Beetroot and foodie week

I've had a busy food related week. Sunday I was a judge for one of the Reading, Steady, Cook competition rounds. This was great fun but very hard to choose between duck and sweet potato curry and steamed halibut with caramelised goat cheese. (The curry won.) Look out for the semi-finals and final of the competition at the Eat Reading Live festival 4th and 5th June.

Watching the contestants do their stuff.

On Monday I went on a trip with the Reading Food Growing Group to Lower Shaw farm in Swindon.  They have a productive organic garden and keep chickens, pigs and sheep. They run residential and day courses and it is a real oasis on the edge of Swindon. I'm thinking of booking into their cookery weekend in November - a whole weekend cooking and talking about food, bliss!

On Tuesday Ben Zagorski, a finalist in last year's Reading, Steady, Cook competition and a judge in this year's was the guest on my Local Lunch show. I treated him to the first beetroot of the season from the veg bag. I boiled the beetroot for about 20 minutes, sliced them and made a dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and honey. I only used about 1/2 teaspoon of honey and added it a bit at a time and kept tasting to make sure it wasn't too sweet. I then added some  Pecorino di Fossa, an Italian sheep milk that is matured in sealed caves. I bought it from The Delistation, one of the stalls at Ms Marmitelove'rs underground market. They suggested you eat the cheese dipped in honey so I thought it should work with the honey dressing.    

Dinner for one

I've never understood it when people say they can't be bothered to cook for themselves. It does give you a warm glow to cook for other people who enjoy your food but if it is just you then you can have exactly what you want. My family are away for half-term so I have the house and veg bag all to myself.

I went to a conference on food blogging at Msmarmitelovers underground restaurant on Saturday. It was fun and inspirational, tips on writing in general as well as increasing the readership of your blog. I'm not sure if I can be bothered with all the search engine optimisation stuff but interacting with other food bloggers was something they suggested that sounded like more fun. With that in mind I checked out the updates of my favourite blogs and found that Dinner Diary's latest post was breaded veal. I'd just got a rose veal escallop out of the freezer so I left a comment on their blog and started planning my dinner for one.

To go with the Veal Milanese I had beetroot boiled and then sliced up and fried in butter with a sliced apple until the apple was soft. The apple was one I found in the bottom of my fridge and I think it would have been better with one that wasn't past its best but they worked well together. I also had potato mashed with some chopped cooked leeks which would definitely not have gone down well with certain members of my family but was devoured appreciatively by my discerning audience of one.