BS: The other recipe thread is too long

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Sep 22 - 07:00 PM

I'm alternate day fasting (meaning about 500 calories tops on "fasting" days) and 1200 on regular days. Today I have a couple of hundred calories left to play with for dinner and I'll repeat the last fasting dinner - slicing fresh mozzarella (2 ounces gives me about 8 slices), with basil from the garden and 8 split cherry tomatoes from the garden. Drizzle with a little olive oil and Balsamic vinegar. It's a very light meal, but quite satisfying. (I'm down to the last six pounds to lose, and it seems to be going slow, but it is going.)

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Sep 22 - 05:25 PM

Because toum tastes way better than plain roasted garlic. And no wait...

It started off as crab asparagus soup but I got carried away chopping garden things and now there is a brothy soup simmering, with, kind of in order of what went into the duck fat:

Hot pepper from neighbor, hot paprika, garlic powder
Onions bell pepper celery cabbage, fried rather a lot
White wine to deglaze
Fresh spinach, stir till wilted
Garden tomatoes
Chicken broth to cover.

If too spicy it will be served with sour cream or crème fraîche, I have both for taste-testing purposes. Then again it could also get some toum. Man, that stuff is sooooo goooood.

No asparagus or crab. They would get lost. Tomorrow!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 05:29 PM

Leftovers soup: a yakburger with duck bacon. A lamb chop. Half a small steak. All meat chopped small (bone gnawed). The ripest tomato, also chopped. Into pot that still had a few brussels sprouts in a butter sauce. Beef broth, bring to boil, let sit a bit, and voilà, yum!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 22 - 04:34 PM

"Tricolore" is a better spelling!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 22 - 04:21 PM

Have I posted this before? Can't remember...

Here's a summery salad that has no cooking involved, which contains no gluten or any of the usual bready or potatoey carbohydrates, but which can be a complete meal in itself, and it's oozing with good health. It's the colours of the Italian flag, hence we call it tricoloure salad, though it's worth noting that avocado is a rare ingredient in Italian cuisine!

For two of us (extremely generously), the ingredients are half a pound of the best cherry tomatoes you can get, 250g drained weight of mozzarella (we buy the one called mozzarella maxi made by Galbani) and two firm yet ripe avocados. The quality of the ingredients is paramount. You also need some really good extra virgin olive oil.

All you do is peel and thinly slice the avocados into crescent moons, cut the tomatoes cleanly in half (I use a serrated knife, which avoids squidging) and cut up/slice/whatever the mozzarella into smallish bite-sized pieces. You can get all arty-farty and arrange the cheese and avo slices into a nice pattern, but I don't bother with that and simply throw them into a big mix. Then scatter the tomato halves on top, and drizzle the whole lot with a tablespoon or two of extra virgin olive oil. A final grating of black pepper and a few fresh baby basil leaves are the icing on the cake.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Aug 22 - 04:20 PM

Maggie, your link advises that parsley freezes poorly. Absolute poppycock. Chopped fresh parsley freezes well for at least a year.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Aug 22 - 04:03 PM

Got me some pork my neighbor smoked. Not sure what to do for bbq sauce, usually I like mine sweet. Tomato vinegar hot spice, maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Aug 22 - 02:56 PM

Made another batch of babaghanouj with homegrown eggplant and garlic. The environmental footprint is about 25 feet across the driveway to the side door of the house. I can use a very small portion and a half of a pita bread for part of lunch on my "fasting" days (during an alternate day fasting diet that has so far dropped 30 pounds). The combination of eggplant, tahini, lemon juice, garlic and the bread is satisfying in line with complex carbohydrates (the sesame tahini being similar to peanut butter when smeared on bread). Just a guess. Anyway, that and a hard boiled egg on the side and an apple is a nice lunch for a motivated dieter. (I'm about 10 pounds from my goal.)

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Aug 22 - 10:08 AM

Sounds like ptomaine in a bottle. This lists the safest food preservation techniques.

Tomatoes took a hit from the heat this year, so the only use mine are being put to are sauce. Maybe this autumn we'll have a better looking crop.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Aug 22 - 03:19 AM

Speaking of tomatoes just above, thought I'd pass on what I just saw on BBC Scotland's Beechgrove: with a surplus, they simply stuffed different varieties into a large jar (adding salt and oil plus basil or garlic, e.g.), turned the lid back a bit to let air out in the oven for a while, then fully tightened lid for later use...if you haven't already, worth a try maybe?

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 08:52 PM

Just buy garlic, in its papery coat, through which you can feel whether the cloves are nice and firm, and which you can sniff to find out whether it's fresh enough for you. Why buy garlic in a squeezy tube when you know that it's been severely processed? A big, fat bulb of garlic for 60p yields enough cloves to throw unpeeled into your Mediterranean potatoes along with fresh rosemary and extra virgin olive oil so that, half an hour later, you can suck the beautiful sweet middle out once you've bitten the end off the clove. You can't do that with garlic mush in a tube. Still, it's a free country.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 02:23 AM

Yup sounds good to me too. I'm addicted to garlic.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 05:49 PM

Sounds good and would like to try it so did a search - Toom seems to be a brand of toum, the paste/sauce as you described.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Aug 22 - 02:23 PM

Toom is a middle-eastern garlic paste. Just garlic, and a smidge of lemon. Fluffy fluffy yum.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Aug 22 - 05:06 AM

Mrrzy, I'm happy to hear that you can stand again. That must mean so much to you.
=====
A few weeks ago my newspaper had a recipe for Smothered Chicken, a southern favorite. Don't worry - the chicken is smothered in onions. It's really good. I suspect it started out as Mothered Chicken because the secret to making it really good is to watch it sedulously and raise the heat, then lower the heat, then raise the heat until the meat and the "gravy" are just the right consistency.

We served it to friends along with corn on the cob, broccoli and watermelon, having a regular American summer meal. They liked it.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 22 Aug 22 - 02:46 AM

Toom ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Aug 22 - 10:27 AM

Someone brought me a rotisserie chicken. I took all the meat off the bones and made stock with the carcass. Froze in ice cube tray, stored in dated ziplock.

I took all the meat and marinated it in toom, that garlic stuff, and hot sauce, and froze that.

Today I chopped onion green pepper cabbage, smashed some garlic, melted some duck fat, added hot pepper from neighbor garden and paprika, sautéed veg, deglazed with white wine, added the defrosted chicken and chicken stock, and that is barely simmering away. To serve, fill bowl with spinach, ladle hot soup over. Garnish with pistachios and crushed almonds.

Yes! I can stand long enough to cook again!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 06:40 PM

:D

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 03:40 PM

Similarly, I bought a cauliflower from the local supermarket for the first time in a while because it was considerably smaller than the usual size, and I knew even just I can get through it before going off - I don't like wasting any food.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Charmion
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 03:28 PM

It's high season for fruit & veg in Ontario, so I have a cauliflower in the kitchen. I will probably eat it steamed, dressed with sauce vinaigrette, and sprinkled liberally with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Now that I'm on my own most of the time, I occasionally eat a whole cauliflower by myself and call it supper. That will probably happen this week.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 03:27 PM

Aide, unsupervised, did not chop finely, so it never made soup out of the intended-for-gazpacho veggies. Last time I supervised, so I thought this time it would be remembered that everything must be minced. Ah, well. If this is what I am complaining about I am a lot better!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 02:56 PM

Made a kind of English cauliflower cheese for the first time today:

Simply boiled chopped pieces of cauliflower for a while before tipping most of the water out of the frying pan; then added rapeseed oil, mustard (which apparently is quite traditional) & tomato sauce, plus a torn-up slice of vegan cheese; and stirred for a while.

Traditionally, it would be completed in the oven but, even without that, I thought it was quite tasty and a nice change.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 07:02 PM

No comparison.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 05:36 PM

I have tomato sauce on just about everything but only occasionally buy tomatoes from the local supermarket - the best taste being "on the vine" but I've often heard home-grown can taste considerably better.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 05:11 PM

I should have said farmers' market tomatoes. Got my aide making gazpacho as I type.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 12:40 PM

Leeneia, Sungold are the only tomatoes I grow! Tomatoes only thrive in greenhouses in Cornwall as it gets a bit too chilly early and late in the season and is often too breezy in summer. I have an 18 foot greenhouse which, over the years, became gradually more shaded by tree growth. The three big culprit trees died of Dutch Elm disease last year so I had to get the tree surgeons in to remove them, and the resulting extra few hours of direct sun each day have had a miraculous effect this summer: I have a glut!   

I grow Sungold for several reasons: they are utterly delicious with a unique flavour; they crop right up to November; they are completely resistant to soil-borne tomato diseases, meaning that I can grow them in the same soil every year, you can never buy them ( probably because of their propensity for splitting a bit too easily, especially if you let them go a day too long dry at the roots.

I I always grow mine from seed, starting in April. We used to have a nursery that sold plants in individual pots cheaply (I need a dozen or more) but they are now astronomical in price bought that way. Not that the seed is cheap, but it's still much cheaper than buying plants.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 12:24 PM

Mrrzy, I'm happy for you. My tomatoes are merely producing a smattering of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. I can't grow full size because the squirrels destroy them.

Stilly, I have a similar cookbook. When I make its round loaf with sliced olives, it disappears rapidly at church fellowship. We don't eat it at home because of a draconian law that all bread must be whole wheat. (Gets boring.)

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 12:17 PM

I've finally broken down and ordered a used copy of the Alexandra Stafford cookbook Bread Toast Crumbs : Recipes for No-Knead Loaves and Meals to Savor Every Slice: a Cookbook. A friend has given me a couple of the loaves he made and they are amazing. I'm not eating as much bread as I used to, but these are wonderful specialty recipes and also make great gifts.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Aug 22 - 09:39 PM

Mmmm garden tomatoes are being amazing this year

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 22 - 02:53 AM

Yesterday we had grilled cheese sandwiches, Campbell's tomato soup, and avocado with lime juice.

I improved the soup with sauteed onion, basil and black pepper. Then I heated it for a couple of hours in my smallest slow cooker. It was good.

Stilly, I liked your joke about the pavement.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Aug 22 - 08:06 PM

The idea of a tapa with your summer evening aperitif came up on the lager thread, and I mentioned my salmorejo recipe. It's a chilled tomatoey "soup," though much thicker than regular soup, it's easy to make, and it's served in small bowls with a teaspoon and some little breadsticks. It keeps for days in the fridge, and actually improves with the keeping.

Just four points: you must use extra virgin olive oil, you must use good sherry vinegar, the quality of the tomatoes is paramount, and you do NOT skin the tomatoes. Ignore online recipes that add stuff such as green peppers, onion and anything else that I don't mention. Online chefs that simply have to be different get on my nerves!

The ingredients for four very generous servings are:

A pound and a half of the best vine-ripened large tomatoes you can get
A large garlic clove, peeled
Half a teaspoon of sugar
A pinch of salt
The yolks from two hard-boiled eggs
120 ml extra virgin olive oil (nothing else will do)
A generous dash of sherry vinegar (no substitutes allowed)
Stale white bread from a smallish baguette, crusts removed (though I use a submarine roll complete with soft crust)

Except for the bread, I just blend everything with my stick blender. I don't peel the tomatoes but I do cut them up and cut out the little core at the top.

The whole lot goes into a bowl with the torn-up bread and left to soak for a few minutes. Then it all gets blended again until fairly smooth. Voila! So simple.

If it doesn't seem thick enough, you can add a bit more bread and whizz again. It should be thick enough that when you pick up a teaspoon of it it stays a little bit rounded on the spoon, but this is not important.

The traditional way to serve this is in little bowls with some breadstick pieces on the side. On top, you sprinkle a mix of chopped-up hard-boiled egg and some small bits of Serrano ham. I always cheat and replace the ham with a pinch of crispy streaky bacon and no-one ever complains.

Have this with your Aperol spritz and you'll live forever!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Aug 22 - 02:14 PM

I am making a vegetable chicken egg noodle soup with black truffle hot sauce and a hybrid of spices between poultry seasoning with a speck of nutmeg and ginger. If it needs more heat I use Slap your Momma creole seasoning.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Aug 22 - 01:01 PM

I haven't been doing much cooking while it's so hot that I could just plop food on the pavement to cook through.

Yesterday I made a batch of babaghanouj; lots of garlic and added a little smoke flavor (because this mimics the roasted eggplant - I baked them in my glass convection oven). Will be eating it with warmed up pita bread. I bought it still warm and froze it immediately after visiting the halal bakery. The eggplant and garlic used in the recipe came from my garden.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Aug 22 - 11:45 AM

I haven't been cooking while my back was out but someone assembled a marvy gazpacho for me with garden everything, almost.

Stood long enough today, first time since July 1, to make cannibal zucchini boats:

Halve zucch, scrape out insides, salt boats. Mix insides with garlic marjoram oregano, put back in boats, grate fresh parm on top, in toaster oven.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 04:02 PM

Made crab asparagus soup then decided to make salad with the rest of the ingredients. Steam asparagus by putting in glass spear end up with a little water in the glass, wrap with saran wrap, microwave 1 mn, let be for 5 then remove the wrap and cool.
Lettuces tomatoes asparagus crab pistachios. Dressing: add a lot of horseradish to my mustard vinaigrette. Yum yum.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jul 22 - 04:04 PM

I forgot to mention the tuiles. They're an amazing nibble with the aperitif. The only ingredient is finely-grated Parmesan cheese. I make mine on greaseproof paper. Three tuiles are more than enough per person. Get a big oven tray and cover it with greaseproof paper. Grate the Parmesan on to it. For two, you need enough to make six little mounds of grated cheese, each one about an inch and a half across. Each mound should be just slightly heaped in the middle.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the tray in the oven for exactly eight minutes. This is crucial. Take out the tray and very gently transfer the tuiles on to a rack to cool. They are ready in minutes but they keep for several hours. A gorgeous, crispy, salty snack that will have you topping up your glass.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jul 22 - 03:52 PM

Heavy but very rewarding day at Bude Memory Café (Mrs Steve is the prime mover and I do loads of transporting of folks...). We had the local WI choir today who put on a great show, not just singing in chorus but also introducing a lovely lady belly dancer, a bit of jiving to sixties classics, a local lad with a gorgeous voice and a lady folk singer who was utter class. Got home far too late to cook, so I rustled up plates of picky-up grub, most of it bought in...

We had nocellara olives, sun-dried cherry tomatoes, two Italian salamis and some prosciutto crudo, vegetable samosas and my favourite tapa, fried padron peppers sprinkled with sea salt (the one bit I had to do myself). We started with a lovely glass of white wine, sitting in the evening sun, and we're currently polishing off a bottle of red from a Puglian village winery, Salice Salentino.

That'll do me!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jul 22 - 02:38 PM

That seagull must wait hours for the appropriate tourist. Locals learned to be on their guard.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Jul 22 - 02:19 PM

I sympathize with the seagull incident.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Jun 22 - 09:36 AM

That was for two people by the way. And if you even think of using any kind of margarine, or worse, "low fat spread," I'll have to seriously contemplate having you arrested.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Jun 22 - 09:32 AM

The corned beef and beetroot butty. The ingredients are Sainsbury's prepacked corned beef (six slices), butter, Baxter's sliced beetroot in vinegar (drained), and - the hardest bit - the bread. I chose a thinly-sliced loaf made by our local baker Pete (he's been around forever, his loaf being a seeded job which he calls his "Cotswold Crunch"). The crust is pleasantly crunchy but the bread inside is soft.

The resulting butty was a bit of a masterpiece. I have two golden rules when making a sandwich: first, butter the bread generously right to the very edge of each slice. Second, the filling, if something meaty such as ham, roast beef, corned beef or chicken, must be exceptionally generous and multi-layered, and never underdo the mayo/horseradish relish or mustard. If egg mayo, the filling must be so excessive that it oozes out when you bite into the butty, such that it would be unwise to try to eat it whilst not sitting over your plate.

My favourite shop-bought sandwich is the spicy M&S "best-ever prawn." The last time I ate one al fresco in Truro, a bloody seagull came at me from behind and cleanly removed half of it from my clutches. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Jun 22 - 09:22 AM

I love iceberg lettuce. So crunch, such refreshing, wow.

I love butter/Bibb/Boston lettuce. That texture is also marvy and clings well to dressing (or vice versa).

I love that Romaine comes in purple now.

I love rocket and arugula and mixed baby greens and baby bok choi and baby spinach...

If not honeymoon salad (lettuce alone)... Fresh cukes, in chunks. Any color bell peppers. Good cherry tomatoes, sliced. No raw veg that should be cooked, like cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli. Maybe celery.

But I am picky picky picky about dressings. No cream. No sugar. It ain't coffee, folks. Red wine vinegar. Olive or avocado oil. Salt. Maybe Dijon mustard. If so, nothing else. If not, herbs and garlic, but watch the herbs. Basil, minimal or it gets licorice-y. Tarragon, no. Just, no.

Also lemon juice, cumin and olive oil is a good alternate dressing. Still needs salt.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 21 Jun 22 - 12:29 PM

We had a salad for tea today. Little Gem lettuce (which incidentally is my first choice when I grow our own lettuce), onion and chives all chopped up as that’s easiest for us. I just put these in a plastic box to which I also added quartered cherry tomatoes before mixing it up and putting a portion on each plate – no salad dressing btw, no one here wants it. Also on the plate were slices of boiled beetroot, Aran Pilot potatoes (the one thing that did come from our garden’) with butter and Camembert, St Agur and Cheshire cheese.

Pudding was jelly with a can of pineapple chunks added and vanilla ice cream.

Parents enjoyed it, especially mum although she also had another reason to be happy. She’s had a lot of problems with her legs and I think today was the first day this year that she’s managed to get outside on her own. Needless to say, she wanted her tea outside in the sunshine. I’ll have to see how she’s fixed for getting back indoors in a bi.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 Jun 22 - 06:43 AM

For a change, I got a jar of "mixed pickle" on my last shop, but usually have pickled silverskin onions - with a crunch that I have to be careful with given the state of my poor old teeth!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 22 - 03:16 AM

If you want crunch, Little Gem, treated with the trick I mentioned earlier, is much superior in m'humble. Morrisons in the UK are selling one called Sweet Gem which is even better. My own crop of Little Gem is nearly ready. The gold standard! The slugs love it too, but therein lies another tale...

I forgot to mention the other ingredient in "the ploughman's lunch," Branston Pickle. It's a matter of taste, of course, but I can't bear that stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jun 22 - 09:16 PM

A vegetarian friend was kind enough to set me straight about iceberg lettuce - it has certain characteristics that make it the perfect lettuce to shred and top dishes with (never buy it shredded, they use some kind of vile preservative that hits my gut hard). There are salads that benefit from the extra crunch a little iceberg adds to other varieties of lettuce. For a long time I didn't buy it, but now I have iceberg and romaine both handy in the crisper.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jun 22 - 05:44 PM

Iceberg lettuce is crunchy, tasteless, watery shite. Redolent of the bog-standard pub "ploughman's lunch" which comes with a lump of factory "cheddar", a golf-ball tomato that tastes of nothing, grated carrot (is there anything more disgusting?), raw cabbage stalky stuff and salad cream if you're lucky. Oh, and a lump of dry Tesco bloomer. This stuff is not real food, and it's doubtful that any ploughman worth his salt would touch it with a ten-foot bargepole.

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Jun 22 - 01:59 PM

Nice to have that wild rocket, Steve; I recall getting some very nice tomatoes by chance from the compost heap down the back of our family's yard in Sydney.

I think I mentioned above that, being on my own and not a big eater, I find iceberg useful because by taking off a "leaf" per day, and running water over it before returning to the fridge (a bit like your method, I guess), it can last a fortnight.

And Mrs Steve is obviously your better half - "extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar"...only the best!

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 22 - 07:38 PM

I forgot to mention rocket. I have a big bed of wild rocket that seeds itself every year. It's been there for fifteen years and I never have to do anything to it. A handful of freshly-plucked rocket transforms a salad, or a burger in a bun with caramelised onion chutney...

Subject: RE: BS: The other recipe thread is too long
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 22 - 07:32 PM

Now here's a thing about lettuce, etc. The typical British pub-grub "salad" consists of week-old wilted lettuce, tasteless cucumber, raw onion slices that will give you bellyache for days and, for reasons best known to anybody but me, sliced-up raw cabbage. You might get a chemical golf ball half-tomato if you're lucky, and an indigestible slice or two of a strangely-coloured bell pepper. If it ain't red, it's not for eating...

It's a disgrace. There is lovely lettuce around. I eschew all those watery iceberg globes of Webb's Wonderful (Webb's Diabolical, more like). And those butterhead soft lettuces are just like eating flaccid bog paper. Little Gem is good if you can get it fresh. Even better is one called Sweet Gem. A very nice crunch. Here's a good trick with bought lettuce: cut off the bottom and stand it for a couple of hours in a jug of cold water. The crispness will unfailingly return.

I don't understand salad dressing. Mrs Steve loves a salad of lettuce, pepper and halved cherry tomatoes dressed with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar (the thick, oozy Belazu stuff, not that watery three-quid aberration). I'm OK with that, but if I've grown the lettuce myself and I can get the amazing cherry toms from the Netherlands growers, or my own from August onward, I don't see the point of drowning their deliciousness with oil and vinegar...