… Blue Cheese, Hazelnut & Apple Salad
I have felt like I have been neglecting my cooking project of late. I don’t seem to be doing many meals each week at the moment and my blog posts often happen several days after I have actually cooked the meal. I haven’t lost enthusiasm for doing it. It is just that, other parts of life, mostly good things, are getting in the way. I guess it’s just a busy time of year. Tonight’s meal was another where I just quickly picked a meal did the shopping, in amongst the beginnings of my Christmas food shopping, and then came home and cooked. It was another late start for cooking. About nine thirty I think.
I go into this one with a mix of feeling both confident and unconfident that I will do this in the time. I’m confident because the recipe seems quite simple and there isn’t anything that is difficult to cook or very dependant on being fully cooked through (like there is when doing a chicken dish). I am not confident because my brain does not seem to be working properly. I would normally read a recipe through once before I start (occasionally twice) and I can usually hold the first half of it in my head. It is only after this point in the cooking process that I would usually have to start looking at the book. Tonight I can only hold about the first sentence in my head. I do need to do a lot more reading than usual. I think it may have been the annoying shopping trip that has fuddled my brain or perhaps it’s the knowledge that I have an awful lot to do in the next few days before I go away for Christmas.
Despite the significant amount of reading I end up doing, this is an easy one to cook. You add cottage cheese to the mushroom mix and pasta which seems odd but is actually really nice. The salad is very simple. Just baby spinach, a few toasted hazel nuts a grated apple and some blue cheese. The recipe says either grate or matchstick the apple. Quite a few of the other meals have done this as well. Up till now I have always chosen the matchsticking option. For a change I grate it. I thought it would also be quicker. I think it is quicker, but not much, not much at all. I do think the matchsticks look prettier.
It was done, without too much hassle, within the fifteen minutes. Although I do manage to get some of the whizzed up mushroom mix on my jumper. The jumper that I have only just washed. The Jumper that is white! The meal really does taste good. The salad is great for something so simple. The apple really does lift it.
Who with: Gavin
How long: Fourteen minutes and forty five seconds
