I like jars.

I'm in love with a particular jar. It's at Biana's Continental in Bigsplat. It costs $8 when it's full of beautiful roast red peppers. We like the peppers but we're buying them for the jar. It has a wide mouth see, and a gold lid sans text and it's big enough for ... big things.

And I like jars.

Bill at Tom's, then lunch with Gray.

I see Thea is calling the new friend we made "Tom" so I will too, as she is The Other Megan.
I just came back from her place. We watched the Bill together. Her husband taped it for her last night. It was fun to watch it together. I like her and I like her husband. Thanks Megan for sharing your friends.

Gray made lunch today and Angelata is in awe.

It ~looked~ like fettuccini - but it was very thinly sliced zucchinni with roast red pepper pieces and both green and black olives. Even a fruitarian could eat it!

I was skeptical but it was really good.

I didn't tell Gray but on the way back from Tom's house Trouble & Me pulled into the Bugsplat Bureau to wish the new Manager a happy first day and it wasn't such a good idea, but we didn't stay long. Oh well. That was that, I guess.

Trouble and Just Jo.

Well, I can see Miss Trouble has had front for long enough to manage to eat bacon.
We had lunch at Castenada's and Trouble ordered the BLT. That's quite a demonstration of autonomy.
The only other person who can do that is Just Jo.
I don't know if that's such a great achievement but it's vaguely food related.

It just goes to show... err. something.

Calypso gave up battery chicken even though it was her favourite (the deep fried kind) treat on account (finally) of the suffering of the birds and now doesn't eat anything other than the free range kind. She eats fish. No red meat. It took a while though for her to make that choice, despite being surrounded by Hinchinbrook Chicks.


Anyway, enough of that. There's rumours of the Food Pact returning. I don't want to discuss that here, right now. I want to salute Ms Trouble.

Well done, Trouble, you did a grand job.
Love to you, Mannie.

4 Vegan Salads, all cold.

We had a couple of hot days in a row and Troy and Nadia have been going to Storm Point (Troy to gather seaweed for his garden, and Nadia to swim) and we've been joining them. We had a meal together (and then watched Runaway Bride) so Angelata made some summer salads.

Hi. I'm Angelata.

1. Pasta with creamy spinach sauce.

The penne cooked 9 minutes, the twirls for 7 (packet says 10 and 8) and then rinsed thoroughly in cold water stirred a few times in olive oil, salt and pepper; and set aside to wait for the sauce - finely slivered silverbeat leaves, soy yogurt, lemon juice and crushed garlic.

2. Steamed vegetables with avocado oil and flat-leaf parsley dressing.

Steamed potato, turnip and fresh sugar-snap peas, the sugar snap peas just blanched with boiling water. The turnip takes a good deal longer than potato to steam so I dice it quite finely - about 1 cm cubed, and the potato pieces about 2cm cubed. Avocado oil is tinged with green and looks better with chopped herbs to ... um... explain the colour.

3. Chilli bean and vegetable salad.

Tinned (thoroughly rinsed and drained) borlotti beans are sauteed with chilli and garlic and small cauliflower pieces. Once the garlic is soft - not long - maybe three minutes with lots of stirring, add tinned tomato - I used a tin of cherry tomatoes. I added the tomato juice just before taking off the heat and stirred ot in well. The other vegetables I added to this salad were fresh green bean pieces (about an inch long - and so bright - I cooked them seperately in boiling water for a minute only and then chilled them immediately) and finely sliced raw celery.

4. Pistachio Rice.

Cold basmati rice, finely sliced spring onion and finely sliced sage leaves with roughly chopped pistachio nuts.

We had these with cold tofu slices for the vegans, and because it's Nadia's favourite we also had cold smoked salmon. Then the next day, I believe Gray and Mannie had them for lunch with slices of cold silverside beef.

A.

Consolation Pasta.

Gray's favourite is Slow Cooked Sausage Sauce.

Last night I made it with free range chicken sausages. To an almost done slow-softened (in olive oil, cast iron pan) diced onion I added the inside mincemeat of the chicken sausages, breaking it up so it wouldn't cook in large pieces and then a small quantity of finely chopped garlic, mushrooms, flat-leaf parsley, olives; some green olives (halved); a dash of red wine and some tomato juice and let it cook very slowly on the stovetop for about an hour and a half.
It's good with spagetti or penne.
Or; Gray's preference; both.

Me oh my.

But what is more stupid than a committee?
What fools.

How could they go past Gray?

Back later, with food talk.
Maybe I shall make a consolation dinner.
For some of us, it's the only way we can express our love for Gray.

Double boiler.

Our pots and pans are wonderful. Now we have our knives back again too. I've made cannelli bean mash and a curry of chick pea and vegetables. I get ideas sometimes *waves to Lyria* about writing up recipes. IT seems that I'm always teaching someone how to cook. Trouble has been a good apprentice. And over the years of teaching people to cook I've noticed how strongly a person's character affects their cooking - their flaws, their strengths. Trouble for example is one of the first people of Polly able to cook Japanese food - which requires precision and restraint and a certain... judgement. Francis is one of the few who can bake. Baking not an art, but a science, or so she claimed, back when she was a young girl and not the triple-gendered avatar with a cult of brown-frocked gardener-philosopher-priests at ZIR beck and call. But I digress.
I was Nursie to her Juliet, so I'm allowed to take liberties.
Or seem to be. I won't know until I hit the orange button.

Mannie