What’s Wrong with This New Genius Bread?
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve got the new formula Genius bread from the littleWaitrose at Highbury Corner.
What’s Wrong with This New Genius Bread?
It never seems to go off and last night, I had two slices with Benecol to go with my supper. It’s even still soft this morning, although I did toast it.
But the sell-by date was the 27th of July.
Bread shouldn’t last that long! But it does!
The only real problem I have is that the Waitrose I use most at the Angel, only sells their own-brand rubbish!
Lindsey Bareham Does A Delia
Delia Smith over the years has become famous for something called the Delia Effect.
Items to have benefitted from the “Delia Effect” include the Kenwood mini-chopper, Martelli pasta and Aunt Bessie’s mashed potato.
I actually have one of the Kenwood mini-Choppers, as I’ve never been good with knives. I have a scar on one of my fingers, where I sliced my finger open with a craft knive at about the age of ten.
Lindsey’s effect is less dramatic, but it started with this recipe for pulled ham hock and pea pasta with herbs.
This is the ingredients for four people.
350g fusilli, penne or other short pasta
200g frozen petits pois
180g pulled ham hock or thick-sliced ham
150g Greek yoghurt with honey
2 limes
2 tbsp finely sliced chives
1 tbsp shredded marjoram or basil
She says this about the pulled ham hock.
Whenever I see pulled ham hock on sale – it’s sold in an eye-catching red 180g double pack – I pile it into my shopping basket. It’s such a useful standby; perfect for quickie pasta suppers like this one, but ideal, too, for sandwiches and gratins. These chunky pieces of well-flavoured ham get mixed with my other favourite standby; frozen petits pois.
And that caused the Bareham Effect! My local Waitrose is at the Angel in Islington and this is their pulled ham hock. But it was totally sold out and hasn’t been seen since the recipe was printed. But I suppose it is Islington!
I cooked the recipe for the first time on Wednesday and it was so good, I cooked it again last night. As I live alone and generally only cook for one, I have modified the recipe to match my skills and needs.
I started by getting a tumbler of Carluccio’s gluten-free pasta, half a mug of frozen peas and shredding some ham.
Pasta, Peas And Ham
The ham was actually one 180g bubble of Waitrose’s honey roast ham. I just tore it into smaller pieces. I had put a saucepan on to boil.
A Saucepan With A Built-In Strainer
Note the lid with the built-in strainer. I find this very easy-to-use with my gammy left hand.
When it was really boiling hard, I added the pasta, which needs eight minutes to cook. After five minutes, I added the peas. Incidentally, I washed the cup in the boiling water, to make sure no peas were stuck inside.
After the pasta and the peas were cooked, I drained them and then added the ham, half-a-tub of Rachel’s Greek yoghurt with honey, the juice of half a lime, the chopped chives and the herbs and stirred it all together.
Ham And Pea Pasta
One of the amazing things about this dish is the aroma, as you combine everything together. The taste is very good too, as otherwise why would I cook it twice.
Incidentally, the first time, I didn’t have any limes handy, as one doesn’t, so I used some lemon juice. So I only needed to buy the ham and the yoghurt.
The next time I make it, I probably use some of my normal yoghurt and the honey, that I generally have for breakfast.
It’s definitely, a recipe that fits my staple foods, so even the shopping is minimal.
I suppose though that automatic computer stocking in supermarkets being what it is, Waitrose at the Angel will be piled high with pulled ham hock in the next week!
Creamed Chicken With Asparagus And Peas
This was another of Lindsey Bareham’s recipes from The Times. The original recipe is here.
The original serves four, but it was only for me, I cooked a small half quantity and modified it to be gluten free. I also used various Waitrose products to avoid having to use skills I don’t have.
I used the following.
- 100 g of asparagus tips
- half a bunch of spring onions
- half a pack of Waitrose’s mini chicken fillets
- one tbsp of gluten-free flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
- 100 g of frozen petit pois, although mine were actually garden peas. It’s about a third of a standard Ipswich Town mug.
- 25 g butter
- a very small glass of white wine
- 2 tbsp of St. Helen’s Farm, goats double cream.
The method is as follows.
Trim the asparagus tips and boil hard for 2 minutes in about 250ml of salted boiling water. Scoop out of the water and set aside. Keep the water aside.
Slice the spring onions thinly.
Slice the chicken into strips, about 5 cm. x 1 cm. and toss in the seasoned flour.
Chicken Prepared For Cooking
Melt a few grams of the butter in a large frying pan and gently soften the onions, then scoop onto a plate.
Cooking The Spring Onions
Add the rest of the butter and increase the heat slightly. As soon as the butter has melted, cook the chicken in batches, so that each piece has a thin, pale golden crust.Return all the chicken, add the wine and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon to mix the flour from the chicken into the wine, cooking until thick and syrupy.
Cooking The Chicken
Return the onions, add the asparagus cooking water and bring to the boil, stirring constantly to end up with a thickened sauce.
Adding The Onions And Water
Add the peas and simmer gently, cooking for about 10 mins until chicken and peas are tender.
Cooking The Chicken And Peas
Stir in the cream and then add the asparagus.
Adding The Cream And Asparagus
Let the asparagus warm through and serve.
Creamed Chicken With Asparagus And Peas
I served it with some of Waitrose’s microwaveable pearl potatoes.
It was delicious.
My I Love De Beauvoir Bag
I’ve just got this I Love De Beauvoir bag.
My I Love De Beauvoir Bag
My only problem with it is the dreadful self checkouts in Waitrose at the Angel, as it refuses to sit on the tiny shelf.
I got mine from the De Beauvoir Association.
Why Do I Have To Buy 2.5 Kg Of Potatoes?
I made two chicken, bacon and potato pies last night, but in Waitrose I had to buy 2.5 Kg of potatoes, as they didn’t have any smaller packs or loose ones that were suitable for mashing.
Why Do I Have To Buy 2.5 Kg Of Potatoes?
As I had to carry them back on a bus, I wasn’t pleased.
My two pies need a kilogram and as i don’t use many the remainder will probably have gone off before I need them.
Is this why we waste so much food?
I just buy what I need to make my meal or in the case of pies, my meal and one a couple of days later.
We need an efficient cooking philosophy that minimises waste, cooking time and washing up.
Some will say this is why ready meals are popular, as all you have to do is stick them in the microwave and wash the plate up at the end. But I have just thrown an unused Marks and Spencer ready meal into the bin, as I bought it in case, I didn’t get any food on my three late nights last week, and it is now well past its sell-by date.
The Terror Of Packaging
These bacon packs from Waitrose are some of the many packaging ideas, that need to be opened with smoething sharp.
The Terror Of Packaging
Once you’ve opened the packet, you then have to wrap it all in clingfilm, with all the problems that means, otherwise it quickly goes off.
I think, I’ll find a proper butchers that sells loose bacon, so I can buy the quantity I want.
It’s all a plot to get us more, than we actually need.
I probably need three rashers of bacon, twice a week at most.
Do Banks Design Systems To Trap Us Into Extra Payments?
Twice now in the last three months, I’ve been late with credit card payments. Nothing serious, but I got an extra charge of £12.00. I think it happened, as did the other one, because I tend to pay my credit cards all at the same time at the end of the month, when my American Express Card comes in and I’ve just had my pension payment.
So as I was flush at that time, I paid off most of the debt on the card. But apparently, I paid too early in the last accounting period or something.
The last time, it happened on another card, they phoned me to say why hadn’t I paid. When I said what about the extra payment they gave it back.
But how many of us, get caught out by rules, that need to be read by a lawyer with a fine tooth comb?
What would help, would be the ability to define your payment date on your credit card. I seem to remember doing this many years in the past. Zopa incidentally, allows this when you borrow and even allows you to change the date, due to a change of circumstances.
In some ways I’m getting my own back. For travel, hotels and large purchases, I now use my American Express card and for small ones, I now use cash. The problem is Waitrose, where their self-service tills don’t take cash. Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury, who both have better tills, do.
They Can’t Tell Sheep From Goats
The Sunday Times is reporting that goats meat has been found in some lamb products.
This doesn’t strike me as serious as the horsemeat scandal, but yet again, it shows the importance of knowing where food has come from.
I’m cooking some pork for my lunch and will be particular, where I buy it from. It will probably be Waitrose, but on other days it could be Marks and Spencer or a proper butchers, like the one on the Essex Road.
If you pay a crap price for food, you probably get what you deserve.
The First Asparagus Of Summer
I bought some fresh English asparagus yesterday in Waitrose.
I just fried it in a little olive oil, with some seasoning for five minutes. It was delicious.
It’s certainly one of those ‘posh’ foods worth eating!
Waitrose ‘Can Add 50 % To The Price Of Your Home’
The Standard also reports this.
I’ve got three within a simple bus ride, but I have a feeling that one will turn up nearer in the next couple of years.
The Anonymous Widower 