Today's dinner : a bit of a buffet!

As a friend on Facebook said when he saw the photograph of this evening's dinner, "you can't beat a bit of a buffet".

Son and heir's pal was staying over another night and so, we thought we'd lay an a High Tea.  We haven't done one for a long old time and it's one of Son & heir's favourite meals, so it was about time.

Hubby is always responsible for the putting together of a High Tea and he always does something additionally to what we've decided.  Today's bonus yumminess were Ants on a log (celery sticks with peanut butter and sultanas) and what should have been just Philadelphia cream cheese on Ritz crackers, but which turned out to have shards of bacon too!

So, what we had were prawns in soft rolls, sausage rolls, pork pies, marinated beetroot, the aforesaid crackers and logs, mature cheddar cheese cubes, Austrian smoked cheese, BabyBel mini cheeses, cherry tomatoes, vegetable crisps, Piccalilli, pickled peppers and pickled onions.

For dessert - if you could fit it in - was a strawberry gateau.  The only thing home made here was the sauce that the prawns were in, but am I embarrassed?  Nope.  Everyone has to have a day off!
 

This week's menu plan - it's a good job we enjoy cooking!

I was just looking at this week's menu plan, wondering what to give this blog post as a title, and quickly came to the conclusion that this week's meals could only be planned by a foodie family.

I always look at the menu plan once we've decided upon it and think "if one or other of us went down with a cold, could we still produce what's on the list?".  The answer is (pretty much) always a "yes", but even so, this week's plan is so intertwined and - in some places - completely reliant upon our being compos mentis enough to make the meals, I can only hope that son & heir's current sniffles stay as sniffles!

So what's so complicated about this week, then?  Well, it all looks reasonable enough :

Tues : Kedgeree

Weds : Chicken, asparagus & tarragon with Jersey Royals, and sweetcorn

Thurs : Pea & Ham soup, with crusty bread

Fri : Crunchy fish and wedges

Sat : High Tea

Sun : Braised Oxtail, roast butternut squash and parsnips, Savoy cabbage and Yorkshire puddings

Mon : Chicken Gnocchi in Sorrel pesto with garlic bread.

However, it's when you get into the planning of the week, that you notice how dependent everything is, upon having things happen on the right days and at the right moment.

We had the Kedgeree last night - and it was as predictably gorgeous as always.  I used a good two pinches of dried Kasoori Methi (my new favourite ingredient, Fenugreek) in it, along with chopped coriander, and the Methi seemed to even out the slight coarseness of the curry powder, resulting in a flavour with less "sharp edges" to it than normal.  (If you see what I mean!).

Egg mayo - with lots of black pepper - yum!

As I've been hankering for egg mayonnaise sandwiches for the longest time, when I was boiling the eggs for the Kedgeree, I made sure to boil two more for today's lunch.  So roll on lunchtime!

Wednesday's Chicken with asparagus & tarragon is the same recipe that appeared in the menu plan a couple of weeks ago, but that got bumped out for some reason.  I'm reckoning it should be delicious, so have brought it back for another go.  Mind you, we had a bit of a shock when we went to buy the chicken breasts this morning, as the local butcher has taken them off of special offer (5 for £5) and they now cost just under £8 for 6!  So we'll have to think rather more carefully about the chicken dishes we schedule in, in future.

However, every cloud has a silver lining and all that - they are now doing 1kg Silverside joints of beef for just  £4.95!  We couldn't buy one of those quickly enough - and it is now roosting in our freezer for next Sunday's dinner.

So - today being Wednesday, means that I need to start the process for making some home-made Pea & Ham Soup in the slow cooker for Thursday.

To explain about this, needs us to step back a few days, when we picked up six or seven 1970's cook books (and a 1963 one) from a Freecycle lady at the weekend.   One of which was the "Prestige Crock-Pot Cookery Book" from 1977.  Oh, and it does look like it's from 1977, too.  It has the best recipes in it - things like Hungarian Goulash.  Now their Hungarian Goulash isn't anything like traditional Hungarian Goulash, but it IS like the sort of Goulash that my Mum used to make - and as such, is the kind of Goulash recipe that I've been seeking for years.

I'd been after making a main course soup for the last couple of weeks, but couldn't think of one that would suit.  Having found the recipe for Pea & Ham in the Prestige book, it was just begging to be made.  I even - wonders will never cease - found a ham hock in the Rotisserie department of our local Asda that will be perfect for it.

So, getting back to how things are intertwined, I needed to put the dried split peas on to soak this morning, then assemble everything in the slow cooker (crock-pot) tonight and cook the soup overnight on low, to give it the recommended 10-12 hours of long slow cooking.

Hubby is planning on making us either a loaf of bread or some bread rolls to accompany the soup, which he can start on Thursday morning, all being well.

You see how none of this could be accomplished (well, not easily) without meal planning?

We're both having a night off on Friday, as we're slumming it with "crunchy fish" (a.k.a. fish in breadcrumbs) with potato wedges.  It's not quite "fish fingers and chips", just missing that title by the narrowest of squeaks.

High Tea - a favourite in our house

Saturday's High Tea looks like it's going to become something of a production.  However, interestingly, not that expensive a production (for once!).  Hubby has promised to bake a cake - details to be confirmed - and we're looking (currently) at having Corned Beef & Pickle rolls, plus some Red Leicester cheese sandwiches which we'll keep plain for son & heir (Red Leicester is his favourite cheese) and dress up with some lovely red onion for us.  I'll also make a little potato salad with some Jersey Royals and we'll have a small mixed salad to go with it.  I'm busy quizzing my American friends as to Devilled Egg recipes, as I've always wanted to try Devilled Eggs - and now seems as good a time as any.  Poor hubby can't indulge in them as eggs are his bête noir, so maybe I'll make him a stuffed tomato as a consolation prize!  We'll have all the standard cherry tomatoes & radishes in the salad and pickles, including chutney, piccalilli and pickled walnuts alongside too.

In fact, looking at that list, it all looks like good ammunition for indigestion!  Maybe I'll have to re-think the sandwich fillings.  *chuckle*.  Whatever we have, I hope it'll be a good old-fashioned High Tea.  Maybe I can convince Hubby to make some Seed Cake - that'd fit the mood of the thing!  Oh, and what about a little dish of stewed rhubarb?  Am I going too far?  Yes?  Hmmn.  I thought so.

Getting back to the interlinked nature of this week's meals, what with the cake baking and potato salad making, some work is going to be needed prior to the event!

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that almost everything I've mentioned above, we have in the kitchen already.  The only things requiring buying would be the Red Leicester, a red onion and perhaps some cake ingredients.  This is a radical change from the norm, as ordinarily High Tea costs more than a roast dinner to produce.

Photo c/o Delicious Magazine

Speaking of roast dinners, this Sunday's "Roast Dinners of the World" is going to suffer another diversion.  We got diverted onto a Russian Fish Pie last week and this week, we've been diverted onto Oxtail by the Prestige Crock-Pot Cookery Book.

We rang our local butcher and asked whether he could obtain Oxtail for us, and how much it would be.  Turns out, it comes in at a really quite reasonable (or so we thought at the time) £5.50 a kilogram.  However, we didn't realise (then) that it would be more expensive than Silverside - but there we are, we'd been seduced by the idea of Oxtail by then.

I know the slow cooker will do a brilliant job of cooking the Oxtail and am really looking forward to the end result.  It should be excellent with the roast veggies and cabbage.

Depending on what cake hubby decides to make - as to whether it turns out to be more of a "dessert" than a "tea time cake" - we may or may not be requiring dessert for Sunday.  What we had planned to do (and if we don't need it, we'll carry it over to next weekend) is make a fruit terrine.  Yes, you knew I'd have to investigate this terrine idea further, didn't you!

I'm currently thinking along the lines of a terrine (which would have to be made on Saturday, for use on Sunday) involving grapes, rhubarb, strawberries, poached pear, mint and amaretto crumbs.  I have a cunning plan for the jelly, which I'm not prepared to divulge yet.  ~taps side of nose sagely~  You'll just have to wait and see!

What a fine figure of a Sorrel plant!

After all that activity, we've planned in a relatively easy one for Monday.  We were thinking along the lines of pan fried chicken breast with gnocchi mixed with a pesto, when suddenly it occurred to us to make use of our abundant supplies of sorrel.  So, we'll be making a sorrel pesto (probably 50/50 with parsley) to go on the gnocchi - and pairing the whole thing up with some of hubby's fabulous home-made garlic bread.  Yum!

Having decided upon all that cooking, I don't think we've any additional makes or bakes planned - but then, we didn't plan on making hubby's Walnut & Cheese Loaf (from one of the "new" old cook books), last week, either - so it's a case of "watch this space!".

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You get your Menu Plan all organised - and suddenly, it's Christmas!

Here's the state of this week's menu plan :

That is how much we've had to double-back on what we had planned to do (which was all very nice, but will now have to wait) in favour of working our way through a Foreman & Field Seasonal Gift box, which was very kindly supplied by Knorr.

Stuffed full of goodies!

For all that I was expecting to receive the gift box on Wednesday, I wasn't expecting it to weigh the same as a ten year old boy - nor be bigger than my available worktop!  That white, paper-wrapped lump on the right hand side was a Kelly Bronze Turkey.  The box basically contained everything for a Christmas dinner, plus everything for a Turkey curry on Boxing Day - following a recipe from Marco Pierre White, who is currently working on the "Best of British" campaign with Knorr.

I have been privileged to receive the box in return for cooking with the ingredients and blogging copiously about it.

Incredibly exciting, absolutely amazing and so much fun!

So, following a bit of radical re-evaluation, the week's menus now look like this :

Tues : Son - Pizza, Adults - King Prawn Frittata

Wed : Sausage Casserole

Thur : Scotch Broth with crusty bread

Fri : Fish in batter, hash browns (baked sweet potato for me), peas & baked beans

Sat : High Tea

Sun : Roast Turkey Christmas Dinner

Mon : Turkey Curry á la Marco Pierre White.

The Turkey theme is likely to run over into next week too, as I've plans for a Turkey Leftover Pie, plus soup using the Turkey stock I'll be making.  Well, it was an enormous Turkey - and I'm never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I'll be making it go as far as humanly possible!

Getting back to real life (well, it does seem somewhat surreal to have Christmas arrive suddenly like that!), hubby is the man responsible for Tuesday evening's King Prawn Frittata - and it was one of his truly top-knotch ideas.  Bless him, he's trying to think along the lines of "things that will be good for Jenny's Anti-inflammatory diet" (which Turkey isn't - sssshhh!) which (basically) means ruling out lots and lots of carbohydrates and odd things like raw tomatoes.  This Frittata was really - and I mean really - good.  I'll be blogging it very soon.

So difficult to make this look appetising!

Next on the list was the Sausage Casserole.  Now we've been making Sausage Casseroles for as long as we've been together, hubby and I - and probably even earlier than that.  However, this Sausage Casserole is an adaptation of a Hairy Bikers' recipe for their "Spicy Bean HotPot".  When I first saw it, I liked the spicing involved in it but wasn't keen on the hotpot top of sliced potatoes.  I figured that, if I included some sausages and some mushrooms, it might very easily pass for a spicy Sausage Casserole - and it did, quite beautifully too!  This one will be blogged very soon as well.

My version - hubby's isn't finished yet!

Now we come to tonight's Scotch Broth, which is another of hubby's ideas.  He's taken some details from my Scotch Broth recipe, but is doing his own take on the dish.  He's in the process of making it right now, as I type, so I can't give you any clues as to how it turned out just yet!

We're having fish on Friday for once, but purely co-incidentally, as we're trying feverishly to reduce the amount of things that are roosting in the freezer and make room for the Turkey!  This is the fish in batter that we should have had last Monday, but it got elbowed out of the way by something else.  Still, it'll be nice to have a plain old easy "after school" dinner for once.  I'll be making myself a baked Sweet Potato to have instead of the potato hash browns, and be having peas instead of the baked beans - which is something else that is oddly inflammatory.

From here on in, we're into the Knorr Seasonal Box!

Just how much does that Stilton make your mouth water?

Saturday's High Tea is going to be a tongue-tinglingly, tongue-tastic array of smoked salmon and salmon caviar done three ways (on blinis, as a mousse on pumpernickel and in pinwheels), along with some spectacular Colston Bassett Stilton with grapes, Fenland Celery and crackers.  We're also going to provide some tasters of other cheeses for son & heir who is still undecided as to whether he's a Stilton fan or not.

Dessert will be a lemon & raspberry tart with cream.  All of which is designed to form the type of buffet you might be lucky enough to be presented with on Christmas Day evening.

Is that a Turkey leg, I see peeping out?

Hubby has very generously offered to run the cooking of the "Christmas Day Dinner" on Sunday, which has relieved me of lots of worry as to how the heck I was going to do it.  Apparently I'll be allowed to sit and direct operations plus do whatever can be done sitting down.  It'll be a team effort - which Christmas Dinners often are, if you're lucky!

Monday's dinner will be the first after-Christmas Turkey Leftover Curry I've ever cooked.  Most leftover Turkey in my house, gets used up in copious amounts of sandwiches - so it'll be fun to see what can be done with Marco Pierre White's recipe!

I doubt very much that I'll be sticking to his recipe, as it really doesn't sound like our type of curry at all, as it contains both apple and banana.  Plus, the curry powder that has been supplied, although it smells beautifully fragrant, doesn't give the impression of having much chilli kick.  Hence, I'll be using the ingredients as a base and freestyling thereafter to try and tweak the curry towards more of a genuine curry, as opposed to a curry-flavoured Turkey stew.  Fingers crossed!

So, there you have it.  I doubt very much that I'll be doing any other incidental bits of cooking in the meantime, as I'll be too busy cooking and blogging about it!  As it is, I've had to wade through the backlog of blogs that were waiting to be done, while hubby took care of the cooking, so as to get up to date for the approaching Knorr blogs!  Don't, for a second, think I'm complaining - far from it - it's fun to be busy.  Cooking and writing about it is, after all, what I enjoy doing.

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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!

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Cheese Scones

Surely, everyone loves a cheese scone?

Mind you, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some out there who aren't enamoured of them largely because the cheese scones you get from the supermarket and even - horrors! - from the baker, are a pale impersonation of a true cheese scone. You see, they should be cheesy. Yes, I know that sounds like a no-brainer. Cheese scone = cheesy flavour. Well yes, you would think so, but so many of the commercially produced cheese scones have cheese on top and are just plain scones inside.

Now these cheese scones are cheesy! Oh yes, and with a slight hint of warmth from the mustard powder and cayenne pepper, they are completely divine. Eaten for lunch, or even just with a cup of tea, they are one of my favourite things in the whole wide world - and I don't make them. Nope, they are all hubby's own work. Clever, clever chap!

Cooks notes : Try as far as possible to use a light touch when mixing the ingredients and take care not to overwork the dough. If you don't have three cheeses on hand then just use any cheddar type or sharp cheese you have available. The more flavour your cheese has, the better your scones will be. I strongly recommend that mild cheeses should not be used!

CHEESE SCONES (makes 6)

Ingredients :

300g self raising flour
a quarter of a teaspoon of salt
half a teaspoon of mustard powder
half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
60g salted butter
40g grated red Leicester cheese
40g grated mature Cheddar cheese
20g very finely grated Grana Padano or Parmesan cheese
130ml milk,

Method :

Heat oven to 220 degrees C (200 deg fan) and line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Sift flour, mustard powder, cayenne pepper and salt into a mixing bowl.

Gently mix the cheeses together taking care not to form clumps. Adding a sprinkle of flour can help to prevent the cheese strands from sticking together.

Cut the butter into small pieces and add it to the flour mix. It is important that the butter comes straight from the fridge. This is crucial to prevent the dough from being overworked, becoming tough and preventing a good rise.

Rub the butter into the flour mix with your fingertips until the mixture resembles very fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the grated cheeses, reserving a little for sprinkling onto the tops of the scones prior to baking.

Add the milk gradually, stirring well with a knife until the mixture begins to stick together.

With your hands, knead the mixture gently and only enough to form a soft smooth dough.

On a floured surface flatten or roll the dough to about 2 to 3 cm thick. Obviously, the number of scones produced will depend on the size of your cutter. I use a 6 cm round, fluted cutter for medium sized or a 7.5 cm cutter for large ones. Try to cut your dough in a straight downward motion, this will help the scones rise evenly.

Once cut, place the scones on the baking tray. Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle the reserved cheese on top. A little grind of fresh black pepper and/or sea salt can also help but use sparingly.

Cook for about 10-15 mins until golden. Cool before serving, although warm (not hot) from the oven is delicious with fresh butter.

Printable version

Bournemouth Echo "Taste" Blog : From Bowls to Bikkies

FROM BOWLS TO BIKKIES

We have been exploring, just lately, the idea of "main course soups". That is, a soup which is man enough to have as a main course, i.e. will deliver all that's required to satisfy you and leave you feeling as though you've eaten something.

Now soups like Tomato & Basil, are pretty darned gorgeous but even with the addition of crusty bread they still feel like an entree, as opposed to a main course. My Smoked Haddock & Sweetcorn Chowder - now that's a main course soup. I have to ration the crusty bread, in order that our son & heir will finish his soup! Too much dipping equipment and he's too full up to do justice to it.

Scotch Broth : cannot be eaten in a hurry!

So, the other Sunday when I was pondering over what to include on this week's menus, hubby suggested we try making Scotch Broth. Aha! It so happens that I have an olde-stylie recipe for just that in my “Farmhouse Cookery – recipes from the Country Kitchen” (Readers’ Digest) cookbook. I looked it out and apart from the fact that it recommends the use of an entire kilo of scrag end of neck that requires 2-3 hours of cooking, it certainly looked do-able. The scrag end of neck was a non-starter, basically because I have two fat-phobic people to cater for and lamb is one of those meats that starts their alarm bells ringing. They would countenance lamb mince however, as I could easily cook it off and remove almost all the fat. I’m okay with that, as low-fat meals are right up there on the desirable front.

I’ve detailed the recipe here should you fancy having a go at it.  Do bear in mind that the list of vegetables aren’t carved in stone, any vegetables you’ve got handy will do.

We ate it for dinner with some crusty bread and it went down a treat. I was just glad that it was a drizzly miserable grey day, as it is definitely the kind of soup that demands you hunch over the bowl, soaking up the goodness of the soup both from the spoon and through your pores!

Cinnamon & Raisin Bagel

Now! I wrote last week about hubby’s adventures in Bagel baking. Since then, he has embarked upon the new challenge of flavoured bagels, with unparalleled success. Firstly came the cinnamon & raisin, which we considered to be suitably yummy but no, they weren’t yummy enough for the Bagel Baker – who shall henceforth be known as the Artisan Bagel Baker. Enter Mk.2 of the cinnamon & raisin bagel, produced in much the same way as a Chelsea bun and using some gorgeous flame raisins. Dear god, but they were good – just add butter and enjoy. You’ll notice the past tense, as they didn’t last long.

Sundried Tomato & Olive

However, all this pales into insignificance beside the glorious sundried tomato & olive, with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Toast it, butter it, add cream cheese and be transported to heaven. Truly, they are amazing. Son has welcomed them as an alternative to supermarket bread in his lunchbox, and considering they are low fat, that’s a thumbs up from me!

Whenever I’m planning the meals for the coming week, I always make sure to ask the family whether there’s anything they particularly want to be included on the menu list. Son’s answers are always a) pizza and b) high tea.

This week, we opted for the high tea, as it gave us an opportunity to enjoy the plum chutney I’d made and also an opportunity to make some biscuits. But tell me, are we the only people to enjoy a high tea at the weekend, or is it just something that’s so part of the fabric of life that nobody mentions it? It seems to go right back to my childhood as being, traditionally, something we’d have had on a Sunday evening – usually sandwiches, cheese with biscuits and pickle, followed by cake and biscuits. Hubby recalls enjoying Sunday high teas right back into his childhood, too. However, I rarely see them mentioned in food blogs, or in recipes aimed at producing goodies for tea time. Perhaps it’s another casualty of the fractured nature of family life these days.

We opted for the pork pie version and I was indeed correct in my thoughts that the plum chutney would match up well with the rich savoury flavour of the pork pie. So that now means that I’ve got to have a go at making my own pork pies, one day. LOL

The biscuits I decided upon were adapted from the recipe for Be-Ro’s Rich Biscuits. I was curious to know how gram flour would bake up in a sweet context, and didn’t have much ammunition in the store cupboard for any terribly exciting biscuits, nor – as it turned out – did I have a spare lemon for the recipe. What I did have, were a few leftover clementine oranges, one of which got pressed into service. The end result was crisp, light and very lovely. The recipe is here.  So that just leaves the clearing up and then put the kettle on! Perfect!

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The original blog posting can be viewed on the Bournemouth Echo's "Taste" pages, along with my other blog posts for "Taste", at http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/blogs/taste/profile/35696/