Found a couple of nice squid risotto recipes on the BBC Food website.
Squid ink risotto with chargrilled marinated squid by James Martin
Squid risotto by Nick Nairn
Going to try them out, will let you know how I get on.
Oops, not quite what I meant!
So there you are, a famous chef, Antony Worrall Thompson, writing in a magazine distributed all over the UK. You are talking about salads and you recommend the weed henbane, to be “great in salads”.
All well and good you might think.
Okay let’s just check the definition of henbane.
A coarse and poisonous plant of the nightshade family, with sticky hair leaves and an unpleasant smell.
Sorry.
Poisonous?
Nightshade (as in deadly nightshare)?
Unpleasant smell?
Methinks that Antony Worrall Thompson may have made a mistake!
From the BBC
In a magazine interview about watercress and other wild foods, Mr Worrall Thompson said the weed henbane was “great in salads”.
Healthy & Organic Living magazine’s website has now issued an urgent warning that “henbane is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten”.
The chef had meant to recommend fat hen, which is a wild herb.
Is it okay to eat Tiger Prawns?
I quite like eating tiger prawns.
However after reading this (slightly old) article in the Guardian, now I am not so sure…
The article starts on a positive note…
Something happened to prawns in the 1990s. Like the girths of western gourmands discovering fusion food, they started to grow and grow. Once a mere shrimp of a thing, a fiddly heap of shell for every tiny mouthful, the prawn miraculously turned into a great tiger, an effortless bite as good as lobster but at half the price.
Evidence of this startling evolution is everywhere. Prawns feature prominently on bar menus and in top restaurants. Thai spiced prawns have even infiltrated Delia’s Summer Collection cookbook. Healthy and fashionably south-east Asian, but not too exotic or rare any more, they have flown into our lives from apparently teeming tropical seas where everything grows bigger and better.
But then issues the following warning!
The price of providing an everyday luxury for consumers in industrialised countries has been a catalogue of damaging consequences in developing nations. Serious environmental degradation, disease, pollution, debt and dispossession, illegal land seizures, abuse of child labour and violence have afflicted the dozen or so countries entering the market. Western diners, meanwhile, are eating a food dependent on the heavy use of antibiotics and growth hormones.
Hmmm, may now need to reconsider what prawns I buy and eat – difficult to do when eating out!
Mexico rustles up giant baguette
BBC reports on the world’s biggest sandwich.
Mexican caterers have made what they say is the longest sandwich in Latin America, throwing together a 44-metre (48-yard) “torta” in five minutes.
Dozens of people from sandwich outlets in Mexico City came together to produce the monster baguette at the start of a three-day torta fair in the capital.
Each section of the 600kg (1,320lb) sandwich had a different flavour and 30 ingredients went into the mix.
Theory Cafe, the theory is flawed
In theory the Theory Cafe, part of the at-Bristol complex should be the perfect place for families visiting at-Bristol, however that theory is flawed on a few levels.
The Theory Cafe does have a kids menu, which for a city centre location and at a location for a family day out, are reasonable priced at £3.95 – the macaroni was only £2.95. The food is not just kiddes food and comes served with salad.
However first flaw, no high chairs!
If you are a toddler, sitting on a proper chair and eating dinner is not an option. Sitting on a sofa is fun, but pity the poor customers who have to sit on the sofa after the toddler has gone!
China plates are nice to eat off, less nice when they fall on the floor and smash – not that happened to me, but it is possible.
Final big flaw is, yes we sell food for children, but we don’t sell drinks for children!
The Theory Cafe is a nice environment, and a huge improvement over the Nescafe cafe it replaced. The food is good and not processed. However it needs to do a few more things to make it a place to take the family.
I’m sorry I don’t like cheap pasta…
Most people probably think pasta is pasta isn’t it?
Well sorry no it isn’t. Cheap pasta is cheap and nasty. Good pasta makes a huge difference to the taste of a pasta dish.
Part of it is the flour which used, another key is the dies used the “form” the pasta.
If all you ever eat is cheap pasta, treat yourself and get some decent good pasta and see if you can tell the difference.
Don’t eat the KitKat Crunchy!
So here I am at the same place with the same vending machine I was last week.
Must remember do not buy the KitKat Crunchy!
It’s horrible.
Throwing out the unopened yogurts, over a million a day
According to a recent survey, we as a nation in the UK throw away 1.3m unopened yogurts every day.
The BBC reports on the survey:
More than a million unopened pots of yogurt and yogurt drinks are thrown away in the UK every day – that’s 484 million a year, according to recent research.
And it’s not just yoghurt!
4.4 million whole apples and 1.2 million sausages are thrown away each day.
What a waste!
What are you throwing away?
Photo source.
Lemon and Rocket Risotto
I am going through a risotto phase at the moment.
This is my original lemon risotto recipe.
In a large frying pan, place some olive oil and butter. Then add some finely chopped onion and the zest of two lemons.
Soften the onions.
Bring up the heat.
Add the risotto rice and ensure that the rice is coated in the oil and butter.
Add a splash of white wine.
Now add some chicken stock.
Keep topping up with stock to ensure that the rice doesn’t dry out.
Once the rice is virtually cooked, add the juice of the lemons, a large handful of grated parmesan, some roughly chopped rocket and some freshly ground black pepper.
Serve, garnish with a few slices of lemon.
A nice green salad
One of the things I like to have with a meal is a nice and simple green salad.
A few mixed leaves, maybe some tomato. Dressed with olive oil and white wine vinegar and some freshly ground black pepper.
Simple yet delicious and refreshing.