Put 150g flour, 100g sugar and some baking powder in a bowl. You can add a spice of your choice if you want. Add 300g apple compote and 70g oil or melted butter and combine with a whisk.
Pour into a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper and bake at 180° for about 40 minutes.
Very, very easy, delicious, and given the fruit content, you can make a decent argument for it being good for you.
I have succumbed to the terrible temptation that is microwave chocolate cake:
1/4 oz of butter melted in a bowl
1/2 oz of sugar
heaped tbsp self-raising flour (or tbsp plain plus 1/4 tsp baking powder)
heaped tbsp cocoa powder
enough milk to make something around the thickness of custard (it's pretty tolerant), add a bit more if it's too sticky.
Microwave for about a minute and a half (you can tell it's done when it stops being shiny on top). Serve with ice cream.
Rather my accident, because I was trying to empty my cupboard, I have discovered that microwave cakes have a better texture if you use rice flour. They come out lighter and softer.
Rather my accident, because I was trying to empty my cupboard, I have discovered that microwave cakes have a better texture if you use rice flour. They come out lighter and softer.
This one, if you make it more liquid, comes out very soft, with quite a fine texture.
So, this may be an odd question, even by Ship standards, but has anyone ever cooked a swan?
Context, if it helps: The Wife is currently doing fieldwork in West Bengal, living with her music teacher. Teacher mentioned (when talking about food) that when Ari comes to visit, we'll have to have swan!
What. Swan? Like...the really evil mean white birds they last ate at Renaissance feasts?
Yup. Those swans. Apparently, Grandteacher's family really likes swan—Teacher mentioned that, to her, it tasted like mutton.
And so now I'm curious. I've cooked a goose, I've done up a capon, but a swan? Now that's something my little pea brain just can't handle. And the Internet is remarkably unhelpful in giving you good information on how you might, if you wanted to today, in a modern kitchen, cook a swan.
So, um...anyone ever done it? Or know if there's a way other than "goose, but longer?"
Hank Shaw at the Honest Food website would know, if anyone did.
Also edited to add that you'd want to treat it like wild goose rather than domestic goose - much leaner and tougher, which fits in with the mutton comparison. So maybe some kind of slow n low BBQ/smoking, or some kind of long slow braising. Probably broken into joints.
There's a history of swan traditionally being served roasted. The medievals would have had a spiced wine sauce to go with it, though Peter the Great of Russia apparently liked his with vinegar, sour milk, pickles and prunes.
When swan was the in-thing on the royal tables they used to be bred specially, so were probably fed a specific diet.
There's a history of swan traditionally being served roasted. The medievals would have had a spiced wine sauce to go with it, though Peter the Great of Russia apparently liked his with vinegar, sour milk, pickles and prunes.
When swan was the in-thing on the royal tables they used to be bred specially, so were probably fed a specific diet.
Yes, akin to domestic geese (I don't know if swans have ever actually been domesticated though). Ashkenazi Jewish communities invented the fattening of ducks and geese in order to increase the fat they produced and to create bigger livers for chopped liver, so I wonder if Ashkenazi communities played a role in swan rearing and cooking.
...though Peter the Great of Russia apparently liked his with vinegar, sour milk, pickles and prunes.
So I read that as "tough bird that needs to be tenderized with an acidic marinade, but with a flavor that, like goose, goes with prunes and [apple cider] vinegar."
"Swans have a fishy taste, although the best ones are fed on oats when they are young."
"...the swan was nothing to get excited about, a bit like goose but tougher, dryer and less tasty, which is probably just as well for swans I suppose."
"... one of my neighbors bought a property with some swans on the premises. He sold most of them, and gave all the rest away but a couple, just to see. The last two he served at a cook out, one baked, one barbecued. He said they tasted pretty much like a wild duck, which is not at all a popular dish except among duck hunters. The dogs got almost all of those two swans."
@Ariel Thank you for the link! That was a fascinating read. I subscribe to Hank Shaw's website's weekly newsletter, and, truly, he is the Yoda of North American game.
There was quite a scandal in Orkney several years ago when Peter Maxwell Davies found a dead swan near his house. Not being one to waste such a thing, he cooked it (apparently turning some of it into pâté).
The local constabulary, who aren't exactly overworked, hotfooted it over to Sanday, the island where he lived, and Asked Questions, seeing as how all swans in the UK belong to the Queen ...
I don't think they brought charges, but it kept everyone amused for a few days!
I've just discovered Banana Omlette / fritter. Mash up a banana, and beat two eggs, and combine (it always is lumpy for me but that doesn't matter). Two tablespoons of oatmeal (mine is coarse ground) and fry / dry fry. Both sides -not like an omlette and no scraping around.
It's really quite good, and goes nicely with cinnamon or honey. And it feels SO wholesome.
Actually the Queen only owns mute swans - which is most of them - and only exercises her right of ownership over swans on certain parts of the River Thames, mostly around Windsor. This came to light some years ago when a little girl wrote to the Queen asking for a pet swan (which she wanted to keep in the bath, bless her). She got a lovely letter back explaining the position.
Interestingly, the Queen isn't the only person to be able to own swans - there are two Guilds in the City of London who have that right. And the only other people who can eat them are members of one of the Cambridge colleges. I don't remember which one. I do remember seeing black swans on the river in Oxford years ago which had escaped from Richard Branson's collection to the north of the city. Exotic and beautiful. They were quite a sight while they were there.
I did roast chicken with garlic, onion, tarragon and butter last night, I found the gravy improved with a little chicken stock cube and a good glug of sherry.
Remaining chicken goes in a Thai green curry tomorrow.
I like simplicity. Accordingly I go for pasta. And a tomato sauce. So here's the recipe.
1 large onion
I 400 g can of tomatoes
A little sunflower oil
Optional extras: salt to taste. Worcester sauce. Tabasco sauce.
Enjoy!
Best wishes, 2RM
In keeping with Marcella Hazan's famous recipe, you need butter rather than oil - and just top and tail the onion, otherwise leaving it whole. Cook for 40-60 minutes.
I like simple too, but I also like to use fresh tomatoes, and garlic is a must, so I go with Lynne Rossetto Kasper‘s recipe. It calls for:
5 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
½ onion, diced
12 leaves of basil, torn
½ cup olive oil
3½ lbs. fresh tomatoes, cored (or 2 28 oz. cans of whole tomatoes, which I think would be 1588 grams)
salt and pepper
I did scallopine al limone today. It's simpler than it sounds, quick to make, and the end result was very pleasing. You just need veal, beef, pork or chicken escalopes, as thin as possible (you might have to flatten them out a bit). Coat lightly in flour. Fry in a little olive oil for c. 3m. Then add butter and lemon juice to the pan and cook for a further couple of minutes. Add salt and black pepper to taste.
Serve with side veg of your choice. Pour the pan juices over the meat, sprinkle with freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley. Add a further squeeze of lemon if you like it.
This will cost you double figures in a restaurant, if you can find one that has it on the menu. It cost me under a fiver to make it at home.
I also added finely chopped garlic to the pan to season the butter, which isn't part of the recipe but doesn't hurt.
It’s St John’s College where swans can be consumed, though I don’t believe they avail themselves of the privilege very regularly. My cousin was head barman there for a few years so had some information about the menus of formal dinners.
Wife's teacher's teacher (grandteacher?) came over to the apartment to record* a couple pieces. Mita Di loves swan—and, as head of the gharana, she gets it pretty much any time she comes over.
From what The Wife tells me, there was a pressure cooker involved at some point, along with mustard oil and Bengali spices—she couldn't see more than that, being needed as a recording engineer and dog/unruly teenager wrangler. But from what she also tells me, swan is like goose, but better—less greasy and more tender.
I have been promised that there will be another swan procured and cooked when I arrive in a few weeks. Another update will be coming.
*The two pieces being recorded haven't been posted yet, but, if you like sitar and such, they'll likely be posted here soon.
So I have simmered the remains of the Sunday roast chicken for a couple of hours to make stock. Normally I would reduce it massively and keep it in the freezer for future recipes, but it seems like a waste of fuel to do that. Last time I asked about this some said "I wouldn't reduce it, I'd just make it into soup straight away".
So has anyone got a very simple recipe to turn the stock into soup? I did have a reasonable success a few months ago by combining the stock from a boiled gammon joint with it and "souping" the left-over gammon with carrot, cabbage and a fair bit of vinegar and black pepper for a sort of "hot & sour" vibe. But no gammon this time. So can I do a very basic chicken / chicken 'n' veg thing?
Can't see why not. Do you have any odds of bacon knocking about? Rashers? Lardons? If so, fry them in the saucepan in a little oil. Sauté onions or leeks, add diced carrots and potato. Sprinkle on some flour, stir, add a little milk. Top up with the stock. Simmer until veg are tender - about 30 min. If you have tenderer veg - eg peas, green beans - add them for the last 5 or 10 minutes.
So I have simmered the remains of the Sunday roast chicken for a couple of hours to make stock. Normally I would reduce it massively and keep it in the freezer for future recipes, but it seems like a waste of fuel to do that. Last time I asked about this some said "I wouldn't reduce it, I'd just make it into soup straight away".
So has anyone got a very simple recipe to turn the stock into soup? I did have a reasonable success a few months ago by combining the stock from a boiled gammon joint with it and "souping" the left-over gammon with carrot, cabbage and a fair bit of vinegar and black pepper for a sort of "hot & sour" vibe. But no gammon this time. So can I do a very basic chicken / chicken 'n' veg thing?
Take your stock and heat it up. While you do that, dice up an onion (or leeks) and chop up some carrots and celery. Throw them in as you get done with them. Add salt, pepper, and garlic to taste. (Ginger makes it in my opinion, but you do you. Use a knob or two peeled and floating around in the soup. Or a squirt from a ginger paste tube.) Cook on medium heat till nothing is hard anymore (well, except the ginger, which you will fish out).
You can eat it at this point, or...
Add cooked chicken in bits.
Add (if you want) noodles, cooked rice, or peeled potato chunks, and cook till soft. You can also pre-cook noodles separately and add to bowls if you want the broth to be less cloudy, or if you're keeping some of your soup for a few days and don't want disintegrated noodles in the leftovers.
Thank you very much everyone. I managed a decent chicken soup, I think, by combining Firenze and LC's methods. Fried chopped onion and carrot plus garlic clove, added stock, simmered for a bit then chopped potato, a couple of chopped up ham slices and a chopped left-over chicken leg and oh yes, some left-over fusilli. A fair bit of salt and pepper, some flakes of dried chili and a capful of white whine vinegar, and more salt and pepper in the bowl.
Quite nice if I do say so myself and rather helpful as I've come down with some sort of cold and was able to self-medicate with the chicken soup... thank you Shipmates!
Thank you very much everyone. I managed a decent chicken soup, I think, by combining Firenze and LC's methods. Fried chopped onion and carrot plus garlic clove, added stock, simmered for a bit then chopped potato, a couple of chopped up ham slices and a chopped left-over chicken leg and oh yes, some left-over fusilli. A fair bit of salt and pepper, some flakes of dried chili and a capful of white whine vinegar, and more salt and pepper in the bowl.
We're a bit surprised at the use of ham slices and then more salt later. For us, it would be one or the other, probably the ham as you get the flavour as well as the saltiness. Then again, we don't use much salt at all.
Some hams (here at least) aren't that salty. I was shocked when I got one that was (and should have soaked it, but didn't know such a thing existed, if you know what I mean.
Yes, easy to understand what you're putting. Perhaps it's because we use little to no salt in cooking (bread-making would be one of the rare occasions we would) that I baulked a bit at adding salt as well as ham when making soup.
Thank you so much! - it is close but I can't quite figure out the quantities from the recipe here - and the recipe I had was dairy free - the sunflower oil does seem bizarre to me nowadays.
My wife just asked if I'd got any good recipes from the Ship lately, and realised that the thread has gone a bit quiet.
The Dept. of Experimental Cuisine has been quite busy here, and today's effort is tofu marinated in chipotle sauce along with plenty of garlic, soy sauce, lemon juice and sundry spices, fried on the Thai charcoal cooker, then to be served with rice with a sauce made from the left-over marinade. The ability of tofu to absorb spices of all kinds is quite remarkable - it can transform the hottest peppers into something pleasantly warm to the taste.
@Firenze you may have luck with either the freeze and defrost method with firm tofu, or using silken tofu in creamy dishes. Silken tofu is great in creamy soups and sauces instead of cream.
I tried a recipe today which is one step up from that student classic - chicken in condensed soup. Instead of just tipping the condensed soup over the chicken, you mix the tin of soup with 4 tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise and 2 tablespoonfuls of double cream. And then you tip it over the chicken.
It definitely tastes better than chicken in soup. I reckon I could serve it to a guest without them guessing.
(My son and I were both given a handwritten copy of this recipe, which specified real mayonnaise. The Loon misread "real mayo" as "red mayo" and had a fruitless quest round two different shops, leaving a baffled assistant in both. Reading cursive script is a lost art.)
Last week Mrs TQT put chunks of marzipan in the crumble topping. A revelation! We also discovered (purists look away now) that you can put thin slices of marzipan in a supermarket croissant before putting them in the oven for a passable almond-croissant-substitute...
From time to time I try to imbue tofu with taste, but with no great success.
Could you elaborate on marinade a bit more? And what would be the best replacement for a Thai charcoal cooker? Gas ring and a frying pan do?
The marinade I used today was chipotle sauce from a tin found in the Mexican food section of the supermarket. It was rather thick so I diluted it with soy sauce. For additional spices I used some hot chilli powder and turmeric. Sometimes I'll add ginger, but didn't feel like it today. The tofu was cut into small cubes not much more than a cm square (about half an inch) and spread out in a flat dish with the marinade. I usually leave it for several hours - all day preferably - turning it over with a spatula periodically to make sure it all gets exposed.
A gas ring should be good, but a wok is easier to use than a frying pan, as it's easy to keep turning the tofu cubes with a wooden spatula and doesn't need much oil (olive oil is my preference). When they look about right I add a chopped onion and when that's just soft, a chopped tomato, and then the left over marinade. It's not really a recipe; just a kind of ad hoc process that seems to work.
(The wooden spatula is a cherished ancient relic, bought in Fine Fare in Dunfermline in the mid-70s. It's still good).
My wooden spatula is probably of a similar vintage: David had it before we were married, and once we were sharing a kitchen, I found I liked it as much as he did.
Shortly after he died, I was having the kitchen countertops replaced, and after everything was put back, I couldn't find it and was inordinately upset - actually standing in the kitchen crying my eyes out.
I realised it couldn't have just disappeared, and sure enough, I found it stuck down the side of a drawer, and my relief was extraordinary. What a silly thing to get upset about - but I made very sure it was packed carefully when I finally moved house. I use it practically every day; it doesn't owe anybody anything.
I am looking for an alternative to cauliflower cheese, which has been our Thursday menu for some time.
I have painful wrists and fingers and back, and now find I have trouble standing for the time it takes to grate the cheese and stir the sauce.
Whilst we are not vegetarian, Thursday is a meatless day in the Puzzler household (though I usually add some chopped bacon to mine), but I can’t be doing with a lot of faffing around. Mr P does not like pasta, and we have fish on Fridays. Suggestions please? Oh, it has to be easy to chew and swallow for Mr P. ( I know, that’s why the cauli cheese is a firm favourite.)
Comments
Put 150g flour, 100g sugar and some baking powder in a bowl. You can add a spice of your choice if you want. Add 300g apple compote and 70g oil or melted butter and combine with a whisk.
Pour into a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper and bake at 180° for about 40 minutes.
Very, very easy, delicious, and given the fruit content, you can make a decent argument for it being good for you.
1/4 oz of butter melted in a bowl
1/2 oz of sugar
heaped tbsp self-raising flour (or tbsp plain plus 1/4 tsp baking powder)
heaped tbsp cocoa powder
enough milk to make something around the thickness of custard (it's pretty tolerant), add a bit more if it's too sticky.
Microwave for about a minute and a half (you can tell it's done when it stops being shiny on top). Serve with ice cream.
This one, if you make it more liquid, comes out very soft, with quite a fine texture.
Context, if it helps: The Wife is currently doing fieldwork in West Bengal, living with her music teacher. Teacher mentioned (when talking about food) that when Ari comes to visit, we'll have to have swan!
What. Swan? Like...the really evil mean white birds they last ate at Renaissance feasts?
Yup. Those swans. Apparently, Grandteacher's family really likes swan—Teacher mentioned that, to her, it tasted like mutton.
And so now I'm curious. I've cooked a goose, I've done up a capon, but a swan? Now that's something my little pea brain just can't handle. And the Internet is remarkably unhelpful in giving you good information on how you might, if you wanted to today, in a modern kitchen, cook a swan.
So, um...anyone ever done it? Or know if there's a way other than "goose, but longer?"
Also edited to add that you'd want to treat it like wild goose rather than domestic goose - much leaner and tougher, which fits in with the mutton comparison. So maybe some kind of slow n low BBQ/smoking, or some kind of long slow braising. Probably broken into joints.
When swan was the in-thing on the royal tables they used to be bred specially, so were probably fed a specific diet.
Yes, akin to domestic geese (I don't know if swans have ever actually been domesticated though). Ashkenazi Jewish communities invented the fattening of ducks and geese in order to increase the fat they produced and to create bigger livers for chopped liver, so I wonder if Ashkenazi communities played a role in swan rearing and cooking.
So I read that as "tough bird that needs to be tenderized with an acidic marinade, but with a flavor that, like goose, goes with prunes and [apple cider] vinegar."
Oh, I'm planning on providing updates. Along with any other recipes I pick up along the way...
"Swans have a fishy taste, although the best ones are fed on oats when they are young."
"...the swan was nothing to get excited about, a bit like goose but tougher, dryer and less tasty, which is probably just as well for swans I suppose."
"... one of my neighbors bought a property with some swans on the premises. He sold most of them, and gave all the rest away but a couple, just to see. The last two he served at a cook out, one baked, one barbecued. He said they tasted pretty much like a wild duck, which is not at all a popular dish except among duck hunters. The dogs got almost all of those two swans."
Hank Shaw on eating swans. Remember, you'll have to pluck and prepare it.
The local constabulary, who aren't exactly overworked, hotfooted it over to Sanday, the island where he lived, and Asked Questions, seeing as how all swans in the UK belong to the Queen ...
I don't think they brought charges, but it kept everyone amused for a few days!
It's really quite good, and goes nicely with cinnamon or honey. And it feels SO wholesome.
Interestingly, the Queen isn't the only person to be able to own swans - there are two Guilds in the City of London who have that right. And the only other people who can eat them are members of one of the Cambridge colleges. I don't remember which one. I do remember seeing black swans on the river in Oxford years ago which had escaped from Richard Branson's collection to the north of the city. Exotic and beautiful. They were quite a sight while they were there.
1 large onion
I 400 g can of tomatoes
A little sunflower oil
Optional extras: salt to taste. Worcester sauce. Tabasco sauce.
Enjoy!
Best wishes, 2RM
I did roast chicken with garlic, onion, tarragon and butter last night, I found the gravy improved with a little chicken stock cube and a good glug of sherry.
Remaining chicken goes in a Thai green curry tomorrow.
In keeping with Marcella Hazan's famous recipe, you need butter rather than oil - and just top and tail the onion, otherwise leaving it whole. Cook for 40-60 minutes.
5 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
½ onion, diced
12 leaves of basil, torn
½ cup olive oil
3½ lbs. fresh tomatoes, cored (or 2 28 oz. cans of whole tomatoes, which I think would be 1588 grams)
salt and pepper
Serve with side veg of your choice. Pour the pan juices over the meat, sprinkle with freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley. Add a further squeeze of lemon if you like it.
This will cost you double figures in a restaurant, if you can find one that has it on the menu. It cost me under a fiver to make it at home.
I also added finely chopped garlic to the pan to season the butter, which isn't part of the recipe but doesn't hurt.
Wife's teacher's teacher (grandteacher?) came over to the apartment to record* a couple pieces. Mita Di loves swan—and, as head of the gharana, she gets it pretty much any time she comes over.
From what The Wife tells me, there was a pressure cooker involved at some point, along with mustard oil and Bengali spices—she couldn't see more than that, being needed as a recording engineer and dog/unruly teenager wrangler. But from what she also tells me, swan is like goose, but better—less greasy and more tender.
I have been promised that there will be another swan procured and cooked when I arrive in a few weeks. Another update will be coming.
*The two pieces being recorded haven't been posted yet, but, if you like sitar and such, they'll likely be posted here soon.
So has anyone got a very simple recipe to turn the stock into soup? I did have a reasonable success a few months ago by combining the stock from a boiled gammon joint with it and "souping" the left-over gammon with carrot, cabbage and a fair bit of vinegar and black pepper for a sort of "hot & sour" vibe. But no gammon this time. So can I do a very basic chicken / chicken 'n' veg thing?
Take your stock and heat it up. While you do that, dice up an onion (or leeks) and chop up some carrots and celery. Throw them in as you get done with them. Add salt, pepper, and garlic to taste. (Ginger makes it in my opinion, but you do you. Use a knob or two peeled and floating around in the soup. Or a squirt from a ginger paste tube.) Cook on medium heat till nothing is hard anymore (well, except the ginger, which you will fish out).
You can eat it at this point, or...
Add cooked chicken in bits.
Add (if you want) noodles, cooked rice, or peeled potato chunks, and cook till soft. You can also pre-cook noodles separately and add to bowls if you want the broth to be less cloudy, or if you're keeping some of your soup for a few days and don't want disintegrated noodles in the leftovers.
This is the basic recipe for chicken soup.
Peel said veg in oven until tender
Sweat onion/ leek/ garlic in a bit of olive oil until soft
Chuck the lot in blender
Stir into stock & season as desired
Some would stir in some creme fraiche just before serving
Quite nice if I do say so myself and rather helpful as I've come down with some sort of cold and was able to self-medicate with the chicken soup... thank you Shipmates!
We're a bit surprised at the use of ham slices and then more salt later. For us, it would be one or the other, probably the ham as you get the flavour as well as the saltiness. Then again, we don't use much salt at all.
The first was for microwave fudge. It combined white chocolate, icing sugar, butter and double cream but I can't remember the quantities.
The second was microwave carrot cake. It was made with oil, flour (possibly wholemeal?), carrots, poss some spice.
Both recipes were heavenly and seem to be gone in the mists of time. I don't know if anyone has anything similar?
The Dept. of Experimental Cuisine has been quite busy here, and today's effort is tofu marinated in chipotle sauce along with plenty of garlic, soy sauce, lemon juice and sundry spices, fried on the Thai charcoal cooker, then to be served with rice with a sauce made from the left-over marinade. The ability of tofu to absorb spices of all kinds is quite remarkable - it can transform the hottest peppers into something pleasantly warm to the taste.
Could you elaborate on marinade a bit more? And what would be the best replacement for a Thai charcoal cooker? Gas ring and a frying pan do?
It definitely tastes better than chicken in soup. I reckon I could serve it to a guest without them guessing.
(My son and I were both given a handwritten copy of this recipe, which specified real mayonnaise. The Loon misread "real mayo" as "red mayo" and had a fruitless quest round two different shops, leaving a baffled assistant in both. Reading cursive script is a lost art.)
The marinade I used today was chipotle sauce from a tin found in the Mexican food section of the supermarket. It was rather thick so I diluted it with soy sauce. For additional spices I used some hot chilli powder and turmeric. Sometimes I'll add ginger, but didn't feel like it today. The tofu was cut into small cubes not much more than a cm square (about half an inch) and spread out in a flat dish with the marinade. I usually leave it for several hours - all day preferably - turning it over with a spatula periodically to make sure it all gets exposed.
A gas ring should be good, but a wok is easier to use than a frying pan, as it's easy to keep turning the tofu cubes with a wooden spatula and doesn't need much oil (olive oil is my preference). When they look about right I add a chopped onion and when that's just soft, a chopped tomato, and then the left over marinade. It's not really a recipe; just a kind of ad hoc process that seems to work.
(The wooden spatula is a cherished ancient relic, bought in Fine Fare in Dunfermline in the mid-70s. It's still good).
Shortly after he died, I was having the kitchen countertops replaced, and after everything was put back, I couldn't find it and was inordinately upset - actually standing in the kitchen crying my eyes out.
I realised it couldn't have just disappeared, and sure enough, I found it stuck down the side of a drawer, and my relief was extraordinary. What a silly thing to get upset about - but I made very sure it was packed carefully when I finally moved house. I use it practically every day; it doesn't owe anybody anything.
I have painful wrists and fingers and back, and now find I have trouble standing for the time it takes to grate the cheese and stir the sauce.
Whilst we are not vegetarian, Thursday is a meatless day in the Puzzler household (though I usually add some chopped bacon to mine), but I can’t be doing with a lot of faffing around. Mr P does not like pasta, and we have fish on Fridays. Suggestions please? Oh, it has to be easy to chew and swallow for Mr P. ( I know, that’s why the cauli cheese is a firm favourite.)