I’ve had a boeuf bourguignon in here already, so I won’t be going into details, it was made in my nice new casserole dish – needed a new one, as I’m very good at smashing them, but what was lovely, was the mash. I threw the boiled, mashed spuds into the pan of fried bacon and leeks, added some butter for extra healthiness, plus some seasoning. Loved it. Deep, deep flavours.
Inspired by a current series of Masterchef. I was just sitting and watching some telly boy making a rhubarb fool with biscuits, while my boeuf bourguignon was nearly done in the oven, my potatoes were nearly soft, I was thinking – I need a dessert, it’s been a lovely, warm, sunny day off, we’ve had lunch at the river in Kingston, I need a nice finishing touch.
So I made some nice, quick caramel, threw some chopped pears in, left them in for about 7 minutes and cooled them. I whipped the cream with icing sugar and vanilla paste, as usual, with a touch of lemon juice. And layered it all nicely, topped with toasted flaked almonds and some grated chocolate. Nice, very sweet, but nice.
I did make more Chinese tonight, nice beef stir fry, on the photo it looks too similar to the one I made last night, so will give it a miss, when it comes to blogging. I also baked a pear cake for dessert, simple recipe from Good Food, but the damn thing didn’t bake properly. It went to the bin, I got pissed off, thought for a minute and went back to the kitchen with a selection of vocabulary that helped me express the fact, that I wanted a dessert!! There were frozen berries, there was Ambrosia and all the other necessary ingredients, so a Berry Slump was made, like in the original recipe, not with nectarines, with berries. Softened quickly in the pan with a splash of water and baked off under the mix of butter, self raising flour, sugar( all in the amount of 50 g), 2 eggs and vanilla paste, just as in the recipe months ago, lots of flaked almonds on top, 40 minutes in the medium hot oven. I ended up with a yummy sponge on a sour berries, with a lovely crunchy almonds on top. Simple, but lovely.
Florian suggested something Asian, when I asked what he feels like eating. Books have been looked through, web has been searched, recipes have been compared, Waitrose has been visited ( for the kurwa 47th time this week!!!) .
The best s/s pork I remember having was Alex’s at work, the only problem with it was the quantity, as far as I remember, cause the pan was being scraped, so I attempted to make mine at least that good. I think I succeeded.
I used a small pork fillet, thinly sliced it and fried in the wok. Added 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, a red onion, chopped bell pepper, some mange tout, some cup mushrooms, a carrot and a zucchini. Fried it up, added a chopped pineapple and a handful of beansprouts and then added the s/s sauce-; I used about 150ml of juice from under the pineapple, 3 tbsp of ketchup, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, a tbsp of white wine vinegar, same amount of honey and cornstarch. All this went into the wok and thickened nicely after a couple of minutes. I served it on a nice steamed rice. Very pleased with it, but tomorrow will make some more Chinese I think, lots of stuff in the fridge to be used.
Can’t believe it’s that long since I posted here last time.
Moka came over all the way from Paris this morning and is staying till Saturday, so I made some good food for her tonight, drowned in a bottle of wine. All this resulted in our early departure for bed…
The Chief gave me some Korean spicy sauce that is used at work to serve chargrilled wagyu and pork with, I bought 3 nice beef fillets, some nice greens- beans, baby courgettes and broccoli, steamed them first and then finished off on the pan. Steaks were cooked medium rare, just the way we like them, served with mustard mash, lovely sauce and greens. Yum.
I spotted that recipe in one of last year’s editions of Good Food. I baked it this afternoon, it’s moist, springy, sweet and sticky and I love it.
First I prepared the tin, lined with the baking paper, in went about 4 spoons of maple syrup, then 3 ripe bananas, cut in half and placed down in the syrup, while the oven was heating up to 160 degrees ( gas 3).
For the cake itself I used 100 g of softened butter, one ripe banana, 200 g of light muscovado sugar, 4 eggs, some vanilla paste, 200 g of self raising flour, 100 g of ground almonds, 1 tsp of soda and a 200g pot of Greek yoghurt.
Butter, eggs, sugar, paste and banana got beaten up together, then in went flour, almonds and soda, yoghurt in the end. All this went onto the prepared bananas and baked for around an hour. When ready, I pricked the cake and poured some more maple syrup onto the little holes, then turned it upside down.
Very, very happy with the result.
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.
The movie was nice, but this scene I enjoyed most of all.
Hopefully we’ll get to spend Christmas this year in Italy, for all the food I can’t wait already!
🙂
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.
