BARGAIN OF THE WEEK: 1/2 PRICE COD LOIN

This week's bargain find is Cod Loin from Tesco at half price. (£11 a Kg) I went a little crazy and brought four packets; one for dinner tonight (See recipe Cod on Red) and three for the freezer to pull out when lacking inspiration for anything else. Cod is the fish equivalent of meat's chicken. Its firm flesh allows it to be cooked in a variety of ways and take a whole range of flavours, from Mediterranean to Indian.

This pack of two large cod-loins cost me £2.98. The total cost of this dish is around £4.00 for 2 people.


COD ON RED: A Delicious, Healthy, Weekday Supper. 


You will need: 

1 large red pepper
Half a red chilli
1 clove of garlic
2 tomatoes quartered
2 Cod loins
2 slices of bacon > preferably smoked but it's not crucial (parma / Serrano ham is also fine)
Drizzle of olive oil.

Method: 

Roughly chop the pepper and place into the bottom of a ceramic roasting dish.
Slice the bottom half of the chilli into small rings and scatter across the peppers.
Peel the garlic, thinly slice and sprinkle across the pepper / chilli mix.

Add the quartered tomatoes.
Sprinkle a light coating of smoked paprika over the veg medley. (careful not to use to much and over power your dish - a tablespoon's worth is ample.)

Wrap a slice of bacon or cured ham around the cod loin and place the wrapped cod loin on top of the vegetables.
Stick into the oven for about 20-30 mins (depending on thickness of loins)

Serve with: sparkling water and a slice of lime or an ice-cold Corona.

NOTES: I'm adding a side dish of fresh greens; asparagus and tender stem broccoli. Having watched the Hairy Bikers weight challenge, I'm going to ditch the carbs in this dish and season my green veg with lime zest rather than my usual method, which would be to slather it in butter.

CELERIAC SOUP WITH CRUMBLED STILTON & TRUFFLE OIL DRIZZLE

Having got two celeriacs in the veg box before Christmas and having to store them in the larder rather than the fridge due to stuffed-fridge syndrome, they were looking a bit tired and were one step away from the compost bin.


This is the stage I like to call 'Soup Stage'. Soup is like the elixir of youth for vegetables; rejuvenating them into something once again beautiful and appetising as well as completely fulfilling.

Having had a little look around for a celeriac soup recipe and not coming up with much success, I played around with this recipe today, which even though I say so myself, is one of the loveliest, indulgent and decadent soups I have ever made; so, I thought I would share it with you.

Of course, you don't have to use a tired old celeriac or use up skanky pieces of left over Christmas stilton to make yours, although there is something incredibly wonderful about taking some mouldy old cheese and a wrinkly old vegetable and turning it into the equivalent of French silk lingerie.

For this you will need:

One whole celeriac (Peeled and chopped into chunks)
Two medium onions (peeled and quartered)
Two fat cloves of garlic
three cloves
1 Bay leaf
Couple of sprigs of Thyme, stripped.
A splash of dry sherry (optional)
A pint and a half of chicken stock

Crumbled stilton for topping
Truffle oil to drizzle.

Chef's album Choice:

Trust me, this isn't a one album kind of dish. What's needed is a little bit of elegant, laid back, lazy afternoon modern blues / jazz will set the tone for this lovely lunch dish. Make it as Romantic as you can. Follow up with a little Madeline Peyroux.




Setting & Props:

This soup is a bit of a dinner party in a bowl. It would be too rich to serve as a first course and it is a little more sophisticated than a gardener's break, eaten whilst wearing wellies and a muddy jumper. As such I would make an occasion of this soup. Dress a table with a nice white linen table cloth, an ice-bucket containing a very chilled bottle of white. Set the music to lounge setting and chat away a romantic afternoon, tearing bread, and passing away the afternoon with chit-chat. It's fulfilling and rich enough to feel like a substantial meal whilst not being too heavy if you wish to engage in any afternoon physical exertion.


Total Cost: Under £3.00 for a large saucepan full (serve 4 amply for lunch)

ADDITIONAL NOTE: TRUFFLE OIL. 
Truffle oil would be my desert island culinary must have. It always seems very expensive (around £6.00 for a tiny bottle) but I use it at least a couple of times a week and a bottle lasts me 3+ months. Truffle oil is potent stuff. A couple of drops (treat it like an essential oil) will elevate any soup to a different level.
Try stirring it into buttery mash potato and you will truly think that you have placed one of heaven's clouds in your mouth, or spot it over garlicky, butter-fried mushrooms on toast. It's an investment that you will wonder how you ever lived without and helps add luxury to frugality.
I can't stress enough how little you should use, as too much on a first attempt may put you off for life.
WAITROSE sell a basic chef's truffle oil for just £4.39 but it can cost as much as £50.00 a bottle.

METHOD: 

1. Heat a splash of olive oil in a heavy based saucepan. Place on a low-mid heat.
2. Add the quartered onions, the cloves of garlic and the thyme and stir around until softened and about to turn a very light brown 
3. Add the bay leaf and the three cloves and the splash of sherry. Cook off the alcohol for a minute or two, until it is bubbled down and a nice golden liquor colour. 
4. Pour in the chicken stock. 
5. Place in the chunks of celeriac and cook down on a low heat until the celeriac is soft to the knife-pint. (It will have discoloured slightly, don't worry about this.)
6. Whilst this is cooking, prepare your stilton (older the better as it goes crumbly) by crumble-cutting your stilton. 
7. REMOVE YOUR CLOVES!!! (DO NOT FORGET)
8. Using a hand blender, blitz the soup until as smooth as it will go. (Some chef's insist on sieving soups at this stage, but quite frankly, I believe that life is far too short for those kind of shenanigans)
9. Spoon into deep soup bowls. Pile high with a handful of crumbled stilton and drizzle over the truffle oil. (Be careful, it's very potent stuff - treat it almost like a perfume)

Eat with warm homemade bread (if you've had the time and foresight) or part-baked rolls straight from the oven. 

SERVE WITH a very crisp glass of dry white wine such as Pinot Grigio - this will cut through the unctuousness of the soup. 

Veg Box: With regret...

It is with regret that I have made the decision to give up on the Veg Box scheme with Abel & Cole. As those that follow the blog are aware, I have been investigating its value for money and how it works for us as a family.


The weekly comparisons demonstrated that the box certainly wasn't the most economical way of purchasing organic, seasonal veg, although some weeks it proved to be much better value than others.

The joy of it being is a surprise once a week has been sadly replaced with a slight impending sense of disappointment. I think the straw that broke the camels back was the box before Christmas, (when the South of England was suffering extreme cold and wet weather) which contained a large proportion of salad items. Now to me that isn't doing what the preacher preaches. How can tomatoes, lettuce and spring onions be classed as December seasonals?

Surely, one of the main points of the box scheme is the sense of working in harmony with the seasons. Yes, I know that people do eat salad all the year round and I imagine that 'market forces' would be the business decision behind this - but quite frankly, for a cook, 4/10 items being salad is like a rainy birthday. I expect the winter boxes to be stacked full of squashes, brasicas, leeks etc.

The other reason is  my sense that the box is being bulked. By this I mean that lower cost produce is being used to bulk out the 'look' of the box. This was especially the case with the great big floppy lettuce, which has been an almost weekly addition since JULY and the celery that has also featured at a greater frequency - as it's not in season, it has proven to be stringy and tough and invariably ended up in the compost heap.

One of the other recurring bug-bears has been the addition of produce that just is not big enough to stretch to feeding four people. We get the £19.00 Large Family box, which in my mind should mean that if there is a cauliflower, or aubergines, or sweet potatoes, or peppers then it should be in enough quantity to make a serving for four. Too many times one of our veg has been just enough to feed two people. How can you serve four people on one red pepper?  Even the cauliflowers have been so small that they barely make a Sunday lunch spoonful - not alone a staple veg dish like cauliflower cheese for a family.

Then in two of the last four weeks, we have had produce that is either off or has such a short shelf life that it has looked unappetisingly tired. (We had broccli that had a mould patch growing on it and A bag of kale that went yellow within two days of being in the fridge.)

There are still positives about the scheme. It is undeniably convenient. Ethically, the idea rocks! It is comparable with other retailers, and certainly consistently cheaper than Waitrose. The element of surprise (when it is a more imaginative box) is certainly fantastic for a cook. Every now and then there is a little surprise in the box - such as a lovely globe of garlic this week and a mini mince pie the week before Christmas and a calendar (which we seem to have received twice)

So in short here are the following reasons why we are sadly giving it up

1. Not particularly good value for money.
2. Not seasonal.
3. Not varied enough.
4. Quality of produce. 
5. Quantity of produce. 

So our next exploration is going to be the Farmer's market in Twickenham. I'm planning on taking exactly £19.00 in cash and seeing what I get for my money. Stay posted for the results. 

Obviously, this is just the experience of our family and I am sure that there are many families and their cooks who find the veg box scheme works for them really well. I'd love you to post your comments and to open up a discussion on the merits and fall backs. 

Bargain of the Week: Cast Iron Casserole Pot JUST £25.00

Two weeks before Christmas, a terrible tragedy took place in our kitchen. I was cooking a beautiful kleftico lamb shoulder joint in my lovely blue le Creuset casserole dish - on what I thought was a very low heat. Somehow amongst the chaos the cooker knob found its way to over 200c. The result, when we returned home from the park, was a very sad looking piece of lamb and a burned out le Cruset dish.

I literally wept. At over £120.00 a throw, my le Creuset casserole is - was - a beloved item. It was used at least three to four meals a week and waved a magic wand over casseroles and slow roasts. There was no way with Christmas approaching that I could justify spending out on a cooking pot. (Despite them being 25% off in the Bentals department store.)

So after a very Le Creuset bereft Christmas, imagine my delight at finding this little baby in Sainsbury's. It's currently half price at £25.00 which is a snip. It weighs, feels and looks like a Le Creuset, and so far the early signs are that it is going to cook just like a Le Creuset. It's got a great weight to it and is sturdy and solid. 

The offer runs until 29th January 2013.