Sunday lunch

If I felt stuffed last night, today I feel like I'm bursting at the seams, after a fantastic Sunday lunch. Mum cooked roast pork with leeks from the garden (pulled this morning in the drizzly rain) in a white sauce, roast potatoes, roasted parsnips and swede, peas, apple sauce.

Big.

And then there was pudding - blackberry and apple crumble with ice-cream. The apples were from up the road and Mum had cunningly made a big batch of blackberry and apple months ago and frozen it so it was ready for the crumble topping. Blackberry and apple is easily my favourite crumble. Apple's just a bit dull and all the sour plum/rhubarb types just don't cut the mustard. It was lovely, and I haven't had time for a Sunday afternoon snooze yet. It's dull and horrible and raining, so maybe now is the time... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Proper stodgy food

When you get as much snow as we had today, you need a good, warming meal in the evening, with lots of fat and baking or roasting involved. Tonight we had chipolatas baked in the oven nestled around veg (onions, whole garlic cloves, pieces of yellow pepper, carrot and courgette) with roasted new potatoes and leeks in white sauce. Perfect winter food. I ate loads, but still feel hungry when I look at this photo and see the glistening fat on the potatoes. Such gorgeous flavours - proper stodgy food.

How did I forget about sausages?

Sausages are one of my favourite foods. And this is one of my favourite meals. I usually have it virtually every week in winter, so I'm not sure why I haven't cooked it for so long. I try not to think about what goes in to sausages, so in an attempt to minimise the rubbish we're eating I like to buy good quality sausages from farmers' markets and the butcher. Sadly, more often than not I find I don't manage it and end up buying them from supermarkets - but only their 'quality' ranges.

Rather surprisingly, a few years ago I did some taste tests with the three supermarkets near where I was living - Safeway, Tesco and Waitrose. After much testing, I found the Safeway range to shrink the least on cooking - an important quality in a sausage. And they had a great range of flavours. I thought the Waitrose range was a bit disappointing and they had very thick sausage skins which was rather unappealing, but I may have had higher expectations for their sausages than the others as their meat always seems to be good quality. I admit, I was never a big fan of buying meat in Tesco, although my brother always preferred Tesco to our local Safeway, but even he admitted the Safeway sausages beat the Tesco ones. Having written this, I'll probably find out they all are from the same supplier...

More recently, I tend to buy Sainsbury's taste the difference sausages as there are two Sainsbury's supermarkets nearby - and their Ultimate Pork Chipolatas are great. But on Friday night we cooked the packet of Taste the Difference Toulouse sausages that had been stinking out my fridge for a couple of days. I roasted them in a pan with a couple of red onions, some whole, unpeeled garlic cloves, a large carrot in batons, a courgette and most of a green pepper. They produced so much water I drained the pan a couple of times as I wanted the meal to roast, not poach - this was hugely disappointing as I'm sure they don't usually seem to be pumped with so much water.

As you can see, we had leeks in white sauce (with lots of grated nutmeg) as an accompaniment. The Toulouse sausages had a satisfyingly meaty texture and flavour and were stuffed full of garlic and herbs (unsurprisingly, after smelling them in my fridge). Despite the excess liquid produced, I like them. And as I said, I try not to think too much about what goes in them anyway. Maybe one day I'll make my own so I can be sure.

This has to be a meal I'd consider if I ever have to choose my own last supper, although I bet I'd probably forget it and choose steak instead.

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...

NYE supper of prawns and Dover sole

Wow, our brains are going to be healthy in 2007 with this amount of seafood. We had an early supper to line our stomachs and allow enough drinking time. The starter was big prawns, simply cooked with garlic and ginger (see them in the pan below), served with a bit of the bread from the day before to mop up the juices and a squeeze of lemon. They were meaty and so, so tasty. Prawns (and scallops) are easily my favourite seafood - not the tiny, flavourless supermarket prawns, but big, fresh prawns like these that pack a bit of a punch.

For mains we had our big Dover sole, grilled with lots of butter and dismembered by me (sorry - I forgot to photograph it before I served the fish on our plates) with lightly mashed new potatoes smothered in garlic and olive oil (I'd chopped the garlic earlier in the evening and left it in the olive oil to flavour it and save time later - I was quite proud of that trick!), simple leeks and I thought I'd add some colour by finishing off the cherry tomatoes with a bit of balsamic vinegar.

We didn't have any pudding - having had a load more to drink and danced around we just forgot, I think, although we had bought some cheese to nibble on later.

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.