Chicken Stir Fry
As is typical of most Mondays, we went for something light for dinner in a vague attempt to atone for the extremeties of the weekend. This was pretty much our usual chicken stir fry but with the addition of basil at the end which lifted the whole dish and made it much more fragrant.
We got to use our new chopsticks too, aren’t they pretty?
Not suitable for Vegetarians
Yesterday afternoon we went to a friend’s barbecue but it wasn’t just your average barbecue, this one has been organised for months and required a substantial amount of planning. An ordinary grill wouldn’t have been appropriate, what was needed for this occasion was a handcrafted spit made to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s design. A few sausages and a couple of hamburgers were not on the menu, instead we ate a 45kg Suffolk pig, collected the day before from the farm on which it grew. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Geraldine:
Geraldine took ten hours to cook and produced some of the tastiest and most tender meat we’ve ever eaten. The flavours were simple which allowed the flavour of the pig to really come through: five bulbs of garlic inside the cavity of the pig and a mix of salt and thyme rubbed into the skin which produced no end of very crackly crackling.
Unsuprisingly there was quite a lot left over. Stephen and I are now the proud owners of one of Geraldine’s back legs which is cooking away in the oven as I type. I think pork is going to feature heavily on this week’s menu.
Monkfish
We bought two rather large monkfish tail fillets from our fishmonger today. Our attempt at griddling them wasn’t too successful, so we have decided to buy a new griddle pan; it must be the pan rather than us! That said though, they were really good. Meaty fish with a distinctive flavour. The brown bits were good too; like fish crisps.
With it we had two types of beans (English “french” beans and runner beans) sauteed with shallots and garlic and also some roasted tomatoes. Last week’s attempt at doing something fishy didn’t work very well, but this week all the flavours worked together really well. One of our favourites so far.
Moorish Skewers with Tabbouleh
We used a recipe from the Moro book to marinate some pork fillet before frying them off in the griddle pan and serving them with some tabbouleh. The marinade used saffron, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, oregano, garlic and olive oil. The meat was very tender but the marinade itself was rather heavy. If we do it again then we’ll need to use less saffron.
Chicken Basque
We’d planned to have this yesterday but as the weather was good we barbecued instead. Stephen whipped this up yesterday afternoon and we reheated it when we got home from work tonight. It was tasty but didn’t take that well to being reheated.
Barbecued Fish
Our second barbecue in as many days! It seemed like a waste not to barbecue on any rain-free weekend days, so we bought some fish to burn. It was a pink / red sea bream this time – the first time I remember having one. We bought it from a local fishmonger and when he heard that we were planning to barbecue it, kindly gave us some of his oil, garlic and herb marinade. We spooned some inside, as well as onto the outside of the fish while it was cooking (having the skin stick to the barbecue helped here, as you can see ;-)).
We also had some squid as a starter, which we had cut open to make squid “steaks” along with the tentacles:
Unfortunately the squid doesn’t look very appetising; we’d marinated it in the oil, garlic and herb mixture which caught alight the moment it went onto the barbecue, giving it a greyish tinge. When we were planning it, I imagined it golden and swimming in delicious garlic butter. Something to try for next time. As it was, it was still tasty though, with a squeeze of lemon and some more of the marinade spooned onto it.
Roasted Tomato Soup
We used this Waitrose recipe today to make a batch of soup for lunches. Despite the fact it’s August and supposed to be warm, I’ve found myself craving tomato soup for the last couple of weeks. Hopefully this’ll cure me and I can move onto the next thing to obsess about!
The tomatoes were roasted in the oven first with some red onions and garlic, before being blitzed together with some chicken stock. It tasted good; sweet and roasty and had a light, summery texture.
Barbecue!!!!
So finally it’s a) the weekend, b) we don’t have any prior social engagements and c) it’s hot….leaving only one thing to do….BARBECUE!!!
We started with corn. Stephen bought these last week with the sleeping bags husks still intact, despite the fact that he maintains he prefers them to be cooked without. I gently prised back the husks and coated them in harissa. I then gave them to Stephen and he burnt them on the barbecue. No matter, they still tasted good.
Next up we had steak of the Scottish ribeye variety, cooked simply with salt and pepper and served with baked potatoes (cooked in the fire) and butternut with spinach and Feta, also cooked in the fire.
We had wine too. Lots of wine. Of different varieties. Consequently it’s taken me at least half an hour to type this. Happy weekend!
Guacamole
Did I mention I have become slightly obsessed with avocados lately? I can’t get enough of them. We picked up some avocados on Wednesday to use this weekend…how’s that for organisation? Today I turned it into guacamole which we ate with Poco Loco corn chips while we waited for the fire to get hot.
Sardines on Toast
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A quick lunch today of sardines on toast. Reminds me of being small as we often used to eat this for lunch on a Saturday. Yum.
