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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Boulangere Potatoes : a "special" version

We had these Boulangere Potatoes with the Pot Roast Brisket on Easter Sunday.  I had made Boulangere Potatoes previously, but this recipe looked a teensy bit more "special" and thus suitable for a celebration lunch such as I was planning.

It's a cracking good potato dish to do if you're going to be pushed for cooker top space, or you'd quite like to spend time with your guests rather than in the kitchen thrashing around!  You can easily make this to the "putting in the oven" stage, then cover with clingfilm and leave until you are ready to cook it.

I used a mandolin to cut both the onions and the potatoes, so that they would be of uniform size and so cook evenly.  Don't worry if you don't have one of these natty gadgets, it'll just take you a bit longer to carefully cut the potatoes.

There's not a lot more to say, other than "I commend these to the house"!

BOULANGERE POTATOES (serves 4-5)

Ingredients :

50g butter
1 garlic clove, grated
2 onions, finely sliced
4-5 large Maris Piper potatoes, peeled & finely sliced
20g thyme, leaves only, chopped
100ml chicken stock.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 200deg C/fan 180deg C/gas 6.

2.  Butter a large ovenproof dish and sprinkle with some of the chopped garlic and onion.

3.  Layer up the sliced potato, onion, garlic and thyme, seasoning each layer as you go.

4.  Continue until the dish is three-quarters full, then pour the chicken stock over the mix.

5.  Put 4 or 5 knobs of butter over the top and bake in the oven for 20-40 minutes or until the potatoes are tender and browned on top.

Serve.

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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.

Beef Bourguignon

Way back two Sundays ago, I decided to have Beef Bourgignon for dinner on Saturday evening.

I'd been holding a recipe for Bourguignon for the longest time, waiting until the stars converged - or alternatively, I had everything necessary in one place.  Well, it so happened that (thanks to my Wine ice cubes) I had everything necessary, barring the beef.

Well that was easily fixed by a quick trip to the butcher for some Beef Shin.

Imagine my surprise when I saw, on the t.v., the latest M&S advert which was extolling the virtues of their Beef Bourguignon - made with "prime cuts of beef"!  Having just made the dish with what (don't tell it, for goodness sake) could easily be described as "a very non-prime cut of beef", yet have the dish turn out so completely deliciously, made me a little scathing of their prime cuts.

Yes, beef shin does require a little knife work to remove the worst of the fat and gristle, but there really isn't all that much.  Just ask Jonty & Basil - they would rather it contained much more fat and gristle, as they get to be the wagging dustbins into which it goes!  It's just a shameless marketing ploy on their behalf, I reckon.

I put our Bourguignon into the oven for around two and a half hours, which had the pieces breaking up under knife and fork and requiring the minimum of chewing.  Now if that's not scrumptious, I don't know what is.

Oh - and I expect it cost around the same, but for very much more.  *smile*

BEEF BOURGUIGNON  (feeds 3 hungry people)

Ingredients :

1 tsp olive oil
15g butter
700g diced beef shin
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated
200g chestnut mushrooms
5-6 whole round shallots, peeled
225ml red wine
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp dried thyme (or 2 sprigs, if fresh)
500ml beef stock.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180deg.

2.  Heat the oil in a large frying pan and brown the beef, seasoning it as you go.

3.  Remove, place into a warmed casserole dish to keep warm.

4.  Melt the butter in the pan, add the onion and fry until soft (around 5 mins).

5.  Add the whole shallots and garlic, cook for another minute, then the mushrooms, cook for another 2 minutes, then the wine and bring to the boil.

6.  Stir in the tomato puree and let the liquid reduce for around 5 mins, then stir in the thyme and add the stock.

7.  Pour the liquid into the casserole dish, cover and place into the oven for 2-2.5 hours or until beef is tender.

8.  If necessary, pour gravy off into a saucepan and boil until reduced and syrupy.  I found I didn't need to do this part, as the sauce was at perfect consistency.

Printable version

Serve with Boulangere potatoes, curly kale cooked briefly in boiling water for 3 mins, and carrots.

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