The Way Things Are

I could never really say what we actually eat from day to day. I'm not a great planner of meals. Most of the time I tend to just cook whatever happens to be to hand. Sometimes, though I'm organised and that's great.

Last night is a good example of The Way Things Are. I found a packet of prawns in the freezer. I didn't know they were there because Brian bought them. He does most of the supermarket shopping and I do most of the cooking which can lead to Old Mother Hubbard moments when there's nothing in the house except Marmite and bran flakes.

These prawns were the fat, juicy frozen uncooked type. What a find! I had some risotto rice and a head of broccoli, so it seemed to suggest a risotto.

I sweated off a finely chopped onion in a bit of butter, added the chopped broccoli with the tender parts of the stalk, and then a cupful of rice and let that lot toast and sweat in the butter for about five minutes.

Next I added a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and let the rice drink it up before adding a couple of mugfuls of hot chicken stock made from those lovely little Knorr Stockpots - dinky little pots of jellied stock without the powdery taste of previous fave Marigold bouillon.

Then I left it to cook. There is a school of thought that says you should hover over a risotto, stirring it lovingly and adding ladles of hot stock as the rice drinks it up. Then there's another school of thought which says bung the whole lot in at once. I belong to the latter.

Then the cat arrived among the pigeons - or rather the mobile fishmonger arrived and I'd not only forgotten he was coming, I'd also neglected to make sure I had the requisite cash to make a purchase. Granny in the Annexe took pity and procured me half a kilo of mussels. Perfect to add to my seafood risotto.

So I did, along with the prawns, a pinch of thyme and a bit more butter and very delicious it was too (I was told).

So that was The Way Things Were last night. Tonight's going to be much the same, except I haven't got a nice bag of prawns to discover any more.

There is, however, a rather charming lobster...