Mushrooms are fungi aren't they? Just rather more appetising than athlete's foot ...
And as such are more closely related to animals than plants, though you do have to go a fair way back.
They're fascinating organisms. Trees use them to communicate - no, really, a tree under attack from caterpillars can send a message through the underground mycelium to other trees and they can change the taste of their leaves to make them less attractive.
Spring here so took along a pasta primavera dish for four of us when I went out to lunch earlier: penne rigate tossed with asparagus tips, mangetouts, tenderstem broccoli, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced baby courgettes, basil leaves in a sauce of lemon zest, white wine, pecorino cheese and black pepper. Other friends made platters of braaied /barbecued chicken and pork chops. We drank large quantities of Stellenrust 61 Barrel Fermented Chenin Blanc and some of us managed to finish off with lemon meringue tart.
A proper cooked meal at last!
Roast potatoes, carrots and chicken breast, cooked in the air fryer, with sweetheart cabbage and green beans and GRAVY. The best part of the meal ( unless it’s pasta, rice or fish).
Breakfast: TEA, toast with salted butter and marmalade, plain yogurt with a spoon of plum jam (all preserves are homemade)
Lunch: husband en rouge didn't feel like going to church. I don't know if this was good for his soul, but it did result in his cooking an excellent lunch, to wit, roast rib of veal with mushroom gravy and celeriac mash. Served with an excellent Côtes du Rhône. Cheese (Cantal, Aveyron sheep's milk cheese and Morbier are the ones that go with the wine), and desserts from the patissier's (Black Forest cake for me).
Supper will be whatever we can rustle up out of the fridge. I believe there is leftover foie gras so we won't starve just yet.
I'm having fish baked over braised vegetables. It's something I've tried a few times, and can never really get right, apart from the first time when it worked beautifully. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but getting the oven to precisely the right temperature, where it cooks everything without burning it to a crisp or leaving it raw, appears challenging.
Lunch was reheated leftovers of savoy, chestnut & chickpea sauté, followed by a slice of chocolate cake.
This evening I had cheddar cheese with cherry tomatoes on a couple of slices of day-old baguette.
I had an asparagus risotto.
In Australia asparagus gives a distinctive smell to your urine.
That didn't happen in the UK this February. I suppose they have developed a new type that doesn't cause that smell.
It usually makes your urine smell in the UK too - although I generally only eat it when we can pick ours, or when it's on the market. Any about in February was probably flown in from somewhere in South America, as the UK season is roughly mid-April to late June.
Breakfast Grits and blueberries, toast and hummus, coffee. Lunch Asian stir fry over udon noodles, water. Dnner sardine sandwich, slice tomato andd cubumbers water. A pear for a snack later in the day.
Sunday dinner was cheese soufflé and grilled courgettes. For once, I cleared my plate. I think my tastes have moved away from heavy/meaty dishes. Mind you, they may move back as Winter closes in. But at the moment I'm thinking of tofu. Not tonight though, that's going to be cheese'n'jalapeno saussies with clapshot, washed down with cider.
Breakfast of blueberries and plain yoghurt. Lunch of miso soup with wakame (dried seaweed), finely chopped spring onions and baby spinach with a splash or two of light soy.
Thinking of a baked potato with sour cream or yoghurt for supper unless the imagination kicks up. Unlikely I have snipped chives around. Cooking for one person only has been an uninspired ordeal since my partner's death.
I generally only eat it when we can pick ours, or when it's on the market. Any about in February was probably flown in from somewhere in South America, as the UK season is roughly mid-April to late June.
Quite apart from air miles, asparagus doesn't travel or age well. The best I ever had came from a roadside stall in Norfolk, next to the field where it had been growing.
Breakfast was the usual fried eggs on toast.
Lunch was a scotch broth, followed by a fondant fancy and an apple.
Dinner shall be a chicken curry. Cooking a big lot so I can have one portion tonight, put one in the fridge for later this week and the rest in the freezer as a backup meal sometime in the future.
I've found the opposite in a way: the only positive thing from losing David is cooking things that I like but he didn't. I eat far more fish than I used to, because apart from fish and chips, he didn't really like it.
The flip-side is that I miss sharing things that he did like, such as lamb shanks and curries.
Yesterday was a proper feast with friends in anticipation of my birthday, the Independence Day of Malta G.C. and the feast day of St Matthew the apostle, all of which are celebrated today.
Anyway, Mrs Sioni set to and prepared a Shahi Korma, accompanied by rice (which was very good), cauliflower and potatoes, various vegetables, chutneys, fried onions and chilis with Gulab Jamun and Mango Kulfi to follow. Oh, and she got nervous about the curry as she hadn’t made it before, so she did our tried to tested Chicken Malay curry.
Naturally, everything went fine and we sixsome were thoroughly stuffed. The puddings went down a storm and our Anglo-Bangladeshi in-laws are amazed that Mrs S attempted it.
I don’t think we’ll be repeating it often though (see post elsewhere).
Breakfast was yogurt with strawberries, and a sprinkle of granola, 1/2 English muffin with butter, coffee. Lunch will be white chicken chili with corn bread. Dinner will be the other half of sardines I have left over from yesterday.
A clearing up day.
Lunch was leftover chicken breast with noodles and mixed veg in chow mein sauce., followed by the last piece of pear cake.
Snack before choir was the last piece of quiche and a slice of fruit loaf.
On return, another slice of fruit loaf with a chunk of Red Leicester cheese, grapes.
Birthday treat additional!
Younger daughter gave me an assortment of West Country CHEESES! The cheese isn’t so much of a problem but I need a way to convey cheese to my mouth comfortably.
I have tried two of the four and they are wonderful. They really do make your Waitrose top notch cheese pretty ordinary by comparison.
Sunday was usual breakfast, a lunch of a paratha and salad and then a few sandwiches and small cakes and an event in the afternoon. Dinner was vegan sausages and chips with our own runner beans. Yesterday usual breakfast, beans on toast for lunch and a curry at a civic event. I came home feeling rather stuffed and am not at all sure what I fancy for tea tonight.
I've found the opposite in a way: the only positive thing from losing David is cooking things that I like but he didn't. I eat far more fish than I used to, because apart from fish and chips, he didn't really like it.
The flip-side is that I miss sharing things that he did like, such as lamb shanks and curries.
This has been a revelation @Piglet because I was able to revert to the greedy chilli-monster in myself and go Asian, go vegetarian and buy lentils, chickpeas and buckwheat-anything which my partner loathed, and glug large glasses of wine cheerfully without being reminded I have to go to work in the morning.
Lunch: a sort of vegetable gratin concocted out of leftovers by husband en rouge. Ice cream.
Dinner: butternut macaroni cheese. I appear to have made enough for a regiment so I suspect it will be reappearing later in the week. Apple and quince compote to follow.
Usual breakfast, vegan pastrami sandwich for lunch and a very nice stir-fry with minced tofu and noodles tonight. The odd grape and damson have been eaten as snacks as well.
Tomorrow is another odd day food wise. I'm going to an event where apparently we'll have tea and coffee when we arrive and cakes and tea after the event. We're leaving here at 11.15 and 10.30ish seems rather too early for lunch. Maybe I'll have a later than usual bigger breakfast.
Late breakfast, following early trip to the supermarket - still the same components, porridge with sliced banana and wholemeal toast spread with Bovril.
Lunch: cheese and crackers, plus a handful of cherry tomatoes - they have been ripening fast in the sunshine of the last two days, so having to have a few at some point every day.
Dinner: Cornish pasty with half a Gourmandsun tomato, cucumber & kimchi.
Last night's supper was roasted vegetables (small potatoes, courgettes, carrots and quartered onions with olive oil and herbs). Enough left over for brunch today.
I have a small Salton oven, old-fashioned and limited, but good for basic roasting or melting cheese on toast. Thinking of baking small apples cored and stuffed with honey and raisins for supper.
I'm loving reading about everyone's meals, so delicious and such variety!
Today I began with porridge and melted butter, fuelling up to get out into the garden.
Lunch was a banana sandwich on multigrain bread and a greek yoghurt with strawberry stuff in the bottom. Normally I buy the no added sugar yoghurt, but I think the delivery person sent this one as a substitution. Very yummy.
Dinner has been cooked in the air fryer. Chicken schnitzel, frozen french fries and frozen mixed vegetables done on the stovetop. I topped off the meal with a caramel paddle pop, Yummy!
Cheery husband is still on his losing weight kick, so he's had a salad and Cheery son has had some chicken kebabs and rice. Not our best or most nutritious dinner, but we've had a bit of a messy week with husband up and down the highway doing jobs at his Mum's place.
Usual breakfast of granola and fruit, including two small pears.
I prepared my usual sandwich + side salad for lunch then decided to pop it in the fridge for tea. I cooked spag bol for lunch, which is my standard meal for Wednesday evening, to save a bit of time between Scrabble and choir. I’ll see how it works.
Spag bol here ( last of very nice frozen sauce provided by son & partner) tonight plus the last of a bottle of a Barossa shiraz. Minded next door’s twins after school so took over freshly baked scones for their afternoon tea; had one( somewhat misshapen) myself: a bit dry. Will do better tomorrow.
Awake unpleasantly early so got up fed cats & had a stovetop espresso. Will do better tomorrow I hope.
Also curry for us (butter chicken), but made by me. I was going to cook rice to go with (less work), but I think husband en rouge is serving rice tomorrow, so have gone with the higher effort option of making naan. The good news is that I only used half of the dough, and now have naan in the freezer for another day.
The usual breakfast.
Lunch was a corned beef& chutney sandwich, with cherry tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce.
Having managed to get down on my knees in the garden, for the first time in a couple of years, to dig out a small but spreading bramble, I had a slice of wheat & rye bread with peanut butter and chocolate spread mid-afternoon.
Dinner was pasta shapes filled with ham, with tender stem broccoli and just about enough french beans - a surprise bonus I found on the almost bare plants this morning. Followed by a dessert of chocolate trifle.
I had my usual breakfast and another vegan pastrami sandwich at about 10.30 before heading to the event. The carrot cake I had there was very nice. Home to part two of noodles and stir fry.
Breakfast was the usual bowl of (boring) cereal, then coffee with a Stroopwafel.
It got better after that—a quick and easy tortellini cacio e pepe for lunch. For supper, Wiesnhendl (Oktoberfest roast chicken) -inspired chicken breasts, homemade Käsespätzle and (good) Sauerkraut.
Oh, happy me. Especially since there are leftovers.
A bit of odd meals today. Breakfast, English Muffin with hummus. Green tea. Lunch some left over chili and cucumbers, with water. Dinner A beer, a piece of cornbread, half of an apple, and some blueberries.
I'd forgotten that today is a public holiday in South Africa, Heritage Day commonly known as National Braai Day. So leftovers postponed until tomorrow because we are all going off to sit under oak trees while fires are lit and spit-roast chickens turned on a rotisserie, baked potatoes in the coals, boerewors, grilled lamb rib chops, corn on the cob (mealies) and ending with grilled bananas done in their unpeeled skins. Local wines supplemented by jugs of a dangerous sangria. It sounds like a gargantuan feast for carnivores but we'll be feeding about 60 people. I am going to take along foil-wrapped garlic breads and hope somebody remembers to bring that overlooked thing called salad.
Dinner - chilli con carne, made with Scotch Bonnet, cumin and oregano. Beef stock but no tomato. Finish by spooning into a shallow bowl surrounded by tortilla chips, top with grated cheese and finish under the grill.
Breakfast as as per...
Lunch: Sardines on toast, and the usual handful of cherry tomatoes. The nights are getting colder, so I will soon have to pick all the green tomatoes & ripen them indoors. Tomato plants do not thrive when the temperature gets into single figures.
Dinner: Vegetable cottage pie (carrots, onions, mushrooms &butterbeans with herbs & a can of chopped tomatoes, all topped with mashed potato). Broccoli on the side.
Comments
Yesterday's schedule
Breakfast: Fried eggs on toast
Lunch: Beans on toast
Dinner: Chicken Kyiv & chips
Vegetable only has a culinary definition. Tomatoes are both fruits (biologically) and vegetables (culinarily). Ditto cucumbers, marrows, peppers etc.
Mushrooms are even more interesting. They're vegetables but are not, biologically, even plants.
So far today: a piece of ginger cake with coffee after church.
I shall shortly have smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast (again).
Supper will be sausage, red pepper and potato bake, with a glass of Malbec.
And as such are more closely related to animals than plants, though you do have to go a fair way back.
They're fascinating organisms. Trees use them to communicate - no, really, a tree under attack from caterpillars can send a message through the underground mycelium to other trees and they can change the taste of their leaves to make them less attractive.
Spring here so took along a pasta primavera dish for four of us when I went out to lunch earlier: penne rigate tossed with asparagus tips, mangetouts, tenderstem broccoli, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced baby courgettes, basil leaves in a sauce of lemon zest, white wine, pecorino cheese and black pepper. Other friends made platters of braaied /barbecued chicken and pork chops. We drank large quantities of Stellenrust 61 Barrel Fermented Chenin Blanc and some of us managed to finish off with lemon meringue tart.
Roast potatoes, carrots and chicken breast, cooked in the air fryer, with sweetheart cabbage and green beans and GRAVY. The best part of the meal ( unless it’s pasta, rice or fish).
Lunch: husband en rouge didn't feel like going to church. I don't know if this was good for his soul, but it did result in his cooking an excellent lunch, to wit, roast rib of veal with mushroom gravy and celeriac mash. Served with an excellent Côtes du Rhône. Cheese (Cantal, Aveyron sheep's milk cheese and Morbier are the ones that go with the wine), and desserts from the patissier's (Black Forest cake for me).
Supper will be whatever we can rustle up out of the fridge. I believe there is leftover foie gras so we won't starve just yet.
I'm having fish baked over braised vegetables. It's something I've tried a few times, and can never really get right, apart from the first time when it worked beautifully. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but getting the oven to precisely the right temperature, where it cooks everything without burning it to a crisp or leaving it raw, appears challenging.
Lunch was reheated leftovers of savoy, chestnut & chickpea sauté, followed by a slice of chocolate cake.
This evening I had cheddar cheese with cherry tomatoes on a couple of slices of day-old baguette.
It usually makes your urine smell in the UK too - although I generally only eat it when we can pick ours, or when it's on the market. Any about in February was probably flown in from somewhere in South America, as the UK season is roughly mid-April to late June.
Thinking of a baked potato with sour cream or yoghurt for supper unless the imagination kicks up. Unlikely I have snipped chives around. Cooking for one person only has been an uninspired ordeal since my partner's death.
Lunch was a scotch broth, followed by a fondant fancy and an apple.
Dinner shall be a chicken curry. Cooking a big lot so I can have one portion tonight, put one in the fridge for later this week and the rest in the freezer as a backup meal sometime in the future.
I've found the opposite in a way: the only positive thing from losing David is cooking things that I like but he didn't. I eat far more fish than I used to, because apart from fish and chips, he didn't really like it.
The flip-side is that I miss sharing things that he did like, such as lamb shanks and curries.
Anyway, Mrs Sioni set to and prepared a Shahi Korma, accompanied by rice (which was very good), cauliflower and potatoes, various vegetables, chutneys, fried onions and chilis with Gulab Jamun and Mango Kulfi to follow. Oh, and she got nervous about the curry as she hadn’t made it before, so she did our tried to tested Chicken Malay curry.
Naturally, everything went fine and we sixsome were thoroughly stuffed. The puddings went down a storm and our Anglo-Bangladeshi in-laws are amazed that Mrs S attempted it.
I don’t think we’ll be repeating it often though (see post elsewhere).
Toast with lemon curd and OJ
A piece of millionaire's shortbread
The rest of the sausage and potato bake, with a glass of Malbec, followed by cheese and biscuits and a handful of nuts and raisins.
Lunch: Hardboiled egg and ajvar sandwich, plus half a dozen small cherry tomatoes, followed by a chocolate chip cookie.
Dinner: "Sicilian inspired" pork sausages, peperonata, tenderstem broccoli and baby potatoes
A clearing up day.
Lunch was leftover chicken breast with noodles and mixed veg in chow mein sauce., followed by the last piece of pear cake.
Snack before choir was the last piece of quiche and a slice of fruit loaf.
On return, another slice of fruit loaf with a chunk of Red Leicester cheese, grapes.
Younger daughter gave me an assortment of West Country CHEESES! The cheese isn’t so much of a problem but I need a way to convey cheese to my mouth comfortably.
I have tried two of the four and they are wonderful. They really do make your Waitrose top notch cheese pretty ordinary by comparison.
Thanks, that could do the trick! Could add some pickles depending on cheese.
This has been a revelation @Piglet because I was able to revert to the greedy chilli-monster in myself and go Asian, go vegetarian and buy lentils, chickpeas and buckwheat-anything which my partner loathed, and glug large glasses of wine cheerfully without being reminded I have to go to work in the morning.
Lunch is cheese and fruit. Mrs Sioni reminded me that pickles and chutney are basically jam and full of sugar!
The cheese is very good though, including a ***** English Brie style cheese one.
Lunch: a sort of vegetable gratin concocted out of leftovers by husband en rouge. Ice cream.
Dinner: butternut macaroni cheese. I appear to have made enough for a regiment so I suspect it will be reappearing later in the week. Apple and quince compote to follow.
Tomorrow is another odd day food wise. I'm going to an event where apparently we'll have tea and coffee when we arrive and cakes and tea after the event. We're leaving here at 11.15 and 10.30ish seems rather too early for lunch. Maybe I'll have a later than usual bigger breakfast.
Lunch: pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes and basil, Twix bar
Supper: beans on toast, because I had Things To Do in the evening and needed something quick and easy
Just now: crackers and cheese and a glass of wine, now that the Things To Do have Been Done
Lunch: cheese and crackers, plus a handful of cherry tomatoes - they have been ripening fast in the sunshine of the last two days, so having to have a few at some point every day.
Dinner: Cornish pasty with half a Gourmandsun tomato, cucumber & kimchi.
I have a small Salton oven, old-fashioned and limited, but good for basic roasting or melting cheese on toast. Thinking of baking small apples cored and stuffed with honey and raisins for supper.
Today I began with porridge and melted butter, fuelling up to get out into the garden.
Lunch was a banana sandwich on multigrain bread and a greek yoghurt with strawberry stuff in the bottom. Normally I buy the no added sugar yoghurt, but I think the delivery person sent this one as a substitution. Very yummy.
Dinner has been cooked in the air fryer. Chicken schnitzel, frozen french fries and frozen mixed vegetables done on the stovetop. I topped off the meal with a caramel paddle pop, Yummy!
Cheery husband is still on his losing weight kick, so he's had a salad and Cheery son has had some chicken kebabs and rice. Not our best or most nutritious dinner, but we've had a bit of a messy week with husband up and down the highway doing jobs at his Mum's place.
I prepared my usual sandwich + side salad for lunch then decided to pop it in the fridge for tea. I cooked spag bol for lunch, which is my standard meal for Wednesday evening, to save a bit of time between Scrabble and choir. I’ll see how it works.
Awake unpleasantly early so got up fed cats & had a stovetop espresso. Will do better tomorrow I hope.
Lunch was a corned beef& chutney sandwich, with cherry tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce.
Having managed to get down on my knees in the garden, for the first time in a couple of years, to dig out a small but spreading bramble, I had a slice of wheat & rye bread with peanut butter and chocolate spread mid-afternoon.
Dinner was pasta shapes filled with ham, with tender stem broccoli and just about enough french beans - a surprise bonus I found on the almost bare plants this morning. Followed by a dessert of chocolate trifle.
Lunch: smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich, with a few cherry tomatoes
Supper: fish cakes with mixed veggies, cheese and crackers, grapes
It got better after that—a quick and easy tortellini cacio e pepe for lunch. For supper, Wiesnhendl (Oktoberfest roast chicken) -inspired chicken breasts, homemade Käsespätzle and (good) Sauerkraut.
Oh, happy me. Especially since there are leftovers.
Lunch - dhal and paratha.
Dinner - chilli con carne, made with Scotch Bonnet, cumin and oregano. Beef stock but no tomato. Finish by spooning into a shallow bowl surrounded by tortilla chips, top with grated cheese and finish under the grill.
Nothing so exciting for me today:
Breakfast: buttery, OJ
Lunch: oatcakes, pâté, tomatoes
Supper: pasta with prawns, tomatoes, mushrooms and crème fraîche, cheese and crackers, glass of wine
Lunch: Sardines on toast, and the usual handful of cherry tomatoes. The nights are getting colder, so I will soon have to pick all the green tomatoes & ripen them indoors. Tomato plants do not thrive when the temperature gets into single figures.
Dinner: Vegetable cottage pie (carrots, onions, mushrooms &butterbeans with herbs & a can of chopped tomatoes, all topped with mashed potato). Broccoli on the side.