Kievs, devilment, soup and salads ... meal planning in reverse!

I thought, because I haven't posted much in the way of anything just lately, that I'd give a quick rundown on what has come out of my kitchen recently.  With both successes and failures - sometimes both at once, depending on everyone's preferences - it makes an interesting mix!

So let's start with one which everyone liked at least one part of - my devilled sausages.  I served these little lovelies (see recipe here) with some home made coleslaw (white cabbage, carrot & onion all sliced finely, mixed with some raisins, Greek yoghurt & mayonnaise), beetroot and a really tasty rice salad.  The rice salad was made with a simple mix of cooked cooled white basmati rice, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, sweetcorn, chopped rocket and small cubes of cheddar cheese.  Once a lovely dressing had been added, along with seasoning to taste (I used a Suzanne's fat free dressing of blackberry, cardamom & chilli), the whole thing came together beautifully.  You can guarantee that even with a rice salad disliking teenager at the table, the sausages and coleslaw will go - and some rice salad went along with it, so I call that a success.

Travelling back on the school run one morning, hubby and I both were overcome with a mushroom lust.  Fortunately Sainsbury's is en route, so a quick stop for supplies meant we could have mushrooms on toast for brunch upon our return.  Yum.

Cooked until softened in a little butter, then seasoned with salt and pepper and given a quick splosh with a little mushroom ketchup, these little lovelies were gorgeous on some sourdough bread we had left over.  Toasted and buttered, it was simple and delicious.

Many moons ago, we made the mistake of introducing our son to chicken Kiev.  Not home made chicken Kiev, but the supermarkets' own version of chicken Kiev - one which is made of munched up and stuck back together again chicken, made into a dome with a tiny teaspoonful of garlic butter inside the cavernous waste that is each Kiev's centre.  He loved them then and every so often he requests them again.

Now for all that I have described them with an element of disdain, it is fond disdain as I really quite enjoy a Kiev myself.  It takes me back to when I had the horses and would come in at 9pm starving hungry.  I'd throw a couple of Kiev's in the oven and a packet of savoury rice into the microwave and 20-30 minutes later, sit down to a hot dinner.   I thoroughly enjoyed the Kiev dinner that hubby rustled together, as pictured above.  I know - I should be ashamed of myself and somewhere under the "Mmmmnnn...", I am.  Honest.

Surely everyone likes a jacket potato, don't they?  Even my hubby likes a twice baked Jacket Potato (more on those, in another post!).  In this instance, however, I was suddenly overcome with the desire for mackerel and as I had some salad left over, it made sense to combine the lot for lunch.  The mackerel came out of one of these little tins of mackerel fillets, but I'm fairly sure it still qualifies as being good for you!  In fact, if you totted up the inflammatory -v- non-inflammatory points, just putting the mackerel on the plate cancelled out any non-inflammatory points the remainder might have had!  A scrummy lunch.

So, how do you like the look of my thick chicken and vegetable soup?  It was intended to be chicken and dumpling soup, however like Topsy it kind of grew in the making and it seemed to us that dumplings would be overkill.

I basically emptied the vegetable drawer of the fridge onto the tray upon which I carry ingredients about the kitchen - and only put back things like cucumber and beetroot.  Following a quick rummage in the freezer, which gleaned the sweetcorn and peas, I was good to go.

The chicken was pan fried to a light golden colour, then shredded and finished its cooking in the soup stock.  Done this way, you gain flavour from the caramelisation on the chicken, but retain the softness that is inherent with chicken breast.

I included such lovely winter warmers as pearl barley and red lentils for thickeners and of course used the lovely Essential Cuisine Chicken Stock as the stock base.  Making the soup was a simple matter of chopping the vegetables to a suitably small size and putting them into the pot in the right order, depending on how long each took to cook!  I started off with the classic onion and garlic, followed by the celery, carrot and potato, then the stock, barley and lentils - finishing up with the softer vegetables and herbs.  With some crusty sourdough bread, the soup made a lovely hearty meal and it truly is the kind of soup that you can throw just about anything at.

Lastly - for this instalment, anyway - we have the sad case of the Merguez sausage.  Oh dear, what a tale of uncertainties, changes of mind and mistaken identities.  You see, hubby had a risotto in mind.  It involved lamb and possibly preserved lemon.  At this stage, it was just "in mind", you know - evolving.  I suggested to him that Merguez sausage might be good as the lamb component.  I knew that Asda do 4 or 5 Merguez sausages within the right price range and also knew that they were, to a large part, lamb.  However, what I didn't realise then was that Asda's Merguez sausages were, to a large part, beef.  ~rolls eyes~  I suppose they have to keep the price down somehow and there are cuts of beef that are a lot more economical to use than lamb.  However, being this charitable is with the benefit of hindsight.  That wasn't what I was saying once they were in my fridge and I'd read the ingredients list.

Being such a large part beef, made them useless for hubby's risotto.  So there they were, sitting in the fridge with no job to do.  Not only that, but because we'd never had them before and the ingredients list was unexpected, we had no idea how they tasted to be able to include them in a recipe somewhere.  There was only one thing to be done - cook them and eat them for lunch with a salad.

As it turned out, they were entirely wrong for the risotto hubby had evolving in his head - but would be great for another kind of risotto some other day.  They leach a gorgeous spicily flavoured, coloured oil once heated up - in the same way that chorizo does - and have a hint of lambiness in their flavour, but to be honest, I'd have been hard pressed to have told you what meat they tasted of.  They are certainly spicy - but not in a chilli sort of way.  More of a paprika and cumin sort of way that would make them ideal for all sorts of dishes.  So now we know - and I'm sure one day they'll appear in a more creative concept than beside some salad!

So just to whet your appetite, for my next instalment of meal planning in reverse, we've got some BBQ, more mackerel, that risotto and an awesome roast pork dinner amongst other things.  Can't wait!

Forward meal plan and de-brief, Sah! ~salutes~

Photograph c/o the BBC

Aaaaand stand at ease!

I think it was watching the Trooping of the Colour the other week on the t.v.  It's gone to my head.  Anyway - you want to know what's on the meal plan for this week, don't you?  Yes, of course you do.

Well, here it is :

Tues : Macdonalds (the menfolk) Chunky chicken & rice (me)

Wed : Pasta bolognese and garlic bread

Thurs : Emergency freezer rifling

Fri : Turkey & courgette burgers with sumac sauce, sweet potato jackets with lime & chilli cream and salad

Sat : Hoi sin chicken with home made coleslaw, salad and ciabatta rolls

Sun : Stuffed aubergines with basmati rice and beetroot

Mon : Pork steaks in mushroom sauce, carrots, broccoli & Jersey royal new potatoes.

Yes, I do accept there are a couple of entries on this list that could bear explanation.  Just hold your horses (another Trooping the colour reference - geddit?) and we'll get there.

My favourite type!

Tuesday's arrangement was a bit odd upon first inspection, but there was method in our madness, honest.  Son and heir had a singing appointment at school with his choir, but it was just for a half hour - and right over dinner time.  Thus, it made it difficult to shoehorn in dinner beforehand and nigh on impossible to cook something in advance that would be quick enough for when we got home.  So the menfolk went for visiting the local Macdonalds and getting a burger fix and I opted to wait until we got home to open a can of chicken in white sauce (commonly known as "Chunky Chicken") and heat up some Special Fried Rice (from Asda and totally flavourless) in the microwave.  Bit of a blast from the past, that one - but better for me than Macdonalds, any day.

Wednesday's Pasta Bolognese had been carried over from the previous week.  Hubby had made the Bolognese sauce during the day on Tuesday and put it in the fridge to await mealtime on Wednesday.  It worked very well and made Wednesday's evening meal fairly trouble free for him.

Can't argue with a bolognese and garlic bread, now can you?

Thursday - which is today - should have been the turkey & courgette burgers, but thanks to who knows what, my legs decided to disown me and my feet decided to transmogrify into two large sausages during the day.  As a consequence, dinner came down to some creative freezer rifling from hubby, which got us all fed with no extra cost - except to his poor old back.  Poor thing, he's been suffering a bit the last few days and was looking forward to a "no cooking" day, which I quite neatly put paid to.  *sigh*

Now.  Tomorrow I am quite determined I shall make these blooming turkey & courgette burgers (which is an Ottolenghi & Tamimi recipe) because I was really looking forward to them!

Saturday's Hoi Sin chicken should be another goodie.  Simple to do - just marinade the chicken in the Hoi Sin sauce, bake it and pull together some salads with the ciabatta rolls.  Yum.

I'm back paying homage to Yotam Ottolenghi on Sunday, with the stuffed aubergines.  The recipe uses lamb mince and all those lovely warm eastern influence spices such as cumin, coriander and cinnamon.  I've been seeking inspiration from within the pages of "Jerusalem", their latest cook book you see.  Can't wait for this one, either!

I'm quite determined to make the pork steaks in mushroom sauce, too.  They've been appearing on the menu plan for the last few weeks without being made - and not through any fault of their own.  Mind you, there's doubt hanging over their future, as son & heir has a teacher training day that Monday and is threatening to go over to a friend's for a barbecue.  If this comes off, I have grave doubts that the pork steaks will happen - and over to next week they'll go!

So you may be wondering how I got on with last week.  Well, not too badly actually.

The Full English Breakfast was duly made and eaten with much enjoyment by all - most especially from son & heir, who would dearly like to eat that way every day.

 

Well, I have to admit, he's got a point!

I've blogged the recipe for the curry baked chicken with vegetable curry, so you know that one got made!  Mmmmmn, it was a bit special.

Hubby's rigatone con cipolle with the naked burgers was really good.  I coped with it (digestively) with no adverse reaction at all, which was just brilliant.  The sweetness of the onion against the savouriness of the burgers worked very well together.  Hubby wasn't altogether happy with the rigatone dish, he says he can make it a lot nicer than it was - but I though it was perfectly delicious.

I can tell you're eyeing up those burgers - Aberdeen Angus, don'cha know.

My next big blog post should be the recipe for the Lamb flatballs - so I won't steal my own thunder.  Keep your eyes peeled and it should be along next.

Oh my goodness yes, the next one on the list was the family lunch at a pub in the New Forest.  Well, probably least said about that the better - you can read about it on the Rhubarb & Ginger Facebook page, if you are of a curious bent!  I don't like giving bad reviews, so I won't be posting about it here in detail.  'Nuff said.

Lamb Shatkora - presentation requires some work, I think?

Monday's evening meal turned into a takeaway from the local Indian restaurant.  I had a Lamb Shatkora - which is cooked with onion and loads of lemon - along with mushroom rice, sag bhajee (spinach and onion) and a share in a Peshwari naan bread (made with almond paste).  I'd never had a Shatkora before and was very impressed.  I love anything involving lemon and the combination of the curry spices with the lemon was really very good indeed.  I'll definitely do that again!

You'll probably have noticed that this isn't one of those "shorter" posts I was talking about.  Well done.  You spotted that, then.  *wink*

It's a good plan ...

.... but the question is, whether we'll manage to stick to it!  As ever, real life often gets in the way of the plans I make for dinner throughout the week.  Some weeks we make it through to the end of the plan with no changes, but most weeks something happens to change at least the order in which the meals appear, if not the meals themselves.

So near - but yet, so far ....

However, I find that making a plan is still the best way to a) afford the ingredients and b) reduce wastage.  As I've said before, it also cuts out that horrible "what shall we have for dinner tonight" question.  All you have to do, is remember to take the meat out of the freezer the night before!

This week's plan has had to be changed right at the start, thanks to my over-twanging the elastic bands in one of my fingers by wrestling with the car's seat belt on Monday afternoon.  Having turned a lovely shade of light mauve and assumed twice its normal girth, we decided that perhaps immobilising the finger might be an idea and broke out the lolly sticks and micropore tape.  Thankfully, even with it in the splint, I discovered I could still type - so here I am.
 

Hand-E-cap!  Neat little splint though, don't you think?

As an emergency measure, the pork steaks in mushroom sauce that were due to be had on Tuesday evening, were changed to pizza.  Bung it in the oven, set the timer, get it back out, eat it.  One trouble free mealtime, done!

It is now Wednesday morning and the offending digit is at least staying the size it should be, even if it is still hurting.  Still, hubby's in the chair for tonight's dinner so it's got a bit longer in which to heal.

So, what's on the list?  Well, here we go :

Tues : Pizza

Weds : Full English Breakfast

Thurs : Baked curry chicken, vegetable curry and rice

Fri : Rigatone con cipolle, with naked burgers

Sat : Lamb flatballs in flatbreads with hummus and salad

Sun : Family lunch out

Mon : Pasta bolognese.

A previous version - with black pudding, this time

Tonight's Full English isn't one of those humungous "eat until you burst" kinds of Full English's, it will consist of bacon, sausage, fried egg, mushrooms, baked beans and hash browns.  No toast, no bubble and squeak (sob - LOVE bubble & squeak), no fried slices, no black pudding - or any of the other many and varied items you could include in one.  Still, it's been a while since our last - and we only fry the sausages and eggs (and then in rapeseed oil) - so it could be worse.

Tomorrow's baked curry chicken is a recipe I've been pondering over for a while.  You see, we have recently had several meals where I've oven baked chicken breasts in either a BBQ glaze or Cajun spices and it occurred to me that I could marinate the chicken in a yoghurt/curry/chutney kind of mixture and do the same thing.  Plus, if I made a standard vegetable curry and put the whole thing with rice, it would be the same as making a curry except with more vegetables and in a different type of presentation.  So that's what I shall do.  Hopefully - finger allowing.

Imagine this as curried chicken, with a vegetable curry and rice ... get the idea?

Now, Friday's Rigatone con cipolle is a recipe that hubby has been making since God was a boy.  It is an incredibly simple recipe of onions sweated down until almost disintegration, with added stock and tomato puree, put over pasta.  When he first introduced me to it, I was unable to eat it because of being horribly allergic to onions.  However, the tiny taster I had tasted pretty darned good.  Pregnancy solved my onion allergy - don't know how, but it did! - and we'd forgotten all about it up until recently, when with the blog having taken a turn for the homely, it suddenly came back to hubby's memory.  So, on the plan it went and he'll be cooking it for us, accompanied by some Aberdeen Angus burgers (without bun, cheese or pickles).  We might be allowed a little bit of mustard, I'll have to see.  LOL

Didn't work all that well with loose meat, either. Tasted good though!

Saturday's lamb flatballs in flatbreads keeps on making me chuckle every time I see the name.  I recently made this dish, except I used lamb meatballs - which kept leaping out of the flatbread in a most unseemly manner.  So, it suddenly dawned on me, why not make them flat?  Now I dislike intensely the word "patty" ~gak~ when used in this context, but that's where I'm headed with the lamb mixture.  Hence, "flatballs".  *grin*  I'll be adding hummus and rocket - you never know, I may even make my own hummus ~sharp intake of breath~, I know!  We'll have a small salad of some denomination and some home made tzatziki too.  Yum!

Sunday is off the menu plan, as we're meeting up with my parents to fulfil a long standing (from January!) lunch date in honour of my Mum's birthday.  We didn't make it when it should have happened, as that was when my poor Dad fell and broke his hip.  Here we are, some five months later, finally being able to have that lunch!  Hooray!

So, after all that excitement, Monday brings us back to normality with a good old pasta bolognese.  In fact, we haven't had a "bolly" for quite some time and it will be nice to re-visit an old friend.  Who knows, we may even push the boat out and have some garlic bread too.  *wink*

Crunchy and toasty and delicious!

I've just been casting my mind back over the last week to find something yummy to tell you about regarding last week's menu plan (yes, I still menu plan even when I'm not writing the blog!) - and I remembered the pork burritos with home made guacamole and salad.  Yum.  I really think that this is my favourite way to deal with a corn wrap.  Fill it full of yummy meat in gorgeous BBQ sauce (as ever, I used Mic's Chilli's El Loco BBQ Sauce - can't get enough of that stuff!), fold, brush with sunflower oil, sprinkle with cheese and bake for 20 minutes.  The crunch from the toasty edges of the wrap is just fabulous - as is the flavour, mixed with the sweet and hot BBQ sauce.  ~happy sigh~

You're salivating aren't you.  I can tell.

Oh and I must tell you about our Father's Day dessert!  The main course was somewhat blown out of the water by visiting Burger King for lunch (we had the chicken casserole the following day) but I managed to rustle up the Tri-berry Eton Mess that was on the menu.  The photograph will give you an indication of the extreme naughtiness involved in this dessert - but then, you don't get low calorie Eton Mess!  Along with the whipped cream and meringue pieces, this one involved halved strawberries, whole raspberries and fresh black cherries.  Oh my word.

Oh!  Which reminds me!  Stoning cherries.  Now if ever there was a culinary task that was guaranteed to create frustration, it is stoning cherries - without a cherry stoner (or pitter).  However, listen up fans!  If you don't have a contraption to help you with this - or you still manage to fire cherry stones across the kitchen - try this.  Get a chopstick - everyone has at least one in their cutlery drawer - and remove the cherry stalk, then insert the chopstick through the stalk end and push the stone out the other side of the cherry.  It truly is as easy as that.  I managed to stone an entire punnet of cherries in less than a quarter of the time it takes to do it with a knife.  Indeed, if your cherries are big enough, sit them on top of a lidless mineral water bottle and push the stones through into the bottle.  Makes clearing up a heck of a lot easier!  Try it, honest injun, it works.  With Picota cherry season literally just around the corner, this could revolutionise your cherry desserts.  Oooh, Picota cherries ... mmmmmmn .....

The menu plan - for once, I'm ahead of the game!

Hot Punjabi King Prawn curry - and it was hot, too!

Look!  It's only Tuesday and I'm publishing the menu plan for the week.  You're impressed, I know.  Well, I would be - in your place.

So let's start off by taking a look at the wreckage of last week.

In fact, amazingly, we did really well with last week's plan!  I know!  Against all predictions, we only bounced one meal off of the plan and pretty much everything else fell into place in one way or another.  Well, apart from the Apple Slump, which I completely forgot I was supposed to be making until it was too late to do anything about it.  ~shrug~  Hey ho, I'll have another go this week.

For the menfolk, I think pride of place for last week's dinners goes to the Hot Punjabi King Prawn curry.  I really liked this curry too - but it was just on the cusp of being too hot for me.  The menfolk, however, loved it.  Hubby even went so far as to scrape the remains of the curry sauce from the wok and microwave it - that's how much he liked it!

Beef and ale stew - perfect empty tummy filler!

My favourite of the week had to be the Beef and ale stew done in the slow cooker.  This is just so my kind of food.  Hubby refers to it in rather derogatory fashion as "brown food" - but anything you can eat hot from a bowl with a spoon works as comfort food for me.  Following on from a day spent driving to Southampton and back to visit my Dad in hospital (where he's doing well, thanks for asking), a plate of hot beef stew absolutely hit the spot.  

So whilst basking in the warm glow of last week's success, let's have a gander at what's on the menu list for this week :

Tues : Pizza

Weds : Turkish style lamb pilau and tomato salad

Thurs : Hunter's chicken and pasta

Fri : Risotto primavera with herby baked chicken

Sat : Italian sausage meatballs, garlic roast potatoes and cavolo nero

Sun : Slow cooker chicken adobo with rice and side salad

Mon : Lamb meatballs and orzo with peas.

Sounds quite nice, if you say it quickly!

So we start the week with a day off from cooking.  To be honest, I've still got so much stew left over, I think we could probably eat that for the next couple of days!  However, I'll be taking care of the stew over successive lunchtimes as hubby really isn't in the market for successive plates of stew appearing in front of him.

We're back in harness for Wednesday, with a super-easy Turkish lamb pilau from BBC Good Food.  Looking at the printed out recipe, I think it'll be lucky to stay as originally intended because I've noted down at least three alterations that I'll be adopting, quite apart from any last-minute changes.  However, the basic pilau looks pretty yummy - and should be perfect for a late school pickup day.

Lawrence Dallaglio's Dad's Hunter's Chicken, c/o Lovefood.com

Thursday's Hunter's chicken is a standard onion/tomato/herb sauce job, but it has the distinction of being Lawrence Dallaglio's father's recipe which I found via Lovefood.com some months ago.  I figure if it's good enough for the man mountain Dallaglio, it's good enough for me.  I'll be pairing it up with some lightly buttered Mafalda Corta pasta with fresh parsley.  Yum.

Oh - which reminds me.  I'm a bit fed up with tinned tomatoes, now that our local Asda have stopped selling the lovely Tarantella versions.  So just recently, I've been swapping tinned for fresh chopped vine tomatoes.  After all, that must be what cooks used before tinned came along!  The acidity level in tinned tomatoes these days seems to be so vicious, it had to be worthwhile trying the fresh (which doesn't work out any more expensive).  I predict there will be a few spectacular failures in my future, but watch this space!

How our Risotto Primavera might look .. c/o Good Food

Friday sees Hubby the Risotto King in the kitchen, cooking up a beautiful risotto primavera - which translates (roughly) as "risotto with green stuff".  Think peas, courgettes, broad beans (which are unlikely as they're not liked much by the menfolk) and green herbs.  He's going to be pairing that up with some herbed baked chicken, which sounds delicious and really quite healthy.

Saturday brings the first of two meatball dishes, but they are very different.  This first version is an Italian sausage meatball dish which is served not with pasta but with garlic roast potatoes and a green vegetable.

Now ever since the dawn of time (well, it feels that long) I've been wanting to try Cavolo Nero.  Has Asda stocked it?  No.  Far too nice but us plebs, obviously.  However, just recently, they have had some in stock and it's too good an opportunity to miss, quite apart from I feel we should be supporting their endeavours to bring in new stock items like this.  You watch, when we go looking for some on Friday, there won't be any.  That always happens whenever I want Fennel, so I'm quite prepared for it to happen with the Cavolo Nero, too.

Cavolo nero - is it a Kale or a Cabbage?  Who knows!

Sunday is hospital visiting day again, so the Slow Cooker comes into play.  Last week's Beef and Ale stew was such a success, it seemed only logical to use it again this week.  I've had the recipe for the slow cooker chicken adobo for a while and it seemed a perfect time to break it out.  I'll just need to cook some rice when we get home, which won't take very long at all and open a bag of salad to go with it.  It's quite important to get dinner on the plate within a half an hour or so of arriving home, or hubby tends to go off the idea of eating completely - which considering his diabetes, isn't the best idea.  I've made chicken adobo previously and we all liked it, so it should be fine.

Butter beans - don't they look gorgeous?  No?  Oh, you have no soul.  lol

Monday's lamb meatballs involve tomato, butter beans and bacon - which gives me a chance to use the can of butter beans that the lovely Marj from Facebook recommended to me.  I know that hubby is more than a little wary of these butter beans, but hopefully the lamb meatballs will balance the equation for him.  I've carried this recipe over from last week - it's the one where I'm intending on serving it with orzo (a small rice grain sized pasta).  It wasn't any reflection on it as to why it got bumped - it was just that we all ran out of puff that night and decided to have a kebab instead!

Winner!  Yay!

One piece of news I have for you, this week, is about my Daisy pancake.  Do you remember it?  Well it got entered into the goodtoknow.co.uk "Pancakes your way" competition and we won the category for the best blogger's pancake!  Yay!  So thank you all those who went and voted for it.  I was exceedingly chuffed to find out we'd won. :)

So, there you have it.  Let's hope the weather decides to warm up a bit and we start seeing some of the Spring flowers coming out!  It's hubby's birthday soon and (apparently) the weather is always brilliant on his birthday, with the cherry trees in bloom and Spring flowers everywhere.  I can't help but think that he's being hopeful for this year - but we'll see.  Keep your fingers crossed!

 

Menu plan - subject to negotiation!

Lime & pepper chicken wraps with salt & pepper potato wedges

Here we are!  Especially for Seren - and anyone else who misses them when I don't get to putting them up.

This week has been quite a rollercoaster, so far - and I don't doubt it's going to continue rockin' and a rollin' for some time yet.

However, before we get into all that - what happened with last week's menu plan was that it almost happened how it should have!  The pancakes and lime & pepper chicken wraps went according to plan.  Then we had a mad rush of blood to the head and ordered in an Indian takeaway on the Thursday.  Friday's crunchy fish happened how it should have and the lime cured pork from Thursday got subbed in instead of the High Tea on Saturday.  Sunday's Goulash went according to plan and Monday's meatballs turned into a spectacular Pasta bolognese!  So not too bad.

Dad on his 80th birthday

We had some bad news on Thursday evening, to say that my dear old Dad (who only 7 months ago was undergoing heart surgery), had fallen in their kitchen and broken the femur bone up by his hip.  Oooh, ouch!

He was rushed off to Southampton General and is still there, as during the investigations regarding the pinning operation for his leg, they discovered he has an aortic aneurysm (heart again) that needs sorting out as soon as possible!  So it's a bit of a worrying time, involving lots of travel to and from the hospital for my Mum and Brother (around 26 miles one way) and as and when we can, for us (around 38 miles one way).  He has had the leg operation and is now more comfortable there, but we're completely in the hands of the hospital about what happens next.  Not a happy time!

Anyway, from bad news to good news!  I applied - and have been accepted - as a contributor to Gojee Food. Yay!  You may now all commence dancing the happy dance.  Ayethenkyoo!  If you haven't a clue what I'm on about, click on the link here and you'll quickly get the idea.  It is basically a serious food porn site, but instead of just showing pictures, you can follow through to the blogs behind the photographs by clicking on the fork icon.  Additionally, you can use the site for inspiration.  For instance, if you have some ground lamb in the freezer and can't think what to use it for, just click on the magnifying glass and type in "Ground lamb" and it will pull all its relevant recipes up for your consideration.  The photographs on the blog here are of sufficient quality for Gojee now (thanks to hubby's mad skills and his new camera!) so I thought it would be worth while asking - and I am so chuffed to have been accepted!

Now, even though it is Friday today and this week is marching on regardless, I thought I'd better post up a menu plan!  So here it is :

Tues : Takeaway chinese chow mein (Hospital visiting day)

Wed : Allspice chicken and mango rice with red cabbage & apple

Thurs : Takeaway Lamb Shish Kebab and salad

Fri : Hot Punjabi King Prawn curry and rice

Sat : Pesto pasta with ham hock & asparagus

Sun : Beef and ale slow cooker stew (Hospital visiting day)

Mon : Burritos with guacamole, wedges & refried beans.

Hospital visiting hours don't start until 3pm, which considering we have to travel for 45 minutes (probably a little more, including picking my Mum up and dropping her back home again) there and the same again back again, all means that sorting out something to eat is a tricky business.  Because of hubby's diabetes, he has to make sure he eats regularly and having dinner later than our normal 6pm (which is terribly early for me - I used to eat at closer to 8pm in days gone by) leaves him light headed and with an ever diminishing appetite.  So we opted to just go for a takeaway Chow Mein which we could pick up on the way home and tuck straight in to as soon as our bottoms hit the chairs.

This Sunday, when we're visiting again, I've opted to make a one-pot slow cooker beef stew.  I'll put it together in the morning before we go and it can chuckle away in the slow cooker all day, being ready to just dish up into bowls and tuck into as soon as we get back.

Wednesday's Allspice chicken and mango rice with red cabbage and apple was a bit of a revelation in flavour.  None of us are used to the allspice flavour being so "up there" in a dish, so it was interesting and a bit of a challenge for son & heir.  However, he coped very well and ate all but his red cabbage, which is still too vinegary for him.

Allspice chicken and mango rice - turned out very well

Son & heir wound up going for a sleepover on Thursday evening - a rather last minute arrangement - so being rather frazzled by then, his Dad and I opted for the line of least resistance and got a kebab each.  Mine was a Lamb shish, his was a Doner.  To be honest, I think the lamb shish kebab is one of the healthiest takeaways you can get!  The lamb is always as lean as can be and cooked beautifully.  Whether you eat the two enormous pitta breads is up to you - but I never seem to manage it.  Other than that, you get a mint yoghurt sauce (yum!) and a platter of mixed salads - can't get a lot more healthy than that!

I'm looking forward to the Punjabi Prawn curry tonight.  It's a Madhur Jaffrey recipe that looks easy peasy to make - and I'm into easy peasy, right now!

It has just occurred to me that we were supposed to buy a ham hock from the supermarket this morning and I forgot to include it on the shopping list.  However, what we should be having - presuming we can find one in the meantime - on Saturday, is a quick and easy pesto pasta (pesto from a jar) with the meat from the ham hock and asparagus.  Yum.

Hubby is due to be making this one and presuming he does, I'll try to make some "Apple Slump" for dessert, as it can be made during the day and wait until dinner time.  I was intrigued by the recipe, as it seems to be a cross between crumble and cobbler - and Bramley apples appear to be in season at the moment, so why not?

So skipping Sunday (Beef & ale stew - as mentioned above), that leaves Monday's minced beef burritos - which is a simple matter of knocking up a chilli mixture - with home made guacamole (loved that guacamole I made to go with the Lime & pepper chicken wraps), home made wedges and refried beans from a can.  Now that's what I call a compromise!

I think I'm looking forward to all of the meals that are yet to go, so assuming nothing untoward happens in the meantime, we should have some interesting blog posts coming up!

Pancakes, limes, baking and beetroot - oh, that'll be a menu plan then!

First of all, how did we do with last week's menu plan then?

Erm, well, not so well - but not too badly either.  We made four out of the seven dinners that were on the list, which is a pretty poor average - but then we didn't go hungry either.

Impossible quiche and Lasagne - tick, mission accomplished.

Taco night chicken casserole (photograph above) got made but not successfully, as I found it disgusting and the menfolk valiantly battled through theirs.  It looks nice enough and smelled nice enough, but the flavour let it down as there really just wasn't any.  Won't be doing that again, or blogging it.

Creamy haddock gratin was made and both son & heir and I thought it was lovely.  Hubby wasn't so keen, as it didn't quite work the way he wanted it to.  I think we could try this one again, but won't be blogging it until it comes together satisfactorily.

The country chicken got abandoned owing to son & heir being away on sleepover.  Hubby and I mounted a daylight raid on Sainsbury's and we had a "what we fancy" night.  I had BBQ pork belly rashers and oven chips, hubby had a prawn cocktail ciabatta.  Yum.

Goulash got abandoned until this coming weekend, as everything had slipped a day by then - and the Teviot pie became Chilli con carne as it was snowing quite severely by then (didn't I say it would?).

All of which leads me to this week's menu plan - and the meals which we're going to try VERY HARD to stick to (but probably won't) :

Tues : Pancakes!  Woo!  Maple/bacon, lemon and/or lime with sugar or golden syrup.

Wed : Lime & pepper chicken wraps with avocado, potato wedges & lime dip.

Thurs : Lime cured pork with fattoush.

Fri : Crunchy fish, oven chips and mushy peas.

Sat : High tea with home made sausage rolls & Victoria sponge cake.

Sun : Beef goulash with roast beetroot/carrot, plus rice with green peas.

Mon : Meatballs and pasta with garlic bread.

Hubby and I had a little 'fess up as regards the dishes that we find ourselves putting on the menu plan and discovered that we're both guilty of including recipes that are great - but not a sensible option for us - in one way or another.  Of course, once they're on the menu list, then we're committed to them as I immediately do a shopping list and the next day we're out buying the ingredients.  When it comes to the day when we're supposed to be making the recipe, it dawns on us that it's going to take best part of the day to make this thing, or it's going to take twenty seven saucepans, for instance.

So, we've both decided to think about the recipes a bit more closely - about what it would take to cook them, the cost of the ingredients (which we do already, but sometimes creativity carries us away and commits us to more expense than common sense would otherwise have allowed), the origin of the ingredients (try to stay away from green beans from Kenya, for example).  Now I'm not promising that we won't get carried away from time to time - after all, some recipes just say "I have to be done - and done now!", but we'll try.

Must resist putting bacon into sandwich ....

The first item on the menu list - pancakes - is easy enough to make, suitably inexpensive and yummy as all heck.  I congratulate ourselves on actually managing to get to a pancake day without suddenly waking up to its appearance around three days too late to do anything about it - which is what normally happens.

We've picked up some delicious bacon from our local butcher and will be having crepe style pancakes with a) bacon and maple syrup, b) lemon juice and sugar, c) lime juice and sugar and d) golden syrup.  Where's the vegetable matter in this repast, I hear the more health-conscious of you ask?  Well, there isn't any.  'Cos it's pancake day, alright?  We'll have vegetables tomorrow.  :: nods ::  Done.

Those of you who visit Rhubarb & Ginger's Facebook page will know that I was recently in receipt of a whole shedload of beautiful little Brazilian limes.  Now I've already made Key Lime Pie (to be blogged some time soon) plus used lime juice in many evening drinks.  (No, not alcoholic ones - things like squeezing half a lime into lemonade, which is super double yummy).  The trouble is, that none of this seems to have made much of an impression on the half hundredweight of little green lovelies.

Enter the first of the savoury lime dishes - Lime & pepper chicken wraps.  Everyone in our house likes chicken in a wrap - especially when it involves a touch of spice.  The recipe is one from BBC Good Food and promises to only take 15 minutes to make.  I can definitely cope with that - and so I chose it for Wednesday as it is always a late pickup from school night.

Photo c/o Sainsburys.co.uk

As I'll have the oven on for the potato wedges, I decided to (hopefully) put Mary Berry's Mother's Bread & Butter Pudding to the test.  It looks as though it can be made in advance and put into the oven as the potato wedges come out, so hopefully, it will all fit nicely.

Fattoush - photo c/o telegraph.co.uk

Thursday's Lime cured pork with Fattoush sounds a lot more complicated than it is.  Again, the recipe for the pork comes from BBC Good Food, whereas the Fattoush recipe comes from Ottolenghi's cook book "Jerusalem" and is Sami Tamimi's Mum's recipe for a mixed salad with toasted pitta bread.  I seem to be channelling other people's mums at the moment!

Hopefully, by the end of the three days, we'll have a bit of a dent in the lime mountain and I'll be ready to blog about them!

Friday is an official day off from cooking, with shop bought fish in batter, with oven chips and tinned mushy peas.  Yes, I know I COULD have made everything from scratch - but everyone needs an easy cooking night.

Saturday's evening meal will make son & heir's eyes light up.  He does love a high tea - and this one should be no different.  I'm planning on making some sausage rolls to go with the sandwiches (which will be ham, or tuna, or corned beef - haven't decided yet) and the much talked about Victoria sponge will take pride of place on the table.

Sunday's dinner will be the poor old Goulash that got bumped off the menu plan from last week.  The fresh beetroots are looking perky and as though they'll last all the way until Sunday if kept in the fridge, so fingers crossed!

We're not sure who will be cooking Monday's meatballs and pasta - as both of us are perfectly capable of doing so.  Again, it is a meal that will make a teenage boy's heart pump a little faster.  He does love a meatball, that boy!

So there you have it.  What do you reckon, 5 out of 7 will get made?  :: nods ::  Let's try for that as a goal, then, eh?

Pin that menu plan down!

Quick!  Before either it gets away, or the days roll past without it!

I can't believe that, last week, I completely failed to post a menu plan again.  I hang my head in shame and apologise profusely to those who enjoy reading them.

We had some great things on the menu list as well!  Things like Chicken & Ham Pot Pie (see above) which was gorgeous, ham egg & chips made using the leftovers from the slow cooked gammon joint and a gorgeous Moroccan lamb & lemon meatball tagine.  Well, never fear.  All the recipes that were delicious, will feature soon on the blog so you won't totally miss out.

Now, what's for dinner this week?  Well, it goes like this :

Tues : Impossible quiche with wedges & BBQ baked beans

Weds : Shop bought lasagne, salad and oven chips

Thurs : Chicken taco casserole with a wedge salad

Fri : Creamy haddock gratin with new potatoes, carrots, peas & broccoli

Sat : Country chicken, mashed potatoes, corn & gravy

Sun : Goulash, roasted beetroots & carrots with rice & green peas.

Mon : Teviot pie with carrots & peas.

We had the Impossible Quiche last night and it was like welcoming home an old friend.  I made the basic recipe, i.e. with just the bacon/onion/mature cheddar cheese and it was really good.  I was getting a bit fed up with Impossible Quiche because we'd had it a lot - the break from it has obviously been a good thing, as I thoroughly enjoyed last night's version.

Tonight is a late pickup from school job, so we were looking for something easy to make.  A shop bought Lasagne always hits the spot, so long as it's a good one.  We've not had one for a while, so let's hope that the Sainsbury's one we've got, proves to be that good one!

Loads of limey loveliness!

I'm currently half way through making a Key Lime Pie, which we'll have for dessert.  The lovely Ashleigh at Red Communications has sent me what appears to be a half hundredweight (might be a slight exaggeration - but there's loads of 'em) of small Brazilian limes to play with.  Key Lime Pie just has to be done, especially when you consider (now don't tell everyone) that I have never had anything resembling a Key Lime Pie ~sharp intake of breath~ before.  I know!  Where have I been all this time?  Search me, because I love limes!  I think this pie should be re-named Taiti Lime Pie, as that's the name of the limes we're using.  Now obviously, the recipe will appear on the blog (presuming it's a goodie!).  I suspect you may find a significant amount of other lime flavoured things appearing, as we work our way through the heap!

What us Brits think a casserole looks like ...

Now, I expect you're wondering what "Chicken Taco Casserole" might be.  In this instance, you Brits have to forget the understood meaning of what a "casserole" might be and instead, consider the American meaning of the word "casserole".  Now my understanding of it is "anything that fits into a casserole dish".

... a rather more typically U.S. version of a casserole!

As such, this is a layered chicken/salsa/corn wraps kind of ensemble - obviously, it gets a bit more complicated than that, but not by much - that is baked.  I've been browsing the Recipe Lion website recently, which is a good resource for recipes from all over the world but primarily from the U.S. and Canada - and it's one of theirs.

I thought it would go well with the good old American wedge salad, so that's what I've paired it up with.  Of course, all these salads that are appearing way too soon undoubtedly mean that it will continue snowing for the remainder of this week.  Betcha.

Photo c/o easyteas.co.uk

Hubby is in the kitchen again on Friday when he's preparing his Creamy Haddock Gratin.  As far as I recall, I think this is based upon a Hairy Bikers recipe - undoubtedly given his own twist - and I think it sounds very promising.  It has been an absolute age since I had a fish gratin of any kind, so I'm looking forward to it.

Saturday is another Recipe Lion recipe - for Country Chicken.  Now this is a variation on the American fried chicken recipe, except it is baked and not so high in fat.  As I've never made either the fried or the baked variety, it will be interesting and I'm crossing my fingers that a) it works and b) it's tasty!  I've paired it up with the traditional (or my understanding of what's traditional) mashed potatoes and gravy, together with some sweetcorn and maybe some stringless green beans.

Sunday's beef Goulash is a family favourite that's perfect for the snow that will undoubtedly be hanging around because I've served a couple of salads this week.  I'm intending on having a go at roasting some beetroot to accompany it (assuming we can source some raw beetroot) which should be scrummy.  The rice is there to provide carbohydrate and something to wrap the goulash sauce up in - and the peas for colour.

Hubby will be having a go at my recipe for Teviot pie on Monday.  For those who have never heard of the thing - a Teviot pie is basically a Cottage Pie bottom (minced beef) with a savoury suet sponge top.  Very naughty, but very nice.  Actually, it's not so naughty as we always use the veggie suet as opposed to full strength beef suet, so I have brought it down a notch on the naughty scale.  We'll also be using up any of the vegetables that are left in the fridge, with carrots and peas as backup.

Now, I have yet to make that Victoria Sandwich cake that I said I'd make a couple of weeks ago - and hubby is mourning its loss.  So my intention is to try to get it made on Friday - when hubby is cooking the evening meal - ready for the weekend.  I won't be able to make it over the weekend, as I'm doing both days' dinners - and that will be enough for me, if my knees are anything to go by at the moment!

I also want to make a Mary Berry's Bread & Butter Pudding.  Did you see the Bread & Butter pudding she made on the autobiographical t.v. programme about her recently?  Oh, it just made my mouth water.  Hmmn ... I wonder what it would be like with lime in it?  *wink*