembered that the dried fruit in the Easter Cake we had from a neighbour counts as one of the thirty. Had nothing extra at breakfast, but managed an apple and some sort of small citrus thing (probably a satsuma) for lunch. Fried rice for tea (wholegrain) so added that plus bean sprouts, sesame, peas, chilli and green beans to the total. That’s 30 already. It’s slightly harder as you get into the third day as we’ve already counted bran, berries, peppers and mushrooms in previous days. I used lemon juice and soy sauce too, so that might already be 32, now I come to think of it.

We have sweetcorn, baked beans and lentils in the cupboard and courgettes and aubergine in the fridge. This is all the sorts of stuff we normally eat, so thirty hasn’t been too hard. Strangely, five a day can be tricky at times.

Mint Tea

This evening I had an acceptance from one of the submissions I sent out on 31st, and a second email from an editor asking if I would be willing to make a couple of alterations. I’m nearly always happy to make alterations, as they generally improve things, so that’s good.

I woke at around 5.30 this morning (that’s the morning of the 2nd, even though I will be publishing on the 3rd) and couldn’t get back to sleep. I’m not sure how I’m going to cope with moving. However, worry never solves anything so I suppose I’d better do it by starting and carrying on until I’ve finished. It’s generally the best way.

Easter Buns

 

 

Like Cookery, but with More Swearing and Less Finesse

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I spent the afternoon cooking after I blogged. We now have a sweet potato and chickpea curry and a corned beef hash with mixed vegetables. neither reflects much credit on me as a cook, but at least we have two evening meals available.

The curry, with chickpeas, sweet potato and onions, also has a tin of chopped tomatoes in it. Served with rice, that will take care of the five a day. Since I discovered rice is allowed as one of the five a day, I have been quite excited.  I always assumed that like potatoes, rice was excluded. If garlic counts, it will be six. I’m going to start concentrating on my vegetables a bit more.

The hash contains carrot, parsnip, sweet potato and potato. It will have leeks too, when I put it all together. I’m considering serving it with cabbage to boost it to five. And corned beef. I like corned beef in a hash. At one time I just used to do it with potatoes and onions, but even I have moved with the times.

I was going to do a vegetable stew as well but I ran out of clean pans. It’s the same ingredients as the hash, but I add garlic and a stock cube. I will do it later in the week.

Then, in a few days time, we will be looking at soup – probably curried vegetable soup.

When I retire, I intend batch cooking one or two days a week and just warming stuff up on the other days. It’s so much simpler and it avoids the temptation to get a takeaway. This is bad, bot6h on the grounds of economy, and the grounds of health. Having lost two stone (or 28lbs for you Americans) whilst ill, I want to keep it off this time, as I’m feeling so much better.

Iranian Vegetable Stew – one of Julia’s recipes

Rice + Marketing = Special Fried Rice

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We have a dish in the UK, found in all Chinese Takeaways, called Special Fried Rice (or variations on the name). Americans may call it something different (though on checking, I found that you don’t), and anyone of Chinese ancestry may not even recognise it as Chinese cuisine. However, like Chicken Tikka Masala, it is now part of British life.

I made a version of it last tonight. It features the three inch end piece of a wrinkly courgette, a half red pepper with a couple of black spots on it, last week’s mushrooms, some green beans I found while looking for the courgette and, finally, some prawns with freezer burn. Yes, It’s a bit like my soup recipe – loads of imperfect ingredients in a random order – but you add rice instead of blending it all. It has garlic, mango chutney and chilli in it. It was going to have chilli jam, lemon juice and soy sauce, but I seem to have used the chilli jam, the soy sauce bottle turned out to be empty and the lemon, which was actually just a half lemon, proved to be too far gone even for me. I’m hoping to fool Julia into thinking I actually used a recipe.

I just had a look at recipes and find that Americans do have it, and that they use SPAM in it. As Number Two Son’s partner is from the Philippines I know about SPAM (a food I haven’t eaten for 50 years), so I wasn’t too surprised. However, I was surprised to find that they add MSG. I didn’t even know it was possible to buy it, let alone that you would want to add it.

Naturally, my mind then drifted onto the possibilities for a literary twist to end the post. Something along the lines of my life being like Special Fried Rice – a random mix of imperfect ingredients that isn’t really Special, just leftovers with a sheen of marketing. But I decided that was too cynical, even for me.

Mouse on Wheatsheaf Loaf

The photos? I have one, unattractive, photo tagged “rice” but these were in the same month so I used these.

Day 121

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I finally got round to soup making. It was going to be roasted sweet potato soup, but as I lined up a group of hapless sweet potatoes, I noticed a bag of carrots lurking at the back of the veg rack. The trouble with my grocery ordering is that it can be a bit unadventurous and if, for instance, you get bored of carrots, but carry on ordering, you soon end up with a sorry-looking assortment. Add that to the bag of wrinkly ginger and my course of action became clear.

I now have a pan of carrot and ginger soup waiting for tomorrow’s lunch. and  a pan of roasting vegetables, mostly carrots, in the oven. As a result of ill-advised handling of my stick blender I also have some new colours on the wall and on my jumper. Fortunately, it will wash. Luckily I had not added turmeric.

As I say, unadventurous.

In a moment I will be warming a few greens and making some gravy. It will be made using gravy granules as I am lazy and have no pride in my cookery. In an ideal world I would be wearing an apron and making gravy from scratch as a cheerful family gathered round. That is how gravy is so often portrayed. You don’t often see gravy adverts where a single man in a bedsit makes a pan of gravy, livens it up with a good slug of cheap vodka and sits down to eat amongst the dust, regrets and tortured memories of times with his family . . .

Julia says I am no loss to the world of advertising.

In actually started off in quite an upbeat mood and intended talking about poppies. I am going to serve up now and think about a second post.

Carrot & Ginger Soup

Day 110

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I’ve been reviewing my soup making. The celery was disappointing, but apart from that the others haven’t been too bad. However, at this point I have to admit that “the others” generally means root vegetable soups, and they are difficult to mess up. I’ve also done mushroom, pea, broccoli and cauliflower, which have all been passable. The roasted squash soup I did last week was very good, but by the time I’d finished roasting the frozen squash chunks they had shrunk to almost nothing, and I ended up with just two portions. I know that roasting the veg adds to the flavour, but I feel guilty about using the oven just to roast in a bit of extra flavour.

I really need to extend my repertoire, but that would mean buying ingredients specially and that isn’t how I view soup. Soup is mainly what happens to stuff you have had too long. Yes, the pea soup and the roasted squash soup featured specially bought ingredients, but all the rest were just things I had too much of.

It’s my day off today and Julia has gone on a course to brush up on her Makaton so I am faced with a long boring day. I could look up some interesting soup recipes . . .

Or I could look at some Makaton videos and surprise her tonight by asking her if she wants a cup of tea by signing. Perhaps not. After a day of training she can probably do with a cup of tea without additional difficulty.

Soup recipes then . . .

Day 92

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It’s cold again. By our standards anyway. So, when confronted by a menu choice featuring either root vegetables or salad, we went for the roots. We’ll be going that way again tomorrow. After that I’m hoping that the weather will improve as I have quite a lot of salad ingredients to use, and the difference between salad and green slime is only a few days in some cases. I will use the spinach for greens and the rocket in sandwiches and the lettuce probably has a few more days in it, so it will all end well. That’s why I prefer coleslaw to green salad. A cabbage does not, in my experience, become green slime. It may become fossilised, but it takes a long time and you get plenty of chance to eat it.

Looking at the weather charts I’m planning roasted veg with sausages and onion sauce tomorrow, pasties and roasted veg for Monday and probably vegetable stew for Tuesday. The leftover stew will make soup for Wednesday lunch and we can use the pizza bases to make pizza and coleslaw for the evening. Thursday? Well that’s quite a long time in the future. I don’t plan so far ahead these days. Possibly pasta or curry. We have the ingredients, we just need the motivation.

I’m trying to lose more weight and you can probably tell that from the length at which I talk about it.

Recently we have generally had good deliveries, with most of the stuff I order being delivered. Where I haven’t been as successful is in being able to order everything I want. There are still gaps, including loose parsnips. It’ not a problem, as bagged parsnips taste just the same. The only difference is that the plastic bags are killing the planet and I am trying to cut down on them.

Day 91

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Veggie burgers tonight. Unfortunately after letting them slip off the menu for the last year or so, I seem to have lost the knack. I mixed and mashed beans, garlic, spring onions, mushrooms, nuts, breadcrumbs, cumin, smoked paprika, Worcester Sauce and fresh coriander and produce a soft brown mix which seemed reasonably firm as I made four burgers. Twenty minutes later I removed them from the oven,  prodded them and decided to put them back. ten more minutes failed to firm them up so I carefully removed them from the baking sheet and flopped them onto our plates with the Spanish potatoes and coleslaw.

As I said to Julia, if I had told her it was a sort of Scandinavian soft bean hash she would probably have believed me. The flavour was right, even if the consistency (and colour) looked like something familiar to all country dwellers who walk through fields of cows.

No, I didn’t take photos. It’s not something I want to dwell on.

I’m going to stop reading recipes with “easy” and “simple” in the titles. They often aren’t, and even when thy are, they often fail o be much good. This one, mind you, was all down to me. Having looked at various recipes I made one up based on the contents of the fridge. Next time I’ll look for a complicated one featuring oatmeal and eggs and I’ll try for a burger that doesn’t bend when you pick it up.

Spanish potatoes are just English potatoes, before you get too excited. They are tossed in oil with garlic and smoked paprika before being roasted. They look alarmingly red but don’t taste as interesting as I had hoped.

Not an unqualified success but nice to feel I’m getting my interest in cookery back.

The picture is from last time I made veggie burgers.

Day 69

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Pizza tonight, with lots of coleslaw. The coleslaw was home made. The pizza wasn’t. Pizza for lunch tomorrow and probably for tea. However, I will make a large green salad for that, well you wouldn’t want the menu to become boring, would you?

I have also done a vegetable stew and pea and mint soup. It was time I got round to it, but our soup needs for the week had been filled by liquidising last Saturday’s vegetable stew. Frugality and a high fibre diet both have many things to recommend them.

I didn’t photograph the coleslaw because, with white cabbage, it tends to look bland. Also, the pumpkin seeds I put in it look like mouse droppings from certain angles. My cooking is basic, but my food photography is even less refined. However, I thought I’d better take some new photographs for the blog.

The soup is the simplest I make (Apart from the one I will describe later). Soften some onions, add peas and a stock cube, boil for a few minutes, add some torn mint leaves and then liquidise.

The easiest? It’s the leftover stew that becomes soup, but it isn’t really a recipe, so I’m not sure if it counts.

Vegetable stew

The lighting wan’t very good, so I resorted to flash. It still looks rather light and I’m going to pretend I had a soft focus filter on.

Tch! The date just changed, so it’s now day 70. A fifth of the year gone and the best I can say I’ve achieved is that I’ve made pea and mint soup. It is very good soup, but it isn’t quite the same as winning a Nobel Prize or winning the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. I fear they may both be beyond my grasp . . .

Day 66

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I changed yesterday’s menu slightly, but as some people read it I won’t go back and change it in the post. I will, however, add a couple of items to the list – I used some leeks to bulk out the onions (I’m using ready chopped onions to save effort for my hands and didn’t want to open a new pack). I also did stir-fried greens to give us a better selection of vegetables.

Greens are one of those things that are a problem when you take Warfarin as they contain a lot of Vitamin K, which is the antidote to Warfarin. That’s why I had a problem a few months ago (the nurse spotted the problem immediately – seems they always see it around Christmas time when the Brussels sprouts start). I’m now trying to keep up my consumption of greens because I need to be consistent with my diet, and because they are healthy and low carb.

I really should start counting the number of different types of fruit and vegetables we eat in a week. It’s vey easy to get into a rut when you order online from the menu headed “My  Favourites”.

It appears that you really need a diet based on 30 types of fruit and veg if you are to achieve optimal gut health. That’s quite a lot.

Prawn linguine with rocket, tomato (and spaghetti)

Last week we had leeks, onion, garlic, carrots, parsnips, swede (rutabaga), sweet potato, celery, tomato, mushrooms, cauliflower, oranges, apples, pears and figs. I’m not sure if you are allowed to count potatoes and rice, you can’t for your five a day, so I won’t count them. That’s fifteen. You can count fresh herbs, so that’s coriander and thyme (though I’m not clear if adding it then removing it before serving counts). You can count spices so that adds ginger. I’m pretty sure that stuff sprinkled from a jar doesn’t count, so just the one. The article counts oats in muesli, so oats in porridge must count, as does the wheat in Weetabix, I suppose. Blue berries and bananas – nearly forgot them. We don’t eat enough chillies to qualify, I’m sure. I think that’s it. And peanut butter – it’s nuts.

We didn’t have any seeds, nuts or pulses, partly because I’m not a natural eater of seeds and partly because Julia mutters every time I used chick peas, lentils or beans. She will have to get used to it, because if we are going to have 30 a week we will need them.

That’s 24 because I just remembered I had avocados on Wednesday. I’m actually quite pleased with that.

Nasi Goreng

It leaves six extra to find but if I add chick peas, beans and lentils, plus peas in the soup I just need to add broccoli, peppers, courgettes (which are all easy enough) and we’re on  – thirty one.

Time for me to confess now – though I blame Julia for the lack of pulses, I’m to blame for the lack of Mediterranean style vegetables as I don’t like them roasted and got fed up of ratatouille because we ate so much of it as we transferred to a semi-vegetarian diet in lockdown.

Avocado and Wild Garlic on Sourdough

If I were to use a subtitle for this post it would be – I can cook and I can eat vegetables – I just prefer takeaways and cake! And that, in one sentence, is the reason why I weigh too much.