Wednesday 27 February - Cous Cous

We are planning on eating a bit less meat - more due to cost than anything, and found a different recipe for Cous Cous in my new Yotam Ottolenghi Book - Plenty.

The spices were different from my normal choices, and included star anise and chilli flakes

 Carrots and parsnips were roasted with the spices - I did this in my Tagine. Then pumpkin  was added and some further roasting took place.

 

Then cooked chick peas,apricots and some water were added before it was all finished with chopped preserved lemon and Harissa paste

 

Delicous, slightly different flavours from my usual recipe, and no one missed meat at all.

Sunday 17 February - Fresh Yeast

We found this pack of fresh yeast in Morrisons this morning - I've not seen this in the UK probably since I was at school when we learned to bake bread.

The trouble was, none of my modern recipe books had recipes using fresh yeast - even Paul Hollywood suggests using dried active  yeast, and Mrs Beeton wanted us to use liquid brewers yeast.

We decided that each pack would probably do 500g of flour, and followed our normal quantities for water, sugar and salt. The yeast was creamed with the sugar, warm water added and it was left to start working for 15 minutes.

We then started it off in the Kenwood with the dough hook, and left it to rise for an hour while we went out.

It was then shaped into two smallish loaves, so that Bob could take one with him this week, and baked for around 25 minutes. We didn't really leave the second rise quite long enough, so it did stretch slightly in the oven, but overall the loaves seem to be lovely and light, and I'm looking forward to using up the rest of the yeast this week.

Tuesday 12 February - Pizza

We found an amazing pizza cooking system when browsing in Lidl, that would enable us to cook 4 at a time in our oven. This involves 4 trays, stacked in a racking system.

This was also found to be very useful in a small kitchen for preparation purposes too, as we were able to keep all the trays from being spread everywhere.

We started with normal bread dough, which I started off in the bread maker as it's so cold at present I have no chance of dough rising in my kitchen.

This was rolled out to fit the trays (with the 4th portion becoming dough balls)

We all topped our own pizzas with a selection of our favourite things, and a tomato sauce made by reducing some tinned chopped tomatoes with some added garlic and dried herbs.

  

These then went into a very hot oven, until browned. The only thing I would do differently next time is to perhaps take them out of the oven and swap them round half way through cooking.

A very useful piece of equipment - will be good for biscuits too!

Monday 11 February - Pork and Lentils

We bought some nice pieces of pork steak at the weekend, very lean and quite thinly cut, so we thought we do the recipe from Skinny Meals in Heels that George enjoyed once before.

The steaks were bashed out a bit, to tenderise them and flatten them a bit.

They were dusted with seasoned flour, and fried quickly in a dash of hot olive oil. The steaks were kept warm while some onions were sauteed in the pan, then lemon juice, wine and chicken stock were added and quickly reduced down - then back in went the pork and a big spoonful of capers.

This was served over a bed of puy lentils that I'd cooked with a sliced leek and some chicken stock, before adding plenty of chopped parsley.

Very quick to make, very low fat, and tasted like it had taken ages!

Wednesday 6 February - Greek Style

Decided on some chicken kebabs tonight, and the meat was just marinaded in a drop of olive oil, some lemon juice and some garlic for a while, before being threaded on skewers and grilled.

I remembered a rice dish that George and I invented last summer, and haven't made since, and this went alongside (albeit with less fat than when we cooked it previously)

Some pine nuts, sultanas and vermicelli were seperately fried in some ghee, and put to one side.

Then onions and garlic were browned in the fat, along with some saffron, the nuts etc added  back, along with some soaked basmati rice, and double the volume of water and a chicken stock pot.

This was gently cooked until the water was absorbed and the rice was fluffy.

To go alongside this, a large bowl of greek salad - tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, cos lettuce, olives and feta, dressed with chopped dill and some olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

As teenaged boys were lurking around looking hungry we also whizzed up some hummous from tinned chickpeas.

Cooked far too much rice as usual, something I really must work on, but it was fine cold, and rice is much loved by the chickens!

For once both boys cleared their plates too!

Sunday 2 February - Gnocchi

We decided to go  a bit Italian, and attempt to make some Gnocchi - the potato variety not the semolina ones. I investigated lots of recipes, but decided that this one would probably be an authentic one, and for once I followed the recipe to the letter, even weighing the potatoes.#

 

Potatoes were steamed and put through the ricer, and then some butter, eggs and flour were added and mixed to a soft dough.

  

This dough was then rolled into ropes, cut into pieces and I used a fork to mark the Gnocchi.

 

These were then boiled for about 3 minutes, until the floated to the surface.

The sauce was based on a Sophie Grigson recipe, and not one for people on diets - gorgonzola melted in cream and milk. The Sophie Grigson recipe has added spinach and hazelnuts, but we added toasted pine nuts and rocket, and this was poured over the Gnocci.

The sauce was delicious, but the gnocchi a bit of a disappointment - a bit doughy and you could taste the flour in them - something that is probably not worth the effort of making yourself!