Shepherd's Pie - better than a couple of aspirin.

There are many different types of foodstuffs that are referred to as "medicinal".  A nip of brandy, a sherry before dinner, chicken soup - all qualify.

In our family, however, it is - without doubt - the Shepherd's Pie.

Whenever someone has been grievously ill, you know they're feeling better when they will accept some Shepherd's Pie - and you know that it will do them so much good, that they'll be well on the way to recovery thereafter.

Take when I had Shingles.  Now Shingles is a horrid thing at the best of times - but on your face (from my chin to the top of my head) is especially nasty.  Add to that a secondary infection and you can just begin to imagine how ill I was.  Knocking on the door of not being here, in fact.  I can well remember lying in bed wishing for Shepherd's Pie.  Dreaming about Shepherd's Pie.  I eventually asked hubby whether he could make me a Shepherd's Pie and of course he was straight into the kitchen, rattling pots and pans.

That Shepherd's Pie was of life-saving quality.  The first forkful, carried weakly to my mouth, was absolutely ambrosial.  Every forkful thereafter brought with it a little more nutrition, a little more energy - and ultimately, more life.

I can remember that, from that moment onwards, the slow creep back to normality began.

Shepherd's Pie was on the menu list for tonight - and my goodness, but did hubby do it justice?  You bet he did.  From the mashed potato that was mashed with double cream, butter, sea salt & freshly ground pepper, to the lamb mixture that included onion, carrot, celery and stock enrichened with a little sweet sherry and tomato puree.  He gave it his all.

My only regret was that we had a guest for dinner tonight, so there wasn't any leftovers.  Ah well, all the more reason to put another one on the menu list, very soon!

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Can we at least TRY to keep to the menu plan, this week? 28 June - 4 July 11

Well, I suppose we can TRY - but it's highly unlikely we'll make it to the end of the week without going off-piste somewhere along the line!  That is, if current progress is anything to go by.

The Shepherd's Pie has been bumped from last week to this coming week, but at least we did manage to make the Prawn & Pea Risotto - which was gorgeous.  I have to admit that I ate far too much of it, but then it was really nice and it wouldn't have kept.  Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I also didn't get around to making the Gooseberry & Almond Cake, as hubby beat me to it with a boiled fruit cake and I figured that one cake in the family was probably enough.  He's working on getting back into baking and went for the fruit cake as being the thing he's been most successful with in the past.  Although, having said that, he did make a cracking loaf of bread, shortly afterwards.  I don't think he's going to have much problem picking up the threads where he left off, somehow!


So, here's how this coming week is planned to shape up :

Tuesday : Pizza

Wednesday : Baked Gnocchi with spinach, tomato & mascarpone

accompanied by a side salad

Thursday : Shepherd's Pie with carrot, swede & broad beans

Friday : Creamy ham & mushroom pasta bake

Saturday : Chicken Caesar Salad with crunchy croutons

Sunday : Pasta "Rick Stein" (can't remember the name) plus a side salad

Monday : Sausage, bacon, egg, mushroom & baked beans.

Okay, I admit it.  Tuesday's dinner is (was) a large cop-out.  Frozen pizza - chuck it in the oven and that's it.  Dinner's on the table with the minimum of washing up.  I have to admit, also, that I was looking forward to mine - a Pineapple & Ham pizza.  Haven't had one of those for ages and it was really nice, too.

So I'm back onto the cooking horse today (Wednesday) with the Baked Gnocchi dish from Jo Romero's Comfort Bites blog.  Oh, and no - I won't be making the Gnocchi from scratch.  LOL  After our last disaster with that, I think I'll make some for a lunchtime before I commit myself to a main course dinner dish!  For all that it contains a lot of cheese, I'm quite looking forward to a meal that doesn't contain meat for once!  I can't say that Son & heir joins me in my enthusiasm, but I know for sure that he'll love the gnocchi once it's in front of him.

Thursday brings about the return of the Shepherd's Pie from last week.  Hubby has decided to serve it with carrot, swede and some fresh broad beans - which he says he might even double de-pod (is that an expression?).  It did occur to me that at £1.40-something for a bagful of the beans in their pods, if you then pod them again, you'll be throwing away far more than you're ever eating.  Which makes me wonder why we didn't buy frozen - but there you are!  Chalk this one down to living and learning.

I've had a resistance to creamy sauces just recently, which seems to have abated as I've included three dishes on this menu plan that involve a creamy sauce of one sort or another.  Funny how these things go, isn't it?  Friday's dinner of creamy ham & mushroom pasta bake certainly couldn't get a lot creamier, hammier or cheesier (just making up words as I go along, now!).  Son & heir will have to pick the mushrooms out of his portion, but it's a small price to pay for the rest of the recipe - which I know he likes.

Saturday's Chicken Caesar Salad isn't going to be greeted with much enthusiasm from Son & heir, that's for sure.  Not only is it full of lettuce (*gasp*), but it also contains the dreaded Parmesan cheese (*horror*).  Still, it's a trade-off to get his paws onto the lovely chicken and his favourite, crunchy garlicky croutons.  Hubby and I love a good Caesar Salad and I'm hoping that this proves to be a good one, as I'm making the dressing from scratch instead of relying on a pre-made dressing.  We do love anchovies, but keeping your fingers crossed for me can only help!

Now, what about this "Pasta Rick Stein", then?  Well, you see, I saw the lovely Mr Stein making this in one of his "Mediterranean Journeys" t.v. shows a couple of weeks ago and it looked so easy and so nice, that I immediately thought "that'll do for me!" and resolved to make it.  However, such is the incapacity of my brain to remember small details, that I have completely forgotten what he called it.  If I describe it to you here, perhaps those of you who also saw the programme might have a better memory than I and be able to tell me the name of it!

[As an aside, I'd just like you to imagine a lot of bleeps while I swear like a navvy at the frustration engendered by owning my brain.  Three or four years ago, my brain melted.  That is to say, I went to sleep and didn't wake up the next morning.  I was still alive (no, really? lol) but in coma.  I was rushed to hospital where they put me further into coma and then woke me up, which fortunately for me - worked.  However, since then my memory has been random at best.  For three weeks, I have been trying to remember the name of that dish - and having typed the above, it comes back to me.  Pasticcio. I could honestly bang my head on the desk, right now.  Yes, it's good that I remembered it - but why couldn't I remember it all those weeks ago, when I first started trying to?]

Deep sigh - and carry on.

Okay, so it's a ragu made with lamb or beef mince, in this case it'll be beef, layered with what is basically a macaroni cheese mixture.  If you imagine a cross between Lasagne, Macaroni Cheese and Spaghetti Bolognese, you've probably got the idea.  Anyway, it sounded - and looked - really lovely and perfect for a Sunday.  I'll serve it with a side salad of lettuce, tomatoes, olives and roasted red peppers, so we'll be going a bit Greek on Sunday!

All of which leaves us with Monday to deal with, where I've planned to have a good English breakfast - except for dinner.  I just know that Son & heir and hubby will enjoy the meat fest that a full english breakfast can be and, so long as the majority of it is grilled, I think I'll get away with it too.  We don't have this kind of thing very often, so it's a treat.

Well, goodness only knows whether we'll have any of that on the day's we're supposed to - but I'm liking the look of the plan so far!

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So Jenny - what's the plan for this week, then? 21-27 June 11

That, is a very good question.  After last week, it could be anything at any time, it seems to me!  We did a spectacularly good job of swapping meals around and exchanging them for other incarnations of the same basic ingredient.


So I'm crossing my fingers that this week stays a bit more settled!


For starters, it's unusual that I'm in a position to write the meal plan post on the day it kicks off!  I blame the Strawberry Stacks, they were so gorgeous I just couldn't not blog about them - so then the Beef stew needed blogging - and so here we are.

In actual fact, we've just returned from doing the food shop at the supermarket and everything came to much less than I was fearing it would, cost-wise.  I had an enormous shopping list going in there, so either we've shopped very well or the prices aren't as bad as I thought they would be!  Fresh salmon was a bit of an eye-opener, as from the fish counter it was £7 a kilo, whereas pre-packed it was £14 - yes, FOURTEEN! - a kilo.  The wet fish counter didn't even have it on special offer, either.  It just proves how it's worth looking at all the options before buying!


So anyway - to business.  This week (she says, whilst emerging from a shed and adopting a West Country accent - and if you haven't seen that T.V. Programme, just ignore that bit) we shall mostly be having :

Tuesday : Warm Salmon Salad with Little Gem, Asparagus, Avocado and Jersey Royals

Wednesday : Onion tart, salad and Jersey Royals

Thursday : Meatballs and Pasta

Friday : Kedgeree

Saturday : Red Dragon Beef Pie with steamed Pak Choi & carrots

Sunday : Shepherd's Pie with carrots, broccoli and peas

Monday : Prawn & Pea risotto.

There now.  That all sounds just lovely, doesn't it?

Today's salmon salad started out life in my head as one of the BBC Good Food recipes for a warm potato & tuna salad with pesto dressing.  It required some fine tuning, in that almost everything on the ingredients list someone had something they objected to.  So, I swapped Salmon for the tuna (Son & heir doesn't like tuna), swapped green beans for asparagus (hubby doesn't like green beans, we all love asparagus) and swapped baby spinach for little gem lettuce (Son & heir doesn't like baby spinach used as a salad leaf).  Truth be told, it doesn't resemble the original recipe in the slightest any more.  The only resemblance is in the structure of the salad and the pesto dressing!

I've bought some garlic & herb tear'n'share bread to have with it, as although hubby likes Jersey Royals they are still potatoes and he won't cope with too  many of them on the plate.  Son & heir will be disgusted by the fact that it's a salad and the bread is to make the whole thing seem worthwhile to him.  I know, I'm a pushover.

I'm also planning on making some muffins today, as the ones I made for Son & heir's break time snacks have all disappeared now.  It's an intriguing recipe, being a Camembert and Redcurrant muffin.  Should be absolutely gorgeous, but I'll let you know!

I'm looking forward to making tomorrow's dinner, the Onion tart.  I was always terribly allergic to onions to the point where I couldn't eat them at all - not even cooked away to nothing in a stew.  My system would still know they were there, with the ensuing consequences - the worst being that I'd spend some time calling to God on the great white telephone.  Which is what makes it all the more remarkable that, having been pregnant, I can now eat onions again.  ~shrug~  Don't ask me how it happened, but I can now risk a cheese & red onion sandwich, which was such a no-no in the past!  Hence, to make an entire tart dedicated to my nemesis of old is something of an triumph.

Thursday is hubby's day to cook and he's going down the sausage meatball route again, except in a rather more classic sauce this time.  Meatballs and pasta has always been one of Son & heir's favourite dinners, so it should be a trouble-free meal time.

Son & heir is bringing one of his friends, J, home from school for a sleepover on Friday.  I recalled when J was here last (when we had the Shoulder of Pork) that he commented on how much he enjoyed fish.  Everyone here loves my Kedgeree, so I thought that would be a nice thing to make for J.  It has the added benefit of being incredibly easy to produce, too!

I'm aiming to make a rhubarb & ginger upside down cake for dessert (just a little one - 4 slices big) that day, too.

Saturday brings the return of the Red Dragon beef pie, now that I'm fully armed with the Aduki beans!  All I've got to do is remember to put the blinking things on to soak on Friday evening!  lol  @MartinK10 - if you're reading this and you're around on Friday evening, send me a twitter to remind me!  *chuckle*

Hubby's volunteered to cook again on Sunday and he's doing one of his gorgeous Shepherd's Pies.  It really IS a Shepherd's Pie, as it will be made with lamb mince.  Oooh, I can hardly wait, as Shepherd's Pie is one of my very favourite meals.

I'll be aiming to make a Gooseberry & Almond Cake on Sunday morning, so long as I get time!  I'm intrigued by how the gooseberries sink from the top of the cake while it's cooking, and have to see it in action.

All of which brings us around to Monday again, when hubby is promising us a prawn & pea risotto.  Being the Risotto King, I just know this is going to be a success - to the point where I can almost taste it if I think about it for long enough.

So there we are!  Sounds like a bit of a busy week, one way and another.  I reckon I'd better get on with those Camembert & Redcurrant muffins, because they won't cook themselves!

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This coming week's meals - better late than never.

When I left you last, I believe it was Sunday and we'd just had a lovely Gammon pot roast.

Well, I sort of fell apart over Sunday evening and on into Monday morning, in that the sudden attack of "meh!" that had got me earlier in the week turned into stomach pain and an overwhelming desire to vomit.  Not good.  So not good, in fact, that I didn't go to work on Monday.  Bringing a sickness bug to a Hotel is not a good idea.  As it was, after I'd taken son to school and crawled back into my bed for another hour or so's nap, I took some Milk of Magnesia and almost immediately began to feel better.  After a couple of hours, I could even face a scrambled egg - and so began the climb back to the pathetic level of health that I attempt to maintain.  I'm still not quite right - I couldn't face a curry quite yet - but with some skillful  planning, I'll get there.

So, Monday's lovely prawn risotto that Hubby had planned had to be jettisoned in favour of plain old grilled sausages with vegetables and gravy.  The boys, of course, had waffles and baked beans - but I couldn't face the idea of a greasy waffle.  I opted for a medley of fresh vegetables (leftover bits from the weekend, in fact) which sat a lot more easily in my stomach!

Tuesday is the first day of our new week and, because I was still feeling a tad delicate in the tummy department, I was luckily able to plan accordingly.  So, we had a lovely Macaroni Cheese.  We should have had salad, but again, salad was a bit of a stretch for me so we opted for some garlic bread.

My Macaroni Cheese is made with mature cheddar, onion, streaky bacon, English mustard and cayenne pepper.  Now you would think that the cheese would be too heavy, or the pasta, or the bacon - but no.  Nor is the mustard or the cayenne too much.   On the schedule of "things to eat to make you feel better" - a.k.a. "comfort food" - I think you'll find that Macaroni Cheese (or Spirali Pasta Cheese, as this one was!) is around no. 2, with Shepherd's Pie at no.1.

I did manage to get out to the supermarket on Tuesday, so we are all geared up for this week's meals.

Wednesday (or tonight, as I write this), we had something we haven't been able to have for over a year.  A classic old English Beef Stew, with dumplings.  In the past, stewing beef has always come in as too expensive for us.  However, with the supermarket's special offer help, I picked up some lovely shin of beef.  I made some Parsley dumplings - with fresh Parsley - which were delightful and took the place of potato (you will recall Hubby's strange antipathy towards the humble spud) admirably.

Thursday is the night that the Prawn & Little Gem Risotto makes a comeback - and hooray for it!  I'm really looking forward to trying this - and the wait has made it all the sweeter.

Friday and we're having a blast from the past - Kedgeree.  Now I love kedgeree and it's something I've made for years, perfecting the recipe as I've gone along until we've now got a deliciously dry, spicy confection of smoked haddock, hard boiled eggs, curry and rice.  Personally, I prefer to eat it with a side salad dressed with lemon juice and olive oil - but it would seem I'm alone in that!  That's okay, however, because I can soon rustle up a little salad just for me.  Yum!

Saturday needs to be an easy meal that can be eaten whilst watching t.v.  So this Saturday - thanks to Sainsbury's marked down Springform tins - we're having an old favourite which is "Bacon & Blue Cheese Filo Pie" with salad.

We'd stopped having this one for two reasons.  Firstly, my old Springform tin fell apart and secondly, son demonstrated an allergic reaction to blue cheese.  However, this time I'll prepare the pie with a blue cheese free quarter - and have the antihistamine to hand, just in case!  It's a lovely recipe, using layered filo sheets into which you put a mixture of cream cheese, beaten eggs, ham, rocket and pine nuts.  You then sprinkle over some crushed up blue cheese (I usually use Stilton), then fold the filo in to make a crust and bake.  Gorgeous with salad.

Now, Sunday is very exciting.  We're going over to New Milton to see my Parents and they've offered to take us out for lunch at the Fisherman's Haunt in Winkton.  I've had a peek at their menus and everything looks very tempting - so I expect a review will be forthcoming, in due course!

Not one of our Cottage Pies - but it looks nice,
all the same!

Owing again to the supermarket having some very affordable lamb mince, Monday is looking like Shepherd's Pie day.  Lovely!  Hubby is in the kitchen that day - and he makes an amazing Shepherd's Pie.  It will be extra-nice to have a proper Shepherd's pie, rather than the beef version - Cottage Pie.  So, if I'm not fully recovered by Sunday - I certainly will be, by Tuesday morning!  Shepherd's Pie is akin to medicine, in our house!

Lastly - I'd just like to know whether this qualifies me as a real cook.

Circled - just in case you missed it.  :)

I burned my hand on the cooker shelf when I was retrieving the roast potatoes on Sunday.  Yes, I know it's not a BAD burn - but I'm wearing it like a badge, that says "I cook!".  *smile*