Two immediate observations; the title sounds like bad Chinese and the photo is probably one of the least successful ones ever.  I will however post it, as a document of my today’s efforts. I bought some lovely looking, dark red lamb shin from the butcher’s with the thought of braising it tonight .I invited Robert, our still landlord, maybe the last ever landlord we have! Always nice to invite someone over when cooking lamb, as Mr Banks is not a major fan.

Instead of braising it in red wine, as usual I attempted to try my mom’s method; rubbing the meat in the marinade made of garlic paste, salt, black pepper, herb pepper, hot paprika and olive oil , stewing it in its own juice plus some roughly chopped onions towards the end of the cooking. I did all that, but the appearance of the meat was not very good, I thought if I served it alongside the mash and red cabbage, it will look most unattractive. So I thickened the sauce a notch and made a sweet potato and regular potato mash then piped it on top of the meat, as if making a shepherd’s pie, only the lamb was not minced. It looks a bit like dog’s dinner ( and a happy dog it would be I bet!), but it was very tasty and enjoyable.The meat could be cut with a fork, so tender it was.  Served with a side of red cabbage, recent favourite.

I was surprised how quickly this plate of food came together. And how tasty it all was. And textures worked.  Ocado brought me  some lovely cod fillet this morning. I went easy on salt bearing pancetta in mind, seasoned it well with pepper though. Lovingly wrapped, it was then panfried on olive oil with a touch of butter and a few cherry tomatoes and whacked in the oven for 5 minutes, while french beans were cooking and gnocchi were panfried.

We finished all of it, it was a lovely meal after a rather shitty day. It looks like we won’t be moving in our dreamt new house in October, like we hoped. And Robin Williams decided to hang himself last night. 🙁

An idea came from “Come from dine with me” ( of all places…!), when looked up online it had great reviews, so I ordered everything from Ocado and made it this evening. A bit like poshed up fajitas, I’d say. Fajitas with chicken we have often, so I’ve done the filling pretty much the same way; fried the red onion, some garlic, red pepper, some chili, some ground cumin and onto that went chopped chicken thighs. A new thing for me to buy and use were the refried beans, quite nice for the texture. Also added was a can sweetcorn, then some seasoned passata. And fresh coriander on top. All this went into the tortilla wraps, but I chose to use a dish a bit too small, so ended up not folding the ends, like described in the recipe. The filled up wraps went onto the passata, then grated cheddar on top and into the oven.

Served with delicious guacamole and a crunchy salad. Will be a regular on my weekday menu. 🙂

Ps. Rather difficult to take a good photo of it…..:-)

Chateaubriand I was one of the first dishes uploaded to the blog, 4 or 5 years ago. I think the August weekend with excellent food and wine will become a tradition, so we splashed £60 on a piece of beef, £18 on a bottle of Amarone, baked off some dauphinoise potatoes, made side dish of glazed carrots and Jedrus made blue cheese sauce. He authorized me to publish the fact, that he used some blue stilton, a small clove of garlic, some cream, parsley and a splash of mayo,lovingly blizted it into smooth, beautiful, unhealthy sauce. We served it alongside of bernaise and pepper sauce, both hardly touched, so good the cheese sauce was.

The fillet itself cooked just like a steak, only an XL size, rested, soft, flavoursome, amazing. Life is good.

Ken made it last Saturday, I liked it so much I had to make it.  The basic recipe is Delia’s, I have adjusted vinegar, following Ken’s advice.

I blanched 5 large tomatoes and peeled them, used only their flesh, discarded the seeds. Half a large red pepper, skin removed, a clove of garlic, about 10cm long piece of cucumber  and a few leaves of basil all went into a blender. With all this about 2 tbsps of olive oil, 1 tbsp and a bit( I kept on tasting and adding) of white wine vinegar, salt, pepper and also- my personal touch- a splash of chili oil, that gave the soup a bit of a kick.

Blended it all until nice and smooth, then chilled for 2 hours. Served with crusty bread, didn’t bother with croutons. Nice, light supper eaten in the garden after a hot, productive day.  Will be done again.

Roux Boy has made it on “Food and Drink” last week and made me excited. He made broccoli pesto, which I’ve never tried before. All the same like the traditional one, only basil replaced with cooked, cooled broccoli and a small chili added.  We both agreed with Florek that it tasted very healthy. 😉

I grilled some asparagus, only slightly moistened with olive oil, it was crunchy and  had lovely  charred taste.  The non veggie accent in this dish was some grilled parma ham on top, salty and delicious. But the best thing on the plate were the pan fried gnocchi. Roux Boy said the shop bought gnocchi were firmer than home made ones, I’d never have thought about pan frying them and they were delightful, like little roasties. All finished off with freshly grated parmesan, excellent. Not sure if I’ll be making broccoli pesto again, but gnocchi from the pan will be made again for sure.

I should definitely cook more fish.  Bought 4 pieces of lemon sole fillets yesterday and before cooking them I checked what I could do.  Sole meuniere came out on google and as a devoted fan of Masterchef I decided that’s what will be cooked. The fillets had the skin on, so all I had to do was to toss them in seasoned flour and quickly pan fry them. Then I wiped the pan with the kitchen towel, threw a good spoonful of butter, melted it and  squeezed half a lemon in. And in went the fillets. I read the reviews and lost of people said the whole lemon was too much, I think I would have liked more lemon flavour though. And need to be more generous with seasoning. Served with boiled new potatoes and blanched asparagus.

Pleased. 🙂

Hard to believe, but this was the first ever duck I cooked myself. I often order duck when eating out, whenever available, but I always thought it was difficult to get right. And not cheap, either.  Ocado had it on offer though, so I bought 2 breasts and decided to see, what I can make of it.  I’ve eaten by myself, as certain people get home around 9pm these days, so certain people will have his duck well rested.

I scored the breasts and seasoned them well with pepper and salt, then fried, skin side down for about 10 minutes, meat side down for about 5, then to the oven for another 10 in 170 degrees. I wanted it medium well and achieved it nicely. The duck rested under the foil for about 10 minutes. I served it on the bed of sauteed potatoes, white cabbage and crispy bacon and the dressing ripped off some duck recipe from GF; just some fat from under the duck, 2 tbsps of olive oil and a tbsp of balsamic vinegar.

I destroyed the lot with a glass of cab sav, will definitely be making duck again, but with some nice greens.

The current series of Masterchef, like I mentioned before is full of so called celebrities, famous for starring in soaps and for being famous. But I still watch it and get ideas and so does Florek- occasionally.  It was his idea to make the American style pancakes and he did, all by himself- I put the bacon in the oven, made us coffee and fed Izzie while watching him work.  I felt really happy this morning, with our awesome kiddo, showering us with smiles, with the smell of coffee and bacon in the oven. 😉

For the pancakes Florek used ROUGH guidance from iPlayer, then adjusted the flour, as the batter was not thick enough. He used about 175 g of plain flour, 1/2 tsp of bicarb soda, 35 g of sugar, 2 eggs, 125 ml buttermilk and 25 g of melted butter. The amount of milk we found is difficult to measure, the batter must be as thick as a good double cream. He fried the pancakes  quite large, so we didn’t manage all of them, but they tasted great with Canadian maple syrup and crispy bacon. I had some strawberries on mine, without which the whole thing would be a touch too sweet for me. Will be done again.