Sunday Dinner

I love Sunday dinner, it's my absolute favourite meal and if I had to choose it would definately be my last supper!

It's been pretty busy here lately and quite exhausting, I've had a bad, bad cold and Deano still has the pot on (but a lighter one, it was changed today, I nearly posted a picture of his stiches but I thought it would put you off yer tea!). My mum has been helping out alot lately so I wanted to cook her a nice Sunday lunch, and a meaty one at that! I woke up on Sunday with a caveman type yearning for a pork chop! I consulted the books and came up with a recipe by Elisabeth David. Now, E.D. is a cooks cook and the one you will hear all of those TV cooks citing as one of their influences. I once saw on the TV that Delia taught herself to cook by giving dinner parties entirely from her cookbooks! Soo, I'm serving spiced pork chops with potatoes dauphinois, honey carrots, slow pan-fried fennel (Nigel Slater) and peas and absolutely yumptuous it was too. I like to give my mum veggies she doesn't normally eat, mainly because it secretly makes me laugh at her pretending she likes it 'mmmm, interesting' but I have to say she never stopped about the fennel, it was a winner.

PS- I posted another picture of Blix cos he looked so cute in his knight's helmet, sheild and sword which I made him today...I didn't cook him or anything!

The spices for the chops are easy but as E.D. says well worth the time it takes.
3 tsps white peppercorns
1/2 small nutmeg
1 tsp juniper berries
1/2 tsp of whole cloves
If you have a spice grinder then place everything in and wizz, if not and I don't then use elbow grease and a pestle and mortar. Then liberally cover the chops (both sides) in spices (don't think you have to use it all, you can place in a jar and save for another time and use on lamb chops). I cooked the chops on a grill pan for about 4 mins each side.

The Fennel was easy but tasted delicious
2 Fennel bulbs, quartered
Butter
Water
S&P
Parmesan

Put a generous knob of butter in a large fry pan, put fennel in and fry for a few mins then turn the fennel over and cover in water, up to about 1/4 of the height of the fennel.
Allow to boil then simmer gently with the lid on for about 1/2 hour.
Take lid off and let the water reduce then sprinkle liberally in Parmesan and serve.

carrots - I used those posh baby carrots and placed in a oven dish, a slug of olive oil and a good squidgy of honey then some sea salt and roasted.

Potatoes Dauphinois
About 5 lrg potatoes - peeled then cut very thinly, I used the processor.
A big pot of cream, about 250ml and about 1/2 pint whole milk
Garlic

This is my fave potato dish and dead easy. Put the cream and milk in a jug and then put about 3 cloves of crushed garlic into the cream along with some sea salt and freshly milled pepper.
Place the potatoes into an over dish and pour the cream mixture over - mix it about a bit to disperse the garlic then place in a 180 oven for about an hour.

For pudding Deano made a lovely fresh fruit pudding which he liberally immersed in evaporated milk...I by this point was asleep!

Lentil & Chick Pea Dhall

Hi all,

Fancy a ruby murray? well, sorry, it's not a meaty vindaloo with a couple of stellas but here is a tasty curry for a midweek tea...I love this, I love lentils and it left Deano and I going for seconds..go on it's only lentils, can't be that fattening can it? mmmm, we'll have to wait and see who wins the trumpalumpa contest later(crude, sorry!)
I might add that I have a stinking cold so my taste buds were a bit out this evening, did my hand slip with the chilli's?

1 lrg onion- cut into 1/2 moons
tsp coriander seeds
tsp cumin seeds
2-3 cloves garlic
tsp coriander powder
tsp garam masala
Pinch of chili flakes or a red chili to taste
Approx 250g lentils - green or red - I used green
Tin of chopped tomatoes
2/3 lrg fresh tomatoes - chopped but optional
tin chickpeas
1 litre vegetable stock
Bunch coriander

Fry onions in vegetable oil until soft then add crushed garlic
Add spices with the exception of Garam Masala and continue frying for a couple of minutes then add chili
Add lentils and stock
Add all tomatoes and chick peas and simmer for approx 1/2 hour until lentils are soft
Add Garam Masala and continue simmering for about 5 mins then turn heat off
Add chopped coriander and rock salt to taste and serve with basmati rice or naan bread

Enjoy your meal, please come again!

If you want a receipe and think it's dissapeared then check the archive on your right, click on the months and it will pull out the receipes for that month etc

xx

Courgette, Chickpea, Feta & Mint Soup

I like soup and sometimes it just hits the spot when you don't want a really filling comfort meal. Depends on the soup so something such as Tuscan bean and beef or a hearty leak and potato with crusty bread is a meal in itself but tonight's tea is a summer style refreshing soup with I served with garlic and coriander tortillas; somehow after the weekend when you have probably indulged this seems perfect!

I took this recipe from a smashing book which I got for my birthday called Spooning with Rosie. The book is written by a woman who has opened up a cafe in Brixton Market, the cafe looks lovely and funnily enough I have wondered about the possibility of opening something similar in Leeds market but just not sure if it would work... stuck amongst the bacon butty's and egg and chips (both lavly by the way!). I know that Leeds is lacking a good cafe as the only place we really go to is Pasta Romana and that's mainly for the singing Italian woman and the ambiance as they say!

Anyway, here we go

3 x courgettes
3 x clove of garlic
litre of vegetable stock
Can of chickpeas
Handful of mint- just the leaves, no need to chop
1/2 block of Feta - cubed
1/2 lemon

Cube the courgettes and fry in a little olive oil
Roughly chop the garlic and throw in
After about 5 mins when the courgettes have sweated down then add the stock, chick peas and mint and simmer for about 20 mins
Blitz with a hand blender, add juice of lemon and Feta cheese and pepper to taste.

Pearl's Birthday

Hi all,

Our friend Pearl is seven on Monday so we all went to Pizza Express to celebrate and a good time was had by all!

Happy Birthday Pearl! xxx

What I would say is that we went around 5 and the kids were being kids and actually quite well behaved but there was 6 of them (except Blixa who loves to make me get exercise in restaurants as all I do is runaround after him - quite good really eat the calories then burn them off!)
.....but for some reason people in Britain seems to want children seen and not heard...Maybe I'd had too much vino but I'm sure I heard tutting. I wish we had that European mentality when everyone loves kids.... if you want a cosy meal for 2 go somewhere else not a pizza restaurant or go later when the babby's have gone home. The other thing which really annoys me is that the venues have children's menu's so they obviously want our business... I once went into a gastro pub with Blix and asked for a high chair, the manager said they didn't have one as they didn't really want to encourage kids, at first this made me mad but the more I think about it, the more I respect the venue for being honest...don't take our money and run!
Britain needs a really good family friendly venue which serves nice food and loves both kids and adults alike. I hate Wacky Warehouse but it seems like it's one of the few venues which actually wants children...it's like our kids are a dirty habit to be kept at home!

Sorry, rant over...yes that probably is a business for me in the making...anyone want to invest?

xxxx

Grilled Sardine Croutes

Hello,

I've been buying our shopping from Abel and Cole of late and yes, I know this is poncy and middle class but everything is seasonal, grown mainly in my area and everything tastes nicer, even the baked beans! What it has done has made me consult the books more as I have to order a week in advance so if I buy sardines, I want to know what meal I can make out of them. Saturday's tea was sardines on toast with a bit of nicoise thrown in and it was nice, not yummy and a little dry but if I did it again I would use more oil and dressing. It's another Rick Stein receipe. This would make a really nice picnic lunch in summer.

4 x sardines - gutted and filleted
Olive oil
Pinch crushed chillies
4 slices of rustic bread
1 garlic clove
1 romaine lettuce (I couldn't get this from A & C so used nice lettuce!)
4 vine tomatoes, skinned and sliced
1 roasted red pepper
1 small red onion
2 hard boiled peeled eggs
4 anchovy fillets

Brush sardines with oil and cook on a very hot grill pan or frying pan
Toast bread - rub bread with the garlic
Drizzle olive oil on the bread and then just start to layer everythting up

Linguini with Mussells & chilli

Good evening,

Tonight's tea is one of my favourites, I LOVE it and find it one of the quickest, easiest teas...you could make this with fresh mussels which you steam with garlic and parsley but I just use a packet of cooked mussels from the supermarket. This is just my tea, I don't want it to be difficult and I knocked this up in 5 mins. The only issue I had was that I didn't have any herbs, I'd probably add flat leaf parsley but I didn't have any! Alternatives would be to add a tin of haricot or borlotti beans, you could also add some feta cheese which adds a lavly flavour and a little more saltiness.

Onion- chopped into half moons
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Packet of mussels
Smoked paprika powder
Dried flaked chilli
Black olives or green olives (pitted)
Linguine

Fry onions in olive oil
Add tomatoes and a pinch of sugar
Add mussels
Add teaspoon of paprika and pinch of chilli flakes to taste
Add olives
Simmer for 5 mins and add parsley
Add a slug of olive oil to the sauce
S&P
Cook linguine until aldente - drain then add pinch of rock salt and slug of olive oil and toss.

You can then either add sauce to pasta and toss through or just place on top
Liberally add grated Parmesan cheese

Tart Tatin

Another day, another post, another pudding that keeps him in doors happy for another 2-3 nights...

Tart Tatin has a posh name which puts you off trying to make it, but try as it's dead easy and a great pudding for dinner parties, high tea, Sunday lunch etc

If you wanted to be really posh you could make individual tarts using the same recipe. Serve with good vanilla ice cream, creme anglaise, custard, anything.

There was another recipe in the Guardian at the weekend for pear tatin which I'm going to try soon, I keep you posted! (boom boom)

This is a Rick Stein recipe from French Oddesy, I love this book and have cooked loads from it, yes even a meaty recipe or 2....

I also added some cinnamon which was yummy

250g puff pastry
75g butter
175g caster sugar
750g - about 5 firm apples

Peel, core and halve apples
Spread butter & sugar over the base of a heavy based pan then place apples on top flat side down
Cook over a medium heat for 20-25 mins- shake pan every now and again
Pre heat oven to 190/gas 5
Pour caramelised apples into a flan dish with the flat side up
Roll out pastry and cut a disc which is just larger than the dish. Place on top of the apples and tuck in the sides.
Cook in oven for 25 mins or until pastry is cooked.
Allow to cool slightly then place large plate over dish and flip out.