Chicken
Chicken legs, roasted in the oven with green beans and mashed butternut. Stephen’s was wrapped in pancetta. It wasn’t very exciting. There are quite a few weeks of healthiness to go, at least for me, so I am going to have to start thinking more creatively.
G
Lemon Sole with Roasted Vegetables
Today was our first day back at work, and, like thousands of others, our first day of healthy eating. We decided on fish and vegetables; no potatoes and no wine (ahem, Stephen).
The lemon sole was marinated in oil, rosemary, parsley, salt and pepper and garlic.
The vegetables: butternut, carrot, red and yellow pepper, courgette, mushroom and celery, were marinated in the same oil.
It was all good, and the vegetables were pretty too.
Muffins
I made bran and raisin muffins for breakfast on new year’s day. The recipe, given to me by Stephen’s mum, said two and a half cups of sugar which sounded a lot so I left some out. The result? Needed more sugar. And maybe some cinnamon.
I think I also need one of those (red) silicone muffin trays because these are more fairy cake than muffin.
The cool thing about this recipe is that the mixture can be kept in the fridge for 30 days. Which gives me 30 days to hunt down a muffin tray 🙂
Happy New Year!
Have a sparkly new year! 🙂
Yorkshire Pudding
On new year’s eve we decided to have roast beef and yorkshire pudding for dinner. The yorkshire pudding came out really well. The roast beef wasn’t too bad either really. The vegetables were good but were largely neglected when we were faced with the rest of it.
Smoked Mackerel Tart, Salad, Mince Pies and Sparkling Wine
One of the best things I discovered on holiday was the fish snoek. I had it plain, smoked, in salad, fried, deep fried and as pate. Stephen’s mum also made a brilliant snoek tart. Sadly, snoek isn’t available here so we tried to recreate the tart using mackerel. It worked really well. There’s also spinach and feta in here too.
For dessert, we had miniature mince pies with cream. These are from Waitrose.
And we washed it all down with some holiday sparkling wine.
Lasagne
We’re back!
December has been an eventful month for us, we moved house, went on holiday and had Christmas.
Tonight, we had lasagne. I’ve been craving it for a couple of days and Stephen had a horrible version of it on the plane, a situation which was rectified here.
It was good, and Stephen’s cheddar cheese addition to the final layer was genius.
G
Pork Chops with Mashed Swede and Roasted Butternut
We’re kind of in limbo at the moment, no vegetable box to plan our meals around, no weekly menu plan to work to and barely any food in the house. This is partly due to our recent move but also, partly due to the fact that we are GOING ON HOLIDAY on Wednesday 🙂
So, last night we had decided we wanted roasted vegetables. Unfortunately, our local M&S vegetable section had morphed into a Christmas Gift Shop so we were forced to abandon our roasted vegetable plan and take home a butternut and a swede instead. Stephen roasted the butternut with oil and (???) and mashed the swede with s&p and nutmeg.
With the vegetables, we had pork chops. I bashed up some garlic, salt, bay and rosemary and rubbed these on the chops before Stephen sealed them on the hob, they then went into the oven for ten minutes. Better than grilling them but still a little dry. The quest for perfectly cooked chops continues…
Roast Chicken with Champagne Gravy
So, we’re all moved into the new place now and to celebrate, we cooked a roast chicken. It was also a trial run to see how the oven works ahead of our Christmas Dinner. I am pleased to report that it works very well and helped to produce a splendid dinner.
Chicken, roasted with garlic, thyme and rosemary. Served with roast potatoes, roasted parsnips, brussels sprouts and carrots. Oh, and Champagne gravy as we were celebrating.
G
Ostriches with CHEESY-LEEKY-BUTTERY-MASHED-POTATOES with Cauliflower and Peas
We’re moving on Friday. To a better flat but a smaller freezer. This is painful for me. I like to freeze things for emergencies. Part of the getting-used-to-not-having-a-freezer has been using up all the old stuff, which has been good because a lot of it I had forgotten was there. I figure you’re not so fussy in an emergency so tend to throw any old thing in there. Consequently, we’ve eaten a lot of thrown-together meals recently. This was one of them. It was however quite good.
The mashed potatoes with leeks and cheese were, in my opinion, brilliant, the vegetables were good and the ostrich was ok. I think Stephen liked the ostrich. This is about the third time we’ve had it and it was better this time than it has been before, but I can’t say it’s a favourite of mine.
G
