Honey and Mustard Salmon
This was my idea and something I used to cook quite a lot, it didn’t come out the same as it used to though. I think it’s because I usually cook fish for twice as long as it actually needs as I’m so scared of fish poisoning. The extra cooking time means the honey goes all sticky and crunchy. Stephen cooked this and it was therefore cooked properly and not all dried out. Next time though we could blowtorch the top of it, that would make the top sticky and crunchy.
We had the salmon with roasted vegetables, crushed new potatoes and spinach. This was Stephen’s plate, mine wouldn’t be all mixed up like that.
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Mushroom and Thyme Risotto
Tonight, we had planned to have salmon fillets for dinner but we were cold and hungry. Stephen found this Jamie Oliver recipe in The Naked Chef, we had all the ingredients so we left the salmon in the fridge. It was really good.
Cabbage and Bacon Galette
This is a recipe we’ve been wanting to try for ages, from Joanne Harris’ French Kitchen. It uses a sort of batter made from bacon, shallots, garlic, parsley, flour and milk. This is spooned into a dish, topped with steamed savoy cabbage and finished with another layer of the batter; it’s then baked in the over for 35 minutes.
It was sadly quite disappointing. But the pictures came out nicely.
Holiday
Below are some of the food related pictures we took on our recent holiday to Cape Town.
Chicken with mustard and mushroom sauce – the recipe called for salmon-trout but we couldn’t find any so used chicken instead. It turned out well but the sauce would have benefitted from thickening. Stephen used the leftover sauce with pasta which he tells me was good.
Garlic, lemon and olive oil prawns as a starter, followed by Angelfish:
A picnic lunch of Parma ham, hummus, feta with herbs, mozarella, salad, crisps, some kind of bread and Pongrancz sparkling wine:
A seafood platter at Quay Four at the V&A Waterfront, calamari, mussels (in a strange sauce), cheesey dorado (a meaty linefish), prawns (some of the best we ate) and salad. There was also a variety of sauces including a buttery one, garlic and chilli:
Stephen’s fillet steak and my rump steak at Spur, served with chips, onion rings and salad garnish:
Yellowtail (a meaty, game fish) expertly thrown onto the braai by Stephen. We bought this whole at the local supermarket and asked them to clean and butterfly it for us. It was huuuge, it fed eight of us and there was loads left over too:
Potjie, a traditional stew, cooked outside over coals. This version was lamb with butternut, carrot and potatoes:
Peppers Stuffed with Chunky Chilli
Over the weekend we cooked some chunky chilli and froze it to eat this week. We had it tonight, stuffed into peppers and baked in the oven. It was tasty but not mind-blowing. We could have left the peppers in a bit longer but we were worried about drying out the chilli that was in them. The chilli didn’t dry out except for the top few pieces, so if we try it again we’ll keep the lids of the peppers and put them back on to stop the top of the chilli from drying out. We loved the chunky chilli when we had it last time, but I think it would be easier to stuff the peppers with non-chunky filling.
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Look!!!!!!!!!!
Stephen bought it for me for my birthday. I love it 😀
Pork Chops
Contining our quest to cook the perfect pork chops and to eat healthily, we chose pork chops for dinner this evening. We did them with the same rub we used last time: garlic, salt, rosemary and bay. We pan fried them slowly as they were really big and served them with mashed sweet potato, green beans, roasted swede (odd, don’t bother) and roasted courgettes (they were on their last chance with me; they blew it).
The chops were good, tender and tasty. We got them from our new butcher, we’ll be having them again I think 🙂
Haven’t I Been Busy
Our spice cupboard is at floor height so when we want to use anything, we have to pick up every jar and look at the front of it. No more! I have labelled the tops of each jar so now we can see at a glance which is which 🙂
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Spaghetti, Prawns and Rocket
Deja Vu? Yes, we had the same dish last week, but we decided to try it again and improve it. Ironically, it was also the day that we decided that we should cook more different dishes more often. It was worth it though, we added more tomato and it worked well; a little too much lemon juice but otherwise good.
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Roast Chicken
There’s not much I can say about roast chicken that I haven’t said before. We eat it a lot, especially on a Sunday. We always cook it much the same way, salt and pepper on the outside and inside the carcass. Olive oil on the outside. Some combination of garlic, onion, lemon and herbs inside the carcass. Roasted on an onion for about an hour.
Today, we had a Label Anglaise organic chicken from our new butcher, we roasted it with shallots, garlic, lemon and thyme. Served with roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, savoy cabbage and mashed swede.
It was as delicous as ever, and just what we needed after a busy weekend.
