Salad Inspiration

I am over-the-top picky about blueberries. You would be too if your first ever experience with them was a wild bush growing in the woods of your backyard, the fruit of which was always the perfect balance of sweet and tart, and never bigger than half a centimeter across. New Englanders are blueberry-spoiled.

BUT, I'm able to live in the world of normal blueberries now, having perfected the art of the 'squeeze-and-select' method. My husband is very kind to allow me to eat all the super-firm ones, while he takes my rejects. Waitrose has had some really nice smallish organic ones in stock lately, so we've had a lot of salads with blueberries on them lately. I want to share my favorite combination with you.

Blueberry and Shaved Parmigiano Salad

Update on the Revisit to Squash Pizza

Remember my Butternut Squash Phyllo Pizza adventure?

Well, we revisited it last night, but I put it on naan this time. And added baby zucchini (courgette for you UK folk).

Then, with the leftover naan dough . . . we made . . . dessert naan! Sugar, cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, a drizzle of honey on the warm bread. With tea.

Then we watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes and I had really weird dreams.

Pho Real.

Lots of cultures have their versions of the 'Clean Out the Fridge' meal. Americans do casseroles; Brits do pies; lots of places do soups. The ingredients vary across cultures according to what their 'staples' are, which are those things that are always in the fridge and always ready to be used when all the special stuff runs out. My staples have been leaning towards the East lately, and I constantly go for Fried Rice when I've run out of meat and all I've got is a couple half portions of veg, an egg and piles of onion/garlic/ginger (the trio never leaves my kitchen).

But lately, I've been into soups as a method of fridge cleaning. One of my new favorites to make at home is Pho, which is a lovely change from fried rice and uses very similar ingredients (while simultaneously helping me clean out my ever-growing stock-pile of, well, STOCK).

It's sooooo easy and soooooo satisfying. Piping-hot broth does wonders for the psyche.

You, too, can make Vietnamese Pho.