It all started so well, with Cornish Pasties, of all things ...

As I recall (and a lot has happened since then, so I could be wrong), the last thing I spoke to you all about, was the Chicken Caesar Salad.  Seems like a lifetime ago!

First of all, I have to publicly thank Dominic for the box of Picota Cherries that reached us safely on Saturday morning.  Such a cute box!  I set out with great intentions of making a cherry clafouti, or individual cherry tartlets - but fate just has a hand in these things sometimes and unfortunately, I didn't get around to making anything other than the odd lovely bowl of "fresh from the fridge" cherries with greek yoghurt on top.  I am ashamed to say that I didn't even (goodness knows how) manage to get a photograph of them.  I hang my head in penitence.

What Pad Thai SHOULD look like!

On the Sunday, we were due to have the Pasticcio - but due to unforeseen circumstances, I lost all will to cook the darned thing at around 3pm that afternoon.  So, we opted out and had a Chinese Takeaway instead.  From No.1 Wok, it was predictably yummy - all except the Pad Thai, which was so over cooked, it had degenerated into a sloppy, slimy mess.  The Nasi Goreng was lacking in chilli and had obviously been seriously westernised, but the King Prawn curry, Honey Chilli Chicken, King Prawn sweet & sour plus all the rices were delicious.

Monday saw hubby doing battle with the smoke alarm, as he cooked his way through grilled sausage, grilled bacon, fried egg, mushrooms, baked beans, tinned tomatoes and a fried slice of his own home-made bread, for everyone.  It's just as well we've got a kitchen door which shuts effectively, or I'd have been camped out under the smoke alarm with a fan!

As ever, Tuesday is shopping day.  We go directly after dropping Son & heir at school, which gets us to the supermarket at around 8.30am.  This ensures that a) there will be a disabled buggy available and b) that it will be charged up and ready to go.  It also has the added bonus of there not being too many people around, at that time in the morning.  In fact, by the time we leave, the car park will have just about filled up.

Needless to say, we haven't had breakfast by then and so we tend to pick up something to have with a cup of coffee when we get home.  On this occasion, it was a pack of two innocent-looking Belgian Buns from the Bakery.  Which were very nice - a naughty treat - right up until I began to feel a bit peculiar later in the evening.  In fact, it was just as I was about to serve up our home-made Cornish Pasties (of which, a blog will appear later)!  This "feeling peculiar" continued across the next two days, hubby joined in around 2-3 hours after I began to go down with it and we both were completely out of action (barring taking Son & heir to school and collecting him again, then making him something to eat) for the next two days.

Just as well I don't have claws, really!

We were both fighting nausea, had debilitating stomach pains and I broke out in an alarming-looking itchy rash.  It occurred on my arms on Tuesday evening, but progressed to my back by Wednesday evening - but the odd thing was that it went away during the day.  It was very like the rash I get when I've had too much garlic, so I take it to be my body's way of dealing with something it really doesn't like.  Poor old Son & heir was quite concerned about the pair of us, although he did get the added bonus of a particularly nice pizza which we'd bought for him on Wednesday evening, as a defence against having to cook.

So there we are.  The sorry and somewhat un-nerving tale of our lost two to three days.  I think I'm just about over it now, and hubby is following along - although he's had a rather harder time of it, as he was required to pitch in and do a whole heap of housework on the Wednesday, before the Occupational Therapist arrived to check out our new patio.  Poor soul, he did a brilliant job that obviously didn't do him any good at all, health-wise.

Of course, all this has thrown my meal plan into disarray.  Although, I am ultimately happy to report that we've been able to keep to the plan for every day other than Wednesday, when we opted for the ready-made dinners in Sainsbury's chiller cabinet, rather than cook.  What did I have?  Well you won't be surprised to hear that I chose a Shepherd's Pie.  What else would do the trick?  Hubby chose sausages, but ultimately had one of the leftover Cornish Pasties from the day before and Son & heir chose what looked to be a completely gorgeous pizza with a stuffed crust.  It was only the circumstances that prevented me from mugging him for a taste.

That's an 8-inch plate it's sitting on!

So!  These Cornish Pasties - completed against the odds (and I have sampled one since) are truly the best Cornish Pasties I've managed to produce, to date.  I kept the recipe simple - just potato, swede and onion, plus the best steak mince I could find - and a whole heap of freshly ground black pepper and sea salt.  I also used the mandolin to cut the vegetables, as I figured they would benefit from all being a similar thickness.  Seemed to do the trick!.

They baked up to be the most enormous pasties I've ever seen - one each was more than enough for a dinner, with the addition of a few baked beans to help them go down.  As said before, hubby managed one before being struck down by the lurgy and Son & heir happily waded his way through his, with a big smile on his face.

I've dealt with Wednesday above, but Thursday should have been Calzones & salad.  Hubby was in no fit state to be making bread dough, so the Spicy Lamb Mince & Ottolenghi's Green Couscous that we should have had on Wednesday, filled the gap.

It's the first time I've cooked this Spicy Lamb Mince and I have to say that I'll very definitely be doing it again, as it was really delicious.  Together with the Green Couscous - which came up trumps and was as gorgeous as the first time I made it - they went really well and made a healthy plus flavoursome meal for jaded tastebuds.

I won't deny that both hubby and myself had a bit of a tummy-twinge thereafter, but it was worth it to get some "proper food" down your gullet!

Well, that brings us to tonight and the rest of the week, which is shaping up as follows :

Friday : Mozzarella Bolognese Bake

Saturday : Ras-al-hanout Chicken with salad

Sunday : Chicken & Fennel Ragu with Jacket potatoes & peas

Monday : Sausage meatballs in gravy, with mash & vegetables.

I don't think anything there jumps out at you as being particularly special or even challenging - which is just the way I like it, at the moment!

The Mozzarella Bolognese Bake is based (lightly) on the Pasticcio idea, but with a view to using up the two Mozzarella balls that are left over from the Calzones that didn't happen.  I make a Mozzarella & Sausage Pasta Bake which is a family favourite, so it's going down those sorts of lines.

Saturday's Ras-al-Hanout chicken is an incredibly simple dish of chicken rubbed and marinated in Ras-al-Hanout, then grilled and paired up with a salad of chargrilled peppers, olives, cherry tomatoes and lettuce with some buttered new potatoes.  Nothing to frighten the horses involved with this, but hopefully will prove to be very nice, all the same.

Now the Chicken & Fennel Ragu on Sunday is something I'm looking forward to cooking.  I picked it up from the internet somewhere - but for the life of me I can't remember where and I forgot to note down on the page where I got it from.  Hence, if it's your recipe - do let me know and I'll credit you with it!  I've managed to get some of the lovely Marabel baking potatoes again, which were so nice the last time we had them.  I can't see it requiring much more than a few peas to bring colour to the table, so again, another simple but (hopefully) lovely meal.

Hubby's in charge on Monday again, and he's further exploring his sausage meatball line.  This time, it's going to be sausage meatballs in gravy (I'm hoping for onion gravy), with mashed potatoes and vegetables - probably involving carrots and broccoli.  Well, if that doesn't get us back on our feet, nothing will!

.

Ottolenghi's Green Couscous : a revelation in flavours!

So.  Couscous.  When hubby suggested we have couscous with our devilled sausages (recipe to follow), I laughed.  I laughed because every single attempt at injecting flavour into couscous, to date (as was) has been a catastrophic failure.

I've gone down the herbs & lemon route, I've gone down the cumin & eastern spice route.  I've even gone down the "Ainsley's couscous in a packet" route, just in case I was missing something there.  ~shakes head~  All have been devoid of the kind of flavour that makes you look forward to couscous appearing on the menu.

Until now.

Now let it be said and agreed that Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi are magicians.  Certainly with food, they are.  I'm not sure about the "produce a penny from behind your ear" type of magic, but I wouldn't put it past Yotam Ottolenghi - he looks the sort who could do that.

The moment hubby suggested couscous, I knew I had to take some serious advice on the subject - and where better to go for couscous advice than the two Ottolenghi cook books, "The Cook Book" and "Plenty".

I will admit that I rejected the first couscous recipe I found therein, but that was largely because the ingredients were hugely expensive and wouldn't particularly have sat well beside a sausage.  "Green Couscous" (page 255 for those who have "Plenty" on their bookshelves) didn't appear - at first reading - terribly hopeful.  However, having scanned the ingredients I discover that we had almost everything barring a couple of the herbs.  As I'm always keen (and even keener, now) to try another Ottolenghi recipe, we were on.

As with a lot of couscous recipes, it's not that difficult to make - provided you have a good blender/processor that will chop herbs down to a fine paste.  We've got one of those hand blenders (left over from when son & heir was a baby) that has a tub which you can plug the blender into - that did the herbs perfectly.

As for the flavour, well it'd be more true to say that it's a case of flavours, not flavour.  Everything combines most beautifully yet each and every flavour stands out in multiple layers of surprise.  I'd recommend using coarse sea salt for it, as the grains when they are tumbled through the couscous leave delicious trails of saltiness behind them.  Hubby was amazed to discover that there was only a quarter of a teaspoon of coarsely ground sea salt involved (not counting the stock cube, of course).

It turned out that my pack of dill had decided to dissolve into green slush, so that's one difference from the original recipe, as is the lack of fresh tarragon (which I couldn't find anywhere).  I substituted a teaspoonful of dried tarragon and nobody noticed it, so that's fine.  I wouldn't recommend doing the entire recipe in dried herbs of course!  Another difference is that the original recipe demanded a green chilli and all we had in the fridge were red ones, but again I suspect that it didn't really matter.


So the recipe you have here is the recipe that I made and that hubby and I enjoyed so much.  Son & heir, needless to say, took a teensy tiny forkful and decreed he didn't like it and left all of his.  ~shrug~  Hey ho, it was expected and his Dad and I polished it off for him, so no harm done.  If you're lucky enough to have a copy of "Plenty" on your bookshelves, the original recipe can be found on page 255.

Just how "Ottolenghi" does that look?

HERBY COUSCOUS (after Ottolenghi's Green Couscous)  Serves 4


Ingredients :


150g couscous
160ml boiling vegetable stock
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp olive oil (for frying)
quarter tsp of sea salt
quarter tsp of ground cumin
3 spring onions, trimmed & finely sliced
1 red chilli, top & tailed, most seeds removed and finely sliced
30g rocket, coarsely chopped.


Herb paste :
20g fresh parsley, roughly chopped
20g fresh coriander, roughly chopped
1 tsp dried tarragon
3 tbsp mint, roughly chopped
90ml extra virgin olive oil.


Method :


1.  Place the couscous in a large bowl and cover with the boiling stock.


2.  Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave for 10 minutes.


3.  Meanwhile, fry the onion in the olive oil on a medium heat until golden and completely soft.  Add the salt & cumin, mix lightly and leave to cool slightly.


4.  Make the herb paste by placing all the ingredients in a good processor and blitzing until smooth.


5.  Add the herb paste to the couscous and mix well, fluffing it up with a fork.  Next, add the cooked onion, spring onions, chilli and rocket and mix through.


Serve.

Printable Version


.

So come on, what's for dinner this week?

OMG Cat is surprised too!

Goodness, I can't quite believe it's Saturday and I'm only just getting around to telling you about what's on the menu for this week!

So, I'd better just get on with it quickly, hadn't I?

Stir fry chicken

Crunchy fish (in breadcrumbs) with vegetable rice

Fish & chips

Devilled sausages & Ottolenghi's Green Couscous

High Tea : tuna sandwiches, ham & peas pudding rolls, coleslaw,

scones & cream

Beef & baby corn curry with rice

Chicken Kiev, Jersey new potatoes, carrots & broccoli.

There now, that's a fairly eclectic mixture!  We were originally going to have Ottolenghi's Kosheri & spicy minced lamb on Thursday, but after a particularly harassing day at work I was bushed and couldn't lift a finger - so we got fish & chips.

After bamboozling our son into accepting a stir fry, I decided to just go for it and put a stir fry on the list.  This one wasn't just a stir fry (as in just veggies), it included noodles and the chicken was prepared separately to the stir fry mix, so as to make it easier to eat for the poor wee soul.

I suppose you could call it Garlic, Chilli & Honey Chicken with Oyster Sauce stir fry - which just about describes it!  Anyway, it was extremely more-ish (which was just as well, because son left quite a bit of his) and is definitely going to appear on the menu list again some day soon.  (Poor son & heir).  I'll be blogging the recipe soon, too - as it's definitely one I'd want to pass on.

Wednesday's dish was all about satisfying hubby's craving for "crunchy fish", which is the frozen fillet of fish that comes in either batter or breadcrumbs.  Every so often he gets a mad craving for it, but this time instead of with chips, he suggested a home-made savoury rice.  Now in the past, home-made savoury rice has been a licence to throw lots of veggies in the bin.  However, this time I made it a personal quest to "up my game" (as they say on Masterchef) and produce something that was as tasty as it was satisfying.

I began by cooking some quartered carrot slices in enough fish stock (from a cube - or two, in fact, as the quantity was well over the 400ml that one stock delivers) to cook the Basmati rice.  After 2-3 minutes, I added the rice.  While that was going on, I cooked a sliced onion in some olive oil until it was golden, then added a little coarse sea salt to it and left it to one side until the rice was done.  In the meantime, I'd added a handful of frozen sweetcorn to the rice pot, then a few minutes later, a handful of frozen peas (all these veggies had to cook within the 9 minutes as stated by the rice packet, so hence the staggered arrival times in the pot).  Next in was a tin of Borlotti beans (for additional protein and fibre) and some chopped celery.

Once the rice was cooked, I tipped three chopped spring onions into the bottom of the colander and drained the rice over the top of them, thus heating them up a little and semi-cooking them.  Then the whole lot went back into the pan, accompanied by a knob of butter and the cooked sliced onion.  I gave the whole lot a mix with a fork (for some reason, mixing with a spoon just turns the rice gloopy - but a fork doesn't.  ~shrug~) and served wit the crunchy fish.  The whole effect was really lovely - in fact, I could have carried on eating the rice and forgotten about the fish.  Regrettably, I didn't catch a photograph of the rice (such was my lack of confidence in it).  The true test of it's validity as a dish however, was that hubby nabbed the leftovers the next day and stir-fried them for his lunch.  Now THAT doesn't happen often!

Thursday was a bit of a washout, owing to the harassing day at work.  It wasn't that people were harassing me, it's just that I had a deadline to make, but other people's deadlines kept getting in the way!  Everybody seemed to need my input, that day.

Just HOW Ottolenghi does that look?

Still, as it turned out, I'm glad that I bumped the Devilled Sausages and Ottolenghi's Green Couscous along until Friday, as I am quite sure the couscous wouldn't have turned out as awesomely fabulous as it did, if I'd have been tired and not too bothered about what I was cooking.

As I've said already, I'll definitely blog the couscous recipe, as it was something of a revelation.

Make it ciabatta instead of a bap, and you've got it!

Tonight, Saturday, is a lovely meal in lots of ways.  We're having High Tea.  This is one of son & heir's favourite types of meals, in that it involves lots of carbohydrate and very little vegetable matter.  *chuckle*  It's fun to have, every so often.  So we'll be having Tuna & mayonnaise sandwiches (maybe with sweetcorn, if I can wangle it), plus Ciabatta Rolls containing ham & pease pudding (a hark back to Hubby's youth in Newcastle), plus coleslaw, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and pickles.  For dessert, we're having fruit scones with cherry compote and clotted cream.  ~sharp intake of breath~  I know!  I haven't even cooked so much as the scones or the compote.  ~hangs head in shame~  But it's a once-in-a-blue-moon occasion.  We'll be making up for it in the days to come.  Gruel for the next three days.  Maybe a lettuce leaf or two, if we're extra good.

Or, perhaps a tad more seriously, on Sunday we'll be having a lovingly-tended, slow cooked beef curry - using Brisket of beef.  In fact, it won't be all that bad for us, as I trim the beef to remove a lot of the fat before cooking and am not intending on including any cream, as I want the full flavour of the brisket to come through.  I'm hoping for a full-bodied beefy curry, only tempered slightly by the inclusion of some baby corn for texture and interest.

So that brings us to Monday, which as it's another working day, I've booked in something that won't cause any arguments over the preparation or eating - Chicken Kiev with new potatoes (Jerseys, in this instance) broccoli and carrots.  Yes, the Kievs have butter in them, but the butter can be trickled over the Jerseys - and the veggies are there to help with our five a day.

Son and heir has decreed that he'll be cooking his chicken dish (wrapped in bacon) for us next Sunday, so that's one day of next week's menus sorted out!  Now all I've got to do is to work out the remaining six dishes before tomorrow - and tell you all about them, before next week is up!

.

OMG! Couscous!

Just a quick note to say that last night, I made Ottolenghi's Green Couscous (Page 255 of "Plenty") and it was flipping awesome.  We're still talking about the many layers of flavour and how appallingly good for you, it all was.

There's not many recipes that I feel moved to report back like this, on - but this is one of them.

If you're thinking about Couscous for a meal sometime in the future, you could do far worse than to have a go at their Green Couscous.

I will, of course, be blogging the recipe (which was slightly different to theirs, but based on theirs) shortly.

Bournemouth Echo "Jenny's Week" blog : Easter Sunday lunch : I'm getting better at it!

The Bournemouth Echo have posted my newest blog, so at last I can tell you all about the Easter Sunday lunch!

The following post can be seen in situ here

It’s not so much that last Easter Sunday’s lunch was a disaster (in truth, I can’t remember last Easter!), but more thinking back to the last time I cooked for anyone other than immediate family, it was a long, hard old slog.

I’d arranged for my parents to come over on Boxing Day last year.  I wanted to have a special celebration dinner, so I’d been cooking for a couple of days previously and the cooking on the day seemed to take FOR EVER.  I can remember pots steaming on the cooker top, me sitting peeling quail’s eggs for what seemed like an aeon and hubby washing up the pots as quickly as they appeared, only to have them dirtied again in a second.  It wasn’t chaos, but it was very close to it.

A rather hurried and particularly poor, snap of the assembled dinner!

So, when I invited my parents over for Easter Sunday lunch, I resolved that this time I’d learn from the previous time’s lesson – and not over face myself.

I’d decided, fairly early on, that we’d have a piece of pot-roasted brisket of beef, as not only is that gorgeous, but it almost guarantees a piece of tender, flavoursome beef with the added bonus of some lovely stock with which to make a superb gravy.

Hubby placed a request for another of the Ottolenghi Fennel & Cherry Tomato Gratin, and I decided to do some Boulangere potatoes, as I could prepare them ahead with the Gratin and both could go in the oven and be forgotten about until they were done.

The accompanying vegetables went from steamed curly kale, through tender stem broccoli to what we settled upon, which was stringless runner beans (because they’re forgiving to cook) and some British asparagus – because if you can’t eat asparagus at such a time as Easter, when can you?

The preparations began early on Sunday morning, when I seared the Beef almost before I’d had a cup of tea.  Through bleary eyes I turned it this way and that, making sure every side had a good colour, whilst trying not to get in the way of the exploding fat.  Having made a complete mess of the cooker top, I chopped up a couple of carrots, a leek and some celery, bashed a couple of garlic cloves, added a handful of fresh parsley plus some dried sage and crumbled in an oxo cube to a stockpot full of water.  Into its bath went the piece of brisket (with some seasoning), on went the lid and I sat and waited for the whole lot to boil.  Once it was boiling briskly, I turned down the heat to the minimum required to keep the pot simmering – and went for that cup of tea.

A little while later – and in a much improved frame of mind – I set to on the preparation for the two oven-bound dishes.

Half-way through, just added crumble & tomatoes

First thing was to make some crumble for the Ottolenghi fennel dish.  That done, I was able to use our Mandolin food slicer (after a cautionary word from hubby about how having to go to Casualty at that stage would seriously put the dinner back) to slice up the three fennel bulbs and the potatoes for the Boulangere.

The finished article - ready to be served

The fennel gratin is true testament to the magic that Ottolenghi brings to their dishes.  Cooked with garlic, thyme and cream, the fennel stops tasting like fennel and tastes utterly different.  With the sweet crumble on top, together with the oven-roasted cherry tomatoes, every mouthful takes on a character all of its own.  It’s a gorgeously rich but light, creamy but crunchy, sweet but sharp delightful flavour and texture combination.  I heartily recommend it to you!

The Boulangere potatoes couldn’t have been easier to put together, now I’d got the Mandolin to help out.  Previously, the long old process of attempting to slice potatoes to even thicknesses – and all without cutting your fingers off – would have been enough to make me think twice.  However, with the Mandolin I just pop a peeled spud into the holder and slice away knowing that my fingers are safe from harm and lovely evenly sliced spuds await.

Just butter the baking dish and add sliced onion & chopped garlic in layers with the potato.  Pour over just enough stock to keep everything moist, add the obligatory knobs of butter to the surface and cover over until you’re ready to put it in the oven.

As for the fennel dish, it can be prepared up to just before the adding the crumble stage, whereupon it will wait, covered, until you’re ready.  Then just add the crumble and pop in the oven.  You just need to remember to put the tomatoes on top somewhere near the end of cooking, so that they will be baked nicely.

After that, it was just decanting some of the stock from the beef pot to make the gravy and preparing the beans & asparagus.

I’m really not sure I did manage to carve the meat – it just sort of fell apart, rather than stayed in lovely carved rounds.  However, it was deliciously unctuous and beefy – and went so very well with the lovely horseradish cream.

Yes, I think I got this one right.

Ottolenghi's Fennel, Cherry Tomato & Crumble Gratin

All cooked and gloriously lovely

"Ottolenghi" seems to be taking up pole position for the word which gets bandied about in conversations the most here, at the moment.

You know how some styles of cuisine just hit you right between the eyes as being just beyond brilliant and totally in accord with the way you'd like to be able to cook?  Well that's Ottolenghi for me.

I had spotted this recipe when I first browsed through "The Cookbook" as it seemed a) achievable financially and b) achievable where the cooking was concerned.  I have to be careful which recipes I choose, as I just don't have the stamina in my legs for recipes that have you galloping all over the kitchen for hours.  Hence, I particularly like recipes that demand input at the beginning, then you get a rest while they're in the oven, with a final burst of activity prior to plating up - which hubby gets to do, while I give my back a rest and compose myself.  Otherwise I'm just too stressed, what with the pain, finishing the dish and making sure the plating up happens neatly, to eat comfortably.

Aaaanyway, all that aside, this is by far and away the most delicious fennel dish I have ever had the good fortune to encounter.  The juxtaposition of the savoury fennel with its creaminess and hints of garlic and thyme, set against the sweet but cheesy crumble, is just amazing.  Hubby really really liked this dish and would be very happy to see it appear on the menu list again really quite soon.  Son was rather less committed to it, but then he doesn't like cooked tomatoes, which were integral to the character of the dish.  However, to give him his due, he did eat it all - which says quite a bit about it's acceptability.

Halfway through cooking : just added crumble and tomatoes

I have tweaked the recipe's quantities, as the original recipe was designed to feed 6.  Also, the fennel bulbs we managed to find didn't, unfortunately, have any of their fluffy fennel tops left on or I would have sprinkled a little of that, chopped, onto the top of the gratin instead of parsley, before serving.

FENNEL, CHERRY TOMATO & CRUMBLE GRATIN (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

2 Fennel bulbs, sliced

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp fresh thyme leaves or 1 tsp dried thyme leaves

2 garlic cloves, crushed

coarse sea salt

black pepper
200ml double cream

enough crumble to cover

50g Parmesan cheese, grated

150g cherry tomatoes – on the vine if possible

1 tsp chopped parsley to garnish

Method :

1.  Preheat oven to 200degC/Gas mark 6.   Trim off the fennel stalks and cut each bulb lengthways in half.  Cut each half into slices.  Place in a large bowl with the olive oil, thyme leaves, garlic, salt & pepper and toss together.

2.  Transfer to an ovenproof dish and pour the cream over the fennel.

3.  Mix the crumble with the grated parmesan and scatter evenly on top.

4.  Cover the dish with foil and bake for 45 minutes.  Remove the foil and arrange the tomatoes on top.  Scatter a few fresh thyme springs on top and return to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes.

5.  Fennel should feel soft when poked with a knife & gratin should have a golden colour.

6.  Remove from the oven and allow to rest for a few minutes then sprinkle with chopped parsley prior to serving.