Pass the Pesto!

I was thinking earlier about the fact that I hadn't written on this blog for a while. The problem is, every time I've thought of something to write about, it was food-related. But today it occurred to me that my intended reason for starting this blog was so that the things I was thinking about 'would be written'. And I have been thinking about food a lot lately. More specifically, as Mr Scribetur and I are currently considering a move which might result in reasonably tight circumstances, I've been thinking about how best to make good meals, but without spending too much.

I fear I don't have much patience for the approach of articles such as this one, which imagine that cheap cooking as a student involves only beans, eggs, or mince. Of course, I'm setting up a straw man here; although when I went to university  I was certainly given a small paperback book of student meals that had, I think, an entire section devoted to cooking with baked beans, there has been a recent shift in attitudes to student/budget food, with one self-proclaimed student chef, Sam Stern, rising to mild celebrity through providing rather more practical recipes for aspiring chefs pressed for the space, time, and range of ingredients required by some of Gordon Ramsay's more complex recipes. (One of my all-time favourite meals is his game pie, which my Mum makes at New Year, but unfortunately game pie is only budget if you're willing to do a bit of poaching...) 

At the end of the day, I think the thing about cooking on a budget is that you have to decide what it is you can put up with, because having just one very cheap meal a week can help save up for something a bit more exciting later in the week. Over the past year or so, mine and Mr Scribetur's go-to for this has been pesto pasta: the type you can buy in a small jar that does two meals easily, with some cheap olives chopped up and cheese on top. We have even had 'pesto pasta weeks', where, if we wanted to save up for a luxury, we would have pesto pasta for every other meal. From the ridiculous to the sublime, we spent the money saved on a nice bottle of whisky. Those were a few drams well-earned!

Unfortunately, I have to admit that it's got to the point where I was a bit tired of the above culinary concoction. Pesto pasta seemed to me like one of those things that is perfectly edible, and fills you up, but it's fairly neutral on the food-enjoyment scale. It isn't bad; it just isn't the kind of thing you'd ever cook for a visitor. 

Then, this week, Mr S asked me to get some food from the supermarket (having a bike, I, alas often end up being the one going into town for the shopping, as it takes half as long as walking...!), including, for one recipe he was doing, basil leaves. It seemed a bit inefficient to make from scratch something that could be bought in a jar for £1.50, but, nevertheless, I collected together the other ingredients required for home-made pesto pasta - pine nuts, and a cheap equivalent to parmesan (in this case, Grana Padano). Olive oil we had at home. The final result was this:

Combined with 200g of linguine, some more pine nuts, and a sprinkling of cheese, the result was surprisingly impressive, if I do say so myself. Certainly it tasted absolutely nothing like Sainsbury's own-brand pesto, and was a meal that was genuinely enjoyable. Certainly a bit - though not a lot - more effort than opening a jar, and probably a pound or two more. But still a very cheap meal, and also one that I wouldn't mind eating quite regularly. Also - and maybe this is just me - blending things can be very therapeutic...

I used this recipe, although I think I ended up using about half of the amount of olive oil suggested. The recipe did enough for two well-sauced plates of pasta, with about half spare for another time. So, if you're tired of baked beans or store-bought pesto, but want to save money, I would definitely recommend a bit of home-made pesto!

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P.S: The glass that the pesto is pictured in is something which gives me an inordinate amount of pleasure: it used to contain nutella. I love the fact that you can buy nutella in small jars that, once washed, make completely respectable tumblers. It's like you can eat chocolate spread and save money on glassware all at the same time...!

In sickness and in health...

There are, without a doubt, many wonderful aspects to living with one's significant other. You get to share so much - not just your leisure time (which I love - it means I can read books or surf the net to my heart's content, whilst also keeping my feet warm underneath Mr Scribetur), but also daily chores such as cooking, cleaning, doing the washing up, etc. Whilst in many cases this means that jobs are halved, as it were, there are also times when sharing can double things. Such as coming down with illnesses, for example.

I am neither a very good nurse nor a very patient ill person. When I come down with something, I have to be persuaded - usually by Mr S - that it really isn't a good idea to go cycling out into the cold just to get a book, so I can spend the day in and working. And then I grumble about my inability to do said work, even though I'm clearly not capable of much more than drinking Ribena and watching bad television (and maybe writing slightly incoherent blog posts...). When my husband gets ill, usually a few days after I've recovered from whatever bug I had and then passed on to him, I do my best to show him more sympathy than I did myself, but that's not exactly saying much. I like to 'do' things to fix a problem, and at the end of the day looking after someone who is ill - especially if you live in the same small flat together! - only involves so much active running-around-after-helpful-medicines, and a lot of sitting beside them listening to them sneeze and cough. Which in turn makes me feel guilty, both for giving him the illness and for not being able to do more, which in turn makes me visibly crotchety, which finally winds up with my feeling guilty again. So falling ill, as a member of a couple sharing a small living space, means knowing that there's a fairly high chance that you'll pass it on, and that you'll recover only to have to look after the other.

Of course, I'm not always the 'first' to catch something, which stings in a different way. It's a bit like seeing a television preview of a programme that looks really bad, but you know you're going to have to sit through it anyway. And then when symptoms do start appearing, your other half magnanimously says, with his no-longer-sore-throaty-voice, "ah, yes, and next comes the bit where the main character does x..." Or, well, you get the picture. And sometimes, because human bodies are weird that way, you get 'bonus' symptoms your partner didn't get, kind of like a blooper reel on a DVD. 

This is all more in the way of a reflection than a complaint - if I were living alone, I'd still get ill every now and then, and I wouldn't have anyone to tell me to sit down and relax, for goodness sake (you masochist), or to make me cups of Lemsip whilst I'm curled up on the sofa. And as for the looking after my partner when he's ill, though I might have the bedside manner of Dr House (or, if you want a more geeky allusion, of the holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager), I do it out of love. After all, though there is nothing worse than watching the person you love suffer, however mildly, there is nothing better than caring for them - in sickness and in health. I just wonder if that part of the marriage vow should come with a disclaimer* pointing out that at times there might be twice as much sickness, and half as much health as there ever was before.

*Speaking of disclaimers: Astute readers might have guessed that I am currently somewhat cold-ish. Please forgive any errors of grammar, and mentally adjust the slightly Eeyore-ish tone of the above accordingly!