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Stokes Croft Tesco opens and butter bean salad

Posted on April 17, 2011 | 14 comments

It’s hard to be happy about the 41st Tesco opening in Bristol (figure according to Tesco’s store locator).

93% of 500 locals surveyed had said No to Tesco’s in Stokes Croft. After over a year’s campaigning, it was bitter to see Bristol City Council bow to Tesco pressure last December.

Still, we are making the best of it.

On Friday 16 April, Tesco opened in Stokes Croft.

Friendly activists gave a Bristol-style welcome. They put a comfy sofa and lampshade outside on the pavement. Someone played a guitar.

Another strode into Tesco’s with a wad of Monopoly money. When he was not allowed to spend it, he tried to bribe a security guard with it.

A woman passer-by who also objected to Tesco’s monopoly, took up the Monopoly money-action.

On Saturday, a performer (see pic above) invited us in to ‘his’ Tesco, while outside on the pavement, stalls served free food, and promoted Picton Street’s local independent shops, in the street behind the dreaded Tesco.

Picton Street is a marvel, and includes the Bristolian Cafe, Yogasara yoga studio, vintage dress shops, an art gallery, Radford Mill organic farm shop and Licata, the family-owned Italian delicatessen.

Licata often has great bargains in olive oil and tins of beans. I am crazy about beans as they are a wonderful source of health. Licata has many variety of tinned beans, which to me = fast food.

I owe everything I know about beans to vegetarian hero, Rose Elliot. The Bean Book changed my eating habits for life.

The following recipe comes from there. Please consult The Bean Book for measurements, nutritional facts and top inventive recipes using dried beans and pulses.

Here is my sloppy fast-food version.

Gently fry sliced fresh mushrooms in (olive) oil so they are still succulent. Add a tin of drained butter beans and warm with the mushrooms. Add lemon juice squeezed from two lemons and chopped fresh herbs such as parsley or coriander. You can’t have too many fresh herbs so over-estimate. Mix it all in the frying pan, with salt to taste, and serve still warm with brown rice, or cold as a salad.

I used organic ingredients from Better Food organic supermarket, a 20-minute walk away from Tesco’s, and land cress as the fresh herb.

Rose Elliot’s recipe fries fresh cut-up garlic with the mushrooms and adds cumin spice, with coriander as the fresh herb.

PS I met a neighbour on Saturday who said she had to buy something at Tesco’s in Stokes Croft, and I am haunted by her anxious look.

So, just so you know: If it makes life easier to shop there, then do. Life’s too short for guilt and sacrifice.

I am not against people who use Tesco. I am against Tesco.

14 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, organic, producers, rant, recipe, supermarkets, sustainable, Tesco on Stokes Croft, vegan, vegetarian

Tagged Bristol, butter beans, Rose Elliot, Stokes Croft, Tesco

Six salad party food

Posted on June 15, 2009 | 8 comments

Plate of party food

Party food chez Winkler. I was too excited to eat, so took small portions. This one went down a treat despite hostess-nerves: the wild rice salad with oven-roasted morsels of beetroot, pumpkin and carrots, and crunchy oven-roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds. My off-the-cuff invention, it’s made the grade for next time.

The six vegetarian salads (see unposed picture above) were easy-on-the-purse and high-on-health:

1. Wild rice salad with pumpkin, beetroot and carrot – followed clockwise in the picture by…

2. Ingrid Rose’s hummus (using her 5 x amounts hummus recipe) – her birthday present to me!

3. Butter bean, mushroom and coriander salad with lemon juice

– a perennial winner thanks to Rose Elliot’s The Bean Book

4. Red split lentils with chilli. Simple dhal – light with bite.

5. Organic wholemilk yogurt with diced cucumber, black pepper and mint

6. Classic potato salad – boil halved-and-quartered (if possible NEW) potatoes until soft enough to fall from a a sharp knife when speared.

The party was on Saturday. I aimed to be prepared and avoid last-minute superstress.

Most of the shopping was done midweek.

Thursday I emptied the packet of butter beans (500g) into a large pan and covered the hard ones with water. Overnight they swelled. Some say throw away the rinsing water to reduce farting – what do you think?

Friday I cooked the swelled-up beans in enough water to cover them and boiled them for 1 HOUR, then drained. I defrosted the frozen wild rice I had cooked earlier that week (with chilli). Texture mushy but taste good.

The drained butter beans mingle eventually – with onions fried in olive oil plus 5 teaspoons of cumin sizzling for seconds. Into the spicy mix go sliced mushrooms, lots of them. You may need to add more olive oil to prevent sticking. Once the mushrooms are cooked but not soggy, then you add the drained butter beans.

I roasted the root vegetables a day-ahead too

– seasonal local beetroots and carrots and (imported) pumpkin roasted for only 20 minutes because they were cut-up so small, and the seeds – they take minutes.

Saturday Boiled potatoes for potato salad and slouched them with olive oil, rock salt and garlic while still warm.

Peeled and diced 3 English cucumbers + mint + 3 large pots of organic yogurt, emptied into a bowl.

Assembled the wild rice salad and cooked roasted root veg and seeds.

Assembled the butter beans + mushrooms + cumin with lemon juice and fresh local organic coriander.

Wow. This was the first time I have been so prepared.

I had even sorted out the serving dishes in advance.

All the more time to party.