This pretty looking salad is easy, yummy and lovely.

All it takes is some rocket, some parma ham slices, a few cherry tomatoes, 2 hard boiled eggs- boiled for about 6 minutes, no more, some red grapes for sweetness, a nice, ripe avo and some parmesan to finish. And that’s it! The dressing on the salad is the usual and lovely olive oil and balsamic and on the eggs just a tiny bit of mayo.

It always works.

I fancied something light this evening and went to a chestnut mushroom risotto. Not sure if will be using that king of mushrooms for risotto again, wasn’t blown away by the favour. It was a nice meal, though.

I fried a shallot and some sliced mushrooms, added some arborio rice I had left after shopping at Carluccio’s (therefore  £2406  per kg) and coated it all nicely in the oil and shallot stuff. Then gradually added some hot chicken stock and white wine and kept on stirring- risotto has to be looked after all the time, can’t be left alone. The liquid has to be added gradually and not topped up until nearly completely evaporated. Herb wise I went for thyme from my garden and when the rice was nice and cooked after about 20 minutes, I added lots of lovely parmesan and topped it up with fresh rocket. And more parmesan.

As for the mushrooms it might be porcini next time. From the woods of Poland.

First time I had a nice, real quiche was a few years ago  in Paris, when Moka and I had  delightful 5 days to ourselves, sightseeing, chatting, eating, drinking and having a good time with no men around. As far as I remember Moka made it with spinach and feta, or was it roasted peppers?…

Quiche is lovely, quick and easy due to the fact, that a ready made short crust pastry can be bought for a quid and a bit. I pre bake the pastry before the runny filling goes in, otherwise it won’t bake properly and will be soggy.

Mine and Florian’s favourite filling is the bacon and leek one, today I threw in a couple of mushrooms as well. I fry up the pancetta, add the chopped leeks to it, season well and put onto a pre – baked pastry base.

In a bowl I mix 2 eggs, a good hand full of grated cheddar, some single cream, season it well not forgetting a good pinch of nutmeg. It should have a consistency of a thick sour cream. I pour it onto the base topped with bacon and stuff and bake it off for about half an hour.

Serve it green salad or with some lovely broccoli, like I did this evening.

Simple!!! So simple and so delicious! And cheap!

The idea came from Julia Child’s book, what I changed was the chicken stock base rather than water, it’s got to have flavour!

To the boiling stock I add equal amount of roughly chopped, peeled potatoes and chopped leeks and cook it off for about 40 minutes, then blitz, season well, add a touch of cream and parsley and have some lovely crusty bread and butter ready to go with it. Yum!!!! 🙂

Heston Blumenthal and Delia Smith are doing something together for Waitrose, hence lots of interesting recipe leaflets in the shop, that takes a huge chunks of my earnings…. 🙂

This is the first by Heston I ever tried and it worked.

I bought the pastry ( and some baking beans for that occasion) and baked it off to have it ready for my first ever lemon curd. I used 2 whole eggs, an egg yolk, beaten, a juice and zest of 2 whole unwaxed lemons, 110 g of sugar and vanilla sugar and 110 g of butter, put it all in the pan on a small heat and stirred with a whisk for about 15 minutes, not letting it simmer. Then, when it does simmer, after 5 seconds took it off the hear, put it through a fine sieve and covered with cling film, chilled in the fridge.

When my pastry base cooled down I transferred the curd onto it and only then tasted it for the first time- loved it!!!!

As seen on the photo, there is a room for improvement presentation wise, but as I made it from half a portion, there was too much pastry and not enough curd, next time will make it for some more people and it will be beautiful. Served with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.

Ewa told me a while ago, having first seen my blog, there is a film I absolutely have to see. I bumped into it in HMV yesterday, watched it, loved it, cooked from a little cookbook attached to it and made Florian watch it tonight. It’s called ” Julia & Julie”, awesome movie.

Being off today, I had all this time to go to Waitrose, do my shopping and then make the stew as well as the dessert.

First things first, though.I fried a few bacon rashers, put them aside in the casserole. Then I browned a few chunks of beef, not too many, as I cook for two most of the time. Put it in the casserole, seasoned well and dusted with flour. In all those meat and bacon juices I sauteed some roughly chopped onions and carrots, added to the rest, then poured some good red wine and beef stock over,just enough to cover the meat,  added some crushed garlic, tomato paste,thyme,  a bay leaf and stuck in the oven for about 3 hours to let it cook off slowly. Now, in Julia’s recipe there are some fried mushrooms and onions added by the end, I added some of my quality dried mushrooms, known in England as porcini and being damn expensive. I’m a lucky Oluta, who has a big jar of them in my cupboard, thanks to my parents who are keen mushroom pickers and supply me every year with more than I can use. The flavour is magnificent.

I served my beef with mashed potatoes, for which I use a potato ricer, lots of butter and some seasoning. We found the very rich sauce against the nearly sweet flavour of the mash very pleasant.

To be done again. 🙂