Thanks to Alice, who gave me 3 older editions of it, I recently subscribed to Good Food magazine. Love it, every single paper is packed with good ideas I’d never have thought of.It came in handy this evening.

I tried out a side dish  tonight, made of courgettes and rice to go with my chicken kievs- a room for improvement here, I must say.

I fried up a couple of onions, thrown in 2 sliced courgettes and 2 handfulls of rice, topped it all with some hot chicken stock and seasoned well. I cooked it for about 5 minutes, added some grated cheddar and a table spoon of creme fraiche, made it all quite watery with the stock and transferred to the casserole dish. Covered with some more grated cheddar – in it went to the oven for about 40 minutes. When I took it out and tasted it, the rice was beautifully cooked with the flavours of the courgettes and chicken stock with a hint of cheese. Loved it!

I served it with an attempt of totally home made chicken kievs. I used to buy them ready from Waitrose, but having recently seen a BBC programme about  mechanically retrieved meat I don’t think I’ll be buying it any time soon again, though I normally trust Waitrose.

I seasoned 2 chicken breasts well, stuffed with some garlic butter- could have been more generous with it- dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, fried and finished off in the oven.

Really liked the courgette thing as an alternative to roasted potatoes or mash.

It looked like that…

We went to see Jimbo and Louise’s new house yesterday. I promised Louise I’d bring a dessert. It was going to be a blueberry cheesecake, I bought all the ingredients and on Saturday morning I spent 20 minutes looking for that recipe. Couldn’t find it. I have to say I have never succeeded in making a nice cold cheesecake, the image in my head was the passion fruit one that I once tried to make  and it poured out of the tin when I tried to serve it…And I hate cooking with gelatine.

This time I got impatient, I decided to get on with it without the recipe, as I had to leave for work shortly and there would be no time for making desserts later. I thought to myself- I am a confident enough cook to come up with a dessert of some sorts.

So I blitzed the digestive biscuits, mixed it with some melted butter and pressed it all gently against the bottom of the tin. I wanted to avoid making it too hard and ending up with a base that wouldn’t come out.

Next I whipped up some double cream with vanilla sugar, added a tub of Philadelphia cheese NOT MEASURING ANYTHING AT ALL, added a juice of a lime and its zest and  nearly 2 packets of blueberries. Folded it all in, placed on the base, smoothed and topped with lots of grated chocolate.

I chilled it in the fridge and kept my fingers crossed.

We’ve had it after Louise’s pasta with chorizo, it worked nicely, the base was lovely and crunchy, but not too hard, it was a success!!!! I had no camera with me, so couldn’t take a photo of it, but it will be made again. Nice, spontaneous,  improvised and fun to make.

🙂

Not sure, what the Italians would make of it, I think it is pretty good. And quite healthy as well, with all the greens.

I fry  an onion, a carrot,  a celery stick, some garlic, add chicken stock and let it cook slowly. In a separate pan I fry up some pancetta, lovely flavour, like no other bacon, then add it to the soup. Then in go the beans, chopped to the size small enough to fit on the spoon. I use green beans, runner beans and- if I have, broad beans. Some nice spring cabbage adds to the consistency nicely too. I season it all generously and add a handful of tiny pasta and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. The last thing to go in is pesto, doesn’t have to be a homemade one ( however with pesto pasta it is the only option in my kitchen! 🙂  ), a few bits here and there to add to the flavour.

I serve it with lovely crusty bread.

Florian once said  that my cottage pie is the best one he’s ever had. I reckon the one I’ve made tonight was best ever. Someone on telly has given me the idea of a parsnip mash, I’ve done half and half with the potatoes, it made the topping deliciously creamy and… sweet.

My meaty filling varies on whatever I have in the fridge. Today I fried up a red onion, a carrot, a courgette, some cherry tomatoes, green peas,then of course the minced beef ( not from Sainsbury’s, Florian has found a piece of bone in his 🙁  ).I add a generous splash of red wine, some Worcestershire sauce, some beef stock and some ketchup. And I let it all bubble away until the beef is lovely and soft and all has a nice rich texture and colour. Tasting it all the way is essential, it ahs to be nice and rich to be in contrast with the mash.

My mash is a messy one, but well worth the effort. It is all squeezed through the ricer, I add some butter, season with salt and pepper and work it with a wooden spoon until smooth.

All that is left now is transfer the meat mixture into the baking dish, cover with a layer of mash and bake off, until  it begins to brown slightly. You want it slightly crispy on top. I don’t think adding cheese on top is such a good idea, no need, if you make a nice mash.

We’ve managed the whole thing this evening….. 🙂

Now this one is ideal for an evening after work, when one can’t be bothered to spend too much time in the kitchen, but is not in the mood for Pizza Slut.

I boil my spaghetti and prepare the veggies in the big frying pan; I fry a couple of chopped shallots, throw in grated courgette, for 2 portions I would say maybe one and a half, one chopped red chilli, fry it all up, season well and add some chicken  stock for extra flavour. I toast some pine nuts, lovely stuff, only so bloody expensive in this country.

I toss the spaghetti in the courgette mixture, finish it off with some sesame seed oil, throw the toasted nuts on top and finish off with some parmesan. Done within 20 minutes! 🙂

I used to work in a  restaurant last year, that claimed to be making Italian food. What I thought about it was best illustrated by a couple of Italians storming out of there, having been served lasagne…The only two good things I learned in that place, that shares the name with my current boss, was the idea of sweating off the vegetables before blitzing them into a soup, which improves the flavour dramatically ( works with cup mushrooms wonderfully as well) and- Massimo’s meatballs.

I walked into the kitchen at work this morning when Tom was chopping a large amount of mint and I knew exactly what I felt like cooking tonight.

For the meatballs I use the ground beef, preferably not the lean one, it has to be nice and moist. I add a bread roll soaked in water and milk, a generous handful of grated parmesan, an egg, chopped shallot for the bite and 2 garlic cloves. Then comes the mint. Some of my Italian friends reckon it’s got to be parsley, I stick with the mint, ever since I tasted Massimo’s polpettine. It needs to be worked well with your  hands, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and then shaped into small meatballs. I toss them in flour and boil for about 10 minutes in a beef stock, just enough to nearly cover them. That floury stock is later used for the sauce, as all the goodness stays in it.

The tomato sauce is best kept simple, so quickly fried shallot and celery, a couple of cup mushrooms, a can of chopped tomatoes or passata, some fresh herbs, some port or sweet wine, if there happens to be some open(which is not too often as it gets drunk right away 🙂 ), I like it quite sweet. In go the meatballs and all there is left to do is  cooking the spaghetti, setting the table and opening some good red wine.

Serve with extra parmesan and black pepper.

That British classic still has some space for improvement, as I use  a shop bought custard( vanilla one from Waitrose or good old Ambrosia), the minute I crack the art of making custard that does not curdle, I will announce it to everyone who would listen.

Rhubarb is in season, so best to quickly roast it off in the oven with brown sugar and honey, but not till completely cooked, as it will be baked under the crumble.

The crumble itself; soft butter, plain flour, dessicated coconut, ground almonds, brown sugar and cinnamon, all worked with your fingers until the texture resembles a crumble.

Top the rhubarb with it evenly and bake for about 30 minutes in 170 celsius, till bubbling and slightly golden. Serve warm with custard and enjoy, cause it’s bloody yummy!!! 🙂

This recipe is ripped of Gordon Ramsay’s , slightly changed by me, as usual.

I normally use two types of fish, can be frozen, can be fresh, salmon is a must and some kind of white fish, a fillet of each will do. I poach the fish in milk with  a bay leaf, a shallot and some peppercorns, then flake it onto a bowl. About 4 boiled and mashed potatoes and a crucial ingredient, fresh coriander. If I don’t have any, I don’t bother making fishcakes, it simply makes the dish outstanding( plus I’m a coriander freak, would have it with anything!). I add finely chopped shallot, season it all very well, ground coriander, pepper, some paprika to give it a kick and then mix it all up nicely. You want to make sure you can tell the ingredients apart, don’t mash it all to death, it’s not supposed to be baby food.

Now shape them into cakes, a table spoon is a nice sized cake, roll in flour, then in egg and finally in breadcrumbs. Messy and lots of work, but well worth the effort, as the cakes will keep the shape and won’t fall apart when frying.

Fry them on both sides until golden and lovely.

Serve with harissa mayonnaise( mayo mixed with harissa paste) and a nice green salad.

This Easter we’re not in Poland, so there will be no eggs colouring and all the unnecessary stuff, what there will be however, is a gorgeous piece of beef, lovingly trimmed for me by a nice guy behind Waitrose’s meat counter.

It’s the first time we’re making chateaubriand, the first time I coughed up 40 quid for a piece of meat as well. But it was well worth it.

We took it out of the fridge 3 hours before cooking, seasoned well with salt and pepper, massaged some good olive oil in it, sealed on the frying pan all over and put in the hot oven (180 celsius) and cooked for about 15-20 mins. Both us and our guest Jedrus, huge beef enthusiast, like our steak medium rare to medium, so I’m proud to say we succeeded big time, as shown on the pictures, the meat was beautiful, juicy, tender like cotton and very, very tasty.We served it with a selection of sauces provided by Jedrus’s work as well as good old bearnaise.

Great company for the beef were  roasted potatoes-according to Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall, the best method is to quickly boil them for about 5 minutes, put a tray with some olive oil in the oven to warm the oil up and then toss the spuds in the hot oil, so that it sizzles.Season them with rock salt and pepper, as well as thyme or oregano and roast off, until gorgeous and crispy on the outside and soft inside.

Nice green salad a must.

Dessert tonight was a chocolate mousse, which,when first made, Florian described as “better than Gu”. Now that’s a compliment! 🙂

It’s probably not the healthiest of options, taken the amount of double cream needed to make it, but we love it.

• 50 g of good cooking chocolate, as good as one can get
• 150g double cream
• 25 g sugar
• 1 egg white
• some amaretto
• a few amaretti biscuits, crushed.

Heat up half of the cream, melt the broken chocolate in it, careful not to burn it. Stri well and cool down above the pan of cold water.Add the other half of the cream and amaretto.

Beat up the egg white with sugar, fold in the chocolate mixture.

Generously sprinkle crushed biscuits on top.

Chill for 2-3 hours before serving.

Julka loved it….