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
Pasta and Pesto with Bacon and Broad Beans
The normal vegetable box saga has been replaced with the freezer saga. We’re moving next week and therefore need to use up the contents of the freezer. It’s been ok so far, I’m not sure how we’re going to get through the never-ending supply of bacon but that should make next week interesting.
Tonight, we ticked two and a half boxes by using up some pesto, some bacon and a few broad beans. It was a simple but tasty meal.
Sausages and Mash
Today it was really cold on the way home. Which meant that we had very little choice other than to have sausages and mash for dinner. So Cumberland sausages with mustardy mash and onion and red wine gravy it was. We had winter greens and brocolli (not pictured) too. The gravy was fruity (from the wine) and oniony (from the onions) which went well with the fully flavoured sausages and seasoned mash.
On a side note, I think the picture is one of the best on the site so far.
Lamb Kofta Sandwich
I was really lucky again this evening – arriving home to the smell of something delicious cooking. Kerri had made lamb koftas, fried halloumi and aubergine. I put this all into a toasted pita bread along with some lettuce and tomato to make a sandwich. It was really tasty and just what I needed. The lamb koftas were a good improvement on those that we were attempting to make several months ago (pre-Dinner Diary days).
My Pie!
Kerri was at home today and when I got back from work she had cooked a pie. Not just any pie, it said “Stephen’s Pie” in letters on the crust. It was brilliant. And not only did it look brilliant, it tasted brilliant too. Because I’m nice, I let Kerri have some of my pie. It was a chicken, leek and mushroom pie. We ate it with mustardy mash, winter greens and brocolli. And some gravy that I’d made, but I didn’t need much of it as the pie was so good.
Bacon and Leek Gratin
We had four leeks to use up and, having discussed various things to do with them, decided on a sort-of gratin. It contained leeks, lardons, potatoes, cheese, creme fraiche, milk, nutmeg and salt and pepper.
It was really good, we had it with winter greens and I think we’ll have it again very soon.
