Polenta on the run

Speaking of easy lunches (see last post), this plate of crunchy pesto polenta fingers with cherry tomatoes and parsley took about 5 minutes to make.

It tasted sublime - the polenta was a ready made one I bought exactly for this kind of day - when I had literally 10 minutes to make and eat lunch but felt like something warm and tasty. The mellow polenta was soft and unctuous, the pesto had browned crispy bits of pinenuts and cheese, it was sexy-oily but not greasy, the parsley and tomatoes cut clean through the fruity olive oil and salty pesto. It could make a good starter for a dinner party and is definitely on the menu of my virtual (one day maybe) cafe.

I sliced the polenta and fried it in a tablespoon of virgin olive oil and another tablespoon home-made pesto I had in the fridge. I cooked it till bits of pesto went crispy and some stuck to the polenta, turned the slices carefully and then added some quartered cherry tomatoes. I cooked further till the tomatoes had collapsed and released some juices. It didn't need salt as the pesto was well seasoned. Finish with that antiquated king of herbs - curly parsley.

I was alone, so I licked the plate.

Lunching on lentils in the holidays

During the holidays having people in the house every day - namely my husband and children - I have to think about lunch in a more formal way.

When alone, I usually rustle up some avocado toast or a biscuit and fruit. I rarely bother to actually make anything which involves excessive cutting or seasoning, mostly because I eat breakfast at 10 and only get hungry again around 2 and then it seems too close to dinner to make a fuss.

No more turkey

I really don't like turkey, and this year, after cooking about 10 full Christmas dinners already for print and TV advertising, I am fed up with the sight and smell of it.

I have been basting these massive birds with their own hot fat from the back of removal vans on suburban London streets, in photo studios and in my own kitchen for testing, for the past three months. I have roasted at least 15 kilos of spuds in 5 litres of goose fat and peeled a small mountain of brussel sprouts. I have learnt how to make perfect parsnips (par boil them before roasting) and perfected the art of a golden finish to the turkey, without resorting to painting it with Marmite (food stylist trick here) - as natural is the new fake in advertising.

Apples and leaves

Autumn's beauty always takes me surprise. I dread the loss of summer so keenly that my misery seems settled for the long haul of cold, till next June at least. Then, one crisp afternoon the air is smelling of burning wood, the outrageous golds and reds of trees are illuminated by the cloudless sky and I feel the tingling of a kind of enlightened joy; like in the outward thrust of summer something was missing, that now is returning - a welcome home-coming of the soul.

Easy food

Here's some shots I did with a talented young photographer, Mr John Latham, using only daylight in a garage out on some country road somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool.

I kept the recipes simple; baked egg and steak, garlicky mushrooms on puff pastry with watercress, the last of the summer nectarines and plums grilled with sugar and vanilla. Easy food with a British bent.

Grapes on a plate

In a largely domestic life, in a country without civil war, with my health, my children happy, my husband loyal and with money enough in the bank, these grapes looking pretty on a plate makes me smile.

What a luxury, to stop and notice their perfect tense skins. To choose a fetching purple plate to put them on. To waffle on about it here. What a blessing that I can concern myself with the details of my life in such a languid manner. To contemplate pomegranates.

Back!

Can you guess where I've been?
 
Holland!

Well, it was a while ago, but that's my excuse for not having posted for so long.