The world has come to an end. Husband said- you’ve found me a lamb dish that I like. I know, right? 🙂

It’s been a good day. Lots of visible work around the house got done, a cake with plums got baked, 3 productive hours in the garden were spent too. And then, having washed the dirt off my fingernails I got cracking with dinner. Recipe comes from Waitrose magazine, I’ve bought all I needed there yesterday and ended up with a lovely dinner this evening.

First I trimmed and roughly chopped 2 lamb leg steaks, seasoned with salt and herb pepper and browned off on olive oil. Large chopped onion and 2 mashed garlic cloves in. Some green beans, not in the recipe. A small amount of fresh rosemary, 2 bay leaves, 2 fresh tomatoes and a good splash of passata, a tsp of honey, some salt, 200 ml of chicken stock. All this left simmering under the lid while orzo cooked to the packet instructions. Once the lamb was soft, orzo went into the casserole, shortly before serving a good handful of fresh spinach, just to wilt.

We had it with crusty bread and a half bottle of French rose. Eaten to the last grain of orzo. Delicious. And will be made again.

Carbonara is Florek’s favourite pasta, alongside pesto. I’ve made it many times, sometimes with pancetta, sometimes with smoked streaky bacon. Never came across guanciale in the UK, so could not test this one.

Marco Pierre White was a guest chef in Masterchef Australia, that I’m still binging on, he made his version of carbonara and I tested it last night. the crowd was divided; we both liked it, finished the lot, agreed it was on the lighter side and very tasty, but if it was better than the bacony one with garlic that I normally make? Not sure. I bought some of that mega thin, sliced pancetta and roasted it in the oven, while the pasta was cooking. Risky business that, as pancetta was so thin it needed to be watched in order not to be burnt. Right before assembling the dish, I finished it off on the pan with 2 crushed garlic cloves.

3 egg yolks gently whipped with a splash of double cream- if Marco Pierre White uses cream- clearly that is a legal thing to do. Well seasoned, some grated parmesan chucked in. This was my first ever carbonara with virtually raw egg yolks. Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I added the yolk/cream/parmesan mix to it and tossed it well, away from the heat. It certainly was much lighter and creamier than my usual one. Only then pancetta was added, more parmesan and that was that. Still not sure if this is the way I’ll be doing it next time, but it had to be tested.

Last week we decided it was time to join the club of The People Who BBQ. We rather enjoy membership of the Tesla Owners Club, where drivers greet each other on the road just because they also drive one. Not everywhere, mind, Cheltenham area, Cotswolds, further down the A40 the greetings don’t work anymore.

Lidl had these little beauties on offer from Thursday morning. At £80 a piece. Today, on Sunday there were none left!

But we’ve got one. We’ve tried it a couple of times already, there were great sausages, burgers and also chicken skewers- mind blowing ones! The smoky flavour is just unbeatable!

This afternoon some lovely prawns made a debut. They sat in the marinade of garlic, chili flakes, salt, parsley, coriander, lime zest and juice and olive oil since early lunch time and later on they got grilled and were devoured with some lovely French rose. So much of that rose , in fact, that I’m having trouble spelling!!! But they were some of the best shrimps I’ve eaten in a long time. Next weekend Mariusz is coming over, there will be steaks and more grilling. It’s going to be epic! 🙂

It will be a very productive day in the kitchen. We just had this lovely soup for lunch, nothing was left, thoroughly enjoyable. The idea came from Tom Kerridge’s book, but I thickened it with 2 small potatoes, not split beans, as in the recipe. Also replaced the veggie stock with chicken stock and chucked in a small piece of chicken breast.

Started off with a large red onion, chopped and sauteed, 2 garlic cloves, minced, a carrot, for a bit of sweetness, 2 spuds. Stock, 20 minutes, till the veggies cooked, 400 g of frozen peas added, plus a handful of fresh mint from the garden. 5 minutes under the lid, then I blitzed it, added a bit of seasoning and a small piece of butter for silkiness, then just a garnish of parsley and single cream and it was ready to be enjoyed.

Cholla dough is proving, we’ll see what will come out of my first ever cholla, then in the evening we’ll be spiralizing courgettes for a new recipe. To be continued! 🙂

It’s been over 7 years since I left Dinings. Hard work it was, but satisfying and the food we served there was a Premier League. Never will I appreciate a supermarket sushi after what I was fortunate enough to taste and eat regularly back then.

Yesterday I sent a quick message to one of my former bosses, asking him how to make a proper fantastic sushi rice- in terms of flavouring. He was kind enough to send me a nice little formula for 250g of sushi rice, I used it as instructed and last night we had the best home made sushi to date. I flavoured the rice with 55g of rice vinegar, 35 g of caster sugar and 10g of salt, all dissolved and added to cooked and slightly cooled rice. When I tasted it I found it very sweet, but didn’t question Chief’s expertise and proceeded to roll my sushi. We had spicy tuna, as always, salmon avocado, salmon and asparagus, avo and cucumber for Izzie. That slightly sweet rice, when wrapped in nori and combined with the fish and extras was just something else. Both Florek and I were stunned. And we will be doing our rice like this from now onwards.

I also made a little starter with salmon sashimi and ponzu, ponzu however with yuzu juice, not lemon. Fresh, zingy, delicious!!!!

Aussie Masterchef inspired. Really, not much of a recipe there. Good quality shrimps, defrosted, seasoned with salt only, tossed in egg and panko, deep fried in the wok till golden brown. Served on a red veggie rice, with a spectacular dipping sauce- sweet chili sauce, a splash of soy, of sesame oil, yuzu and a bit of fresh coriander. That simple. Crunchy panko, lovely, sweet shrimp inside. Yum.