Holiday Edition

Hardly looked at a vegetable last week, let alone cooked one, so the serious business of Vegetable of the Week will resume in next week's exciting installment of Mrs Robertson Presents. Our holiday diet consisted mostly of grain waves, buffalo feta, chocolate ice cream and sparkly wine.

Actually, we did have breakfast in a cafe where the 'chef' was so visibly angered by Mr Robertson's request for eggs benedict sans ham that we knew, just knew that he'd hoicked in the hollandaise. And my mushrooms! My mushrooms were out out of a can and smothered in evaporated milk! "Haven't these people heard of garlic and olive oil? I mean really, evaporated milk, it looks like semen!" I snorted to Mr R. Oh, we laughed. And then we laughed some more because they were playing the Spin Doctors on the stereo. "I hear you've brought your own music along!" joked Mr R. We're going to be just fine in the country.

 

But I digress. Last night, consumed with guilt for having been on holiday instead of performing my housewifely duties I whipped up some 'Winter Bake' and a f#*king incredible crumble. The winter bake consisted of a layer of mashed kumara and potato, topped with a layer of sauteed leek, savoy cabbage, baby peas and oregano then finished off with another layer of the potatoes mixture and some grated cheese. Plenty of black pepper for good measure then baked in the oven for 20 odd minutes. Went very nicely with some suspiciously meaty vegetarian sausages, wholegrain mustard and steamed baby carrots.

The crumble was of the rhubarb variety.  I stewed the rhubarb and two apples in orange juice and brown sugar.  Made a crumble mixture from equal measures of wholemeal flour and ground almonds, added more brown sugar, a generous handful of oats, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and some whole hazlenuts.  Then I rubbed the lot together with a generous chunk of softened butter, put it on top of the stewed fruit and baked for half an hour until the rhubarb was bubbling away at the sides.  Mr R enjoyed his with ice-cream and Master R with custard.  I treated myself to some no fat, no sugar, no taste yoghurt.  One likes to keep trim for Mr R.