The Sacred Art of Eating

On the way home on Sunday evening (from a bit of shopping in town with D) I could not be bothered cooking. This was evident, D said, by the way I suggested we just got tea from each and every takeaway (of quality) that we passed…’Ooh, we could get fish & chips from The Tailend‘…..’Pizza would be nice’…. you get the idea.

But that seemed a bit lame, and you know, I’m trying to save money at the moment. So I had a wee think about what was in the house and what I might put together for tea.

And I made a risotto. Just like my mum does, a bits and pieces from the fridge, farmhousey risotto, not a fancy single varietal with butter and parmesan or shavings of anything or jus du otherthing. In fact, it’s the only kind of risotto (made by me) that Dougal will eat- he doesn’t like my mushroom, lemon and parsely one at all :o(

This started off with a base of sautéed red onion, (giving the rice a slightly dirty grey colour above!) carrot and celery, with red and yellow peppers, courgette, half moons of chorizo*, prawns (quite big ones for risotto but I had them in the freezer) and mushrooms. Sadly no peas! It was rich but not too creamy or buttery, just full of veggie flavours with the occasional injection of salami or prawn. Brill.

*We have discovered we really like the chorizo sold in Lidl- the sausage shaped salami rather than indivual slice style. I’m not sure it tastes of authentic chorizo but if you just consider it as a nice meaty salami to slice into things or just eat straight from the knife then it is a complete bargain, for the price. Scrummy.

At the end of the week, I felt the need for some straightforward meat. Because Dougal and I regularly eat veggie for over a week at a time, I periodically get protein/fat/flavour cravings that only a bit of meat will satisfy. Last Friday I plumped for Waitrose free range pork loin chops.

I wanted to keep things simple- not least of all so that I could get the food onto the plate and into my belly ASAP, so things went thus: pork chop fried with a teeny touch of garlic oil; leeks roasted in the onion with rock salt and yes more garlic oil; potatoes mashed with butter and cream and a generous spoon of seedy mustard and cabbage, boiled and served with butter.

As you can see I pretty much licked my plate clean!

Funnily enough a similar craving for meat came about on a Sunday about a month ago. D and I had a nice stroll through town and everywhere we could smell barbeques and were tormented by the wafting aromas. I realised I couldn’t remember when I’d last had meat so that night I picked up some Co Op Truly Irresistable beef steaks (outdoor reared, which is something- not much choice on a Sunday night) and grilled them. We had them in D’s rolls with horseradish cream and garlic griddled courgettes with a salad on the side. Brill!

I like greatly that Dougal has bread skills. It means he can think- ooh, frankfurters would be nice, but if only they weren’t always spoiled by those awful plastic rolls- and then actually do something about it.

Check out these beauties….awesome, as in, ooh, a whole peck of hotdogs!