food, reviews and of course coffee
In December 2009 I went to a conference in Auckland in New Zealand. I spent a couple of days after the conference exploring the area around Auckland. I had caught the ferry to Devonport and after climbing Mount Victoria went for some lunch.
I had this really nice salad of chicken and avocado.
The chicken was freshly grilled and served with the avocado, salad and a spicy dressing.
This very nice and simple prawn salad was what I recently had for lunch at my local Sainsburys.
Sometimes simple food can be delicious and tasty.
This Italian salad I made for lunch comprises some slices of salami and cold roasted pork loin. I served it with some mixed lettuce leaves and tomato, with ripped mozzarella dressed with basil leaves, olive oil and vinegar.
Found this at my local Tesco.
It’s a packet of unwashed wild rocket.
Certainly felt a lot fresher than the stuff in bags (and I hope a lot less chemicals too).
Of course the obvious thing to do is not buy the stuff, but grow my own rocket.
A nice accompaniment to grilled meats is a salad. This recipe is one of my regular salads and is very simple to make. It consists of lettuce, halved cherry or small tomatoes and thinly sliced pointed red pepper. This time I also added some basil leaves.
I dress the salad with olive oil, white wine vinegar and ground black pepper.
Simple, refreshing with a hint of heat from the pepper (red and black).
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.
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.
I do wonder why a Mexican themed restaurant is called Chesters?
Regardless of the name, I went there for lunch today and was quite impressed.
I had the house specialty burrito.
A 10″ flour tortilla, crammed with cheese & onion and your choice of filling, served with salsa, sour cream & guacamole, complemented with a Chesters combi salad.
From the choice of fillings I went for the mexican chicken.
I was expecting it to be very spicy, but it wasn’t, it was spiced, but not so spicy to be uncomfortably spicy – as happens in some Mexican chain places I have been to in the past.
The salsa, sour cream and guacamole were nice as they tasted fresh and most certainly did not taste processed or out of a jar.
I thought the side salad was excellent, which was full of interesting salad type things, including shoots, cabbage, potatoes as well as other delicious stuff.
The coffee I had alongside was very nice too.
Overall I did enjoy my meal and thought it was very good value for lunch. My dining colleague enjoyed his risotto.
I would go there again (and more often) alas it is in Worcester and I don’t go there very often!
I do like a nice pasta salad, especially as it can be eaten instead of bread and adds some substance to a salad based meal.
The problem I have with some you can buy is that they are either too salty or too wet! So where possible I try and make my own.
This is a very simple recipe and you can adjust quantities to taste, how much you want, how much you have in the fridge.
Cook some pasta.
You can use any pasta, but have been using and prefer De Cecco’s Fusilli.
While the pasta is cooking, in a frying pan add some olive oil and then add onions and red pepper. After that has cooked for a while add some mushrooms.
Ensure that they are cooked through, add some freshly chopped parsley and turn off the heat.
Now you could add the pepper and mushrooms raw, but I prefer to have them cooked.
Once the pasta is cooked, drain and then to stop it cooking further and to cool it down rinse well with cold water.
Put the cooked pasta in a bowl, add a splash of olive oil for flavour and to stop it sticking. Note always add oil to cooked and drained pasta to stop it sticking. Adding it the boiling water does not do this as the oil floats on the top of the water.
To the cooked pasta add some mayonnaise and some creme frache.
Then add the cooked mixture.
Stir with a spoon until the rice and cooked mixture is evenly coated. As with a lot of salads though you could serve this straight away, it will improve if you leave it in the fridge for a few hours.
Excellent.
This is a really nice salad, and very quick to put together.
In a frying pan cook off some cubed pancetta, though any smoked bacon will do.
Slice some Romaine lettuce (or use leaves from your favourite).
Cube some avocado.
Place the lettuce in a bowl, add the avocado and drained bacon.
Dress with some white wine vinegar, olive oil and ground black pepper.
Serve.