Continuing the sunny weekend theme from yesterday's post, this is a run through of the lovely food Sig Other and I have been scoffing.
Our 'Pemberley' picnic consisted of sandwiches filled with blue cheese, avocado and chopped walnuts, then chocolate cake, raspberry & cranberry smoothy, bananas and a walk round the gardens to digest it all.
All that National Trust culture made us hungry, and Sig Other went home and created the most delicious asparagus flan. He rolled out some gluten free frozen pastry (defrosted of course) that he'd found in Sainsburys and consulted Prue Leith's Cookery Bible to get the quantities for an egg, Emmental and double cream filling for the pastry case. This was excellent and much better than my attempts at more calorifically virtuous quiches made with Quark.
Today we went to the Unicorn, a wholefood shop in Chorlton, a very naice part of Greater Manchester and one which I now want to live in. Perhaps the nearest analogue for Edinburgh would be a bigger better Stockbridge. The major drawback would be the overwhelming numbers of 'Conservative Clubs'; so perhaps no real equivalent exists in Auld Reekie.
The Unicorn is a fantastic shop which sells reasonably priced organic produce with helpful info on cooking suggestions. This season they have a vast range of squashes and a comprehensive leaflet to take away with ideas. They also sell a terrific selection of flours, nuts, seeds, dried fruit and tons of other great stuff. As it is so reasonably priced I have no qualms about trying things I've never heard of and taking culinary 'risks' on the weird and wonderful.
The company has a worthy ethical approach to business, attempting where feasible to buy local and if not, then to source ethically, fairly traded products. Today, they had a wonderful trolley made out of metal and recycled concrete bags made by a women's co-operative in India. I've frequently thought about finding a trolley, but knowing that even voicing that desire to my daughter would result in howls of horror (will I ever grow beyond the 'embarrassing mother' stage?) However, this trolley might be ok as it avoids the bag-lady tartan of the usual commercial shopping trolleys.
Still sunny later this afternoon, so we had a BBQ. Mostly cooked shop bought mushroom burgers, but I got creative with little parcels of asparagus (in butter and lemon juice), fine green beans (in olive oil with fresh rosemary), and baby potatoes, all in foil and taking various lengths of time to cook, so that extended the BBQ fun.
Garden furniture and BBQ all tucked away now till next year as I expect that is the finale of summer in these parts.
Links
http://www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk/index.php
Can't find a pic of the concrete bag trolley, but this is a link to a similar product.
http://www.yourtomorrow.co.uk/product/12/allpurpose-cement-bag.php
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