Being a 'locavore'

Bit of a lapse from grace to report. Two restaurant meals in the past 48 hours. Maybe it's the realisation we're due back in England next week and will no longer be able to sit in the sun pretending it's June.

Neither meal was wantonly extravagant. The first was at what is basically a seafood caff called Chez Loulou which serves some of the most brilliantly fresh shellfish and fish I've ever eaten. The second was at a restaurant that overlooks the oyster beds at Bouzigues.

I'm not going to tell you the name because it's a mercifully Brit-free zone which is becoming increasingly rare in this part of France. Not that I mind my fellow countrymen, I just don't want them to outnumber the French.

I justified the whole exercise to myself on the following grounds

a) I was eating local food and drinking local wine. Being a 'locavore' (someone who does just that) is very PC these days

b) Oysters are ridiculously cheap here - about 8 euros (just over £6 a dozen - enough for two)

c) Grilled fish and oysters are hugely healthy

d) Oysters were at one time the food of the poor so I was just undertaking a bit of historical research . . .

Still, not exactly frugal, I must confess.

Read more ►

All-in-one roast veggies

What would you do with a kilo of pigs' liver? No, don't answer that - I'm not sure I'm up to it but it's so cheap in our local French supermarket at the moment - 2 euros (£1.50) a kilo - that I feel I should be.

As it was I wimped out and bought a coil of Toulouse sausage for just over 5 euros (£4) plus a whole load of veg to make one of my favourite recipes, a tray of roast veggies.

It's an infinitely flexible dish that you can vary depending on what you have available. The French, as I've noted before, don't do root veg in a big way so I had to make it with out of season Mediterranean veg which went slightly against the grain but still wasn't expensive.

I used an onion, a large red pepper (much sweeter here, don't know why), a large courgette, a bulb of fennel two plum tomatoes. You simply prepare and quarter or slice them put them into a large roasting tin, season (salt, pepper, thyme and 4 cloves of garlic, bashed and left whole), slosh over some olive oil, mix the whole thing together and roast in a moderate to hot oven (about 190°-200°C, depending on the veg) for about 45 minutes to an hour, tossing them again half way through. You know when they're done when the veggies are nicely caramelised.

We ate half with half the sausages and set aside the remainder for lunchtime sandwiches today. (We'll use the leftover sausages but those veg are also brilliant with goats' cheese.)

It's a really good dish to make from a veg box when they never seem to give you very much of anything or from end of day cheap veg from a market stall. I could eat it every week.

Read more ►

Two vegetable minestrone

Today is one of those rare days when the weather is worse in France than it is in England. It's simply chucking it down. Cue soup for lunch.

A quick raid on the fridge reveals some outer leek leaves I'd felt moved to save for an occasion like this, some celery (with a lot of leaves which is good) and some chopped serrano ham (like bacon bits or lardons). That looked a bit insubstantial so I also unearthed a large tin of flageolet beans thinking I could use half for the soup and half with tonight's supper of leftover roast lamb.

I simply fried the serrano ham in olive oil for a few minutes (could have used chopped streaky bacon), added the chopped leeks and celery and a pinch of dried thyme and cooked them slowly with the lid on the pan for about 7 or 8 minutes. I then added half the tin of beans - drained and rinsed - and about 600ml vegetable stock made with an organic (but as it turns out rather over-salty) stock cube. However hadn't added any extra salt so OK.

Once that was cooked (another 7-8 minutes) I chucked in a handful of chopped celery leaves and tasted it. Quite a predominant bitter celery note which needed correcting - with what? Diced fresh tomato, ideally, or a dash of passata but none to hand so in went a small squirt of ketchup (I don't want you to think I'm obsessed with ketchup - it's just an ingredient you generally have to hand if there have been kids anywhere in the vicinity.) Worked anyway along with plenty of freshly ground pepper and a drizzle of olive oil to serve. Could have scattered over some freshly grated parmesan if I'd had some.

When I thought about it afterwards I realised what I'd created was a two vegetable minestrone which you have to admit sounds a lot nicer than leftover vegetable soup . . .

Read more ►

Cheap steak

I posted on steak a couple of days ago but Blogger wiped the lot for some unfathomable reason when I pressed the Publish button and I was so cross it's taken a full couple of days to resume.

Anyway, to start again, people think that steak is expensive but it needn't be if you use cheaper cuts. Here in France we have bavette, onglet and aiguillette. Back home there's minute steak and skirt (if you ask the butcher). All should be cut thinly so you really don't need that much (250-300g will easily serve 2)

A favourite French recipe is bavette aux echalotes (skirt with shallots) which could equally well be called bavette au vinaigre because it uses a full 75ml (about half a small wine glass) of red wine vinegar.

Sounds scary but here's how it works. You give the steak slices a bit of a bash with a meat mallet or rolling pin to make them even thinner, rub them lightly with oil, season them on both sides and set them aside (steak should always be cooked at room temperature)

You peel and slice 6-8 shallots - or a medium sized onion. You get your other ingredients ready - butter, red wine vinegar, tomato ketchup (yes, really), and some leftover red wine (or wine and beef stock)

You heat a frying pan until really hot - almost smoking. You lay in the steak slices and cook them for about a minute to a minute and a half each side, depending how well done you like your steak and set them aside on a warm plate.

Turn the heat down, add a bit more oil and butter and fry the shallots or onion for about 5 minutes or until soft then pour in half a small wineglass (75ml) of vinegar which will sizzle alarmingly. Press on and cook until the vinegar has almost evaporated then add a good tablespoon of ketchup and a good glug of wine (again about 75ml) or wine and stock. Cook for another couple of minutes then season with salt and pepper and taste.

If the sauce still tastes a bit sharp which it might if your wine is also a bit vinegary add a little more ketchup. If it needs rounding out (i.e. tastes a bit thin) whisk in a little butter. The sauce should be tangy but not mouth-puckeringly sour

When you've tweaked it to your satisfaction slip the steaks and their juices back into the pan and heat through for a minute. Then serve with a good dollop of mash if you've had the forethought to cook some. Or frites. Or a green salad if, like me, you're trying to lay off the spuds.

This seems to have turned into a recipe but it's really more of a guide to how the French tackle cheap cuts and manage to make them really tasty. Except no self-respecting Frenchman would use le ketchup, I'm sure.

Read more ►

Open House!

I was going to write about low fat dairy (doesn't that phrase sound too depressing?) but happily a reader, Bob, came up with the following excellent idea:

"Are you going to have a place for folks to make suggestions for your book? I've got a couple good ideas that have worked well for us."

This sounds a lot more fun than my reluctant efforts at weight reduction - though low fat dairy is frugal, believe me. It's so dull that you don't want much of it . . .

Anyway over to you, Bob, and anyone else who'd like to share their thoughts . . .

Read more ►

Delia's got a point

Much coverage in the papers over the last few days on Delia's new book 'How to Cheat at Cooking' a collection of recipes based on time-saving products.

Now you might think that would make the recipes costlier than cooking them from scratch but that isn't inevitably so as I explain on my website www.beyondbakedbeans.com today.

Last night was a case in point. Rooting around in the cupboards (it was a No Food Shopping Day) I found a jar of puttanesca sauce - not difficult to make, admittedly, but costly if you don't have olives, capers and anchovies already to hand.

The trouble with ready made products like this is that they tend to be bland so I fried off the last of the spring onions I bought a couple of days ago, added two crushed cloves of garlic and scooped in the sauce, finally adding a big handful of chopped parsley (one of my must-have fridge ingredients). Tossed together with half a pack of spaghetti it made a really tasty - and frugal - meal for two.

Read more ►

Human Hoover Syndrome

Bad news from the scales. I have not only failed to lose the weight I put on over Christmas, I have acquired a couple of kilos more. Which makes me about four and a half kilos overweight in total.

Where did it all come from? All too obvious, when you start to think about it. Bread, cheese and wine - the three things I love most to eat and drink.

Working on any cookery book tends to pile on the pounds but acquiring a frugal mindset is even worse. You convince yourself that no ingredient must be wasted so you find a home for it. Human hoover syndrome . . .

This is a dilemma I'm going to have to get to grips with. I need - urgently - to lose weight. I need to test recipes. I simply need to eat less.

No more than 1 glass of wine and two modest slices of baguette a day for a start. Cheese only as part of a meal, not as a nibble. Cut down charcuterie (difficult in France). Cut out butter. No puds (that's the easy bit - I don't have a sweet tooth)

A good start with a scratch salad for two for today's lunch made from leftovers from the fridge - half a small cucumber, half a green pepper, a head of chicory, the green bits from a large, sweet spring onion and a handful of parsley. All chopped, sliced or cut into chunks and tossed with a dressing made from a dessertspoon of tarragon vinegar, 2 dsp of basil-flavoured olive oil and 1 dsp of grapeseed oil (cheaper and lighter than using all olive oil). To my portion I added a few fine shavings of sheeps' cheese and a small chunk of fromage de tete (a very frugal jellied ham paté, a bit like brawn) and half the day's bread allocation. Surprisingly delicious and satisfying but can I keep it up?

Read more ►