An Embarrassment of Vegetables

Like Ruth, yesterday I had a change of plan - late dinner, tiring day, expiry date well past, so I had eggs on toast, and damn the careful planning. This wasn't exactly a mistake, but it meant that today (when I've been shopping for my parents, and often pick up some fresh stuff for me on that visit), I have a fridge that is fuller than it should be. Also, I should have looked in the salad drawer last night, because then it would have been eggs and spinach, and I wouldn't have had such a reproachful heap to manage tonight. Not only was there spinach, which was planned as a side to this, there was a pair of little gems, considerably on the turn to brown. All to be eaten. Luckily, the delivery to my folks takes a solid couple of hours walking so a decent sized dinner feels earned.

Tonight's recipe was trailed last weekend, when I said by the end of vegan week I'd be down to just spuds. Clearly, I'm not just down to spuds. Hopefully it's good for the immune system, despite being stuck in the fridge for a week.

I mean this is very unconfined, though if you zoom in it's rather wilted and sprouted

 I did the spinach just as spinach, wilted on the side. The ancient little gems I did as a favourite side of braised lettuce and peas (just put frozen peas in the base of a saucepan, with quartered little gems on top, a solid dash of water, a knob of butter [yes, yes, not vegan], a lid on, and leave them to simmer briskly for 10 minutes; it'll seem like too long for peas, but you'd be surprised).

The spuds, though - they were a new recipe. I've a book called Supra, about gorgeous Georgian feasting, which I don't use very well. You should probably make at least 4 or 5 dishes at once, and i usually just do one interesting thing at a time. This is really just a side, but it's very tasty and it felt like a decent main with two vegetables too.

When only two of your burners work, there may be stacking for this dish

Potatoes with herbs
Small potatoes
Garlic
Chili
Lots of spring onions
Butter and oil
Dill
Coriander
Seasoning

You can probably guess most of this. Boil the potatoes first. Chop the spring onions, slice the garlic, add the chili, and put them into a pan with plenty of oil and butter (no regrets). Gently warm and then cook them till softened but not much browned.

Then add the cooked potatoes, and start to sizzle. You need to be a bit brave and judge the heat carefully: carbonised garlic is pretty foul, but you want the potatoes to colour so you need to leave them fairly still for a while. When at least one side of each spud is browned a bit, add a drift of dill and coriander leaves and some seasoning. Let them wilt, and serve.

Herby glory

This is comfort food in general, but also in specifics. My granny used to babysit me a couple of days a week when I was at primary school, and I'd come home for lunch with her the second day. She would always make the same thing: small potatoes, boiled dry so they went crusty underneath and salty on top, with grated carrots, a splash of milk, and butter mashed with parsley and dill. I've no idea where she got it from, she had a complicated life history and could have picked it up or invented it any time. But this dish made me think of her.

And I ate it watching NTLive, which is scratching my deep-seated itch of missing live theatre, and drinking a campari and tonic, because why not. It's Thursday. We've been at this way of living for a fortnight. Blimey. Time passes fast when you're not going anywhere.