Decided on Pork Chops today, with Baked winter veg (a la Delia) Green beans, a little stuffing for me, and apple sauce for Y. The ingredients were sweet-potato, butternut squash, carrots, celariac, and swede (or turnip as we Derbyshire lads always called it).And French Shallots (eschalon) which I originally left off my chopping-board picture. So, with the magic of PhotoShop and the reference-book on my book-chair, I have inserted them middle-top. This sort of tinkering, i.e. for a specific purpose, seems entirely legitimate. It is completely different from putting two people who've never even visited the USA, in front of the White House for an alleged holiday photo. Or substituting a pretty sky for a drab one and pretending that's how it was.
Picture 2 is how the veg. looked before going in the oven and, as I was riding the PS sleigh, I inserted one of the finished meals.
The Delia recipe is (as always) very forgiving. For instance at the end of her list of ingredients she says "use whatever you've got" Part of the process is to put the veg. in a plastic bag with olive-oil and herbs, to give them a good shake. And, if you are entertaining you can do that bit up to 2 days before, which is very handy.Good old Delia! say we aged Jamie Olivers. I took to her many years ago when she was a mere 'slip of a girl'. She was on the telly doing a dish which needed grated cheese. She grated the cheese into a bowl ad then put her hand up the inside of the grater to get out the remaining few flakes. "A real cook" I thought and "A girl after my own heart".
Santa brought me a posh kitchen timer, a Salter which you can set for up to 90 minutes. The 1hr max on the old one used to annoy me, plus its feeble little squeek when it went off. But today I was glad I hadn't thrown the old one away, for differential timing. It's good to have 'two-timers' - so long as no-one accuses me of being one.
The weather is supposed to be unseasonally mild but the wind-chill actor is making it really cold. Y braved it and went out in the garden cutting back, because the council are still collecting garden rubbish. Y's sensible theory is that, while they are collecting it, she might as well fill the appropriate bin. Broxtowe Council are quite exceptionally good and deserve praise rather than the brickbats councils usually attract.
The car went in for service and needed wiper-blades, spark plugs, and a newe tyre which had an unfixable nail embedded in it. They delivered it back home for me and I could tell, just by backing down the drive and into the garage how much better it is for the attention.
Just before I leave you I ust comment on a yesterday's 'comment'. How could anyone dislike Rolf Harris? He has always been a great entertainer and, in my view, a talented artist. Y and I both rated his portrait of The Queen as so much warmer and telling than most of such.
....Catch you tomorrow......
I like Rolf Harris - and his portait of the Qyeen, I bet she found him a breath of fresh air to talk too while she sat for him.
ReplyDeleteHad a slight cold, and then as is usual in my case it went staight to my chest nd I have been coughing for England, which is why I've been quiet of late.
Not much cooking done of lte either, my tatse buds seem to have atrophied......
The veg sounds lovely but a bit too sweet for me with both sweet-potato and butternut squash although I would want some parsnips and ordinary potato. And I, like the Scots and most northerners, always called swede turnip until I discovered what turnips really are.
ReplyDeleteDelia is very reliable and with her book in th ekitchen you do not really NEED any others - except for ‘foreign muck’ (that is intended as a joke because I probably do more Madhur Jaffrey than anything else),
As a kitchen timer I always put a jug of cold water in the microwave, turn it to the lowest setting, and use that. Backup is my mobile phone alarm if I am going to leave the kitchen.
I keep telling you, temperature, like time (unless you are poaching an egg) is relative. I think that is probably what Einstein was getting at.
Newark and Sherwood DC is better at collecting rubbish than getting hedges cut down. But they do their best...
Your tyre WAS flat last Wednesday, then?
So Bush is sending more troops to Iraq. Did someone liken him to Canute?.
Oh, come on! It was an aphorism and ‘Difficult to dislike …’ sums up Rolf all right for me – like Jade Goody or her mother when you have become accustomed to them (and, for me, UNLIKE, for instance, David Dickinson, Ainsley Harriott, Michael Winner, Bruce Forsythe, Jackie Stallone and that pompous television art critic whose name momentarily escapes me; all of whom I find VERY EASY to dislike). And Rolf certainly does have considerable if comparatively shallow/ephemeral ability as a painter and musician and entertainer (compared to the greats, that is – pick your own). But everybody’s lists will be different in some respects.