Saturday 14 April - A Bit of Foraging...

We popped out this morning to the place where we had previously spotted some wild garlic growing a couple of years ago, and have come home with a fragrant car and a carrier bag full of young leaves. These will form the flavoursome part of tonights supper, along with some fresh hake, and the first English asparagus of the year. 

For a starter, a can of 'foie gras' that we had bought in Lidl in France last year, served with some toasted brioche, and what was supposed to be a bottle of Sauternes, only we couldn't afford to buy any...

Then the main event, some Salsa Verde made with various herbs, and some anchovies and mustard - instead of raw garlic we used the wild garlic.

The hake was fried quickly in oil after being dredged in flour. Served with crushed potatoes and the steamed asparagus.

Tuesday 10th April - Kedgeree

Bob had a yearning to buy a Two Fat Ladies cook book after flicking through one on our weekend away - and the Amazon copy arrived in the post yesterday. For some reason this made me yearn for Kedgeree, and there was a suitable recipe in the book - although it was adjusted to miss out the half pint of cream!

Some rather nice smoked haddock loins, and my secret ingredient from Akram Stores that I always have in the cupboard. The haddock was poached for only about 2 mins, as it will be reheated along with the rice later.

Once the fish was poached, I flaked it and put to one side. I soaked some basmati and rinsed and drained it, then it was added to fried onions with garam masala and turmeric added to it. I also popped in a spoonful of curry powder to spice things up a bit.

Double the volume of haddock poaching water to rice, and simmered until the liquid was absorbed. Then chopped eggs, the fish, and some parsley was added with a bit of butter, and I'm afraid it was reheated in the microwave, before I topped it with the lovely fried onions and a squeeze of lemon.

I actually had three helpings of this 'diet meal' ......

Saturday 7th April - Steak Night

A simple steak supper for Saturday night - we spent ages trying to decide which pieces of meat to buy as we couldn't believe the price of sirloin. Ended up with a pack of 6 pieces of rump, 3 small pieces are in the freezer for a thai beef salad later in the week. We bought some nice new potatoes to serve with the steak and invented a bearnaise butter - finely diced shallots were cooked with white wine and some white wine vinegar and some dried tarragon, this was then beaten into some softened butter and formed into a roll. Served with baked vine tomatoes and mushrooms and some green beans.

Very non diet pudding - dark chocolate mousse served with salted caramel poured over the top,  but only a small portion!

Thursday 5th April - Goulash

After a very poor couple of weeks for dieting - a weekend away with much feasting on delicious things, and then a week by myself which involved eating things found in the freezer, we have now hit a Bank Holiday weekend, so there is no chance of keeping on track. Will have to start again with good intentions once all the Easter Eggs have been consumed...

Tonights meal is based on the excitement of finding these German noodles in Lidl this week. They come round every so often when they have a German Specials week, and they are delicious. Several packs have been purchased and stored away.

These call for Goulash - beef this week. I fried some cubes of beef, then drained the fat off

Then onions, garlic and smoked bacon lardons were fried up, mixed herbs and smoked and ordinary paprika were added

Then two tins of chopped tomatoes, and some beef stock were added, poured over the meat in a casserole dish and shoved in the oven for a couple of hours.

This will be finished at the end with some low fat creme fraiche, and served with the noodles tossed with some poppy seeds and maybe some steamed cabbage.

Sunday 25th March - Workhouse Cooking

George is currently in the middle of a history project, and has chosen to study what was eaten by the residents of a Victorian workhouse. Today was the practical session so an unusual blog today - a typical days food.
Quite a bit of research has been undertaken, but a bit of  poetic licence on the actual recipes here!

Breakfast - what else but a bit of gruel - very thin porridge, cooked with a bit of black treacle - taste was declared to be disgusting ...

Lunch -bread and cheese - apparently yeast was rather hard to come by in the country, so soda bread was the bread of choice. We made our own buttermilk substitute by mixing some lemon juice into fresh milk, and the flour was brown flour with some added oats for texture. George wanted to add some sawdust too, but I thought this dish might be the one thing we cook in the project that is actually edible, so left that one out!

This didn't hang around long - and the bread was actually delicious!

Supper was not such a success with us - a broth made from winter root veg, pearl barley and a lamb bone. Very watery and tasteless, but the chickens enjoyed the veg and barley once we strained the broth off it!

Saturday 24 March, Mystery Ingredient...

Long day, spending some of George's birthday money.Unfortunately he is not willing to spend his earnings so a dull day was had by all. Had one of our Saturday meals that we often have, Wontons, but with a secret ingredient...... fresh water chestnuts, never seen these before!
It worked as well as the tinned version, but not sure what to do with the excess - answers on a card please!!

Friday 23 March - Not Friday Food...

Not our typical Friday night food, but pretty tasty anyway!

One boiled gammon joint, some steamed potatoes, and some butterbeans.

This was served with parsley sauce - done the Sophie Grigson way - parsley cooked for ages in butter before making the roux

Not the most attractive looking meal, could have done with a bit more colour! Tasted OK, and we can state with certainty that kittens like gammon..