Veg Box Diaries (1)

Thursday 26 June

Meat box:

  • Chicken Thighs
  • Gammon steaks
  • Venison

Veg Box (small)

  • Potatoes
  • Lettuce
  • Tomatoes
  • Bunch carrots
  • Broad beans
  • Broccoli

There is one thing about having a veg box – you have to eat vegetables. And because veg box vegetables are

  1. So expensive
  2. Organic

You feel obliged to use these vegetables and not throw them away.

Other veg this week (mostly from Sainsbury’s

  • Sweet corn
  • Baking potatoes
  • Avocado
  • Butternut squash
  • Mushrooms
  • Courgettes
  • Asparagus

Thursday

 

Friday

Sweet corn followed by pasta with fresh tomato and Madeira sauce

Saturday

Sticky maple gammon steak served with roast carrots, sweet corn and broccoli and potatoes

Sunday

Saffron risotto with veg (asparagus, courgette, broad beans, carrot)

Monday

Salad followed by chicken curry (chicken thighs, carrots, butternut squash

Tuesday

Salad followed by chicken curry with Bombay potaoes

Wednesday

Salad followed by mushroom omelette and potato wedges

How many recipes?

According to the Waitrose magazine, Waitrose Kitchen (January 2013), the average Brit knows 10 recipes off by heart. Which I suppose is not too bad. Take my husband. He can make porridge, omelette, boil potatoes for 20 minutes and make toast. And follow the instructions of ready meals. In the days when we ate beef burgers, he could cook beef burgers as well.

The problem with such a statistic is that it does not define what is a recipe. Is beans on toast a recipe? Does this include cakes and scones? Does this include using ready made sauces and puff pastry? Does it include variations on a theme?

From what I can see, there are some basic cooking techniques. Recipes are these techniques with different ingredient lists. Risotto for instance. The survey claims that 3 out of 10 people can make a risotto. Actually, I use a pressure cooker for this – saves the standing around and the end result is good. But you can make mushroom risotto, asparagus risotto, chicken risotto – different recipes?

I make several types of cake – one basic recipe (a Victoria sponge recipe). I make soup – the ingredients are the different, but the method the same. I make stew – one method and different ingredients.