The Six-Day Week

More often, but not for so long at a time. That's the key to this blogging lark.* Slap me on the wrists, I'd be useless at Twitter. And in any case, who wants to know 'Oh good, the Everbearing Strawberries have arrived - now I need to plant them'?

As I mentioned some time ago in the Growing Audit, setting out to be self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables has had an unexpectedly potent influence on our diet. We have a weekly delivery of milk and fruit (although we're increasingly viewing the fruit as an age-of-carbon indulgence), and other than that we only shop once a month. We make most of our own bread and yogurt, and buy cheese from a shop near WP's work. This means that our meals are now largely driven by 'what can I do with these seasonal vegetables?' rather than 'what's in the freezer?', which means we're eating less and less meat.**

Writing up the menu board for the rest of this week (which helps with planning) it occurred to me that I've only cooked meat once in six days; I haven't planned Saturday yet, but Friday is really the leftovers from Sunday, when I slow-roasted a shoulder of local pork, an economical and hugely tasty cut of meat that has been largely ignored by the supermarkets.***

It cost £11, but we were floored by how much meat there was on it - there was still a great hunk of top-notch meat left when we were full, two meals at least. I froze half, and the other half went in the freezer. So thus far it's been;

Sunday - slow-roasted pork shoulder with roast potatoes, green beans and rich gravy (thickened with roasted and seived onion, parsnip and celeriac) & a forced rhubarb tart

Monday - tomato soup (featuring onion, carrot and celeriac) beefed up with half a tin of tomato paste) and onion bread (featuring dried onion)

Tuesday - nut cutlets (featuring onion and carrot), celeriac mash and steamed spinach (with excellent leftover gravy)

Wednesday - curried parsnip soup with sage bread

Thursday - spaghetti with tomato, onion and garlic (using the rest of the tomato paste)

Friday - stir-fried honey pork (leftover from Sunday) and peppers with noodles

You'll have noticed, no doubt, that the winter storage vegetables (onion, celeriac, carrot, parsnip, potato) feature quite prominently in there, but are mostly disguised because otherwise we start to get tired of them. The peppers, beans and tomatoes are frozen. This is an age-of-carbon solution and one which we'll need to move away from soon, so I foresee a move towards more dried and bottled (canned) produce before too long; as always, watch this space. But don't hold your breath.

And now, if you'll pardon me, the Day-neutral Strawberries have arrived. I need to go and plant them.




*Ah, it's true for so many things in life.

**There's a wider argument here, but I'll save it for another day. For now let's just say I'm ambivalent.

***Tastewise far superior to the more visually-appealing leg and chops. The public supermarket-driven appetite for these rather limited cuts has driven the UK pork industry to the edge of annihilation - we now export them to Europe and import more of the 'choice' cuts - and there are welfare issues too. But don't take my word for it - give it a try. There are easy recipes here, and in the UK pork shoulder sells for about £4.50 per kg. Make sure you buy British!