Christmas cheese selection from Riverford. Is this not the most adorable thing ever?

I want to tuck in straight away. I didn’t get much else in my order today, just some booze (wine and more sloe gin, couldn’t resist), cream (for pudding), and sprouts because Cameron likes them and now I do too. I’m doing the vegetarian option, cheese and dessert for Christmas dinner. Time to get cooking! There is going to be WAY too much food, but that’s the point, right?

This morning I was meant to be doing a final sweep round the house in preparation for welcoming my brother to the UK for his first trip here in exactly 20 years (he can’t really remember the last trip – on the other hand I think that’s when I decided I was going to live here). I even made his favourite biscuits.

However, le mauvais temps in Northern France (what’s French for “the wrong kind of snow”?) has put paid to that plan and I find myself at a loose end. Bad things always come in threes – on Friday my credit card was cloned, on Saturday my brother’s train was cancelled – so now I’m just waiting around for an anvil to fall on my head. Although perhaps there’s already been three – we had a bit of bad luck looking for a new flatmate earlier in the week (yet another blow to NZ-Australian relations – but that’s another story).

At least I’m eating well in the meantime. I received some cherry tomatoes in my last veg box, which spurred me to try another recipe from the Ottolenghi book – Roast potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes with lemon and sage. All I needed to buy were some kalamata olives and Jerusalem artichokes and hey presto:

At the start of the Ottolenghi book, they joke that “if you don’t like lemon or garlic, skip to the end of this book”. This recipe has plenty of both, with four cloves of garlic. Since I’m still fighting off the tail end of my bronchitis or swine flu or whatever it was, I figured I could do with a good dose of garlic. The garlic, lemon, sage, potato, tomato and olive combination is one that would never have occurred to me, but it works really well. The artichokes disintegrated a little, I think next time I would cut them a bit thicker. But all in all it was a colourful, cheering sort of a meal. Comfort eating, only more interesting.

Incidentally, no one I know has reported a dud recipe from that book yet. I’ve made the cauliflower fritters about four times now and still love them. It’s possibly my favourite cookbook – barring the Usborne First Cookbook, which was indeed my first cookbook and contains the recipe for the biscuits mentioned above. More on those later. I still have some butter, sugar and flour in the house so I think I will fill the gaping, brother-shaped hole in my Sunday with more biscuits!

By the way, does anyone want two tickets to Avenue Q tomorrow? Sigh.

When I stopped eating meat fifteen years ago I was still a somewhat fussy adolescent eater and there were quite a lot of vegetables I didn’t like much. I found that I started to like different vegetables more and more, and even broccoli, which I once despised, went to the top of my favourite food list. Whether this was just a part of my tastebuds maturing or whether it was a result of my tastes completely changing as a result of my pescatarianism I’m not sure. However one thing remained on the hate list: sprouts. Fortunately I sat next to Dad at supper so was able to shift them onto his plate, occasionally having to swap them for his carrots (honestly, who hates carrots, but loves sprouts?).

I’ve been getting my veg box from Riverford for almost a year now and the one thing I really love about it is that it forces me to eat things I normally wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. Now that sounds a bit strange, but it has really expanded my horizons, and my meal repertoire for that matter. Getting swede three weeks in a row forces you to get creative.

Ditto sprouts. Something I would never in a million years buy from the supermarket. So when they first appeared in my box, I might have groaned a little inwardly… and then I hit Google. I’ve lost the site I found this on so unfortunately can’t credit it, but this, folks, is the yummiest way to prepare sprouts:

1. Heat a bit of olive oil and butter in a pan. Chop your sprouts in half and toss to coat in the fat. Sprinkle with sea salt.*

2. Then place all of your sprouts face down, turn the heat down low and cover with a lid.

3. Cook until the sprouts are soft all the way through and a light brown on the underside.

4. Serve immediately, and sprinkle with some very good Parmesan.

5. Eat. Yum yum YUM. Honest.

* the salt is important, Mum. Salt actually takes away bitterness in food.

For those of you elsewhere, Irn Bru is a highly caffeinated Scottish beverage vaguely reminiscent of battery acid. I’m not sure whether to be horrified or amused by this ad:

Found via Purlpower.

I grew up watching The Snowman every Christmas Day. It feels sacred somehow. But it’s a pretty cool ad…