Thursday 30 August - Amazing Kebabs

This is one of those recipes that if I'd seen it in a book I would never have tried. However, my brother cooked this for me a couple of months ago, and we are now eating it regularly, obviously with a few tweaks..

The Kebabs are made up with layers of ingredients.

Layer one - pitta breads that are toasted, then split and then toasted again - they are broken up into the dish. The recipe called for two, but we used four for this sized dish. A bit of Sumac was sprinkled over these.

The next layer -  tomato sauce - I used an onion, some chopped garlic, one home grown green chilli and a tin of tomatoes for this along with salt, pepper and some sugar, and reduced it until lovely and thick - this was then spread over the pitta bread.

Layer three - greek yoghurt - I used normal as I had some in the fridge, but we have used low fat and it works just as well, and to me is preferable. This was whisked and spread over the hot tomato sauce.

Layer four - the kebabs themselves - the recipe calls for beef or lamb, but we had some veal mince in the freezer that I buy up in Waitrose when it's reduced. The mince was mixed up with some salt, pepper, sumac, a touch of grated shallot and some chopped fresh coriander (the recipe had flat parsley, but we are coriander addicts). Formed into small sausage shapes and grilled, then placed on top of the yoghurt.

The final layer is probably what lifts the whole dish - some melted butter, a spoonful of sumac and some pine nuts, warmed through until melted and poured over the whole dish. This is then served straight away - no reheating is involved.

I have to say, that although this sounds peculiar when you first look at it, the combination of the different textures and flavours makes it one of the nicest things I have eaten in a very long time, and it's definitely going to be a regular in this house!

Tuesday 28 August - Goat Cheese Salad

Trying to use up things that we brought home from France, and trying to be a bit healthier with more of our five a day - we decided to see what was in the fridge.

A base of lambs lettuce and curly green lettuce was topped with some cured ham, some figs that were drizzled with honey and roasted, then left to cool as they didn't look that ripe, and some toast topped with goats cheese and warmed in the oven.

 

 

Not the most filling meal ever, and next time I'd try to get hold of some riper figs, and cut down on the cheese a bit - we were trying to use it all up though!

Monday 27 August - Chicken and Salad

Back home from France, and a Bank Holiday to help us catch up with the washing and have a relax before back to work tomorrow.

Lots of beans on the allotment, and having given loads to neighbours still have a need to use them up before the next lot are ready.

So, a salady sort of night - Italian roast chicken - stuffed with herbs and garlic, and wrapped in pancetta, then roasted in foil.

This will be served warm rather than hot, along with bean salad - lightly cooked then tossed with lemon juice, parsley and garlic and a dash of oil, and a tomato and mozarella salad.

No potatoes tonight, but a couple of homemade loaves - one plain and one with garlic and rosemary sprinkled over prior to baking.

If we can manage it, there is lots of cheese to eat up that came home from France, but we need to leave space for afters - a Greek Yoghurt Icecream with honey and almonds, served with peaches that have been baked with marsala, and vanilla and cinnamon.

For once writing before eating, so can't report back on any of this at present!!

Thursday 16 August - En France

Well, we have been in France for nearly a week now, and despite being horrified at the price of meat, we are certainly managing to find some nice things to eat.
This is our home for 2 weeks, and the inside is even better than the outside, and it has a fabulously equipped kitchen too.

 

We are taking it in turns to cook, and mostly we are using the BBQ as it is so hot, but decided to try to cook something I've never cooked or eaten before for my turn - Veal Paupiettes

I fried these off in butter, and then made a sauce using a base of chopped carrot, leek, shallot, garlic, and lardons - then adding white wine and some chicken stock, and returning the veal to the sauce and simmering for an hour or so

The sauce was finished with some mushrooms and some creme fraiche - we served these with green beans and some boiled potatoes

I had poached some local apricots for afters, but we saved these for breakfast and went straight onto cheese after our salad - we are eating far too much cheese, but it's so fabulous it's hard to pass on it....

Monday 6 August - Smug Soup

A fabulous array of vegetables was collected from the allotment and from our back garden veg patch

 

Carrots, florence fennel, potatoes, turnips, courgettes - round and normal, french beans, rainbow chard and tomatoes.

This definitely called for Minestrone - my favourite soup for the summer.

All the veg were chopped into smallish dice.

Other ingredients included some chopped garlic, chopped serrano ham, some orzo and a parmesan rind.

The onions, garlic and ham were gently fried, then the chopped veg added with some chicken stock, and small squeeze of tomato puree and the parmesan rind was added to the simmering soup.

It was finished off by adding the orzo for the last 10 minutes, and some shredded chard. I had planned to add some basil, but found this in a little bowl in the kitchen this morning.....

Served with a sprinkle of grated parmesan and drizzle of olive oil and some home made Italian bread.

Certainly got a few of our five a day in that bowlful!

Saturday 27 July - Turnip Glut and Summer Supper

We found a rather huge row of turnips ready to be harvested in the back garden, and I remembered seeing a Claudia Roden recipe for pickled turnips, or Torshi Left. I've made one jar to see what they are like, as they don't keep for ages.

They were placed in a jar with some chopped raw beetroot and some sliced garlic, and a mix of hot vinegar water and salt poured over - we can try them in couple of days.

Summer has finally arrived on the South Coast, so a summer supper was called for - I made Delia Smiths Feta Cheesecake for a starter, but replaced the cream cheese with Quark and low fat cheese from Lidl - this was very light and quite sharp - a lovely way to start a meal - we added some tabasco to liven the mix up a bit.

Main course was Thai Beef Salad - this recipe is from Sophie Grigsons wonderful Meat book, and a recipe I do actually follow properly - even measuring the ingredients for the dressing!

The steak was rump, and Bob cooked this for 90 seconds on each side - I'm not allowed to cook steak as George says I'm no good at it.

It was lovely and spicy and perfect for a hot summer evening.

Afters were not so healthy - George had been blueberry picking with Granny and Grandpa this week, so I made the Lurpak raspberry blondies, but using blueberries instead - these were made with white chocolate and lots of chunky almonds, and served with some vanilla icecream.

Very tasty, and lovely and squidgy, but I still prefer the plain chocolate version.



Sunday July 22nd Making Sausages

Hello, I am Francie's guest blogger today. I'm her brother, Andy and she has been visiting me this weekend along with Bob and of course my fab nephew, George. Just like my sister, I am obsessed with food and also a chubby! So she as asked me to write the blog today to tell of my first sausage making experience.

Francie and Bob bought me a meat mincer and sausage making kit for christmas 2 years ago. As she has come to visit me in Lincolnshire I decided that it was time for a master class. She had given me the skins and a couple of seasoning mixes so we plumped for chorizo which I must say smelt heavenly. The process began after fixing the mincer sturdily to my kitchen table. It was then a case of brute force and a lot of winding to get the pork through the machine on coarse setting; lots of lovely wriggly worms of only slightly fatty meat pouring out!

To this minced up mess we added 12g of stabilizer and 35g of chorizo spices and then lots of fun mixing it together by hand..

Now the tricky bit - getting the sausages into their skins!! FortunatelyBob was on hand to oversee, and the process was quite slow as the meat seemed to come out of the miner rather slowly. It wasn't as hard as I had imagined and now I feel I feel a bit bad for not having tried before.

 The final result was a long, long chorizo sausage which I decided would be well put to use as a scarf..

The clever bit was out of my hands; Bob really showed off his sausagey skills by linking the bangers. Apparently he watched an instructional video on YouTube. This was all beyond me, but I have to say they looked amazing and a bit too professional for my liking! No one is going to believe we actuallymade these!!

 The proof of the sausage is in the grilling as the old adage goes. So BBQ time in a few moments. Maybe my sister will add a few photos of the cooked product. Bon appetit!