Slave Labour

We have recently decided to cement our middle-class surburban lifestyle by having a veg box delivered. It has been great because instead of planning our weeks meals by me wracking my brains for enough vegetarian based meals to counteract the meat and fish fest, we are basing our plans around what veg we have been sent. This means that we are eating much more veg than before, but also eating more interesting things because a diet of risottos and catch-all curries gets boring very quickly.

We have become slaves to Nigel Slater, mainly because we own two fast-food cook books of his, but also bcause he likes really simple and really tasty things. This is a great combination when you are trying to throw together things before a child starts demanding that you help build a jigsaw. Our absolute favourite at the minute is broad beans and bacon, a marvellous combination if you rather like broad beans and bacon, which we all do.

So we were very pleased to find broad beans in our box this week, and Nathaniel was overjoyed to be roped in to food preparation rather than having to watch. Shelling broad beans seems to involve exactly the right level of motor skills and allows plenty of time to develop a good repetitive chant of "bro(ad) deens, bro(ad) deens!"