A Proper 'Council' Meal

Generic fish finger brand,
don't you worry readers,
I'm no corporate sell out.

Do you remember when people used to use 'a bit council' as way of describing something cheap or rubbish? As an adjective it's disrespectful and snobby and elitist.  I, for one, shall not be using that word  again and will just describe tonight's dinner as a bit trampy instead.

Please see recipe for
comment

I had an awful realisation the other day that I'm getting a bit bored of peas... Luckily for all you pea lovers out there, they taste exactly the same whether you cook them for 2 or 12 minutes - an invaluable tool in the kitchen of an anti-chef like myself (FYI  I googled chef antonyms to check that there wasn't a better word and yahoo answers gave me "inept", "retarded" and "lazy"- cheers yahoo, no wonder google is infinitely more successful than you).  I'm getting side tracked but suffice it to say, tonight's meal contains peas...

...Peas and cabbage and fish fingers.

Don't worry I totally got more
after the shock of last week.

I feel the need to point out that the reason I eat a lot of vegetables isn't because I'm very healthy or that I'm on a diet (although, since you bring it up,  I have put on half a stone in the last three weeks - I'd actually rather not talk about it, but thanks for reminding me, anyway it's only because alcohol contains a lot of empty calories so I could totally lose it in, like, no time if I even wanted to which I don't, even).

I'm not - on a diet - just yesterday I had a nandos,  although, weirdly,  I've had a stomach ache for over 24 hours now (AGAIN,  I really don't want to talk about it.  You're being a real bitch tonight, do you know that?)

So, peas and cabbage and fish fingers, mmmm.  That's actually quite a normal meal isn't?  The sort of thing that someone who could cook but couldn't be bothered to put the effort in might make, right?

Microwavable cabbage!  Who knew?  It's a revelation.  You barely have to do anything to it, just put it in the microwave, this could become a staple.

This even looks disgusting
to me and I swear I have, like,
2 tastebuds in my entire mouth

A Proper Council Trampy Meal

What you will need

Fish Fingers

Microwavable Cabbage

Peas (obvs)

Gravy (obvs)

Vinegar (obvs)

Recipe

1. Turn on grill (any setting should be fine)

2.  Put fish fingers under it.

3. You have a few mins to kill here (cooking is all about timing), personally I put some washing on but you could flick through a magazine, run the hoover around, watch the news headlines or draw yourself a bubble bath and wack some Kenny G on the stereo ... I don't know who that is.

4. Boil kettle

5. Put water in pan with peas.

6. Cut your two bags of cabbage in half (surely it's against advertising standards or something to have two for two pound stickers on a bag of cabbage but no option to buy them individually?  It's like one separated into two halves for two pound, anyway, I digress)

7. Put your cabbage into the microwave for two minutes.

8. Read instruction on other package, take cabbage out of microwave, pierce holes in packet and place back in for the remaining time.

9. Gravy - water, blah blah

10. Put all on same plate and sprinkle generously with sarsons vinegar.

11. Eat

12. Write a blog about it - optional.  Actually don't, there's nothing creative about a copycat.

And there you have it a meal for peasants, made by a peasant, consisting of peas-ant-cabbage - look,  I made a pun on peas and peasants. Now THAT's creative little miss copy arse.

.

i'm out of vinegar...

The Best Meal I Ever Made... Ruined

Today's meal is something else.  Truly, it's delicious.  So delicious that I'd pretty much already decided it was too nice for the blog,  I didn't want to alienate my readership (oh hi Rick).


This is date fare, the sort of meal that you'd cook a few dates in when you were hoping to impress, seriously impress.  Although possibly if I was hoping to seriously impress I might have bought a garlic baguette too, maybe some rocket and perhaps a vienetta or a couple of magnums for dessert.

I took photographs, just in case.  In case tragedy befell me, which to be honest I was sure it wouldn't.  This was a sure fire hit. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Unless...

Unless...

Umm, tastes better than
it looks

Unless the chilli and curry powder are in such similar containers that you grab the wrong one, and, knowing that the chilli powder is so old it's sort of stuck into its container, you shake vigorously and unthinkingly into your delectable saucepan meal and realise too late that you've just made a thoroughly revolting and completely inedible pesto curry.

Anyway,  I'm speeding ahead.  I'd decided to make my signature dish with a twist.  This is genuinely the one meal that I think I make well,  I'd make it for the in-laws or if I was having a friend over for dinner who I didn't know very well and couldn't get away with providing two ryvitas to start, a cup a soup main and a twix for dessert.

Dropped a bit so I know
it tasted nice pre curry powder

It's pesto, tuna and gnocchi.  "Gnocchi, huh?  That's posh." I hear you say and you're right it is posh, although you should probably get over it, the whole world is middle class these days.  It's the sort of thing you'd eat out of choice IN A RESTAURANT or if someone else was cooking.


The combo is really very tasty, put a hint of chilli in and you're laughing.  Add some sundried tomatoes and jeez louise this is the best meal you've ever made.  Add curry powder and it tastes weird.  And like curry. And you'll probably have to have peas and gravy instead.

Curried Gnocchi

What you will need:

Gnocchi

Pesto (out of a jar, only idiots would try to make their own, it's a lot like humous in that respect)

Tuna - tin of

Sundried tomatoes (mmm, dreamy)

Curry powder - lots of, a whole tub if you have.  I don't really know anything about curry leaves but at least, like, 4 handfuls of.

Recipe

1. Boil kettle (you should be familiar with this by now)

2. Put gnocchi in saucepan

3. Add boiled water

4. Wait for, like, about, 3 minutes or until gnocchi is floating.

5.  Drain water from gnocchi

6. Put gnocchi back in pan.

7.  Add tuna and a healthy dose of pesto.

8.  Quickly chop up some sun dried tomatoes because you forgot and throw them on top.

9. Stir a bit

10.  Add in absolutely shit loads of curry powder.

11.  Try to scrape out with a spoon but know that it's already too late. You've done it again.

This post could also be called, "how to destroy the only vaguely pleasant thing you've ever made" or "how to make a terrible cook even worse"

A meal without peas or vinegar - now with added vinegar

It has been brought to my attention (by myself - I'm not sure if anyone other than my sister and my friend Rick has ever actually read this blog) that all of my dishes thus far contain peas and vinegar.  Not to diminish the little green gems value because by Golly I love a pea as much as the next man, vinegar definitely even more so - but occasionally I have been known to endure a meal without them.

If you're looking to concoct a tasty late night feast then look no further than my pot noodle con toast y crisps, or for the philistines out there pot noodle with toast and crisps.

This is a simple dish that anyone out there can rustle up if willing but it does take a little time to prepare.

Firstly, you should meet up with a group of people with the intention of having one drink, sure. Start lightly with a pint of lager top (nb. may be substituted for a white wine spritzer) follow it up with another, then another, then another, then a jager bomb, then another, then a tequila (we all know that you're lying if you say that you're "allergic" to tequila to try and get out of drinking it by the way).  And relax.



By this point you should have worked up a healthy appetite, especially if you and your friend Sean selfishly took over the ENTIRE dance floor doing dirty salsa routines and the splits to the point where other people who "just wanted to come out and have a nice night" had to dance in their seats because the big kids wouldn't let them play.  Not that we're big, probably both quite small but you know what I mean. (Oh and by the way, self, just because you say "oh my god,  I must be drunk, I'm doing the splits to show off" doesn't somehow mean that you're not showing off anymore).






And so to the last tube home and dinner.

Pot Noodle con toast y crisps

What you will need

Chicken and mushroom pot noodle

Salt and Vinegar Mccoys - bugger there's vinegar in those

Bread - brown and seeded - you're a lady for Christ's sake

Butter or margarine or whatever

Recipe

1. Take lid off pot noodle

2. Boil kettle

3. Put toast into toaster

4. Open crisps

5. Eat some crisps

6. Pour water to water fill line - this isn't easy to find so just pour some water in to your pot noodle

6. Eat some crisps

7. Take toast out of toaster, realise it isn't cooked put it back for a bit.

8. Take toast out of toaster

9. Spread butter or whatever on to toast

10.  Stir pot noodle with fork.

11. Eat in bed

12.  Drink pot noodle juice

I went back to my Mum's this weekend and while I was there my wondrous niece made me a delicious plastic meal of plastic croissant and plastic "peas".  I think we all know where her culinary prowess is heading.

A Two-Course Feast for One

I feel like I should probably point out that I'm not a complete slob.  In other areas of my life I'm really very grown up; my house has a front and back garden, for example (in London, who even knew that existed?), and we have a cleaner who comes around once a week AND a water filter, so...

Tonight in honour of all things civilised and grown-up I decided to cook myself a 2-course feast.  I hear ya ladies, "but think of all the calories" but I'd been for a run so it's ok.

All day I'd been fantasing about the two Linda McCartney sausages that I had in the freezer (mmm, seasoned cereal and vegetable protein) and what I could have with them.  As I attempted to stay awake on the tube I remembered a supersize bag of tesco petits pois that I'd bought in a rare moment of forward food planning and just knew that the combination would be absolutely delicious.  But it didn't quite seem... enough.

I raided the fridge. Rocket salad?  That could work... but alas, the fridge was on too high and the rocket had frozen.  I had solid leaves (get it? solid leaves, sol-id leaves, salad leaves?  It's not even funny, don't worry about it) so that option was off the table.  Some extra mature cheese?  Perhaps but I wasn't sure it'd go with the vinegar.

I gave up.  I had nothing that would go with my sausage/pea/vinegar feast and I was hungry - Now. Unless..                                              
                                                                             
...unless I had two-courses... that's right a two-course meal for one.  Pleased with my ingenuity in the kitchen I returned to the fridge: a cheese starter, followed by a sausage and pea medley, what a treat.

A Two-Course Feast for One

What you will need:

Cheddar Cheese (it doesn't have to be ticklers mature cheddar but it helps)

Linda McCartney Sausages x 2

Tesco's Petits Pois

Sarson's Malt Vinegar

(Filtered) Water

Recipe

1. Turn grill on (setting irrelevant)

2.  Put sausages under it and turn when you remember.

3. Cut yourself a bit of cheese to eat.

4. Pour water from tap into a water filter.

5. Wait a bit.

6. Pour now filtered water into kettle and boil.

7. Place peas into saucepan.

8. Eat a bit more cheese.

9. Add water to peas and watch for a bit.

10. Eat a bit of cheese, put cheese back in the fridge.

11. Drain water from peas and but peas into a bowl.

12. Take sausages from grill and put sausages on top (doesn't matter if you've burnt them a bit).

13. Get cheese back out of the fridge and have another bit really quickly as if someone might catch you.

14.  Add gravy or brown sauce (optional).

To be honest I've finished that and I'm still a bit hungry.  I might get myself a twix which would obviously make it a 3-course meal.  Watch this space...