And sometimes blogging can seem like such an IMPOSITION. The
thinking, the writing, the re-writing, the eating in different places even
though you KNOW which curry is best and which vegetarian café near the
Cathedral forces you to buy a salad you don’t want. It’s the taking of photos,
the taking of photos again because the cheesecake just DOESN’T REALLY LOOK
RIGHT in that one. The uploading, the “um, that one is slightly better than
that one because on that one I look like I am mid-stroke but oh, um that one,
oh GOD look at my chins, shall we re-shoot?” The editing of photos when you
have time on your hands and the panic of OH SHIT I don’t have time to edit all
the photos for THIS post but now I’ve made expectations and doesn’t it always
pay to be average?
If I was a member of the upper class or a psychopath of any
class, I would certainly hire an intern. What a splendid way to really give
yourself a self-assured pat on the back: I’m so great that people want to do
the SHIT parts of my life FOR FREE!!! What a ball!
Anyway, that explains the hiatus. I can’t promise that I
will get any better at this but in the meantime, let me tell you about the time
the local paper (The Sheffield Star) asked me to write a recipe for them.
“Write” is funny because yeah. So, instead, I regurgitated
one from BBC Good Food and wrote this long drawl about what was in my head at
that moment. I sent it off, waited, had a photographer come round to my house
and had to cook the friggin meal again. Then I had to ask a friend to ‘test’
the meal, which meant I had to eat it again. By this time, I’m thinking, Jesus,
this is DISGUSTING.
Anyway, the paper didn’t print everything I wrote. In fact,
they printed perhaps one sentence and I got to be a musician or a celebrity or
a politician and complain loads:
ME: “I’ve been misquoted!”
FRIEND: “But that is what you said – exactly! Look, it’s
written in this Word document that you sent to them.”
ME: “But it was taken out of context!”
That was it, really. Most of the page was taken up with a
picture of my big, pale, make-up free, frizzy-haired face.
So, here, for my real fans, I will post the unabridged
version:
“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch
like a princess and dinner like a pauper” said someone with no children, no job
and a vegetable patch in the back garden.
In reality, I tend to do the
whole shebang in reverse order. Occasionally, I will almost get it right by eating
a large lunch. Unfortunately though, those days tend to conclude with less of a
pauper dinner and more of a family-sized bag of Maltesers with no hope of
utilising the “seal up and save some for later” sticker (does anyone actually
use those?)
And so, when I got some time off
work the other day, I decided to make a hearty, healthy breakfast (or brunch –
after all, I was off work) to see if the pauper dinner naturally followed on.
Scanning through the BBC Good
Food website (the Holy Grail for all my cooking), I came across a Turkish
recipe called Menemen. It’s basically like Nigella’s ‘Eggs In Purgatory’ but
without the doomsday name.
There are different variations of
Menemen. Some choose to leave the eggs whole, frying them into the mixture and
others prefer to scramble the whole lot together. Seasoning is also a bit of a
free-for-all, meaning that oregano, thyme and parsley are all welcome in the
frying pan.
The eggs, vegetables and pita
bread in this dish mean that you’re getting vitamins, protein and carbs before
you’ve even left the house. If you’re fussy about your carb intake then a) does
your breath smell a bit dodgy? BUT b) the morning is obviously the best time to
enjoy them.
Did the motto serve me well? Yes!
The meal was delicious and I definitely wasn’t hungry until around 2pm. I then
whipped up some brownies and ate quite a bit of the raw batter but thankfully
redeemed myself in the evening with a Greek salad.
All I need now is some motivation
to get up at sunrise and to be blessed with non-blurry morning vision for
chopping chillis as opposed to fingers. Hm. Looks like it’s back to toast and
Marmite until further notice then.
 |
| This is my housemate, Rachel, testing the recipe. This photo is mainly included to show off my hologram of a cat and dog (behind). |
Serves 2, Vegetarian
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 25 mins
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1-2 chillis, chopped (and
de-seeded if you’re a wimp!)
2 large red onions
1 red pepper
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
A sprinkle of caster sugar
4 eggs
A handful of parsley
2 pita bread
Method
1. Heat
up your oil in a large heavy-based frying pan and add your garlic, chilli,
onion and pepper. Cook on a medium heat until the vegetables soften.
2. Pour
in the tomatoes and sprinkle with roughly a teaspoon of sugar to take away the
sharp taste of the tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes have reduced, about 5 minutes.
3. Make
four ‘wells’ in the mixture and crack eggs into each one.
4. Cover
the pan with a lid or a chopping board (keep an eye out as the latter is almost
certainly a fire risk).
5. Warm
up the pitas under the grill.
6. When
the eggs are firm and cooked (but still wobbly), take the pan off the heat and
sprinkle with parsley.
7. Serve
with pita on the side to dip into the runny yolks.
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