… Some Shopping and Some Tiding
So typically of Jamie (and others of his ilk) the book begins with a list of essential equipment and store cupboard ingredients. By and large I have most of the equipment. There are only 3 things I need and only one of any significance. I do not have a liquidizer, I have always managed with my food processor and stick blender. I do not have a 2 tier bamboo steamer, although I do have a kinda, two tier steamer, which is really a proper pasta pan, but it has also adequately served the purpose of being a steamer as well. I also do not have a medium sized ovenproof frying pan, I only have a large and a small one. It seems some shopping is in order. This looks like the right excuse to get the liquidiser I have wanted for a long time, but never been quite able to justify. No doubt I’ll buy one or two other things along the way as well.
The pantry ingredients were a bit of a different matter. The list of ingredients runs to 114. There were 2 things I had to look up to see what they were. Of that I had about 35, and also was very low on a further 10 or so. In all I needed 92 things. Late Friday afternoon was spent working out what I had and what I needed and then about 2 hours spent in Sainsbury’s, the large proportion of which was spent in and around the herb/spice section. I managed to get 77 of the 92 ingredients I needed. It cost me £102.15. In fairness there were a number of things I usually have, but had recently ran out of and I hadn’t got round to replacing. I think the girl at the till thought I was weird buying all the different types of pasta and rice. I think she thought I was very weird taking a photo of the items on the belt. I have a feeling that doing this project is going to turn me into a bit of a weirdo, taking pictures of my shopping baskets. A trip to Tesco managed to get me two of the missing ingredients. I didn’t have my list and these were the only things I could remember. Asda got me another 3 ingredients, Marks and Spencer got me 1 more and a “health food” store supplied a further 2. I use the term “health food” advisedly because half the store genuinely was. It had grains and seeds and dried fruits. The other half of the store was filled with over sized plastic jars, with ugly labels, filled with potions/powers? which seemed aimed at either building muscle or loosing weight. Using a potion to achieve either of these outcomes seems far from a healthy approach to life, perhaps I’m wrong. Anyway in all I have spent £116.63 and I’m only now missing 7 ingredients.
I have also had a bit of a tidy up of the kitchen and a bit of an organise to help make the cooking process a bit smoother. A boring but necessary task, the fridge cleaning exercise was long over due anyway.
