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Why didn’t I ever try these before??? They are one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten in a long time, perhaps even ever! A little while back I did a post asking you how you eat your crumpets, and a couple of people mentioned grilling cheese or marmite and cheese on top of them – to be honest, I thought the idea of a savoury crumpet sounded a bit weird.
But today, with not much else around and pretty bored at the idea of eating crumpets with golden syrup on for lunch, I thought it was about time I gave them a go. I toasted my crumpets first – I am a bit particular about how I toast my crumpets, on my toaster I put them in on setting 6 first, then toast them again on setting 2 but on the bagel setting so only the tops get another toasting.
Tonight we are attempting to make gnocchi for a Jamie Oliver recipe with a stilton and pear sauce. Jamie uses bought gnocchi but I’ve never found the supermarket stuff to be very good. So I thought I’d give it a go – will let you know how it turns out.
Jamie suggests its best eaten in front of a movie, so with the wood burning stove on I think that’s what we’ll do. Have a lovely evening whatever you’re eating.
I couldn’t bear the idea of going to bed tonight without writing a short blog post to mark the end of our meat-free month. No, I haven’t yet finished writing up my meat-free diary, and promise I will get round to it, but I really wanted to say “it’s the end.” I can’t quite believe I’ve actually stuck to something like this, it feels like a good achievement.
I feel like I am over the craving meat feeling, but perhaps that is because I know I can eat it again from tomorrow – Mr Rigg has just reminded me I promised to get up at 6am to make him a bacon sandwich before work. If there’s one thing this month has taught me, it’s to be more adventurous and make those recipes I’ve bookmarked but never tried.
I’ll be back soon with the final details of our meat-free month.
Yesterday was my favourite local farmers market at Abbey Leys so it was a great chance to stock up some lovely food. On top of this, I braved the icy cold with the other stall holders to promote a website I’ve set up to promote local, seasonal food in my community. It was so blinking cold in the barn, and although I was so pleased with my display of seasonal vegetables and old-fashioned seed packets on stick, a number of people did mistake me for a grower. Oh well.
But enough of that and back to the real bread. For a while now, a fantastic bread lady (officially known at Jane’s Handmade Bread) has been coming to the market. She makes heavenly real bread. My favourite is her Miracle Bread which is stuffed full of all kinds of seeds and has a lovely golden brown colour to it. She never arrives before 10.30am, having been up since 3am baking, but everyone waits and queues for ages just to get their hands on some of her beautiful breads.
Last weekend we had the most lovely food all weekend – and, obviously, all meat-free. We had Mr Rigg’s parents over for lunch on the Saturday so it was quite a challenge for us to come up with something we thought they would love, as they both really enjoy meat and fish. We decided on a curry feast and some little nibbly bites to start. Then on Sunday we seemed to eat well, or at least what I would consider to be eating well. See what you think.
Saturday 28th January
Beluga lentil crostini. It’s always nice to do something a bit special when you have guests, so we made these little tiny nibbles, a lovely recipe I’ve been wanting to try from 101 Cookbooks. They are small toasts topped with a goat cheese and herb mixture – utterly scrumptious!
Now the pictures get a bit less lovely as I was testing out my new phone and rushing to get everything out!
We made Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals vegetarian Rogan Josh curry – it’s got butternut squash, cauliflower, spinach and chickpeas in it and is utterly delicious – one of our favourite meals to cook. From the same meal in the book we also made the lemon pickle (I thought it was disgusting, but everyone else said it was quite nice in small amounts with everything else) and carrot salad (I leave out the almonds and don’t add much chilli).
It has been days and days since I last posted about our meat-free month. During those days (weeks really) we have had highs and lows of eating meat-free. When I last posted, with a snapshot of a vegetarian curry we were making, I was on a real high, thoroughly enjoying our meat-free month and the delicious new recipes we were trying out.
The past week has seen that go downhill with real desperate cravings to eat bacon and egg, and sausages. I don’t know why, but my body has just been desperate for something else – the result is we’ve eaten a lot of stodgy comfort food as you might get a glimpse of in my diary. My lovely friend Caroline who has just finished her meat-free month also said they experienced this, getting more and more desperate for, again, bacon and egg by the end of their month.
For now, here is my better week of eating…
Monday 23rd January
Stilton, onion and potato pie. Really, it is just that. Make some mashed potato, sweat some onions down until nice and golden, then in an ovenproof dish layer mash, onion, stilton and then more mash on top. Bake in the oven and eat. Fabulously stodgy and simple comfort food. Really should be eaten with lots of greenery.
Tuesday 24th January
Ah! No idea of what we ate! Didn’t take a picture so can’t remember. Oh well.
Wednesday 25th January
Macaroni peas. This is a new firm (and super easy and quick) favourite from Hugh’s Everyday Veg. You basically cook peas, then blitz half of them to a puree with some of the pea cooking water. You also add some sliced garlic you’ve gently softened in butter, along with some grated Parmesan (it’s a bit like a pea pesto). Then you mix together your cooked macaroni, pea puree and the remaining whole peas. It’s really delicious.
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