Real food–easy, cheap, delicious, healthy…

I get a bit fed up hearing/reading on the television/in the press the oft-repeated mantra that “Oh, I have to buy ready meals because I can’t afford to do otherwise,”.

I don’t buy ready meals because I love delicious food and enjoy cooking, and ISTM that ready meals would be likely to fail on both counts. Being curious, though, and liking to stare at food of almost any hue whenever given the opportunity, I sometimes take a scan through the things on offer when I’m at the supermarket, and I have to say that it all looks extremely expensive to me. Added to which, the portions definitely aren’t large enough…

This evening I wasn’t sure what to have for dinner, so I made a v. simple soup from a couple of carrots, an onion, a teaspoon full of a cunning soup base that I made a couple of months ago (recipe culled from the River Cottage Preserves book–see ‘Souper Mix’–delicious and lasts (literally) months in the fridge), some handfuls of orange lentils, green lentils and pearl barley and a handful of new potatoes that I found lurking in the bottom of the fridge. Oh, and a handful of toasted and ground cumin seeds, just to add interest.

It all came to a huge pan for hardly any money at all, and in fact it only takes an hour from having the idea to tucking in (though it’s possible to leave it to simmer for longer, if you want to get all the sticky loveliness out of the pearl barley). I ate it with a yummy wholemeal roll that I made earlier, at a fraction of the cost of what I’d have needed to pay in a shop.

I understand that some peeps don’t cook from fresh ingredients because they don’t have the time, or (in some cases) wrongly believe it takes longer than it does, or–basically–because they simply don’t enjoy cooking. All of those are perfectly fair enough. This crap about it being more expensive than buying tubs of additive-filled semi-toxic gunk at hugely inflated prices is just ridiculous, though!

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Ooooh! Brilliant!!

Ye Olde Slowman mentioned to me a brillzville TV programme that I somehow overlooked last year. That’ll be because it wasn’t shown on the Cookery Channel.

However, I’m just settling into Episode 1 of Maestro, the story of 6 peeps competing to learn how to conduct an orchestra. I bet quite a lot of y’all saw it when it was first on. Doh…

Meanwhile, my wholemeal bread rolls are proving (ha! I hope…) downstairs in a bin liner. I made some mixed seed ones yesterday, and I think I can accurately state, without fear of contradiction, that they were just about the most noxious and lead-ridden lumps of dough ever to emerge from a mixing bowl. I ate a bit of one this morning, and I don’t want to go into too much detail at what’s still vaguely lunchtime, but if I explain that it involved an immediate dash to a small room upstairs and an extremely uncomfortable 10 minute hiatus then I’m sure you’ll get the picture.

Weevils in the flour, perhaps? Hmmm… or maybe Piglet and Piss-Piss had some sort of secret input?? I dunno, but I hope the new batch bears absolutely no relation to last night’s revolting bleuch.

Tragedy!!! *sniffle*

Oh noes!

Much as it pains me to say it, I did think Steve deserved to win. He had a creative edge that M didn’t quite match.

*sob*

I thought the sob story to gain audierce sympathy part was unnecessary and a bit tacky but I suppose it’s compulsory in TV these days.

Good luck to all 3 of them (but particularly to M heh… )

MTP — Exciting!

Go Marianne!

P is so excited that she`s lying on floor with paws over face!

Gosh! That Eric chap’s nice *g* Oddly enough, my dinner looked nothing like that.

“The size of your choux is much too big.” LOL! Shades of the “baking shit” I remember from when I watched the Roux Bros on television as a child

Michel Roux Sr. said
M was “Perfect” heh… Smug? Me?? Nooooo…..

I have to say, though, that I thought Steve’s puds were sensationally imaginative. Wow…

Masterchef: The Professionals – OMG OMG OMG!!!

Wow, that was Exciting Stuff! And what an unexpected treat to have the second episode as well!

*takes a couple of deep, cleansing breaths*

I was *amazed* by Steve and the other bloke in the first eppy. I had no recollection of either of them from the earlier rounds, but I thought they both played an absolute blinder tonight!

The knock-out round, though, was really heart-stopping stuff. WHAT A RELIEF THAT MARIANNE WENT THROUGH! ZOMG, my heart was in my mouth when it came to the end. When they called her name out second I thought they were about to say she had to go home! Other than Steve, who I thought was fantastic, none of them seemed to do as well as they’ve done in earlier rounds.

I almost cried when I saw Marianne’s first course, because it looked so dire and pedestrian. I thought the veggies looked as though they’d come out of a can! Thank goodness it tasted as good as her stuff always does, and that this time the meat was cooked. Phew… When her ice cream failed to set I had to pour myself a stiff drink…

Poor Ryan–I didn’t think he did himself justice tonight. Problems with his ice cream too? Sounds to me as though the ice cream machine may have been on the blink.

That starter that Steve produced for the knock-out round was just fantastic! I wanted to reach into the television and grab one *g*

At the end of the day, I don’t actually think they ended up with the four cooks who performed best throughout the whole competition. I think Ludovic and Ryan both did better overall than tonight’s third finalist (WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER HIS NAME? AAAGH…). And even though he cocked up the timings on two of his courses in the Quarter Finals, I *still* think wee David produced some of the most amazing food in the competition. I cringed all over again when I saw the look on his face when they showed the moment that he was knocked out by Ryan. That’s what happens with these knockout things, though; unless they break all the rules, of course, as they did earlier this evening, and fail to eliminate one of the contestants.

I’m supposed to be setting off for the Lakes on Monday, but if I do that then I’m going to miss the finals The series doesn’t seem to finish until Thursday night. It occurs to me all of a sudden, though, that I won’t have to miss the finals if I do B&B for the first 4 nights! Hmmm…. *g*

Masterchef: The Professionals — MORE tears before bedtime!

Oh NOES! Lovely Ludo Loses Out!! I can hardly believe it!!!

What a pity! Somehow Ludo’s spark of genius appeared to desert him this evening, and now he’s gone Good luck to the other chap, but on all previous showings Ludo was by far the better cook.

I can’t currently remember anything about the two remaining semi-finalists: they didn’t make any sort of impression on me. So now, I reckon, it’s all between the arrogant young bloke and the lovely Marianne.

MARIANNE! MARIANNE!! RAH! RAH!! RAH!!!

Fence? What fence?? *g*

Masterchef: The Professionals — Tears Before Bedtime…

Sexy and Loud

So my wee Gavroche is out!

It was a great eppy, and one of the closest I’ve seen. Finely balanced though it was, though, I suppose it was fair enough. Still… I was very sorry indeed to see David go out.

Good luck to Ryan. Seeing more of him, perhaps I misread what I thought was arrogance. To me he looks like somebody who thinks he has something to prove to somebody else. The very best of luck to him. I’m sure I’d have loved to eat those scallops, and I’m pretty sure I’d have loved the pea and beet shoots that went with them.

So! It looks as though they’re keeping those who competed together in the Quarters together in the Semis, so hopefully Marianne and Ludo won’t find themselves competing together. I’m just sorry that it had to be David v. Ryan tonight, because had it not been then I’m quite sure they’d both have made it through to the Finals.

Masterchef: The Professionals–exciting stuff!

I really love this, and I’ve been following it avidly thus far.

For me, 4 of them have stood out so far. Marianne, who seemed to me to be on a completely different planet in terms of cooking skillz from all the other contestants, until last week; the French chap, whose name I can’t remember; the (IMO) rather arrogant young bloke who won a major competition last year, and wee Gavroche

I was relieved, but not surprised, to see Marianne go through to the Finals this evening. It’ll be interesting to see how they pair the others up for the remaining knock-out rounds. I’m hoping that none of the peeps I’ve mentioned above will be battling against each other, but I suppose it would be surprising if none of them were.

Who would I like to win? Well, I suppose it depends on how things go. At the moment, though, my heart’s equally divided between Marianne and Gavroche.

Who would my money be on for the title? As things stand ATM, the rather arrogant young bloke looks to me like the front runner. I’m putting my money on Gavroche, though: I reckon there’s a hint of real inspiration to him. I only hope he doesn’t come up against the young bloke in a semi-final, and get knocked out.

*goes off to bite crubeens anxiously*

Food critics don’t get confusinger than this…

I’m still enjoying Masterchef: The Professionals along with a whole raft of other scrummy foody programmes here, but increasingly I’m struck by the frequency with which certain seemingly overweight heavy-boned food critics criticise would-be chefs for serving too much food on the plate.

Since their delicate appetites and finely honed food-related sensibilities apparently prevent them from pigging out in the way that a less sensitive, more plebeian scoffer like me might be happy to do, if presented with an over-generously proportioned plate of something extremely delicious, I can’t work out where all that gently rippling abdominal padding is coming from.

Is it some sort of previously undiscovered lipid-based osmotic process, perhaps, exclusive to food critics? Or possibly the mere sight of all those over-stuffed plates is enough to trigger in them some kind of metabolic crash…? Answers on a postcard, please, to the usual address. In the meantime, though, it’s a mystery!

ZOMG! Another culinary treat pour mes gastronauts!

Wowza!

Watching the end of a Keith Floyd (*sob*) proggy just now, in preparation for watching my recording of Masterchef: The Professionals, I spotted an advert for what I think is a new series from Nigel Slater!

Nigel is another of my cookery heroes. He doesn’t do a lot of television (and I have to confess that I found (what I think is) his most recent BBC series A Taste of My Life a little insipid), but my kitchen bookshelf is groaning with his wonderful books. Delia, Gordon and Jamie have been banished to a lesser shelf in another room. I enjoyed his piquant autobiography too: Toast — The Story of a Boy’s Hunger.

His original television series was inspiring in its simplicity, and the sheer yumminess of the lovely stuff he produced. When I’m hungry I sometimes get down a couple of his books and just drool at the pictures.

So! I’m extremely excited to learn that Simple Suppers is now on BBC 1 on Wednesdays, at 7.30pm. I missed the first one (WTF?!), but when I’ve drooled over Michel Roux Jr. I’ll go and seek it out on TV on Demand.