Wednesday's gratin

We had ended up with another high veg situation in the fridge. This included:

• Courgettes – bargain in the shop the other day.
• Mushrooms – seemed like a good idea at the time but I haven't had a chance to use them yet and they were almost getting to that horrible slimy stage.
• Spinach – I have no recollection of acquiring this. On questioning Matt said he picked this up some time ago when I was away and he didn't think there was enough green stuff in the house. On further questioning he didn't have any particular plan for it.
• Broccoli – because broccoli is really good.

We were talking about what we might have for tea whilst in the changing rooms at the swimming pool. But in terms of other useful ingredients we were somewhat depleted. When I say other useful ingredients I mean cheese – the last 60g having gone into some scones at the weekend. We did have some branded cheese triangles but these have limited culinary application. I suggested that with a bit of cheese I could do anything. Fortunately Matt had to take a trip out to the sorting office so was able to tag on a trip to the shop.

In the meantime I got on with cutting up the courgettes. I still had no idea what I was going to cook. A pasta dish would have been the obvious choice but I didn't really fancy pasta.

I put the courgettes in a large oven proof dish (I actually chopped up more courgette than needed to line the bottom of the dish – the rest will keep in the fridge for another day).

And then in a moment of inspiration decided to cook some sort of gratin. This not only provided the potential to use a lot of the vegetables but also:

• sour cream – purchased as a bargain at the same time as the mushrooms and surely not going to last in a healthy manner much longer
• bread crumbs – finally a use for the vast quantity we have in the freezer following the purchase some months ago of some extremely cut price sliced bread.

The question mark remaining over the meal now was protein. It would be quite acceptable to have some fish fingers or veggie sausages on the side but I didn't really fancy that. I decided to integrate some butter beans into the gratin. We have lots of tins of beans and pulses in our cupboards, most commonly they go in casseroles or curries and I was rather excited about using them for something different.

I narrowly avoided making a significant omission. Fortunately Matt called to ask if we needed onions. We didn't, but this did remind me to chop an onion up and put that in. I used a red onion, which I have subsequently learnt contain more quercetin than other types of onion (although how scientific this fact is I'm not sure and what the benefit of quercetin is I'm not sure). And for good measure I added some cloves of garlic too.

By the time I had layered up all the veggies (and beans and sour cream, intermittently adorned with black pepper and herbs from the new herb grinder that Matt's mum had brought us back from her holiday), Matt returned with the cheese. I grated a generous amount and mixed it up with the bread crumbs (and some more black pepper) and then poured this over the top of everything else.

I had no idea what temperature to cook this at, so I went for the default of 180ºC. I had no idea how long it would take, but long enough at least that I could hang up pretty much our whole household's worth of underwear and socks. I decided it was done after about an hour when it the top was starting to look a bit crispy (I love crispy things) and then put the broccoli on (I decided that would be better as a side than in the main dish).

I was a bit worried that it would be a bit soggy (I had poured over just a little bit of hot stock before it went in the oven) so got bowls out just in case. But it held together remarkably well. It tasted great, although I'm not sure what the sour cream added, but then I don't know what it would have been like without the sour cream. Maybe it would even have benefited from more sour cream. I had cooked vastly more than was needed to feed the two of us – probably more like enough for 6. So we both had some for lunch today (leaving it in a lunch box in a hot car is actually a rather effective (and free) re-heating method) and there's some more for picnic tomorrow.

Monday's risky pasta

As I had a band rehearsal to get to, a late finish at work meant that my preference for tea was reheat soup. Matt, my husband had other ideas and made it quite clear that he wanted pasta. I was up to the challenge. 

Since it had been such a glorious weekend, we were particularly devoid of fresh ingredients - grocery shopping is not, in my opinion, an appropriate activity in such fine climes. But I was optimistic that I could concoct something from the available ingredients: 

• some cherry tomatoes (brought for a picnic but then forgotten in favour of naughtier things) 
• a bag of baby spinach (not quite a fortnight past its use by date) 
• a bit of blue cheese (when I came to it a bit less than I had anticipated - I think that someone might have had some for lunch). 

I would make a variation on one of my favourite student pasta sauces of broccoli, Stilton and lemon. 

I began by frying an onion. Even this was the last useable onion in the house - I have to return one to the shop as it was gone off in that way that onions do but that you can't tell until you start chopping. Onion doesn't feature in the original student recipe but it seemed like a sensible thing to do tonight. When this was nice and soft I added the spinach. Based on its use by date this was in remarkably good condition, you have to be a bit suspicious about what they do to it to make it last so long. Hopefully I'll be able to start using spinach from our hanging basket soon, or maybe even chard if I'm feeling fancy. At the same time I added a dozen or so cherry tomatoes. 

Whilst the veggies were cooking I set about the pasta. We have a large choice of different pastas and today I opted for the "fun" pasta from my favourite garden centre. This is because I was not certain of the success of the sauce and, should it be less than delicious, fun pasta might at least distract. When the veggies looked like they were done (spinach a tiny proportion of its original volume and cherry tomatoes exploded) I stirred in the blue cheese. This didn't look like quite enough dairy so I augmented it with a dollop of cream cheese. Finished off with a good grind of black pepper. Unfortunately I forgot that you shouldn't pick up the pepper mill from the top and as well as the good grind I ended up with peppercorns scattered around the hob. 

It culminated in one of those happy coincidences where the pasta and the sauce are ready at just the same time. Furthermore, it was one of those happy coincidences where the things that you throw together from the fridge actually end up tasting pretty good.

And I don't think that it was just because we were distracted by the fun pasta. (I did identify a star, an apple and a bow shape, but these are nothing in comparison to the sphinx that Matt found). 

I'd been a bit excessive with the fun pasta, so one of us will be having even more fun tomorrow lunchtime.

Monday's chilli incident

Again, I find myself in the position of having a surfeit of courgettes. They looked so nice in their little net the other day and I am determined to use them while they are relatively nice, before they get to that pre-slime stage.

It being Monday I had to do something quick. This is because Monday night is band night. And given that we only have pathetically tiny baking potatoes (based on my knowledge of potato farming this is probably because of sub-optimal potato growing conditions recently), and that courgette doesn’t really go with baked potato anyway it would be a pasta evening.

A pasta dish would also be a good opportunity to use up some feta cheese, which has been open in the fridge since a friend wanted it on a crumpet a few weeks ago. Matt, my husband, deemed that this was still fit for human consumption.

So the pasta sauce would consist of red onion (x 2, sliced), courgette (x 4 small, “ribboned” with the peeler), chilli (tiny bit, chopped up really small), thyme (few sprigs, from the garden, still uncommonly exciting), feta (about half a block, chopped in dice sized bits), low fat soft cheese (tablespoon or so), sundried tomatoes (x 8, quartered) and black pepper (few grinds). The most difficult part was deciding what pasta to use; the options being twists, tubes or spaghetti. I went for the twists, purely on the basis that there was about the right quantity for dinner for two, which would have the consequence of freeing up a plastic canister for some pasta bows (my favourite pasta shape).

It took longer than planned to make. Mainly because I wanted to make sure that the onions were nice and soft before adding the rest of the sauce ingredients. I would not be making it to band on time and so was really hoping that my improvised cooking delay would be worth it. From somewhere I had the inspiration to add a few pine nuts just as the sauce was nearly finished. I would have grated over some parmesan before eating if we had some. But we didn’t, and low fat cheddar seemed somehow unfitting.

Even if I do say so myself it was one of the best pasta dishes I have had in ages. Based on the “mmm” sounds, Matt agreed. I was especially pleased because I seemed to have got the chilli just right for my husband’s delicate palate. It gave it a nice warmth, but didn’t make his mouth hurt or my nose run. And the pine nuts were a good inspiration, giving it just a little bit of crunch in random mouthfuls.

It was gone 8 by the time we had finished and I umm-ed and ahh-ed about whether to go to band as I was feeling very tired. But I decided to venture out (mainly to leave Matt in peace with his skirting boards).

It was a particularly comical rehearsal. I do my best to keep “smut” out of these blogs but these sound bites from our fabulous conductor just have to be shared: “Does anyone have the horn?” and “You’ve really got to feel each other”. It would have probably gone un-noticed (not the most innuendo loving room of people you could get) but for the clarinettist I was sat next to who pointed these out to me and had a little chuckle. And for some reason the mood I was in I descended into hysterics.

Having composed myself the rehearsal proceeded uneventfully for a while. And then I got a little itch in my eye, or maybe my eyes were feeling tired. Either way I gave my eyes a little rub. I had clearly not removed all traces of chilli from my fingers. I think I let out a little yelp. The chilli in the eye thing is one of those things that you always hear about but can’t really believe ever happens, or at least not to you. Well it does. And it really stings. It is one of the most sting-y things I have ever experienced.

This called for a quick dash out to the toilets but I didn’t really know what to do. My instinct would be to bathe my eye in water but I couldn’t stop thinking about when you eat a too spicy curry and water makes it worse but beer or milk makes it better. Being in the toilets of a church I had neither beer nor milk available to me. The stinging was clearly not going to go away on its own. This called for a quick call to my mum. Although she was clearly inexperienced in first aid for chilli related eye injuries she was calm in her advice to put cold water on it and I felt bolstered to follow this course of action. It helped. So much so that I was able to go back and join in the remainder of the band rehearsal unimpeded (apart from my lack of skill at high notes – there’s a reason I play 3^rd clarinet).

I think I might cook the rest of the courgettes without chilli. 

Thursday's quick curry

Until today, most of this week’s meals have been of the x-on-toast variety: beans, cheese, sardines, more beans. I branched out and tried out a different type of sardine (my usual is the sort in tomato sauce): picante. This was mainly because there were none in tomato sauce in the cupboard. Picante turns out to be oil with a 2 whole chillies. It was a good job that Matt, my husband, didn’t try these – they made my nose run so I dread to think what they would have done to his delicate taste buds.

The x-on-toast meals were a result of there not being anything much else at home: yesterday’s “big shop” was well overdue. Mostly this involved me doing the shopping while Matt was on the phone. I replenished the oily fish supplies, reverting to form with the tomato sauced type and also got a good selection of fresh food. We shopped after our dancing class. This has the benefit of the shop being quite empty and there usually being quite a few reductions but the drawback of being hungry whilst shopping (the cha cha cha is particularly energy consuming). So, unchecked by Matt (we usually put the brakes on each other’s retail impulses), I was unable to resist the super-reduced bakery products. I saw the super-reduced stickers but didn’t really think about what I would do with a packet of sesame seed bagels, 6 finger rolls, 6 granary rolls (I am at least partially prepared for barbeque season now) and a full-sized loaf of sliced bread when I got them home.

The other drawback of the late evening visit to the supermarket is the lack of checkout staff – necessitating the use of the self-checkout. These were initially a source of great amusement to me and reminded me of my days working in a large stationery shop. They’re still fine if you just want a few simple (i.e. not age restricted or security tagged) items but for a trolley load of stuff they are not optimal. My usual supermarket bagging system is ruined. Anyway, last night I let Matt deal with the self-checkout on his own while I then talked on the phone.

As well as all the refined carbohydrate I had picked up sufficient provisions to make a curry tonight. This actually only required only the addition of an onion and some mushrooms to a few things we already had but psychologically the restocking of the fridge restored my cooking motivation. Usually I like to cook curry very slowly but today we wanted to swim before dinner and I thought better than to leave the gas on while we were out.

After a quick fuel up on half a bagel with my favourite yeast extract we headed out to the pool.

The pool seemed rather busy so I asked the lifeguard if all of the lanes were for general public lengths. Despite being a lovely new facility they have yet to devise a system of indicating where I should swim at any particular time that I turn up. I was told that none of the lanes were for the public as it was “The University”. I think he must have noticed a disappointed look on my face as he then said that it would be ok to swim in one of the lanes. Clearly my physique did not give away the elite swimmer that I am becoming (haha!) as he suggested that I go in the lane with all the people doing breast-stroke with their heads out of the water. I explained my training and that I would be going fast (haha!) and was redirected to the “fast of the fast lanes” (haha!). Whilst I was preparing to enter the water (positioning of goggles) the lifeguard commented that I must be an open water swimmer (haha!), I’m not sure if that might relate to my physique too – maybe I looked well insulated! I started off going quite fast and was keeping pace with the “fastest of the fast” but reverted to my usual pace as they emptied out of the pool. Eventually I had the lane to myself. This struck me as the perfect opportunity to practice my tumble turns. Believe it or not the tumble turn has been recommended to me by a doctor as a good exercise for my back. Usually they aren’t possible because either there are too many people hanging around at the end of the lane and I can’t judge my tumbling that accurately to avoid them, or there are swimmers behind me and I worry about getting disorientated during my tumbling and crashing into them (or them into me). Allegedly the tumble turn is supposed to be an efficient way of getting from one length to the next but I think that I’m missing this benefit by coming to a standstill before executing it. It is a very non-automatic motion and it’s never until I’m upside down that my brain realises that it’s going to have to twist my body to get out of it.

I had a sesame seed (from the pre-swim half-bagel) stuck in my teeth for most of my swim which distracted me from my length counting.

We got home at 9pm after a reasonable swim (it was cut short because some club people turned up to use the section of the pool I was in and I was insufficiently motivated to move to another part once my rhythm had been interrupted). This was already too late to be eating but I had been thinking about curry all day and if it wasn’t this then it would be another x-on-toast. I was very hungry so filled the immediate gap with a mini cheese in red wax which one of Matt’s friends had left behind at the weekend.

The curry is a tried and tested one first created by Matt and replicated on many occasions since; sometimes by him but tonight by me since time was of the essence and speed chopping does not feature on Matt’s CV. The curry consists of local curry powder, chilli (not too much), onion, garlic, sweet potato, mushrooms, chickpeas, tinned tomatoes, a bit of stock and some coconut milk.

While this was all brewing up I had to deal with yesterday’s bread. Matt managed to rearrange the freezer to make space for the rolls. This required the removal of some soup which will have to be eaten this weekend and some pistachio ice-cream which would not last so long. There was still a full sized loaf of sliced bread. I decided that the best thing would be to turn it into bread crumbs. I intended to package this in 200g and 100g bags which would fit into small spaces in the freezer. I was 30g short for my final 100g bag. I suppose that is accounted for by all the crumbs that Fred, my mother-in-law’s Yorkshire terrier, helpfully cleared up.

The curry was delicious, despite the quick cook. Matt had his with naan bread (also removed from the freezer to make way for the new things). I had mine with lime pickle to spice it up a bit. We both had mango chutney. Desert was the pistachio ice-cream with some unnecessary spray cream. Now I’m thinking of things to do with 770g of bread crumbs. All I can think of at the moment is Christmas pudding.

Thursday's thursdaes (and other things)

After work today I didn’t really feel like going for a swim. But Matt, my husband, said “let’s go now” and since he was showing unusual enthusiasm I thought I’d better not make any excuses.

My previous swim had been on Monday and had been cut short by a small boy vomiting in the pool. So today I was of the opinion that if I was going to make the effort to get into the pool I should make up for that short swim with a long one. Matt was not of the same opinion and I noticed at about 80 lengths that he had got out. I am a very antisocial swimmer and swim with an MP3 player so am basically oblivious to what is going on around me. This proved to be hazardous on Monday when I failed to notice that the lifeguards had cleared the pool following the vomiting incident until one of them tapped me on the head. Fortunately Matt was still in the changing room after I had made my 100 length target so I was not forced into even more physical exertion with a walk home.

It was quite late by the time we got in, but after all that exercise I felt pretty hungry. Something quick and filling was called for: jacket potatoes or pasta. (We have a microwave with a jacket potato function which kind of half-microwaves-half-bakes the potatoes so that they are done really nicely in about a quarter of an hour.) Since we had no jacketing potatoes pasta it would be.

I made a quick kind of bolognese sauce. In a household that doesn’t eat meat it will only ever be a kind of bolognese sauce. Today’s variant was:

- A large onion, 2 sticks of celery, 3 carrots - all chopped up and fried until soft. Sometimes I also add mushrooms and / or peppers here but we had none. I would also usually put in garlic, but we only had smoked garlic. When I went to get some for chopping it was quite evident that it was past its best. Which is unsurprising, I suppose, given that I’d imported it from the Isle of Wight last August.

- Vegetarian mince, added until browned a bit. We had half a bag in the freezer which was ideal.

- A tin of plum tomatoes. It wasn’t until after I’d added them that I realised that they weren’t chopped. Usually I use scissors in the tin to chop non-chopped tinned tomatoes but today I had to undertake the slightly trickier task of chopping in the pan. The tricky bit is avoiding the non-stick surface of the pan.

- Some (probably about 100ml) red wine (which I rinsed the tomato tin out with). A spoonful of vegetable stock powder. A spoonful of yeast extract. Some Worcestershire sauce could have replaced either one of those. I have found that using all three on one occasion is excessive.

You can simmer away for quite a long time if you like, but hunger dictated that it would be a less mature kind of bolognese this evening. Matt kept an eye on it and got the pasta ready (fusilli today) while I made some cookies.

These were very simple: butter, sugar, flour, egg, vanilla and chocolate. The recipe said that I should mix it with a wooden spoon but I figured I would use the electric whisk. I have been having some problems with my elbow (if it’s possible to get tennis elbow from swimming I think that might be it) so wanted to avoid manual labour if possible. The electric whisk was fine. 

The main hazard I found in the preparation of the cookies was the presence of a small dog. We are taking care of my mother-in-law’s Yorkshire terrier, Fred, for a week. I have been led to understand that dogs should not eat chocolate - apparently it can kill them. The chocolate for the cookies had to be “roughly chopped”. Fred is always around your feet when there’s anything to do with food going on and the process of chocolate chopping inevitably results in some chocolate dust finding its way to the floor. Matt said not to worry too much and pointed out the time, Christmas 2011 I think, when he managed to get his way into and lick away a not insignificant quantity of premium dark chocolate. He was fine then and 2 hours after today’s chocolate consumption seems to be none the worse for it.

The cookies baked while we ate dinner. I wanted to put some cheese on it but the small amount of (open) remaining cheddar had grown a fur coat so I thought better of it. There will be some lucky birds getting that cheese tomorrow. Rather than opening a new cheese Matt challenged me to eat dinner cheeseless. And do you know? I don’t think it was any the worse for the absence of dairy. I was somewhat shocked when I returned from the kitchen having removed the cookies from the oven to find Matt feeding Fred veggie bolognese from a fork.

Since the cookies would have to cool before we could go to be and it would be nice to digest the pasta bit before bed I decided to have a bit of pudding – very rare for a week night. I’d bought some strawberries a few days ago (out of season I know but they smelt lovely) and it was about time that they were eaten up. I’m going away for the weekend and it would be unlikely that Matt would choose them himself. My first thought had been to serve them with some spray cream but as I was rinsing them I had the idea of making strawberry sundaes: the above with the addition of some vanilla ice-cream and sprinkles. I would have added some fruity sauce too if we had some. Our ice-cream thursdaes were devoured.

The cookies did the usual thing of spreading out whilst baking and joining up to each other. I refuse to use more baking trays to prevent this so my cookies are likely to always be slightly non-round. Most of the cookies are for sharing with my friends this weekend but one of them broke in the process of removal from the baking tray so it seemed only prudent to test it. Matt approved, but he generally does of sweet things.

They’ve packed up nicely into a two tier sandwich box (I partially chose cookies for ease of transportation); and now I just await the verdict of a broader jury.

Friday's fishy and lemony dinner

I do find bank holiday weekends rather disconcerting. Having been confused by the days all week I’ve been convinced since I woke up that today is Saturday. When a “weekday” radio show has come on, rather than re-orientating me to (Good) Friday, it only goes to make me feel even more bewildered that that they are not airing Saturday’s programmes.

One benefit of the bank holiday is that I felt unusually enthusiastic for cleaning the kitchen. By about 2pm it was looking lovely and shiny (I had been doing other things in the course of the morning) and therefore I didn’t feel like messing it up. So I grabbed a quick lunch of my mum’s carrot cake and headed off for a swim. And 180 lengths later I think that I must have burnt off said carrot cake and most of last night’s rice and lentils. The main challenge of this swim was the paradoxical one of needing the loo and also being very thirsty.

Lucy and Barbara, my sister- and mother-in-law, were to be joining us for dinner this evening. Last weekend, whilst at my mum and dad’s, I had hastily purchased a whole salmon. Mum had said that it was fine to invite some friends round for dinner but that we’d need a bit more fish. When I got to the fish counter whole salmon were on a special offer just too good to leave behind. So mum cooked the whole fish, we ate about half of it last weekend and she sent me home with the rest.

So this morning, with a view to constructing a fish pie, I extracted the salmon, along with some pollack and prawns from the freezer. I’d assumed that there’d be some smoked fish there too but that was not the case but since I was going to have to visit the shop anyway it wasn’t too much of a problem.

After my swim the insufficiency of my lunch hit home. Firstly I missed the turning for the nearest supermarket. So I had to detour around one of my least favourite roundabouts.

Whilst trying to select broccoli I observed the man who was refilling this on the shelf cough all over it. Rather than go for the time sensible option of selecting some of the pre-packed stuff I decided that I would leave said supermarket and head to a different one with hopefully better food hygiene standards. Or at least I wouldn’t know otherwise. The main disadvantage in this course of action was that the supermarket that I was about to leave has the advantage of selling French set yoghurts with a lemon flavour in the pack.

I was then hit with indecision. Should I go to the slightly more distant but larger supermarket that would definitely have everything that I needed? Or should I go to the smaller but nearer supermarket which offers a more pleasant shopping experience with less risk of unnecessary purchases but a higher risk of not having everything I needed. I could tolerate almost anything else on my list not being available but without the smoked fish the pie would just not be right.  

When I got to the junction where I had to make a decision I took the gamble on the smaller supermarket. It was obviously my lucky day. Not only did I get the last pack of smoked haddock it was also reduced. Not only did they have French set yoghurts, these included “new” lemon flavour (replacing I think the slightly peculiar pineapple). Not only did they have broccoli, it was 50% extra free.

I made the fish pie with leeks and mushrooms. I used some bay leaves from our garden in the white sauce which I think I found disproportionately exciting. And chives from the pot that my mum had sent back with me last weekend in the mashed potato.

My mashed potato is slightly unconventional as I choose not to peel the potatoes – all the goodness is in the skins surely. I omitted to pre-warn our visitors but Barbara hadn’t noticed until I pointed it out and Lucy had noticed but seemed to think it was ok.

Whenever I eat with Matt’s family I am struck by how slowly I eat. Today everyone else had finished but I had only eaten my veg and had my whole portion of fish pie left. I always eat my vegetables first because I can’t stand them cold.

And then on to pudding. Lucy had asked for something fruity. I needed to use up a couple of lemons. I identified something that fitted the bill: “lemon layer pudding”. This is one of those recipes where you mix everything together and when it cooks it divides into a spongy layer (although in this instance more sponge-soufflé) and a sauce layer. Having cleaned the kitchen earlier I took extra care to avoid splattering the mixture all over the worktop with the electric whisk.

Barbara declared the pudding to be one of the nicest ever – and I don’t think she was just being kind.  Lucy and Matt demolished it swiftly. I feel suitable inspired to try it with different flavours.

We finished off the evening with some (more) wine (always a risk when Matt’s female relations are around) and a board game. I love games!