Chocolate Spread on Toast
It’s not big, and it’s not clever, but boy does it taste good 🙂
Pork Belly
Stephen had pork belly for lunch last week and it was really tasty so we decided to try cooking our own. We bought the pork belly from the Ginger Pig yesterday and, before we went out to watch the fireworks, we poured boiling water and cider vinegar onto the skin, then refrigerated it over night.
This morning, before we cooked it, we rubbed it with a paste of salt, pepper, butter, garlic and crushed bay-leaves. We cooked it for 30 minutes at 200 degrees, 30 minutes at 180 degrees and a final 15 minutes at 160 degrees. Then we removed the crackling and put that under the grill until it went really crispy.
We served it with roast potatoes, roast parsnips, curly kale, carrots and broccoli. And Stephen’s special gravy. It tasted as good as it looks. And there’s leftovers for tomorrow, with bubble and squeak.
Fried Egg with Bubble and Squeak
For breakfast this morning, Stephen had a fried egg with the leftover mashed potatoes and curly kale from last night. He fried the mashed potatoes, so they were a sort of bubble and squeak.
Banger and Mash-and-Carrots-and-Kale
Bonfire night. Have to have bangers and mash according to Kerri. I heartily endorse this idea. So before a delay-ridden and noisy teenager-ridden bus trip to Alexandra Palace to watch fireworks, we tucked into this meal. The sausages were sage and onion (and pork, obviously) from the Kerri Pig. They were fairly coarse in texture, very meaty and really tasty – more of the meat than of the sage and onion, but that is of course fine. Our mash contained butter, milk, cheese, mustard, carrots and kale (and potatoes, obviously). It too, was really good. The whole meal was a flavour extravaganza; just a pity we had to eat it so quickly to catch our ill-fated bus.
Coddled Egg with Mushrooms, Spinach and Cheese
For my recent birthday, one of the many, many presents that I received from Kerri was an egg coddler. I had never used one before and used it for the first time on my birthday. Now, a week later, I tried it again and added mushrooms, spinach and cheese to my egg. It was really tasty, but tasted more of mushrooms, spinach and cheese than egg. I should rethink the ratios next time should I decide that it needs to be more breakfasty.
Cheese on Toast. And Meatballs.
We both had relatively large lunches today, so decided to settle for cheese on toast for dinner. We also had some meatballs left over from last night, so decided to use those up. I piled my meatballs on top of my cheese on toast to create a sort of impromptu meatball pizza. Kerri was less juvenile and had her meatballs on the plate next to her cheese on toast.
Meatballs!
Another fine dinner suggested and started by Kerri. When I got home from a gruelling session of drinking free booze and buying discounted clothing, all I needed to do (again) was get my hands all gooey making meatballs out of a “wild beef” mince, onion, breadcrumbs and herb mixture. These meatballs went into a deliciously garlicky tomato sauce and cooked for twenty minutes. We served them on top of a pile of pasta (the same unnamed thin-tagliatelle style as before). They were really good, definitely one for the “cook again soon” pile.
This Week’s Vegetable Box
PARSNIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!! – very exciting, I love parsnips and they’ll go well with the pork belly we’re planning this weekend
Curly kale – mmmmm, will also go well with the pork
Spinach – second hated (after cabbage), Stephen likes it though so hopefully he’ll be looking like Popeye at the end of the week 🙂
Brocolli – I quite like it but this isn’t a particularly good example, it’s soft already and a bit brown…brocolli and stilton soup maybe?
Courgettes – good for roasting, we haven’t had those for a while 😉
Onions – useful as we’ve run out (only because I cancelled them two weeks in a row though)
Mushroommmmmmmmmmmmmms – weekend breakfast
Oranges – these smell really orangey
Apples – cox I think, these are a bit soft though, might have to become a pie
Kiwi fruit – can’t be bothered with the seeds
So, all in all, not a bad haul. I cancelled cabbage, carrots and potatoes this week because we’ve been over-run with them lately. No bananas though, think this is the first time ever; Stephen won’t be happy.
Fishcakes
Kerri suggested fishcakes tonight and it was a good idea. She had made most of it when I got home and all that was left for me to do was to get my hands all gooey shaping them into cakes and putting them into the breadcrumbs. They contained salmon, potato and some spinach that we needed to use up. Adding a bit of salt and pepper made them really good. We had them with roasted vegetables, but as we seem to have had those often lately we figured they didn’t warrant a picture.
I also cooked something lentilly with spinach. Not sure if it’ll make an appearance on the site though. It is on the stove, cooling down in its pot and awaiting its as yet undetermined fate.
Blurry Soup
Kitchen was steamy when Stephen took the picture 🙂
This was supposed to be leek and potato but tasted more like potato with a hint of leek. I wasn’t that keen on the texture of it either. It used up last week’s vegetable box leeks though so not all bad, and it warmed me up.
