What’s in the Haddock Kitchen?

A girl cannot have too many baskets. Useful things. This one is guarding part of my onion and garlic crop from this summer. Properly dried and stored ( in a basket of course) they will last for many months. Little is wasted, Even the odd one that attempts to sprout can be rescued and used. A good larder staple.
Likewise, the much maligned dried bean takes pride of place in the Haddock kitchen.
My earlier post containing my musings on the rising cost of food included a photo of my dresser in the kitchen housing my supplies of grains cereals, pulses and the like.
Quite a fetching display some may say perhaps. For me it serves a more practical purpose. I can see what I have in stock – I don’t now habitually buy a packet of rice, pasta and flour every time I go to the shops.
How many times I did it before my epiphany over food purchasing I couldn’t even hazard a guess.
As my blog develops I aim to include recipes using my “dry store”, in an attempt to illustrate it as an invaluable resource in the kitchen. Like the onions, they have a good shelf life and do not have to join the weekly fridge clear out, that so often results in terrible waste.

Starter for Ten (Minutes)

I am impatient. I love to entertain, but never seem to have the motivation to give up a lot of time for the starter or dessert. It’s a flaw that one day I hope to rectify.
I tend to try and attain a degree of “special effects” in the vain hope that I will overshadow any short cut effort on my part so the guests won’t perceive any apathy over their long awaited invite to eat chez nous (I have a reputation to maintain at the end of the day). I am often forced to set fire to some nervous bananas as a last ditch attempt at impressing………..the lengths one must go to.
I am cleaning up my act. I am a staunch believer in a bit of forward planning these days, and this does now avert the odd charred tablecloth and hastily purchased cold cuts and the like to masquerade as a “rustic” starter.
Take last Saturday as an example.
Dips seem to exude a charm all of their own – the odd furtive excuse to lick your fingers and wipe your plate clean with a slice of bread. Communal eating at its best.
I prepared three dips.
YOGHURT AND CUCUMBER – Two small pots of yoghurt, thinly sliced and peeled cucumber and a generous dollop of mint sauce from a jar. Stir and serve.
HUMMUS – Take one tin of rinsed chick peas, add chopped garlic, tahini, olive oil, some water to thin and the juice of at least one lemon. Blitz in the proccessor and pour into a dish. Toast some pine nuts and scatter on top. Drizzle with your best olive oil and sprinkle with some paprika ( I like the Spanish pimenton picante).
SWEET TOMATO PUREE. -This is where a bit of advance cooking comes into its own. I use Claudia Roden’s recipe (Arabesque) and seal it in preserving jars for later use – If that sounds a bit daunting, it can be frozen or made two days in advance and kept in the fridge.
OLIVES – Open jar or packet and put into bowls (no instructions for this stage I feel)
BREAD (need I say slice it??)
This really is a ten minute starter and quite fool proof.
Try it, its so easy.

Are You Having a Food Crisis?

It seems that everywhere we look today, there is talk of global food shortages and rising prices.
Like many others, I have been confronted with increases in food prices at the supermarket over the past months.
The reasons have been clearly spelled out for all of us – rising fuel costs, a massive increase in grain prices, a huge demand for an improved diet from countries like China and India, an urgent need to seriously invest in food production……..these are but a few of the reasons conveyed to us all.
So, what can we do?
Pay more and more?
Eat less?
Shop more wisely?
We will each of us come up with a strategy for dealing with our food budget.
Having considered the options, I do not really want to “give in and pay up” to the supermarket price hike.
I think, quite simply they have had it too good for too long.
The time has come to shop with more care and attention to detail.
I have adopted the folowing “good habits” when I shop now.
1. I take a list of what I need
2. I take a calculator
3.I take my reading glasses to read those ever so small shelf edge labels (Having done a quick once around our local supermarkets, they seem to be largely black writing on a dark grey background – not the easiest and clearest colours for reading!)
4. I set a budget of what I will spend for a weeks’shop.
5. I shop around.
6. I have set my price per kilo for a number of basic foods. ( I have set my meat budget a 8 euros a kilo)
It’s not really rocket science, and it’s getting back to basics, but quite honestly, it is so easy to get caught out.
I quote the following example:
I went to a hypermarket about 10 days ago and wanted to buy some “instant packet noodles” that my daughter seems to exist on.
I picked up a few different brands, and noticed that the price per kilo was around 7 euros 20 cents. Given that pasta is made of the same basic ingredients, I found this rather surprising as a kilo of pasta can be bought for less than 1 euro 50 cents.
After a bit of digging around, I was able to find a brand that I had used before costing around 2 euros 60 cents a kilo.
Not the sort of saving to start booking a Carribean holiday on, but that is just one example in a weekly shop.
Just think about the rollup on several items bought on a weekly basis……..it is then easy to see where the extra expense comes from.
I don’t intend to throw hard earned money away on the basics of eating, and will use this blog space to post some ideas and recipes that will help keep that unwanted expense in check.
Watch this space………………………………..

Store Cupboard Items in Haddock's Kitchen