Heather has been home with Tristan for a few days and so I began thinking about what we would have to eat a few days beforehand so that I would have all the necessary ingredients to hand to save us having to make any emergency supermarket trips. The list turned out to be a double column on A4 paper. For some reason I seemed to think that 12 fully-grown adults would be staying for a month instead of 1 adults + baby for 5 days. I did make some adjustments as I went round Booths following my list, but somehow still ended up with 4 tins full of various biscuits - which weren't on my list at all.
Having bought all this stuff I then had to remember which bits belonged to which recipes. One thing I did remember was that I had bought walnuts for a pesto. I'm not very keen on pine nuts, nor olive oil so pesto is one of those foods that I usually avoid. But Hugh suggests using walnuts as an alternative to pine nuts, and I always have rape seed oil to hand instead of olive oil. And I knew that Heather and Tristan loved pesto so it seemed worth a try. I chucked the ingredients into my blender and ended up with a lovely mush to which I carefully added the rapeseed oil to stop it being too oily. This somehow was very satisfying to make - not least because I had just decided to grow a few herbs on my windowsill and I had a new basil plant which would block the view if it wasn't checked.
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One of the nice things about this recipe is that it is easy to make and seems quite a simple dish, but actually it's very satisfying. You have to cut the potatoes up into small sticks like chips so that they cook at the same time as the pasta, then you throw in the green beans, mix in the pesto and that's it but for a sprinkle of parmesan.
I made up the pesto full quantities but used less of the pasta, potatoes and green beans as there were only 3 of us, but Tristan had the pesto on some macaroni the following night and there's a little bit left for me for lunch today. Considering how cheap it was to make anyway, it has done us well over the past few days. Definitely a recipe to return to.
On Saturday - on an impulse - I bought River Cottage Year which was prominently for sale, hugely discounted, in The Works. I didn't quite mean to buy it, but there was a recipe in it to make your own ricotta. OK, I don't use ricotta that much, but the thought of making it myself was a bit tempting. And another River Cottage book would just about fit on my cookery shelves - but only if I was ruthless and threw away some of the old cookery books that are cluttering it up.
So I set about and cleared both shelves and chucked away some old books that really I would never use again. It's surprising how much cookery has its fashions. And surprising that some of those books took me back to times when the children were younger. Very much in evidence was my 'Italian' phase when I made something with pasta every week (more often than not hand-made). I seem to remember these as very happy times cooking for 4 with all of us together. Then the American cookbooks began to creep in. There weren't many of these, but enough for an idle onlooker to guess that we had started our long love affair with the USA (a love affair in more ways than one as both Heather and Deborah married US citizens). Sadly, most of these cookbooks have lain unused for too long and will pass to charity shops in the next day or so. I have copied out the odd recipe that I can see myself turning to again - but probably I won't make them.
River Cottage Year has a nice fish recipe in it. Now I am a little sensitive about fishy issues at the moment - but there's no way I'm going to relive my nasty episode with cold callers on the doorstep yesterday. Luckily I had bought some lovely oak-smoked fish from Booths to make Smoky Cheaty Brandade for when Heather and Tristan come tonight. It looked like a simple recipe and one which Tristan might enjoy. The smoked fish might be a little salty for him so I left out adding any other salt in the hope that all the added mashed potato would bring it down to a low level. It seemed to need something else adding - maybe an egg, or some nutmeg. But I kept to the recipe faithfully and it's all made up, ready to cook tonight. I wanted some nice veggies to go with and spent a pleasant 10 minutes leafing through River Cottage Everyday before I homed in on green beans and tomatoes.
The brandade turned out to be good - but a bit uninteresting. Tristan seemed to like it anyway, and I enjoyed it too. But it really needed the green beans/tomatoes to give it some interest. It's not something I would make again I don't think.
Having bought all this stuff I then had to remember which bits belonged to which recipes. One thing I did remember was that I had bought walnuts for a pesto. I'm not very keen on pine nuts, nor olive oil so pesto is one of those foods that I usually avoid. But Hugh suggests using walnuts as an alternative to pine nuts, and I always have rape seed oil to hand instead of olive oil. And I knew that Heather and Tristan loved pesto so it seemed worth a try. I chucked the ingredients into my blender and ended up with a lovely mush to which I carefully added the rapeseed oil to stop it being too oily. This somehow was very satisfying to make - not least because I had just decided to grow a few herbs on my windowsill and I had a new basil plant which would block the view if it wasn't checked..JPG)
