Or how, in time, one’s grub can turn green

Imagine you judged the desirability of food by its colour. When I was a child I liked food that was cake colour, potato crisp colour, biscuit colour or sandwich colour. Bring out anything that was cream / yellowy beige and I’d properly wolf it down. The very notion of eating a meal that was mainly coloured green would have me running off in a sulk. Green was a practical colour: for running around on in the park, for those big cushion covers on the sofa, for frogs and grown-up money.. but with the occasional racy incursion into eating territory in the shape of a lime-flavoured wine gum.

Fast forward a long time to yesterday, when I ate a meal which was entirely emerald, kompletely khaki, just jade. (there really need to be more synonyms for green)  Sure, the finely grated ginger and the garlic began beige. And the French beans were flecked. But a quick boil and sautée later everything had blended into a plate of verdant voluptuousness.

All this wordy enthusiasm is borne of the fact that it was utterly, shockingly delicious. Most of the ingredients had just been picked from the garden thirty minutes earlier, which is a good start in terms of flavour, but adding the garlic, ginger, chilli and lime – all towards the end in order not to cook their flavour away – produced a Thai-inspired zing that lifted the vegetables’ flavour without masking them.

Zingy sauteed vegetables

So who needs cake and biscuits? Well I do obviously (munch, munch), but it just goes to show how pepping vegetables up a little can make a wonderful meal out of simple ingredients.