How we eat in a week
When Lenten lentil levity descends into a meat feast
I was disappointed I didn’t have a crowd to cook for over Easter weekend, as well as relieved.
I’d spent the previous week up North with my eight-year-old, visiting a good spread of family and friends under surprisingly blue skies, and convincing myself that four locations in eight days, parenting alone, trying to do a few bits of work and manage my ageing parents, was all going to be just dandy.
What I did succeed at, was a LOT of great eating. Therefore I thought the few days before Easter could be my sort of truncated mini Lent. A three-day fast of brain and heart.
The images came with a clear signal. They were lentils - dals of all colours - and rice. After a week eating exceedingly well ‘up North’, my body yearned for a bit of levity while my mind, exhausted from caring for everyone, heavy socialising, and some high stakes work stress, wanted a hug - a hug of rice and lentils.
This wouldn’t always have been my comfort food and reveals something of the food journey my palate has taken through the years. I don’t think we would ever have eaten lentils at home, though we might have in France, and rice was a rarity as my Dad went to China once and didn’t fancy it again after two weeks of nothing but.
We were full from many meals. In Sheffield: Kiwi style brunch at Tamper and funny sushi delivered by a cat ‘robot’ at Tsuki. In Altrincham: gorgey Provence rosé and giant mezze platter at the market, brunch with loads of bacon, sausages and Lovingly Artisan sourdough and a roast chicken dinner with herby pilaff from the best hosts Rachael & Jo. Alex (17) made Jus-Rol pains au chocolat with Percy and they hid an extra surprise of a KitKat in one.
We used to get the Pilsbury fruit turnovers to make when we had friends over. I just looked them up and it now seems to be Pillsbury rather than Pilsbury so I ended up in a Reddit hole and YES I was vindicated and the spelling was indeed changed at some point between me making my last hot apple parcel and today.
In Manchester, we dropped into Pollen for sourdough and pastries and did more Med-style feasting at Maray and a note-perfect meal at KAJI (food-wise, though the vibe wasn’t for me). In the Peaks: our usual trip to M&D’s local Italian, Sasso’s, plus quiche and cake and ice cream in Buxton and Lyme Park.
On our final day in the Peaks, we had SUCH a great roast at The Swan Inn in Kettleshulme, before a lovely walk. It reminded me how so many things are overcomplicated with sauces and finishes and flourishes and explanations and essays. It was a high end roast in that the quality of the food was brilliant, as was the cooking, but entirely restrained.
There were fancy dishes on the a la carte such as bouillabaisse and Wagyu. But they hadn’t tried to fancify the roast unnecessarily. It was simply brilliant meat served with the giant Yorkshire puddings we spied on the way in (a great guest teaser) along with green beans, swede and carrot mash, potatoes with a shattering crust and deep dishes of cauliflower cheese. £25.50/£34/£42.50 for one, two or three courses. Tremendous. Go.
On Monday evening, still full from the previous week, I made a dal with half an onion, a few cloves of garlic and lots of ginger from the freezer that I’d frozen in tuppence-sized chunks. I added turmeric, cumin and garam masala and cooked it all dry for a few moments. Then came red lentils which I’d rinsed a few times and a couple of tins of tomatoes. I was sad we didn’t have any coconut milk.
I cooked brown rice and made quick flatbreads for Percy’s tuna wraps - only because I’d been testing a UPF-tracking tool earlier that day and felt bad about all the bad things in supermarket bread. I definitely don’t operate a ‘no-UPF’ approach, and worry for the people who seem to have gone a bit mad about them. I’m mad our food is so packed with them, too, mad as all hell, but that’s a macro position. If we try to control everything moment to moment, we’ll only fail and feel worse. I know because I’ve tried.
At the last minute, I remembered the lamb shoulder from the Sunday roast, so while the lentils (I added a spoonful of fermented black bean paste near the end to give it a bit of a kick) and brown rice drenched in kefir gave my guts and myself the hug I so desperately needed, we also ate like kings with the meat and bread and a really nice Barbera we got at Christmas and will def be getting more of.
Seems I wasn’t quite ready to end the holiday.
Doing a huge dish like this really set me up for a good week. I didn’t have the energy/couldn’t be arsed to shop and didn’t feel like it was my job given I wasn’t on childcare. Surely the person on childcare also does shopping and laundry not just has fun with child? Oh.
On the Tuesday, I fried some tofu with frozen peas and spinach and a can of pre-cooked green lentils (aware this sounds a bit lentil-obsessive by now) for lunch and sat tight until Ben made dinner by way of a wild garlic pesto recipe (Nigella/dad’s garden) and spaghetti.
On Wednesday, it was time to eat up a steak of questionable origin with superlative Jersey Royals and the pesto again. Ben isn’t hungry, so I eat it all myself - a bowl of roast Jerseys adorned with thick cut slices of beef and lots of the wild garlic sauce.
By Thursday, I could barely speak. I don’t recommend trying to look after children during a ‘holiday’ and taking on even more work than usual. I drove to Waitrose at 7pm to ‘cool off’ and came back much happier, with a rare ready meal. It was mozzarella-stuffed pork meatballs in a thick tomato sauce and made me so happy eaten with lots of buttered toast.
It seems I started the week dreaming of levity but it evolved into a meat feast. I’m not sure the transubstantiation of lentils into flesh is Bible protocol and I got my comeuppance when, on Saturday, I ate the last flatbread from Monday and it promptly poisoned me.
To really bed in this meat-eating, I planned duck ragu for Easter Sunday, a recipe from Chris Leach of Manteca, which I spied in the FT mag a few weeks ago. It is SO easy and indulgent, SO rich and delicious. Very few ingredients: duck legs, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, wine, tomato paste. It’s definitely worth making a pangrattato for its crunch against the sauce.
The pasta isn’t hard but recommend making it before you’ve had a drink. Of all the things I try and get her to do in the kitchen, Percy likes making pasta best. This started when I interviewed ‘Pasta Man’ Mateo Zielonka a few years ago and she’s been obsessed with green (spinach) pasta ever since.
Loved this dizzying array of yumminess! I also make a similar lentil/tomato kind of stew, but with whole barley instead of rice, and feel very virtuous after eating it!
I’m eating more meat these days, so this post is inspiring me to take the trouble to buy/cook it, and in more creative ways. I hope you got rested up after your week of travel/family. Thanks for a great read!