Today we’re having toad in the hole for dinner with onion
gravy, broccoli, carrots and probably some other vegetables. Tesco sausages,
but good ones, the kind with plenty of meat in them. I am very fond of
sausages. I’m fond of all sorts of meat. I like a very rare steak; I like the
crispy, fatty bits of skin on a just-out-of-the-oven roast chicken; I like
spicy chorizo and bacon and ham and all those other meats packed full of preservatives
and salt; I like roast pork with apple sauce and crackling; I even, now and
then, like liver, though I’ve never fancied kidneys (it’s the smell). Fish too,
all the fishes, though I draw the line at tuna pasta bake – what a revolting
thing to do to food!
So tonight, it’s toad in the hole.
And tomorrow we start cooking vegetarian.
Why? The main reason because my youngest daughter wants to.
She has wanted to be vegetarian for a couple of years and I said no because the
rest of us didn’t and cooking more than one thing on a regular basis is just
too much work. But I promised her we’d give it a go, all of us, when my middle
daughter, the carnivore, left home. Tomorrow’s the day.
You’ll notice I said we’re cooking vegetarian. We’ll be vegetarian at home, but since I have
no ethical reason to be vegetarian and no particular preference for it, I’ll
eat meat elsewhere if I feel like it. I’m intrigued to know if I’ll be
desperate for a huge steak, dripping with blood after a few meat-free weeks, or
if I’ll pass it by.
For me, it’s about the challenge. I can and do cook plenty
of meatless meals. But I’m not sure I have enough at my fingertips to work out
a week’s menu that doesn’t end up heavy on the pasta and cheese. I expect to be
looking up new recipes every week until I’ve expanded my repertoire of everyday
meals. And that’s absolutely fine. I’m up for it.
Anyway, this is the start. Here’s my first menu (not quite a
week):
Wednesday pasta
with broccoli (from Veg Every Day by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall)
Thursday eggs
Friday nachos
Saturday lunch: Moroccan chickpea and
spinach soup
(A Soup for Every Day New Covent Garden Food
Co)
dinner:
pea and charred spring onion fritters
(The Modern Cook’s Year Anna Jones)
Sunday red
onion tarte tatin
Monday pasta
and tomato sauce
Two lots of pasta in six days isn’t too bad. Monday’s pasta
is cooking without engaging my brain; Wednesday’s we’ve made several times and
it’s very easy. Two recipes are new to me (the Saturday ones). I wouldn’t
normally bother to note down lunch, but we have people coming over on Saturday
so I’m making an effort! Thursday is a make it yourself day because I’m going out,
hence the vague ‘eggs’. Nachos because I had the stuff already. Sunday’s is
easy but a tart always seems like you’ve bothered and it’s nice to bother on a
Sunday. It’s good enough for week 1: a bit of effort but not too much. It is
all a bit heavy on the cheese though, isn’t it?
I’ll let you know how we get on.
Claire Watts writes and edits books for children.
She's currently working on making something beautiful with fairy tales.
Find out about her Snippets project and how you can help on her Patreon page.
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