Caesar salad, barbeque and more springtime sunshine!

I can hardly believe that we are still in this lovely sunny, hot springtime. It’s just gorgeous. I am trying to take it one day at a time but the more we have of summertime the more I know I will be disappointed when it returns to spring.

My sister came up to stay this weekend. So Friday was food shopping – butchers for a shoulder of lamb & ribs for the barbeque, the freezer for other barbeque fair – quails & chicken breast, Waitrose for the rest. Woke up Saturday morning remembering I hadn’t planned lunch.  Opps! What have I got?? Just about enough for a Caesar salad – Cos lettuce, eggs, parmesan & anchovies. Tiger bread that hubby had bought and bacon out of the freezer for breakfast – fab. I love Caesar salad – creamy salty dressing on crisp leaves with a little crunch from croutons & bacon –perfect.

We had just about got the barbeque cooked – spatchcock quail in mustard marinade, chicken skewers in tandoori style marinade & ribs – when the thunder storm that had been brewing all afternoon sent down the rain. We all dashed inside to eat. A real summertime BBQ – and it’s April. Green bean & tomato salad, corn on the cob & potato salad to balance out the meat.

Sunday was citrus fruit salad & hot cross buns for breakfast. Aqua class to work some of it off. And home to a slow roast shoulder of lamb, with pepper / feta salad (using the last of the BBQ heat yesterday to blacken the peppers), first of the jersey royals & peas. Easy peasy, but just delicious and summery enough for the day.

We finished off – much later in the day – with Heston’s cherry chocolate trifle for dessert. I’d forgotten I was making this, even though I bought the sponge fingers and cherries weeks ago. So had to improvise in the Co-op local with raspberry jelly & Ambrosia tinned custard instead of gelatine & fresh custard. Well, it seemed to make no difference, the finished trifle was delicious – amaretto, cherries, chocolate, cream – what can go wrong with that combination. Made them in individual glasses using ½ the recipe. It was just enough for three would have been a mean four. More sponge fingers needed.

Today we have polished off the last of the lamb with hummus, flat bread and salad. A suppertime picnic to finish a summertime in spring Easter weekend.

Salads in springtime

The weather has been glorious. Feels like summer and I find that I’m getting used to it, not quite sunbathing in the garden, but almost. It’ll be a shock next week when it turns back to spring. So food has taken on a summer feel this weekend. Salad Nicoise last night, which is definitely one of my summer favourites, but not usually served in spring! It’s a lovely summer supper – tuna steaks, eggs, green beans & olives – yum. We had lettuce & tomatoes in the box this week. The tomatoes were a little insipid, so I slow roasted them to intensify their flavours. Cut in half, sprinkle with s&p, sugar, oregano and little rapeseed oil, then into oven at 120 for four hours and leave to cool before adding to salad.  Scrummy.

Also put the meat into marinade for the barbecue today. I know April 10^th and we are having a barbie, the first of the year! The weather really is gorgeous. So chicken thighs have gone into a marinade of preserved lemon, chilli, rosemary & garlic and lamb chops have been rubbed with ras-al-hanout spices. We’ve got loads of parsley in the garden, so I’ll do a herby couscous salad and then hubby’s got aubergine, peppers & mushroom for the barbecue. Makes a lovely change from a Sunday roast and we might even get to eat it outside. We had breakfast on the garden bench this morning – citrus fruit salad with yoghurt, honey and seeds. Then bread and marmalade. I’ve got back into my bread making mode. Made the dough up last night, left it rise, second rise this morning and then into the oven and ready for breakfast. This only really works for breakfast on a Sunday, which is late, late morning. Any other day and it’s a loaf for lunch. Still lovely, lovely to have fresh bread. Need to find a way to keep it through the week, it goes so dry. I’ve tried paper bags and plastic bags. Today I’ve put it in a biscuit tin, that might just work. Don’t know why I’ve not tried it before. Put a bit of milk into the mix this time, thinking that might keep it softer, we will see.