And this week ... I bought

No market trip this week so it was make do with freezer and some vegetables from the week before and bits and pieces from the shop. Sunday night we were out for dinner - to the quite fabulous Galvins so Monday there were no lunches. Monday night was pasta with broccoli from the week before and very good it was for lunch as well on Tuesday.

Tuesday night we had the last of our own sausages that we made in a Ginger Pig class with Chris and Karl with butter bean mash and spiced aubergines. There was enough left over to have the veg for lunches Wednesday and Thursday - a really tasty spicy creamy treat

Wednesday I made burgers and salad with sour dough bread from St John's off sales - some of the finest bread in the land

Thursday was the ultimate ginger pig beef stew. From the freezer I took the diced beef that we brought home from the rib of beef class, the onion gravy from the sausage class, some cooked oxtail that was extra from when I cooked the first rib of beef and a small handful of marrow leftover from the same meal. Wednesday night I fried some onions and garlic, sealed the meat then added the gravy and marrow and set it over a low flame for a couple of hours. Served with pasta shells Thursday night it was intensely rich, a sort of essence of beef. Utterly wonderful.

Friday no lunches again! But a new dish tonight with lentils and chorizo and a recipe from Gordon Ramsay.

So no waste at all this week, rather the opposite as I used up all that was there and made a dent in the freezer as well. Result.

Butter Bean Mash

There was an easy recipe in last week's Observer Food Magazine for a tapas plate of giant butter beans which I decided would be good with grilled sausages as a side dish. I didn't have any dried beans so bought some at Waitrose at some wildly inflated price, then put them to soak with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Almost immediately the outer skins puckered, swelled and loosened then floated free like abandoned tshirts in a pool. Next morning I popped each of my fat creamy beans out of the rest of their little jackets leaving me with about 20% less beans than I started with. Then cooking them till tender made them break up into jagged bits. My 'attractive mound of dressed beans' plan was not going to work out, that was obvious.

I decided to go with the general idea but combine it with that classic plating of sausage and mash. I've often made a white bean dip from my battered copy of Sundays at Moosewood and know from dipping my finger in that it is great while it's still warm. So once the beans were cooked I whizzed them up with olive oil and lemon juice, then spiced them with garlic and cumin, added a little paprika then spooned them out just like mash. Perfect. The remains is a great dip with celery - and you can't do that with cold mash.

Butter Bean Mash

250g dried butter beans

1 tspn bicarbonate of soda

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 tspn ground cumin

1/2 tspn paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

Soak the beans overnight with plenty of cold water and a tspn of bicarb. Next day, drain, rinse thoroughly and discard any loose skins. Put into a large pan and cover with fresh water, bring to the boil then simmer gently for about an hour. Twenty minutes before they are cooked add a tablespoon of salt.

Drain but reserve some of the cooking water. Return the beans to the pan, add the olive oil and lemon juice and garlic and whizz with a blender stick till smooth. (Or put the beans into a blender and blend) Add some of the cooking water if the consistency is thicker than your liking. Stir through cumin and paprika then check and adjust the seasoning.

Serve in big dollops like creamy mash. You'll love it!

Pasta with Broccoli and Pine Nuts

Supper last night was pasta with broccoli cut small before cooking then cooked again till it collapsed into a saucy consistency with aromatics and a late addition of olives and pine nuts. And of course cheese. The recipe is in River Cafe Pocket Book of Pasta. Reading it I liked the idea of different textures pointing up different flavours with the saltiness of the olives, the subtle heat of crumbled chillies, the sweet from slow cooked onions and the rich oily crunch of the pine nuts. Then I made it and I didn't much like the toasted nuts - they seemed too rich against the other ingredients. After that I remembered I'm not really a big fan of toasted pine nuts with pasta. Though I'm a big fan of pesto.

Although a nut in the culinary sense, in the botanical sense pine nuts are seeds because nuts are seeds covered in a hard shell. They really do come from pine trees, the nuts are found inside the folds of the cones. They are difficult to harvest - using a long hook on a pole, the cones are pulled from the trees then laid out in the sun until the cones open enough to spill their contents. Then the shells are cracked and the pale ivory seed is extracted. Hence the high price everywhere for pine nuts.

Pine trees do well in sand so they can be planted near beaches and in parks. One of my abiding memories growing up in Australia is pine trees growing the length of what seemed like every beach in the country, giving shade to cars, stopping the sand eroding away into the sea and always dropping their prickly bits onto the ground to dig into tender bare feet on the way into the surf. In those days I'd never heard of pine nuts - who'd have thought such treasures were buried in the cones.

Pine nuts contain about 31 grams of protein per 100 grams of nuts, the highest of any nut or seed. Because of their high fat content they become rancid very easily and should be stored in an air tight container for about three months in the fridge. Six to nine months in the freezer. The eating of pine nuts dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times when they were commonly preserved in honey.

Pasta with Broccoli and Pine Nuts

350g orecchiette pasta - the one shaped like little ears

1kg broccoli

100g black olives, stoned

2 small red onions, peeled and finely sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 dried red chillies, crumbled

1 tsp fennel seeds

3 tbs flat leaf parsley roughly chopped

60g pine nuts

100g Pecorino freshly grated

Extra virgin olive oil

Cut the broccoli heads into little florets and the smaller stalks into small pieces then cook in boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Drain and reserve 100ml of the cooking water.

Heat 2 tbs olive oil in a thick bottomed pan and gently fry the onion till golden. Add the garlic, chillies and fennel seeds, fry briefly then add the parsley. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the broccoli adn the reserved water. Continue to cook until the broccoli is broken up into a sauce. Add 3 tbs of olive oil, season and stir well.

Separately, fry the olives and pine nuts briefly in 1 tbs olive oil.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water till al dente. Drain, add the broccoli sauce then stir in the olives, pine nuts and half the pecorino. Serve with the remaining cheese sprinkled over.

We had leftovers cold for lunch and it was good. Though I felt when I ate it hot I probably wouldn't make it again with consideration I think I would, just without the nuts. The balance of flavour and textures was really pretty amazing with random little bombs of chilli, fennel and cheese in the midst of the the broccoli - be a shame to lose the lot for not liking just one thing.

Bubble & Squeak

Last night for supper we had a kind of bubble and squeak. Except that I also used eggs so it might have been an omelette. Or perhaps by combining potatoes and eggs fried it was really tortilla. Don't know exactly what to call it but it was very tasty.

Bubble and squeak as a dish it has been around for generations - even Mrs Beeton had a recipe. It's about frugality really, using leftovers from the Sunday roast on Monday. Maria's cafe at Borough is famous for her bubble at breakfast. Basically you mash cold roast potatoes, mix them with yesterday's cooked cabbage then flatten it into a heavy based pan and fry in dripping/butter/oil till the bottom crisps. Flip over and crisp the other side then serve. The name comes from the sound of the dish - bubbles from boiling the cabbage, the squeak from the frying. My pan doesn't squeak when it fries so much as spit though I don't imagine many people would queue for bubble and spit.

The only time I ever made 'proper' bubble & squeak was the christmas before last when I'd read a recipe from Matthew Fort in the Guardian that involved leftover roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts fried up in beef dripping and topped with stilton. Reading that now makes me wonder why I thought it would be fabulous - stilton and beef dripping? I had even bought dripping specially. Not likely to be a light supper but I guess it's the xmas effect. It is impossible to be too excessive as you feast or perhaps just to be rational when all about is frenzy.

I had some boiled new potatoes left over from dinner on Sunday and, as I'd already made a brown rice salad to go with cold pork for lunches didn't need them for salad. I toyed with the idea of vegetable curry but didn't really fancy it. I had eggs and a pale pointy headed cabbage and the last of a rochetta that needed using so melange it was.

A Sort of Bubble & Squeak

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

1 tbspn olive oil

1 tbspn butter

200g/1/2 lb cooked new potatoes, roughly chopped

200g/1/2lb cabbage, roughly shredded

1 tbspn rosemary, finely chopped

3 eggs, beaten

100g/4oz soft cheese

Salt and pepper

Melt the butter into the oil and fry the onion till soft and translucent. Add the cabbage and cook till it starts to wilt then add the rosemary and potatoes. Fry till they are a little crispy. Pour in the beaten eggs and cook over a strong heat till the bottom sets.

Preheat the grill to hot as it will go.

Season the vegetables/egg and add the soft cheese in small dollops over the top of the pan. Put the pan under the grill for a few minutes till the egg sets and the cheese bubbles (!) and becomes golden. Serve onto warm plates.

We had this with bread from Saturday that I had heated through to freshen it up. Hot crusty bread was the perfect accompaniment - and frugal too.

Roasted Fennel

This is a lovely side dish for a roast but would work equally as a light supper for 2 with a little salad and crusty bread. It is simple to make, the only time involved really is the cooking. It would qualify as quick if it didn't take so long.

Cooking the fennel first in boiling water makes it soft and light and then it takes on the roasted flavours of the oil and garlic. The cheese at the end simply sets it off to perfection. It its the sort of side dish often served as the vegetable accompaniment in the little cafés in provincial France. Though not the star of the show it adds much by way of flavour and texture in its supporting role. We had it with roast pork and roasted onions and new potatoes Sunday night - it really was very good.

Roasted Fennel
2 pale fat fennel bulbs
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbspns olive oil
2 tbspns freshly grated Parmesan
Salt and black pepper

Heat a large pan of water to boiling. Cut the fennel in half top to bottom and cook in the water for about 5 minutes. Drain and put them into a roasting pan with the oil and garlic sprinkled over. Season then put the pan into a moderate oven, gas 5, 200F and cook, turning occasionally, for half an hour. When the flesh is tender and flecked with brown sprinkle with Parmesan and cook for another few minutes. Serve with a roast or with salad.

A treat.

I Bought

We got to the market a little later than usual but struck lucky. It was in that little gap between the serious early shoppers and the hordes of tourists so it was easy enough to be served and have an occasional chat.

At Ginger Pig I gave Chris and Karl some toulouse sausages we'd bought them in France - taking meat to a butcher is a first for me. The toulouse sausages they sell are fabulous but utterly different to the ones we buy so I'd promised to get some for them to try. Be interesting to see what they think. Bought a piece of boned pork shoulder, a couple of pork chops, some pork mince and eggs - £20.25

A quick hello to Vaheed at Borough Olives before the vegetable stall at the back becasue the veg last week was good - got some fennel, lettuce, cucumber, a pointy headed cabbage and some onions - £6

Chocolates at Maison du Chocolat the ultimate bargain at £1 a bag - £2

Strawberries from Chegworth - the best for Eton mess and the rest for smoothies - £4

Booths for more veg - potatoes, sugarsnaps, bananas, satsumas, parsley, broccoli, and shiny black aubergines - £7

Spices from Hell have taken on the dry goods that Total Organics no longer sell as well as still selling herbs and spices so bought some short grain brown rice and, as an experiment, a basil plant that should grow happily till the autumn with full sun and watering. The watering is easy, may well be lost through lack of the other - £4.15

Scotch egg and a beef and guiness pie from Ginger Pig - because we are piggies, especially on the weekend - £8.50

Cream, milk, youghurt, pasta and bread from Neal s Yard - £12

Croissant and brownie from Flour Power - £3.50

A grand total of £67.40

And this week

Having been in France for a few days last week, including the weekend, there was no trip to the market so eating for the week came from stuff we had and bits I bought to supplement it. Back Sunday I had thawed a piece of gammon out in the fridge while we were away so it was ready to cook and glaze to feed us for lunches. Being extraordinarily forethinking I had made some herbed bean salad to go with it. The freezer also had chorizo and a loaf of bread, plus there were eggs in the fridge so we had fried sandwiches for supper, garnished with the heart of the slightly sad looking lettuce that was still in the crisper

Monday we had pork chops from the freezer, jersey royals from the little fruit shop round the corner and green salad with fennel from the fridge, rocket and celery from the local shop

Tuesday we had rocket and celery as well as carrots and tomatoes with ham for lunch and chicken - from the freezer - with potatoes and spinach from Waitrose. The spinach was English and a nice deep green. I hoped it would be robust enough for creamed spinach but alas - when the packet was opened the leaves were 'baby' so steamed with butter and nutmeg was best

Wednesday we had a late - and utterly fabulous - supper of pasta with dried porcini Delighted to read about Chris and Karl from the Ginger Pig in the Guardian - 2 pages and a photo!

Thursday the man had the left over pasta for lunch, I had ham salad, and we had lemon risotto for supper as I had rice and stock and a lemon indoors and rosemary in the garden. It was from a recipe of Nigella Lawson's paying homage to Anna Del Conte that was okay but not as special to eat as it sounded to read. Some you lose

Friday the last of the risotto went in with the last of the ham for lunches. The man suggested seafood at Wrights for supper to which I agreed with alacrity.

Not a bad week. Market tomorrow to replenish stocks.

Not much left to throw away - even used the last two egg whites to make meringue for Eton mess for the weekend.