26 posts tagged “food”

Parsnip & Potato Mash

Dec 14, 2008
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OK, the black pepper will have to wait until next week. The soup wasn't photographed despite being very tasty but the mashed parsnip and potato was. It's a fairly rough mash rather than a purée and it's about two thirds parsnip. Gorgeous.

Potato and Parsnip Mash with Young Carrots

Pastinache, Pastinaken, Panais, Pastinaga, Parsnips, пастернаки

Dec 12, 2008
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No posts for... well quite a long time. I suppose I was just a big busy.

This evening I've been enjoying a parsnip. Seasonal, organic, fresh and local. I love them roasted but I plan to make a potato and parsnip mash at the weekend and maybe a soup using the other two I have. Because, doing things in half measures is a bad thing.

Parsnips_IMG_3550

Coming up next? Something on why there is no food on the planet that cannot be improved by the addition of generous quantities of fresh ground black pepper.

Vox Hunt: It Never Gets Old

Oct 21, 2008
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Show us one of your favorite comfort foods.

It has to be bread, There is no finer food than bread. It is far better than potatoes, pasta, rice, couscous, kasha, quinoa or any other starch staple. Bread. Yum.

Bread Stall in Jerusalem

Bread and Butter

Bread and Butter Pudding

A first for me - fried Baltic herring

Oct 6, 2008
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I woke up too late to get the hotel breakfast this morning, so I had breakfast two minutes walk away, on the quay side of the harbour. When I saw that there was a stall selling deep fried herring I was very, very glad I’d missed the hotel breakfast. I love herring and so I was really excited about the prospect of eating in hot and crispy.

It was fantastic. I was also impressed by how they gave me disposable cutlery made from wood instead of plastic. I’m glad to report that it works at least as well as plastic as with the price of oil so high it will probably soon be cheaper to use biodegradable wood.

IMG_3450 - Baltic Herring

Take away food

Sep 24, 2008
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When I lived in Amsterdam and was feeling too lazy or tired to cook I would order food from various restaurants. There was a pretty wide selection of places that would deliver food but apart from the GoFreshShop, everything was cooked fast and probably in oil. Not good.

This evening I also felt lazy and couldn't be bothered to cook. But when I stopped in Casa Italiana on may way home I came away with something that had clearly not been cooked in hot oil. I love this place and get something from there every couple of weeks when I fancy a bigger selection of vegetables than I can justify cooking at home.

Yum.

Take Away Food

I'm just here for the beer

Sep 7, 2008
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After one of the most surreal two days I've spent in rooms of men wearing suits I was looking forward to sitting down at home and enjoying a couple of nutty brown ales.

Waterloo Beer

Sadly, that was not to be. Brussels Airlines decided to add a 90 minute delay to the 50 minute flight back from Geneva. The captain thought this was acceptable on the grounds that they had started the day with a three hour delay. Frankly, the whole things stinks of incompetence to me. Belgium's flag carrier used to be called Sabena, which I was always told was an acronym for "Such a bloody experience - never again". I think they should take a good long look at Easyjet, which seems to use the same planes in the same configurations but actually keeps to its published schedules.

I got back late to find that the top of one of the bottles had been chipped and its contents seemed to be undergoing a third fermentation. Frankly, it looked like brown sick when I poured it, so I tried another bottle which went down like a dream. It's not a quaffing beer as it's got real body and flavour. It's something to savour slowly, perhaps with a bit of cheese or some nice Swedish crackers.

Im sure that some of Waterloo's other offerings will be appearing in my shopping basket later this week. The Tripel 7 looks very tasty.

Coming soon... local beer

Sep 2, 2008
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Waterloo Double 8

I've not written much lately but I have been queueing things up for when I have some time to write for pleasure. I thought that if I posted about what I'll be posting I might force myself to follow through. So here's a post about what I hope to post about this weekend: Waterloo Double 8 Dark beer.

It's local to Brussels (the battle field is just eight miles away) and London, which has a large train station named after the battle. I saw it advertised outside the supermarket this afternoon and thought it would make an enjoyable review item. And I like the picture on the label. And I'm always happy to drink to the defeat of a Napoleon.

So, my plan is to take it out of the fridge when I get back from Geneva and drink a bottle before writing about how good or bad I think it is. With any luck I'll think it's brilliant and have a second bottle.

Warm weather and cold food

Aug 6, 2008
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Mateus Rose

It must be summer. Not only has the temperature been up close to 30°C (86°F/303K) today but the man in front of me in the queue at the supermarket was buying a bottle of Mateus Rose. I have distinct memories of being allowed a glass of Mateus while on a summer holiday to the Algarve as a child. I thoroughly enjoyed it and while Mateus has gone out of fashion since the late 70s or early 80s I still enjoy it.

But this evening isn't going to be alcoholic, especially after Bart and Theresa told me about their weird organic wine experience last night. I also didn't want to heat up my apartment as part of boiling some pasta or baking something in the oven. So I just went for some a little caprese salad.

It's made with tiny little pearl mozzarellas and plum tomatoes and some huge basil leaves. Just what I needed.

Caprese Salad

Pears of Granite

Jun 6, 2008
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Rock Hard Pears

Eddie Izzard was right. Pears really are "gorgeous little beasts", although I have severe doubts about whether I will actually get to eat one this year.

I love citrus fruits and berries but I don't normally buy apples, pears and the like because you tend to have to make a commitment to eating a whole one. If you open a satsuma you can eat the segments slowly without worry that they'll go brown from oxidisation and berries, of course, are perfect little self-contained wonders. Not so with an apple: leave it for five minutes while you take a phone call and you come back to something that looks like it's already decomposing.

Which is why I was glad to see some small pears in the supermarket when I grabbed some groceries before my evening calls last Thursday. Of course, they were hard when I got them but I was hoping that they'd ripen up over night and that I'd be able to have one for breakfast the next day, or over the weekend, or maybe on Monday. But by Tuesday morning they still felt like they'd been carved from jade.

That was a little disappointing as I had to go away for a couple of days and I expected that I'd return to a bowl of liquid pear goop. But no. This evening I returned home and found the pears are still giving me a nine or 10 on Mohs scale. So maybe I'll get to have pears for breakfast and maybe they'll have their moment of ripeness overnight and they'll be "dead pears" in the morning.

Wild Asparagus

May 13, 2008
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It's asparagus season. I know it must be because you couldn't move for special asparagus menus in restaurants in Berlin last week.

I like asparagus a lot and try to make good use of it in season. I used to buy a lot of 'baby' asparagus spears and nibble on them raw as a snack while watching TV, sprinkle them on home made pizzas, toss them in salads and put them in sandwiches. I also love using the big, thick asparagus spears in soups, although I think they tend to be a bit too chunky to make a good vegetable side.

So I was delighted to see these beautiful wild asparagus spears this evening. They remind me of the seed tops on the summer grass on the village green by my primary school.

As you'd expect, I tried them raw. After all, almost all good ingredients can be eaten raw and lots of them actually taste really great that way (lamb, beef, salmon, tuna, onions, mushrooms, cauliflower, peas etc...). These wild asparagus spears are lovely raw and gently cooked. I par boiled them for a minute and tried them with a little olive oil and grated goats cheese.

The verdict? Whether cooked or raw they have a lovely gentle flavour, are crisp and fresh and just different enough from the regular commercially farmed asparagus to make an interesting change. But, one punnet of asparagus was far too much for me for the next couple of days as a vegetable side so I think I'll try and make a soup from the rest tomorrow evening and chill it down to be served as a summer soup.