Paprika Pork Chops with Roasted Vegetables
Tonight, we roasted a mountain of vegetables (peppers, onions, sweet potato, aubergine, courgette, carrot, mushroom) with garlic and rosemary and served them with paprika pork chops. The flavours complimented each other well but overall there was a lack of crunch. We had added some sesame seeds to the vegetables but not a mountain-sized amount, so they got a bit lost.
Spaghetti Bolognaise
Stephen and I read the same novel while on holiday (Mark Haddon’s “A Spot of Bother”, very funny) and there were a couple of mentions of spaghetti bolognaise which led us both to crave it. This used to be something I ate on an almost weekly basis, particularly when I was a student, but neither Stephen nor I have had it for ages.
I spent most of Sunday afternoon cooking the sauce, which we ate tonight. I added some milk which I’ve done the last couple of times I’ve made it, and let it simmer for two hours. I think this really makes a difference to the texture of the sauce. It becomes softer and almost melty. The other ingredients are pretty standard, onion, garlic, celery, bacon, minced beef, red wine, passata (I don’t like the chunky pieces of tomato or the skin in tinned tomatoes), sundried tomato paste, loads of herbs, salt and pepper, nutmeg and some worcester sauce.
We served it in the non-traditional way, a pile of spaghetti with a heap of sauce on the top, but as Stephen pointed out most Italian recipe books say this doesn’t exist in Italy so I don’t think it matters too much.
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Chicken Salad
Continuing the healthy theme and to use up some of yesterday’s roast chicken, I made a chicken salad for lunch which I livened up with a honey and mustard dressing. Honey, wholegrain mustard, salt, lemon juice and oil, all shaken up and drizzled on the mixed salad. Really tasty.
Afterwards, I had a Bottlegreen Push Up. I would recommend them.
Roast Chicken
We’ve eaten lots of great food over the last few days but a lot of it was very rich, and we were slightly greedy too. We decided on a simple roast chicken for dinner this evening, with crushed Jersey Royals rather than roast potatoes.
Stephen stuffed the chicken with a selection of herbs from the garden (sage, rosemary and thyme), lemon and onion and roasted in the oven. We served it with some spring greens (shouldn’t they be called summer greens now?), peas, broad beans and a gem squash for Stephen. There was also some excellent Stephen’s Gravy. It was delicous and, for the first time in ages, we didn’t over-eat.
Salad
After the excesses of the last few days, we opted for a healthy lunch of salad today. Stephen made the salad and then had his with tuna. I had smoked trout. Simple but tasty.
Mercat de la Boqueria
We’re back from five days in Barcelona. We spent one morning wandering around the brilliant Mercat de la Boqueria, buying a few things and also doing the touristy thing and taking loads of pictures. Here are some pictures that Kerri took:
People having snacks and breakfast…
Lady at a vegetable stall…
Fruit at a fruit stall…
Loads of dried mushrooms…
Lady serving at a seafood stall…
Mmmm…. lots of tasty sea creatures…
Various sausages and other cured meats…
Mmmmm…. jamon…
We’ll put something up about the restaurants that we visited soon…
Duck with Rosti and Red Wine and Redcurrant Sauce
First, we had a steamed artichoke:
Then we had duck breast with rosti and red wine and redcurrant sauce. Served with some broad beans (which are unshelled and look rather grey and boring in the picture) and some savoy cabbage. We browned the duck breast in a frying pan and then roasted it in the oven.
For the rosti, we parboiled a potato, grated it, then mixed it with sweated onions and garlic, then fried it. The rosti tasted really good but the texture wasn’t quite right – I over-cooked the potato before grating. The duck was brilliant and we ended up with a lot of duck fat which we’ll be keeping for roast potatoes. The sauce needs a little work though as it was a bit too sweet.
We’re off to Barcelona tomorrow for five days, so no postings on here but hopefully we’ll eat loads of brilliant food there and have a few pictures when we get back!
Barbecue!
At last, the weather has become sunny again and we were able to barbecue. We were planning to start with prawn skewers, but we’d eaten them last night in a Thai curry instead. So we made some garlic bread as a starter. Then we had boerewors that I’d bought from the “farmers’ market” in Hammersmith a week or so ago and frozen. Also, we had some butternut and potatoes wrapped in foil and Kerri made some salad that smelled really fresh and summery.
It was really good to be outside in the sun and I think the camera appreciated it too because we ended up with loads of really good pictures.
Prawn Curry
Last time we made Thai curry, I made loads of curry paste so we decided to try freezing the extra. It came in handy tonight for an impromptu prawn curry as we hadn’t planned anything but had some prawns and loads of red peppers. The paste was better when it was fresh, but it served us well for a quick and tasty dinner.
Chilli
On Wednesday night, Stephen was out so I decided to make myself a quick dinner of chilli prawns and spaghetti. We’ve made it a few times before and it’s always been a success. Tonight, I added too much chilli. So much that I couldn’t eat it. I liked the picture though so thought I would post it anyway.
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