Roll on Spring

It is a perfect Spring day - too warm for April, but blue-skied and burgeoning with promise.

I have the luxury of a whole garden day and, not wishing to interrupt the flow of clipping and weeding, ran down the hill for a sausage roll for lunch. 

It is 3 years almost to the day since I first clapped eyes on my home, though it took much longer before I could move in. When a local business opened a Kickstarter campaign to open a community-focused local deli I gladly chipped in, hoping for some variety to the fried chicken shops.  I love fried chicken but a deli would definitely add something useful!

And so it is that on days like today I can pick up a hot-from-the-oven sausage roll just 5 mins from home.  I still don't have an oven of my own, so baked goods are such a treat right now. What a sausage roll it is: soft, plump, delicately flavoured.  And the pastry! It is bigger than the picture but it didn't make it to the plate without being assaulted.

Its companions are fridge-foraged: a little brown rice and flash-fried courgette with garlic, chilli and a squeeze of lime. The drink is the taste of summer 2016: elderflower cordial, made last year with my parents.

Only another month or two before the elders flower, and it all begins again.

hello? Is it me you're looking for?

The cooking dry spell continued, making me more grateful than ever for other people's home dishes. Jimmy's classic ham, rice and salad; an Ottolenghi-salad lunch crafted by Mel; Alex's barley and black pudding risotto.

And then, after two days alone in the burnt ochre palette of English autumn countryside, I noticed my cooking mojo sitting next to me.  He looked like this:

I had picked courgette, tomatoes, rosemary and thyme from Rosie & Alex's garden. So I made ratatouille and chipolata sausages for supper, and also a lamb stew for school nights this week.

Mojo Lamb

Brown the cheapest of stewing lamb in Alex's nice, deep pot, then remove to a dish. 

In the lamby pan, add more oil, then in it sweat sliced onion and cumin seeds.  

Add diced celery and cook a bit more, keeping the heat low. 

Return the lamb to the pan, cover with water, then add in rosemary, diced carrot and a few odds of courgette that had gone mushy at one end, but you wanted to rescue the edible bits.  

Leave on low for a couple of hours, happy in the knowledge it will taste even better when re-heated after work.

Pour a glass of wine and let the aromatic rosemary smells sharpen your appetite. 

Lesley's courgette and Bernadette's basil

I do sometimes get tired of thinking of what to eat: the natural ennui of someone who works full time and so is tempted to choose the same, quick meal, and who also has the unlimited choice of anything in the world that the supermarket provide.

Yes, I did just say there are too many option, and I do realise how spoilt that sounds, but I actually find it liberating to have restrictions. I remember my mother coping with the autumn apple glut with such imagination: just when we were at the improbable point of being sick of raw apples, apple crumble and baked apple, out would come the apple fritters. Magic!

This encouragement into creativity is one of the (many) reasons home produce delights me, and this week I was the happy recipient of garden-gifts from two colleagues. On Tuesday Lesley presented courgettes from her allotment, with the weary sigh of someone mid-glut and trying to prevent any turning into marrows! I was dining alone that night so I took just one, sliced it on the diagonal and quickly fried it in oil with some chopped garlic. Sharing the plate - but not the glory - were baby Jersey potatoes and a quick-fried salmon fillet, dusted with paprika and salt. Heavenly.

Due to good weather, Bernadette's basil plant had produced abundantly and today she brought in bags of delicate, aromatic leaves. I thanked my lucky stars that no one else got there before me and bagged a bag. Right now it lies chopped in a bowl with some toasted, chopped pine nuts, a little parmesan and a lot of extra virgin olive oil. I have made this into a proper paste before, using pestle and mortar, however I much prefer this rough, verdant version. I can't wait to put the pasta on: hurry home, gent!

These two ingredients have really whetted my appetite and I can't wait to get to the market at the weekend for more inspiration!

'It's not worth cooking for one'

After a breakfast of a 'Duchy original' lemon chocolate truffle and some sesame grissini sticks - eaten with one hand, whilst the other applied mascara - I ruminated on food habits all the way to work.

Formerly, I was a breakfast devotee. Not a faddist, but it was as essential as going to bed in the evening and I would never consider skipping it. Moreover, it was always a good breakfast: a whole phase of creative porridge making, that blissful time I lived in Cardiff (not because of Cardiff, you understand -!) and discovered 'cold porridge' in a health food book - later re-invented as 'pukkola' by Jamie Oliver. My favourite variation was with roasted slithered almonds, fresh peach and yoghurt or cream on top. Weekend breakfasts, naturally, are a completely different feast.

My other firm belief was that I should always cook proper food, even though I mostly cooked just for myself. As I student I made stews, soups, bread, delicate chicken and pearl barley broth - always there was something good. Living by myself years later I would roast a whole lemony chicken for one - already planning the 5 other meals to squeeze from the carcass. I baked soft loaf-cakes and zesty muffins to glut on, then the rest went in the freezer so each day I could take something good to work.

But now I seem to have turned into one of *those* people. You know, they miss meals if there is no one to eat with, know the best dish on the take away menu and can't think beyond pasta. I haven't gone quite so far as to say, as my grandmother before me did, 'It's not worth cooking for one': it is the very reason I would cook for myself, and just thinking of it makes me turn to the stove!

On Tuesday the cupboard was bare. I didn't even have the ingredients of pancakes, and was so low on energy and enthusiasm that going to the shop for milk wasn't an option. Instead I gently revived my spirits with a leek and courgette omelette. I added shavings of Pecorino before folding it in half, waiting until it was perfectly soft - but not runny - inside before sliding it onto a plate. Necessity being the mother of invention (no bread or easy-cook carbs in the house) I heated half a tin of butter beans, made some garlic oil, then mashed the drained beans into the oil. Hot garlicky butter bean mash.

It was the best thing to happen that day.