Good Food

Spag-bol. :-)

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Having posted that link from “Eat. Pray.Love”, I just had to make some lovely spaghetti bolognese and give it a spot, as we love the dish and the good French wine we bought in Paris last time, it was a fantastic supper.

My sauce takes at least 1,5 hour to cook. I first sautee the onions and carrots, some celery, in goes the mince, once it’s browned I add red wine, then the tinned tomatoes, good amount of seasoning, herbs and let it simmer for at least an hour. When it’s ready, will all the flavours sitting nicely together, I cook the pasta and mix it all together, finish off with black pepper and freshly grated parmesan. A glass of good red- a must.

Yum.

Dessert

Sernik / Cheesecake

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Mum has brought me some good quality cheese for sernik, when she visited us in May. I froze it and only took it out last night thinking- sernik time. It was quite a tube, so I ended up making a large one to take to work tomorrow and 4 little ones for now, with wine. 🙂

The pastry base was Mum’s recipe, 100 g of plain flour, same amount of butter, 2 tbsp of icing sugar, 2 egg yolks, a tea spoon of baking powder and a good amount of cocoa powder. Blind baked was then filled with the mixture that was supposed to be as thick as good cream, Mum says.

In went the whole tub of sernik cheese, about half a glass of icing sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla paste, a dry budyn, 2 egg yolks, 1 egg, less than half a glass of plain sunflower oil. It was thick enough not to add any milk, although Mum says, about half a glass. All this well blitzed, poured into the ready trays and baked off for about 50 mins in 180 degrees.

When cooled and set I decorated it  a bit with some melted chocolate and butter mixture, just to make it a bit more pretty.

Good Food

Seafood filled tacos.

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Inspired by tar-tar chips from work of course, shop bought though, bigger in size and not so lovely in taste, as the potato ones we serve in Dinings.

I made the filling of steamed shrimps, fresh chopped chilli, lots of fresh coriander, mayo,  chopped shallot, tabasco and some seasoning.  First, some lovely ripe  sliced avo went on the bottom of each taco, then filled them up and topped with some more coriander. Yum, very nice starter before the pesto we had tonight.

Good Food, Uncategorized

Best scallops I have ever cooked.

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As much as I love scallops, I hardly ever cook them, somehow I prefer when somebody does it for me, like The Chief last Wednesday, when we ate at Dinings. My scallops tonight came from Dinings though; Cathal said that buying them in Waitrose is lame and that I should get some from work, at a decent price, the quality however will be out of this world in comparison to the supermarket ones. So I did. Goemon gave me some shells as well to present the dish in a posh way.

I’m busy redecorating the bedroom today, so dinner had to be relatively quick;  I marinated the scallops in a mixture of chilli garlic paste, sesame  oil and soy sauce, nothing measured, as usual. 🙂  I pan fried them and served on the bed of green salad with some fried rice on the side. Very pleased with the result. Chocolate fondants are in the oven as I write, green tea ice cream ready. Then it’s back to painting for me and washing up for Florek. 🙂

Eaten out

A few tasty ones from Paris

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We went to see The Guyotki last weekend. As usual had a great time and ate lots good stuff.

A French baguette can’t be compared with anything baked in the UK.

 

The macaroons were mouth watering and the cake I snapped in the patisserie when Moka was paying for the macaroons.

Good Food, Room for improvement

Chilli garlic marinated cod- posh fish and chips.

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I can still taste it, while I’m typing and can’t decide what I could have done better. Of course the one at work is better, different cod, for sure, done by the professionals, plus I think I overcooked mine a wee bit ( didn’t time it very well, the chips took too long in the oven ).

I bought my cod and marinated it last night, following all the advice from Dinings Kitchen, to make sure it soaked in all the flavours. The marinade was chilli garlic paste, sesame oil, soy sauce and sugar. At work it’s simply grilled, I wrapped mine in the foil and baked it and finished it off under the grill, served with home made oven chips and minted peas. Very pleasant, but there is room for improvement.

Good Food

Chorizo pasta with rocket and aubergine.

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That will be my staff meal for everyone tomorrow. A wee bit bigger portion though.

I bought 2 kinds of nice chorizo from Waitrose’s counter this morning, the more spicy it is, the better for this dish, if not spicy, can be played around with using some chilli oil or chilli garlic paste, that I still happened to have had in the fridge. I fried it up with some chopped onions, celery, an aubergine, a few cup mushrooms, added a can of good passata and adjusted the flavours with some seasoning and chilli stuff. Cooked the pasta, tossed it in, a generous amount of lovely fresh rocket on top and parmesan. Yum.

Dessert

Hugh’s Chocolate Cake

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Yumminess from Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall. Second time within 2 weeks I’m making it; last week for the boys at work to make up for the extra work I made them do when I screwed up a take away and pissed everyone off. Tomorrow I’m having another new culinary experience, I’m cooking a staff meal for us,never cooked a 15 men dinner in my life, surely it will require  some help, but nevertheless. The cake is coming along, as a dessert.

250 g of dark chocolate was melted with 250 g of butter.  4 egg yolks creamed with 200 g of sugar ( white and brown, just as Hugh suggests ) , egg whites whipped up. The chocolate and butter mix was added to the eggs, nicely mixed, 50 g of plain flour and same amount of ground almonds added in, and then, in bits, the egg whites. Topped with flaked almonds- my touch- and baked for 30 minutes in 170 degrees. Until just set, should be quite wobbly inside.

My second touch this evening, I sliced it in half and spread some lovely plum conserve by my Mum, just to make it a bit different. Two little ones are for us, the big one is for tomorrow.

On the joys of cooking and eating