You Are What You Eat.

                                           A 3 egg omelette with mushrooms and cheese

For decades eggs have been in the doldrums, this has been attributed to the fact that less of us bake and also that we are less likely to eat an evening meal of egg and chips (once a staple in our diets) because convenience meals have become so popular.

However, consumption of eggs is on the rise and sales are back to levels of the 1980s. Eggs are healthy and provide high levels of protein, vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids and they're cheap!

Time was that people on lower incomes were resourceful, in Victorian times, much of the population could only afford to eat bread and potatoes. Prior to ready-meals, we existed for generation upon generation by cooking simple ingredients such as stews bulked out with dumplings, given the option now between peeling vegetables and preparing dumplings (so simple) many people would rather pierce cellophane and pop a ready-meal in the microwave for 5 minutes.

Personally I think much of it boils down to a general lack of skill and imagination, we can eat healthily for not very much money, (my mother's generation managed it very well,) but the more a food is processed the more profitable it becomes for the western food industry and the cheaper it becomes for us to buy.

A real awareness of what we eat seems to be escaping us? A large processed lasagne can be bought for under a fiver, frozen pizzas a pound a pop, huge bags of frozen chips for pence.....but none of these things are true value for money, they just provide us with the quickest way to load ourselves with calories. A cheap pizza offers no nutrition or sustenance and for practically the same price 6 free-range eggs and a couple of vegetables will provide a healthy filling meal.

Throughout history, the most resourceful food in the world has been produced by communities under huge financial pressure yet the attitude of many British people is that they can't afford to cook from scratch. The simple fact is that convenience has become the easy option.

Food has always been an indicator of social and class distinction, yet it was the poorer classes, who through ingenuity and resourcefulness, provided us with many of the recipes used for generations. It's not that those on a  lower-than-average-income can't afford to cook from scratch, sadly it's that many can't be bothered and have become addicted to the sugary, fatty, chemically enhanced alternatives.

My friend Linda, who was no stranger to making ends meet and providing for her family on a tight budget when her children were young, is an example of a woman using skill but more importantly love, in her kitchen. This next recipe is hers, and as Linda rightly says: 'The truism is: what we eat matters!'

Potato tortilla
Recipe
10-12 free-range eggs
3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
2 onions, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper

Boil potatoes rapidly for 5 minutes until soft but not mushy
Fry onions until soft, 5 minutes
Drain potatoes and add to onions, fry for 5 minutes
In a bowl break up eggs with a fork
Add potatoes and onion to eggs and combine, season well
Return mixture to the pan, cook on a medium heat for 15 minutes
Place a large plate over pan, turn tortilla onto plate
Slide uncooked side back into pan and cook for a further 8 minutes

 'Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you who you are.'
- Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin

Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Eating With A Conscience

                                            My godson Paris tucking into afternoon tea

Due to it being meat-free week I have been browsing through my former blog Two Mad Cows which I co-wrote with my friend Carron, looking for inspiration. Carron's son Paris (my godson) is a pescetarian, however, his diet is mainly plant based, consequently many of Carron's recipes are vegetarian.

Meat-free week is about raising awareness but I'm always mindful of the fact that preaching about vegetarianism sticks in many peoples throats, the symbolism of meat eating is never neutral. We tend to go along with the idea that humans have always eaten animals and that this is justification for continuing the practice. By the same logic we could argue that there is nothing wrong with cannibalism, practiced by many savage tribes throughout history, or indeed, murdering one another, since this has also been done since time immemorial.

However, meat-free week is more about having principles regarding the welfare of the animals we choose to eat long term and educating ourselves about eating meat in moderation rather than vegetarianism per se. Which brings me to restaurants as well as supermarkets. We can be choosy when we eat in restaurants and if a menu tells us nothing about where the meat is from you can assume the worst. Chains such as Nandos and KFC use chickens which have been bred in high densities, in hangar style sheds, never seeing the light of day or setting a foot outdoors in the 6 weeks it takes to reach their genetically engineered slaughter weight. Bizarrely, many celebrities wax lyrical about Nandos on Twitter, with plenty of money at their disposal they advocate eating intensely farmed animals, (I suppose celebrity status and wealth doesn't equal brains or compassion so I shouldn't be surprised!)

It amazes me that these high profile individuals advocate that our sustenance should come from misery. Don't they ever take a day off from buying designer handbags or having botox and actually educate themselves about the food chain before opening their big cosmetic dentally implanted mouths? Jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in filthy, waste covered sheds prior to being slaughtered and ending up covered in peri-peri sauce is hardly conducive to deliciousness in my book!

The least we can do if we are choosing to eat meat is look for products carrying 'Freedom Food' or 'RSPCA approved' logos. Choose free-range or outdoor-bred, eat less meat, have a conscience and vote with your wallet.

This next dish is super tasty and very popular in Mediterranean countries where meat is still regarded with the respect it deserves.

Vegetable frittata

Recipe
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, sliced
3 sweet potatoes, peeled and coarsely grated
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 broccoli, cut into small florets
75g feta cheese
7 free-range eggs
Salt and pepper

Preheat grill to high

                                                                       Prepared vegetables

Heat oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, add onion and cook for 2 minutes

Stir in sweet potato and garlic, cook for 5 minutes

Meanwhile boil broccoli rapidly for 3 minutes

Drain and stir into the potato mixture along with feta cheese

 Beat eggs with 3 tablespoons of water, season and pour into pan

Lower heat and cook for 10-15 minutes until almost set
Place under the grill for 2-3 minutes

Slice and serve with a delicious crisp salad

Children particularly love this dish, possibly because it resembles pizza. It's actually equally delicious served chilled and I often pop a slice in Bert or Glenn's packed lunch for a change.

'You give a child an apple and a rabbit. If the child eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a car.'
- Harvey Diamond

Love Donna xxxxxxx

#meatfreeweek

        These cows were incredibly friendly and came to be stroked, beautiful creatures

It's official #meatfreeweek as I said in yesterdays post and given the response to my post quite a lot of you are getting involved.

My foodie friend Tony, a passionate meat lover, has given up meat for lent and has been meat free for 44 days. Other friends and readers have sent me recipes which they will be eating this week and another friend shared my post which helps to spread the word!

There is no question that having more of a plant based diet and eating less meat, is the key to a longer, healthier life, it's better for the planet and of course for our animals.

Daniel Nowland, Jamie Oliver's in-house expert on all things food and farming related writes: 'In 2015 we are in a place where many people are comfortable eating meat. The way it is presented, pre-packed, processed, reformed etc, makes the act of purchasing it no different to buying any other 'commodity' ie toilet rolls or a packet of biscuits. Having worked in an abattoir it is hard not to make eye contact with these sentient beings, to look into the eyes of a majestic, gentle beast, knowing it has minutes of its life left to live.'

I make no apologies for banging on about factory farming, I dislike the hypocrisy that we are 'a nation of animal lovers' who love our pets unconditionally, yet have no regard for the welfare of the animals we eat.

Clarrie, another regular contributor to this blog and a meat-eater with a conscience, sent me her recipe for last nights dinner. Bubble and squeak has been around since the 1800s, an amalgamation of leftovers usually vegetables and any roasted meat leftover from Sundays dinner. As Clarrie points out, this is a delicious, filling dish that doesn't need meat. I shall be making this tonight and serving it with a large dollop of HP sauce.

Clarrie's bubble & squeak

Recipe
600g mixed vegetables, use your favourites ie carrots, swede, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, cabbage............
2 knobs of butter
Salt and pepper

Peel and trim all the vegetables and cut into even size pieces
Boil vegetables for 10 minutes
In a large frying pan heat a lug of olive oil and butter
Add vegetables, season well with salt and pepper (you could add dried herbs and chilli flakes)
Stir continuously, mashing the vegetables up as you go, cook until the vegetables form a lovely golden crust around the edges
Keep folding the crispy bits back in and repeat the process for 15 minutes

Serve while piping hot and enjoy

'The question is not "can they reason?" nor, "can they talk?" But can they suffer!'
- Jeremy Bentham

Love Donna xxxxxxx

Meat-Free Week

                                          Visiting a farm where animals live a natural life


This week is meat free week which is dedicated to raising awareness of the amount of meat Britons eat and the impact this is having on human health, the welfare of animals and the environment.

The subject of our global farming system (gone mad) should interest us all, after all, we all eat! I'd like to suggest to my readers that they read the book Farmageddon, Compassion In World Farming CEO, Philip Lymbery has joined award-winning journalist Isabel Oakeshott to tell the story about the true cost of cheap meat. Failing that I would ask you to look at the short film: Farmageddon http://goo.gl/ut64lc

As Mike McCarthy (one of thousands of supporters) from the Independent writes: 'Farmageddon is not a vegetarian rant. It is not anti-meat. But it is an unforgettable indictment of our hyper-industrialised agriculture.... we've lived with factory farming for a long time and we probably thought it couldn't get worse. But it can if we let it.'

All around the world, people are aware of the cruelty, wastage and destruction of factory farming. Farmageddon outlines a future of our countryside laid to waste, no butterflies, no bees, no birds and billions of animals that never see a blade of grass.

To put things into perspective, if you saw a child kicking and beating a terrified cat or dog you would expect him to be punished, but move animals off the land, en mass, into crammed sheds and cages, give them no daylight or fresh air, allow them to live up to their stomachs in excrement, slaughter them inhumanely and that's viewed by society as a good business model!

The assumption by the vast majority that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is at best ignorance and at worst cruel and barbaric. Not responding is a response - idle and indifferent - if contributing to the suffering of even one animal, let alone billions of animals who live sad and petrified lives and die in horrific ways doesn't motivate us, what will?

 
Creamed mushrooms

Recipe
50g butter
450g mushrooms, sliced
4 tablespoons plain flour
1 litre vegetable stock
125ml sherry (optional)
250ml double cream
Salt and pepper
Chilli flakes (optional)
Pasta
Grated cheese

Cook pasta according to packet instructions, drain and rinse

In a large pan, melt butter over a medium heat
Cook mushrooms in butter for 5 minutes
Sprinkle flour over mushrooms, pour in stock gradually, stirring continuously
(Add sherry if using)
Bring to the boil, remove from heat and stir in cream

Add pasta to sauce and return to heat, stirring sauce into pasta until it is completely coated
Serve immediately, season with salt, pepper and chilli flakes to taste and sprinkle with grated cheese

                                          

'Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals.'
- Theodore W. Adorno

Love Donna xxxxxxxxxxx

Mother's Love

                                                           Bert awaiting his operation

This blog is nothing if not random. Essentially a 'recipe blog' I do try to stick to food related topics and information but hey, I'm not Mary Berry or Delia Smith. Donna's Pink Kitchen is something of an on line diary and some of my very kind readers have said they follow me as much for my recipes as my personal stories and anecdotes. 

One critic commented that he didn't like my photos of friends and family, my wittering on about nothing in particular and advised I keep my posts more slick and professional, (boy would he hate the above photo and indeed this next post!)

I seem to be appealing to a varied audience and I honestly endeavour to share as much of my food related knowledge..... (don't you know it! I've lectured quite a bit lately about my biggest bete noire: processed food.) But too many facts and statistics can get quite exhausting......for me...... let alone you!

We all love a bit of insight into each others lives, take lovely Nigella, all that spoon licking, luscious loveliness in her fairy lit kitchen was compelling viewing for foodies and I suspect, a few red blooded males, but it was her bitter break-up from Charles Saatchi that really raised her public profile. 

Far from being all beer and skittles, (or in Nigella's case, Marsala wine and petit fours,) life's tough a lot of the time. Marvin Gaye famously said: 'I wish that being famous helped prevent me from being constipated.'

Anyway, I digress, the point is I've had a stressful couple of weeks and far from swanning around in fabulous restaurants and writing food reviews or assembling recipes in my pink kitchen, I've been looking after Bert who unfortunately smashed his collar bone to smithereens in a football accident. 

There is no greater anxiety for a mother than seeing her child in distress, no matter how old they are, our children will always be our babies. When I realised that Bert would have to undergo an operation, naturally my anxiety increased further. 

But here's my chance to tell you that having worked in special needs education.....not in a high profile career or doing anything celebrity worthy.......I have witnessed many children braving endless operations and procedures, I have seen parents stoically, more than that, heroically, watch their babies being taken off to theatre and coming back scarred and bandaged. This a world away from the glitz and glamour of The X Factor or The Baftas. We're all caught up in the current craze of celebrity and status and cause celebre, we jostle our way up the social ladder, even Andy Warhol said of his original quote ('In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes') to: 'I'm bored with that line. My new line is: 'In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.' Fame and fortune are no guardian against your loved ones being in distress or danger, ultimately we're all in this together and we all have our stories to tell.

In our family pasta has always been a comfort food. When I brought Bert home, still woozy from the anesthetic and painkillers, the last thing he wanted was food, however, he hadn't eaten for a couple of days so I made this easy on the stomach dish and not surprisingly it went down very well. 

Comforting pasta

Recipe

Butter, for greasing

250g dried pasta

1 onion, peeled and chopped

3 free-range chicken breasts, cut into thin strips

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon olive oil

For the sauce

50g butter

50g plain flour

750ml hot milk

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (or English mustard)

100g Parmesan cheese, grated (or Cheddar)

2 large tomatoes, deseeded and cut into cubes

Preheat oven 200c/gas mark 7

Cook pasta according to packet instructions and drain, refresh in cold water and leave to drain in colander

Coat chicken in paprika and season with salt and pepper

Heat oil in a large frying pan, quickly fry chicken over high heat for 2 minutes, transfer to a plate and set aside

For the sauce, melt butter in a saucepan, add flour and stir for 1 minute, very gradually add the hot milk, stirring continuously until smooth, as sauce thickens, add mustard and half the cheese

Add the pasta and onion to the sauce and stir

Spoon half of this mixture into a ovenproof dish, arrange the chicken strips over the top and cover with the remaining pasta and sauce

Scatter remaining cheese on top and bake for 20 minutes

Scatter fresh tomatoes on top, season and serve whilst piping hot

'The only love that I really believe in is a mother's love for her children.'

- Karl Lagerfeld

Love Donna xxxxxxx

                                                       

Happy Meals.

                                       My latest article for Shorelines: The Richmond Arms

The sad truth about good British pubs is that they are rapidly declining. Just today I drove past many former pub sites which have been converted into supermarkets, convenience stores or McDonald's restaurants. The pub chains which prevail across Britain, offering glorified versions of the food we eat at home, frozen, mass produced, ready made yet at three times the price, are a far cry from the traditional pub.

In the quiet, pretty village surroundings of West Ashling, the local pub, had it not been rescued by William and Emma Jack, may have folded. The Jack's took over The Richmond Arms nearly four years ago and embarked on a journey which saw them renovating the pub into a welcome haven for drinkers, snackers and fine diners.

The Jack's are a dynamic couple who have previously worked for artist manager and TV producer Simon Fuller - they cooked for numerous celebrities including the Beckhams and Annie Lennox - they also spent 11 years in France as private chefs on super yachts.

The Jack's approach is innovative and exciting, having worked and lived in the Mediterranean they wanted the emphasis to be on relaxed and sociable eating. To that end they converted the pubs bowling alley into a family friendly dining space which houses rustic wooden tables and chairs to create a casual environment. On Friday and Saturday nights families gather around the tables to share mixed plates of tapas and pizzas which are cooked in 60 seconds in their converted bakery van complete with a wood-fired oven which heats up to 500ºc.

                                        The renovated Citroën van with wood-fired oven

This relaxed continental approach has proved very popular, as Emma points out this space is about having fun, making noise and eating with your fingers! The Jack's have managed to transcend borders in their lovely quintessentially British, village pub.

Back in the pubs main building is a more conventional restaurant area and bar, however, all around are the personal touches of Emma and William who spent months scouring the country for quirky artefacts to furnish their pub.

                            A reconditioned vintage birkel, used to cut serrano ham to order

The Richmond Arms is ranked 29th in the 'top 50 pubs' section in the Good Food Guide for good reason. The menu is fresh, modern and tailored to the seasons. Emma hails from a farming family and her passion for excellent produce along with William's creative quirky and unusual dishes make for a great dining experience.

The changing menu offers delights such as game which come from Emma's family farm - guinea fowl and slow cooked hare are just two examples. I opted for 24-hour cooked sticky, smoky beef brisket with dripping chips.

My companion ordered the grilled local monkfish, with wild garlic masala, wood roasted pumpkin and guanciale.

Our dishes were equally delicious but I think it's important to add that there is a difference between eating and dining, yes of course it is predominantly about the quality of food, but also about the experience. The Jack's received a business innovation award this year for taking a concept and excelling in the idea. Theirs is an extension of their home, their lifestyle, their knowledge. This isn't about getting two meals for a fiver, getting it down your neck and going home, dinner at The Richmond Arms is not something you do in the evening before you do something else - dinner is the evening.

The dessert menu was too good to resist and again everything is homemade in the kitchen by William and his second chef Theo Tzanis. I opted for a selection of ice creams: salted caramel, liquorice and honeycomb. I had my reservations about the liquorice ice cream but it turned out to be my favourite......truly delicious.

Astonishingly, statistics reveal that by 2002 thirty million of us were eating out at least once a week, again showing that quantity over quality rules. Pubs and restaurants such as The Richmond Arms are fighting an uphill battle against the giant corporations, but I know where I'd rather spend my money, on good quality, locally sourced, seasonal produce, lovingly prepared by passionate chefs, delivered with impeccable service in fantastic surroundings with a terrific ambience. And I guess I'm not alone as Kate Winslet, Albert Finney and Hugh Dennis are just a few to be counted as the Jack's regulars.

We finished our meal with excellent strong espressos served in quirky retro cups and saucers and concluded that The Richmond Arms is one of the best restaurants we have reviewed.

                                                                William and Emma Jack

'I just ate at a McDonald's franchise, and it was great. Everything looked new, including the food. Apparently fast food will look new for years, sort of like plastic. I wonder if the toys in Happy Meals are more edible than the meals themselves.'
- Jarod Kintz

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx
 

Frankenstein Foods.

Angel Delight: a chemically laden powder, truly artificial in every aspect, but it remains the best-selling instant pudding today! (Photo courtesy of Daily Mail)

My recent posts regarding processed food have caused some debate, all of which is very interesting and encouraging for me as a food writer.

I became friends with Mel some months back as a result of her contributing comments regarding this blog via my Facebook page. Her views are well informed and intelligent and as with any interaction, very much appreciated.

Regarding convenience foods Mel wrote: 'Convenience foods should be banned! Britain should leave the EU and stop being dictated to. Farmers should be allowed to farm without restrictions about produce being too short, too sparse, too yellow and our livestock too woolly, too tall, too fat, too feathery. I believe in supporting British produce, fresh produce and local farming, all of which have been hit hard since joining the EU and which has consequently seen the rise in convenience food simply because it's cheaper than fresh food.

Tony, another friend and ardent follower of this blog argues that family values such as sitting together and eating home cooked food has all but disappeared in Britain. Now living in Spain he writes: 'Here in Spain families stick to a diet of fresh produce, any decent Spaniard would turn their nose up at the processed ready meals British people eat (I can attest to that) and it isn't uncommon to see mothers walking along the street with a pot of stew to take to the family of their son or daughter for them all to eat together. He goes further to say: 'British people are too lily livered to stand up for themselves in the face of huge food corporations, lack of food education and cookery skills and being in the thrall of huge supermarket chains are what determine Britons relationship with food.'

There can be no doubt that Britain is influenced by America, the first Kentucky Fried Chicken opened here in 1965 followed by McDonald's in 1974 and of course the rise in supermarkets meant that during the sixties, Sainsbury's alone saw it's number of products increase from 2,000 to 4,000. Shockingly today there are over 30,000 food products in its aisles.

In the 1950s chicken was still a luxury because fattening a bird for meat was a time consuming, expensive process. Supermarkets encouraged intensive battery farming methods and by 1967 Britons were eating 200 million chickens a year. Today we buy 800 million chickens a year and discard 86 million!

At the end of the 1970s Marks and Spencer brought out the first chilled ready-meal, chicken kiev. Convenience soon became king and now, rather than shopping at our local butchers, grocers or bakers for perishables such as fresh meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products, we turn to ready-meals. Today Marks and Spencer churns out more than ten tonnes of chicken tikka masala every week.

Tony has a point regarding how other Europeans eat, we Brits re-heat our way through three times as many ready-meals as our European counterparts and by 1990 supermarkets accounted for eighty percent of all food sales in Britain. Shopping in the high street or at markets for fresh ingredients has vanished into the distant past.

As I commented in a recent post, according to research by the national farmers' union the UK will import half of its food by 2040 as agricultural output fails to keep up with our demands, not least our expectations for all-year-round availability of previously seasonal produce.

Convenience, cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing, in the 1950s the average family spent a third of their income on food compared with 12 percent today, but whilst food is cheaper there are many frightful back stories of processing and intervention in our food chain that many people remain blissfully unaware of.

Not so, Mel, like myself Mel buys locally sourced produce predominantly from her local butchers and grocers, she wrote to me recently having just blanched a huge batch of vegetables and frozen them ready for use in the coming weeks. She also makes her own marinades, stocks and proper beef dripping. One of Mel's signature dishes is cottage pie (or Shepherds pie) but she had the ingenious idea of creaming potatoes, carrots and parsnips for the topping, a throwback to when she wanted her children to eat a variety of vegetables. As she said, any root vegetable will do, likewise, any combination of vegetables within the pie is a good way to help kids eat their 'five a day'. Cottage pie is simple, comforting and nutritious and all the more delicious with Mel's topping.

Mel's cottage pie

Recipe
500g grass fed minced beef
I large onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 celery sticks, finely sliced
2 leeks, trimmed and finely sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
400ml beef stock
2 tablespoons tomato puree mixed with 300ml boiled water
Salt and pepper

For the topping
1 kg potatoes, peeled and diced
2 parsnips, peeled and diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
75g butter
4 tablespoons milk

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan
Fry onion, garlic, celery and leeks over a medium heat until soft and translucent
Add mince and fry until golden
Add stock and tomato puree, season and simmer for 30 minutes
Meanwhile, boil potatoes, parsnips and carrots until soft
Heat oven to 190c/gas mark 5
Spoon mince mixture into a casserole dish
Drain potatoes, parsnips and carrots, mash with butter and milk, season
Top mince mixture with mash and bake for 30 minutes

Mel has added carrots, peas and sweetcorn to her pie, the more vegetables the merrier!

Pulses and lentils are another tasty alternative to fill your pie along with your meat and vegetables, they will make your ingredients stretch further making it even more economical!

'A farmer friend of mine told me recently about a busload of school children who came to his farm for a tour. The first two boys off the bus asked: 'Where do you grow salsa?' They thought they could go and gather salsa like gathering apples or peaches. Oh my, what do they put on SAT tests to measure this? Does anybody care? How little can a person know about food and still make educated decisions about it? Is this going to change before they enter the voting booth?'
- Joel Salatin: 'Folks, this aint normal: A farmer's advice for happier hens, healthier people and a better world.

Love Donna xxxxxxxx