Back to menu planning as we kick the takeaway to the curb!

Do you know, I'm sure I heard a little pained whimper from hubby, as I wrote that title.

We have, over the last couple of weeks while we've been dashing hither and thither, had a shameful reliance upon the local takeaways in the area.  We've had some utterly fabulous Chow Mein from The Alma Fish Bar & Chinese Takeaway in Winton (more than once), we've had fish & chips from an assortment of places, plus Doner Kebab (for hubby) and BBQ ribs (for me and which were the best BBQ ribs I've ever had from a takeaway) from our local Californian Chicken place.

We've also had takeout supermarket pizza, plus takeout curries (which weren't bad at all) from Asda.

Now, all this fun has to stop.  This mad carousel ride of rejecting the perfectly nice, balanced meal that we'd scheduled for that night, in favour of some mad and potentially disgusting (but often extremely moreish) concoction that someone else has cooked.  Just bung it in the microwave before sitting down and vacuuming up in ten minutes of guilty pleasure.

So, now we're back on a more even keel, we've managed to devise a menu plan for the week and have every intention of sticking to it.  No, I didn't have my fingers crossed as I said that, because if I did, I wouldn't have been able to type!

What is it, then?  Well, I think it all sounds rather nice ...

Tues : Chicken & sweetcorn pie with new potatoes, broccoli & carrots

Weds : Lasagne & chips

Thurs : BBQ pork wraps with salsa & sour cream, plus cheese & chilli cornbread

Fri : Sausage meatball pasta

Sat : Turkey Mufaletta with Caesar wedge salad

Sun : Slow cooker braised veal, roast potatoes, carrots, green beans & peas

Mon : Veal & ham pie with mashed potato & vegetables.

I'm working my way through a selection of meat products I was given to try, plus there's a Blogger's challenge in there and an "end of the school year" celebration dinner, too.

A previous chicken pie incarnation that was pretty good, too!

Firstly, the Chicken & sweetcorn pie.  This is going to be a home-made pie, in which I'll be using the other half of a French chicken that was given to me to try as part of a Westin Gourmet Variety Selection Box.

We made use of the first half of the chicken in a Chicken & Fennel Ragu which we ate last night - and which was absolutely fabulous.  To say it was really, really chickeny might sound a bit odd - but then there are flavourless chickens and there are chickens that have great flavour.  I cooked the chicken in the slow cooker for some 5-6 hours, surrounded by a selection of flavour enhancers for the stock - and both chicken and stock are superb.

So I'm holding out some hope for the chicken pie tonight.  I've saved enough stock to make the gravy with and it's going to be a "pie dish pie" i.e. top and bottom shortcrust pastry, as opposed to just a puff pastry lid.  So a "real" pie, not a shorthand version of one!

Photo c/o Westin Gourmet

More Westin Gourmet produce appears on Wednesday, as we try some of their Steak Mince in a Lasagne which will be crafted lovingly by hubby.  You might have noticed the chips involved with this Lasagne.  We had a somewhat intense few minutes while I argued for salad and hubby argued both his and son & heir's case for chips, before I gave up in the knowledge that we'd got plenty of salad and vegetables to come later in the week.  Choose your arguments, that's my advice.

Thursday is the last day of school for this year before son & heir moves up into year 9 in September.  He's done brilliantly well this year, having scored mostly A's and B's in his end of year report, so we're having a little celebratory dinner of some of his favourite things - including wraps made with pork mince and Mic's Chilli El Loco BBQ sauce.  Some silver may cross his palm at the same time - he'll have to wait and see.  *wink*

Mmmn, Cumberland sausage, mash & onion gravy.

Friday sees another batch of Westin Gourmet produce - this time it's the turn of their Cumberland sausages.  I'll be posting a blog about these sausages very soon, as we had them last week as plain old sausage & mash and I have got to say that I really - no really - like them.  They're reminiscent of sausages of old - the sausages that my Mum used to dish up to us when we were kids.  Hubby is going to be converting them to sausage meatballs to go with some interesting Mafalda Corta pasta that we found in the local supermarket.

Now, the Turkey Mufaletta for Saturday is a bit of a work in progress.  "What's a Mufaletta?" I hear some of you cry.  Well, it's basically an entire loaf of bread that's been hollowed out and the inside crumb replaced with meats, cheeses, vegetables - you name it.  It it will go in a sandwich, it'll go in a Mufaletta.  Once filled, the top is replaced and then a heavy weight is placed on top for some 3-4 hours to compress it.

Ours is part of the the Lean on Turkey summer challenge, where we have been asked to think up an original recipe for summer food (not barbecue food) costing £10 or less.  It really didn't take us long to think of the Mufaletta - but boy, did it take some negotiating to decide what was going into it!  *chuckle*  I won't spoil the surprise by detailing it now - just suffice to say that it's going to involve turkey in one way or another - but not your common or garden sandwich turkey!

In line with our desire to keep the complication of cooking to a minimum (we might have got a tad carried away with some things just lately, so decided to rein back to food which doesn't need a day's worth of effort!) we've decided to follow on from the Braised Beef Silverside that I cooked in the slow cooker and go for the same approach with the socking great piece of Veal which the lovely people at Farmer's Choice sent us to try.

I've bought a bottle of Fuller's Organic Honeydew Ale to cook the veal in and I'm looking forward to it.  The gentler more subtle notes of the lighter ale, as opposed to a dark stout which you'd use for the stronger beef, should be interesting!

It's such a huge piece of veal that I am quite sure we'll have more than enough left over for a veal & ham pie the following day.  I suspect I'll approach it in the same way as the chicken pie I'm making, in that I'll hang onto some stock for the gravy.  Should be fab!

Now, as for other bakes and makes, well hubby has been plaintively bleating about wanting, nay needing, some chocolate & banana muffins.  I've had some bananas going suitably black on the window ledge and they're about ready now, so maybe tomorrow?

I've also been intending to make a rhubarb & ginger crumble for weeks, but keep being foiled by our random relationship with the local takeaways.  Maybe this weekend.  Cross your fingers for me, because Ruby (the rhubarb) is beginning to take over the garden.

So there you have it!  Feels good to have a menu plan again.  :)

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Bacon & Mixed Pepper Lasagne : a lot of work, but so worth it!

I find cooking Lasagne and Moussaka a hard old slog, these days.  I suppose it's because they have at least three main processes, in that the meat, then the sauce need cooking, then the whole lot requires layering up, before you can put it in the oven and put your feet up for five minutes.

When I put this Lasagne on the menu list, we had temporarily forgotten that we would be out on Sunday evening, at the Bournemouth Folk Club.  Had I have remembered this, there was no way on this earth I'd have ever put Lasagne down as a definite.  However, there it was and all I could do was struggle on through.

For an able-bodied person, I suspect the making of the Lasagne would be simple enough but the thing that I find so difficult is the amount of time spent in front of the cooker stirring one thing or another, plus the time spent cutting and chopping.  There's an awful lot of cutting and chopping involved!  By the time I'd reached the layering assembly point, I could no longer feel my hands - and even though I was sitting down for a lot of it, my legs and knees had definitely had it.

However, after all that moaning - and if you've reached this far - let me say that it is very definitely worth it.

The Lasagne is a thing of beauty once created - and it has so many layers of flavour.  If I was to say that son & heir eats it without complaint - and bear in mind that it contains largely red, green & yellow peppers - then it might go a long way to validate just how nice a lasagne this is.

Oh - and one other thing.  It can easily be converted to a vegetarian dish simply by not including the bacon.

Lasagne : about to go into the oven

BACON & MIXED PEPPER LASAGNE  (feeds 6)

Ingredients :

Pack of bacon (leave this out if opting for a vegetarian lasagne)
5-6 mixed peppers, cored and cut into slices
1 small onion, chopped
clove of garlic, grated
6 large vine tomatoes (the tastiest ones you can find), roughly chopped
1 tbsp fresh basil, torn
half a tsp of dried oregano
splash of Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
ground black pepper to taste
1 pint semi-skimmed milk
1 heaped tbsp flour
25g butter
cayenne pepper to taste
225g cheese, grated - I use red leicester or mature cheddar
lasagne sheets.

Method :

1.  Fry the bacon pieces and remove from the pan to keep warm.

2.  Fry the onion & garlic until soft and browned and remove to keep warm with the bacon.

3.  Fry the sliced peppers until soft, then add the tomatoes, puree, ketchup, herbs, Worcestershire sauce and return the bacon and onion to the pan.  Cook for another ten minutes or so, allowing all the flavours to combine and the lot to become saucy.  You may need to add a little water to encourage the "sauciness".

4.  Place the milk, flour and butter into a pan and slowly bring to the boil, whisking like mad until it reaches boiling point and starts to thicken.  Add three quarters of the cheese and stir until it has melted.  Season with a little cayenne pepper.


5.  Begin to layer into a large lasagne dish by starting with a layer of the cheese sauce, then a layer of lasagne sheets, meat mixture, then the cheese sauce, repeating until you finish with a layer of peppers then cheese sauce.  Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.


6.  Bake for around 45-60 mins at 180deg C until golden brown and smelling lush.


Serve with garlic bread and a side salad.

A thing of beauty

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What is on the menu for this week?

This week seems to be following in last week's chaotic footprints.  I seem to have failed miserably on the ordering front, because we're missing and running out of so many things!  Hubby had to go out yesterday on his new bike (which wasn't a tragedy for him - he's looking for reasons to take it out), for emergency dog biscuit - and I've already put cling film and washing-up liquid on the shopping list for tonight.  *sigh*


It is true that I did do the online shopping in a bit of a hurry, last Sunday.  Once my parents had left for home, it suddenly occurred to me that I needed to not only place the order, but before that make the shopping list and before that, decide what the heck we'd be eating.  So as time marched on, I suspect my thinking may have got a little fluffy.

Hey ho.  I'm sure we'll survive!  There's a lot worse going on across the globe, so mustn't grumble over a roll of cling film and a bottle of washing up liquid, eh?

Here's what's on the menu this week :

Honey Mustard Chicken, herb salad & jacket potato with sour cream & chives

Sultana chicken with Jasmine rice

Sausage in a roll, chips and coleslaw

Bacon & blue cheese filo tart, with red onion & tomato salad

Salmon & Orzo salad

Bacon & Pepper Lasagne, with a green salad

Pasta bolognese, with garlic dough balls.

A bit of a random selection - with salad featuring quite prominently!  Which, of course, means it's going to rain.  Betcha.

Yesterday started things off very well.  The Honey Mustard Chicken was really lovely.  For once, the honey mustard glaze actually glazed the chicken instead of rolling off and spending its time being wasted at the bottom of the pan.  I don't know why I have this problem with glazes - but they rarely work.  In fact, this is the first glaze to work in around a thousand years (or thereabouts).  Well, that's how it feels, anyway.

I wonder if cooking the chicken at a higher temperature (because the jacket potatoes were in the oven, I cooked it at 200deg C instead of around 180deg C) had anything to do with it.  I suspect it may have done, so I'll test that theory the next time I attempt to glaze some chicken.  The meat had retained its softness, yet with a suitably glazed exterior.  Even the small fillets weren't over-cooked, as I'd snuggled them up to the side of the larger pieces which had afforded them protection from the fiercest of the heat.

The potatoes I used for the jackets were Asda's extra special Marabel potatoes.  They purported to require no butter, as they'd be rich enough.  Of course, we treated that information with the contempt it seemingly deserved and hubby loaded up the jackets with butter.  I added sour cream and chives to mine and son & heir's, but I have to say, I really don't think the butter was entirely necessary.  It's so rare to find a product that does what it says on the packet!

Along with the lovely herb salad (by far and away my favourite type of salad), it made for a thoroughly delicious meal which I will blog the recipe for.

Photo c/o BBC Good Food

Wednesday should have been the Bacon & Blue Cheese Filo Tart, but owing to the reluctance of the chicken to defrost last week, everything has been moved on a day or so.  Hence, we'll be having the Sultana Chicken and Jasmine Rice that had been booked in for last Monday.  Son & heir has decreed he'll be attending a friend's house "to work on a science homework project" (possibly also known as "mucking about with guitars") where he's undoubtedly hoping to get some tea.  In turn, I'll be hoping that he lets me know whether he'll require feeding, before I start cooking the rice!

Thursday's dinner is a "dinner for boys".  We're having sausages - ordinary bangers that is, rather than hot dog sausages, in a hot dog roll with fried onions and tomato ketchup.  Hubby and son & heir will both be having chips, but I've taken the opportunity to whip up a home made coleslaw.  Neither of them eat coleslaw, but I love the stuff - so hopefully, everyone will be happy!  Yes, I know it's a Bonfire Night dinner really, but maybe we'll set fire to the pile of dead weeds in the garden and make do.

Friday brings about the return of the Bacon & Blue Cheese Filo Tart.  By hubby's special request.  It's the kind of tart that looks like you've spent ages fiddling about cooking this and that for it, but in reality it's simply a "cook some bacon, assemble the rest" job.  Simple as - provided I remember to include the pine nuts.  The last twice I've made this tart, they've been forgotten and it certainly does lose something in the flavour without them.  I'll have to make sure I get them out of the cupboard to begin with!  I'll be making a red onion and tomato-based salad to go with it, as the cheese and onion is a lovely combination - as is the tomato, of course.

Now Friday should have been Scampi and chips - but thanks to the freezer, the Scampi can quite happily wait until next week.

Saturday's Salmon and Orzo salad is a new combination for us - and the first time I'll have used Orzo in a salad context.  However, using it in the same way as one would do rice, in order to make a dressed salad, seems to me to have the capacity to work.  I just hope I can get some fresh Dill on Saturday, or I'll be scratching my head for an alternative.  ~thinks ~  I suppose Fennel would work .... hmmmn.  I hope the salmon isn't so expensive that it leaves me wondering, either!

All the ingredients, from the last time I cooked the tart.

Now comes the dish that requires all the cooking.  Sunday's Bacon & Pepper Lasagne is a real production that requires a Sunday in which to do the cooking of it proper justice.  I suspect that I'll be rather done for by the end of dinner, that day!  However, the Lasagne itself is worth every moment of energy expended in the production of it.  Never have I tasted a better Lasagne - not even true Lasagne's, involving beef instead of the bacon.  The combination of the bacon and the sweet peppers, mixed with the sauce which I make with red leicester cheese, is just a glorious orange coloured melange of tastebud tittilating flavours.  I'm using fresh egg pasta for the first time, too - ordinarily I use the dried pasta sheets.  I'm not sure what the difference will be, but I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be good!

We're staying in Italy for the final dish of the week - a good old Bolognese.  Not spaghetti this time, because I've got so many half-bags of spirali, penne and fusilli, I think we'll have a mixture and try to finish some of them up!  This dish will also use up the beef mince I bought from Spring Fields Butchers, when I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to find lamb mince for one of the dishes a couple of weeks ago.  It's a good dish for a Monday, as it doesn't take much preparation, so when I'm all tired and brain-dead after adding up and taking away for the last four hours at work, I can (almost) put it together with my eyes shut.

So, there you have it!  Oh, one other thing - I'm planning on making some vegetable soup for lunch today, from the leftover ends of the asparagus, fennel, green beans and leeks we used at the weekend.  Fingers crossed it will turn out to be yummy - as I have been looking forward to a lovely bowl of soup, since Sunday!

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