After trying to stick to our eating plan by being quite strict during the five weekdays when we only eat one meal a day, and that taken in the early evening, generally about 5 pm, we have the weekend off and have a late breakfast after we have completed our training for the day. That is more like brunch to most people I would say, being late morning. This treat weekend extra is generally bagels with cheese and bacon or occasionally pate, cheese and fruit compote. We used to have a once per month Full English breakfast but that went right out of the window during the early stages of Lockdown and has not returned. Since then we have not had a meal of any kind in a restaurant of café since February.
As all my friends and family know, my husband is head chef in our home and is something of a diva, to the point where I am turned out of the kitchen when he starts to prepare dinner of an evening; that is after I have cleared away anything that was cluttering HIS surfaces; any residual tea/coffee cups etc. Now some might find that an impossible situation but I do not, because this ‘Kitchen Diva’ time give me a little ‘Me’ time, when I can either write or sew for the time it takes for Steve to get the dinner ready. This is always a dedicated task for his enjoyment in preparing with the absolutely most fresh ingredients and with original, often painstaking methods. My few personal fads are honoured, including the fact that I do not like fat on any of my meat dishes and that is not a chore for my husband but it is often just something he knows will make me happy.
Come the weekend breakfast, I may well be left to it after being told what he has bought in for the post training snack. This does not mean that I can simply slap a sandwich in his hand while he watches the sports news. Our table will still be carefully presented. So, you see we are both a bit fussy.
Mainly because my husband makes such delicious meals for me, I have caused him to test his imagination during lockdown, when I insisted upon growing some fresh vegetables once the shortages bit in during lockdowns early couple of months. Whilst we have been lucky to get a food delivery once in ten days at the start, my efforts proved to be a real boon. We do only have a tiny postage stamp back garden and my Shiraz Mange Tout peas and my selection of a couple of varieties of French Beans were a huge success much to his surprise. There is a BUT though, we have picked beans and peas every day for eight or nine weeks. However, Steve has risen to the challenge and thought of a hundred different ways to present them so that we didn’t get fed up with them and stop wanting them.
Last weekend after our ten-mile run in the woods near our home, Steve sat down to wait for the bacon sandwich that he had asked me to prepare. Now there is not much you can do one would think to make a bacon sandwich any more appetising.
My method was to microwave the best back unsmoked bacon until cooked but not overdone. Cube up some Waitrose best salted butter, place the cubes in a ramekin and pop in the microwave for exactly 8 seconds, any more and you will have clarified butter that is still useful, because you can spoon it on the bagels that were set off before the butter. Before buttering the bagels, I mop up the bacon fat on the microwave dish with the dry bagels and then add plenty of butter. Thinly sliced and crumbled cheese has been prepared. I then get a large pair of kitchen scissors and cut the bagels into tiny triangles in a pile in the centre of a plate. Cut the bacon up into similar size pieces. Sprinkle the bacon and cheese crumbles on top of the chopped bagel. Add whatever addition suits your taste buds, I like Dijon mustard but astonishing as it is to me, Steve likes a few little squirts of tomato sauce… yuk! This has become a new favourite quick snack dish.
Photos today are from the good old days when we could eat out with our freinds and family. Top picture was on my birthday a year ago and the one below was after the Pier2Pier swim on the Isle of Wight, our annual club outing until the Covid Rot set in denying us such fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment