BBC.co.uk feature on The Bridge Cafe from The Apprentice: BBC NEWS | Magazine | Fry-ups and dressings down
It probably says an awful lot about me that when the losing team on each week’s The Apprentice gets sent to the Bridge Cafe to bitch at each other, I often think that I’d rather be there having a bacon butty and a cuppa than where the Surallan has sent the winning team for some poncetastic experience.
Cottage pie
So far 2009 has been mixed, with regards to the quality of my food intake. A quick glance at the food diary shows a distinct lack of home cooking, partly due to the fact that the family are still trying to get over the Christmas cold/flu that’s affected practically everyone we know, and partly due to the leftover Christmas snacks available for easy, but bad, appetite suppression.
Since we are now back into the realms of normal routine - back to work A.G.A.I.N. - it’s time to try and get back into good habits. Today, I decided to make cottage pie for dinner. To be more accurate, I’d decided to make shepherd’s pie, but lamb mince was unavailable at Waitrose this morning, so beef was used instead.
I make no claims for authenticity or otherwise of my recipe (although I’m not convinced anyone could reasonably claim to have the definitive recipe anyway):
Ingredients:
Method:
I took my largest Le Creuset saucepan, got some olive oil up to a pretty hot temperature, and browned the minced beef. Given the quantity involved, I did it in batches to keep the temperature nice and hot, so that the beef didn’t just stew.
After tipping the beef out somewhere safe, I used the same pan to sweat the carrots and onions until nicely soft but not mushy, then added the beef back in. I sprinkled about a tablespoon of plain flour onto the mixture, let that cook for a good minute or two, and then poured, ooh, about 500 ml of water freshly boiled from the kettle. I let that bubble away until I got a lovely unctuous gravy with the meat, then poured that into my pie dish. I let it all cool down before sticking it in the fridge, to ’set’ the mixture. It makes whacking the mashed potato on top that much easier.
Speaking of which, obviously you need to do some mashed potato to top the pie. It’s hardly rocket science, but for the record, peel and chop your spuds into small cubes, then boil that in salted water until soft and mushy (but not completely falling apart). Drain, then return to the pan for a little bit more heat to drive out any excess moisture, then mash it up. I added a generous knob of butter to my mash and glug of extra virgin olive oil. I was going to stick a handful of grated cheddar cheese into the mash, but the missus wasn’t keen on the idea. (If I was making mashed potato as a side dish, I’d also add a good few glugs of full fat milk to make it lovely and creamy, but for a pie topping, I want it fairly stodgy.)
When your mashed spuds are done, stick them on top of the pie, and smooth out with a spatula. If you’ve cooled your meat mixture, it should be a piece of cake, er, pie, to do this bit. I realise now I should have made a video to show the technique I use to get my mash topping right, as I’m struggling to find the words to describe it. Ho hum.
Stick your completed pie in a hot oven for about 25-30 minutes. Finish it off under a hot grill to get a lovely crispy topping. I’d recommend putting the pie dish on a baking tray, by the way, in case the meat mixture bubbles over, like mine did.
Screenshot of Growveg.com's planning screen
GrowVeg.com - The Smart Way To Plan Your Garden*
I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but there’s no getting away from the psychological impact of the change from one year to the next.
2008 was, for various reasons, something of a ‘lost’ year as far as the allotment goes, and I’m determined to use 2009 well and get the allotment into a good state. There’s a lot of work to be done, but at least if I cut stuff back now, it’s not going to spring back even more vigorously before I get to it again. (One my mistakes last year was trying to tame the allotment during the summer.)
Anyway, one way of being productive about the allotment when I’m not even there, is to make sure my planning is all in order. To that end, I’m signing up for Growveg.com*.
As the website neatly puts it: “GrowVeg.com is an innovative garden planning tool which helps you grow fruit and vegetables to the best of their ability, whatever the size or shape of your garden or plot.” There’s also useful articles on the site to read through, so you’re not just left with a pretty online version of graph paper.
I’ve signed up for the free 30-day trial, and I’ll report back regularly as to how I’m finding it. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up paying for the full account (only £15 per year, or £25 for two years), but it’d be stupid not to take advantage of the free trial first. If you’re feeling generous you can always buy someone else a Growveg.com gift certificate*.
*These links are affiliate links - if you click them and end up paying for a Growveg.com account, I’ll get a little bit of money for referring you. It won’t cost you any more to use this link compared to going to Growveg.com directly. I promise I’m linking to Growveg.com only because it’s interesting.
I’m afraid this is going to be one of those ‘I’m sorry I haven’t posted recently’ posts.
I don’t think the food diary format is really worth keeping up, as it was something of a chore to think of something interesting to say about absolutely everything I ate; I can only imagine what a chore it would be to read through those entries. The other reason for not continuing being that I’m in awe of Anne’s Food, which is intimidatingly good at the daily diary thing. Even the weekend cat blogging is great!
Anyway, the food diary hasn’t gone away - I’ve just found a more appropriate way of doing it. If you go to http://diary.spagblog.co.uk/ you’ll find a tumblr blog (a ‘mini blog’, for the uninitiated) which will hold the food diary entries.
The thing is, I’m not giving up on this blog, no way. I’m just rethinking what I want to achieve with it. To be more precise, I’ve already had some good thoughts on what I’d like to achieve with an online food site. I’m just working out how to put them into practice while still leaving enough time for the day job and the family.
Ta ta for now.
Breakfast:
Scrambled eggs and (cold) ham. Distinct lack of carbohydrates available this morning, so I whipped up some eggs.
Lunch:
Covent Garden Co. chicken soup, with a ham baguette.
Dinner:
Home-made burgers (made simply with minced beef and a pinch of salt) and potato wedges (McCain, not home-made).
Breakfast:
Marmite bagel.
Lunch:
Beans on toast, made by P.
Working from home today, and having to work over lunch due to someone not sending me something until very late.
Dinner:
Chicken and tarragon pie, with potato wedges and baked beans.
Breakfast:
A late one, in the office: bagel with chives-laced Philadelphia cream cheese
Lunch:
Ebi gyoza and beef ho fun, from Miso Noodle Bar in Richmond (a working lunch).
Dinner:
Chorizo risotto, made by P.
Breakfast:
P was unwell, so it was up to me to sort out A’s breakfast. I managed to grab a marmite bagel and a half, in between serving little madam.
Lunch:
A chicken, lettuce and tomato poppy-seeded baguette from posh bakery Paul. It was a strange feeling having to venture out to get lunch and pay for it with cash.
Dinner:
Noodles with some leftover chicken slices from Sunday’s festivities.
Breakfast:
No breakfast. Tut tut. To be fair, I was still full from the meal last night.
Lunch:
Visitors from the US still around, so we went for sushi at Matsuba. I wrote a review on Qype ages ago, but since I always have the same thing - the Matsuba special bento box - it still applies.
Dinner:
After eating out so much this week and last week, it was a relief to have a good old spag bol, cooked by P.
Breakfast:
I don’t think I actually ate anything for breakfast.
Lunch:
We had some visitors from the US at work today, so we all went out for lunch at the floating restaurant H2O. We shared bruschetta and garlic focaccia (with and without cheese). I had a main course of seafood pizza.
Dinner:
Again, visitors meant eating out. This time we went to a lovely French restaurant called La Buvette (my review on Qype). I had an excellent meal, with all three courses very much up to scratch: scallops, onglet steak with chips, nougat glacé.
