Lindsay Bareham Does It Again!
This is another of Lindsay Bareham’s Dinner Tonight recipes, from The Times on Thursday, and again it’s gluten-free.
The ingredients are as follows and the quantities serve two.
- 2 pollack fillets
- half a lemon
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 200g green beans
- 150g frozen petits pois
- Best olive oil
The method is as follows.
- Heat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6.
- Place the fish in a small roasting pan, splash with 2 tbsp olive oil and squeeze the lemon juice over. Season with salt and pepper.
- Roast for 6-10 minutes depending of the thickness of the fillets.
- Whilst the fish roasts halve the beans.
- Drop them into a pan of vigorously boiling water. Add a generous seasoning of salt and boil for 1 minute.
- Add the peas and boil for a further 2 minutes or until the peas are tender and the beans still al dente. Drain.
- Return the beans to the pan with 1 tbsp of your best olive oil. Toss thoroughly then pile in the middle of two warmed dinner plates.
- Drape a fillet of fish over the top, add the juices and a swirl of your best olive oil.
- Serve immediately offering sea salt flakes and the pepper mill.
I do wonder if Lindsay realises that most of her recipes are gluten-free.
But what the heck I’ll keep looking for them and trying them.
The Problems of Evening Football at Ipswich
Evening football shouldn’t be a problem, but yesterday meant that I had to travel from Stratford in the rush hour and that means that a cheap day return wasn’t available unless I left before 4:30. In the end I got the 4:09 after taking the North London Line from Dalston Kingsland. The trouble was this got me to Ipswich at about five thirty for a match that starts at a quarter to eight.
Ipswich isn’t too good for eating gluten-free, the only place being Pizza Express and they were full, so in the end I resorted to plan B of eating a packed supper in the rain in the stands. I should say though, that I could have booked myself a gluten-free meal in the restaurant at Portman Road, but I didn’t want to pay the extra to sit away from my friends.
The salad I took was interesting in that it was a Four Bean and Buckwheat Salad from Waitrose.
Waitrose Four Bean and Buckwheat Salad
I ate it with some salami and an EatNakd bar. It was delicious and I don’t seem to have suffered any reaction. But then it didn’t list any allergens on the package. Why can’t they label it with None? Thanks go to the guy in Waitrose in the Barbican for checking the rather small print on the label.
I did make one mistake in that I forgot to take any cutlery, but thanks to Marks and Spencer in Ipswich for letting me have one of their free forks, without making a purchase.
We see a lot of bad service, so when I get good service it should be recognised.
Another Taste of Suffolk
I like my hummus and usually have it with some toasted Genius bread, that I cut into fingers. So today I bought a pot of hummus with butter bean, mint and lime from the de Beauvoir Deli for my lunch.
Purely Hummus
One reason I bought it, was it said that it was suitable for coeliacs on the packet and it was only when I got it home, that I found that it was made by a company called Purely Pesto from Saxmundham. And the last time I looked, that oddly named town was in Suffolk.
As to the hummus, it was very good.
The New Evolution Diet
This was being promoted in The Sunday Times yesterday.
It basically says eat a variety of foods, like vegetables, meat, fish and eggs, nuts and fruit and avoid foods like grains, dairy, starchy foods, some fruit and soy beans. It also advises taking exercise, most of which appears to be walking and simple arm and back exercises. But then Dogtor J has been saying things like this for health in people and their pets for years.
Looking at it in more detaill, it is very close to what a coeliac might eat, except that I probably eat too many potatoes and bananas for the diet’s liking.
So have we coeliacs been right all along in avoiding grains like wheat and barley?
My late wife, C, wasn’t a coeliac, but she followed a virtually gluten-free diet, as she didn’t want to cook separately for me. She also did plenty of exercise.
In the end it didn’t do her any good, as she died of a very rare squamous cell carcinoma of the heart, but only a few months before she died, I took this picture on the beach in the Aeolian Islands.
Nakd Bars
Good gluten-free snacks are hard to come by. But have the Welsh come up with something better than the ubiquitous banana?
Nakd Cocoa and Orange Bar
They certainly taste nice. My only worry is that they seem to be a bit addictive. They do say on the packet that the bars are “Gleefully made in Wales”
Is this another case of a food company being innovative to expand and get us out of the recession?
They are also following a trend of trying to make the packaging funny and very much worth reading. Humour is the greatest weapon in life and we don’t use it enough in marketing and business.
Perhaps the reason we got into the recession was have we ever had such a humourless bunch of politicians as Gordon Brown and NuLabor?
You May Get the Man Out of Suffolk, But You Can’t Get Suffolk Out of the Man
I wasn’t born in Suffolk, but according to my father I was conceived on the floor of the Ordnance Hotel in Felixstowe. But for the last forty years or so, I’ve always had strong associations with the county and of course I still support Ipswich Town.
But Suffolk gets under your skin and every time I go to the local de Beauvoir Deli, I’m reminded of my history, as they sell products from Pinney’s of Orford. C and I must have had upwards of fifty happy meals in their Oysterage in Orford. I think C would approve that I’ve just bought some of their smoked fish pate for my lunch, which I’ll eat with s0me Genius toast.
Smoked Fish Pate from Pinney's of Orford
Gluten-Free on Hope Street
Hope Street is the street that links Liverpool’s two cathedrals. It is also one of the best places to eat gluten-free I’ve found. I ended up eating in a restaurant called Host, but there were several places with gluten-free offerings. I probably made the wrong choice of meal, as I had a lamb shank in a curried sauce with root vegetables, as it was so difficult to cut up with my gammy left hand. But it was lovely!
Host on Hope Street
A Typical Shop
I took this picture after I unloaded my backpack and shopping bag yesterday.
A Typical Shop
Note the Genius bread, Pinney’s smoked salmon, Waitrose ginger cake, goat’s yoghurt and milk and the raspberries and juice. I forgot the eggs, but otherwise, I have enough for two days.
I think that it is true to say that as I can shop every day and getting there is either a walk or a free bus ride, I’m shopping differently now.
Now that I’ve got some operating instructions for the cooker, I can also eat a greater variety of food, at least in the way they are cooked. Yesterday, I used the griddle pan to cook myself a rather nice steak, whch I served with some microwaved vegetables. I wouldn’t have normally used the latter in the past, but they were on offer and peas and sweetcorn made a change.
I think it’s also true to say that as I go past a shop every day, it makes it a lot easier. I’ll go again today, as I need some envelopes to post some goods, I’ve sold on eBay.
An Update on Honest Bread
The two main uses I have for bread is to make toast for quick snacks like beans or scrambled egg on toast or to make some sandwiches when I go to somewhere like the football and I know that a gluten-free snack, except for perhaps a banana, will be unavailable.
Genius bread fulfils these purposes, but Honest bread does not.
I ate some yesterday, with a friend who lives a lot of the time in France and we both agreeed it was much like brioche. Fine for some purposes, but not for our lunchtime scrambled egg.
She felt it would make a superb bread and butter pudding.
I doubt I will be buying it again.
The Next Gluten-Free Food Opportunity
Yesterday’s visit to the cafe at St. Paul’s has got me thinking. What is going to be the next gluten-free opportunity. I was served gluten-free bread there and I suspect it might have been something like Genius. So perhaps the opportunity in a large metropolis like London is the supply of a range of quality GF bread and rolls. They will be a premium product as they will be aimed at restaurants and quality food shops. Get the product right and no self-respecting restaurant will be without its GF bread probably delivered almost daily. Remember in the late 1800s, virtually every part of London had their own craft bakers. Most incidentally were German.
Would the same also apply to beer?
I don’t know, but in probably ten years time, the market will be very different.
The Anonymous Widower 