Me: Have you seen they're saying we should be eating ten fruit and veg per day now?
Jen: I remember when ‘ten-a-day’ referred to Woodbines.
Vegetating
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Tag Archives: vegetables
Vegetative state
HOLY CRAP!!
BBC: Iceberg lettuces and broccoli rationed as vegetable crisis hits supermarkets
Personally, I blame the EU, asylum seekers, and the Welsh.
Looking on the bright side, however, there's also a shortage of courgettes.
Lentil arithmatic
As yesterday was the last day of Lent, Jen and I decided to celebrate by eating lentils.
Although we both quite enjoy the taste of lentils, we don't eat them very often, and had never cooked them before. But somehow we managed to muddle through, transforming what might have been a relatively inoffensive vegetarian dish into something rather spectacular involving pancetta and pork sausages. In a word: absolutely delicious.
It was only as I was tending the simmering lentils that it occurred to me I had no idea what a lentil plant looked like. Lentils are pulses, so I guessed they hatch in some sort of pod. This morning, I verified my hunch on Wikipedia:
The lentil (Lens culinaris) is an edible pulse. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, known for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about 40 cm (16 in) tall, and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each.
Whoa! Hang on a second! Two seeds per pod!? Have you seen the size of a lentil? They're not exactly filling. I reckon I ate at least a thousand of them last night. That's 500 (presumably minuscule) pods to shell. 1,000 pods, if you count Jen's portion. Who in their right mind is going to cultivate those? You'd have to be bloody nuts.
According to the same Wikipedia article, lentils were invented by aceramic Neolithic types in the Near East. I can't help feeling they might have spent their time more productively actually coming up with ceramics, then perhaps moving on to pancetta and pork sausages.
(Don't get me started on Brazil nuts.)
Please don't tell any of our friends, but…
Jen and I cooked a vegetarian meal last night, and it was bloody brilliant: Mediterranean and Basil Pasta.
We then discussed which meat or fish we would add to make it into food. My money's on sardines, but it's just a hunch.
Seasonal tip
If you don't like Brussels sprouts, you are almost certainly cooking them too long.
Sprouts should have a bit of crunch to them.
Sprouts are the food of the gods.
Using my swede
Jen and I had roast pork for dinner last night. It was excellent. We had it with mashed carrot and swede. As usual, there was too much swede, so we only used half. The following conversation took place:
R: There's half a swede left. I could use that to make the world's biggest potato-print!
J: But it wouldn't be a potato-print; it would be a swede-print.
R: Hey! I might win the Turnip Prize!
(I'm here all week, folks!)
Only 9 months till Christmas!
Better put the sprouts on.