And This Week...I Bought

I'm back - yay! After what feels like the longest time I have returned to London and early Saturday morning I was on the bus to Borough Market. Very relieved to find it's still there and though a few stallholders were on holidays there was plenty to sample and buy to get us through the week.

The man had been in London while I was in Australia and so had taken himself to the market last week to do a little light shop preparatory to my return. And joy of joys he bought a fabulous piece of rump steak that we had, simply char grilled with salad, for a most perfect dinner Wednesday night. Indeed it was so good I wanted more. So we started at Ginger Pig and took advantage of their special offer on 45 day hung rump steak at £14.95 a kilo to buy the most enormous piece of meat that was also an inch thick - so much that even I had to rethink! So half is in the freezer and the other half is fabulous Friday supper with salad. Rampant greed sated. And I got some smoked bacon - for threading between scallops for Saturday supper and to add to chickpea nd rosemary soup on Monday - £24 the lot.

Next was Booths for veg - potatoes, cabbage, sweet potatoes - Sunday roast with pork from the freezer, tomatoes - lunches, carrots with white bean salad, grapefruit, an orange, spring onions, rosemary to thread scallops onto and to make soup, parsley, basil bean salad and pasta, lettuce, cucumber - salads, bananas, and sweet fat strawberries smoothies and a kind of bastardised eton mess - heaven, £15.70

Fancied scallops on skewers for a treat Saturday night - bought half a dozen big ones on the shell at Shellseekers - £9

Then to Gastromica the shop for a pack of pasta shells - pasta with peas and parsley - £1.50 - and a free sample of mortadella with truffle that I adore

To Gianni at the Gastronomica cheese stall for a selection - a big hunk of Parmesan, a serious piece of crumbly toma, a lovely soft cheese that is a melange of goat and sheep milk and a little creamy disk he threw in at the end to make the total - just nibbling decadence all week - £15

A fennel - green salad with steak Friday - from Ted's veg- £1

The man likes the olive oil soap from the Taste of Turkey stall so we bought a block of that and a tub of dried olives - snacking - £5.50

Then over to the main market and what joy to see the lovely Marie on the olive stall - lots of hugs and kisses and chatter over coffee - the gossip is free!

Got some salami - for Saturday sandwiches - from the other Gastronomica stall - just to complete the hat trick - £1.80

At Neals Yard I bought milk, yoghurt, cream and bread - £12.60

Lastly was a little cottage loaf £1 from Flour Power

A grand total of £87.10 for the week