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.

Smoked eel anyone?

‘It looks a picture!’ thank you hubby! I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but we had a delectable smoked fish supper tonight – smoked eel, watercress and dill flavoured potato salad. All ingredients from the farmers market on Sunday. Along with beetroot & cottage cheese salad, smoked trout and rye bread. Inspiration from both the ingredients and a twist on Jamie’s ideas for smoked salmon.  A super light and fresh spring supper, with plenty left over for lunch boxes. Perfect!

Loving Lidl!

Is it right to be so excited by Lidl? I’m really not sure it is! We were away at the weekend – more on that later – so I’ve been out to do the weekly shop this morning. Quite frankly couldn’t face the boredom of the local supermarket. A Waitrose shop was needed, well not needed, just wanted. There was nothing particularly Waitrosey  on the list. The order of shopping tends to be– the local Sainsbury is usually fine and then the Tesco, if it’s mostly non-fresh food and  Waitrose when I want fish or meat or something particular or if like today I just want a bit of inspiration with my shopping.

So choosing Ealing over Harrow took me past the new Lidl, and thought I’d try a little experiment,  go in and buy what I could from my list – remembering always the challenge of fresh, free range, local, seasonal, organic that goes on in my head when shopping for food. I thought I probably be able to pick up the kitchen roll, smoked fish and maybe the salad.

Well – what a lovely surprise, not only did I do most of the list – organic milk and eggs, pastrami for lunches, unwaxed lemons, garlic and wine, but some lovely seasonal surprises too – purple sprouting broccoli – English, beautiful globe artichokes and organic crème fraiche. Fabulous! So now after a shop at Lidl, my head is buzzing with ideas for a spring supper tomorrow night. I’m thinking purple sprouting broccoli & artichokes with hollandaise maybe, or dippy eggs and melted butter. Anyway what a surprise to be inspired by Lidl – and, having done the calculation on coming home – I’ve saved tenner into the bargain too!

Cheering on cauliflower

Started the week or rather ended the weekend with cauliflower cheese. I think I’m going to start a one women revival of this unloved veg – even Rose Prince, whose view I value highly, was having a pop at it in the paper this weekend.  I love it and following a sunny spring walk in Osterley on Saturday, we picked up a beautiful creamy head of cauliflower and some home grown rhubarb in the estate farm shop. The rhubarb went into crumble yesterday and the cauliflower into cauliflower cheese this evening. Just undercooking it I think is the key to this, so there is still a little texture, but it leads into creaminess when it meets cheesy sauce. Just lovely.

The butcher played his part in the rest of the food we feasted on this weekend. They were my source for a blade of pork for lunch yesterday. This is a shoulder joint with the blade bone still in, allowing it to slowly roast in the oven, while I went to aqua and hubby gardened. The big advantage of a pork joint from the butcher’s is the crackling – the meat has been hung up rather than wrapped up, so the skin in is dryer and that makes for better crackling – crunchy with a layer of fat underneath – I know deadly, but I can think of worse ways to eat fat – greasy burger / Indian take away anyone?  Creating this crackling is almost impossible with a joint that has been sitting in plastic in a supermarket fridge. It does raise the ongoing dilemma though. My local (well localish) butchers is very work-a-day, so no organically reared pork here – his local customers just won’t pay for it. He does have English pork though. So do I support a local butcher and the English pig farmers or organic pig farming generally? I try and get a balance of both, that works for me, my conscience and my palate.

Anyway, on Friday the butcher also had venison, guinea fowl, and duck legs – what was going on? This is very unusual fare for them – getting a free range chicken is an occasional delight. What’s with the venison haunch? Well, they have started to supply TVU and the catering courses are using more ‘trendy’ (the butcher’s word, not mine) ingredients and the services of some well known chefs, so these products are beginning to show up on their counter. Great news for me! Especially as on Friday morning as hubby left for work he let out a pitiful ‘don’t know what I’m going to do for supper tonight’ accompanied by a hang dog expression. It was his turn you see. But how can I resist helping him out? And a guinea fowl at the butchers was just the answer. We were going to have a spit roast chick from Waitrose, which would probably have been one from Tesco, as hubby’s route home is changing – and I really couldn’t bear that either. It’s no great hardship to pop a chicken in the oven and roast it myself – so one guinea fowl for me.

As it was I spatchcocked it and put it in a piri-piri marinade – chilli, lime, cumin, ginger and coriander and a quick roast – 45 mins at 200. Oven chips and salad – delicious Friday night fare! We gobbled it all up. You can see why we had cauli tonight!

We did have fish on Saturday too, so it’s not been a complete meat feast. Hubby did sea bream with Thai spicing a la Nigel Slater. Served it with fried potatoes – not sure that worked. Ah well.

 

Home alone supper

Home alone supper last night, hubby was out at an after work thing. So something simple and light for me – spicy tomato prawns. Another from Delia’s Cooking for One. I’ve had this book for such a long time. It was one of the first that I bought when I moved into my first flat 28 years ago – no it can’t be that long – shock, no actually it was 25 years ago, even so that seems like such a long time ago when I write it down and yet it’s just been one lifetime – mine. Makes me wonder if I’ve learnt anything since then about life, living and me.

Anyway back to spicy prawns…had tomatoes, from the box, on the windowsill and prawns in the freezer – all combined with onions, chilli and olives to make a lovely light supper dish.  I started with some pancetta that was lurking in the fridge and added in some cumin seeds – just because I fancied a little aromatic spice in there.  Kept it to simple bowl food with a half a toasted naan tucked in the side.  Why can’t I cook this simply for hubby?  If he’d been home I would have wanted to make rice and a side dish, when actually he would have loved it just the way I did it last night. So I think it has to go on the list of simple suppers.

And it marked the end of a meaty week. We had the last of the roast lamb with a soft, gentle, aromatic pilaf the night before. The lamb sliced and sprinkled with crystals of Cornish sea salt, chopped dates & pistachios in the pilaff. I love cold lamb like this– sweet and then salty. The final slices went into sandwiches for lunch. And that’s the end of the leg of lamb!

Pork this Sunday I think. Going try a Gary Rhodes seasonal recipe that I did last spring – with an oriental twist – hoisin sauce, pak choi and pears. Need to get the butchers today to get a blade of pork, so better get on with my day. Time to work!

 

Shepherd’s pie and pancakes

Shepherd’s pie last night using some of the leftover roast lamb. Referring to Nigel Slater’s recipe as usual and using leftover gravy instead of stock. Wasn’t in the mood to mash last night, so par boiled the potatoes, sliced them and laid them on top of the pie mixture. We ate it all, and justified that with ‘it’s full of veg’, which it was – onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms.

Tonight of course, Shrove Tuesday, so pancakes for supper. I’ve been pondering all day on the back burner of my brain what to fill the savoury ones with. The whole point of Shrove Tuesday is to empty the house before Lent, so I really wanted to use what was in the fridge, cupboards etc, rather than buying ingredients especially for pancakes. What that amounted to was chard, that came in the box today, ½ packet of porcini mushrooms in the cupboard and pancetta & cheese in the fridge. This all became a lovely savoury, cheesy filling. ‘Perfect’ . And as Hubby has been commenting again on how many oranges are arriving in the box, instead of lemon and sugar we had crepe suzette to follow. They were really delicious – and once again I wonder why I only make pancakes once a year, especially crepe suzette – such simple ingredients – orange juice, sugar, butter and a splash of Grand Marnier, to bathe, eggs, flour & milk made into pancakes. If this is frugal food – we are well fed.

Pancake batter

Cup of plain flour, cup of milk, 2 eggs and a pinch of salt. Whisk together and leave to stand for at least ½ hour. Longer is good too. Whisk  1in a spoon of melted butter just before using.

Chard, porcini and cheese filling

Heat oven to 200

Soak 15g porcini mushroom in hot water.

Blanch chopped chard leaves in boiling salted water. Refresh in salted cold water. Drain.

Start cheese sauce by slowly cooking ½ onion finely chopped in tablespoon of butter.

Cook the chard stalks in boiling water for about 7 mins. Cool in cold, salted water.

Fry 4 slices of pancetta. Leave to one side.

Sauté the chard leaves in the pancetta pan. Leave to one side.

Drain the porcini mushrooms, chop and then sauté off in the pan. Add to the chard leaves.

Back to the cheese sauce. Add tablespoon of plain flour to buttery onions. Stir to a paste. Take off the heat and slowly add 250mls milk. Back onto low heat, simmer for 5-7 mins to thicken, stirring from time to time.

Add in a generous handful of grated cheddar cheese, grated nutmeg, teaspoon of Dijon mustard, and some ground pepper. Stir all together to mix until the cheese has melted. At this stage take out a couple of spoonfuls. To the rest add in the chard & porcini, stir to mix well. Stir in one egg yolk (optional).

Time to make pancakes. Make on at a time. When each is made fill with cheese filling, top with pancetta, roll and put in oven dish. When all 4 are done, spread the reserved sauce over the top, sprinkle with grated cheese.

Into oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile sauté off the chard stalks with butter, salt & pepper.

Served the  pancakes with chard stalks and a green salad.

Dabs at the double

Squid and dabs for supper tonight. Dabs or sand dabs are a lovely, small flat fish.  And they had some at our local Sainsbury’s, which has a small but sometimes interesting fish counter. They have occasional, seasonal supplies of costal fish, dabs for example, but megrim sole sometimes as well – also delicious and good VFM. Yesterday they also had fresh north Atlantic squid. I’ve never cooked fresh squid, so it seemed a good time to try it out.  They were a bit fiddly to prepare, membrane to take off both inside and out, but easy & quick to cook. I cut them into bite size pieces, seasoned with s&p, rubbed a little oil over them and then into a hot skillet. A minute or two each side and then a squeeze of lemon. They were delicious – a taste of Spain – soft, succulent  and meaty. ‘That’s great’! said Hubby, so we’ll be having them again – just need catch them when they are on the counter and experiment a little more next time – chorizo and chickpeas I think.

The dabs, I panfried whole for about 3 minutes each side, had to spoon the roes out to cook a bit more on their own. Did lemony steam-roast potatoes, with capers and thyme. These burnt on the bottom and I don’t know why that was. I used rapeseed oil not olive oil, maybe that’s why. Have to check that out. Mashes carrots and a watercress & avocado salad on the side.

Had lunch out with girlfriends today. I was very good and choose the salad option – melon, ham, fennel, figs etc.  We did however start with a board of bread to share along with a head of roast garlic and olive oil and I nicked a couple of their chips along the way – oh well not too bad and supper tonight was quite light.

I’m out with clients all day tomorrow, so Hubby’s on supper duty. He’s picked up a couple of poussins from Waitrose on the way home tonight. And after watching Heston trying to transform cinema treats on Channel 4 last night we might indulge in hot dogs for supper on Friday! Just trying to figure out how to make that healthier than it sounds. It’ll probably turn out to be one of those foods we reminisce about and then when we eat them are disappointed in their inability to match our memories. Like Hubby’s recent desire for ‘plastic’ cheese slices, that, thank goodness was a one off! And mine for sandwich spread – it’s still sitting in the back of the fridge after one opening last year for a white bread and sandwich spread sandwich, which came nowhere near to being as delicious as I remembered it!

Enough for now – time for Masterchef.

 

Thoughts turn to springtime

Well it’s the first day of spring today – at least metrologicaly speaking, maybe we’ll have to wait ‘til the solstice for it to feel like spring. It’s grey & chilly here this morning, 3.6 degrees. But there were signs of spring on my walk this morning – buds and green leaves coming out. Yes, I know I’ve been good this morning and started my day with a walk.

After pork belly for supper last night, definitely a meat free tonight and in the box this morning (courtesy of Abel & Cole)  is a beautiful head of green broccoli – well calabrese to be accurate – just what’s needed. So broccoli pasta it is tonight. And I might just take a little walk down Jamie’s 30 minute meals and pimp up my usual dish a bit, with a creamy sauce from the stalk, plus a couple of side dishes – courgette salad, although they are not in season and some melon / ham salad – also not in season. Going to have a visit to the local supermarket to find something a bit more seasonal , which is tricky at this time of year. We are in the ‘hungry gap’ where our seasonal produce is low and is probably the one time of year when I welcome a flashy import – so maybe some fennel or green beans. Either way with a couple of side dishes, we would then have readymade lunch boxes too. And this is our challenge this year as Hubby’s moving job locations with no local sandwich bar, so thinking about lunch has become our thing this year. Good for me too, as there is no local sandwich shop near the house either, for me who works from home. Focusing on lunch will mean I get something healthier more interesting to eat as well – and that can only be good!

 

Beef stew & Hubby to the rescue

Huggy is downstairs looking up how to cook a pheasant, seems like a good time to come and catch up on my food diary. Hubby’s never cooked a pheasant before, but he seems in the mood just lately to try new things – pork fillet, Pollack – all ‘p’s I notice.

It’s been another one of those weeks with long days with clients, so what we eat has had to fit in. Tuesday night after standing all day, I then had to stand all the way home on the tube – agony. So I was pretty much done in by the time I got home – late, tired and hungry.  ‘I’m out tonight’ was my greeting, which translates as ‘I don’t want to eat too late’ – I’d only just got in the door! So scrapped the idea of fish and potato – neither time nor energy. What to have then?  The beef stew came to the rescue. I’d put a portion in the fridge to make into a pie later in the week, so this became a ragu base for pasta. Topped it off with the last of the greek basil and salty parmesan – just right, with enough leftovers for lunchboxes.

Next night a humbled hubby came to the rescue and was starting supper as I came in – Pollack and mashed potato. Out of capers, so some roasted peppers to top the pollack and radishes in the mash – that didn’t work – the radishes.

Pigeon breasts on Thursday. They were on offer with Abel & Cole. I’d been thinking all week what to do with them, along with the other veg in the box this week – cabbage, broccoli and carrots. Didn’t want potatoes again, so the spicy route with dhal or the Chinese route with stir fry. That’s the direction I went – thinking duck and looking up Ching-He Huang’s duck recipes. The results were great – I really like pigeon breasts that are rich and meaty without being fatty. Definitely doing this again, so going to get my recipe down.

Marinated pigeon breast and cabbage stir fry.

Marinade 5 pigeon breast in tablespoon each of five spice powder, Chinese rice wine, dark soy sauce  and sesame oil, plus 2 tablespoons of both hoi sin sauce and water. Leave for as long as possible. Heat oven to 180, brown pigeon breasts in a hot wok for 2-3 mins each side, take out and put on a baking sheet, into the oven for 5 mins. Take out and leave to rest.

Meanwhile rinse out the wok, put back on the heat to make the stir fry. Heat tablespoon of groundnut oil; add in 2 cloves of chopped garlic, chunk of chopped ginger, one chopped red chilli and three spring onions chopped. Stir to flavour the oil. Add in ½ a finely chopped cabbage and cook until wilted. Add cooked noodles, generous splash of light soy sauce and tablespoon of the marinade. Stir & toss together. Serve into bowls. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Slice the pigeon breasts and arrange on top of the noodles.

And last night, had to be meat free night – what was left in the box – broccoli, so broccoli soufflé it was. Fabulous Friday night treat and served with salad, healthy too! Used Delia’s recipe it always makes more than fits in my soufflé dish, so second one on the side – more for the lunch boxes!

Cold soufflé is delicious – kind of like a cold omelette, tortilla style.

Anyway enough for now, going to see what Hubby’s decided to do with the pheasant.