Food Matters
I have surrendered to the demand for me to provide the service of a food Agony Aunt on my blog and created this page called Food Matters. So if you don’t know what meal to create with your fridge or freezer contents, or you haven’t a clue how to cook salsify, this is the page for you. Please post any queries or questions that you have relating to food as a comment on this page and I’ll do my best to anwser them!
Seeming your thinking about food, hopefully you can help me, as my thoughts are presently on the statistical analysis of soil contaminants on a former gasworks.
I’m cooking for 8 guests on Monday 7th April and need a veggie Main Meal, we’re not eating a vegetarian as that would be canabalistic but I am cooking for one.
I’m trying to be fancy with homemade salsa and mozarella/pesto aubergie bites with welcome drinks. Probably Delia’s leek and potato soup for starter, ending with some kind of chocolate pudding one of my guests is bringing. I need a main course. Any ideas?
Hi Will,
Does your friend eat fish or is he/she a true veggie?
Grrrr
Just found out she is a half baked veggie, i.e. she tries to be, but here mum won’t put up with any of that nonsence, and serves her meat which she eats. The rest of my guests are carnivores, so we’re on the same wave length as her mum, we’re not going to suffer on her behalf. Therefore meat is on the agenda.
So I suppose I’m after a dish which will please everyone. Meaty, free range/happy but not just “meat” like a roast. Am I making any sence what so ever?
There are loads of really nice, impressive vegetarian meals to eat, I doubt you’ll suffer if you have to eat a meal with no meat in it! The Cranks Bible (a vegetarian cookbook) is one of my favourite cook books, and if you wanted to go veggie for the meal, I was going to recommend her Roasted Butternut Squash, wild mushrooms and spinach lasagna with salad and garlic bread – sounds delicious, tell me if you want me to give you the recipe.
Otherwise, why not meet your vegetarian friend half way and try my Marmite Thiloise (its in the blog post called Poor Man’s Lobster) – a tasty, impressive and easy fish dish. Plus, monkfish is quite meaty!
Let me know what you decide to do.
Lasagna sounds the way forward. I like this agony aunt thing. Do you do mortgages and savings accounts too, or just food.
Thanks
Just food – I’m the last person on earth you’d want to talk to about mortgages and savings accounts!
I’ll send you the recipe by email – if anyone else wants it, let me know and I’ll send it to you too.
Take a photo and tell me how the meal goes on Monday.
Hi – Some suggestions please. Am entertaining two five year olds ( + their parents and a couple of other oldies) on saturday – “tea party” – any ideas for simple and not junk food for the refreshments- the only suggestion made so far by the e.g.g. was crisps. I’ve just made one of those uncooked choc cakes with digestive biscuits but the 4 tablespoons of best Andorran brandy may have rendered it unsuitable.
Thanks s.g.g
PS Lamburgers are off ( and anything else resemmbling or coming from fluffy white prancing creatures)
Hi
Have just been browsing through Annabel Karmel’s Baby and toddler meal planner and have some great ideas for you.
Have a selection of raw vegetables (carrots, cucumber, red pepper, celery and cherry toms for example) cut into dipping sticks and serve with a selection of dips: AK suggests her Green Goddess dip (will email recipe to you), hummous and a dip made with sour cream, cream cheese, ketchup and chives.
Bits of cheese (babybel, edam, mild cheddar)
Children love pizzas, AK has a recipe for making mini pizzas on Muffins – do you want the recipe?
Pieces of fruit – melon, pineapple, strawberries, seedless grapes are favourites
Bananas dipped in chocolate (put them in the fridge so the chocolate sets before serving)
How does that sound?
BTW I’m sure if you put crisps out, they’ll devour those before anything else.
thanks + will let you know how we get on !
Why do butchers, including supermarket meat counters, in France leave the heads of quails on?
It was twelve more snips of the poultry shears when I had to spatchcock a doz. of them on top of 24 snips to get the backbones out and another 24 when I decided to cut off the thighs.
Smeared with harissa, roasted and served with cucumber and chickpea couscous it was a dainty dish to set before the ….(pix to come)
I’ve done some internet and book searches to try and answer you question PIP, it’s a question I’ve often asked too when I visit the butchers and supermarkets around here. There seem to be two schools of thought – those who like to cook quails heads on and those who chop the heads off! I read on one site that though the heads are not eaten, the neck and head are the most flavoursome part of the bird and so people like to keep them on during cooking. The same site said that if you want to chop the heads off, you should leave as much neck as possible on.
Hope all the snips were worth it – it certainly sounds nice!
Re Quails heads heads: I put the same question to an American foodie friend in the next village. Her view was that they could be left on to help the purchasers see how fresh the quails were – in the same way as one does with fish. Given the packaging of supermarket birds, I’m not convinced.
[...] I wanted to share a query with you that was posted by Pans in Provence (PIP) over on the Food Matters page: [...]
Hello – I’m a new, first-time mother, who’s breastfeeding. I find I have to eat masses (on top of an already healthy appetite) to keep up my milk supply for my ever-expanding son, especially carbohydrates. But I’m also pressed for time. Can you recommend any recipes that are pretty straightforward and which can be prepared in advance that are all-in-one, with the carbohydrate as part of the dish, rather than a side serving? (And which are NOT Shepherd’s Pie…..)
Thanks
(Very) Hungry Mummy
Hungry Mummy I know exactly how you feel and I have lots of ideas for you! I’ll dedicate a new blog post to your plight in the next couple of days – hope you can hold out that long!
[...] – In need of Carbohydrates June 3, 2008 I thought I’d share a recent request from my Food Matters page with you in the hope that you may have some ideas to impart with [...]
please can you send me the recipe for butternut squash and spinach lasagna it sounds lovely
Hi Jo,
No problem, I’ll send it to you shortly. Thanks for reading my blog and enjoy the lasagna which, by the way, is delicious!
two questions –
1. can you post the butternut squash and spinach lasagna on the blog too, please? apologies if it is on here already and i’ve not seen it!
2. Bircher Muesli… have you found the secret recipe yet? A rapid concoction this morning of Dorset Cereals Light Flakes with cherry and pomegranate with Rachel’s Cherry Yoghurt reminded me of it but it still didn’t hit the spot in the same way that Bircher Muesli did.
Recipe on its way to you.
Still experimenting with the Bircher Muesli, haven’t hit the spot yet, though I made porridge with fromage frais, honey, strawberries, blueberries and peaches for Harri this morning which was pretty good.
Dear Foodalltheway,
In the coming days I am to be visited upon by a combined delegation consisting of my mother and her sister (my aunt). Some of your readers may sympathise with an inspection of this magnitude and will, I am sure, be waiting pen-in-hand to jot down your thoughts on rescuing themselves from a similarly nasty predicament. This bloodline retinue are afflicted by standards so high that men of less steady nerve would stoop to “surfing the net” to track down a London bistro that might be a match for the task. However, as the aunt in question comes from our sadly now lost American colonies, this show of weak will would reflect a thoroughly unBritish resolve to step up to the wicket and meet the job head on. For this reason, I am bravely coming to you for advice.
Stoically hedging my bets, I am offering a pre-supper champagne and canapés spread to act as starter to a later meal in a (I admit it) restaurant. However my lifestyle precludes endless preparation. I have the evening before to prepare what I can, leaving the final stages to a last minute flap between when I come home at around half-six and when they arrive which may well be before me. Dragging the contents of my cupboards onto the floor in a panic I find of potential use: x1 tin of pate de fois gras; some brioche slices; some miniature blinis and of course a well stocked champagne cellar. My time allows for a single visit to the shops. Perhaps you can salvage the situation.
Yours as ever,
Anxious of Bloomsbury, WC1
PS. Anxious isn’t my real name.
[...] Fat Ducks Quickanapés December 4, 2008 I’ve had a desperate plea over on the Food Matters page for some Quick Canapés to serve with Champagne – if you haven’t read it, here it [...]