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I’m not doing very well at keeping up with … well … updating! There’s so much I want to share and yet I must find more time! And so many promised posts and recipes … I haven’t even finished off my food memories of Italy (part 1 and 2), and that was last September!
Note to self: must try harder.
On a jollier note, we had a scrumptious and so SO simple tea of roasted summer vegetables. This is my idea of cooking, of eating, of tasting. And what a Nigel Slater way to eat dinner – just a plate of roasted vegetables and some hunks of good bread to mop up the juices.
In my pan of delicious roasted vegetables were the following: baby orange peppers, red pepper, yellow cherry tomatoes, red baby plum tomatoes and homegrown yellow courgette. All cut into similar sized chunks, drizzled with good olive oil and roasted.
The added extra that make this dish really simple were liberal dollops of sundried tomato paste, hunks of buffalo mozzarella, finely chopped garlic, a sprinkling of dried herbs, and some good old fashioned seasoning (salt and pepper).
I also whizzed up lots of fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil, and a good handful of grated Parmesan which was drizzled over everything towards the end of the cooking, and extra served fresh.
All this was munched up with gorgeous foccacia bread from Jane’s Handmade Bread – bought that morning at Abbey Leys Farmer’s Market.
You can’t get better than that!
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Yesterday was lovely. It was one of those days when you feel whole, you feel content, you feel that life is good.
Mr Rigg and I spent the afternoon helping out the stall for our local Low Carbon group at the town’s May Queen Festival. We are both involved in the group, me leading on local food. We spoke to lots of people from our community, handed out information and lots of the ‘really local food’ maps I have produced.
Then we headed up to Abbey Leys to get some eggs and bacon (I’m planning on making a Quiche Lorraine this week). The sun was shining, the sky a dazzling blue. The hedgerows are green and alive with twittering birds. The hens and ducks at Abbey Leys were all down by the pond and sheltering in the shade of the trees.
Outside the farm shop was a bucket of locally grown Sweet Williams, a bunch of which now adorns our living room in an earthenware pot salvaged from the carboot. Inside, Mr Rigg filled up two boxes with freshly laid eggs. I found some outdoor reared Gloucester old spot streaky bacon in the chiller.
We also filled up a bag with the first Cheshire new potatoes, still with earth clinging to them. And then I saw them – a tub of locally grown peas. I adore peas. Peas plucked straight from the plant, popped out of their crisp pods and into my mouth. Nothing is perhaps more delicious.
These were the first local peas I have seen, so we got a full bag. By the time we got home I’d eaten about a quarter of the bag already. Needless to say, they didn’t make it past sundown.
From all this delicious local produce and some from our garden we ate a scrumptious, simple dinner – will post this separately. This is how all days should be. Should make you feel.
Simple but so, so tasty! Part of my attempt to eat as much seasonal asparagus as possible!
Asparagus and scrambled egg on bagel
Feeds 1
Asparagus
Olive oil
2/3 eggs
1 bagel
Salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Snap off the woody ends of the asparagus and pop in an oven proof dish. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cook for between 7-10 minutes until tender. My asparagus came from Kenyon Hall Farm.
Cook the scrambled eggs your own way, or you could try ‘my perfect scrambled eggs‘ just omit the chives. Be sure to use the best eggs you can get hold of – organic, free range, woodland, home laid – this will make all the difference to the taste of your scrambled eggs. Mine came from Abbey Leys and were corkers!
If your bagel is super fresh from a deli or bakery (mine came from the Barbakan) you could just eat it fresh, sliced in half and lightly buttered. If not, toast it before buttering.
Pop the buttered bagel on a plate. Spoon over the scrambled egg. Top with the grilled asparagus.
Mr Rigg ate his asparagus with a fried egg and crisp streaky bacon instead. So many options! All delicious!
Soul food for wintery weekends – a bowl of homemade French onion soup and chunky slices of bread smeared thickly with butter. We ate Miracle Bread from Jane’s Handmade Bread bought at Abbey Ley’s farmers market spread with white goat’s butter.
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