Happy Monday to one and all!  How were your weekends?  I spent mine reading and drinking coffee in the park under an enthusiastically beating sun.  Strange for Edinburgh, but blissful anyway.  Here are last week’s highlights…

• Going to the cinema for the first time in about two months.  I’m usually a pretty dedicated big screen goer but until Friday I hadn’t been since the beginning of May.  Bridesmaids was quite the homecoming, however – I haven’t laughed at a film this much for a looooong time.  Anyone else seen it?  What did you think?
• Having two picnics in the park over the course of the week.  It’s a long-held belief of mine that picnics are good for the soul.  Especially ones that feature cocktail sausages.  Yum.
• Discovering a cycle path through some woods that I never even knew existed.  Only three miles away from my house!  Edinburgh is still amazing me even after all these years with its wily woodland-in-the-city ways.  Drinking cold beers in the park with my boyfriend afterwards and laughing at the antics of the neighbourhood’s dogs.
• Having a big old lazy breakfast on Saturday.  Croissants, jam, fresh coffee…
• Watching Wimbledon.  A lot.  Shouting at the TV.  A lot.
• Making a huge pot of veggie curry which seemed to last the entire week.  Three dinners and two lunches…it’s got to be one of the best ‘chuck in any old crap’ meals there is.
• Scoring a ticket to see Tom Hodgkinson at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August.  Tom is the author of the brilliant How To Be Idle and its equally brilliant sequel, How To Be Free, both of which caused me to punch the air and shout “I YEARN TO LIVE THIS WAY!” numerous times as I read them.  I can’t wait to see him in person.
• More films!  Watching Into the Wild (I wrote this post about the book a week or so ago) on Saturday night.  Amazing film, even more amazing soundtrack by Eddie Vedder.  I cried bucketloads.

And that’s all I got!  What’s on your agendas this week my lovely people?  I’m planning sewing, coffee drinking and a bunch of fun stuff for my birthday this weekend, including cocktails, jazz, mussels and board games.  Happy days

Image above from We Heart It.

My fruit and veg box is delivered once a fortnight, straight to my door.  And a couple of months’ experience has convinced me that it’s a great service.  It saves me from making too many trips to the supermarket, which I hate with a vehement passion; it encourages me to make vegetables the main focus of my meals, and it also costs very little: £9 per week, inclusive of doorstep delivery.  That £9 buys me 11 different types of vegetable and five of fruit.  All organic, all locally produced, all insanely delicious.

The other great thing about the box is that it has forced me to get creative with my cooking, and to experiment with new dishes.  Before I signed up to the scheme I had never made aubergine parmigiana; or a green bean stew; or even a carrot cake for that matter.  Now, a couple of months in, I’ve made all three.  Some more than once.  I now cycle home with the greatest of enthusiasm every second Thursday, so eager am I to examine the new loot and decide what goodies I’m going to make with it.

But the biggest way in which the box has forced me to create in the kitchen has been in finding new and inventive ways to use up the truckloads of potatoes it brings my way every fortnight.  Potatoes are one of the crate’s ‘staple’ ingredients, which means a big bag of them arrives with every delivery, along with other basics like tomatoes, carrots, onions, apples and bananas.  And this has proved rather difficult for me – it always seems like I’m rushing to get through yet more spuds in time for the next batch arriving.  I’m like a crazy spud lady: ‘WE MUST EAT SOMETHING WITH POTATOES IN IT!!’ I scream at my hapless boyfriend with alarming regularity.  It’s far from a pretty sight, let me assure you.

But perseverance is (very slowly) beginning to produce results.  In the last month or so I’ve made home-made chips, fried potato and chorizo salad and potato dauphinoise.  I’ve also made a couple of potato curries, and added some diced spuds to a veggie chilli I had on the go.  And last night I found myself onto another winner: my own version of Fisherman’s Pie.

It might be August but that’s no reason not to indulge in a little hearty comfort food every now and then.  And that’s what Fisherman’s Pie, to me at least, is really all about.  Lovely chunks of succulent fish in a creamy white sauce, with spades and spades of mashed potato smoothed over the top.  I used leeks in my white sauce, and didn’t bother with parsley.  The effect was pretty lovely all the same…

Ingredients

• 5 or 6 large-ish potatoes
• 1 pack of mixed fish pieces.  This genius invention I found in my local Tesco.  Fresh chunks of salmon, cod and smoked haddock, together in the same pack for around £3.  I’d love to say I went to the fishmonger and hand picked the finest fillets I could see, heck, I’d love to say I paddled out to sea in a dingy and caught my own.  Alas, I did neither.  I have a full time job and a budget.  I ain’t got time for no fishin’.
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 leek, finely sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Lots of milk for poaching the fish, butter and flour for the white sauce.
• Salt and pepper to season

Method

• Heat the oven to around 180 degrees (my default temperature).
• Pour some milk into a pan and gently poach the fish over a very low heat.  Sweat the onion, leek and garlic in some butter.  Put the potatoes on to boil.
• Make a roux with some more butter and some plain flour, and gradually add milk.  I used the milk from the pan of fish for extra flavour (once the fish had cooked that is!).
• Stir the white sauce well, and keep stirring until it’s reasonably thick and smooth.  Add the leeks/onion mix and the poached fish, season with salt and pepper and stir.  Spoon into the bottom of an oven-proof dish.
• Once the potatoes are cooked through, drain them, and mash them however you like.  I normally use a blob of mayonnaise, salt and pepper, a little milk and some wholegrain mustard.
• Spread the mash evenly over the fish mixture and pop the whole thing into the oven for 20 minutes or so.  5 minutes before the end you can grate some cheddar over the top if that floats your boat.  It certainly does mine!

Serve and enjoy – fantastic fish pie, a recipe guaranteed to fill you up AND get rid of your excess spuds.  I enjoyed mine so much that I forgot to take a photo of it.  So you’ll have to make do with this pretty fisherman picture from Flickr, courtesy of Moonstar.

I really fancied some pub-type grub to go with my watching the football last night (it just doesn’t feel right to be eating anything fancy while I’m simultaneously drinking beer, shouting at the television and jumping up and down like a mad person). I also have all things America on the brain at the moment, which is probably why the idea of home-made burgers and chunky chips popped into my head as easily as it did. Here’s my recipe…

Wolf ‘em down burgers with pub grub-style chunky chips

For the chips…

It’s probably a good idea to get the chips prepared and into the oven before you even think about making the burgers. I used 4-6 medium sized potatoes from my farm box, which I washed and scrubbed, and then cut into thickish chip shapes (leaving the skin on – it turns a lovely, crunchy golden brown in the oven). I put mine on a pizza tray, because it has holes in the bottom to allow the heat to get in from underneath as well as from on top. Before putting my chips in the oven, I sloshed a generous amount of olive oil over the top of them, and sprinked them with salt and coarse black pepper. Mine took 30-40 minutes to bake at around 180 degrees.

For the burgers…

It’s probably wise to consider the size you’re planning on making your burgers when deciding how much mince to buy. I was exceptionally hungry last night, and so bought 500g of mince, from which I fashioned two of the largest burgers I’ve ever seen in my life (please note that I only ate one of them!). The same amount of meat could easily make three or four medium-sized burgers.

I put the raw mince in a bowl, and added one finely chopped onion, a sprinkling of dried chillies for a little spice and one beaten egg to bind them nicely together. It would be worth experimenting with different types of herb or spice to suit your tastes – I’m picturing myself adding dried rosemary, thyme, basil and/or oregano to my burgers in future. Perhaps even some ginger or cinnamon (just a little) would also work well in bringing out different flavours. Last night I fancied some spice, however, so flaked, dried chillies it was.

Now for the fun (or digusting, depending on your viewpoint) bit: get your hands in the bowl and mix all the ingredients together! I divided my mixture in half and then set about patting it into some round, flat burger shapes, making sure I used every last scrap of mince.

Once I was happy with my burger shapes, I heated a non-stick pan and carefully placed them in, adding just a tiny drop of olive oil to ensure that there was no charring. I then gently fried the burgers, turning them periodically until they were cooked right through. Because of the density, this took around 20 minutes. It helps to stand by with a fish slice in the early stages, just to prod things back into shape if any cracks appear. After ten minutes or so of cooking, however, they seem to hold themselves together without any help. While they’re finishing cooking, slice and butter some rolls, and have them to hand. Pop your burgers in, and garnish with whatever you like. I added a mixture of mustard and mayonnaise to the top, some sliced tomato, a little cheese and a small handful of rocket. Delicious, and perfect for some goal scoring action!

My second fruit and veg box arrived from the farm last Thursday, packed full of colourful and delicious-looking goodies.  The contents haven’t changed much from the last time, although I did receive a melon instead of a grapefruit, and a bunch of beautifully red radishes in lieu of an aubergine.  Although I’ve only received two boxes thus far, I’m already finding them to be incredibly useful devices as far as meal-planning goes.  I know lots of people make meal plans religiously but it’s not something I’ve ever really taken seriously myself, not that I doubt their thrifty credentials in the slightest.  Now that I’ve got the veg box as an incentive, however, I’m finding it much easier to discipline myself into planning ahead.  If I want to get the most out of each box, and use everything up before it turns, I’m going to need to be a bit savvy about what I cook, and when I cook it.  Here are a couple of things I’ve made this weekend:

This was the yummy salad I had for lunch on Saturday.  It consisted of various types of leaves (the box always contains two big bags of mixed greenery, none of which I can formally identify), fresh tomatoes, sliced radish, mushrooms and cucumber, with a slice of home-made herb bread and a slathering of honey and mustard dressing.

And these are the stovies I made for dinner this evening.  Each veg box has contained a large bag of potatoes, so I’m now constantly racking my brains for interesting ways to use them up.  These ones I boiled and roughly mashed with salt, pepper, mayonnaise and wholegrain mustard.  I then added roughly two cans of tuna, mixed with one red onion and more mayonnaise.  A sprinkling of parmesan cheese on the top and you’ll be safely at the door to carbohydrate heaven.

More meals from the veg box later in the week, I’m now off to the sofa where I can fully embrace my mash-induced lethargy…

One of my favourite ways to daydream the working day away is to think about what I might have for dinner (we all do it, right?).  Aside from making me feel exceptionally hungry, such musings usually centre round the idea of using up whatever ingredients I already have at home.

Today’s primary left-over is…the classic British spud.

I bought a rather chunky bag of white potatoes last week for soup, but ended up using only a couple (for some dreamy leek and potato…mmm).  I’ve been casually wondering what to do with the remaining spuds which have been sitting somewhat morosely in the bottom of the fridge ever since.  They’ve had me slightly perplexed – I’m on a spring and summer flavours-style binge at the moment and am using tonnes of spring onions, cherry tomatoes and lemon juice – the season just seems all wrong for stodgy bangers and mash, or stodgy haggis and mash (the stodgy leek and potato soup was a temporary ‘I want some comfort food’ blip).  What I needed was some reassurance that potatoes can be cool, light and summery, and that they don’t always have to come laden with butter or smothered in mayonnaise.

So in a bid to broaden my horizons I randomly typed ‘potato recipes’ into Google earlier on and this *amazing* website – Love Potatoes – was one of the first things to pop up.  There are some delicious-looking recipes (summer chicken, orange and potato salad anyone?) as well as a whole bunch of useful information including details of the various types of potato, which varieties work best in which recipes and lots of interesting facts about just how darned good for you the little beauties are.  The design of the site is really cool as well – quirky, fun and wholly dedicated to our best-loved national carb.  I couldn’t have asked for more!  Newly-inspired and bursting with culinary energy, tonight I’m going to try a fried potato salad with prawns, spring onions and soy sauce.  Results tomorrow!

Image above from Flickr – cuorhome.