Fried Halloumi…
…with Delia’s lime and coriander vinaigrette. But without the coriander because we didn’t have any. I was secretly pleased because I don’t really like it anyway, I think it tastes like washing-up liquid. We used mint instead and it worked well. Stephen said it was a bit like a savoury mojito.
We served the fried cheese with roasted vegetables to lend an air of healthiness. And white pitta bread because we’re trying to empty the freezer. Healthy? Not at all. Tasty? Most definitely.
Meatballs and Spaghetti
We decided that since we had some mince in the freezer, we’d made meatballs similar to the ones we’ve made before. So yesterday Kerri made up the meatballs and today we made tomato sauce and then started frying the meatballs before putting them into the sauce. When we were frying them though, we realised from the smell that the mince was actually lamb mince rather than beef mince as we’d thought. Kerri checked our freezer inventory and of course it said “lamb mince” on it. What is the point of having a freezer inventory if we never look at it?
Anyway, we continued cooking as usual and the result was different to what we’d planned, but really tasty. I think I’ll search for some recipes that include both lamb and tomatoes, they make an interesting combination.
Vegetables
There was a really bad storm while we were away and unfortunately the majority of our vegetables didn’t survive, which is a real shame because everything seemed to be coming on well before we left. We did manage to salvage two broad beans which we steamed and added to our bean salad earlier today. Shame about the storm because they were really tasty.
Luckily, our herbs didn’t suffer and we still have some carrots and brocolli to look forward to later in the year.
G
Barbecue
It was a warm and sunny day today so we decided to barbecue some fish. Stephen went off to the fishmonger and came back with a bumper bag of prawns, langoustines, sea bass and bream.
We started off with the prawns (marinated in onion, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil) and langoustines and some garlic butter:
and then moved on to the fish, stuffed with sage, thyme, lemon and garlic:
which we served with baked potatoes, salad and a bean salad dressed with a vinaigrette:
To wash it all down, we drank some really nice pink wine:
And, if we feel like it later on, we have some sweet English cherries for dessert:
Happy Sunday 🙂
G
Chicken and Vegetable Stirfry
We had a fair amount of left over chicken from last night to use up, so we decided on a stir fry. To the chicken we added two cloves of garlic, some ginger (dried unfortunately; we didn’t have any fresh), a sauce mixture (soy sauce, oyster sauce, rice wine, sesame oil and sesame seeds) and a Marks & Spencer bag of stir fry vegetable mix (carrots, snow peas, baby corn, spring onions, brocolli, pak choi and spinach). Normally I’m not a fan of M&S pre-prepared bags of things as they tend to be rather prescriptive, but this one worked a treat and the result was a rather good approximation. A handful of bean sprouts and a few mushrooms would have made it perfect though.
Roast Chicken
It’s become something of a tradition that when we return from holidays we eat roast chicken…well, this is the second time it’s happened so it’s on the way to being a tradition.
We roasted the chicken with onion, garlic, sage and lemon and served it with sagey roast potatoes, stuffing and some green vegetables. It made a refreshing change to the processed sausages and cold meats we’ve been eating recently. We both decided it was our Desert Island Dinner too.
G
Sweden
We’re back from our trip to Sweden where Stephen’s team won both their cricket matches. For the first part of the trip we stayed in a small town with only two restaurants, both of which served pizza and kebabs. We therefore ate pizza:
One of the opposition ate kebab pizza (perhaps that’s why they lost):
They also served sauerkraut:
For the last part of the trip we stayed in some cabins on an island and mostly barbequed:
Some much needed fruit, artfully arranged by one of Stephen’s team-mates:
On the last night we went out for dinner and ate pytt i pana, a typically Swedish dish of fried potatoes, onion and bacon served with a fried egg and pickled beetroot and gherkins:
This was one of the best things we ate while we were there and we’ll definitely be trying to recreate it at some point soon. It’s a bit like bubble and squeak, and the principles are definitely the same as it’s basically leftover meat fried with potatoes and onions. Online recipes vary widely, some include vegetables such as peppers and mushrooms but traditionally you would have just used whatever happened to be lying around.
G
Sweden
We’re off to Sweden for a week and a half, so there won’t be any posts for a while. We’re not sure what food awaits us in Sweden. I’m off there to play cricket (yes, really) so that is what it’s mostly about; the food will be a side-order, so to speak. We’ll let you know what happened food-wise when we get back though!
Pork Chops and Roasted Vegetables
Tonight we had pork loin steaks with some roasted vegetables. We roasted the vegetables (red pepper, sweet potato, onions and mushrooms) in the oven for a while, then pan-fried the pork loin steaks after dusting them with salt, pepper and paprika. The vegetables were really good, but I overcooked the pork a bit and it was a bit dried out. I should have paid more attention rather than multi-tasking. We also had some runner beans and spring greens to add some green stuff, which is always good.
Lentils and Cauliflower
Kerri had a big lunch today, so didn’t want much dinner. I took this opportunity to make some lentils. I fried onion, garlic and ginger with a chopped fresh chilli and a random selection of spices – coriander seed, cumin and clove (all ground). Then I added some water, some chopped tomatoes, some carrots and some cauliflower. Served with paella rice because that was all we had in the way of rice; must definitely do some rice shopping soon.
