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

Red onions for roasting with beef

Have a massively major foodchain this Sunday making lunch for 92 - with help, obviously! - and so am having a little trouble concentrating on what will be only a few other meals for the week. But I need to be very quick at Borough Saturday morning so I definitely need a plan. So, randomly, Saturday will be fish mussels with chilli and black beans, Sunday roast beef rare and fabulous I think as it will be easy and will make for nice lunchboxes. Monday chilli con carne with some of the mince from Wild Beef I bought last week over rice which I made leftovers into salad for lunches, Tuesday something eggy perhaps leek & stilton quiche, Wednesday the rest of the chilli chilli into freezer as we had quiche after french, Thursday stir fry pork needed to use the aubergine from last week so we had curry with chick peas, Friday is a long way away here now and it will be laksa from the freezer as the man now has the flu - the very serious man version, obviously.


Saturday morning was beyond cold - seriously think the liquid in my eyeballs froze as I walked from the bus to Borough Market. Started at Ginger Pig where there were no customers and all the butchers looked dazed with the temperature - one of them was even convinced the meat was colder than usual which made me laugh. Bought a big hunk of topside Sunday dinner and lunches till Thursday and a slice of belly pork in the freezer - £24


Then to Booths where the veg were like ice - quickly picked up potatoes, sprouts Sunday dinner, leeks quiche Tuesday and then Wednesday and lunch Friday, carrots, beans still there, should be okay, coriander with mussels Saturday, spring onions still there but fine, fennel, chicory for salad that was never made but fine for the weekend and celery some in rice salad and some still to use - £8.20


Had really fancied crumbed cod and chips Saturday night but realised I didn't have enough breadcrumbs so it was mussels Saturday night I bought at Furness - £4.50


Then over to see Richard at Wild Beef who was talking to a woman who was clearly upset. Turns out that a few minutes earlier she had paid him £16 for a chicken that she then put into the top of her fairly full trolley and then when she went to put the next purchase in there the chicken was gone. She'd gone back to the stall in the hope that she had forgotten to pick it up but sadly that was not the case - someone is stealing from trolleys at Borough. Beware! I bought eggs for us and six boxes for food chain and when I got home I had six and not seven boxes in the top of my fairly full trolley - £1.50


Then to Gastronomica for parmesan because we had run out and I like to always have some in the fridge - £5


Almost but not quite entirely frozen I went to Neals Yard for milk, double quiche and sour cream to top chili and an english stick of bread lunch Saturday - £9.20


Then another loaf from Flour Power - £1 for hot toast when we got home


So I spent £53.40

Also bought green pepper, onions, coriander, tomatoes, a lime and clementines Monday, plus butter, tinned kidney beans and tomatoes and a stick of bread, then went to chinatown Friday and bought beansprouts, ginger, chilli oil, chilli bean sauce, peanut oil, fresh noodles, and both ground cumin and coriander - funny how everything seems to run out at once.

The last of the rice salad and the last of the coriander salsa went into the bin as both were beyond edible.

This time last year we were mostly eating mussels - but with white wine and tarragon and before that home style bean curd and the very healthy millet and spiced broccoli.