2 November 2010

From Carbonara to Pirozhki

That's our menu list for this week!
Spaghetti Carbonara
Same recipe, different pasta
We start out with Tagliatelle Carbonara and garlic bread, which is down on the list for tonight.  I don't know about you people, but I always get a bit nervous when it comes to the adding of the egg/cheese/cream bit, as pictures of scrambled egg float past threateningly.  However, some kind of magic always happens and I've never (yet) resulted in scrambled egg, fingers crossed.  I love this recipe, but we don't have it often as it is just too calorific - but versions without the cream just aren't the same.  So, we go for "little and not very often" with this one.

Wednesday's recipe is for Smoked Haddock Risotto.  I'll have to catch a photograph of this one, as it would appear we have always been too keen to eat it, to take photographs of it, in the past.  Risotto is one of Chillibob's specialities and he does a tremendous job with them, the Smoked Haddock version being one of our favourites.  Asda have a special offer on Smoked Haddock at the moment, which made this Risotto change from a Smoked Haddock and Black Pudding experimental risotto, to our old favourite.


Thursday, in honour of National Sausage Week, Chillibob is making us Sausages in Onion Jam glaze with Clapshot and peas.  We pondered on buying the onion jam/chutney, but as we'd just bought an enormous bag of onions for £1, it seemed particularly unadventurous.  Hence, Chillibob will have his first go at onion jam/chutney, which will be fun and I'm sure delicious.

I can't remember ever having Clapshot, although I suspect I probably have made it before - just not with the proper name attached to it.  Still, it'll be interesting and I'm sure I'll like it - Swede and Potato, what's not to like?

Photograph c/o BBC Good Food website
Friday and I'm back in the cooking saddle.  We're down on the list to have "Chilli Chicken curry with rice".  We love our curries and it's been a while since I made one.  This recipe doesn't deal with curry paste, but instead builds the curry flavour by degrees as you add the various spices.  I've done this one before and it was very successful, so fingers crossed!  Maybe I can ask Chillibob to make some of his Naan bread to go with it.

Saturday is an interesting one - Stuffed Peppers and Fennel & Tomato Gratin.  This one is completely new to us so once again we don't have a photograph and the stuffed pepper recipe is one I'm adapting from Foodista.  It was intended, originally, for stuffing Squash but I see no reason why it can't be used in a sweet pepper instead.  Watch this space for the final verdict!

As for the Fennel & Tomato Gratin, well that's an Ottolenghi recipe from "The Cookbook".  It sounds completely delicious and has a sweet crumble topping which is interesting.  Hopefully the creaminess of the Gratin will go wth the spiciness of the stuffed Peppers.

Next comes Sunday, where we've decided to have a standard Roast Chicken, with a very non-standard "Spicy Lentil" dish from Ottolenghi's "Plenty".  I am in two minds as to whether to serve some green vegetable or not, I guess it depends on how filling I think the lentils are going to be.

Monday means that Chillibob is back in the kitchen and he's going all out with a wonderfully adventurous meal of Pirozhki (meat filled dumplings) from Silvena Rowe's book "Feasts", except with a filling made from the leftover roast chicken.  To accompany them, we'll be having Baked Red Cabbage and Apple - which I adore - and Spicy Sweet Potato wedges.  I can't wait!

It's good to be able to afford to be a bit more adventurous again!

6 comments:

  1. WONDERFUL Jenny..............!
    Soooooooooo......What days would you like us round..........We'll bring our own knifes an forks...........Lovely. :0)
    AND the mention of fish too....First time?
    Yes....!
    Give a Man a Fish and He'll Live For a Day.
    Teach a Man To Fish and He'll Live Forever....!
    Happy Menu.... :)

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  2. LOL Willie. :) It'll be a long time before I'm ever opening an underground restaurant from my living room, so don't hold your breath! As for the fish, no, I've mentioned fish at least twice before, once in "Smoked Fish & Cherry Tomato Rarebit" and again in "Failure on the compatibility front" when my Smoked Haddock Chowder was featured. We try and get fish into the diet at least once a week, when we can afford it and/or it's on special offer, usually!

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  3. You made me smile when you said about the carbonara and adding the eggs - I always think excatly the same! Took me ages to finally have a go at making Carbonara from scratch just because I was scared of getting pasta with scrambled eggs. So far so good though! Great post - and what an interesting week of dishes :)

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  4. Hi there Jo! Thanks for commenting, I wish more people would do so! I'm glad I'm not the only one who worries about scrambled eggs instead of Carbonara. In fact, this time around, I suspect I went a bit too far the opposite direction. Because the garlic bread wasn't quite done, the pasta needed to wait for a couple of minutes and so lost some heat. When I put the sauce onto it, being cold sauce, it completely took any heat out of the pasta and the sauce remained somewhat uncooked. Darn you, garlic bread! LOL

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  5. mmm, pirozhki remind me of when I lived in Moscow for a while and they used to fill them with all sorts of odds and ends of meat - not always edible or digestible - I'm sure yours will be much better!

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  6. I first came across Pirozhki when our local Asda began stocking frozen ones that originated in Poland. They were curious little things, then. Since then, I've found recipes for them and seen pictures of varying types and had noted them as being "something I'll make, one day". Seems like as though hubby thought so too, and he's got there first! LOL

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