Camargue Red Rice Salad with Feta Cheese
We’ve had this rice in the cupboard for a while but haven’t really known what to do with it so tonight we tried this Delia Smith recipe.
It was tasty but not brilliant; there was a lot of raw onion, shallot and garlic in it which made it quite sharp. The rice itself was highly flavoured, it had an earthy, nutty taste.
I think it would be good as a side dish but on it’s own it didn’t quite hold up.
G
Salmon with Salsa Verde
The warm weather is definitely having an affect on our eating habits. No longer are we craving casserole or pie but instead lighter, fresher food. Tonight we went for salmon with salsa verde and salad. The salsa verde was just mint, parsley, capers, anchovies and garlic all pounded up and spread between the pieces of salmon. Very tasty.
G
Pimms
Another warm day, another barbeque. This time with steaks. And Pimms.
First Barbecue Of The Year
This Easter weekend saw the temperature in London reach 20 degrees. To celebrate, Stephen and I barbecued. To start with, we had prawns marinated in garlic, chilli, oil and lime juice:
We followed this with garlic and rosemary lamb chops, corn on the cob, roasted butternut with spinach and feta and salad:
It was all really good, hopefully the warm weather will continue.
G
Happy Easter!
Spring Is In The Air
Spring is one of my favourite times of year. Since becoming more interested in food, we’ve been eating seasonally and locally. We make a real effort to only eat British and, as far as possible, to buy local produce. This can be limiting; winter is tough as the choice of produce is much less but overall it’s worth it. As the weather starts to warm up, all of a sudden there’s lots more choice and you can eat things that you haven’t had for what seems like ages.
After the excitement of last night’s Jersey Royals, can you imagine how excited we were to find the first British asparagus in Marks and Spencer this evening? Both Stephen and I are big fans and ate loads last year during its short time in season. To make the most of the flavour, we simply steamed it then served it with parmesan cheese, black pepper and rock salt as a starter.
It was soooo good, crunchy and peppery and really green tasting. And I think it tasted better because it had been so long since we last had any.
G
Ice Cream
Probably my favourite ice cream comes from Marine Ices in Chalk Farm. I first found it on a late night excursion with my best friend who told me how she used to have her birthday parties there when she was small, the best part about it being the ice-cream birthday cake that they served.
Stephen and I have been there a few times, they serve really good pizza and pasta in the main restaurant or you can go just for ice-cream. It looks as if it hasn’t changed since they first opened in the fifties, the ice-cream (as many flavours as you can think of) comes served in little metal dishes with long spoons.
We don’t go there so often now because we’ve moved and it’s no longer as local as it was so imagine my delight when we found takeaway ice-cream in a small Italian deli. near our flat. We bought coffee flavour. Now we just need some of those little dishes for the authentic Marine Ices experience.
G
Jersey Royals
Tonight, we used up the leftover pork that we roasted yesterday. We had some leftover cauliflower cheese and salad that Stephen made a brilliant honey and mustard dressing to go with (honey, Dijon, olive oil, cider vinegar and salt) and the first Jersey Royals of the season.
I’m not a huge fan of new potatoes but I love these. We served them with butter, salt and parsely. They were really good.
G
Lettuce
Stephen and I have a small courtyard garden, we haven’t had any outside space at all before so this is quite exciting for us. As we like to cook, it made sense to plant some vegetables and herbs.
We’ve got a small trough with thyme, sage and rosemary; some pots with mint and lavender and a trough of mixed lettuce. This is our first lettuce shoot!
We also have some radishes, cress and broad beans to go out and later in the year we intend to do rocket, basil, runner beans and tomatoes.
G
Roast Pork
We bought a deboned leg of free range pork from our butcher yesterday, planning to have it for lunch today. Today we rubbed the skin with salt and roasted it high, then lower. Two and a half hours later, it was done and it was really good. Served with sage and onion stuff made by Kerri with sage from our garden, sauteed leeks, roasted spiced buternut, cauliflower cheese and of course roasted potatoes and parsnips. And gravy. Lots to do, but it was all worth it.
F
