Tag Archives: food

Beef Overdose

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As I grabbed ingredients from fridges and from shelves, Beardy held the basket.  For the last three nights, I’ve eaten garlic and herb quorn fillets (2 for £1), hash browns (£1 per bag), a vegetable grill (4 for £1) and fresh salsa salad (massive bowl whipped up for £2)  for dinner.  As much as I’ve enjoyed this trip down freezer food lane, I just couldn’t face a fourth night of the same.  Besides, we’d munched through the enormous bowl of beetroot salsa Beardy made and, let’s be frank,  the beetroot salsa was the saving grace of an otherwise tinkfest tea ol’  Kerry Catona would be proud of.  This evening, as we darted round the supermarket, I decided enough was enough.  We’d blow the stupid budget and enjoy a meal containing more food groups than just, um… the ‘frozen’ group.  I am pleased to report that the budget blowing was well worth it.  ”As good as Christmas dinner”, Beardy said.  ”Not only the best burger I’ve ever had, but maybe one of the best dinners I’ve ever had”, Beardy said.  I didn’t say much.  It is impolite to eat with one’s mouth full.

I’m afraid we ate so quickly I forgot to take photos.  I didn’t know this would turn out to be one of those bloggable dinners.  Apologies.  I did consider writing, ‘FULL UP’ across my now even more enormous tummy by way of illustration, but decided against it.  You don’t need to see that.

 

ONE OF THE BEST DINNERS EVER:  

Quick.  Easy.  Minimal Preparation*.  Minimal proper cooking*.  Maximum taste-o-rama**.

Grab:

Good quality burgers

Garlic pizza bread

Watercress salad/mixed leaves

Sour cream/creme fraiche

(For salsa) Tomato, onion, green pepper, passata, garlic, sugar, salt, black pepper, habanero pepper pulp, lemon juice, beetroot – if ye like.

Get to it:

Grill the burgers ’til they’re cooked just how you like ‘em.

Bake the pizza bread.

While the burgers and bread are doing their thang (thang?! WHY do I keep saying that?), prepare the salsa.  Finely dice the tomato, onion, pepper and beetroot.  You don’t need to use beetroot but Beardy experimented with it last week and I can confirm it was a brilliant addition.  Sauce it up with a little passata then add a teensy pinch of sugar, tonnes of garlic, a splash of habanero pepper pulp, a squirt of lemon juice and a  few tappity taps of ground rock salt.  Oh and some crunches of ground black pepper. Smoosh it all up in a bowl.

When your burgers are ready, dab off the beef juice (bleugh) with kitchen roll.  Be careful if you’re currently using cheapo kitchen  roll though as it may well stick to your patties and you’ll spend more time trying to pick off stray fibres with tweezers.  Wasted kitchen time is most unhelpful when you are very hungry.

Cut the pizza bread in half.

Spoon the salsa all over one half of the pizza bread.  Then bundle on the watercress leaves.  Lay the burgers onto the salad.  Add a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche to the tops of the patties.

Take the other half of the pizza bread and layer it on top to make a big, garlicky, burgery, cressy, salsa-y, creamy sandwich.  Cut it in half to make two pick-up-able bits.

Eat it:

If like us, you eat like a starving orphan and get awfully excited about your one meal a day, pick up your sandwich and shove it in your face.  Be careful not to allow your burger to come sliding out from between the pizza bread slices at speed.  It would be tragic to waste/miss out on this taste explosion due to carelessness.

If you tend to eat three meals a day and prefer to take your time and savour your food in the evening, then use cutlery like a civilised person.

* You could, if you had the time or the inclination make your own beef patties and fresh, homemade pizza bread.

** I enjoyed my dinner SO much I appear to be in some state of overdose.  I have a hot face and I feel a bit dizzy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salad Cream

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Recipe:  Salad Cream Sandwich

Take two slices of plain bread.

Slather on a good big dollop of Salad Cream.

Wham the slices together.

Cut in half.  Eat.

Having grown out of just rifling the biscuit tin and smuggling packs of Skips out of the kitchen pantry in the pockets of my dressing gown, the first snack I learned to make for myself as a child was the (I think, hugely underrated) Salad Cream sandwich.  Still a favourite even now (though now garnished with black pepper for added 30-something-sophistication), I’ve  surprised myself  at just how many tasty emergency snacks can be pulled together using just bare essentials and all those stupid condiments that are left hanging out in the fridge and in the kitchen cupboards long after all the proper foodstuffs have been used up.  Which is handy, really, since I seldom have any proper food to hand.  When you find yourself in times of trouble and mother Mary comes to you completely empty handed, without so much as a digestive biscuit let alone words of wisdom, never fear.  ‘Tis time to embrace your inner slob.  Throw off the ‘domestic god/dess’ shackles.  Yeah, you’re probably right, these accidental culinary delights might sound pretty disgusting, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  Give ‘em a whirl.  I’ve found little tricks to fool myself into thinking they’re actually quite posh.  Crushing black pepper on stuff makes it posh, right?

P.S  I know you won’t give ‘em a whirl.  That’s ok.  I shan’t be offended.

Recipe:  Pesto Pasta

Boil pasta with a wee dash of olive oil.

Drain.  Add a tablespoon of pesto.  Mix it up.

Dump onto a plate.  Eat.

[If feeling especially fancy, add a tablespoon of creme fraiche and you got yourself a dinner party].

Recipe:  Pretend Eastern Eurpoean Sandwich

Take two slices of plain bread or left over crusty hog loaf.

Spread a thin layer of tomato ketchup on one.  Spread a thin layer of soft cheese on the other. That stray  Dairylea triangle will fit the bill nicely.

Layer up some pesto onto the red bit of the bread.

Crush on some black pepper then wham the slices together.  That said, if using hog loaf, I recommend just adding all three layers to one slice – one on top of the other and eating like an ‘open sandwich’.  See?  P-O-S-H.

Cut in half.  Eat.

Poor Man’s Spag

Boil up some spaghetti.  Brown or white – don’t matter, though I think brown pasta is tastier somehow.

Drizzle with olive oil.  Add black pepper.

Should you happen upon an eadible sprig of fresh basil left on that neglected herb plant you bought, now’s the time to use it. Rip the leaves and stir ‘em in.

Dish up and enjoy.

Recipe:  Tomato Bread

Slice up the remains of a crusty baguette.

Take a ‘just-about-past-its-best’ squishy tomato.  Cut it in half.

Rub the tomato innards onto the bread.

Add a tiny drizzle of olice oil over the lot then garnish with salt and pepper.

Done.

Recipe:  Carb “Salad”

Cook some pasta just the way you like it.  Rinse it in cold water, cover -  then pop in the fridge.

While the pasta is cooling, chop half an onion (or as much onion as you can find at the bottom of the fridge drawer) into tiny bits and throw it in a bowl.

Open a can of tuna fish and drain.  Throw the tuna fish in with the onion.

Sprinkle some vinegar on top.  Add tonnes of black pepper and a squirt of lemon juice.  Mix in a dollop of Salad Cream.

Add the tuna mixture to the cool pasta then pop the whole lot back in the fridge for 5 – 10 minutes.

Serve with the last of that cucumber you found earlier – and maybe with some of those slightly dried up radishes on the side.

Beardy and I have eaten Carb Salad for lunch for two days in a row.  Still not tired of it…

Jerking Lovely: A Mobile Food Picture Post

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During my two hour traipse along the Thames at the weekend, my eyes were a-boggle at the variety of food traders on offer at The Thames Festival.  Had I had a purse full o’ cashola, I would have indulged myself in some van food, but alas, I had not a bean – so… I, um, had not a bean.  I did take some quick snaps of some of the stands I got excited by – either because they had amazing names, amazing branding or because they were proper mobile food outlets.  Decked out trucks, pimped up vans and prettified buses… Swoon. It’s Clare and I’s dream to have a business on wheels.

I’m not altogether sure what a funky salad might involve, but I’d give it a whirl!

Look!  London has its own ACTUAL Meatwagon :)  

Decked out with beautiful signage, super cool logos and pretty handmade bunting, this pink Mexican food van was one of my favourites :)

Oh – and I found these guys hanging out on London Bridge. 

Avocado! Avocado? Avocado.

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Yesterday, I awoke at dawn.  I hopped gently out of bed at 6am sharp, being careful not to wake the pair of rock’n'roll cats I’d been snuggled up with in the night.  It’s probably worth clarifying for Beardy’s benefit that, of course, I am referring to a pair of actual felines called Joey & Dee Dee -  and not a couple o’ stray indie boys.  Unusually, I was bathed, clothed and ready to greet the day wearing a full face of make-up by 7.30am.  London is doing something funny to me.  It’s not unheard of for London to make my feet swell up, to turn my boogers black, to give me spots or to make my arms come out in a weird itch – but until now, I’ve never known it to turn me into a super-productive early riser!  Great!  Thanks London.

Since I’d jumped ahead of myself by a fair few hours, I spent the earliest part of the morning infront of the computer.  I typed some notes, I played on Facebook, I wrote the majority of a blog post and I spent some quality time staring out of the window.  Eventually, the gurgling of my tummy drowned out my thoughts and I decided to go outside in search of breakfast.

I say ‘in search of’ breakfast.  That’s a porky pie.  I was looking to buy some food, yes, but I didn’t have to search for it.  I knew exactly where to find breakfast in this neck of the woods.  Excited, I practically skipped the stones throw from my gate to Stour Space.  Stour Space is a multi-functional, community arts & creative space in Hackney Wick.  Not only is that pretty swell, but Stour Space is also now home to one of the best flippin’ cafes around!  I arrived there in mere seconds. I bounced into the Counter Cafe area and was greeted by a smiley faced girl with reddish hair.  She might have been Australian – but I’m not really sure.  From behind her makeshift bar, she asked what I’d like.  I knew without even looking at the blackboard menu thing.  “I’ll have the Big Veggie Breakfast, please”… “And I’d like a Bundaberg ginger beer too”.  Easy.  I asked the redheaded girl if I could have my Big Veggie Breakfast without mushrooms.  She didn’t seem to think that taking the mushrooms off my order would pose much of a problem for anyone concerned and I was relieved.  Relieved because a) I really dislike the taste and texture of mushrooms and b) I have convinced myself (thanks to some added scaremongering by my father) that I have a hernia and that it’s aggravated by mushrooms.  Then, like twinkly, plinky, fairy music to my ears, the girl asked, “Would you like me to replace the mushrooms with more of something else?  More tomatoes and spinach, maybe?  Or some more butter beans?”  I was thrilled that I was allowed to replace my mushrooms and I was excited that I might end up with more of either of these delicious breakfast components, but then, THEN she says, “Or, I could give you an avocado?” at which point I whooped aloud, hopped a little bit and then (as if she hadn’t already fathomed by my whooping and hopping that I thought avocado a suitable substitute and a jolly good idea), said, “Oooo!  Yes please!” like some kid on a shitty US advertisement for syrup.  I paid my way and the girl handed my obligatory plank of wood with my table number painted on it.  I carried it upstairs, all the while hoping there might be a seat for me by the window looking out over onto the canal.  I hoped that maybe those lovely old teal leather cinema/lecture hall seats might be free.  That would be especially cool – for me to spend my first Fish Island morning in Stour Space, eating Counter Cafe brekkie AND sitting on cool vintage furniture, gazing over the canal to the Olympic park.

I reached the top of the stairs and scanned around the room.  There weren’t any seats free next to the window.  And a blonde family with screaming children and kind of annoying/kind of sweet foreign sing-songy accents had seemingly taken root on the old lecture hall benches.  Nevermind.  You can’t win ‘em all (mum).

I took a seat at the opposite side of the space – away from the barefooted children and the weird looking dog.  I pulled out my book (still reading The Queen of Crafts), my camera and my phone.  I sent my mother a text to tell her how happy I was and to tell her that the weather in London was warm and sunny-ish.  Her reply?  “Enjoy it while you can” – which I thought sounded vaguely threatening – as if she knew something I didn’t.  A big tall man came with my breakfast plate.  I thanked him – then promptly dismissed my concerns that my mother might be trying to have me killed and tucked into the meal I’d been dreaming of since I got on the train in Glasgow last Wednesday…


I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I must, must, must try my hand at making my own version of the Counter Cafe Big Brekkie when I get home.

THE COUNTER CAFE BIG BREKKIE =

£8.50 well spent.  I am on holiday – and I will spend the leccie bill money on eggs if I like.

1.  Scrambled egg and toast:  The toast is always brown and grainy – and just the right amount of buttery.  The right amount of buttery is crucially important.  I remember one time, years ago, a boy I really liked made me tea and toast.  He handed me a plate of unevenly cooked bread with lumps of unmelted butter on.  I knew he was NOT the fella for me. I’m supposing the bread in my Big Brekkie has been baked nearby.  I’m not sure why, but the scrambled eggs are always very orange in colour.  Would an organic egg be any more orange than a normal free-range one for some reason?  I do not know.  What I do know is that the chef makes the eggs turn soft – not soggy, orange – not yellow – and they taste a lot like egg-in-a-cup.  There’s a sweetness to the scrambled eggs that I can’t explain. I wish I could.

2.  Potato cake:  Having discussed with Ian Schnapps, just the other day, how difficult it is to successfully fry mashed potato then dish up the perfect potato cake without it disintegrating into one big potatoey mess between pan and plate, I paid particular attention to my Counter Cafe potato cake.  I was looking for tips. It was herby.  And fluffy. And whole.  I ate every bite with a dollop of homemade tomato relish.

3.  Beans: In the Big Brekkie, boring old baked beans are replaced with a light but super tasty mixture of butter beans and fresh tomato sauce.  This is fast becoming my favourite part of the dish – and the bit I am absolutely sure I could convincingly rustle up at home.

4.  Fresh tomatoes and baby spinach leaves:  I was a little uncertain how I felt about the spinach in my breakfast at first. I’ve never been a fan of fancy Eggs Benedict dishes (or eggs whatever it is that has spinach in it). I’m not uncertain now – ’tis a genius (not to mention super healthy) little addition to the Big Brekkie. For some reason though I always end up eating it last – and I end up with big forkfuls of green.  Really I ought to combine it with other stuff.

5.  Avocado:  Just like it sounds, really.  As a last minute substitute for mushrooms, my avocado arrived on the plate in cute, thinly sliced avocado shaped pieces. I’m not really sure how they did that now I think it through.  It hadn’t been phaffed with.  It was just a rerr, tasty bunch of avocado, hanging out on my plate – minding it’s own business.  Until I ate it.

Pudding for Breakfast

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The other day, for the first time in months, my piggy bank gave me the nod to go ahead and spend some pocket money.  However, seemingly unable to break from my thrifty shackles, I decided to have a blow out in… Asda.

I sat at the kitchen table (as I so often do), made myself a cup of tea and surveyed the contents of the kitchen cupboards.  After some rooting around I found my favourite pen.  I folded open a new notebook and made my first attempt at menu planning.  Ha! Menu planning.  Forget it, Martha Stewart.  After about 10 minutes scribbling down ideas for what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next month, my brain was a-boggled.  Have you tried to do that? Look into the future and plan what you’ll eat for lunch next Thursday?  It’s difficult.  So – I ditched that fleeting meal planning idea and decided just to get my shoesies on and head for the supermarket.

I hadn’t been outside for days – partly due to the horrid weather, partly because I was feeling a little bit poorly but mostly because outside seems like such a waste of time at the minute.  However, on this day, the day I went outside to go to the supermarket to spend money, it wasn’t raining.  Actually, it was quite a warm day.  I left my jacket at home in some bid to make myself feel summery.

The bus came almost straight away – which was just as well.  Had I had to hang around in the bus shelter for a moment longer I may have felt compelled to scold a group of primary school children (also waiting for the bus) who seemed incapable of talking to one another without shouting ‘fuck’ unnecessarily at regular intervals or hitting one another with empty plastic bottles.

After a few minutes travelling further east on the bus, I felt something was amiss.  “Hm… I’m pretty sure Parkhead’s that way > “. As the bus veered off in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go in, and the one I thought I was going in, I panicked.  I was on The Wrong Bus.  I was so quick to scrabble off the street and to get inside (or as inside as a gal can get when she’s really outside), I’d hopped on the number 41 when I ought to have waited a moment or two longer within earshot of the feral children and hopped on the number 40. The number 41 does not go to Asda.

A good half hour later, having wound my way through pockets of the eastend I’d never seen before – on the bus with loads of other passengers who knew exactly where they were and where the were going – I spotted a Morrisons supermarket.  Now, Morrisons sure ain’t no Asda Price, but when you’re about to be stranded at the Easterhouse bus terminal with no bus fare to get back home, I wondered if maybe Morrisons’ fruit and veg section might be as good as any other.  I got off the bus.

Morrisons fruit and veg section turned out to be better than Asda’s.

The next morning, with a fridge full of well priced, fresh produce, I found myself faced with a rare dilemma.  Whatever shall I have for breakfast? I had options.  I rejected all the usual breakfast fare.  I ate pudding for breakfast.  And it was fabulous.

‘Inspired-by-Auntie-M-but-not-exactly-the-same-Breakfast-Pudding’

I chopped up plums, nectarines and strawberries.  I threw in raspberries and blueberries.  I cut two plain scones in half.  I threw the fruit (plus juicey bits) onto the scones.  I squirted some canned cream on the side.  I got a spoon from the drawer and I relished every last mouthful.  Try it.  It’s fun.  Weird, tasty fun.

Pretty Tasty

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I’ve been forgetting to eat lately.  More and more, I find that 10pm rolls around and just as it crosses my mind that it might be the perfect time to pop my jammies on and snuggle down for a while before bed, I realise I haven’t eaten dinner.  Sometimes I realise I haven’t eaten lunch either.  Or breakfast.  By 10pm of course, the last thing I feel like doing is cooking up a meal and, into the bargain, even if I had the energy or the inclination to get busy in the kitchen, I get the heeby jeebies when I think about all that chomped up food just sitting in my tummy while I snooze.  Nevermind, ‘a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips’.  Try ‘piggy piggy night time feast – piggy piggy big fat beast’.  Shudder.

Last night though, I did remember to eat.  Only trouble was, when Ol’ Mother Hubbard (for the purpose of this blog – I am Ol’ Mother Hubbard) looked in the cupboard – the cupboard wasn’t quite bare but it was hardly crammed full of culinary options.  Taking hardly any time at all to decide (that’s how little choice there was), I plumped for potatoes and fish fingers.  I know!  I too was shocked to discover that I’d even ever bought fish fingers but I was even more surprised to find potatoes in my house that hadn’t already gone to seed.  I was thrilled.  And a little bit proud of myself.

Following one last quick scour through the veg drawers in the fridge, I decided I’d fancy things up as best I could.  I roasted my little potatoes with (well past their best) spring onions and (slightly squishy) cherry tomatoes.  I slathered the lot in copious amounts of olive oil and crunched a fair bit of black pepper on the top.  Struggling a little bit for inspiration, I wasn’t sure how to go about fancying up 4 fish fingers.  In the end, I didn’t really fancy them up at all.  Some Facebook pals offered some super-quick ‘make do’ recipes for a homemade tartar sauce but short on several of the necessary ingredients, I ended up with a little plate of salad cream with some mustard stirred in it.

I am happy to report, that last night’s dinner was a flippin’ success.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – hunger is a good kitchen.

I didn’t forget to eat today either.  I had over-ripe strawberries and a cup of tea for breakfast, a disgusting sandwich for lunch then arrived home – having somehow blanked out last night’s ‘cupboard was nearly bare’ scenario and having NOT stopped off at the supermarket en route – to the same ‘what am I to rustle up?’ problem as before.  Oh lordy…

Tonight’s meal comprised:

(1) 3 slices of Lidl Bavarian ham rolled up with coleslaw in the middle

(2) 9p noodles – chicken flavour

(3) a salad of cucumber chunks, cherry tomatoes and a tiny bit of mozarella cheese.

A crazy weird combo you might say, and I would be inclined to agree, but I can confirm that despite it’s oddness and definite aroma of desperation,  ’twas a truly tasty and surprisingly satisfying feast.

Since I have no proper food of my own to look at (or eat), I’ve been spending an increasingly worrying amount of time collecting pictures of food on Pinterest.  Look -

Look at the rainbow cake! And the fruit tart! And the cakeypops!

Mmmm... Rainbow coloured fruity kebabs... Vitamins! Nutrients!

One day, I will make the hybrid pear. Nice pear. Ha!

Yum.

Make-Do Tomato Pie

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As if you were ever in any doubt, you know you’re living the dream when you find yourself spending the morning taking a food inventory.  Yes.  A food inventory.  You can find me regularly – well, maybe once every three months or so -  notepad and pen in hand, taking stock of every last morsel of food in my kitchen.  Every freezer drawer is emptied, every shelf in the fridge scoured, every cupboard surveyed.  I make a note of absolutely every ingredient we have (marking where appropriate how many portions of x-foodstuff we have in hand) and then…  Then I set to work inventing ‘meals’ according to the sorry remnants of our last proper grocery shop.  ‘Tis a glamorous task, I assure you.

Now, it ain’t no secret.  There ain’t much I can’t do with a tomato.  As luck would have it, tonight I managed to rustle up (pretty much) the ingredients for one of my favourite dishes.  Tomato pie.   Or more accurately, I suppose, tomato tart.  I don’t usually put much else in tomato pie other than tomatoes (?) – but tonight I was trying to use up some poor soon-to-be-discarded bits from the fridge and so improvised a little bit here and there. I didn’t have any tinned tomatoes or any proper full sized fresh tomatoes, or any fresh basil (all usually key to the recipe), but I forged ahead regardless.  A gal gotta eat.

When you find yourself in a pickle – with noubt to hand but half an onion, a barely edible orange pepper, a carton of 39p passata, some ‘last legs’ cherry toms, a fistful of quorn mince and a roll of readymade shortcrust pastry, here’s what I recommend you do…

How to wham together a delicious Make-Do Tomato Pie (even when Old Mother Hubbard reckons the cupboards are bare…  What does she know?)

(Before you begin, stick your oven on to heat – around 180 degrees for fan assisted oughta do the job.  By the time you’ve prepared your pie filling, your oven will be ready to rumble!)

1.  Pop a glug of olive oil in the bottom of a pan.  Heat it up juuuuust nice.  Don’t set it to sizzle, but you do want it to be good ‘n’ hot at this point.

2.  Chop half an onion (plus any ‘just about gubbed’ fresh veg you have lurking in the fridge drawer).

Sniffle!

3.  Whing all the chopped veg into the pan and jiggle it about a bit in the oil until it’s all softened up – then reduce the heat a little.

4.  If you can muster up some garlic – fresh, pureeed or even powdered, then get a fair whack in there.  One of my very favourite smells of all time is the smell of onion frying in olive oil and garlic.

5.  Pour some passata into the pan – enough to cover all the veg – plus a ‘lil bit extra.

6.  Chuck in that piddly amount of quorn mince you found in a packet right at the bottom of the freezer.

Delicious red mush... Oh, how I love you!

7.  Raid the condiment cupboard and add a smidgeon of chilli powder, any Italian herbs you can find, a tiny TINY drop of red wine vinegar, a pinch of sugar and tonnes of black pepper.  Oh – and a fair squirt of tomato puree.  Squish that in there too.

8.  Before you leave the tomato-y concotion to settle for a bit, double check the fridge for any last minute ingredients you want to add.  Make use of stuff that will otherwise be binned.  When I checked, I found not one – but THREE half full jars of pesto in the fridge door compartment.  I introduced two big healthy dollops to my tomato mix.

There were three green jars of pesto, sitting in the fridge - three green jars of pesto, sitting in the fridge... And if one green jar of pesto should... Aherm.

9.  While your pie filling ingredients get acquainted, prepare your pastry.  In my case, I defrosted one of those ‘ready-rolled’ sheets of short crust pastry – so in terms of preparation, I had very little.  I just greased my baking tin popped the pastry on in there.  Job done.

10.  Providing your oven has reached the desired temperature, pop your pastry in for a sneaky five minutes, just to get it in the mood for crisping up.

11.  Once the pastry has browned just a little, bring it out of the oven again and fill up the case with your scrummy tomato mixture (which, by the way, ought to be smelling DELICIOUS by now!)

12.  Before you wham the whole lot in the oven, top your pie with halved fresh cherry tomatoes.  Pop the pie in the over for 30-40 mins.

Eeep! I think the insides of tiny toms are very cute. Look at their 'lil mini seeds!

Time to get pie-eyed!

13.  Dish up with salad and/or bread on the side.  Tonight, I didn’t have salad OR bread – so instead made use of a forgotten about ovenable M&S potato dish (praise the lord for those yellow stickers!) and a spoonful of coleslaw.

Although distinctly lacking any proper greenery to speak of,  I think this was one of the very best tomato pies I have ever managed to conjure up.  What is it they say?  Hunger is a good kitchen?  I’m not really sure who ‘they’ are – but  my mum definitely says that.

Voila! Make-Do Tomato Pie (not that it looks much like a pie - I kind of messed it up as I was dishing it up!)

So – next time you realise that there’s absolutely no chance of you doing a hardcore grocery shop in the next two months, despair not.  Get your pad and pen out.  Compile that list.  I will bet you a tenner* that you manage to piece together at least 10 meals from the odds and sods in your kitchen.   Oh-  and if all you find is a bit of frozen cauliflower, some chopped spinach and half a bag of pearl barley, you’ll soon discover your inner soup genius!  (Soup genius?  I’m pretty sure I am a soup genius).

*Of course, if  it turns out you don’t make 10 meals from your grocery remnants – I won’t really give you a tenner.  If I had a tenner to fritter away on silly betting  games, I’d have a tenner to buy a fleekin’ basil plant.  Or even 10 basil plants!

Rose Milkshake

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Beardy hates floral flavours.  I love them.  Floral pastilles, rose and violet cremes, boiled rose buds – all favourites.  I also love rose tea and rose flavoured icing on my cupcakes.

On a blustery day like today when a gal needs a little bit of comfort, I ditch the fizzy pop and reach for a milkshake.

A special rainy day treat

Made with Polish rose syrup gifted to me by Beardy’s photographer friend, Alex, this quick mix tipple is a now-and-again indulgence to savour.  Pour a couple of figners worth of rose syrup in the bottom of a pretty glass then fill ‘er on up with icy cold milk and stir.  Done.  I like to drink my milkshake through a straw.  There’s something about drinking milk through a straw…   Makes the  sipping all the more special somehow!

What I really must invest in to complete the whole experience is a pack of these babies:

Stripey paper straws by Papermash at http://www.papermash.co.uk