Editor’s Diary: Cooking Up A Storm!
This week’s Editor’s Diary is all about eating . . . creatively!
Have you been eating well during lockdown? We certainly have in my household. Though sometimes a bit of flexible thinking has been required!
As a vegetarian with a serious (though rare) food allergy, cooking from scratch is a way of life for me.
But some key ingredients have been in short supply of late, and I have been forced to improvise.
I live in a very small town in a rural area. The local shop has its limitations — a lemon is about as tropical a fruit as you can buy!
And getting a supermarket delivery has proved impossible, since we are so far from any big stores.
However, I have already discovered some surprising and delicious substitutions!
A little different
For example, I made broccoli and stilton soup with cheddar instead of blue cheese. It was very tasty indeed!
Ground ginger is just as good as fresh ginger, as long as you are careful with the quantities. It’s fiery stuff! I used it in parsnip and ginger soup with good results.
No apples for an Italian apple cake? No worries — some conference pears that were languishing in the fruit bowl made very acceptable stand-ins.
My normal vegetarian lasagne recipe includes courgettes and red peppers. I could find neither.
So instead, I added cubed sweet potato and chopped spinach to a base sauce made with onion, celery, carrots, mushrooms and tinned tomatoes. It was amazing!
It has already become a new favourite.
With no commute to and from the office, I have more time for cooking than ever before. But there is a drawback . . .
My working-from-home desk is the kitchen table. It’s not easy to concentrate on the job in hand when surrounded by delicious cooking aromas.
The day I used the slow cooker to make potatoes dauphinoise tested my willpower to the limit. Five hours of buttery, cheesy temptation to resist!
If you’re looking for culinary inspiration, we have lots of recipes to try in the “Friend” every week, and even more on our website.
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