Category Archives: Food

The All-Purpose Recipe

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Boiling vegetables

Take vegetables. Cube them. I use carrot, parsnip, leek, onion, turnip, swede, sweet potato and potato. Sometimes I use garlic. This, when boiled, possibly with a stock cube, is “Vegetable Stew” and is served into bowls with a ladle.  I sometimes add red lentils or pearl barley and also sometimes add shredded greens. If I transfer it to a wok and added fried onions and perhaps shredded greens and corned beef and season it with Henderson’s Relish it becomes “Hash”. If you give it a day and hit it with a hand blender it becomes “Vegetable Soup”.  If you tweak the vegetables slightly (I’m not convinced of the merit of turnip or swede in curry, for instance, and parsnips can be disconcertingly sweet, it becomes “Curry”.

Liquidise

In days gone by it would probably have been called “pottage” and would have been the staple food of much of the population. Looking back down my family tree, it’s clear to see that I am just the latest in a long tradition of peasants. Fortunately I have not yet been reduced to gruel.

Yesterday, as I believe I mentioned, we had mixed vegetable soup. It was the surplus veg from the hash with added black pepper and a cheese and tomato sandwich. A posh meal for peasants, but simple compared to the  things you see on cookery programmes.

Serve. Just like yesterday and the day before . . .

In the evening we had a variation on the stew theme – Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry. I often use a can of tomatoes in it, but this time I used the leftover tomato soup from a couple of days ago. We also use vegetable soup for the same thing when we have it. Not sure if I’m brave enough to use broccoli soup or not. Probably not, it just doesn’t seem right.

I use bags of ready chopped onions – my hands aren’t what they were and buying like this avoids much frustration and cutting of finger tips

I was reminded last night, whilst watching TV, that writing things by hand engages different parts of the brain than typing. I was also reminded that it’s important, when checking things up, to avoid reading technical papers on the subject.  I just spent ten minutes going through one paragraph. It turns out that writing with a western alphabet is different from writing in hieroglyphics or Chinese. I didn’t want to know that, or bend my head around so much Latin, and I know if I see “et al.” I have taken a wrong turn down the rabbit hole. It is written by a man with much knowledge and very little control of his words. They form paragraphs of brick wall proportions and clusters of words like thickets of thorns, holding me back rather than helping me on my way.

Cursive handwriting is better than writing in block letters for a number of reasons (which I skimmed. My decision on those two forms of writing is based on whether I want people to be able to read what I have written. Even I have trouble reading my own handwriting after a few hours, as I forget what I wrote and the squiggles that remain are of little help.

Inions and sweet potatoes – the suspense continues . . .

I’m going to have to look for a simpler version. I know handwriting is better than typing and want to go back to it (even though I hate typing my notes afterwards) but I can only vaguely remember what was said on the subject and can’t take much of any use from the paper I’m currently reading. I am feeling very stupid as I admit that, but that’s just the way it is. Think of  Brave New World, we don’t all pop out of our test tubes as academics, some of us have to operate machinery.

I just found a simpler version. Writing by hand enhances memory and learning. The control of the pen, and sensory involvement, contribute to elaborate brain patterns which enhance memory and learning. It is important to include writing by hand in education, using pens and pencils instead of digital devices.

Add chickpeas and garlic paste as the sense of jeopardy escalates . . .

That is my sort of academic – knows stuff, connects it to real life and helps people learn. I feel more intelligent now. I am also going to make notes my hand rather than typing or cutting and pasting.

Add leftover  tomato soup and simmer as tension reaches breaking point . . .

It’s a small step forward but a journey of a thousand miles etc. . . .

The final result – brownish  food on brownish rice, with beige naan bread. I feel the end result may not have lived up to the sense of tension I tried to create.

 

A Pause, Some Thoughts and a Conclusion

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I just finished making three submissions. I wavered between six submissions and two, so three is a compromise.  The three I sent off involved five poems, which were more or less complete when I started looking for poems earlier in the week. The three I didn’t make would involve fifteen tanka, and I have none written, apart from a few that have already been rejected several times. When I was in this position a few months ago I rushed some into existence and got two rejections from the three. It doesn’t seem worth rushing to submit something that makes it look like you can’t write decent poetry. I will wait and apply myself to gradually getting back up to speed.

The truth is that I prefer writing about collectables, even if the results are only seen by a few members of the Numismatic Society on Facebook.

We had breakfast out yesterday. It was partly to avoid doing something else and partly to establish a pattern of me going out. Julia thinks that I need to go out more. I don’t.

Breakfast at Harvester is not the all you can eat blowout it used to be.  I’d been looking forward to a touch of fruit and cereal, a moderate Full English and several slices of  toast with honey. They don’t do it like that now. The big breakfast option (three sausages, three rashers of bacon, two eggs, half a poorly cooked tomato, one watery mushroom, beans, three hash browns, one tiny slice of black pudding  and a couple of slices of toast, was big and, at £9.99 was reasonable value by today’s standards.

In terms of quality it wasn’t as good as it could have been. Same goes for the experience – it used to be quite a leisurely and relaxing way to eat breakfast but now, wit6h no honey or marmalade and the other changes, it isn’t so relaxing.

I could have done with the smaller breakfast option but the only way to get black pudding was to order the larger breakfast. To pay £2 for an extra sausage, extra rasher of bacon, tiny black pudding slice and, I think, an extra hash brown. I just checked – yes you do get an extra hash brown. You are supposed to get two tomatoes and two mushrooms, which I didn’t get. Cheapskates. Though considering the poor cooking of the mushroom and tomato I may not have wanted more.

The moral of the story is that as prices rise quality,  whether of food or service or relaxation, seems to go down.

Note too how they say the toast is free, as if it is a special bonus offer. Sorely it is a normal part of breakfast, as are the preserves to put on it.

Anyway, there you go. Went to Harvester. had a late breakfast, didn’t need to eat again until we had soup and a sandwich in the evening. Probably good value by modern standards but too much food for me as I try to lose weight, and deficient in far too many ways. Will be giving it a miss in future, unless I am seized by a sudden desire for boiled mushrooms and half a lightly warmed tomato.

I just looked at my emails – I already have an acceptance. It took 34 minutes and is a new record. I am now officially feeling more enthusiastic about writing poetry.

This is Julia’s breakfast – I had scrambled eggs. It is, however, my elbow that you can see across the table.

Pruning Emails and Eating Salmon

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Sorry, I have been neglecting my readers. If it helps, I have also been neglecting myself and all sorts of things I should have been doing. Two days ago I deleted 31 emails. and left another six to be looked at later. I have just done 33 more and this evening I will no doubt get a few more. How many do you get?

Over the years I’ve whittled things down so I don’t get many, and I will be looking at them critically in the next few weeks to cut more out. Same goes for my postal deliveries – there are things that need to be stopped, and now that we are moving this seems like a good time to do it.

I’ve intermittently sent money to disasters and such, and bought via mail order, and some people just never seem to give up. I don’t mind helping people who are in trouble, in the short term, but it isn’t my responsibility to finance refugee camps in the long term. If governments can afford the bombs to create refugees they should be made to finance the care of the refugees they create. I have supported two charities for children for the last 20 or 25 years. I pay by direct debit and I pay whether I am in work or out of it. It’s not a great deal, but it has seemed quite a lot at times when business has been bad. Once I went to the shop and was paid a reliable wage, I was able to manage it quite comfortably. Even things I am interested in often go unread. I’m interested in nature but, to be frank, I’m less enthralled by details of the AGM or the latest request for extra money.

Fortunately spam filters have got better over the years, because things seemed to be a lot worse when you look back. I had a bad patch a few years ago when I went on a South African genealogy site. I had months of spam emails and pop-ups, presumably because my filters had to educate themselves about South African spam sites. The email box on the farm used to have frequent requests for help from the widows of African politicians. I presume, as with all things, there is a science behind spam and it is probably big business.

This isn’t the worst of the job. I have emails in my inbox which date back to 2011. I’m currently going through them at the rate of a couple of hundred a day to get rid of them. They relate to junior rugby and various similar things and most were kept as an archive in case I needed to refer back. Of course, you rarely do, and at the end of the season you can’t be bothered. Suddenly you have a few thousand surplus emails and you lose the will to do anything about them . . .

The sifting process is a mixed blessing. Some good times to remember, some low points to forget and a lot of things and people I have forgotten, or never thought about, in the last 13 years.

Modern life, eh?

The pictures are baked salmon with broccoli and asparagus. And mangetout peas and red peppers, soy sauce and sesame seed oil. Healthy oily fish with veg and a lack of carbs. It’s sort of a recipe from the internet. The salmon, broccoli and asparagus were bought specially but the rest was adjusted based on what was already in the fridge. It worked and it was easy, so I will probably do it again next week, or something similar.

By my standards, I find this quite impressive. It would, of course, be better with chips , or when battered into a chunky soup, but sometimes you have to make concessions to elegance.

The Cod’s Scallops

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The Cod’s Scallops is a prize-winning local chain of fish & chip shops (and restaurants). We have been meaning to go to one for years, but with one thing and another, have only just got round to it.

I once read an article on The Cod’s Scallops and the attention to detail they needed to win. It was a matter of professional curiosity, as we were involved in the kitchen at the Ecocentre at that time. The inspectors do things like checking under appliances using a mirror on a stick. It would, I thought, be a good time to start applying some attention to the details of the way I live.

This is a new leaf I intend to turn over. We have hardly been out since lockdown, and only eaten out a handful of times. Now I am retiring I need to extend my horizons and interact with people – sitting at home turning into a vegetable is not an option. We also took a bag of books to the charity shop and when we returned home I started the process of tidying up my administrative affairs. I have  lot of things I need to do and need to get on with them.

As an aside here – those of you who read Derrick Knight’s blog may know that he calls gherkins “wallies”. I always assumed it was some sort of regional term, as I had never heard it before. You can order a “wally” from the menu we used today, though at £1.70 (or £1.20 if you use the takeaway service) I decided not to bother. It would need to be the size of a cucumber to make me want to pay that amount for a pickle.

They also have a selection of other seafood available, and Julia is keen to try some on our next visit. So am I, but first we went for fish and chips just to see how the quality compares.

Now, back to the main subject. It’s clearly a very popular venue, because on our first attempt we could only find a cramped corner table. I’m not good in cramped conditions as I am built along generous lines and am not designed to fit in a small space.

So we had a drive round and returned later. In between we went to find a pizza restaurant we used to go to, but it has shut and it is now a Burger King. That was depressing, but at least it spurred us on to return to our original choice which, by 2pm, was almost empty.

We had the Special. However, the name may be over doing it a bit. It was very nice  but featured a small piece of cod (very tasty, but clearly the price had been kept down by trimming the fish portion size), nice chips, adequate mushy peas tangy homemade tartare sauce and a mug of tea. It was good, but whether it achieved the level of being special is debatable, particularly as it had no bread and butter. I expect a fish special in a fish & chip restaurant to have bread and butter.

It cost £10. My ribs on Saturday night cost nearly twice as much. They featured a rack of ribs, lots of chemical sauce, moderate chips, OK coleslaw and a half boiled corn cob. In terms of health, freshness and quality the Special wins hands down. Size, the ribs win. But you can’t argue with the value. Two of us ate for the price of one person on Saturday, and though I didn’t exactly feel full at the end of it, I did feel it was good value. Anyway, I eat too much and they say it’s good to feel a little hungry at the end of a meal. I suppose it’s about time that, as a pensioner, I should start picking at my food instead of enjoying a big plateful.

This is my first food review in a while, so I’m feeling rusty, but it’s a start and I will gradually get better. One of the things I must do is start taking notes. I think the special is actually called the Daytime Special but I forgot, and when I looked it up online I couldn’t find it listed.

Something else I’ve noticed is that both Harvester and The Cod’s Scallops, though having their menus online, aren’t so keen on putting their prices online. This is a bit irritating when trying to check facts, though I suppose it does save a lot of work every time prices change.

 

There are signs that the attention to detail isn’t what it used to be. They have, for instance, model sailboats on the tables with numbers painted on the sails. When Julia (who did the photos today) wanted to picture one she used one off the table next to us, as ours was covered in food debris and had a splash of ketchup on the sail. It makes you wonder what the rest cleaning regime is like. We had much the same thing when we had the tea room on the farm and the tables were invaded by pot plants. The words “form over function” are currently circling in my thoughts like a dream sequence from a film.

Talking of ketchup, where their tartare sauce is tangy and top notch (unlike some of the homemade tartar sauces I have had in other restaurants), the own brand tomato sauce was a bit bland. It had a nice tomato taste, but lacked the tang of something acidic.

If I’m being picky, there are a few other things that could be attended to. The chairs look like the seats could do with a sand and revarnish, and the toilet wasn’t quite as clean as the rest of the place. There is also just the one toilet for “Buoys” and “Gulls”, the disabled (yes, that’s me) and baby changing. I imagine that you could get a bit of a queue at times when it is busy. As a man who can find himself needing the toilet urgently at times, I’m not sure I’m keen on this. It could be tricky.

All in all, it’s a pleasant place to eat (this was the one on Wilford Lane, by the way – they have several branches round Nottingham). Food was good and value was good. However, we’ve been to a lot of fish and chip restaurants around the country and may of them are equally as good. The main difference between them and The Cod’s Scallops would seem to be the seafood selection and the number of awards that they have accumulated. However, winning awards is a different skill to cooking, and it pays not to get them confused.

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

 

 

Up to 21

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I had salad for the second time in two days.  Didn’t like it, but it has to be done. I need to control my weight and I need the nutrients.

Had cereal for breakfast (bran flakes) with raspberries, banana and blueberries. I’m claiming four towards my 30. Lunch – remembered to add peppers to the salad, so added an extra one. Julia is currently dishing up roast pork with stuffing and apple sauce with roast potatoes, cauliflower, carrot and parsnips. That’s four more, as there’s sage in the stuffing. I ate a pear today too, so that’s ten new vegetable sources of nutrition. Apple sauce doesn’t count as it is processed, but I will have an apple for lunch tomorrow. Just remembered we had grapes with the salad, though I did forget the nuts again. Eleven.

Add this to yesterday and we are now on 21.

Vegetables – Carsington Water

Having looked into what people recommend for the “five a day” I am quite alarmed by some of the things I read. I thought we were doing quite well but in world terms we are way behind.

Japan recommends up to 17 portions a day – 13 vegetable and four fruit. The portions are only 50g, compared to our 80g portions, but they still get 850g of veg to our 400g.

Austria recommends three portions of veg, two of fruit and four of rice, grains, potatoes, bread or pasta a day (five for children and active athletes). A portion of cooked vegetables in Austria is 2-300g. Five of our portions are only a little more than one Austrian portion, though you can eat less if they are raw.

Spanish portions are  up to 200g each – 3 veg and 2-3 fruit per day. Minimum is about 600g per day.

The problem is that I’m not sure I’m actually eating full portions for my five a day. The portion size is two inches of cucumber and three sticks of celery. Who eats that amount of cucumber or celery in a day? One stick of celery is plenty when I take it for lunch. And four or five thinnish slices of cucumber are plenty.

Healthy home grown veg

 

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

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.

 

Starts with Soup and ends with Poetry

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I’m writing this in the last hour of 1st December, and will post it minutes after midnight to make sure i get something written for what is currently “tomorrow”.

Soup first. I was wrong about the quantity. We had it for lunch then used the remains in the vegetable stew and dumplings we had for tea. I had mine with lashings of brown sauce, so it wasn’t as healthy as it could have been.

The green soup turned out brown, which turned to an off-putting greenish khaki once I applied the blender. I’m not sure which I prefer. It has a distinct salty taste, turning to broccoli. I’m not sure why as I only used one stock cube and no other seasoning. Apart from that, it’s OK. The colour, I think, can be traced back to me softening the onions until they turned brown – heat too high and concentration not switched on. It should be good for three days, and it might take me two of those days to work up the enthusiasm to eat it. I have seen that6 colour before and it is not usually associated with pleasant things.

Writing next. I had two poems accepted by Obsessed with Pipework. It’s a mixed blessing. I’m glad to have the poems accepted but it means that I now have nothing out with editors. This is a situation I feel I should remedy but it’s also a weight off my shoulders.

Marmalade Hoverfly

Marmalade Hoverfly

Over the last couple of years I have allowed my writing to reflect the editors I send it to, rather than what I want to write. That’s a good thing to do if you want to make a living as a freelance writer but I’ve left it a bit late for that and I really write for pleasure and relaxation.  I have proved to myself that I can write to an acceptable standard and I have proved that I can bounce back from rejection.

If I now change down a gear, it’s because I want to, not because I’m making excuses. Yes, at the back of my mind I do have an ambition to see my name on the spine of a poetry collection (or maybe more than one) but that is not as important as the pleasure I get from writing.

It’s an ego thing. Is my poetry really that good that it justifies cutting down a tree? Probably not. (I added the “probably” to give me an escape route if I ever succumb and do publish one). I don’t, to be honest, work hard enough to be able to produce a book and admire people who do.

This is very much in the area of “Writer Biographies” and blogs. A lot of them list the author’s educational achievements from forty years ago, their glittering careers and a long list of publications. It’s very dull and it isn’t really a picture of who they are (unless they really are  a pompous dullard).  I, as you know, am not overly burdened by education, achievement or success so  I couldn’t compete with them if I wanted to, but I promise you that if I could compete with them, I wouldn’t. What I have been gives some insight into what I am today, but what I am really concerned with is what I will be tomorrow. Same with my writing. Everything I have published is faulty and my ambition is to publish something tomorrow that is less faulty.

Lake District – a better photographer would have noted which bit . . .

The photos are a pork pie, a hoverfly on a poppy and a load of hills next to a lake. That’s just to remind myself that lots of things are (a) more important than poetry and (b) will still be around long after I have gone.