Rack of Lamb
For the main course, we had rack of lamb with a garlic, rosemary and bay rub. We’ve used this rub before, on pork chops, it’s brilliant and really versatile. We served it medium rare, with sweet potato and green beans from our local greengrocer. The sweetness of the sweet potato worked really well with the sharpness of the rub. The green beans were perfect, as they always are.
Fred’s Martini
After the hummus, and before the main course, Stephen made a Real Martini – stirred not shaken (James Bond got it wrong, apparently). It’s gin and vermouth. And it’s strong. Too strong for me. I stuck to water, like the good girl I am 🙂
Hummmmmmmmus
Mmmm, hummus. It’s one of my favourite things and something I only discovered about a year ago. These days, I get a bit nervous if I don’t have any in the fridge. I like Sainsbury’s Organic the best. And I like it with celery, pitta, crusty bread or crisps. I eat it most nights when I get home from work, usually while Stephen and I are cooking dinner.
Today, we had a hard day cleaning the house, doing some re-organisation, having lunch at our local pub and shopping. When we got home, we had the hummus with pitta bread.
Steak and Salad
It’s Friday, we’ve successfully finished the week at work and managed to eat healthily. As a little treat, we had steaks with salad. They were Marks and Spencer Organic sirloin steaks which I was originally dubious about because the colour wasn’t great and there wasn’t a lot of fat. I don’t really like Marks and Spencer either, which was undoubtedly something to do with my dubiousness. Anyway, we cooked them and they were good. Very good actually. So maybe I’ll go there again.
Spaghetti, Prawns and Rocket
After Wednesday night’s boring chicken, I hit the cook books to come up with some more interesting options for healthy meals. In Jamie’s Italy, I found this. It was excellent.
Fry one garlic clove and half a chilli in some olive oil. When the garlic starts to colour, add 200g prawns and cook until they go pink. Add half a glass of white wine and 1-2 teaspoons of tomato puree and bubble for a minute before adding a handful of rocket. Mix together with pasta and add some more rocket and some lemon juice. Et voila.
I think it may have benefitted from a little more tomato puree (we only used 1 tablespoon) and some more chilli.
G
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.
