Spinach & Lemongrass soup

I know - I have made plenty of spinach soup before, but this is another variation, slightly more thought through than those I have previously posted, and it was so quick and delicious that I feel compelled to share. This makes a big vat of tasty & healthy-ish soup that should keep us going for lunches this week. And it tastes great with peanut butter on toast. A classy accompaniement if ever there was one.

Spinach & Lemon Grass Soup

1 tbsp oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 piece of ginger - about the top joint of your thumb, peeled & sliced
1 lemon grass stalk, hard outer layer remived, based a bit with a rolling pin
1 tbsp tamarind
1.5litres of stock (I used chicken but veggie would be fine)
500g of thereabouts of spinach - I'd separate stalks and leaves if you're using proper adult spinach, but I used baby spinach
1 tin (400ml) coconut milk
juice of 1 lime

Heat the oil gently in a large pan, then sweat the onion with the ginger and bashed lemon grass stalk for a few minutes before adding 1 litre of the stock and the tamarind. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins or so, then add in the spinach and cook till wilted.

Once the spinach is wilted down, remove any big bits of lemon grass, add the remaining 500ml of stock,the coconut milk and the lime juice, give it a good stir and then blitz with your blitzing tool of choice.

Reheat gently before serving.

 

Date & Walnut Loaf

I used to have an awesome memory.

Birthdays, phone numbers, addresses, every crime my brothers ever committed against me - all stored in there like an elephant. Not just this kind of basic admin information, though - my entire A level syllabus, 2 years of law school and the associated information, facts, handy things to know from a professional career.  Street plans of cities and towns I'd visited. The exact pile of papers, or drawer where I'd filed the vital document...

The causes of the English Civil War? European monarchs, in order, along with various wars and treaties engaged in and signed during the 17th & 18th centuries? No problem. The rules of tort. The circumstances under which you could claim unfair dismissal and the amount of compensation you might be entitled to. Obscure 80s pop songs (one hit wonders a speciality) artists and titles. All there. Anyone else remember Strawberry Switchblade?

Except these days. Err... These days, I can't even remember a lot of what I've forgotten. I have this theory that may or may not be related to having children, which is essentially that at some point, your brain reaches saturation point with information, and then starts to operate a 'one in one' out policy. 

And who am I kidding? I blame it almost entirely on having children.

"You want me to remember that your kids need their PE kits and some money for a school trip which must be in tomorrow or they can't go, Blue has a gluten-free friend coming round for tea, and Pink is going to a birthday party?" (snarls my brain, as I attempt to sneak some more information in)

"Um, yes" (acts innocent)

"OK. I'll remember. But I'll ditch your nephews' birthdays. And that bill you needed to pay? The letter you needed to post? Forget it." Yeah - literally - forget it.

Thanks, brain.

It's cruel like that. If pushed, I can still remember the causes of the English Civil War, and I have a hazy recollection of the law of unfair dismissal, the lyrics to 'The King of Rock 'n' Roll'... but the information that is actually more vital to me these days - dates of small relations' birthdays being a case in point - is lost (although it's always useful to know that you can recall insightful lines such as "Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque " at times of stress...) 

Where this lost information, things that were once known to me, have gone, I have no idea. Does it just drift, cloud-like out of my brain in my sleep (think Harry Potter type memories being transferred to a pensieve - which actually, I could really, really do with, as I don't have one, and the memories just seem to go floating off), is it actually still there, there's just so much else going on that I just can't retrieve the information any more -   or is this actually a serious issue - synapses dying or something?

My mum is big on synapses. She works with children with dyslexia and knows a bit about neural pathways. She is always urging me to do the sudoku puzzles to keep my brain active and working properly. She and my dad get one newspaper a day, and the sudoku gets photocopied so they can both do it. I might once have mocked, but given the amount of stuff I seem to have forgotten recently, important stuff, she may well have a point.

This loss of important information that I have amassed over the years has extended to a more general absent mindedness. When previously I operated with a mental tick list, these days, unless it's written down, it will simply not get done - not just because I haven't got round to it, but because even if you told me 5 minutes ago, chances are I will have completely forgotten it - distracted by something else.

I used to be able to focus, be clear, laugh in the face of a to do list. But these days? Well, even if it's on a list, there's no guarantee.

Take recipes, which are of course not much more than 2 'to do' lists - one of ingredients, one of what to do with them. You'd think it would be easy, but no. Increasingly, I find that I'm winging it, having forgotten to buy, or include, a vital ingredient. Take this loaf that I knocked up at the weekend. Originally from the Leon Family & Friends tome, I was congratulating myself on substituting pomegranate molasses (which I had) for golden syrup (which I had again forgotten to buy, having noted that I'd run out for 3 consecutive weeks), and thinking about what we were going to have for dinner (pizza) and completely forgot to include the sugar.


As an aside, I've been struggling a little with pomegranate molasses. I bought it some months ago undoubtedly with an Ottolenghi type creation in mind, which I then failed to produce (or forgot? had I written a 'meal plan', I wonder?) and then felt distinctly unworldly in my inability to think up a use for it. In the end, my lovely dog walking chum Rachel suggested using it in a tea loaf type creation. This nugget didn't fall foul of the one in one out policy adopted by my leaky brain, and voila (Rach - here's your name check :-) - thanks for the suggestion!)

But back to the main event - I also forgot to use all the bits of my food processor when I whizzed up the milk and dried fruit, resulting in batter splatter all across the kitchen...The result? Actually a rather tasty date and walnut soda bread type loaf, with no fat, sugar or eggs.  Given that the Husband ventured to suggest that it wasn't my best cake, this is probably a good thing, as I seem to be the main person eating it at the moment.

Actually, this wouldn't be bad as a breakfast type of cake. Just saying.



Date & Walnut Loaf

(makes 2 loaves - I was trying to 'get ahead')

225g wholemeal self raising flour
225g normal self raising flour
2 tsp fine salt
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
500ml semi-skimmed milk
170g pitted dates
50g sultanas
60g dried apricots
11g walnut halves
4 tbsp pomegranate molasses

Line 2 2lb loaf tins and pre-heat the oven to 190C.

Sift together the dry ingredients.

In a properly assembled food processor, whizz up the milk with the dried fruit, nuts and pomegranate molasses for 20-30 seconds, then stir it all into the dry ingredients.

Divide this between the 2 prepared loaf tins and bake for 30-40 minutes till a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool and eat with butter (so much for being fat free).

don't mind if I do...

Vegetable Cawl

I have learnt a lot about my children over the couple of months since we moved, and this will probably sound like a bit of a boast, but they are my kids, and if I can't boast about them occasionally, well who can?

They have shown themselves to be resilient, adaptable, tolerant, good natured and enthusiastic in the face of not inconsiderable challenge and come out mostly smiling. I say mostly because there have been moments, especially for Blue, when it's all got a bit much, but even then, they have managed to get it all back together and on track. I've had moments too (as the fruity peanut butter cookies are testament to), but I've had years of 'character building experiences' to help me deal with this particular one (although, when does ones character stop being built??), where they haven't. And yet, they have done more than just cope.

Another thing I've learnt about them - or perhaps, been reminded of - is that, food-wise,  you can dress something up in another guise, repackage it - rebrand it if you will - and get them to eat something that they would otherwise not have touched.

Now (and yes, another boast) my kids are pretty good eaters - well, Blue certainly is, and in true sloppy attitude to second child - Pink's occasional fads simply don't bother me any more (I've come along way from the woman who once chased a 9 month old round a room with a spoonful of brocoli in cheese sauce...)

But less of the self-congratulation. Good eaters or not, there are some things that just aren't that popular with children, and as far as mine are concerned, this includes soup - lumpy soup in particular. We've made progress over the years, but a soup including barley, chunks of veg - something I would have called vegetable broth, for want of anything more imaginative to call it? You're having a laugh.

So this is where the repackaging comes in. Cawl is a traditional Welsh dish - pronounced cowel (as my kids inform me, with all the authority of those who have been learning something their parents have not yet had time to get to grips with, and not 'call' as I had thought). It's basically a broth which can have anything in it, depending on what's available, but usually includes barley type grains, making it more substantial than a simple soup. It can have bacon or gammon in it, left over chicken, pieces of lamb, or just be vegetables.

Just right for an easy supper. Except I never for one minute thought the kids would go for it, and how wrong I was. The 3rd day at their new school saw them celebrating St David's Day. I had to work hard to persuade the Husband that they could be permitted to go to school dressed in Welsh rugby shirts, but may be the very 'welshness' of the occasion (and the rugby shirts) rubbed off on them, because they came home pronouncing that cawl was so delicious that they had had thirds. Well, you can't let an opportunity like that go to waste, so armed with a packet of country soup mix, this has become a staple of the weekly menu. Not soup, not vegetable broth, but cawl. 

When in Wales, and all that.



Vegetable Cawl

Serves 6, approximately. 

Remember that you need to start this 8-12 hours before you actually want to eat, to soak the country soup mix.

150g country soup mix
1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic, peeled & finely sliced
2 carrots, peeled & diced
1 bay leaf
4 medium leeks, cleaned and sliced
1.5 litres hot chicken stock (or veg stock if you're vegetarian)
Chopped parsley to garnish if desired

The night before, soak the country soup mix in 500ml water - it needs to soak for 8-12 hours at least.

Heat the olive oil gently in a large pan, and gently fry the onions and garlic for 10 minutes or so till softened, then add the carrots, bay leaf and sliced leek and cook for another couple of minutes.

Drain the soup mix, add it to the pan, then tip in the stock and bring it to the boil. Boil the soup for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat and simmer for another 20 minutes or so.

Serve in big bowls, garnished with chopped parsley, and with crusty bread.

More soup - this time spicy spinach & coconut - suitable for 5:2, too!

As well as the parsnips, we also said goodbye to the last of our over-wintered spinach at the weekend. This meant that I had 250g (leaf & stalks) to turn into something delicious.

Now, I absolutely LOVE spinach - it is one of my most favourite things. I love it steamed, on toast, topped with a poached egg, may be some bacon. I also love it creamed, or in a gratin with anchovies, or just steamed with a grating of nutmeg. It's super healthy too. Unfortunately, the kids are not so keen, though, so rather than either concealing it in something else, or subjecting myself to the grimaces and whinging that tends to accompany a brazen appearance of the stuff, unadulterated on their plates (somethimes, you just have to take the path of least resistance) I thought I'd see if I could enhance my 5:2 fast days by creating this batch into some tasty soup.

Turns out that I could. I have worked out as accurately as I can that 400ml of this will work out at a smidge over 119 calories. 400ml might actually fill me up, which is a huge bonus. I was going to have a  fast day today, but then I remembered that I was going out to night, so it will have to be tomorrow. I had some of the soup for lunch today anyway, and it's very tasty. The chilli and ginger give it a little something extra which makes me feel like I've eaten more than I actually have - always a bonus, even when it's not a fast day, if it will stop me reaching for the bread...

250g spinach - leaves and stalks (doesn't need to be baby spinach or anything), thoroughly washed
2 shallots, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 Kallo organic chicken stock cube made up with 500ml boiling water
1 can light coconut milk
1 dried chilli

Put the shallot, garlic and ginger into a pan that will eventually take all the liquid, and which has a lid, and just cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer till softened and the water is all but gone - it won't take too long and if everything looks softened before the water has all evaporated don't worry too much, but do keep an eye on it to avoid it boiliong dry. Sprinkle in the dried chilli, pour in the stock and coconut milk and bring back to a simmer. Add in the spinach and cook for 5 mins or so till the spinach is wilted, then blitz.

Tomatoes on toast

Did I mention that we are going away for a week? 

I'd like to say I'm being ever so casual about it, that it's no biggie, but who am I kidding? 

We are going to ITALY. To Rome, then to Naples.

I am very, VERY excited. 

Of course, in the run up to any holiday there is the finishing up of work. 

There is the 'weather checking and clothes washing' to be taken care of (you might not like me to mention that it's currently getting up to 28C in Rome - now where did I put my sandals?)



There is the consideration and purchasing of useful literature (I am very pleased with my 'overlay' book of ancient Roman sites (which has photos of the current ruins, with artists impressions of how they used to look which you can overlay onto the photos), purchased on Amazon for a mere 1p as opposed to the 10 Euros I am informed it will cost us in Rome)

There is the finding of the passports and the checking of the tickets. 

There is the daydreaming of how perfect it will all be as long as we don't try to do too much and wear the kids out on day 1 (actually unlikely as we are staying with friends just outside Rome first and we have been promised a relaxing day on Sunday revolving around lunch somewhere very lovely.)

And then there is 'Operation Fridge Run Down'. Easier said than done when the courgettes are still coming, as are the tomatoes.

I managed to get a whole yellow ball courgette into a quiche the other day - grated and squeezed out before I cooked it up with 3 thinly sliced onions. It made a delicious supper, and the courgette went completely undetected by those who did not know it was in there.

I could have cried when the next day, the Husband brought 2 more green courgettes in from the garden...

Tomatoes, on the other hand, are something I never tire of. The kids eat them raw and cooked, and it's very easy to turn them into soup, passata, anything really. Proper tomatoes, grown with some love, just smell delicious - of sunshine, of warmth, of halcyon days. If I had nothing else to do, I'd quite happily sit in a greenhouse of tomatoes and smell the smell all day. A bit like Ferdinand the bull smelling the flowers all day - but he was in Spain, and not many people know that story these days...





If you've never smelt a freshly picked gorgeously ripe tomato, you might think this all sounds a bit wierd, but I'm betting I'm not the only one who feels like this...

Tomatoes, of course, remind me of Italian food - the classic insalata tricolore with mozarella and basil, all that pasta sauce flavoured with basil, with chilli, with all sorts of things, brushcetta... I'm anticipating more than the odd stop during our sightseeing to partake of all things gorgeous, Italian and tomatoey - plus the odd glass of chilled white wine, of course.

For now, though, something much more English. I could have gone the bruschetta route for lunches the last few days, but these are English tomatoes, and oddly, bruschetta never occurred to me until just now when I sat down and started writing this. So I've been eating tomatoes on toast - inspired by a friend who's on the 5:2 diet and who advises me that if you use Nimble or Weightwatchers bread, 2 pieces come in at around 132 calories - including a dollop of Lidl's lowest fat mayo. Now I am no longer following the 5:2 diet. I'll tell you about it sometime, so my tomatoes were sliced and arranged on slices of homemade bread, drizzled with some (Italian) olive oil, sprinkled with some sea salt and pepper and served with some delicious Hampshire watercress. I decided to pass on the mayo...

Tomatoes on Toast (serves 1)

2 reasonably thick slices of good bread
tomatoes (the exact number will depend on the size of your tomatoes, how thickly you slice them, also the size of your slices of bread - may be 3-4 small to medium sized tomatoes as a guide)
Olive oil, seasalt and fresh ground pepper
Watercress to serve

Toast the bread lightly on one side under the grill. Flip the bread over and cover the uncooked side as much as possible with slices of tomato, drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, then pop back under the grill for a few minutes till the tomatoes are starting to soften. Alternatively, you could sprinkle a little sugar on the tomatoes for a more caramelised effect.

Serve on a plate with some watercress.

Ciao!

Pasta bake for days that don't quite go your way

There are some days when I almost feel like life is under control, that I know what I'm doing, that I'm parenting brilliantly, everything is running smoothly.

When I say some days, I mean, the occasional day.

Like may be once a year.

More often, I don't feel like that at all. And some days it's worse.

Days when I have to get a trombone, a bicycle and a dog up to school as well as the kids (on foot).

Days when I have no idea how I'm going to fit work in, and end up burning the midnight oil.

Days when I realise that they haven't forgotten, and not one but both children want to enter a Fairtrade cake in the Fairtrade cake competition the following day (and you know my views on such things, having vented here before).

They are BANANAS. OK?.

No, it's a fair trade logo & some bananas not a rampant blue & green Pacman

Days when I realise that the maths homework due the following day isn't a series of 'mental maths' tasks on the computer, but a full on 'investigation' of the type school helpfully expect parents to be on hand for the execution thereof: draw a grid 5 by 5 squares big, and then using 13 coins place them so that there is an odd number in each row, column and the main diagonals. Just try it OK.






Days when I have too much stuff to use up in the fridge.


Last Tuesday was one of those days.







Fortunately, there was a bag of pasta, and the things that needed using up were 2 courgettes &, a head of spring greens from last week's veg box, 4 mini chorizo sausages and half a tub of ricotta cheese. I put the pasta on, almost on auto-pilot, and as icing flew, and coins were placed and re-placed on the grid with accompanying sound effects (I'll leave you to imagine), I  engineered tea.

Having put the pasta on to boil, I fried off the chorizo, till the fat was running, then added the diced courgettes to the pan. Once the courgettes were a bit soft, I chucked in a can of plum tomatoes and a good dollop of sundried tomato pesto. 

Once it had all cooked down a bit, I stirred in the ricotta, stirred in the pasta, into a baking dish grated cheese on top and in the oven for some time. Probably about 20 minutes. And steamed the greens.

Oh did I mention, days when you can't get the photos to rotate and upload properly?

We eat something similar at least once a week. The chorizo could be leftover bacon, or cold meat - or no meat, in which case  I might use garlic and smoked paprika and an onion. The courgettes could be red peppers. The sundried tomato pesto could be tomato puree, ordinary pesto, harissa paste - frankly what ever is in the fridge without mold on it.

There's no recipe, and occasionally it's literally just cooked pasta and a tin of tomatoes cooked down with some garlic stirred through the pasta. 

I commend it to you!

Stripy Meringues - my BakingMad favourite summer dessert

What’s your favourite summer dessert?

That's the question BakingMad asked me recently, and invited me to write a post about it. 

BakingMad.com have loads of ideas for summer recipes, from cupcakes to take on a picnic, to luxurious cheesecake. Check out the website for more inspiration.

I tend to ignore dessert in the summer – not that we don’t have 'pudding', but there’s so much fantastic fruit around that it’s easy to just bring out a plate of strawberries & raspberries without further embellishment.

If pushed, well, Summer Pudding has to rank as one of the best puddings ever, and is certainly the Husband's all out fave, but it's not quite the right time for that yet. The currants in the garden are still green.

On the other hand, there are Hampshire strawberries around. Strawberries apparently go with black pepper, with balsamic vinegar, with a whole host of things. Call me traditional, though, but I like them with cream. And meringues.

I know a lot of people get the fear from meringue. 

I don't want to sound smug, but making meringue doesn't phase me. My mum always had a tin of meringues in the cupboard, and it's never given me much of a problem. On the other hand, chewy and delicious as I like it, my meringue never looks particularly beautiful. If it's for a pavlova, well, cracks are part of the charm, and anyway it'll all be covered in cream and fruit anyway. Individual meringues, well, again, if they are a complete disaster, you can break them up for an Eton mess kind of thing. More cream and fruit. Believe me, no one's going to complain.

So to make this a little more of a challenge, I decided to embrace something that does give me the fear - piping. For too long, I have looked at photos of beautifully piped cupcakes, cakes, petit fours on OPB (Other People's Blogs), and known with certainty that in my hands, a piping bag could only lead to one thing:  complete and utter disaster. You only have to look at the mess I made of my hot cross buns, cutting the corner off a freezer bag...

BakingMad sent me a variety of cake decorating paraphenalia, including some Silver Spoon food colouring, and a booklet which included a picture of beautifully striped meringues, and something clicked in my head.  "I'm going to have a go at that" I thought. "I'm going to get me some striped meringue" (in my best Southern drawl).

Cue a trip to Hobbycraft and confusion in the cake icing aisle, while Pink roamed the store unchecked, looking for things to spend money on. We exited with some disposable piping bags, 2 nozzles and a 'coupler'. Plus some face paints and a bag of fizzy sweets.

Anyway, back to the meringues. This is my basic recipe, which you can increase or reduce as you like. As I use my trusty Kenwood to make the meringue mix, I'd never make less than 2 egg whites' worth.

4 egg whites

pinch of salt

225g caster sugar

1 tsp cornflower (to make chewy meringue)

Whisk the egg white with the salt till stiff but still wet.  Add a couple of tablespoons of the sugar, whisk in, then sprinkle on the cornflour and carry on whisking, slowly pouring in the rest of the sugar, till the meringue is looking shiny, and you get stiff peaks.

At this point, you can then make a large meringue for pavlova, or spoon dollops on to baking paper lined baking sheets, and bake the meringues for 1-2 hrs till dry and lift from the paper. Alternatively, just turn off the oven and leave while the oven cools down (just don't forget to take then out before you turn the oven on again).

So if you're not going to dollop with a spoon, you could use a piping bag and pipe out the meringue. And you could colour the mix, to make coloured meringue, or simply (Ha!) paint a line of food colour up your piping bag and Bob (or striped meringue) would be your Uncle. 

Well, call it a fluke, but it really worked. I made up my meringue, and took it slowly. I used gel colour for the stripey meringues, and used the Silver Spoon food colourings to make the pink and green meringues. For the stripes, you literally use a brush or a cocktail stick and paint a line of colour up the inside of the piping bag, then spoon in your mixture for piping, and pipe away.

The actual piping itself left something to be desired, certainly I didn't get it right every time, Pink had a go with a few of them, and there's no way I could offer you my 'top tips' for piping meringue, because there's a whole host of talented meringue-pipers out there in internet-land, and I am not about to try and compete - but I managed to get enough of them looking pretty good.

So there you have it. Our favourite summer dessert. Strawberries (& raspberries) with stripy meringue. And cream.

Green garlic in your veg box?

Spring is definitely here, no doubt about it. All of a sudden, the garden has spring into life, and the veg box is full of more interesting stuff, and I haven't had a swede for weeks...

Two weeks on the trot, we've had green garlic on the veg box. Looking like garlic, but not, with the 'scapes' - the long green leafy bits, still intact, smelling beautifully of garlic, yet not as strong. 

Imagine walking through a wood perfumed with wild garlic, and you get the idea. 

When you cut through the bulb, you can see where the garlic cloves are forming.

I'm not sure if you would eat green garlic raw, although I expect that sliced finely and mixed in with a salad, it would be pretty good. Gently cooked, though, it imparts a wonderful flavour to dishes.

On Saturday  evening, I sliced up the 2 bulbs, with their scapes, and cooked them gently in a good knob of butter till they were soft. 

I mashed them into potato with some milk, for a gorgeous garlicky mash to go with a roast chicken. Unfortunately, we were all so hungry that it all got eaten up with no time for photos.

Last week, the garlic starred in a quick and easy chicken dish that worked brilliantly. It also used up the rest of the courgettes which had served so admirably in the Blackcurrant Slice. Fortunately, unlike the mash, I had time to take a photo of the finished dish...

Chicken with bacon, courgettes & green garlic

6 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped into small pieces
10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 bulbs of green garlic, with scapes
200ml chicken stock
1-2 courgettes, cubed
1 lettuce, trimmed and sliced
2 tbsp sour cream

Gently dry fry the bacon in a large pan until the fat is released and the bacon starts to brown. Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon and add the chicken to the pan, adding a little olive oil if the bacon didn't release much fat.

Brown the chicken pieces, then move to one side of the pan and add the sliced garlic to the pan, and cook for 30 seconds or so till the garlic scapes go bright green. Return the bacon to the pan and pour on the chicken stock. Bring to the boil, then cover and  simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the courgette to the pan, return the lid and cook for another couple of minutes, before adding the lettuce, then cook for 4 minutes or so till the courgette is cooked and the lettuce has wilted.

Check the chicken is cooked through, stir through the sour cream, and season if necessary.

Serve with wild rice.

 
I'm linking this up to Simple and in Season, hosted by Ren Behan a great place to find more seasonal inspiration.
 

Butterflied Bangers with Beetroot - or bread & butter. But no Brownie(s)

Did you see what I did there? I love a bit of alliteration.

So, according to Nigel Slater, there's lots of beautiful beetroot around at the moment, and he's not wrong. 

Beetroot has grown on me over the last few years, and now I really love it. It's delicious in a salad, or roasted as a side vegetable, and I've got my eye on this Balti which includes beetroot and cheddar in a kind of Anglo-Indian fusion curry. I got a great big bunch of it in my veg box this week, and curry aside, up on my Twitter feed popped our Nige as featured on the Guardian's website - a recipe for a sausage and beetroot type of pan fry: chunks of beetroot and carrot slowly fried with garlic and chopped rosemary, then add in chunks of good herby sausages to cook, and finally some red wine vinegar to finish off. Oh so simple.

I'd got my meal plan, sorted out on the basis of the contents of the veg box, and I was really keen to give the beetroot a bit more than the usual  treatment, so this fitted in perfectly. I'd also neglected the previous week's carrots so they'd ended up in a last minute carrot cake (noting wrong with that, but, you know, not necessarily the most ideal), so I wanted to give this week's carrots some love too.

I loved the idea of the sweet veg with the sausages - our butcher does some fantastic Cumberland bangers which always go down a treat. You get the idea. I was REALLY looking forward to eating this. 

I just shouldn't have attempted it last night when I was feeling grotty as you like with that most of English of things - a summer cold; when I was on a schedule to get the kids home and fed and turned around in time for Pink to go to Brownies at 6.

I should have known not to attempt something with no guidance as to cooking time, only suggestions for 'speeding things up' (i.e. use pre-cooked beetroot). My beetroot were small, so plenty of opportunity to get covered in red as I peeled them (no CSI gloves for me, Ms Lawson). I didn't start cooking early enough, and as the time approached to leave for Brownies, with Pink still not fed, I ended up having to 'butterfly' the sausage chunks (slice them down one side to open them out and cook the middles) in order to get them cooked properly for her to eat. 

And the potato chips I was making in the oven (I was baking bread at the same time, so the oven was on) hadn't cooked, so she had to have bread and butter... The rest of it had to wait on the stove as I dashed down the road to get Pink to Brownies.

Except Brownies wasn't on. In my befuddled summer cold induced haze, I had forgotten that it was cancelled.

By the time I got back home, with Pink in tow, the chips were finished, but everything else - well, let's say it hadn't necessarily benefited from sitting around...

Still good, but I'm willing to bet not quite as good as Nigel's... Better luck next time, hey.