Friday, July 10, 2009

I wanted...I bought...I made


I am hoping to get some beef ribs at Ginger Pig - I have been dreaming of them all week and seriously fancy them Sunday night slow roasted with spices and a bali salad. Then cold for lunch Monday... Saturday night fancy scallops for a change or maybe mussels and black beans. Monday night some chinese ma po tofu, to which I think I am now officially addicted with ginger wilted spinach and bean sprout salad, Tuesday I have some lamb mince in the freezer that I fancy as burgers with butterbean mash and peperonata. Wednesday had leftovers from last night but cold with warm flatbreads for wraps and the quickest dinner imaginable tortilla (!) and maybe lamb casserole from the freezer with pasta Thursday finally made the tortilla and it was almost perfect and so will post details next time and I'm thinking chorizo and rocket sandwiches with piquillo peppers Friday as a treat for the man as I often have one at lunch from a stall in Whitecross Street and the man misses out! Didn't wait till Friday had the chorizo for Sunday lunch so Friday night is the lamb and chickpeas from the freezer with some penne pasta.

Took sunglasses not umbrella as we headed off to Borough Market Saturday morning - wrong! Drizzly dribbly rather than full on storms first thing but bleeeeeeeeeeeugh none the less. At Ginger Pig they had a small mountain of beef ribs so bought a couple of sheets spiced for Sunday dinner with plain boiled rice - wanted leftovers as well as dinner - for a mere £7.01

At Booths I bought potatoes - for the never appearing tortilla made it Thursday, yay!, cabbage still in the fridge but usable next week, tomatoes salads, bananas smoothies and lunches, sugarsnaps lunches and padron peppers meant for tapas tonight might still be a snack with drinks - all for an even £6

From Shellseekers I bought mussels with blackbean and chilli Saturday night for £4.50

At Rhodes I bought a small campagne sarnie for lunch Saturday and lovely with mussels that night - £1.50

A basil plant in a pot from Ted's Veg to see if, repotted, it will grow (I live in hope) but the young woman serving seemed hugely doubtful! It seemed worth a try for £1.50 And was indeed - split the lots of little plants between two pots and after a couple of days they have perked up and started looking lush

Went to Taste of Turkey for their sublimely good super sun dried olives and got into a chat with the guy who owns it. Like some other traders he is unhappy at the direction the market is going in currently with the huge numbers of cooked food stands edging out the producers to some extent but did say they are thinking of opening the market Sundays with producers only, be interesting to see if that succeeds, certainly when the market first started it was aimed squarely at people shopping for top quality ingredients. Eventually also bought a tub of olives - £3.80

Strawberries for smoothies from Chegworth - £2.50

Peppers peperonata and rhubarb stewed with ginger for decadent breakfast atop sheeps milk yoghurt from Tony - £3.50

Milk and yoghurt from Neals Yard - £7.20

And a cottage loaf from Flour Power - £1.10

Not a huge lot this week - £38.61 - also bought butter, a coconut, beansprouts, butterbeans, chillies, tofu, biscuits, piquillo peppers and a meringue
All in all a good week for nice food.

2 comments:

Angie said...

I have never been able to make basil plsnts live - and I'm talking about from seed or from the garden centre, sold as "for the garden". From seed they come through ok but as soon as you can tell what they're supposed to be they die. If they could go "Nah nah na nah nah" they would!

bron said...

I'm sure that, in basil speak, that is exactly what they are saying. Certainly is usually my experience.

Read somewhere the other day though that the little pots contain lots and lots of individual plants that can be split into pots and they would grow. So did that between two pots - about 10 in each. For the first three days they dropped their heads and scraped their leaves across the ground and refused to play nicely.

'Grow my beauties, grow' I urged them in my broken basil speak. 'Don't want to' they sulked. ~But I ignored them and instead cooed with delight at my big fat cucumbers. So, to get my attention they dug their roots in and held their shiny leaves out and said 'Look at us! We can grow fast too!'

Moral - tough love works with basil. Especially if you have a little of the language.