If you boil enough barley to cover the bottom of a sauce pan thrice until it's lovely a puffed, but with a bit of crunch retention, and the pour over a sieve full of washed spinach, then throw the lot back into the pan and mix it all together with a handful of quartered Isle of Wight toms*, some fresh, chopped parsley and a wee bit of roasted mustered seeds and garlic, you can be GUARANTEED a meal of the utmost gorgeosity.
To do this you simply need to get the pot on (with barley and water inside, I mean) the hob, somewhere in the 4-5 range. It takes a good twenty minutes to puff properly on my stove, which gives me oodles to get the spinach washed and hovering in anticipation over the sink, the tomatoes quarted and heat up a bit of oil on a griddle to roast the mustard seeds and garlic. (Technically I know that's not really roasting, but it's not frying/sauteeing either...Any guesses as to what I'm actually doing here?)
Add some Borletti bean salad (tinned, drained, rinsed, drained again and mixed with sauteed red pepper and zucchini julienne and more fresh, chopped parley) and you are good to go.
This was my meal for Matthew last night, a meal to remember before he dashes off to Wales. A veggie-ful meal, because fuck knows the next four days are going to be meattastic.
*The tomatoes were picked up at the farmers' market this past Sunday up at Ally Pally. I think I have raved about them before. They are the best tomatoes you could ask for. More tomatoey than your cleared vision of tomato. They are picked, from what I can gather, some time between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. every morning before being packed into recycled cardboard crates and driven BY THE FARMER HERSELF up to London. And there I buy, and there I eat, and there, each weekend, I fall into a delicious tomato-filled trance. The Isle of Wight tomato lady is lovely, and will let you have little tasters. This weekend was the first in a good many that I have not tried to force tomatoes upon unsuspecting friends and visitors. It was also the first in a good many that we went up the the market as there's a wee organic one now opened at the bottom of the hill on Saturdays. They sell Isle of Wight toms too, as well as Kentish and Hampshire tomatoes, plump and red. The Isle of Wight tomato lady, however, also has ripe Sunshine Yellows, purple ones I don't remember the name of and, last weekend, a small collection of acid green tomatoes that tasted like they'd been fragranced with garlic before being planted.
I was in heaven.
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