Mothering Sunday

                                         My beautiful mother Constance and I

My darling mother passed away eleven years ago and not a day goes by when I don't miss her. This coming Sunday is mother's day and as always I shall buy a bunch of flowers and place them beside the above photo in memory of my gorgeous mum. The photo is old and has been exposed to light but I treasure it dearly as it was the last photo taken of mum and I together.

Mother's day was originally called mothering Sunday as it was a Christian holiday when people returned to their mother church, commonly known as to have gone 'a-mothering'. This progressed into a day when domestic servants were given the day off to visit their mothers, it was often the only time whole families could gather together, usually servants were not given free days off. Children and young people in service would pick wild flowers en route home to give to their mothers.

Mother's day is still about honouring mother's, however, the simple token of flowers, and more importantly, time spent with our mum's, has been swallowed up by commercialism, nowadays every one jumps on the bandwagon, shops are awash with 'mother's day gifts and cards, and it has become the busiest day of the year for eateries all over the country, I have several friends who work in restaurants and they all dread the mass of people that descend on them on this particular day.

My mother's Italian heritage meant that she was a fantastic cook and I wish that I had written down more of her recipes for posterity. One of my absolute favourites was my mum's bread pudding, fresh from the oven and sprinkled with sugar it was heavenly! I've never tasted bread pudding that compares with my mum's.....ever!
I've googled recipes and looked in cookery books to no avail, I've never been able to emulate mums recipe. I know that mum used suet which none of the recipes I've read include, which is probably why the end result is dry and cakey as oppsed to wet and juicy. So I took the bull by the horns and blind baked a bread pudding using pure instinct as opposed to a recipe, and I cracked it! I ended up with mum's bread pudding.

Bread pudding

Recipe
A loaf of stale bread, crusts removed and broken into small pieces
1/2 pint of cold water
75g soft brown sugar
Half a cup of milk
50g suet
1 egg beaten
100g dried fruit: you can use raisins, currants or cranberries
1 teaspoon mixed spice

Preheat oven 180c/gas mark 4

Soak bread, drain and squeeze out excess water with your hands

Mix bread with the rest of ingredients

Put mixture into a greased baking tin

Bake for 30-40 minutes

Allow to cool slightly, slice and sprinkle with sugar

                                   

                                                          My beautiful mum

'Treat your mother with loving care,
You will only know her value when you see her empty chair'
-author unknown

Happy mother's day
Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Respecting Our NHS

For many women of my generation our career choice was either becoming a nurse, a secretary, a hairdresser or a shop assistant. Throughout my early childhood I wanted to be a nurse, I loved dressing up in my nurses uniform and I had a little red Dr's bag complete with a stethoscope and various plastic bottles. I ministered to my teddies and dolls and eventually my baby brother.

By the time I reached my teens I wanted to become an actress, when I left school I became neither, however, for many years I loved watching a British medical drama series called 'The Royal' which was set in the fictional 'St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital.' The show was set in the 1960s and was very nostalgic depicting a time when hospitals were smaller, Matron took charge, relatives adhered to strict visiting times and everything was spick, span and orderly.

Those halcyon days of the 60s, when hospitals were safe havens, your GP knew your whole family, appointments could be made on the very same day and stays in hospital were lengthy, are long gone.

Sadly, surgeries and hospitals are besieged by people who abuse the NHS and we're all paying the price. Consultant Christian Solomonides, an emergency consultant at Barnet Hospital, decided to vent his spleen on Twitter, which has in turn faced him with being struck off and attracted the media who are asking: 'Is this Britain's most politically incorrect doctor?'

I have to say, I sympathise with Solomonides, he tweeted: 'Ambulance called for a broken nail, an earache, period pain and not being able to get to sleep are all REAL. What's going on with people in the UK.'

He also stated that in his experience of working front line, 90% of call outs for an ambulance were unwarranted (it costs £1,000 to deploy an ambulance to convey to hospital) and reasoned, you can appreciate why the NHS is crippled financially.

His fury was further extended when a patient abused him saying: 'You mean to tell me I've waited 3 hours to be told I've got a bruise!' To which Solomonides replied: 'Well yes sir you clearly felt you needed the obvious stating.'

Solomonides controversially went on further to say that immigration has precipitated a dramatic rise in unwarranted attendances. Inevitably, the larger our population grows, the greater the strain on the NHS. He suggested that by imposing a £50 fine on those who abuse A&E it may go some way to keep the NHS free of time wasters and keep wards free for genuine cases. Sick and poorly patients are being held on waiting lists or lying in A&E corridors all hours of the night. Hospitals across Britain are regularly on 'black alert' where ambulances are stacked up waiting to deliver patients to hospital. Patients who have life threatening conditions and should be on an 8 minute call out time are waiting for up to 2 hours, vulnerable elderly people are being conveyed to and from hospital all hours of the night and for many of us, trying to get an appointment to see a Dr involves a 3-4 week wait, by which time you're either recovered or dead.

Imposing a penalty for misuse of our great institution, which we should revere and want to protect, shouldn't worry those of us who treat the NHS with respect, maybe one day we could even return to some semblance of the calm and orderly hospitals of the 60s.

As I said, I never became a nurse and didn't find my true vocation until my 50s. I now write for a local newspaper, review restaurants and of course write this blog, however, a close friend of mine did become a nurse and I don't envy her. Quite often she comes to visit and is need of a sustaining meal, this next recipe is one of her favourites, I can rustle it up very quickly, it's lovely and fresh, nutritious and utterly delicious. Ingredients such as soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce, fish sauce and flavoured oils are great store cupboard staples, they can transform a simple salad or bowl of noodles or rice. This salad also makes a fab packed lunch which is why I've stated the recipe for roughly 8 servings, you could use less but it's really worth making a larger quantity.

Sesame peanut noodles

Recipe
For the dressing
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp garlic oil (I blend a clove of fresh garlic in olive oil)
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsps sweet chilli sauce
100g smooth peanut butter
2 tbsps fresh lime juice

For the salad
125g mangetout
150g beansprouts, rinsed
1 red pepper, de-seeded and cut into strips
2 spring onions, finely sliced
500g ready-prepared noodles
20g sesame seeds
Fresh coriander

Simply whisk together all of the dressing ingredients
Place mangetout, beansprouts, pepper strips, spring onions and noodles in a bowl
Pour the dressing over and mix thoroughly, coating everything well
Divide into bowls and scatter sesame seeds and fresh coriander over the top

'I was born in a hospital.
But I do not want to die in one.'
-J. R. Rim.

Love Donna xxxxxx

Antimicrobial Resistance. We Need A Massive Rethink.

One of my biggest fears is the fact that we are entering a post-antibiotic world. The brevity of this situation means that routine human infections will become untreatable and have the power to kill us. In the days before antibiotics the world was a much more hazardous place, people routinely died of common illnesses such as urinary tract infections, whooping cough, pneumonia and even paper cuts.

Unfortunately, even if (like me) you only take antibiotics as a last resort, unless you are eating higher-welfare meat, eggs and dairy products, you are already half way there to being antimicrobial resistant.

Over 70 billion animals are farmed for food worldwide and 70% of those animals are kept in intensive systems. Due to the emphasis on high productivity, animals are kept in cramped, filthy bacteria ridden conditions. Disease is so rife that factory farmers are mass medicating the animals, they are continuously dosed up with drugs via their feed and water, and then they go into the food chain.

Instead of looking at improving the horrific conditions these animals are living in and returning them to their natural environment, factory farmers are increasingly over-using drugs to prevent disease thus bringing us to the brink of a human health crisis.

By the age of twenty five most of us will have contracted some sort of infection that needed treating with antibiotics. Pre antibiotics, common infections had an extremely high likelihood of fatality or amputation and infant mortality was severe, yet we are buying and eating mass medicated animals and dairy products with impunity?

For generations, people survived eating much less meat than we do now, rather than eating vast amounts of intensely farmed, drugged animals, we should be thinking about higher welfare, organic and free-range. Yes they may cost more, yes you may have to eat less, but that has to be preferable to the formidable rise of antimicrobial resistance and a return to young children dying from an infected scrape on their knee!

Chicken is supposed to be a 'healthy' source of high-quality nutrition, however, it is impossible to mass produce them in a clean or safe environment at rock bottom prices. As a result of its cheapness our consumption has doubled since 1970 and many of us rarely give a thought for these diseased, drugged birds and the health implications, not only for the birds but for us. We shudder at the thought of eating something that is a couple of days past its expiry date for fear of bacteria, yet the animals we eat have been kept in squalid conditions where bacterial resistance is a devastating problem, kept at bay only by pumping the animals full of drugs........sounds yummy doesn't it!

                                              Battery hens living in cramped conditions.

Although I was a vegetarian for many years, I now eat meat, poultry and fish, however, I'm mindful of the terrible, distressing conditions animals are kept in and will only buy higher welfare. Many supermarkets now stock higher welfare and free-range goods that are only fractionally dearer and let's face it, it doesn't hurt to have a couple of meat-free meals a week.

In this next recipe I used free-range chicken thighs which I bought from my butcher, people tend to stick to chicken breasts as they require little imagination when cooking but thighs are economical and tasty and there is no excuse not to buy free-range.

Baked orange chicken

Recipe
Serves 4
8 skin on free-range chicken thighs
4 tablespoons orange marmalade
Juice of half an orange
1 teaspoon of English mustard
1 orange sliced
Salt and pepper

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper
Preheat oven 160c/gas mark 3
Mix the chicken with the marmalade, orange juice and mustard, season with salt and pepper

Scatter orange slices over chicken

Bake for 40 minutes

Set aside and cover loosely with foil
In a small pan add the marmalade juices to a tablespoon of plain flour and some boiled water stirring continuously until you have a thick glossy gravy

Serve with mashed potatoes and peas

'Some experts say we are moving back to a pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of a new replacement antibiotic, the pipeline is virtually dry. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill.'
- Margaret Chan.

Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Bullying, A National Epidemic.

A collage of photos I made along with the children (who each made their own) when I worked in special needs education.

Regular readers will be familiar with my going off on a completely un-food related tangent from time to time, well, I'm my own boss and I have the platform to write about anything I choose I guess, as to whether readers are interested is possibly a different matter.

But this next subject is close to my heart and worthy of a post I think, although minus a recipe.

Last week I came across a disturbing piece of footage, a two-year-old boy was in the care of an early learning centre (nursery, kindergarten) and video surveillance captured him being beaten more than 20 times with a plastic object by a 'care' employee. Another female employee witnessed the whole scene, but did nothing to stop the woman, this was obviously not an isolated incident.

We tend to allude to the idea that bullies are those evil people out there whom we would never associate with and whose behaviour we would never tolerate. Yet in every situation I have come across in life, (school, the workplace, social groups etc) there is always a bully who is supported by an entourage, thus perpetuating his/her behaviour.

When I was in senior school a girl in my class was bullied relentlessly on a daily basis for what seemed like an eternity. The bullying finally stopped when the girl was hit around the head with a bag full of heavy books, rendering her unconscious. The bully panicked and thereafter left the girl alone. But to my shame, I cowered in fear and horror as this vulnerable girl was picked on (as did the rest of the class) and it haunts me to this day. Why didn't I report it to a teacher? Or my parents? I know I would never have confronted the girl and her gang, I was too terrified, but I should have done something!

What that experience did teach me, was never to be complicit in a bullies behaviour ever again, there is no gesture more devastating or cowardly than the back turning away.

Bullies rely on the fear of others and I have witnessed backs turning away in many situations. People often choose to either ignore bullying or worse still, to close ranks with the bully in order to defend themselves. There has recently been a wave of concern regarding bullying/abuse within the care sector (care homes for the elderly, hospitals, nursery schools in the private sector, homes for people with learning disabilities) where the problem is endemic. Under qualified staff on poor wages are given responsibility caring for people with incredibly complex psychological and physical needs, many carers are out of their depth and rather like the dickensian workhouses, atrocities of abuse are prevalent.

Having worked in a 'caring' environment I have seen bullying at its worst. Much of it was subversive bullying amongst the staff, however, a member of senior management would regularly make condescending remarks about certain children's appearances, safe in the knowledge none of the children could respond or tell their parents. Ironically, when I gave the person a taste of their own medicine, she was incandescent with rage.

By ignoring bullies we enable them, whether we indulge in their gossip or wounding sarcasm, most bullies are cowards by nature and we have a moral obligation to our fellow human beings to stand up to them. Bullies can have the power to ostracise us (but who wants to be part of a group of abusers and cowards?) They can make us fear for our jobs, yet if we collectively stand up to them they lose their power. As Roosevelt said: 'Knowing what's right means nothing unless you do what's right.'

'In a world where you can be anything, be kind.'
-anonymous.

Love Donna xxxxx

The Wonky Vegetable Box Con.

So, the wonky vegetable debacle continues. Recently I wrote a post applauding supermarket giant Asda for selling a wonky veg box, however (as to be expected from any huge food corporation) all is not what it seems!

It transpires Asda aren't using their usual growers and suppliers but using a separate company, (who specifically have this produce available on site and far from being surplus or waste it is destined for other outlets.) Consequently, Asda's main suppliers are still working on their normal specifications with resultant out grading and wastage, Asda has done nothing to improve their levels of waste in their existing supply chain, but hey, it's a great marketing ploy raising misled customers like myself to pat them on the back.

Given that around a third of the planet's food goes to waste, often because of its looks (that's enough to feed over 2 billion people) marketing ploys such as this really infuriate me and should infuriate you.

Sometimes I wonder if I would be better off taking a leaf out of my auntie Betty's book? Auntie Betty was a simple soul (although not unintelligent) she was married to a concert pianist, widowed in her 50s, couldn't drive, rarely ventured further than the local shops and didn't own a TV or read newspapers. Her pleasures in life were her rose garden (the like of which I've never seen since) afternoon tea (which invariably included fresh cream cakes) served on her mother's fine bone china, and listening to classical music on her wireless. Betty didn't have a political bone in her body which by the time I was in my opinionated 20s, irritated me somewhat. I remember saying to my mother: 'how can she have lived for 80 years without having a strong opinion about anything?' But Betty was never ill (she died in her sleep aged 98) and was perpetually happy, she didn't carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, her world was 'Betty's world' and as long as she could prune her roses and the baker didn't run out of cream horns, she was at peace with the world.

I guess you could say Betty was fluffy, (something I've long aspired to be but unfortunately realised it's not my calling.) Initially, when I started writing a food blog, I thought it would be a nice, fluffy hobby, all pretty pictures of fairy cakes and jolly anecdotes, but I'm no Nigella Lawson unfortunately. The more research I do into the food chain, the angrier I get (not conducive to fluffiness.) The appalling welfare of the animals we eat....

                          Look at the urine soaked floor of this cramped, windowless cage.

The 15m tonnes of edible food thrown away in the UK each year, often as a result of misleading use by dates and the food corporations reliance on our ignorance......

I do wonder if people live in their own 'auntie Betty' worlds? I know that prior to writing this blog, like a lot of working mum's living a hectic pace of family life, I would buy certain things with impunity, but a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and knowing what I know, I can't unknow it.

They say ignorance is bliss but surely if that were true people would be happier? I think that for many of us our need for illusion is deep, we don't want to acknowledge the fact that the pig we're eating never saw the light of day, or that supermarkets are throwing away 200,000 tonnes of waste whilst putting famers livelihoods at risk for not coming up to their (our) cosmetic standards. As John Lennon said: 'living is easy with your eyes closed.' Unfortunately, facts do not cease to exist because we choose to ignore them. I shan't be buying Asda's wonky veg box now because I don't like being duped!

What I will be doing is buying a selection of seasonal veg from my local grocer and making delicious stir frys such as this next recipe.

Veggie stir fry

Recipe
Seasonal vegetables such as carrots, kale, spinach, shredded red cabbage, mangetout
Sesame oil
1 piece of root ginger
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of fish sauce

Blend garlic, chopped ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce and a glug of sesame oil

Heat in a large frying pan
Add vegetables and over a high heat stir for 3-4 minutes

Serve immediately with some homemade chilli garlic bread (see previous post)

'Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.'
- Martin Luther King Jr

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx

There Is Nothing Convenient About Bad Food.

I have a huge sentimental attachment to the handful of cookbooks my mother bought me over the years. One of my favourites is The French Kitchen by Joanne Harris, I love that she associates so many of her happy childhood memories around cooking with her great-grandmother and other female relatives and that these memories can be evoked by the tastes and smells of cooking.

For me, cooking is a gesture of love and like Joanne I have many wonderful memories associated with food. Summers blackberrying at Rock Farm and the resulting summer puddings and blackberry jam, going to the allotment with my father and coming home with the first crop of runner beans, my nonna's famous apple pies, mum's steamy kitchen on a Sunday as she prepared a delicious roast......our kitchen wasn't just a place to cook and eat, it was somewhere we gathered to talk, to learn and most importantly, to be together without distractions.

Joanne writes: 'Much of our past and culture is secretly defined by food. Our earliest sensations are to do with tastes and smells; as infants we experience food as comfort and an expression of love.'

Sadly these have become hollow words, far from being an expression of love, nurture and comfort, food has become about convenience. Forget creating memories or seeing cooking as a social activity, parent's are feeding their children on chicken nuggets and pizza, and many children are lucky if they get to sit at a table with their parents, often their only dining companion is the TV.

The French believe teaching children to eat is as important as teaching them to read, from the age of three they spend lunchtimes at school eating at the table. In the UK it has become fashionable (and convenient) to allow children to graze, rather than being involved in preparing, cooking and sharing food, children are given finger food which they eat whilst walking around, watching TV or playing on their computers.

Joanne writes: 'Cooking is as close to magic as modern society allows, a sensual, whole-body experience which allows us to take a set of basic ingredients and transform them into something wonderful. It takes less time to make a fabulous sandwich, salad or pasta dish than it does to defrost an overpriced, processed tray of mush, there is nothing convenient about bad food!'

This next recipe is Joanne's daughter, Anouchka's chilli garlic bread. Anouchka loved making this when she was little (the cookbook was published in 2002) as it was easy enough for her to make without too much help and at the same time allowed her to create plenty of enjoyable mess. I love this because the bread is soft and doughy on the inside with a nice crust and the butter is rich and creamy, comparatively, shop bought garlic bread is always hard and crunchy, synthetic tasting and greasy.

Chilli garlic bread

Recipe
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
4 cloves of garlic, crushed, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt
175g soft butter
1 baguette

Heat the oven to 180c/gas 4
Put the chilli flakes garlic, and salt in a pestle and mortar, pound until it forms a paste ( if you aren't doing this with children you can pulse these in a blender)
Add the butter to the paste and mix well

Almost slice the bread to the bottom every 3cm, divide the butter mix among each incision, spreading it over the inner surfaces
Place on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes
Eat while warm

'You never forget a beautiful thing you have made' (chef Bugnard) said, 'even after you eat it, it stays with you - always.'

Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Quick Fix Meals.

My partner Glenn can make no claims about being a food connoisseur, he'd happily eat a Fray Bentos pie if I'd let him. When we recently sampled a tasting menu at a fine dining restaurant and were given lengthy descriptions of each dish, I could see his eyes glaze over and knew he was probably thinking about the football match he was missing.

Don't get me wrong, he'll happily wolf down everything I cook, but therein lies the problem, sometimes I'll spend a whole afternoon peeling, chopping, blending and marinating, for the meal to be eaten within a blink of an eye.

So, I get why people can't be bothered to cook from scratch, all that preparation for something that takes minutes to eat, it just doesn't equate. Recently, for one reason or another, I've been pushed for time in the kitchen and literally rustled up some very quick meals (one was the very delicious chicken fried rice I posted a couple of days ago.) Last night I cooked a very simple pasta dish which took literally half an hour from pan to plate, it was so good that Glenn actually asked how I had made it (usually you can spare him the details!)

Cooking from scratch doesn't have to be a long laborious exercise and the end result sure beats anything you might ping in the microwave. I was shopping today and the cashier remarked on some of my purchases, we started talking about cooking when her fellow cashier piped up 'I wouldn't know about any of that, I only use my microwave.' I don't think people are deliberately stupid but there is enough information out there telling us how detrimental to our health processed ready meals are! I give up sometimes, trying to tell some people is like chewing water....anyway, I digress, the point is this next dish is quick, nutritious and delicious and takes just as long as it would to cook frozen pizza and oven chips.

Gnocchi and tomato sauce

Recipe
15 cherry tomatoes, halved
Glug of olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large glass of red wine
2 tablespoons tomato puree, diluted in a mug of warm water
1 teaspoon dried chillies (optional but does give a nice kick)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 packet gnocchi
Parmesan or gorgonzola cheese (whenever my mother made a tomato sauce or ragu, she would always put a chunk of Parmesan in and let it slowly melt while the sauce simmered, to add flavour. I like to use a stronger blue cheese)
Salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan
Add tomatoes and sprinkle with sugar, let tomatoes slowly caramelise (be careful the sugar doesn't burn)

Add red wine, reduce liquid by half

Add garlic, chillies and diluted tomato puree and simmer for 10 minutes

Add your chosen cheese and simmer for a further 10 minutes

Boil a kettle, pour water into a saucepan, add gnocchi and wait for it to rise to the surface, roughly 2-3 minutes, drain
Add gnocchi to sauce

Combine sauce with gnocchi, season and serve

'We do not learn for the benefit of anyone, we learn to unlearn ignorance.'
- Michael Bassey Johnson.

Love Donna xxxx