Friday Sunday lunch

It's a Friday, but it seems that it's a Sunday, as we're definitely having a full Sunday roast and pudding. I don't know why and I wouldn't dare ask in the post-Christmas frenzy we seem to be experiencing in this house. But I'm not complaining. We had delicious roast beef (topside) from the village butcher, perfectly rare and tender, as you'll see in the picture, with roast potatoes and parsnips, green beans and cabbage. We served it with Suffolk Mud (the brand name - thankfully there's no mud in the ingredients) cider and horseradish mustard and other horseradishes and mustards which went well too.

For pudding we had a sort-of pavlova. Home-made meringue covered with a layer of whipped double cream, then a layer of British pears, sliced, and pomegranate seeds. Delicious. I've shown you a picture of it on my plate and a picture of it whole. It was all eaten very fast. Scrumptious.

Boxing Day Turkey Curry

And here is the Boxing Day turkey curry, made by my brother to a secret recipe - I'll get it out of him soon. We had it with daal (lentil curry - pulses aren't my favourite food, but I'll try most things), a delicious onion salad (made with white onions, tomatoes, cucumber, cumin and lemon juice, I think), yoghurt and tortillas and pittas instead of rice. I was too full to appreciate it really, but it was good.

Boxing Day lunch

This was a 'light' (hehe) Boxing Day lunch, in anticipation of this evening's turkey curry. It's a massive platter of seafood salad - and no, this wasn't all for me - it fed six people, with seconds. The salad contained romaine lettuce and mixed, locally grown salad leaves, cucumber, tomato, avocado, a few sundried tomatoes and marinated garlic cloves, smoked trout and smoked mussels from the local farmers' market and tuna and was served with wedges of lemon and mum's homemade bread rolls.

It's twenty to five and I'm still stuffed and have no idea how I'm going to find the space for some of my brother's turkey curry tonight. Let's hope it's a late one.

Grandad's Christmas 'hamper'

I gave my Grandad a pot of my homemade tomato and apple chutney, some Sainsbury's organic cheddar and his favourite biscuits for cheese - digestives - all in a wrapped-up shoebox. Who'd want a Harrod's hamper anyway?

Christmas Lunch

Turkey, roast potatoes, sausage stuffing balls, veggie (walnut and apricot) stuffing, bacon rolls, sausages, sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta, peas and gravy (not seen, but I did have some on the meat), bread sauce (not seen either as it wasn't on my plate yet).

Christmas pudding (some burning booze made a run for it and burnt along the table - a scary Christmas moment there - and it was alight for so long we thought the plate might crack) and the tastiest threesome on the Christmas table - brandy butter, oozing rum butter and cream. I don't even like Christmas pudding much, but I don't need much coercing to eat these three.

Christmas Eve super-salad supper

Ok, so this isn't our usual Christmas Eve supper, but as we had a big lunch my Dad made one of his warm super-salads in the evening. As it's Christmas, we followed it with cheese, of course. There's barely a meal around Christmas without cheese in this house, execpt maybe breakfast. This warm salad had toulouse sausage and chorizo (cooked with onions, peppers, mushrooms, courgettes and cherry tomatoes) marinated garlics, sundried tomatoes, and probably lots of other things from the fridge and larder. The only thing is, I'm not used to waking up feeling hungry on Christmas morning after our traditional gammon feast the night before... maybe that's why I can't sleep.

Angela's Christmas Eve Rum Truffles

I can't sleep. But 8.30 on Christmas morning in a child-free house is definitely a time for sleeping...

As I forgot to blog about the chocolate truffles I made last night, I thought I'd upload them now, before seeing what needs to be done in the kitchen. I made a similar batch to those I rolled for my friend's birthday on the 9th December, but this time I made sure there was a serious amount of booze in there - it is Christmas, after all. It's been sort-of a tradition over the last decade or so to make them every year if we feel like there isn't enough chocolate in the house at Christmas.

Christmas Eve gammon lunch

We normally have this meal in the evening on Christmas Eve - I'm not sure why we had it at lunchtime. Perhaps it was because this year Christmas Eve is on a Sunday, or perhaps it was to ensure my twin brother arrived home in the morning - I'm not sure. But anyway, for lunch we had delicious moist gammon, simmered for a couple of hours with an onion, peppercorns, a bay leaf and cloves, mashed potato and celeriac, leeks in a white sauce and sweetcorn. We served it with my apple and tomato chutney (really easy to make - I promise I'll put up the recipe soon) which went surprisingly well with the gammon (although I prefer it with cheddar) and lots of grainy mustard on the table.

To follow, as is our family tradition, we had mum's homemade trifle. Unctious and creamy, with raspberries from the garden via the freezer, it is wonderful. And as I write there's still loads left, slowly slipping down the side of the bowl to make a sticky, creamy, fruity mess in the middle for tomorrow or boxing day. I can hardly wait.

Venison casserole...

Made with lots of red wine, vension from the local farmers' market, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes, served with green beans and delicious jacket potatoes. I've kept mine off the plate as I like the skin to stay as crispy as possible so I prefer it if it doesn't sit on the plate getting soggy in the sauce. I did mash a bit of the fluffy potato into the sauce while I was eating it - lovely.

Warming chorizo pasta

This was my late lunch on Friday. Hungover again (damn this Christmas party season), we had had Christmas champagne at work about 11 o'clock, and by the time I reached my parents' house at about 3.00pm I was starving and needed something big. I made myself a pasta dish - penne pasta, chunky chorizo sausage, onion, red pepper and my mum's homemade tomato sauce from the freezer. It was just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. My mum asked me what I thought of the tomato sauce - I was honest and said it was delicious but very lemony (surprising as it only had a dash of lemon juice in it, I suppose to add a bit of a fresh tang) so I don't think chorizo was the best match for it. With prawns it would be fab. Great!

I was quite excited when I saw this...

Well, relatively excited, or maybe as excited as I could be seeing a new product in a supermarket that I don't care that much about. Anyway, I thought this 'panini pizza' looked like it had potential. (Roasted veg, mozzarella, panini/pizza - great!) Sadly, I was wrong. Ok, I know pictures on ready-made food boxes aren't always to be trusted, but really... this only had about 2 bits of veg in it, and a load of cream cheese (it says creme fraiche but I think they are lying).

I griddled it, as instructed 'for best results'. It was pretty horrible and I wouldn't recommend it.

You may ask, I suppose, what was someone like me who usually cooks using fresh ingredients doing even in the pizza aisle? Or maybe you wouldn't ... as I reckon quite a lot of my blog disproportionately shows me to be a bit of a fast-food eater. I'm not. At least, I don't consider myself one. Just occasionally. Anyway, it's the Christmas party season and the fridge is bare. And I had to get some food in that my boyfriend would consider cooking if he was home, hungry and in a hurry and I wasn't around to force him to eat healthily. So I bought a couple of pizzas as I could shove them in the freezer at the end of the week if they weren't eaten.

The White Hart, Drury Lane, again

This time I had a burger and chips. It was fine, but the chips weren't double-fried as I had waxed lyrical about for so long, so I did look like a bit of a fool in front of my colleagues. They were all expecting the crispiest chips in London. The pub was too busy in the kitchen so to allay our hunger pangs as we waited (not as long as I thought we would have to wait) we nibbled on spicy nuts and seeds. I felt a bit of a 'tit' (haha) as it did seem like we were pecking on bird food, and I must look up what some of the seeds were, but they did the job and were nicely spiced - a bit like a posh, Anglofied Bombay mix.

The burger was fine. It was served in a ciabatta bun with cheese melted on the bottom part which I always find disappointing. Surely both aesthetically and for maximum taste it's best melted on the top of the burger, under the top half of the bun? There was a little pot of tomato relish an enormous endive leaf and some rather underdone chips (in my opinion). I should have taken the top off so you could see the burger underneath, but I didn't. Sorry.

And they didn't have the marinated olives that they do so well. All in all, most of our party of six seemed pleased, but I know they could have done better.

Hangover tuna etc...

Today I had a mammoth hangover. It was our work Christmas party last night and we made the most of the free booze. Fortunately I made it into work - I might not have been particularly productive, but I guess those who managed to make it in were able to show a bit of willing! At lunchtime we needed carbs - carbs and cheese. And somewhere cheapish with a free table for 6 in central London 10 days before Christmas. The obvious choice? Well, Pizza Express, of course as they don't take table reservations. I decided to have an American with extra sundried tomatoes - I guess they didn't have any sundried as when my pizza turned up I saw they'd replaced them with the marinated, oven-cooked tomatoes they've recently added to their menu as an appetiser. Much better - I love those tomatoes. It was wonderful - a perfect pizza in my view - but my plate was dirty with bits of old spinach which I could have done without. I wasn't sure afterwards if I felt better or worse, but by about 5.00pm I was ok, I think.

Anyway, tonight I needed something healthy and we had a pack of stirfry veg in the fridge so I thought I may as well use that. I went past a Tesco Express on my way home and saw they had tuna steaks on offer - I got two for £2 something - I thought that was pretty good. We put some brown rice on to boil and I smeared the tuna in a mixture of finely grated ginger and garlic, a couple of dessert spoons of olive oil, a spoon of lemon vinegar, some dried coriander leaves, a crushed, dried chilli and a bit of black pepper. We did the stirfry veg in a wok and added a dash or two of soy sauce and sherry vinegar, then griddled the tuna steaks on a high heat for a couple of minutes each side, or maybe even less time than that. With nutty brown rice, simple veg and deliciously tender tuna this felt like a healthy end to a decidedly unhealthy day.

Boyfriend's Birthday Beef

This was my boyfriend's chosen meal for his birthday - organic steak with potato waffles and the obligatory tomatoes, mushrooms and salad (not pictured as it was in bowls, but as you can see we needed the green). And one of the best things about this meal was that only 2 pans were used. I love a good dinner with very little washing up. One pan was the roasting tin for the waffles - the other, a griddle. I started off with the steak in a hot griddle to get the chargrilled lines, flipped it over and added the tomatoes. When the steak was still rare I put it to rest in the warm grill (only warm as it was above the hot oven) while I cooked the mushrooms and let the tomatoes stay hot in the corners of the pan. When the mushrooms were done I served it up all with mustard butter. I wish I had the excuse to have expensive steak more often - I love it. Beef is best.

Warm chorizo salad, full of my favourite flavours

And this was today's lunch, lovingly constructed by my dad while I made tomato and apple chutney in my parents' kitchen and my boyfriend did some work. He fried chorizo, onions, peppers and a tomato in a non-stick pan and served it warm over mixed dark green leaves and herbs, with delcious extras like marinated garlic cloves, sundried tomatoes and finely sliced cornichons. We had it with brown bread and butter - a flavourful Monday lunch to celebrate my last day off work before Christmas.

Succulent roast chicken

On Sunday night we went to my parents' for roast chicken. I wasn't feeling very well so I had a smallish portion, although looking at it there it really isn't so small. I was really unhappy not to finish it, although the gannets around the table swooped on my discarded sausages and spuds as soon as I was finished. The chicken was so juicy and delicious there was no need of gravy and the mixed vegetables which had been roasted underneath the chicken (it was on a rack above the veg with the bacon slices laid across it) added the necessary meat juices and moisture. As you can see, we also had green beans and roast potatoes. Fantastic.

Angela's rum truffles (sadly without the rum)

Full of M&S lasagne, I set down to the task of making truffles. Earlier that day I'd melted the chocolate, added the butter, egg yolks and cream and realised, much to my horror, that I couldn't find any rum or whiskey or booze of any kind other than beer and wine to give the truffles a bit of a kick. As booze is usually a major ingredient in my chocolate truffles I was distraught. However, I counselled myself that I was giving these truffles to my friend as a birthday present (the reason why we were away for the weekend) and that I could hardly go wrong with a mixture of chocolate, butter, cream and egg yolks. I do apologise to her though - I know they are missing a certain something to help the flavours along.


So, I'd left the mixture to set in the fridge for a few hours, then after our lunch I sat down to roll the truffles and coat them in cocoa. Here's a picture of the essentials for truffle rolling (a teaspoon, cases for the finished truffles and cocoa) - of course you also need clean hands. Even without the booze they were dark and rich - just not as good as I know I can make so I'll have to remember the rum next time.

M&S lasagne with tenderstem brocolli

As I mentioned in my last post, we were going away for the weekend... we'd planned to arrive at the seaside late on Friday night so I wanted to get a fast, filling meal that we could just shove in the oven when we got there. Things didn't go to plan and we ended up getting to the coast on Saturday morning so this was our lunch - M&S lasagne with tenderstem broccoli. The lasagne was good for a shop-bought version, but of course homemade is much better. The broccoli was great - much better than the boring usual version as I really like the slightly crunchy stems and sweet flavour. It did the job and filled us up so we were ready for our afternoon's work...

Strange pheasant meal

This funny-looking meal was another last-minute concoction. We were about to go away for the weekend and only had carrots and parsnips in the fridge. My boyfriend was walking past Waitrose and went in to buy us some protein for supper - and decided to give us a bit of a treat with these pheasant breasts wrapped with bacon, with a strange, fruity sauce. I boiled and then roughly mashed the carrots and parsnips together and served the pheasant with its odd, sweet fruity sauce with a fried onion mixed with sweetcorn - a bit of a strange meal, but it was really nice to have pheasant for a change and it used up the food we had. Could have done with some greens for colour, I think!

Burger King, Glasgow Central Station, yesterday

Urrgghh. We were hungover to hell so thought this whopper with cheese meal (with diet coke) might be a good idea. It wasn't. I had a few bites and a few chemical-tasting chips and left it. Gross. Thank god for Simply Food at stations - some nibbly bits for the train and we were fine. Phew.

Bella Italia, Hope Street, Glasgow

Simply disgusting. In fact, I was really disappointed to realise that almost all the food I've had in Scotland over the past three days has been pretty revolting. And weirdly, everything tasted of chemicals - I'm not sure why. Could it be the water or something? The Ibis hotel's red pepper and tomato soup that I had when we arrived seemed ok, but left me with a pretty sicky feeling in my stomach over the next 12 hours. Gross. Then, on Sunday, in a bit of a rush, we were trying to find somewhere that was open for food - no easy feat as it was pouring with rain and everywhere seemed to be shut. So we ducked into Bella Pasta, thinking that at least we'd get a warming meal. This was what I got.

It was supposed to be penne pasta, baked in a spicy diavola sauce, with chicken, pepperoni, peppers and red onion. The pasta was hard as nails; it certainly wasn't oven-baked - it had clearly been tipped into the dish and shoved under the grill/in the oven for too long; the sauce was fairly flavourless; the chicken was flabby, and generally it just didn't taste very nice. My boyfriend had a chicken in white wine 'oven-baked' pasta and had stomach pains for the next 24 hours.

We shared some garlic bread. But who makes garlic bread by slicing some bread and simply pouring some butter over a tiny section of each slice? I don't want to have three-quarters normal bread with no butter and a few bites of garlicy, butter-soaked bread - I want it all to be garlicky. Very strange.

I didn't say anything to the waiter - to be honest I felt so deadened by the whole experience I couldn't be bothered. A very depressing place to eat - don't even bother, even if you're stumbling around Glasgow trying to get out of the drenching rain.

Sadly blogger can't seem to put up photos at the moment - I'll put them up as soon as I can.

Nicoise salad again

This was my supper. I ate at least enough for two. It was good.