Going Slow Week 6 - A journey of the highs and lows of eating Slow for a year

Slow Food London set a challenge: could regular Londoners go slow for an entire year? Would it be easy? Would it be hard? Would there be times when it would (slowly) start to go wrong?

Here, Susan Paul talks us through her sixth week.

A busy week so very little time for shopping and cooking. I am so glad I have some good things in our freezer to eat; chicken with stuffing wrapped in Prosciutto – a luxury saved from a supper party, cauliflower cheese, spinach and bacon soup and some sea bass, which my husband baked with rosemary and balsamic vinegar. I have some good bread in the freezer too, which makes simple cheese on toast special. The freezer stock is running low now so I need to get organised and make more things in the next week or so.

I would like to make sourdough bread and have ordered a book on the subject. I am also thinking about other ways of preserving and have found what looks like a good recipe for pickled green beans with red onion so I hope I will get around to trying that soon.

Golden beetroot and blue cheese salad for lunch in a lovely Sussex pub on Friday.

Friends to supper on Friday and we had roast red peppers on cheese shortbread, a current seasonal favourite of slow roast lamb, mint sauce, runner beans and cauliflower cheese with garlic breadcrumbs. Lots of people have asked me how I make the mint sauce so here is the recipe:

Mint Sauce

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 cup of water

1 cup of white wine vinegar

Leaves from about 6 stems of mint, washed

Put the sugar and water in a pan over very low heat and let the sugar dissolve. Give it a stir occasionally to help it along. When the sugar has dissolved, raise the heat and let the mixture boil for a minute then remove it from the heat and add the vinegar – be careful as obviously the mixture is very hot and may spit. Pour the mixture into a dish and let it get completely cold before chopping the mint leaves finely and stirring them into the sugar and vinegar mixture.

This makes enough for 6 but I have started making it in double or triple quantities as it keeps well in a sterilized jar in the fridge.