food

Mushrooms and Beans – yes really

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Well, there is a limited readership for this, I’m sure. If it is any temptation at all, there are some simple supper recipes involved – mind you only if you like beans, and indeed mushrooms and are not bothered about having food photos because there are none.

And, by the way, you are not wanting exact measurements and timings etc.

Hope I am not putting you off too much………

Otherwise, it will be back to Oxfam books next time.

So, I am a big fan of beans (and lentils) which apparently turns out to be a good thing as they are very good for you – and are cheap.

And, I am one of the very lucky people who doesn’t need to count the pennies.

( Me, and the Chancellor Rishi Sunak apparently. At least I am not making other people pay more than they can afford with no help from the Government whilst ensuring my multi-million pound lifestyle is protected. And has no idea that some families cannot afford for everyone to eat different breads…… Just saying.)

And, having listened to the BBC Food Programme ( an excellent listen) on beans I had a bit of a conversion. I had always bought tinned beans, now ( because I can afford it), I buy beans in a jar.

The taste is indeed much better and a whole lot easier than buying the dried beans, soaking them and cooking for quite a long time – before you even get to a sauce.

Mind you, I can see that coming on.

There are still some tins in the store cupboard and they will have to be used. And they’re OK, we’ve been eating them for years.

Meanwhile, I am stuck at home with a mild case of Covid and seem to spend my time doing some book research (see next blog) and, of course, cooking.

I asked my neighbour to add a couple of things to her food delivery order and one of those were some mushrooms.

Not the white button ones, though I can find ways of using them, but the large field ones – meaty without being meat – and very useful in the kitchen.

A while ago, I had some and made for us and the neighbours, mushrooms with tarragon and sherry. (Mmm you say ?- well hold on and I will tell you how to make them.)

I am of the view that it is very hard indeed to overcook a mushroom but recipes are always suggesting you can cook them in a matter of a few minutes. 

They are wrong. A bold statement I know, and one I have made before only to get messages which are the equivalent of a sharp intake of unbelieving breath.

But trust me. Don’t assume a mushroom meal is a quick meal. ( Perhaps a stir fry, I will concede, but really that is it. Not a step beyond.)

Anyway, my neighbour has a tendency to press the order button generously and now I find that I have a lot of mushrooms arriving this afternoon.

Part of the reason is the sherry and tarragon mushrooms I made for her and she liked quite a lot – so she added the big mushroom order.

So, here is what I did, – stuff:

Some nice mushrooms – remember mushrooms cook down to nothing (not quite the dramatic diminishing of fresh spinach when it is wilted, but not far off.) So, one container of supermarket mushrooms will feed two (ish).

Some chopped onion. I use half a small one for two of us.

Dried or fresh tarragon – to taste. Now fresh is lighter than dried, so up the quantity for fresh and be careful of the dried.

Garlic. Take a clove or two and if you want a stronger garlic flavour then chop it up. If you want a milder flavour crush them but keep them in one piece and fish them out before you serve it.

Some stock.

Dry sherry.

Chop the mushrooms to the size you want ( remembering they will shrink.) With the field mushrooms I do slices. Clearly, and you are not going to need this advice, the finer the slices, the quicker they cook.

Fry gently in a good amount of oil. Don’t stint but you are not deep-frying here. Don’t warm the pan and oil first, just put them all in.

Be prepared to wait and stir and check your emails, and stir……

Once they have got a good start in cooking, move to some hotter heat and add a lump of butter so that they brown a bit at the edges. It is worth it.

Once that happens go back to middling heat and add onions, once they have gone translucent, add the garlic.

Then some sherry – a generous slosh and you can always add more. I use some stock made from Marigold Bouillion. 

So we are planning on mushrooms in a sauce so not too much so that they are swimming lengths in too much liquid, but not so little that you can’t tell they are in a sauce. 

And some tarragon – if you are using fresh, save some back and chop very finely to scatter over the top of your finished mushrooms.

(This is not MasterChef so we are not talking amazing presentation just a little dash of poshness.)

Dried, I’d say a dessert spoonful, but we really like tarragon.

Cook, taste, and keep going until you are happy.

And again, you can always add more liquid(s) but it is hard to take it away so potter along adding as you fancy.

Meanwhile, back to the beans.

So, I had some frozen cauliflower and some (in a jar) butter beans.

Cook the cauliflower as per instructions or cook from fresh. Add some beans and whilst still hot, add some butter and finely chopped chives ( because I had them) and use a hand blender to make a puree or mash. ( Puree is best, I would suggest.)

Serve this under the mushrooms, and you have a very nice supper. As attested to by the neighbour and my Best Beloved.

Given that we have a shed load of mushrooms arriving that will be on the menu in the next few days.

And just before I go, a few more ideas because, as you can tell, I have not had much else to do whilst the plague keeps me at home….

Do the mushrooms as above but cook to be much drier and without the sherry and add in some chopped bacon/ham or not, if you don’t want meat.

Cook some pappardelle or any other long pasta you have.

Just before pasta is ready, add a large spoonful/ladle full of pasta cooking liquid and a few minutes later some creme fraiche to make a creamy consistency.

And, if you have any leftover puree/mash….

Make a sauce with (in my case)  tarragon and parsley.

Chop some onion, fry as per above and add herbs and a good slosh of white wine and some stock. 

This time you are looking for more liquid. 

When pretty much cooked add in a spoonful at a time of the left over puree to thicken the sauce and service with roast chicken thighs and some purple sprouting. Sauté potatoes if you are in the mood. 

Sauté potatoes = Par boil potatoes and fry in oil until crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.

What I did on his holidays Part 2

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So, this is indeed Part 2 of what I did in the two weeks the best beloved was digging up (very small) pieces of roman history.

And it is a litany of failure I’m afraid – there are by contrast just a couple of things which I can recount with an iota of pride.

But then, that is so often, my life – the 80/20 rule.

(I am going to keep the glimmers of self satisfaction until later as by then I might well need to boost a very flagging sense of self worth.

And if you are one of those people who believe wholeheartedly in being so very positive about yourself, you might want to look away now.)

Firstly, there were the crab apples.

You can’t buy crab apples in the shops, not even at organic, local, grocers.

So, given that we have a crab apple tree I do feel obliged to harvest them and make crab apple jelly – as far as I know there are no other recipes for crab apples.

Anyway, for the first couple of years we were here, it was an autumnal delight, but then became an obligatory chore. ( It is the business of having to get the ‘mush’ to drain through muslim bags overnight and then boil up and etc etc etc…)

So, last year, I gathered them up, simmered them into a mush and put them in the freezer, thinking that I would make the jelly sometime when I was not so busy – later in the autumn.

Yes, indeed dear reader, that overnight dripping day never quite arrived and two large bags of mushed crab apples filled up a goodly part of the freezer until last week.

So, I got them out, defrosted them, hung them to drip and felt a small amount of satisfaction that I had not succumbed to binning them and getting on with the rest of my life.

The next morning – and I would like to remind you that this dripping involves muslim bags hanging from broom handles wedged between chairs all over the kitchen – there was about an inch of crab apple syrup.

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Clearly, they do not take well to freezing for nearly a year.

Not enough to make a decent jar’s worth and I had, of course, steralized quite a lot of jars.

The mush went in the bin – which with the benefit of hindsight…..

At least I tried with the crab apples.

I like a pedometer, it makes me do my 10,000 steps. I am not interested in a Fitbit or similar, just want to know the steps.

The one I had got very, very wet at the outdoor event I did a couple of weeks ago and it really wasn’t up to the rain – so I ordered another one and it arrived. See below for how wet it was.

 

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Can I get it – something really quite simple – set up to my stride. Well of course I could if my brother-in-law who is techy and usually does it on an occasional trip from York, hadn’t been inconsiderately on holiday in Greece.

I have shoved it and its instructions into the back of a notebook. But I have a plan to go into the nice techy boys in Carphone Warehouse in town and claim I have forgotten my glasses so can’t see the instructions and could they just help me, even though it is not a phone, but I am a customer…

So, this week, my oldest friends came down to stay the night and I invited local good friends for supper.

The garden had had some attention on Sunday but it really needed the grass cut to look anywhere near tidy.

The best beloved has always cut the grass. I dimly recall in the early days of our relationship thinking that this was something I should fight and that it was utterly ridiculous to assume men had to cut the grass.

Indeed, telling this to a friend who would not call herself a feminist as I do, she said, ‘I’d never let my husband cut the grass, he’s rubbish at it.’

For the first 45 years of my life, I cut the grass. But somehow, over the last seven years, that has slipped into being something the man does.

‘What!’ I hear you cry, ‘Did you not remind yourself of your feminism and bloody well cut the grass – for heaven’s sake it is hardly brain surgery. You just get the mower out and get on with it.”

But no, I asked my oldest friend if she would ask her husband – I was too embarrassed to ask him directly – if he would do it.

And he did. And it looks great and yes, of course, I am grateful and ashamed.

I have a plan to cut it next week and restore my sense of grass-cutting self – but will I ?

But then, if that was not enough, the old friend came in from cutting the grass and asked why did my Twitter account direct everyone to another Reluctant Housewife, who lives in America and writes about Walmart?

‘No idea, ‘ I said, and indeed I didn’t.

He is also a techy person so I asked him to investigate.

After a while he said, ‘ I don’t understand why this would happen.’ Then after some more time, he said, ‘ You listed The Relucant Housewife.’

I was never one for details….

So, to boost my flagging ego, I will point out that I was, meanwhile, making a nice meal.

Get some nice brisket. It is a slow cooking meat and brown it. Then roll it in fennel seed and dried oregano.

‘What,’ I again hear you cry, ‘they are not herbs for beef.’

Live with me on that, and indeed I added bay leaves. You could do more traditional beef herbs if you liked.

Put the brisket back in a casserole  – mine is a Le Creuset given to me by my mother who first imported them when I went off to university and I have been using it ever since – and add the better part of a bottle of red wine and some decent bought beef stock.

Bring up to a simmer/near boil.

Leave to cook at a low oven for a long time – like five hours.

Meanwhile, slice up some really nice tomatoes. ( Actually some were from my garden thanks to good friends who suggested using a tin bath as a veg garden.)

Pulverise some anchovies, washed capers and black olives.

When the meat is cooked, and rested, put the sliced tomatoes on a large plate. Add anchovy stuff. Put slices of meat on top.

Oh, I should have said, cook some oven chips and have them ready.

I had also made a polenta and orange cake and served with marscapone… but hey you don’t want to hear about that.

And today, in Oxfam, I sorted out the DVDs.

Now I know that doesn’t sound much but it was  – and I could bore you with how much that matters in terms of getting our new ‘ film’ volunteer underway …. and how different there before photo would have looked.

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But this is already far too many words so I will leave that out of my list of things I am not ashamed of.

 

 

 

 

 

Another Day in A Life

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For regular readers, and I know there are one or two ( thank you very much), this might be a bit repetitive – more on the life of an ordinary Oxfam bookshop.

And some days it feels a bit like that for me too, but then you have those days when you stumble across all sorts of weird and wonderful books.

So here is what I found at the bottom – it always is at the bottom – of a box:

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Well, well, I thought, there is indeed a book out there on any subject in the world you can think of. And, dear reader, thumbing through it was a real eye opener.

Dedicated readers will know of the Petersfield Porn shelf in our shop where we stash all those rather racy books we cannot put out on the shop floor, and we keep for the owner of the second-hand bookshop in the town who buys them in a job lot.

Even more dedicated readers will recall that our book expert wants Petersfield to be the porn hub of Oxfam on the basis that erotica gets thrown out, but some of it is worth a lot of money – so all the other bookshops should send theirs to us. He made this impassioned appeal at a volunteer conference but sadly, none has yet arrived.

And then there was this – handed to me by a fellow volunteer who said, ‘You will put this in a blog I expect.’ So, here it is.

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Then there were the several, actually many, boxes of Mills and Boon. I would not say it was the complete oeuvre on the basis that would be so many books, we would be filled to bodice brimming – but certainly there were a lot of them.

We used to send them on to the shop in Cosham which relished – and sold – them but sadly Cosham Oxfam is no more.

They were all in very good condition which suggests they were recently bought and read, and the feminist in me is appalled – but maybe given a spare moment, I might want to know how the seductive miss worked….and where else would you see the word ‘reprobate’ on a book cover?

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And then there is this gem. It is a lovely book with all sorts of illustrations and samples of wood to show the cabinet maker what they were working with.

The cover is designed by Talwin Morris who was, according to Wikipedia ‘ a prolific book designer and decorative artist working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly known for his Glasgow Style furniture, metalwork and book designs.’

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Finally, I was jus wondering what to do with two donated camping stoves when I came across this little gem and thought there is a box of camping stuff to be started here so should you have any books on camping or caravanning that you have no need of, please drop them off.

I have to say that the ‘cheese a broccoli rolls ‘ did not sound all that appetising….

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Honesty Bars

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It may of course be because this is the beginning of dry January, but I’ve been thinking about honesty bars I have known.

There was the one at the Solar Do Castelo which, just in case you don’t know, is a lovely boutique hotel built into the castle walls in Lisbon.

When my best beloved was a man who was collected from the airport and driven with blue flashing lights and motorbike outriders, we stayed there as guests of the Portuguese government.

He was assigned a bodyguard which impressed me no end. The man was rather small, no taller than me, but no doubt he could have killed with his bare hands.

One of the many charming features of the hotel – apart from the tinkling fountain, peacocks, gorgeous room, great view and, of course, the honesty bar – was the fact that it was inaccessible by car.

You had to walk about 100 metres up a cobbled lane and into the nicely lit courtyard and entrance.

When we had done the official dinner, and the official fado ‘session’ which had most of the other guests wiping a tear from their eyes, we at last, got to go back to the hotel.

Getting out of the official car at the foot of the cobbled lane, I said to the bodyguard that it was late and we didn’t need him any more ( not that we really needed him at all – Lisbon not being all that threatening) and he smartly replied that he was not on duty to protect me so basically I could do what I liked, but he was seeing the BB to the door.

On a trip to Yorkshire, my BB went with my brother in law to see Featherstone Rovers in action. Being brought up in the south, with a firm grinding/grounding in rugby union, this was an eye opener all round.

( If not for the delightful nature of Yorkshire men, he could probably have done with a bodyguard more then, speaking as he was with a posh southern English voice, than he ever needed in Lisbon.

That night, by way of contrast, we went to stay at The Star at Harome.

It is a Michelin starred pub that, over the lane, has a converted barn with bedrooms, and accepts dogs, and it had an honesty bar. What’s not to like?

(We ate in the restaurant and, I would like to point out dear reader, that this is not usual. We don’t do this very often. Before. At all.

And, all round, should have eaten in the friendly and a lot less posh, bar.)

Anyway, then we and the dog, adjourned to the circular sitting room in the barn where they had left a fire lit, an honesty bar – did I mention that before? – and a load of games and books.

We three were the only guests.

So, we played a long series of backgammon games and were scrupulous in writing down what we drank. Honestly.

The dog was rubbish at backgammon.

But, the honesty bar I remember most fondly was in a bed and breakfast outside Nottingham.

It is rather a long story, so feel free to skip yet more honesty.

This was a time when I worked for a trade union and part of my patch was the East Midlands.

Most meetings, for obvious reasons, were held in the evening so there was always a search for somewhere nice to stay.

( I got fed up with hotels and hotel bars and hotel food and always tried to find somewhere more interesting/devoid of lecherous men.)

I found this place in a book called Off the Beaten Track – and it was indeed.

It was a former vicarage inherited by an woman who was an artist and general eccentric and she was happy to have me arrive at 10 at night, save me some soup and bread and a good glass of wine, and we would chat.

Given that it was near Nottingham, there used to be people who were working at Boots headquarters for stints, or there for meetings or whatever, and some became regulars like me – but they tended to arrive at usual hours, so I rarely met them – but every now and then I made it at civilised hour.

There were also one-off visitors too, there for weddings, on trips, etc etc and, on the rare occasions when I arrived at a civilised hour, I was enrolled as host.

She didn’t believe in small tables for two or four so everyone ate at one table – all very Wagamama now, but in those days it was nothing if not revolutionary.

And, if I was there or one of the other regulars, we were expected to make conversation and generally ensure, the rather surprised, other guests had a good evening.

The honesty bar was in the kitchen and it was a perk of being a regular. Quite often we would bring bottles and add them to the stash and anyway, generally no one could ever find the honesty note pad so it all kind of equalled out in the end.

The owner and I am ashamed to say, I have forgotten her name, took honesty to greater lengths than most B&Bs.

Once when I went there and said when I needed to come next, she airily told me that she had been invited for a few weeks to the South of France but she didn’t want to let her regulars down.

The key, she explained, would be under the geranium pot, there would be food in the freezer and the regulars could come and go as they liked and oh yes, she said, if you find the notepad, let me know what you owe.

Yes, dear reader, we regulars did.

Supper For Eight

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I am never quite sure just how it happens that you do for a supper for just eight people and it is not fancy, so no implements for removing lobster flesh for example, but by the end of the evening they have created enough dirty plates and glasses to generously coat every flat surface in the kitchen.

Admittedly, at that stage of the evening my loading of the dishwasher can be a little less than perfectly done, ( it never is perfectly done according to my best friend and dishwasher-loading perfectionist).

And to be fair too, we don’t put our glasses or cutlery in the dishwasher as they are old, from various French flea markets, and go cloudy or tarnished.

Even so, it is remarkable how eight nice, polite, interesting people can wilfully create such a lot of dirty stuff and laugh cheerfully throughout the evening as they do it.

But, whilst I can throw several shades of a dicky fit over my best beloved’s inability to put everyday breakfast bowls and mugs into the dishwasher, I don’t actually mind the clearing up after a ‘do.’

Dog and husband have a very clear attitude that this should be left to another day and that anyone who wants to be awake at 1am loading dishwashers, is on her own.

But I quite like that wind down with the BBC World Service telling me what is happening in Nigeria or about Indonesian political scandals, whilst I go about my business.

And I like restoring order after the chaos.

You need to know at this stage, I am not complaining about the mess because we had a great evening.

It was a kitchen supper not because we are posh people trying to show that we can do casual and informal, but because we are not posh people and have nowhere to sit everyone except in the kitchen.

The mix worked well – always a lucky break and not guaranteed, though in this case was a pretty sure bet – and though I know I am repeating myself, we had a lovely time.

I am sure you couldn’t care less what we ate but I am going to tell you anyway so if you are not interested, time to leave.

Mushrooms chopped up by a whizz in the food processor and saluted lengthily ( you can’t overcook a mushroom) with tarragon and then mixed with a very tasty cream cheese from Cornwall via Waitrose. Put on bruschetta from Lidl.

Winter minestrone with chard and beans and carrots and celery and garlic etc. The secret is to keep the rind ends of parmesan in your freezer and put one or two into the soup as it cooks.

Thin lamb chops marinaded in pomegranate molasses, olive oil, garlic and lemon zest and then shoved under a grill or in a hot oven until they are rightly done – not overdone, mind.

And my current favourite recipe – slices of new potatoes cooked in water, olive oil, garlic and saffron, mixed with artichokes ( please note from a tin, rinsed and sauted, not done from fresh, you must be joking,) green olives , parsley and it all coated with creme fraiche – then put in a puff pastry pie – and no, of course, I didn’t make the pastry.

( If you want the real version of this google ‘Cranks artichokes puff pastry’ but Nadine makes you do stuff with real artichokes and adds nuts and stuff which I am sure is pretty delicious, but my easy version wins for me I am afraid.)

Can I just remind you at this stage that there is something in the make-up of parsley with counteracts the next day less-than-delightful garlic breath so it is a must add if you are using as much garlic as in this ‘menu.’

I don’t eat desserts and am rubbish at making them, so very kind friend/guest made lovely lemon mousse thing – it disappeared without touching the sides.

Cheese, chocolates and all that malarky – but to be fair, cheese and chocolates hardly add a smidgen to the washing up.

A non-invited friend, who is not a cook, was practically salivating when I told her about the pie and I (gaily) thought I would have plenty of leftovers because of a lifetime habit of over-catering – blame my Lancashire grandmother who instilled the idea that hospitality means lots of food.

I invited her, her husband, my best friend and her husband for Sunday lunch.

Dear reader, there was little in the way of leftovers but that is another menu story…….