Pig-on-pig with brocolli and caponata

Wow, this dish inspired me to get blogging again - it just looked so appetising I couldn't resist photographing it. (And now we've found our usb/camera lead, I can actually upload pictures again which makes blogging seem work it.) Fortunately this meal tasted just as good as it looked - a great Sunday night dinner. I wrapped a pork fillet in streaky bacon which had been layered and spread with grainy french mustard and roasted it for about an hour at somewhere around 180/200 degrees centigrade. We served it with tenderstem broccoli and a sort-of caponata (which I rustled up with aubergine, red onion, capers, tomatoes and some herbs). The caponata was delicious the today for lunch with a wholemeal pitta. Yum. I'm so happy I bought another pork fillet which is sitting in our freezer waiting for a suitable occasion, which for us piggies will probably be next weekend...

Tonight's sausage supper

Yay, I've caught up! This was what we ate tonight - Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Toulouse sausages, with olive oil/garlic mashed new potatoes (the new favourite, again) and tenderstem broccoli. I added grainy mustard and ketchup to my plate too - you can't have sausages and mash without ketchup, and mustard adds a certain kick. A fairy garlicky meal - but a good and filling one. I couldn't even finish my potatoes, and that doesn't happen often.

Update on the week's eating - Thurs to Sat lunch

I can't believe I haven't blogged for an entire week. It's gone so fast. And I'm finding it difficult to remember everything I've eaten, which is most unusual for me. Lets think:

I had this prawn and noodle stirfry one day last week - I think it was probably Thursday as we'd been out till quite late and wanted some fast food. It was nice - I used a Blue Dragon oyster and spring onion sauce, some big prawns, chopped up veg including carrots, onions, courgettes, peppers and a lone leek, and we shared a block of sharwood's thin noodles and sprinkled it with fresh coriander. It was tasty.

On Friday lunchtime I was starving and wanted some energy food, so I made a pasta with pesto, an onion, a large courgette and cubed mozzarella (the 'light' version from Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself - which was fine in this). Hmmm, I might have pasta and pesto today, I do fancy that.

For friday supper we had salmon, poached in the microwave in my fish steamer with semi-mashed, garlicky new potatoes, leeks in white sauce and broccoli. Sadly I don't have a photo of this meal - I must have been tired and hungry.

At the weekend my aunt came round for lunch and we gave her chicken fajitas. They were good and I realised how long it had been since I'd had fajitas. When I was a student I used to make myself veggie fajitas regularly for lunch - it was a quick, nutritious meal and tastes so good. Expect to see more tortilla-based platefuls on this blog soon!

Friday food (b) salmon with sweet pototo mash, leeks in white sauce and broccoli

Mmmmm, this was great. And it looks so nice and colourful. It was quite quick too - I simmered the peeled and cubed sweet spuds while I made leeks in white sauce. The salmon took about 4 minutes in the microwave, steamed above some milk, with a slice of lemon on top of each, and I bunged the broccoli in with the sweet potatoes to simmer for a few minutes before I served (to create as little washing up as possible). Lovely, especially with a glass of white wine - who cares about January detox anymore? Not me it seems...

Sunday supper of beef and ale casserole

A casserole on a chilly day seems like proper home cooking. I think I've blogged about this one before too - it's a really nice recipe from the Waitrose website, with a bottle of Timothy Taylor's ale and balsamic vinegar. I add mushrooms, sometimes use whole shallots instead of onions and thicken the sauce with some extra flour if I feel like it. Last time I made it I used the gloriously thick Belazu balsamic vinegar (the food of the Gods - it's expensive but worth every penny - it's just sublime drizzled over a tomato salad) and it didn't work as well as before, when I used a cheap one, so I specifically bought a horrible, thin Balsamic vinegar from Sainsbury's purely for cooking purposes. This seemed to give a better result.

I left the casserole doing its stuff in the oven for a good 2 hours, and served it with lightly mashed new potatoes with garlic and olive oil, carrots and broccoli. It was lovely, and we ate less than half of it so there's loads in a pot in the freezer for another day. I was pleased - I'd bought Sainsbury's be good to yourself casserole steak with a little trepidation (I made a spag bol with their BGTY mince once and it was horrible, grisly and flavourless) but it was beautifully tender and tasty.

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...

Another prawn stirfry

It was about 9.00pm and we'd just got in and were starving. We needed fast, tasty, hot food - and within about 6 minutes we were eating this steaming hot, healthy prawn stirfry. We shared a block of sharwood's fine egg noodles, bubbled in boiling water for 3 minutes, cooked up a sainsbury's stirfry pack with extra broccoli, the end of a yellow pepper and some old and slightly squidgy cherry tomatoes, a pack of wonderful Taste the Difference king prawns, and a sachet of blue dragon chow mein sauce. My boyfriend cooked it all too - just lovely.

Fish pie decadence

decadent > adjective
- characterized by or reflecting a state of moral or cultural decline.
- luxuriously self-indulgent
[The New Oxford Dictionary of English]

We've just been to our friends S&R for a home-made, fish pie supper, and my god, we are stuffed. You can see the meal to the left - succulent, creamy, filling and perfect on a stormy Sunday night like tonight. The broccoli was a crisp, strong green and delicious and the sweetcorn, as you would expect, was sweet. Both not only looked colourful, as you can see, but were a good match for the meal. It was so moreish we each had seconds, and had there been any left, I reckon everyone could have eaten a third portion, but more was to follow, courtesy of M&S puddings...

This was not just chocolate pudding. It was overpoweringly rich Marks & Spencers' chocolate pudding. It needed cream, and we had it with ice-cream too, as a decadent addition. Even in quarters, and it wasn't that big, it just tipped us over the edge into that slightly sick yet satisfied with the amount of full-on food feeling. I needed to lie on the sofa with my stomach in the air afterwards - in a good way. As shop-bought puddings go, I give it fairly high marks, although it wasn't particularly exciting - hence the need for cream and ice-cream.

It's 3 hours later and my stomach still feels nicely rounded from the inside. I have a pre-hibernation, autumnal Sunday evening feel. We shouldn't have to go to work tomorrow. Great meal guys - thanks!