Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Fishcake fanfare

Hunger factor: Off the scale
Cupboard status: Old Mother Hubbard bare
Jamie Brownie points: 1500!
Mood: Accomplished

Am Queen of the kitchen. Nigella, Jamie, Gordon and Marco-Pierre wotsisface (not to mention Mummy Dearest) would be proud. Have turned the pathetic end-of-month/waiting-for-PayDay contents of my larder into a quick, tasty and nourishing meal.

Today was a National Holiday. Greeks took the day off every 28 October to mark the famous "Oxi!" ("No!") that was their PM's reply when Mussolini's government demanded he hand over the country in 1940. Cue patriotic parades of schoolkids, scouts and aged Resistance veterans in every neighbourhood around the country. Also cue the same-old TV fodder that has played on this day every year for the past 40 years - fuzzy black & white documentaries and movies (of which everyone knows every last word of dialogue) celebrating how the brave Greeks snubbed their noses at the Nazis.

I left OH and the in-laws to chat patriotically on the sofa as they watched the last of the coverage of the biggest official parade, and hoped that No.1 would soak up some of his grandfather's reminiscences and regurgitate it when he has to write a essay in his History class some time in the future. As a foreigner, I can't reall contribute much, so I set about fixing sauces and boiling spaghetti (kinda ironic considering today celebrates a rejection of all things Italian).

After stuffing our faces with pasta, we settled down for a quiet afternoon of No.1's homework and preparation for tomorrow's Biology test while OH & I got all cultured listening to Bach and opera highlights as we checked our emails. I was even humming Tocatta & Fugue to myself as I went out for my daily hour's stomp round the neighbourhood.

Then, at about 7.30pm, hunger struck. Big time.

No.1 & OH are pasta addicts. If incapacitated, they'd simply have vermicelli delivered intravenously with a sprinkling of parmesan. By the time they had descended on the leftovers lovingly placed in the fridge for tomorrow, there was precisely nothing left for Yours Truly.

Fine, you might say.

Not fine, I roar in reply. I was HUNGRY. I wanted to eat.
But what was there in the house? Quite literally, not a sausage. Just two small potatoes, a slightly wilted onion and half a piece of left-over fish.

What to do? What to do? Then, inspiration struck! Fishcakes. Never made 'em before, but how hard can they be?

As it turns out, not hard at all. Peel spuds, boil 'em with chopped onion, mash it all up, flake fish, add a pinch of chilli, salt, pepper, a smidge of fresh basil and mix it all up. Shape into burger sized rounds, dunk in flour, and fry lightly. Serve with a splodge of leftover tom-basil sauce for dipping, and eat.

Yum! Big Brownie points to Mandi from the school of eating well with bugger all in the larder.
Even better, OH and No.1 turned their noses up at my offering (Greeks are rightly proud of their cuisine, but can be dismissive of anything beyond their comfort zone). No prob. Their loss - and more for me!

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