Salmon with Broad Beans and Tomatoes
I saw this salad on a food blog somewhere but can’t remember which one, I tracked the original recipe down to here though and set about cooking it last night. It was very simple and tasted really good, if a little too densely flavoured. Our version looks nothing like the picture either and I think I probably caramelised the tomatoes a little too much.
We served it with salmon which I think would have worked well if the dish had been lighter, as it was though it overpowered the salmon and worked much better with the bread.
I think this would work very well with spaghetti though which I may well try tonight.
Barbecued Steak!
With the weather promising to be sunny and warm today, we were off to a good start. Periodically, evil clouds would float across the sky, but luckily only obscured the sun for short periods and it was still warm in the late afternoon. Kerri had been home and put potatoes into the oven to bake before I got home, as well as having made salad, so the only thing left to do was to make a fire and cook steak.
Which didn’t take long. They were ribeye steaks, which have been our favourite for a while now and even though we left them on for a little longer than planned, they were still very succulent and full of flavour. Simply done seasoned with salt and pepper immediately before cooking, then cooked for a few minutes on each side and then rested, they were perfect. The baked potatoes were brilliant, with crispy skin and light, fluffy insides. Mmmmm steak! Mmmmm baked potato!
Sausages and Mash!
It seems like years since we had sausages and mash. It has been months at least. Tonight we bought some Duchy Original sausages which, after much experimentation, had decided were the best that could be bought from Sainsbury’s (which is where we found ourselves).
We were a bit apprehensive this time because, during our absence from the sausage market, they had acquired a “New Improved Recipe!” label. Usually finding this on a food product means that they have a new, cheaper and nastier recipe with more artificial additives and the marketing department is trying vainly to make it sound like a good thing.
Luckily this was not the case this time and the sausages were still very good. We served them with mashed potato. Due to Kerri’s current obsession with leeks, we mixed some sliced, sauteed leeks into the mash, along with some mustard and butter and salt and pepper. This all worked rather well together.
Add some cabbage on the side and some home made onion gravy all over everything and it was a very tasty dinner indeed. We did take some pictures that included gravy, but it all got rather messy, so we stuck with a gravy-free one.
Quiche
I toyed with titling this post “Leek, Bacon and Gruyere Tarlet” or something similarly “foodie” but decided I’d stick to what it actually is, which is quiche. I’m not sure if I’ve ever cooked this before; I have a very vague memory of cooking Quiche Lorraine in Home Economics at school but since I’ve managed to successfully block out most of that hideous term (the fact that our “teacher” couldn’t actually cook and bought all her food from the ready-meals aisle of M&S being just one reason) I can’t be sure.
I’ve seen a lot of interesting quiches (or “tarlets”, depending on the establishment) on lunch menus recently. I’ve seen them popping up in magazines and blogs a lot too and Stephen and I actually had a reasonable one from M&S (could I be more hypocritical, given my earlier comment?!) last week so I thought I’d give it a go. Until I realised I didn’t have a quiche dish. My mum has been trying to pass one on to me for months but I keep saying no, citing my lack of cupboard space and dislike of eggs (I’ll come to that later) as valid reasons for my refusal. So, on his way to cricket this morning Stephen took me to what we like to call “the-most-expensive-cooking-equipment-shop-evah”, so I could purchase one (sorry Mum) but they were closed. Unwilling to give up, I accepted Stephen’s less-than-enticing offer to take me to Hammersmith so I could visit T K Maxx.
With Delia Smith’s stern warning that anything other than metal dishes would do ringing in my ears, I searched the baking section for a suitable vessel. There was one lonely looking metal dish that looked like it was going to have to do but it had a strange, raised bottom to it that didn’t appeal. Having decided that today was Quiche Day though I wasn’t really in a position to argue so I took it. It was only on leaving that I realised there was also a Habitat in Hammersmith so I headed there to see if they had metal quiche dishes with more attractive bottoms….they did indeed but they were individual cases which would have been fine for a tarlet but didn’t seem right for an actual quiche. I then spotted a beautiful, brown, stoneware dish for the bargain price of £5. What would Delia say though? Well, Delia’s been saying an awful lot lately about cheating hasn’t she so I thought I’d cheat too.
I’d done a little research into quiche but couldn’t find a recipe that was exactly what I wanted so instead I improvised. I cheated again by using frozen pastry (my hands are too hot for the real thing) but did follow Delia’s advice on baking the pastry blind, then egg-washing and baking for a further five minutes.
I sauteed some leeks (I told you I was obsessed with them didn’t I?) and some bacon and allowed that to cool before spreading the mixture over the base. I then added some pine-nuts that were leftover from the pesto, some grated Gruyere cheese and a mix of 275mls single cream, two eggs and an extra yolk. The quiche was then baked in the oven for 45 minutes.
It looked good but we had to wait until today to find out how it tasted. We did manage to get it out of the non-metallic case too so clearly ignoring Delia’s advice was the best option 🙂
Asparagus Pesto
I had no idea if this was going to work, partly because I’ve never seen asparagus pesto before and partly because my previous experience of trying to make pesto in our Tragimix (or Mini Magimix to give it it’s real name) was very trying. We had about eight stems of very tired looking asparagus lurking in the fridge that I was loathe to throw out. Stephen had bought a bunch for his Thursday night pasta and these were left over. The asparagus season is so short that it seems a shame not to make the most of it while it’s available. So, buoyed by a glass of wine, I decided to give it a shot.
I steamed the asparagus until they were quite soft (to give the Tragimix a fair start), toasted some pine nuts, roasted some garlic and tore up some basil. When the steaming and toasting was complete, I threw the asparagus and the pine nuts into the blender, switched it on and crossed my fingers and toes. It seemed to be working so I bravely added the basil and some oil. At this point I realised that I hadn’t grated any cheese and the garlic was still in the oven. I turned the blender off while I retrieved these vital ingredients and again crossed my fingers that I would be able to get the blender to go back on. My planets must have been aligned because it happily started whirring again allowing me to add the cheese and basil.
When it seemed fairly well combined, I turned the machine off and put a spoon in to taste…not only had the Tragimix finally completed a whole task but the resulting dish tasted really good! One of the reasons I like making my own pesto (apart from using up random-fridge-items) is that you can vary the quantities to suit your own taste. I love, love, love pesto but rarely eat it because the combination of oil, cheese and nuts often gives me heartburn. For that reason, I tend to use more green stuff and less of the oily stuff. It also makes me feel virtuous, I’m practically just eating vegetables aren’t I?
So, no specific recipe but about eight spears of asparagus, 30g of pine nuts, three stems of basil, s&p, one clove of garlic (I forgot to mention that I roast this before blitzing because I don’t like the harshness of raw garlic in pesto), a tablespoon of oil and [vague] some [/vague] parmesan.
We used some of the pesto for dinner this evening with some interesting troife pasta and some roasted tomatoes. The pasta was odd though in that it cooked rather unevenly, some was perfectly al-dente while some remained hard. Perhaps it just needed a longer cooking time overall.
Jamie’s Lamb
Stephen’s family came to visit on Saturday and we’d originally planned to barbecue a leg of lamb since we’d enjoyed it so much last time. Unfortunately, the weather let us down so we opted to cook Jamie’s lamb shoulder again. This time, as there were so many of us, we got to use a whole shoulder which we picked up from our local butcher.
We didn’t do anything different, we didn’t need to as it was so brilliant last time. The only slight change we made was to serve it with crushed Jersey Royals, our first of the season and leeks, as I’m slightly obsessed with them at the moment. It was as brilliant as last time but sadly no leftovers this time 🙁
Deja Vu… times two…
Since cooking the spaghetti with anchovies on Wednesday, we’ve eaten it again twice. Stephen cooked it on Thursday with asparagus and then I had the original version again on Friday. We’ve tweaked it slightly by using better anchovies and more chilli but the basic recipe remains the same. This doesn’t make for very interesting reading though, hence the short intermission 🙂
Not wanting to eat pasta three times in a row, Stephen opted for a Higgidy pie that we found in Sainsbury’s for dinner on Friday. He was originally tempted by a sausage and mash pie (a shortcrust base topped with sausages and mashed potatoes, what a genius idea!) but eventually settled on the slightly healthier lemon chicken, thyme and lentil pie. What I tasted was really good, if slightly too lemony for me.
Spaghetti with Anchovies, Garlic, Chilli, Lemon and Basil
I had a spaghetti craving last night and while thinking about what to cook for dinner this evening, we came up with this.
While the spaghetti was boiling, Stephen fried some garlic and chilli. After a few minutes, he added the anchovies and cooked them down. When the spaghetti was cooked, we threw the garlic, chilli and anchovy mixture into the pasta; added some lemon juice, torn basil leaves and parmesan and then finished with some oil, black pepper and pine nuts.
It was really tasty, particularly considering how quick it was to cook and how few ingredients were required. The variations are endless too, I think capers would work instead of anchovies and some roasted cherry tomatoes would be brilliant. Asparagus or broad beans would be a great addition too. I’m sure we’ll be eating this again soon.
Thai Monday Part 7 – Beef Panang
Being a bank holiday today, we took some time to make something for another instalment in the recently neglected Thai Monday series. We chose Beef Panang this time, which is a Thai curry that includes peanuts as well as both coconut milk and coconut cream.
We started by making the paste as usual; this one contained:
Coriander root, salt, dried red chillies (which we de-seeded and soaked), garlic, lemongrass, galangal, red shallots and nutmeg. And peanuts, which weren’t in this picture because we were busy boiling them. These were all ground to a paste, but I think possibly the peanuts weren’t ground quite enough as there were little bits of them in the finished dish.
The finished paste:
The recipe specified stewing beef, which it said to blanch and then simmer in coconut milk for two hours until tender and then slice. So we did. Afterwards, I re-read it and realised that it also said that you could use a more tender cut of beef, slice it thinly and add it at the end to cook through quickly. The latter would have been a much quicker way of doing it, since most of the cooking time for this dish involved waiting for the beef to simmer.
When the beef was cooked and sliced, we heated up some coconut cream until it split, then fried four tablespoons of the paste in it for ten minutes before seasoning with palm sugar and fish sauce. Then we added the beef cooking liquid and the beef itself to warm it through, before adding some deseeded long red chillies, torn lime leaves and torn basil leaves. Served with steamed baby corn and mange tout.
The result was tasty but a bit too sweet, especially for Kerri. We had put in less palm sugar than the recipe specified, but should have reduced it further, knowing that it is usually one of the sweeter Thai curries. It certainly has potential, so one to try again with a few changes – less sugar, bash the peanuts a bit finer, and certainly use the thinly-sliced-beef-at-the-end method rather than the simmer-for-two-hours method.
It did turn out a lovely orange colour though, and with the green of the lime and basil leaves and the red of the chilli, it looked rather a lot like the picture in the book, which doesn’t always happen.
Cheese Salad
Kerri was out tonight and I was in the mood for something healthy. Mostly due to a late night last night. We did have rather a lot of salad at home waiting to be eaten and on the way home I was thinking of cooking something interesting and having salad with it. The more I thought about it, the more I fancied the salad itself rather than anything else. So salad it was, with some cubed cheddar.
Not a particularly exciting salad: lettuce, cucumber, red pepper, carrot, celery, avocado and cheese. Cut into pieces slightly larger than Kerri usually likes them. Then drizzled with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of salt. At the last minute I added some pine nuts too, but not very many.
It definitely satisfied my craving for something healthy and the avocado was really good; just the right ripeness. Yum.
