Things don’t always grow to plan in the vegetable patch…!
Posted in Food, other sides to this life | Tagged courgettes, zucchini | 4 Comments »
“Percy Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Percy Piper picked;
If Percy Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Percy Piper picked?”
(It’s Peter in the original tongue twister, and it’s just as difficult with Percy!)
The “Percy” in the title is a friend of a friend.
These peppers have a delicious savoury taste, a lovely look, and help to cheer up a dull unseasonal day…
The secret is to take care slicing them thin and then sautéeing them slow and long.
We had them yesterday for lunch with a poached egg on top and a fennel salad.
for 4
4 red peppers— sliced finely–lengthwise
10 anchovy fillets–pulped with a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of capers–roughly chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
generous twists of black pepper
- Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan and soften the peppers gently over a low heat.
- It’s worth taking the time to do this–at least an hour.
- Stir in the anchovies–without breaking up the peppers–until they melt.
- Heat the oven to 180˚
- Stir the capers into the peppers and season with black pepper.
- Fold them into a pleasing ovenproof dish and heat them through for about 10 minutes
- Serve them warm with more olive oil drizzled over (and the egg on top if you like.)
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes | Tagged anchovies, capers, nursery rhymes, red peppers, savoury | 9 Comments »
I am just about to spread the “no-added-sugar fruit paste” on my regular 2 pieces of 100% rye this morning with a bone-handled dessert knife, when I’m minded to look more closely at the blade.
This prompts a memory surge going back 60 years.
The knife has seen better days; the bone handle is split, but still feels comfortable in the hand.
The name of the shop it came from–Bravingtons–is clearly visible on the small broad blade–which spreads the fruit paste nicely.
I always liked the knives from this set–probably a wedding present for my parents from Ma’s uncle Harry, back in April 1938.
They were in everyday use when I was a boy–perhaps helping to establish my pernickity taste in cutlery. My enjoyment of food is always affected by what I am eating it with.
Great Uncle Harry Weakford, worked at the Bravingtons in Knightsbridge, selling silver to the posh.
He was my mother’s father’s brother.
This branch–just down from Harrods–had the familiar black-marbled, silver-lettered banner front–favoured by pre-war jewellery shops.
The Bravingtons shops proudly displayed the Royal Coat of Arms–as the official supplier of cutlery to the Queen.
Uncle Harry was a jovial cove who lived with his wife in Norbury, south London, where my mother was born & raised.
Once we visited for tea in the Fifties. I remember watching Leslie Howard in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) on their telly. We didn’t have a set at home, and I recall being swept up in the brave romance of it all. (Little did I know that years later I’d be rescuing French aristos in the guise of Ross Poldark!)
Uncle Harry, like my mother, had diabetes–and these thoughts about the knife make me want to know more about him and
remind me how “family inheritance” can be a mixed blessing!
Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Poldark | Tagged bone handled knives, great uncle, leslie howard, memory, Norbury | 12 Comments »
Meredith is pursuing one of her passions–teaching circle dancing–today.
She’s invited to lead and teach at a Quaker retreat in the Pyrenean foothills tonight.
So–I can have chicken wings for supper without pause.
Meredith is not so keen on this fingerlicking special treat.
There’s a recipe for them in my book that uses lots of black pepper.
This is a different one with garlic, allspice, cinnamon, and a little cayenne–we’ll see.
I’m reckoning on four for each person.
chicken wings–washed and dried
enough marinade for 16 wings
12 cloves of garlic-– peeled and pulped with a pinch of salt
juice of a lemon
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon allspice
i/4 teaspoon cayenne
good grinding of black pepper and salt
- Combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl.
- Put in the wings and turn them over until they are thoroughly coated in it.
- Leave them to marinade for at least an hour.
- Heat the oven to 180C/350F
- Cover a shallow oven tray with foil and brush it with oil.
- Lay the wings out on the tray.
I couldn't resist five...
- Roast them for 45 minutes.
- Turn up the heat to 200C/400F.
- Continue roasting for a further 5 minutes–then take them out of the oven.
I’m told that home-made mayonnaise goes very well with them–but I couldn’t possibly comment.
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes | Tagged circle dancing, garlic, quaker retreat, roasted chicken wings, spices | 12 Comments »
Tour Swag
Our friend Romaine left the UK under strict instructions “at least bring us back treasure “.
Tour fanatics [amateurs de cyclisme] in the family were jealous when they heard she’d delayed her return by a day to witness the Tour whizz through Lautrec for the second year running.
We joined the crowd in the village with minutes to spare before the “Caravan” started to arrive.
Excited cheers greeted a lone police car leisurely passing through–briefly in the spotlight.
We found our place with a good view up the approach road and held our breaths.
A couple more anticlimaxes and then the commercial carnival began.
"The Yellow Jersey" leads the way!
with..
...Mickey mice hot on his heels.
All sorts of goodies flew through the air and were snaffled up by the waiting crowd–polka dot caps and keyrings, sweets and sausages.
Twenty minutes of wonderful madness and kids’ bags were filling up with goodies like stockings at Christmas.
“We should be over the other side where they’re stopping and handing out”
Romaine needn’t have worried…a knight in shining armour came to the rescue–more of that in a moment.
Oh yes and the Tour!–the reason we were all there.
We shot over the other side of the hill for a better view and waited.
Five helicopters flying in line announced –an “Apocalypse Now” moment–the imminent arrival of “the breakaway-group”.
We joined the children nearby waving our arms and shouting our delight.
The peloton followed–passing with a whoosh….!
It was all over and Romaine was still regretting being on the wrong side of the track!
In rides nephew Dominic–a veteran biker and experienced tour follower–with a bag of booty.
Every time he’d waved at a float from his isolated spot–goodies fell from the sky.
Dom’s a generous heart and Romaine’s only worry now was excess baggage at check in!
Posted in other sides to this life | Tagged caravan, cycling, Lautrec, swag, tour de france | 7 Comments »
…the book!
an early chapter introduction...
with one of the twelve lovely sketches in the book by our friend Hope James–and…
... a seasonal recipe.
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Robin Ellis | Tagged cookbook, Delicious Dishes for Diabetics | 15 Comments »
…though not so lazy for our neighbouring farmer, Pierre.
I watch him from the bench in the tomato patch, performing an elegant tractor ballet routine in the shorn field opposite as he collects and neatly stacks the rectangular hay bales.
First the “chug, chug, chug,” of a tractor as he arrives on stage, pulling an empty trailer behind.
He drives off in the “work-a-day” car he’s left overnight in the half-finished field.
Five minutes later (a long wait for the audience!) he’s back with a second tractor, fitted with a fork lift.
The ballet commences.
Forward approach with the fork lift tractor and spear the bale–forward again to the next.
Carefully lower the speared bale on top and back off–forward again lowering the fork, spear the second bale, lift the two and turn towards the tractor with the trailer, lower the two speared bales and retreat.
Turn and repeat until the trailer is full.
Change tractors and drive off slowly with the spoils on board and the sun still shining with the prospect of well fed cows in the barn this winter.
The “audience” leaves with a couple of ripe tomatoes in the empty breakfast bowl.
The tractor with the fork lift is left wondering what it did wrong as it stands alone “on stage”.
Act two for the watcher–checking out the leftovers in the fridge for a lazy Monday lunch.
Plenty to choose from and two ripe tomatoes….
Act three—lazy Monday siesta!
STOP PRESS!
LATE CHANGE OF SCRIPT!
An advance copy of the COOKBOOK arrived in the post today!
🙂
Grand Finale!?
Posted in Diabetes, other sides to this life, Robin Ellis | Tagged cookbook, Delicious Dishes for Diabetics | 22 Comments »
Our houseguest, Romaine, says she has a penchant for meat these days.
So off to visit Monsieur Fraisse, our butcher in Lautrec, in search of fillet of lamb for a marinade I’ve found.
Meredith and I don’t eat meat that often. My knowledge of the finer points of French boucherie is limited.
“Filet?–ça n’existe pas!”
“Aah….”
Monsieur Fraisse knows his meat. Like his father before him, he selects and buys locally.
M. Fraisse explains...
But our friend Romaine says she used to cook it in Cheshire, many moons ago–with Elizabeth David as a guide.
As far as she remembers the fillet was a boned loin of lamb.
It was sliced into neat nuggets she calls noisettes–a French word apparently not used in a French boucherie–at least not by Monsieur Fraisse.
The English, the French and the Americans all have their traditional ways of cutting up meat–and their own terminology.
It’s confusing, though from the way Monsieur Fraisse describes the cote de filet [chop] boned, it sounds much the same.
Anyway…
“when in Rome….”!
We walk out–still confused–but clutching a bag of lamb to marinade and looking forward to dinner!
Happy Roman
A tasty marinade for
4 lamb chops or other small cuts!
A good handful of mint leaves
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 large garlic cloves–pulped with a pinch of salt
50g/2 oz anchovy fillets–pulped
Whizz the last four ingredients together in a mixer and coat the chops in it in a bowl.
Leave to marinade for a couple of hours.
Heat a griddle to hot and grill the chops for a couple of minutes both sides–the time will depend on your taste and the thickness of the chops.
Seasonal vegetables like green beans or grilled tomatoes would go well with the chops.
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, Robin Ellis | Tagged boucherie, buying lamb in France, lamb cuts, Lautrec, marinade for lamb | 4 Comments »
Our neighbour Pierre-Louis came round yesterday to hear for himself what it’s like living near a motorway.
That’s what it’s felt like since they started lifting the garlic a couple of weeks ago.
Pierre-Louis is a young farmer who took over the family farm a few years ago. With a wife and young daughter to support, he is naturally looking to expand his operation.
He recently took advantage of an offer from a private power company that he couldn’t refuse.
The deal is that the company will build you a “state of the art” barn [you organise and pay for the interior] and in return they get to install solar [photovoltaic] panels on the roof and for 30 years they reap the profit from selling the electricity and the farmer gets the use of the barn.
innocent looking new barn...
After 30 years, the barn and the roof panels become the property of the farmer.
A good deal and as a result, barns have been springing up like morning mushrooms all round us!
Fortunately for us, the two nearest of these new barns, Pierre-Louis’ included, are tucked in behind conveniently-placed thickets of oak–so we don’t see them.
Masked by oak thicket new barn
No eyesores then–lucky us.
Ears-sore though–enough to drive you crazy–te rendre fou–like the mistral in Provence.
Pierre-Louis has increased his profitable garlic crop, producing much more than his father used to.
He needs more barn space and the use of large electical drying machines to dry it.
His garlic tresses no longer hang prettily in the ancient barn, drying gently in the breeze, but are blasted by the drier–twenty four hours a day, for four to six weeks after the harvest–hence the noise.
still life with Modern Barn and Large Wind Machine Generator
Our house is at the end of a noise tunnel–getting the full benefit of this round the clock cacophanous concert.
Pierre-Louis’s been busy with the garlic harvest and now the hay–setting up an effective sound buffer for our benefit has not been a priority perhaps–but he’s a reasonable man.
He came over to hear for himself the heavy hum of the “autoroute”.
On hearing the sound he saw the light and agreed it is too much.
We’ve negotiated some quiet times–and the promise of an ESB [effective sound buffer!].
He never mentioned it, but it is his living after all.
—
Posted in other sides to this life | Tagged barns, garlic dryer, noise in the countryside | 3 Comments »
Our friend Romaine arrives today and I know she likes houmous.
the ingredients
I do too–and this version has a bit of a kick to it.
ready to whizz...
There’s garlic, cumin and cayenne in this mix–with olive oil and lemon juice to loosen it.
whizzed and ready to spread!
8 oz cooked chickpeas–I prefer the kind in jars
3 cloves of garlic–peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons tahini
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 2 lemons
Put all the ingredients except the lemon in a food mixer and whizz smooth.
Add half the lemon juice and taste.
Add the rest of the lemon juice as you like.
I just made it with all the juice of 2 lemons and it tastes right –it depends on the size and juiciness of the lemons.
Posted in Diabetes, Food, Recipes | Tagged chickpea, houmous, houmus, humus, recipe | 7 Comments »
Making Poldark: Memoir
Includes photo from the NEW Poldark series!
Mediterranean Cooking for Diabetics
Healthy Eating for Life
Delicious Dishes for Diabetics: Eating Well With Type-2 Diabetes
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