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..

Thursday 22 March - Back After a Long Break

Had rather a long break, Bob being away with work means that meals consist mainly of soup and bread, and then a birthday for George, who reached 13 meant several meals including chips that couldn't possibly be blogged about! Plus, we also had the loss of our cat Derek, who had to be put to sleep earlier this week, RIP our lovely Derek

Back to trying to be interested in food, after a long drive I returned from work to attempt a Parmigiana. Instead of frying the aubergines, they were brushed quickly with a bit of olive oil and quickly put in a hot cast iron pan.

Then we made a thick tomato, garlic and onion sauce  - cooked down for about 40 mins. This was layered with the aubergine slices and some low fat mozarella and grated parmesan

This was baked for half an hour, and served up with a green salad, and some bread that we had made last week and frozen - warning, let it cool a bit before digging in!!

Monday 12 March - The Chickens are Saved!

My useless chickens have redeemed themselves - not an egg since about September last year, and suddenly 5 over a couple of days. This calls for poached eggs, nothing else will do....

Possibly my most favourite supper dish in the world - and a guilty pleasure for one....

Steamed spinach (had to buy this as not ready in the garden as yet)

Topped with the day old poached eggs - poached then plunged into cold water so they don't go hard

Covered in a bit of cheese sauce, made with that good old half fat cheddar, and lots of mustard and chilli to bring out the flavour. This will be flashed in a v hot oven, and served with some ciabatta I found lurking in the freezer......can't wait!

Friday 9 March - Katsu Curry

So, the lovely beef stew and the pork and beans were enjoyed - but not by me as a hideous stomach bug hit me for the latter part of the week - not a good way to lose a couple of pounds!

Tonight, chicken and rice, as surely I'd be able to eat this, and some curry sauce for those that fancied it (turns out that I did - I may pay for this later)

Essential ingredients - I've googled for Katsu curry sauce, and all I can find is that you should buy a chinese curry paste - so this was purchased from Akrams on a previous visit - just add water. It's kind of vile in a special way that nothing else will do in its place. Panko breadcrumbs are also the only thing that will do in this dish

I serve with steamed rice - I boil thai jasmine rice for a couple of minutes, then run cold water over to chill, return to the pan over boiling water sitting in a sieve, and steam for about 10-15 minutes

Chicken breasts are trimmed, bashed out a bit, then dipped in egg and the breadcrumbs twice. I used to fry these, but tonight they were baked with a touch of spray oil, and it worked perfectly.

Other thing I serve with anything oriental is cucumber salad - sliced cucumber is marinaded for as long as possible with ginger (I used some out of a tube), sugar, salt, and rice wine vinegar. Then it's drained and drizzled with a touch of sesame oil. I sometimes garnish with sesame seed and chilli, but couldn't be bothered to do this tonight.

To serve, the chicken is sliced, and served with the rice, cucumber salad and sauce

Wednesday 7 March

Postings becoming a bit few and far between now due to the fact that a lot of repetition is starting to creep in with our meals. The weight is still coming off, but slowly - although I don' think that is such a bad thing as hopefully it will be easier to keep it off (until we go to France in August and eat cheese and confit of duck for two weeks....)

Last night was jusrol pizza - dough that you spread out and tomato sauce then our own toppings added - low fat mozarella, parma ham and some artichoke hearts. This was served with a mixed salad of lettuce, beetroot and a chopped up can of palm hearts - surprisingly tasty!

Today is a busy work day, so stew is already in the slow cooker - shin of beef with onions, a bit of bacon and some mushrooms - to be served with kale and celeriac and maybe some mash - looking forward to this one as smells wonderful.

Tomorrow we are planning some homemade pork and beans - so this will be one to report back on as we will be making it up as we go along.

Saturday3 March - Seafood and Cheese

We went to the fish sheds this morning, the plan originally was to have mussels, but George then mentioned a platter of seafood, so we went a bit bonkers with it.....  This is the raw ingredients we came home with.

We cooked the various bits that needed cooking, and made some bread and 3 flavoured mayos to serve alongside - garlic, mustard and lemon, and truffle oil (it needs to be used up by about 2 years ago....)

We had a salad after this, and then a cheese fest - we don't have to be on a diet every night after all.....

Friday 2 March - Mushroom Extravaganza

We decided to go for mushroom risotto tonight as it's something that is quite relaxing to cook, and it appears to be something that even George will consume without making a fuss about it.

I had a lovely selection of mushrooms - the dried ones were soaked and chopped up, along with the big shitake and portabello mushrooms to add to the main body of the risotto. The smaller ones and the tiny portabellos were saved to fry quickly and add at the end.

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To serve with this some tomato bruschetta - I toasted some baguette and this was rubbed with garlic - to be topped with olive oil, chopped tomatoes and basil before serving

Shallots and chopped garlic fried in a bit of butter, then the chopped mushrooms and rice were added, then white wine and the stock - Knorr Chicken Stockpot and the mushroom soaking water - was slowly added until it was cooked.

Once the rice was ready, the smaller fried mushrooms were stirred in, along with a small handful of freshly grated parmesan, then garnished with a small amount of cubed black pudding and a few strips of crisp pancetta and a drizzle of Georges truffle oil.

The tomatoey, garlicky toast was nice with it, but it made me long for the summer and our home grown tomatoes that actually taste of something!

Friday 2 March - In Need Of Inspiration

Have really lost it over the last couple of days, so going to use Friday evening to try and get interested again.
Feeling quite depressed over the lack of cheese, and that my weight seems to have stabilised.
I'm still 8 lb lighter than when I started , but it just seems to have stuck there.

Need to get my camera out again, and start thinking of something exciting to cook!