A little bit of a lamby week, this week! Meal plan w/b 4.10.11

As ever, before I get onto this week (which has turned out to be a little bit lamby), let me just tell you about last Sunday's dinner.  Well, it was very exciting, you see!

I had bought a piece of roasting bacon (as opposed to a rasher of bacon, which wouldn't roast at all well) which I put into the slow cooker with some lovely stock vegetables and a covering of water.  Some 4-5 hours later, it was beautifully tender, sweet and juicy.  Now you may remember that I was hedging my bets where the accompanying vegetables were concerned, owing to the weather.  Ultimately, we went with a seasonal compromise.  We had some new potatoes in the cupboard and so had these steamed with ... drum roll ... green beans and brussels sprouts ... from the garden!  Ta daaaa!  (Oh, and some carrots and swede from the supermarket).  Match that lot up with a lovely parsley sauce made with fresh parsley and you've got a very successful Sunday dinner.

I was so excited to be eating our first brussels sprouts!  They were gorgeous, because they're so new - just babies really - they hadn't grown into those big old hoary sprouts that you sometimes find in the supermarket.  They were crisp from being just picked, mild and crunchy.  Now that sort of excitement is why so many people grow their own veg., I'm sure of it.

We're hoping that the Romanescu cauliflowers come to something too - but they're looking a bit random at the moment.  Not sure what they're supposed to look like at this stage - does anybody know?

I won't worry if all we get are these little fellows - I'm sure they still taste nice, even if they're not quite what they're supposed to be!


So, that excitement over, let's turn our attention to what you might find appearing in Rhubarb & Ginger this week.

Tues : Pizza all round

Weds : Keema Mutter, Vegetable Curry & white rice

Thurs : Shop-bought steak & kidney pie with home grown veg.

Fri : Bacon & Leek Pasta

Sat : Nasi Goreng

Sun : Lamb & boulangere potatoes, home grown veg.

Mon : Tortellini in sauce, with garlic bread.

Hubby and I didn't get to have anything special on Tuesday, because I had an appointment right at the time I should have been cooking.  Hence we opted for the easy avenue and hubby took care of dinner, which was pizza-shaped.  Mind you, I was pleased to find a "sensibly sized" (i.e. smaller than an entire dinner plate) pizza in the supermarket.  I find these gigantic pizzas that overflow your plate just too much food.  Hubby always took care of the leftovers for breakfast the following day, but that's not recommended practice on a regular basis.

Now, Wednesday's dinner I was really looking forward to making.  I'd found a recipe for Keema Mutter (which translates as lamb mince with peas) which looked not only easy to make, but really tasty.  I intended to serve it just with white rice, but then had a bright idea.  Looking at the recipe, I thought that it sounded like it could be a bit lively in the chilli department - in which case, we'd probably (well, those of us who don't go by the nickname of ChilliBob, that is) be requiring something to balance that with.  So I decided to make a plain old vegetable curry, which I hoped would do that job, along with the white rice.

I won't witter on about it now, as I've promised it its own blog posting - it was that good.  If you like curries, make sure to come back and take a look!

Hubby's in charge of dinner on Thursday evening, when we're indulging in a shop-bought Steak & Kidney pie, for ease.  Fingers crossed, we'll be able to have some more of those home-grown veggies with the pie!

We had an unexpected visitor today (Thursday), in that my lovely friend and ex-colleague Jenny (yes, another Jenny!) was in the area and popped in for a cuppa and to say hello.  Well, I couldn't let her go away without a bite of something - so made Jack Knight's Mum's Library Book Marmalade Cake.

Again, this was such an unbridled success that I shall be blogging the results.  However, if you're curious about the recipe, why not go along to Jack's Blog and see!

We've an extra mouth to feed on Friday, as one of son & heir's friends from school will be in for dinner that day.  They are working on a homework project to build a mini moonbuggy (in my day, it was a papier mache volcano - how times have changed!) so will be consulting with hubby over the electronics for same.

It's just as well, therefore, that I was already planning a simple dish like Bacon & Leek Pasta.  The friend is notoriously difficult to feed (his Mum sent a message that "he only likes sausages"), but I'm hoping that the extreme yumminess of this pasta dish will win him over.  It's bacon - what could go wrong?  Everyone likes bacon!

I've had a sudden fancy for Nasi Goreng.  It's funny how it happens like that.  The last sudden fancy I had, was for "something in a cheese sauce" - and so the Cauliflower Cheese happened.

I've loved Nasi Goreng for as long as I've known about it, I think.  I suspect that my earliest memories of it are when my parents would buy it in huge tins from the NAAFI shop in Germany (when my Dad was stationed there with the Army).  We'd have it for tea - I suspect it was just a simple heating up job, probably in a frying pan, and I absolutely loved it.  I wonder if you can get it nowadays?  Considering that was around forty-mumble years ago, I doubt it!

Sunday's Lamb & boulangere potatoes is another new dish.  I love lamb, but it's just that bit too pricey to buy anything other than mince at the moment.  However, lamb mince is better than no lamb at all, so it's just a matter of working out different ways of cooking it.

I made a very successful dish of Boulangere potatoes in the recent past and considering that the potatoes that go on the top of a hot pot are along those lines, I figured that if I made some lovely savoury lamb mince and topped it with boulangere-style potatoes, it might work.  I'll let you know - but I can tell you that just the idea of it is making my tummy rumble, right now!

So that brings us to Monday, when hubby is back in charge in the kitchen and has decided to be brave and definitely try the ole filled pasta.  He's not had a very good time with filled pasta in the past, but on my recommendation (I sometimes have some for lunch) on the basis that as time has gone by the quality has improved, said he would give it a go.

This was on a menu plan previously, but he swerved it by enticing me with a Chinese Takeaway - always a good avoidance technique - so we'll see whether we make it this time!  I'm quite looking forward to it, even if it is shop bought.  Hey - it'll give me a night off - and after three nights of cooking, that will be very welcome.

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