You need to allow quite a long time for cooling the spinach x 2.  Lunch was served rather late!

Gnocchi verdi in tomato sauce

450g fresh spinach; 1 medium onion, finely chopped (I used half a large); 25g butter; large pinch grated nutmeg; 150g ricotta; 115g parmesan, freshly grated (+ a bit extra to serve); 2 fresh egg yolks; 75g plain flour; S&P

Pick through and wash spinach well, drain. Heat up a large pot and add spinach (I did this in 2 batches). Stir well until wilted then remove from pan and spread out to cool (I just put on clean worktop). When cool squeeze out excess liquid by hand and chop finely on chopping board.

Melt butter in warmed pan, add onion and cook until soft and golden.  Stir in spinach and cook for a few minutes, stirring well.  Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Remove from heat and spread out on baking tray to cool.

Once cool, put into a large bowl and stir in the cheeses, egg yolks and flour (I sifted just in case and used knife to stir!).  Check seasoning.

I made half mixture into gnocchi straight away and put plate of them in freezer whilst waiting for water to boil. The recipe recommends keeping in fridge over night and then forming into balls using a teaspoon and floured hands. I put the other half into a plastic container so can test out which is best!

I cooked the gnocchi in three batches in a large pan of boiling water, removing them with a slotted spoon when they rose to the surface (best to switch off heat when you think they are done so they’re not rolling around too much). I had warm plates with a little melted butter ready but drained the gnocchi onto a spare plate to get rid of any water that came with them before transferring them to the warmed serving plates, pouring on the tomato sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan.

At Third Reading (Final Stage) of the Health and Social Care Bill before the Bill is returned to the Commons, David Owen (cross bench peer) and Glenys Thornton (Labour) will today make a last ditch attempt to ensure that MPs will fully understand the implications of enacting the Bill.

I have written to the Bishop of Birmingham and Lib Dem Peer, Lord Alex Carlisle to ask them to support David Owen’ amendment (Glenys Thornton’s would only come into play if it were to be lost).  Below are the emails I have sent and the wording of the amendments.  The format of email addresses for other bishops and peers is similar.

To bishop@birmingham.anglican.org 

Dear David,

I am contacting you to ask you to support David Owen’s amendment at today’s Third Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill calling on the NHS Bill to be paused until the Department of Health publishes the NHS Risk Register as it has been asked to do first by the Information Commissioner in November and most recently by the Information Tribunal last week.  The potential risks of such fundamental reform to such an important part of our health infrastructure are too grave not to be given due consideration.

I am very concerned at the fragmentation of services that will result from the provisions in the Bill – see for example http://m.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/18/doctors-warning-nhs?cat=society&type=article and the risk that EU competition law will come into play once the level of private sector provision reaches a critical point.

I should be grateful to receive your thoughts on this matter.

To carlilea@parliament.uk

Dear Alex

You will recall all those reports into homicides committed by people who were not provided with the joined-up mental health services that they needed.  Since then, mental health services have been given a higher priority and have improved tremendously but all this is threatened by the fragmentation of services that will occur if the Health and Social Care Bill is enacted.  As you know, successful management of chronic conditions requires cross-agency co-operation and so would be put at risk by the widespread introduction of competition into health and social care services.  It will be impossible for future governments to reverse such a trend if EU competition law is allowed to come into play – another real risk!

I am therefore contacting you to ask you to support David Owen’s amendment at today’s Third Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill calling on the NHS Bill to be paused until the Department of Health publishes the NHS Risk Register as it has been asked to do first by the Information Commissioner in November and most recently by the Information Tribunal last week.  The potential risks of such fundamental reform to such an important part of our health infrastructure are too grave not to be given due consideration.

I should be grateful to receive your thoughts on this matter.

Health and Social Care Bill Third Reading [Earl Howe] 18th and 22nd Reports from the Constitution Committee

Lord Owen to move, as an amendment to the motion that the bill be now read a third time, to leave out from “that” to the end and insert “this bill be not read a third time until the House has had an opportunity to consider the detailed reasons for the first-tier tribunal decision that the transition risk register be disclosed and the Government’s response thereto, or until the last practical opportunity which would allow the bill to receive Royal Assent before Prorogation”.

If the bill is read a third time,

Baroness Thornton to move, as an amendment to the motion that the bill do now pass, to leave out from “that” to the end and insert “this House declines to allow the bill to pass, because the bill does not command the support of patients who depend on the National Health Service, the professionals who are expected to make it work, or the public; will not deliver the promised objectives of genuinely empowering clinicians in the commissioning process and putting patients at the heart of the system; will increase bureaucracy and fragment commissioning; will allow Foundation Trusts to raise up to half their income from private patients; and, despite amendment, still creates an economic regulator and regime which will lead to the fragmentation and marketisation of the National Health Service and threaten its ethos and purpose”.

Last weekend I spent more time watching the telly than usual!  What grabbed my attention was the World Cycle Track Championships at the new Olympic velodrome.  It was great to see Team GB triumph but it was especially good to see Jess Varnish from Halesowen Cycle Club and Ben Swift, who we watched as a junior, do so well.

As well as being a fantastically exciting sport, cycling is a great way of getting about and has huge potential to reduce traffic congestion in our cities and improve our health.  So, as a keen cyclist, I have joined more than 29,000 people who have so far signed up in support of TheTimes Campaign thetimes.co.uk/cyclesafe to make cycling safe and pleasurable.

Though launched to make “cities fit for cycling”, the implementation of the 8 point manifesto would also help cyclists in towns and rural areas.  I know from experience that facilities for cyclists around the towns and villages of Powys are even less well-developed than in Birmingham and Birmingham is not a patch on London when it comes to encouraging cyclists!

We are coming up to council elections in May and, in Birmingham, many seats are up for grabs so this presents cyclists and budding cyclists with an opportunity to put the political parties on the spot!  So far none of them have done much more than pay lip-service to the need to encourage cyclists.  See, for example, the discussion on birminghamcyclist.com/ which includes a link to the video of my visit in 2009 to Cambridge with the All Party Cycling Group birminghamcyclist.com/video/lynne-jones-mp-selly-oak-in

The message that came home to me from that visit was the importance of political leadership, preferably cross-party. We do not have that in Birmingham.   In Cambridge (and Cambridgeshire) where they do give cycling the priority it deserves, a high proportion of journeys are by bike.  In Birmingham cycling is still not mainstreamed.  Lack of finance is no excuse – just witness the waste of money on the Selly Oak Relief Road, where the provision for cyclists (pushbikes.org.uk/newsletters) is of a type long abandoned in London in favour of the cycling super highway as demonstrated by this photo I took recently on Chelsea Bridge.

Old and new cycle lanes on Chelsea Bridge

Will cycling be given any priority in the Party Manifestos this May?  A good start might be just a pledge to ensure that, every time there is money spent on the transport network, the needs of pedestrians and cyclists will have top priority.  The Times Cycling Manifesto includes an annual grading of cities for the quality of their provision and the appointment of a local cycling commissioner, which might just push our City to take cycling seriously.  I’m still waiting for a reply from Geoff Inskip (Chief Exec at Centro) to my email over three weeks ago asking whether there will be more than 78 cycle parking spaces at New Street Station. Cambridge station has 500 and they’re planning for 1300.  Says it all!

At Prime Minister’s Question’s today, David Cameron backed the Cities Fit For Cycling campaign.  I wonder whether, in tomorrow’s Commons’ debate on cycling, the Minister responding for the Government will commit to the legislation necessary to implement The Times manifesto!

Of course every effort must be made to minimise any environmental impact (particularly of the electricity transmission system – pylons are ugly, whereas wind generators can have a certain beauty – as seen at the gateway to La Alpujarra) but the bottom line is that if NIMBY attitudes prevail we will end up losing many precious landscapes to unchecked climate change.

The Environmental Assessment of the Neuadd-Goch Bank wind farm, which I read whilst I was “working” at the community shop, concludes there will be no significant ecological impact.  The report mentions observations of skylarks which gave me confidence that I was right in thinking I had spotted one last year on Beacon Hill!   It is acknowledged that the wind farm will have a strong influence on the character of the landscape up to 2km – that means us.  But at least we can carry on watching the red kites and brown hares whilst my precious marsh marigolds and mountain pansy are still more at risk from farming practices than wind farms.

McAlpine were surveying for road access this week.  Could be a problem!

You can see a link above to my old site. It is still alive for you to read all the articles and entries that were written during my time as MP for Birmingham Selly Oak.