Ann is the founder of Plate & Plonk.
Plate & Plonk is all about sustainable entertaining. Cooking with passion, wining and dining with delight
Have you noticed that this time around hygiene is not as important as food?
Toilet paper is in plentiful supply, no more backyard brawls in the supermarket aisles, no mad rush for that last box of tissues. Instead, we are in a cooking frenzy.
Flour. Yep, flour disappeared from the shelves. Not just any flour but cheap white flour, wholemeal flour (SR and plain). Only flour that cost triple the normal price was available. I normally wouldn’t notice the disappearing flour act, but, (apparently like everybody else), I needed to bake. Lavosh.
Before COVID 2.0 I purchased flour like normal people. THIS lockdown – I decided to cook this little mother of a Lavosh regardless of the price of flour and make it I did which didn’t make it cheaper than the bought stuff.
It turns out that when you purchase Low-FODMAP flours and starches for some reason it has vegetable gum in it. Have you tried rolling this stuff out using a rolling pin? It is the best upper body workout imaginable!
By the time I had mixed, rolled and rolled again, I deserved to eat the lot…and I did…
Three batches later and arms as heavy as lead I had made lavosh with sesame seeds, lavosh with rosemary and olive oil, lavosh with sea salt – it was everywhere. I gifted it to relatives whether they liked it or not. I’ve since hung up my lavosh making shoes and headed into the land of the pantry.
The land of the pantry (aka plenty), has a surprising array of foodstuffs that didn’t populate the shelves before COVID 2.0.
How many oils, kinds of vinegar, salts, dried fruits, nuts, tins of stuff now reside there?
I can comfortably say that five different types of oils, six (or is it seven?) different kinds of vinegar, and at least five different types of salt (yep cooking salt is totally different from table salt and twice as strong – thanks chef brother) are all part of my new pantry “staples”.
Verjuice and vino cotto, along with caper berries, capers (not the same thing BTW), artichokes, truffle oil, green olives, kalamata olives, pistachios, pecans and good ole almonds have taken up residence in my pantry.
Most of this was purchased in the name of the economy – they were on special – and who can pass up a good bargain even if you don’t know what to do with half-price tiger nut flour? Any tips on what to do with it beyond protein balls please let me know!
Try and find jars for preserving, pickling, jam making and you’ll find that your idea was also everyone else’s.
I launched into online click and collect (click and wait a week to collect). I discovered that preserving jars were nowhere to be found. I shopped with a mission and found one jar and no lid. I was offered a discount but stated that I couldn’t pickle anything without THE LID.
A week before I decided to pickle the daikon I had purchased, in my infinite wisdom, I tossed away the idea of glass jars and metal lids to make way for plastic.
The poor daikon sat in my fridge for a week before I plucked up the courage to pickle it using a bowl and two small jars. The recipe said it could survive in the fridge for three weeks. It’s now been four weeks and there is still one jar to go. Needless to say, I won’t be pickling daikon any time soon!
Again, I didn’t notice the lack of things jam-making until I tried to find them.
So, as we pile on the pounds and eagerly await the reopening of gyms, think of your foray into the wonderful world of food with fondness – it has been an exciting escapade and one that can only serve to enhance your menus for years to come! Home entertaining has been taken to the next level!!!
Bottoms up! Did someone just say alcohol? Is it wine o’clock yet?
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