how to clean a wok

breakfast, before and after

Somehow, we have acquired a lot of fruit. We’re not good at eating it, and Riverford keep bringing it. We’ve been eating porridge for breakfast through the winter, mostly, but I think we must now attack the fruit backlog. Or possibly open a market stall.

And so - breakfast.

mushrooms with cumin, coriander and spinach

This recipe comes from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian Cookery, an excellent tome.

It’s quick and simple to cook - served with basmati rice, it takes about 30 minutes from start to plate. And it’s delicious!

licorice

We popped into the village off-licence this afternoon to pay for our wine. All most civilised - we ordered We it via e-mail, have paid for it, and they’ll drop it round later!

And on the counter were Natural Licorice Logs. I haven’t eaten licorice in years, and we picked up a log, and have just scoffed it.

How delicious - I shall be buying a bag of those next time I’m in. RJ’s Soft Eating Natural Licorice Logs, should you be interested.

we like soup

Working at home, we generally have a pot of soup on the go during the colder months. However, it’s almost May, and it’s not *meant* to be colder now, but this morning it was.

So I looked in the fridge, and found a motley assortment of rather weary veg: some very tired carrots, a swede, a leek, some celery. Into the trusty Magimix they went. Then I went a bit stir crazy, and chopped up the 3/4 cucumber and the elderly spring onions.

Into a BIG pan with some olive oil, to sweat down for a bit, while I investigated the freezer for stock. I found a box of gravy left from pork with pears and apricots (I never throw food away!). That got nuked in the microwave, then I added about a mug of lentils, a carton of creamed tomatoes (keep this in the cupboard, they’re so useful), and about 1.5 litres of water.

Add sea salt and black pepper, bring to a boil, simmer for - oh - an hour or so. It made a very nice lunch, but like all soup, it’ll be much nicer tomorrow :)

pumpkin and apple risotto

After the aforementioned trying day yesterday, we fancied something simple and easy for supper.

A rummage in the freezer brought forth a promising tub of mush, and so we had pumpkin and apple risotto. We make a lot of what I call risotto, but what purists would insist should be called an oven-baked rice dish, but for this one I do it properly, and stand over the stove, stirring (how alliterative).

Somehow, the ingredient list of pumpkin, apple, onion, garlic and parmesan doesn’t sound that promising, but trust me - it’s gorgeous, and a real comfort food, due to the lovely creamy texture.

The recipe doesn’t mention parsley, but I have a big bunch of flat leaf parsley, so bunged some in at the end.

I know it’s wrong …

We have had a trying morning, involving a web server running out of steam, and a Dishwasher Incident requiring me to hotfoot it shortly to B&Q to get some drain rods. Also, I failed to make any soup for this week’s lunches, as it was dead warm yesterday.

To console ourselves, we stuck a couple of part baked baguettes in the oven. For mine, I hacked off some Red Leicester cheese, and some home cooked gammon. It’s worth mentioning here that I Cannot Carve, or slice bread. And then I hewed some chunks off a cucumber, and realised that really, I’d need a ladder to eat the baguette if I put the cucumber in, so I had it on the side.

And then - oh the shame - I slathered the cheese and ham with Heinz Salad Cream. It’s wrong, but it tastes so good …

melon

Melon is one of those foods I can take or leave. Don’t get me wrong - it’s OK - but it always seems a lot of effort for not much reward.

However, we try hard not to waste things*, and Riverford brought us a melon in last week’s box. It has sat in the fridge since, and looked at me in an accusing manner, so this morning perlmonger chopped it up and we had it for breakfast. It was nice, but I wouldn’t rush out to get another, that’s all I’m sayin’ …

* To our shame, we left the avocadoes languishing, till the point where, I’m pretty sure, I can now sling them on the compost heap. So at least they won’t be entirely wasted; they’ll provide a home for the slow worms and the rats!

Sunday supper

As previously noted, we picked up the first local asparagus of the year on Saturday; with it, we cooked one of our favourites - asparagus stir-fried with ginger and red chilli. It sounds a terrible thing to do to fresh asparagus, I know, but trust me … it really is glorious.

We followed this with a rhubarb and ginger sponge pudding - bit piggy, really, but it is Sunday. I discovered the wondrous combination of rhubarb and fresh ginger a couple of years ago; I was following a recipe that called for stem ginger in syrup, and I thought it would be too sweet, so lobbed some finely minced fresh in instead. We’ve never looked back!

If you don’t have any ginger in the house (and you *should*, of course) remember that elderflower works wonderfully well with rhubarb too, so a splash of elderflower cordial would make a very good substitute, although I’d cut the sugar down a little in that case.

Rhubarb is a Very Fine Thing indeed.

Sunday breakfast

Home made scones are lovely, but until I came across this recipe I was utterly unsuccessful at scones.

But now I’m not. Hurrah!

p.s. the dough freezes really well.