Friday 11 May - Another go at Fish

A place where I spend quite a lot of time is here

http://www.carta.co.uk/foodforum/index.php

a lovely poster called hungryhousewife recommended a recipe book that I wouldn't have given a second glance under normal circumstances - but having recieved an amazon voucher from my coffee machine trial I spent it, and this week the book arrived

Bob was sent off to the fish shop for Hake, but they had run out, so he came back with some lovely cod fillets, and version of the fish traybake with fennel was made.

I say a version, as my oven is not fixed after last  weekends oven cleaning/breaking episode so I was only able to use the top oven. I roasted the potatoes and fennel, but seperately so as to be able to avoid serving fennel to children, and the fish was 'pan fried'. I also adjusted the dressing slightly, using red onion in the absence of shallots, and adding some basil and parsley.



We also added some asparagus as it's in season, and needs to be eaten at every possible opportunity.

I felt the cod was not that flavoursome, but perhaps it was just very fresh - the texture was nice, roasted fennel was superb and the dressing certainly brought it all together.

I can see that this book will be a big favourite, although feel a bit of a fraud as I certainly will never wear, let alone cook in heels!!!

Sunday 6 May - Nut Roast

Request from George for Nut Roast when given the choice of meats for tonight.
This is a recipe that I make up as I go along, but the constants in it are some sort of cereal base, some grated veg to stop it being too dry, and the usual onion, garlic base - I usually add chopped mushrooms if I have some too. Today I used brown basmati rice, carrots and some pistachios and walnuts that were lurking in the cupboard along with a few pine nuts chucked in at the end.

The vegetables were fried and then added to the cooked rice, breadcrumbs and chopped nuts, and bound together with some grated low fat cheese and an egg.

Packed into a loaf tin, which is lined with a cake tin liner - best invention ever for people who hate all that business with fitting greaseproof in, and also people who hate washing up!



This was cooked for around an hour, and then turned out of the tin and popped back in the oven as the crusty edges are the best bit. We served this with roast potatoes, yorkshires and vegetables as well as some apple sauce and redcurrant jelly.







Saturay 5 May - Chicken and Brownies

Bank Holiday weekend here, and as I've been dreadful on the diet front for the last few weeks, I see no reason to eat low fat today. Planning to try and be good again as of next week.....

For Saturday night, chicken breasts stuffed with feta, sundried tomatoe and pine nuts - I bashed the breasts out, and made one big roll out of them, and wrapped this in pancetta and roasted it.
Served with some asparagus, some crushed new potatoes, and some roasted vine tomatoes

For pudding, we made some vanilla icecream using the vanilla pods I found in Lidl at Christmas and stocked up on then forgot about. Served with warm chocolate brownies - I made the batter earlier and kept in the fridge until we were ready to eat. I use an Anton Mossiman recipe, but added some chocolate chips in with the pecans, as if you are going to be a pig you might as well do it properly!



Plenty of brownies left over for the next few days too!!!



Friday 27 April - Risotto

Sometimes we have strange things in our store cupboard that need using up. These are usually things that have been bought by me after spotting the specials in Lidl.

Tonight we had some luxury things that had to be eaten, and we found the perfect recipe in one of the Masterchef books.

Ingredient number one was this bag of frozen chantarelle mushrooms. And ingredient number two has been sitting on the shelf since Christmas when it appeared in Georges stocking -  a jar of black summer truffles

George was in charge of making the stock - mushrooms, carrot, celery, onion, garlic and leek all simmered for around an hour and then strained.

The rice was cooked in the normal way, with some sauted mushrooms and the sliced truffle stirred in at the end. We also made some cheffy parmesan crisps (or  bendys as I made them too early and they went soft) and some basil oil to serve with it.

Very nice, but bottled truffles don't seem to have much flavour at all, so a spoonful of truffle oil was stirred in after the first taste!

Followed by a rather tasty salad,  where I managed to use the excess basil oil up!

Saturday 23rd April - Crab and Salmon

Went back to the wonderful Fish Deli in Lee on Solent today, after fighting our way through what seemed to be the World Morris Dancing Championships to find a parking space.
A huge salmon fillet was purchased for £10, some of which has been frozen for later use and some used in tonights main course.

Andy had mentioned that he was making crab tarts tonight, so this had to be tried for a starter.  George made some pastry, and this was blind baked, and filled with mixed brown and white crab meat, a bit of gruyere and a couple of egg yolks mixed with cream

Main course was salmon, served on a bed of peas and broad beans, with some salmon tartare (raw salmon cubes with dijon mustard, dill and a bit of lemon juice), and a lemon hollondaise (which I found a bit too buttery....

The egg whites left from the hollondaise had to be used up somewhere, so my old faithful pavlova came out.

Spotted a lady on CDWM tonight adding jelly cubes to her coulis, so added a sheet of gelatine to the blueberry coulis before it cooled, and this is something that is worth remembering!

erm, we ate all of it between three of us.......



Wednesday 18th April - Classy Grub for Midweek

Midweek, cold weather and not much inclination to shop or cook. So into the freezer and cupboard to have a look around, and these exciting ingredients were assembled.

Forgotten how filling this can be, and actually all rather comforting. It's nice not to have to bother to think about what to eat some times.. most excellent presentation too!!

Sunday 15th April - Garlic Soup

We've not eaten this yet, but a recipe was suggested to me - wild garlic,courgette and mint soup.This is an Angela Hartnett recipe that was in the Guardian last week.

Very simple, sweat onions and courgettes, then simmer in water. This is then whizzed with the wild garlic and a bunch of mint leaves.

Supper last night was spanakopitta with salad and what were supposedly Jersey Royals - what a waste of money those were - I'll not bother with them again, and will wait for the first potatoes from our allotment which will be so much nicer!!