It rained a lot here in Nottingham yesterday and I spent the morning audio recording various chapters about French food from a lovely book, The Food of France – a journey for food lovers. I was able to copy the files on to a CD-R disc with the Toshiba disc creator, a tool I never realised existed on my laptop until I found it by accident a few days ago. All this talking to myself about food left me feeling hungry and despite the now pouring rain I ventured out with my umbrella to the village shops and got together some ingredients for a bulk stew. Once back home I put the umbrella in the bath to drip dry and spent a very happy afternoon making a big stew with stout. I put on one of my French music CDs and happily chopped and peeled and cooked my dinner. Well, actually it was a dinner that I could have for the next few days.
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| raindrops on the kitchen window |
As well as photographing the stages of the meal (I could feel a blog post coming on whilst cooking) I attempted to make a short video of the food cooking and me dancing around in the kitchen. This attempt was done by holding the laptop up in the air with the camera on. At one point I nearly dropped the laptop into the frying pan of bubbling stew and after looking back at the footage decided that actually it was a bit crap and deleted it.
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| raw ingredients of the stew |
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| chopping the coriander |
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| one glass of stout for the meat - one for me. :0) |
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| Chopped coriander and stew |
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| Leeks and chestnut mushrooms cooked in butter |
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| suet dumplings |
The dumplings actually came from a packet and my neighbour’s cat Soufie came round to be with me in the kitchen. Wierd that. She sat quite enthralled with her whiskers on full alert and sat sniffing the air, sucking in great aromatic waves of delicious stew.
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| Miss Soufie looking hopeful |
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| Dinner time!!! |
When it was finished I shared some of the meal with my neighbour Anna, had a glass of wine with her and spent the evening watching four hours back to back of Rick Stein’s French Odyssey programmes on two dvds. I had a great night’s sleep and will be enjoying some more of the stew today and tomorrow and the next day.
It rained a lot here in Nottingham yesterday and I spent the morning audio recording various chapters about French food from a lovely book, The Food of France – a journey for food lovers. I was able to copy the files on to a CD-R disc with the Toshiba disc creator, a tool I never realised existed on my laptop until I found it by accident a few days ago. All this talking to myself about food left me feeling hungry and despite the now pouring rain I ventured out with my umbrella to the village shops and got together some ingredients for a bulk stew. Once back home I put the umbrella in the bath to drip dry and spent a very happy afternoon making a big stew with stout. I put on one of my French music CDs and happily chopped and peeled and cooked my dinner. Well, actually it was a dinner that I could have for the next few days.
9 comments:
Miss Soufie looks a lot like my cat Pumba. He also likes to sit in the kitchen when I'm cooking with a hopeful expression on his face and whiskers forward, ears pricked up in great anticipation.
Sometimes he gets impatient and resorts to trying to trip me over so that I spill the food on the floor and he can eat it, but I'm wise to that tactic now...
Lovely post, Phil. Glad you didn't drop the laptop. And I think Souffie was hoping you'd give her some dumplings.
Your stew looks scrumptious! What French music do you like? And don't tell me Alain Souchon!
Possible Piper: many thanks for your comment. Yeah I'm sure these cats are more cunning than they let on as they weave in and out.
Athina:I think if I'd added dried biscuits in the stew Soufie would have loved me. As for dumplings. Don't think so.
Dedene:Alain Souchon? Not heard of him Dedene. I like Arthur H, Vanessa Paradis,Amelie - les- crayons,Jane Birkin, Jeanne Cherhal,Carla Bruni,Charles Aznavour,Les Negresses Vertes,Coralie Clement and Pascal Parisot.Oh and Jacques Brel.
Sounds like you had an idyllic day, cooking, eating and watching your favourite chef.
You'll have to make the most of your remaining days of freedom, before you enter the kingdom of the bit "T".
That there is WINTER food! It looks so delicious, Phil. However, it's still summer here and I've got a fresh load of figs. Off to buy chevre and phylo pastry to make some lovely little pockets of...well figs and chevre!
The stew looks delicious. I love stew. It's very similar to sherry trifle. In the sense that everybody makes it but they're all different. Your ingredients are slightly different from mine so I will branch out a bit. I haven't used packet dumpling mix - will give it a try - much more sensible than having three quarters of a packet of suet being thrown away because its gone out of date since the last dumplings.
PS Glad to hear we're not the only people who watch cooking DVD's back-to-back. We thought we were just sad and wierd !!
Delena:figs and chevre. hmm sounds yummy.Thanks for sharing.
GailsMan: yes the days to the big T (Tesco job) are getting closer and closer. Can't wait. Well actually I can in-so-much-as I am savouring these last moments of homely freedom. All the same working in the food industry and earning some much needed pennies is my dream presently. I think it's gonna be a good adventure.
Jean: Know what you mean about enjoying different ways of creating the same things. Such fun. And you are certainly not wierd for watching back to back dvds of food heroes. I love it and find them informative and relaxing and comforting. Good theme for a blog post actually.Maybe the next one for me.
Lovely Cat portrait Phil.
It seems to be the time of year when the Stews come out and that looks like a very tasty one to me !
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