Saturday 26 September 2009

I love Ocado!

I am a total convert to the joys of Ocado. I love the fact someone brings shopping to the door. I know I have to do the virtual shopping and have to pay for it, but there is something wonderful about the nice people in the jazzy vans bringing goodies. There is, for me, only one drawback trying work out the size of something by its weight. I've been caught out a couple of times by this, usually when I wasn't being too observant and trying to finish shopping while I still had my time slot reserved. One week I managed to buy a very small loaf of bread, thinking I was buying an average sized loaf. While last week I managed to buy some minute small lamb steaks. Think I understand now a little about war time rationing!


I know I'm a foodie, I should be going to the farmers market. And I do, sometimes. The trouble is I usually have R in tow. Now for a four year old I think she is pretty good with quite a lot of food, hey she even has olives on her pizza. However, there is something about a farmers market that brings out the phillistine in her. I have this vision of us ambling round the farmers market as she tries various things, nodding her approval, recognising the seasonal produce, asking about the providence of the meat. Ok maybe not, she doesn't even really understand that chicken (meat) and chicken (farmyard friend) are the same thing nevermind 'did it have a happy life?!' but you get the picture. Now she is a child who loves eating fruit (yes I do like to be smug about this to other mothers) so where better to take her than a farmers market full of lovely free fruit for her to try. She picked up a lovely blackberry last time we went, popped it in her mouth and then started trying to turn her mouth inside out while making retching noises. She ended up spitting it into my hand and then complaining it was 'really yukky'. All in earshot of the stall holder. Then she started saying that the cheese smelt 'disgusting'. But she can't just say it once, she has to say it over and over again, at the top of her voice (and the top of a four years olds voice is a very loud place to be). Oh well, maybe she will grow into it, or maybe I'll have more luck with daughter number two.

So, due to the lack of market-etiquette of my four year old and the fact that if I head to the shops I have a newborn who isn't keen on the idea of browsing, my trusty laptop is taking the strain and the nice men from Ocado are bringing me lots of lovely things - even if they are half the size I thought they were!

Thursday 24 September 2009

Why the perfect mouthful?

Well, I have my husband to thank for the name. I've got this little obsession when I am eating something like a roast dinner or a fry up that there is a perfect mouthful where you get a bit of everything on the plate on your fork - this is no mean feat with something like Christmas lunch!

So, what will feature on this blog? Well, lots of the things I like (homemade cake, Thai curries, mashed potato, cake, cheese, sunday lunch, Lakeland utensils, cake, pasta, syrup sponge - did I mention cake?) and some things I don't (bad shop bought cake, beetroot, peas, cold seafood, pizza with chicken on it). They'll probably be lots of things about what you can get a four year old to eat and in about four months time introducing the new addition to the family to the world beyond milk. They'll be receipes I like, receipes I don't like. Probably a few random thoughts. A lot of kitchen envy directed at TV chefs - this week Nigel Slater - his kitchen looks bigger than my house, in fact his fridge looks bigger than my house!

Oh and if I didn't mention it before, there will be a lot about cake.

Wednesday 23 September 2009

First pasta post!

I've been meaning to set up a food blog for ages. Now I've done it I've actually managed to pick a really bad time. I've just had my second child and any time when I'm not carrying an increasingly heavy newborn around or encouraging my four year old to pick up her toys (or not pick up the cat) I'm trying to cook something for me, my husband and the cat menacer that has some vague nutritional content, at a time when it is much more preferable to call Dominos or eat toast - again! I should be trying to cook something not writing about what I'm not cooking! I kind of think that maybe the two will go hand in hand, and that by writing about food, I can find my way back to it again. I like cooking, in fact I find it very relaxing as long as no one tries to help me (they can observe, they can pass me wine or grate parmesan) but they interfere at their peril. My husband - M - knows this all too well! Actually, I'm also no fun in the kitchen if M tries to cook. In fact I think I am a culinary bully. If M is cooking I usually leave the kitchen, it is better for our relationship that way. My sister and my foodie friend are the same too - interestingly they are also the only two people who I will let help me cook.

So what am I cooking today? Well I'm not, I'm re-heating the remains of a bolognese sauce I made a few weeks ago and froze. It is definitely a bolognese and not a purist ragu and it will be accompanied by whatever pasta we have in the cupboard. I haven't cooked it from scratch, it's about as authentically Italian as the frozen pizza we had for lunch (!) but it is homemade, comforting, counts toward your five a day and even got a thumbs up from the cat menacer (what does she know she's four!). Hey, it's a start.