Teatime Roulette - Mexican Lasagne

My kids are pretty good eaters. It's not fashionable, I know and probably sounds pretty smug, but there we go. It sometimes means that I am less forgiving of the food foibles of other children. On the other hand, when you've got friends for tea, you want to make sure they eat something. It sometimes feels a litte like playing roulette.

I was pretty desperate on Monday night, with extra kids to feed, no plan, and no left over roast dinner to fry up with some noodles and pass off as stir fry. Instead, I had to throw myself on the mercy of the veg patch, the cupboards and the freezer.

We have loads of tomatoes still coming and mostly ripening, and, thanks to the Husband's kidney bean free birthday chilli, several cans of red kidney beans more than will fit in the cupboard. Tortilla wraps in the freezer, and a vague memory of a Nigella recipe in my head.

As it turns out, it wasn't such a bad combination. Minimal fuss, with maximum result: I was fairly sure my kids would eat it, not so sure about their friends, but do you know, they all loved it. With toffee apple squares to finish, it may be a perfect post-school tea. Or may be not. The kids loved it so much there was barely enough left over for the Husband and I...

Bear in mind that you need quite a tight fit dish or tin for layering this up in. I found that a 20cm round cake tin worked well, although I had to raise the sides by lining the tin up with silver foil. You can also make up the sauce and the bean mix separately a little while in advance and then layer up and pop into the oven.






Mexican 'Lasagne'

Serves 4 kids and 2 adults - just.

1 large clove of garlic
1 red onion
1 tsp each of smoked paprika, ground coriander and ground cumin
500g fresh tomatoes (or replace this with a second tin of tomatoes)
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tins red kidney beans
2 small tins of sweetcorn
220g cheddar cheese
pack of 8 tortilla wraps (you'll need 6, so you can have 2 for packed lunches the next day)

If you're making this all at once, put the oven on to heat up to 200C.

Make the tomato sauce: crush the garlic and finely chop the onion. Heat some oil in a pan and gently fry the garlic and onion for 5-10 minutes till soft. While the onions are cooking, remove any woody stalky bits from the tomatoes, then roughly chop up, and set aside.

Add the smoked paprika, coriander and cumin to the onions and cook for another minute, before adding the fresh and tinned tomatoes and 2 cans' worth of water to the pan. Add some salt & pepper, bring to the boil then simmer for 20-30 minutes till the sauce is thickened and smelling delicious.

While the sauce is simmering, rinse the beans and corn, then mix together into a bowl. Grate the cheese, then stir in about 3/4 of it into the beans and save the rest of sprinkling on top.

Get your dish and layer everything up. I put a tortilla in the bottom of the dish, then a layer of beans and spread some sauce over it, and carried on layering, making sure you have a last tortilla and some sauce to spread over the top, then sprinkle the left over cheddar cheese and bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes. 

You could dress this up with guacamole, sour cream and all that jazz, but on Monday, it was fine as it was.
  

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Tasty tomatoes, and utterly scrumptious Butterscotch Apple Pudding

I keep getting side tracked by cake and pudding. Brownie eclipsed the healthy bean and chorizo salad that the kids enjoyed last week, and tonight, instead of getting excited about some rather tasty stuffed beef tomatoes, what I really want to talk about is pudding. But I will talk tomatoes, because this year, for the first time in AGES, we have had lots of lovely red tomatoes with more still coming. So you 'll just have to wait for pudding - or scroll down to the bottom of this post.

In fact the last time we produced this many tomatoes was when Blue was in his first year of chemo in 2006. He craved cherry tomatoes during the courses of steroids he had to take, and consumed kilos of them - quite literally. The Husband proudly grew tomatoes, they ripened, and guess what. The craving stopped. I think Blue moved on to raw mushrooms and Shreddies at that point. We've grown tomatoes ever since, but never with the same success, and green tomato chutney has been a big feature of our lives. This year, though, it will be different. The tomatoes have ripened, and they have been delicious.





Today, some particularly fine specimens - beef tomatoes - were on the menu, along with some baby courgettes ('pick 'em while they're small', is my current strategy for dealing with them). I hadn't really thought about what I was going to stuff them with, but I found some pork mince in the freezer, and some giant couscous in the cupboard.

I'd like to be able to give you the full recipe, but I got distracted by the pudding, so didn't weigh out everything - or keep a note of what I did weigh. Essentially, I cut out the tops of 4 beef tomatoes and scooped our the flesh and seeds into a bowl. I heated a splash of olive oil into a frying pan, and fried 100g giant couscous for a couple of minutes before adding what from memory (when I put it into the freezer) was 250g pork mince. I browned off the mince, and added 2 baby courgettes which I'd chopped quite small, plus a chopped clove of elephant garlic, 1/2 tsp of ground coriander and a tsp of smoked paprika.

While this was all cooking, I seived out as much juice as I could and added it into the pan, bringing it to a simmer to cook the couscous. After about 15 minutes, I filled the tomatoes with this mixture, arranged the leftover mixture around the tomatoes, then covered the dish with silver foil and baked it for 25 minutes. It could have done with being spicier, but it was pretty good and the Husband and Blue (and I) all enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I started this all too late, so Pink had to make do with pasta before she went to Brownies.

You'll be please to know, though, that Pink didn't miss out on pudding. What could have been so delicious? Well, I'll tell you - Rachel Allen's Butterscotch Apple Pudding, for which I will be eternally grateful to the lovely Annie who writes Scrummy Suppers and Quirky Cakes. As I mentioned before, as well as tomatoes, we also have an abundance of cooking apples at the moment, and this was quick to knock up and totally delicious. If I had one criticism, it would be that it could possibly have done with a little more of the butterscotch sauce - easily rectified by making more next time...

Butterscotch Apple Pudding  

100 g butter

125 g self-raising flour  
200 g light brown muscovado sugar
pinch of salt 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
1 egg
200 ml milk
3 cooking apples, (about 500g total weight)
1 tbsp golden syrup & 1 tbsp of runny honey

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Melt the butter and set aside to cool slightly. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl with 100g of the sugar.  

In a jug, mix together the milk, egg and vanilla extract with the melted butter.

Peel, quarter and core the apples, then slice each quarter again lengthwise and then into half. You basically want large but still bitesize chunks.  Sprinkle these over the bottom of an oven proof dish - Rachel's was 20 by 30 cm. Mine was probably 22cm square-ish

Tip the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk quickly together - as you would for muffins. Tip over the apple pieces. and spread evenly over the dish.

Make the butterscotch - in a small pan, put the syrup & honey with the remaining 100g of sugar and 150ml of boiling water. Heat, stirring, while the sugar dissolves, then pour as evenly as you can over the batter and apples.

Pop in the oven for around 30 minutes. If you can resist, leave it cool a little before serving warm. It would probably be delicious with ice cream, cream or creme fraiche, but frankly it didn't need it.

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Chicken, Chorizo and Courgette 'Chilli'

Sometimes, when I'm writing about something I've cooked, the angle I'll take with it is obvious. Sometimes, it's not so obvious, and sometimes I actually have a choice.

This, then, could be about cooking with the seasonal fruits (well, the veg, actually) from the garden - red onions, elephant garlic, bulbous yellow courgette - all of which I am currently blessed with.







It could have been a debate about what consitutes 'chilli'' given that I seem to apply it to pretty much anything I add kidney beans too, and yet equally, bandy the word around to cover meals that don't even include a sniff of even the mildest chilli or chilli powder in them. 

Chilli for 45 - but no kidney beans. Does that make it tomatoey mince?

Happy 'official' 40th to the Husband 

 

Indeed, I ended up with 8 cans of value red kidney beans and 3 tubs of guacamole, having cooked chilli for 45 for the Husband's 'official' 40th birthday camping & sailing weekend (it's not till December, but no one else wanted to camp/sail then), forgot to add the kidney beans in, and bought too much guacamole. Chilli without kidney beans - and then plenty of kidney beans to use up.


It could have been about how I am progressing with sharing the kitchen with the children, and how Blue chopped up a courgette, worked out how to use the tin opener and threw most of a tin of chopped tomatoes all over his school uniform, and I didn't get cross once (well, may be a little irritated, but, you know, little steps and all that).


Finally,  it could have been about those moments when you look in the cupboards, the fridge and the freezer when you haven't planned anything, wonder what on earth you are going to eat that night, and do it all on the fly with disproportionately pleasing results (always a winner!)

All are equally applicable, and I suppose intertwined, to this, so I leave it to you to decide which angle - or angles -  you'd prefer, and I'll just add that it's probably one of the best received meals I've cooked for a long time.

Chicken, chorizo & courgette 'chilli'

(serves 4)
 
1 large red onion
1 large clove of garlic
olive oil
125g cooking chorizo
2 chicken breasts
1/2 tsp each paprika, ground cumin & ground coriander (I would have used my favourite smoked paprika, but I had - gasp - run out!!)
1/3 large yellow courgette (frankly, how ever much you think you can get away with)
1 400g  can chopped tomatoes
1 400g can red kidney beans
2 tsp veg stock
salt & freshly ground pepper 
guacamole & sour cream to serve

Finely chop the red onion and the clove of garlic. The Husband's elephant garlic is massive, but not as strong in flavour, so a lot goes a little way.

Heat a splosh of olive oil in a large pan and add the onions and garlic. 

Cut the chorizo into chunks and add it to the onions. cooking for 5 minutes or so till it releases its juices. Cut the chicken and the courgette into chunks. Put the kettle on.

Stir in the ground paprika, cumin and coriander into the onions and chorizo, cook for a minute then add the chicken and stir it in, browning the pieces on all sides.

Add the courgette, stir, add the chopped tomatoes, then put the 2 tsp veg stock into the empty tin and top up with hot water. Stir, then add to the pan along with some salt & pepper.

Bring everything to the boil then simmer for 20 mins or so till the chicken is cooked.

Serve with sour cream and guacamole, on rice, and watch with satisfaction as every last bit is licked up off the plate.

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Blue reviews "The Burger" (Ka-pow)

When I was at Britmums a few weeks ago, one of the bits and pieces I picked up was The Burger, published by Love Food, an imprint of Parragon books. It's set out comic book style, billed as "An Action Packed Tasty Adventure" and I picked it up with the intention of cooking with Blue. Blue loves burgers, and while I (luckily) have no problem at all getting him to read, I thought the book's style would particularly appeal to a 9 year old boy.

So here we are, on a rainy afternoon in the school holidays, Pink off giggling with 2 friends at a sleepover, and Blue and I cooked burgers. Actually, Blue did most of the preparing and making the burgers, and the only thing I really did was putting them on a hot griddle and actually cooking them (I had visions of griddled boy which prevented me from giving him free reign with the cooker). And mighty fine burgers they were too - but let me say no more, and hand over to Blue, who was the chef today.

"I like the whole set out of the book and it's very encouraging for children to read 'cos it's like a comic book.

I chose to make the blue cheese stuffed burgers because they sounded appealing to me because I like blue cheese - A LOT.

They were easy to make although it was a bit tricky to squidge the meat up over the cheese,

They were blimmin' brilliant and the best burgers I've ever had."

So there you have it - praise indeed from the child who talks longingly of the one time we ate at Burger King. The burgers were easy to make and tasted delicious.

I was a bit doubtful at the idea of simply stuffing seasoned mince with some blue cheese, but my lovely butcher's mince did Blue proud, and they tasted really good The only disappointing element was the buns, which Blue chose in an unsupervised trip to the local Co-Op. The book has its own burger bun recipe, and while it would have been a step too far today, we will definitely try making our own next time.

Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers

Makes 4 

550g minced beef - the best quality you can justify 
freshly ground salt & pepper
70g blue cheese, cut into 4 chunks
oil
4 burger buns
lettuce leaves
tomato slices
red onion slices 

Get your toppings ready first - so if you haven't already done so, slice your tomatoes and red onion up (slice the onions as thinly as possible). 

Put the mince in a bowl with some freshly ground salt and pepper, and gently mix it all together.

Divide the mixture into 4, roll into balls, then use your finger to make a hole in each ball, and stuff the cheese inside. Squidge the mince back over the top of the cheese to seal in, then flatten the meat into burger patties.

Heat a ridged griddle pan over a medium to high heat, wipe over with a little oil, and cook the burgers for 4-5 minutes on each side until brown and cooked through.  

Put the burgers into the buns, add the lettuce, tomato and onions, and perhaps some mayo or ketchup, and eat immediately. 

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Curry for 48? No worries...

Do you like shopping?

You do?

Then I must tell you about the epic shop I went on yesterday. 3 of us - good friends - went.

A much planned trip, in anticipation of one of our annual highlights.

We were gone for 5 hours, while the children languished with various friends, and as the afternoon drifted into evening, with our respective husbands.

We spent over £1,000. I know. £1,000.

It took us 2 cars - well, actually a 7 seater people carrier type car and the camper van to get our spoils home.

Because, yes, this was no girly clothes shop (we wish), and the event is no swanky done up to the nines new outfit occasion. Oh no. This is Scout Camp.

We leave tomorrow. For the Derbyshire Dales. Via Leicester Forest East services (for us) to hand the dog over to my mother).

Shopping for scout camp is one of those things that I don't think I will ever get over. Normally, the thought of food shopping in any kind of supermarket fills me with fear and dread, but there is something so spectacular and so utterly hilarious about shopping on this scale, that somehow, the fear and dread leaves me and I start to enjoy it.

To be fair, I didn't draw up the list. The senior scout wife does that, although I am in charge of catering the curry feast on the last night. Oh yes. My list for that particular meal starts off with 16 onions, 16 cloves of garlic and 2 jars of lazy ginger...

While our menfolk, all Scout leaders, prepare climbing and abseiling expeditions, worry about how many minibus places there need to be, whether we need one or 2 trailers or whether a horsebox will do instead, and organise surprise drop hikes for our charges, we scout wives squirrel ourselves away with a bottle of gin and come up with the food and the craft. Every now and again, the men drop  in helpful comments like  - "Oh yes, so and so doesn't eat pork" or "Don't forget there are 2 scouts with nut allergies". Fortunately, on this occasion, we had at least 12 hrs notice before the shop. 

Yes folks, those 3 trolleys - they are all ours...

In the end, it took 3 cash and carry trolleys, stacked to the gunnels, followed by 2 trolleys in Morrisons for the 'sweep up' (including the all important chocolate custard and Angel Delight). We try and get as far as possible all the non-perishable goods for the week, and fresh to get us through the first couple of days so we can get our breath before playing sat nav roulette to find the nearest peddlar of groceries to where we are camping. This involves things like 325 packets of crisps, ditto cereal bars, 56 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes and 1 catering pack of approx 3 kg. 100 tortillas (for the turkey fajitas we're having on Sunday of course) and 4 kg of turkey, of course. 18 tins of pear halves and 92 pieces of fresh fruit. Your mind would boggle at the amount of cereal we anticipate 48 scouts, leaders and hangers on will eat.

The same applies in the actual cooking. Eggy bread for 48? Nothing to it. But you do need rather a lot of eggs...

So there we have it. For the next week, it's good bye Recipe Junkie and hello Scout Wife. But I'll be back, knackered, covered in mosquito bites, and wearing my mass catering badges on my sleeve (or at least a couple of decent burns). Oh, and if you're that way inclined, please pray that it doesn't rain too much...

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If it's meatloaf, we must be camping

Well, not always, but meat loaf is fairly synonymous with a camping trip in the RJ household.

This is a recipe I picked up from the Good Food magazine, and the original recipe is on the website: Cold meatloaf with squashed tomato salsa. With the emphasis on the cold. This is what we usually take to sustain us on the Friday night trip, especially if the trip is likely to be a bit longer than average. There's also usually enough left over for sarnies over the weekend too, and the 'chutney'/'salsa' that you make to go with it is a perfect foil for the loaf. It's got lots of herbs in, which count towards your 5 a day, always helpful when camping tends to major on the meat and carb end of the food spectrum.


This weekend we're heading off to Suffolk. It's madness, I tell you, via Farnborough to pick up the Husband who can't finish work till around 5, then the all the joys that the M25 clockwise on a Friday night with a good forecast for the weekend will bring, till we peel off on the M11 or A12 - haven't decided which, and a final obligatory skirmish round the back lanes once we leave the main road. The last thing we need is complicated food. And yes, we could stop and buy tea at a Little Road Break, or wherever, but frankly, a bit of good food, and everyone's spirits are lifted, just in time to fight with the awning and get the cork out of the wine bottle sharpish once we arrive.

There is a perfectly good reason for travelling so far - we're camping with my lovely school friend and her family. Normally there would be a third family camping but my other school friend (mum in said family) has recently had a knee op, so instead of camping somewhere relatively centrally for all 3 families, this time we're going to camp near her house.

I'm very excited. The campsite is in Cool Camping. There's a pizza oven we can use. Camp fires are allowed. Apart from the long journey, it's sounding practically perfect. And then of course, there's the forecast. But let's not tempt fate...

Camping Meatloaf with red pepper and tomato salsa

450g pork sausages
500g beef mince
50g breadcrumbs
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
large handful of flat leaf parsley
3 large stalks of rosemary, leave only
2 eggs
salt & pepper

Salsa
2 red peppers
sprinkle of smoked paprika
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil 
2 tsp sherry vinegar 
1tsp caster sugar

400g cherry tomatoes

Leave plenty of foil to overhang

Start with the meatloaf. Line a 2lb loaf tin with silver foil, with enough overhang to wrap the loaf in eventually once it's all cooked and cooled (you'll thank me for this tip later!!). Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160 fan.



Finely chop the onion, garlic and herbs - I whizz it all up in a food processor. - then split the sausages and empty the meat into a large bowl with the mince and mash it all up together with the onions and herbs and breadcrumbs, eggs and some salt and pepper.


Empty the mixture into your lined loaf tin and squish it in, leaving the loaf mixture nice and mounded on top.





Deseed the peppers and slice them fairly thinly. Spread them out on a baking tray, toss in a tablespoon or so of olive oil and sprinkle over some smoked paprika.

Put the loaf in the oven with the tray of peppers on the shelf below and cook for 30 minutes, during which time, quarter the cherry tomatoes and peel and finely slice the garlic.

After 30 minutes, remove the tray with the peppers on it, stir in the tomatoes & garlic, the sherry vinegar and caster sugar and put back in the oven for another 40 minutes or so till the meat loaf is cooked and hot all the way through (test with a skewer) and the peppers and tomatoes are all soft and squidgy and a bit caramelised.

Pour off any juice that has collected round the meatloaf and leave to cool. Squidge up the peppers and tomatoes and put in a sterilised jar or container suitable to take with you.

Once cool, wrap the meatloaf up in the foil and seal the jar with the peppers. Great in rolls, served with the salsa and with potato salad (which you also made in advance!). And don't forget some good cake...

Dinner sorted (cake included!)

Happy Camping!

The herbs are a great addition to this loaf and add a little extra greenery. I'm linking up to Karen at Lavender and Lovage 's lovely Cooking with Herbs Challenge.

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Pasta bake for days that don't quite go your way

There are some days when I almost feel like life is under control, that I know what I'm doing, that I'm parenting brilliantly, everything is running smoothly.

When I say some days, I mean, the occasional day.

Like may be once a year.

More often, I don't feel like that at all. And some days it's worse.

Days when I have to get a trombone, a bicycle and a dog up to school as well as the kids (on foot).

Days when I have no idea how I'm going to fit work in, and end up burning the midnight oil.

Days when I realise that they haven't forgotten, and not one but both children want to enter a Fairtrade cake in the Fairtrade cake competition the following day (and you know my views on such things, having vented here before).

They are BANANAS. OK?.

No, it's a fair trade logo & some bananas not a rampant blue & green Pacman

Days when I realise that the maths homework due the following day isn't a series of 'mental maths' tasks on the computer, but a full on 'investigation' of the type school helpfully expect parents to be on hand for the execution thereof: draw a grid 5 by 5 squares big, and then using 13 coins place them so that there is an odd number in each row, column and the main diagonals. Just try it OK.






Days when I have too much stuff to use up in the fridge.


Last Tuesday was one of those days.







Fortunately, there was a bag of pasta, and the things that needed using up were 2 courgettes &, a head of spring greens from last week's veg box, 4 mini chorizo sausages and half a tub of ricotta cheese. I put the pasta on, almost on auto-pilot, and as icing flew, and coins were placed and re-placed on the grid with accompanying sound effects (I'll leave you to imagine), I  engineered tea.

Having put the pasta on to boil, I fried off the chorizo, till the fat was running, then added the diced courgettes to the pan. Once the courgettes were a bit soft, I chucked in a can of plum tomatoes and a good dollop of sundried tomato pesto. 

Once it had all cooked down a bit, I stirred in the ricotta, stirred in the pasta, into a baking dish grated cheese on top and in the oven for some time. Probably about 20 minutes. And steamed the greens.

Oh did I mention, days when you can't get the photos to rotate and upload properly?

We eat something similar at least once a week. The chorizo could be leftover bacon, or cold meat - or no meat, in which case  I might use garlic and smoked paprika and an onion. The courgettes could be red peppers. The sundried tomato pesto could be tomato puree, ordinary pesto, harissa paste - frankly what ever is in the fridge without mold on it.

There's no recipe, and occasionally it's literally just cooked pasta and a tin of tomatoes cooked down with some garlic stirred through the pasta. 

I commend it to you!

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How now, Laughing Cow? a Review

Don't things always seem so much more glamorous in French? 

I was walking up to school the other day behind someone sporting a shopping bag - one of those sturdy, resuable supermarket ones -  with the motif "L'instant fraicheur" inscribed on it. So much better than "the fresh instant". Or "the instant of freshness". My French isn't bad, and in the past, it's been pretty good, and so I still sometimes decide to think in French, or do some idle translation in my head when the English isn't so appealing (I know, I know, the hours just fly by...).

So here's a thing. Whenever someone says The Laughing Cow to me, I hear "La Vache Qui Rit" - which, if you couldn't guess, is the French name for it. Those cheese triangles were present in the fridge of all the French families I have ever stayed with, and last year on our camper van trip to Normandy, in one of those awesome French hypermarkets, we found a pack of La Vache Qui Rit 'Apero-cubes' - individually wrapped 'aperitif' sized cubes of La Vache, with intriguing flavours - paprika, olive, blue cheese...

Frankly, being the huge francophile that I am, if it's good enough for the French...

I must admit that despite all this, I don't buy it (unless it's packaged in lurid yet strangely irresistible aperitif cube type things), but I was approached recently to see if I would like to review a new flavour of The Laughing Cow cheese triangles. La vache qui rit? Mais oui, bien sur...

Doesn't necessarily sit well with the 'cook it from scratch processed food be damned' image I like to portray. But don't judge me too harshly. You see, the other thing that enticed me was the new flavour - emmenthal.

I love a bit of emmenthal.

I was sold.

Sure enough, carefully packaged in a polystyrene box with its own cool pack, not one but 4 packs of La Vache turned up - 2 of emmenthal and 2 of blue cheese flavour.

We tested them extensively - mostly Blue who has a passion for blue cheese, and ate most of it in his sarnies.

Disappointingly, and as may be you'd guessed, though, they don't really taste of either emmenthal or blue cheese (respectively) although the blue cheese one does have a definite and recognisable tang. Pink wasn't keen on either flavour. Blue was positive, although this waned over time, and the Husband and I, well, if I'm honest, it's just not really our thing. They're not particularly unpleasant or anything, I'd rather just eat proper cheese. The real thing. Le vrai...

On the other hand, if you like Laughing Cow generally, you will probably like these. In their favour, they are only 25 calories a triangle, but don't really taste 'diet' so if you're on something like the 5:2 diet, which I am (currently rather half-heartedly) following, they could be a good thing.You know, spread on a tasty Ryvita or something...

So there you have it. Even as La Vache Qui Rit, I can't give them a rave review. But may be you will? And I'm nothing if not open minded (well, sometimes) so if I've judged them too harshly, do try and persuade me otherwise...

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Butterflied Bangers with Beetroot - or bread & butter. But no Brownie(s)

Did you see what I did there? I love a bit of alliteration.

So, according to Nigel Slater, there's lots of beautiful beetroot around at the moment, and he's not wrong. 

Beetroot has grown on me over the last few years, and now I really love it. It's delicious in a salad, or roasted as a side vegetable, and I've got my eye on this Balti which includes beetroot and cheddar in a kind of Anglo-Indian fusion curry. I got a great big bunch of it in my veg box this week, and curry aside, up on my Twitter feed popped our Nige as featured on the Guardian's website - a recipe for a sausage and beetroot type of pan fry: chunks of beetroot and carrot slowly fried with garlic and chopped rosemary, then add in chunks of good herby sausages to cook, and finally some red wine vinegar to finish off. Oh so simple.

I'd got my meal plan, sorted out on the basis of the contents of the veg box, and I was really keen to give the beetroot a bit more than the usual  treatment, so this fitted in perfectly. I'd also neglected the previous week's carrots so they'd ended up in a last minute carrot cake (noting wrong with that, but, you know, not necessarily the most ideal), so I wanted to give this week's carrots some love too.

I loved the idea of the sweet veg with the sausages - our butcher does some fantastic Cumberland bangers which always go down a treat. You get the idea. I was REALLY looking forward to eating this. 

I just shouldn't have attempted it last night when I was feeling grotty as you like with that most of English of things - a summer cold; when I was on a schedule to get the kids home and fed and turned around in time for Pink to go to Brownies at 6.

I should have known not to attempt something with no guidance as to cooking time, only suggestions for 'speeding things up' (i.e. use pre-cooked beetroot). My beetroot were small, so plenty of opportunity to get covered in red as I peeled them (no CSI gloves for me, Ms Lawson). I didn't start cooking early enough, and as the time approached to leave for Brownies, with Pink still not fed, I ended up having to 'butterfly' the sausage chunks (slice them down one side to open them out and cook the middles) in order to get them cooked properly for her to eat. 

And the potato chips I was making in the oven (I was baking bread at the same time, so the oven was on) hadn't cooked, so she had to have bread and butter... The rest of it had to wait on the stove as I dashed down the road to get Pink to Brownies.

Except Brownies wasn't on. In my befuddled summer cold induced haze, I had forgotten that it was cancelled.

By the time I got back home, with Pink in tow, the chips were finished, but everything else - well, let's say it hadn't necessarily benefited from sitting around...

Still good, but I'm willing to bet not quite as good as Nigel's... Better luck next time, hey.

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Pork Fillet & Coriander - and some Ginger Wine

So the veg box arrived on Tuesday and I checked out the contents and my list of likely meals culled from various sources in order to put together a meal plan and finalise the rest of the shopping requirements. I was still feeling uninspired and I won't lie that it was a chore, despite being faced with the kind of fresh and delicious vegetables that would normally make my heart sing.

Among other things, there was a small bunch of asparagus - such a treat, but not more than one serving's worth, so I supplemented with the final spears poking up from the garden and made a quiche on Wednesday.

A huge bag of spinach. Always tricky - I love it, kids don't.

A big bag of a herb that I knew I knew, but I couldn't identify.  How embarrassing.

Turned out it was coriander. Aromatic and fresh, but loads of it and I wasn't fancying carrot and coriander soup, despite the bunch of carrots. Curry? No. Pesto? No.


In the end I reached for Sarah Raven (she of the velvet gardening coat and close personal friendship with Emma Bridgewater - not that I'm jealous or anything). Her Garden Cookbook is a real winner if you have more than a passing relationship with vegetables. The book isn't a vegetarian cook book, but there are loads of good recipes, divided loosely into seasons and by different veggies, which is a Godsend when you have a glut - or a lack of inner inspiration.

 
One thing, they can often be quite fiddly, so that even 'simple' meals turn out to be quite task intensive. She also often uses some less common additional ingredients. Thanks to my foray into the pages earlier in the week, I am now the proud owner of a bottle of ginger wine. I suspect that sherry or marsala (for all Nigella fans) would work equally well here.

Pork Fillet with Coriander

Serves 4

450g piece of pork tenderloin, cut into 2-3 cm thick medallions
1 red onion, finely sliced
30g unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
3 large mushrooms, quite thickly sliced
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
70ml ginger wine
2 heaped teaspoon soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
200ml creme fraiche
large bunch of fresh coriander, finely chopped


Melt the butter with the oil in a frying pan, then add the sliced onion and crushed coriander seeds, and cook gently for a few minutes till the onion is soft. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the mushrooms & garlic to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes then add to the onions.

Add a little more oil to the pan if necessary and then turn the pork slices in the butter and oil in the pan for 3-4 minutes, before putting the onions and mushrooms back in the pan.

Add the ginger wine, sugar and lemon juice to the pan, turn up the heat a little and allow everything to cook and bubble to become syrupy.

Add the creme fraiche, salt and pepper and then stir in the chopped coriander and serve.

As Sarah suggested, it was delicious with her Spinach with Puy Lentils (my way), thus killing the spinach bird at the same time, but I have to confess that I also cooked some pasta for the kids. The creamy sauce went down very well whether it was lentils or pasta - and to give them their due, both kids ate the small amount of the lentils & spinach I gave them. 

I can feel my mojo very slowly returning...

Linking up to Herbs on Saturday hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage with the beautiful coriander that went into the dish.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

The Last Meal...

Today, my boy left home.

Not for long, you understand - just till Friday. His class are on the annual Yr 4 residential trip that the school run, spending time at a study centre on the south coast.

An amazing opportunity, he's been so excited about it - but nervous, too.

"I'm going to miss you, Mummy" is nothing to the number of times he has counted down the days, discussed the menu (a stroke of genius, that, sending the menu home a few weeks ago!), wondered about what he would be doing... To say that the moment of departure, of actual separation has been preying on his mind is an understatement - for this is what has been the problem for him. He has stayed away from us before - usually at his Granny & Grumpy's, usually with Pink, but not always. Apart from those times, I have been there when he has gone to sleep and when he has woken up almost every day. And now I won't be. He is going to have to go away. Once he is there, he will have a ball. But leaving is hard.

It's all part of growing up. I know that.

Last night, he sat at the table, and somewhat dramatically announced "This is the last meal I'm going to eat with my family".

I felt a little bit guilty - I had been preparing him for a welcome home dinner to end all welcome home dinners, then realised that our Bank Holiday camper van excursion would put paid to that - hard to prepare a roast on a 2 ring gas cooker... I quickly 'fessed up and offered him the choice of meals before he went.

So what did he choose? 

Roast lamb

Yorkshire pudding (I had to put aside my hang ups about only having Yorkshire pudding with beef)

Roast potatoes crisp with semolina, carrots and leeks.

And pineapple upside down cake.

This morning, there were no tears (from either of us), only far more hugs than I would ever normally get in the presence of his friends, and plenty of excitement. Already, this evening, there are photos on the class pages of his school website which suggest that he is having an 'epic' time - and this evening he is badger watching. In the words of every 9 year old, the country over - 'Awesome'. In the photos, he looks happy and relaxed.

I like to think that his 'last supper' contributed to that.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad