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!!

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.