All year round there is something we buy every week from Village Greens – bread and free-range eggs (we re-use ourcarton tosave money and landfill). Toast is my favourite breakfast, but at week-ends, we usually addpoached eggs. Phil has honed his egg-poaching skills over many week-ends and they arenow perfect. (Picture-perfect - see evidence below!). He tells me he learnt his methodfrom Heston Blumenthal (his web-site, not in person). The trick is to bring the water (and a drop of vinegar) to the boil and reduce heat to approx.80degrees C.Toastthe first side of bread, and then put the eggs in water. The eggs should be ready when second side of bread is toasted (about 2-3 mins).
HERE IS THE EVIDENCE:
WARNING – this method only works with toast! Of course, a steady hand is needed when sliding the eggs into the water to achieve this beauty-contest result. If we’re really famished, or it’s closer to brunch-time, we have veggie sausages, too.Our favourite is “VegiDeli” Lincolnshire-style, which are also great with baked beans.
Because I love toast so much, left-over bread isn’t usually a problemin our house, but sometimes I can’t resist buying a newloaf if I’m in Village Greens when it’s just arrived. In that case we’ll make breadcrumbs from the “old” loaf and keep them in the freezer. Speaking of bread, we’ve recently started to phone the shop first thing Saturday morning to reserve a loaf. That ensures we don’t miss out and also means we don’t need to rush down asearly.
Now that summer’s well and truly over, we are winding down our allotment, which means more produce from Village Greens. Winter squash are cheap, delicious, and easy to cook. Sometimes we simply quarter or slice them and roast them on their own or add potatoes, onions, or any root veg, but our favourite is stuffed whole squash. Just scoop out the seeds and fill with any left-overs, rice, couscous or even just seasoned breadcrumbs(see above)and cheese. Whole squash takesabout an hour in a hot oven, but you can also halve the squashand then add your filling. Some winter squash arevery hard to cut but you can soften them in the oven first before slicing.