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

A bunch of love from Interflora
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We have nothing on through the week this week but I have a new toy for a couple of weeks, as Miele have given me a steam oven to play with. After one simple meal of chinese steamed pork and eggs Thursday night I am smitten. Expect lots of steamy posts in the lead up to Valentines!

I am cooking for Food Chain Sunday so simple Saturday night, fish perhaps pan fried salmon with parsley butter and steamed veg seriously elegant right up to the point where I decided to pick up the pan that had just come out of 200c oven without benefit of potholder, hence no photo of fish with butter as too busy clasping ice. Sunday ultra simple, lentils perhaps as I have been hankering for them of late had a little pork and beans left over from Food Chain so reheated them in the steam oven. Monday I fancy steaming last weeks pork ribs with black bean and chilli had lentils with chorizo and morcilla and made rice pudding in the steam oven for my man, Tuesday will try smoked bacon and tofu wonderful steamed pork, steamed cabbage and rice, Wednesday pasta with purple broccoli cooked the old fashioned way I went to Anchor & Hope and the man got to stay home with fish & chips! Thursday I may well be seduced back to the steam oven as I'd like to try silken tofu and egg omelette steamed eggs, stirfired peppers and rice , Friday sausage sarnies biy pork pie with steamed veg!

This weeks lunches were a bit higgledy piggledy. With nothing leftover from Sunday we both bought lunch Monday variations on Japanese depending on what we get locally, but Tuesday there was lovely leftover lentil that I'd packed into tubs the night before and, for the man, a pot of rich rice pudding which delights him but which for me is redolent of nothing so much as sick in a bowl. I loathed it as a child and a single spoonful was enough to bring that repulsion flooding back. Wednesday there was leftover pork and rice, again already packed and waiting along with the single tub of rice pudding. Thursday there was only fruit and rice pudding for the man, I get to buy hot chorizo roll from Whitecross Street so not exactly a hardship, Friday leftover egg, rice and peppers. With what we spent Monday I could have bought a little chicken, roasted it and served it for the days lunch was missing but sometimes it's nice to shop for lunch at the caff ...

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Saturday at Borough was cold. After what felt like the balmy heights of 8C Friday it was a bit of a shock. At least it seems possible now that spring will come.

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Ginger Pig was busy already. Bought some pork mince, smoked bacon and a pigs trotter for a good array of piggy treats for a mere £7.35

Then to Monmouth who had an enormous queue for hot coffee and no-one buying beans so I snuck in there and bought beans - £10

Booths sell a huge variety of potatoes - common ones like maris piper and king edwards and lots of ones I know almost nothing about. Wanted to steam some so asked which would be best and was recommended an old fashioned Scottish type so bought those as well as broccoli some oranges and clementines, shining brightly against the gloom, spent £4.30

Eggs from Wild Beef - £1.50

Sustainably farmed salmon from Furness - £6.70

Searched briefly in the Green Market but couldn't find the tofu seller and didn't have time to try harder

Bought onions and parsley from Ted's veg but no cauliflower as they lost their crop to the frost, turned to black slime sadly - £1.60

Heading back out stopped for a quick chat with Ian at Mrs Elizabeth King's pork pie stall and he greeted us with an enormous grin and told us he had something for us. For ages now he's been promising to bring me one of their frozen pork pies that you cook yourself and then add the jelly, which is the bit that really appeals to me! But each week he forgets so it has become a running joke between us. He promised last time that he'd write it on the back of his hand. Must have done as he proudly presented me with a pie he'd stored in the freezer at Silfield next to his stand

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and told me we are the first in London to be able to bake our own pork pie fromt their shop. Yay! And then he was charming enough to tell me there was no cost as we'd been so patient. So it seems patience really is rewarded sometimes.

At Neals Yard they had short dated sheep yoghurt which I love so grabbed a tub as well as milk and cream - £9.70

That was all for the week as I had a frozen loaf of bread from last week for toast so spent a mere £41.15