This is the life

To come in from a hard day's work to find a chicken roasting in the oven above a mirepoix of vegetables and some fluffy jacket potatoes - and be eating it all within half an hour - is ideal. The beauty was... it was all done for us by my kind mother. We'd gone back to my parents for the weekend and they'd gone out, leaving the food cooking for when my boyfriend, a brother and I arrived.

It was fantastic. We guzzled the moist and tender chicken (with crispy bacon on top), perfect spuds and a flavoursome mix of veg (onion, garlic, celery, parsnips, turnips and carrots, seasoned with black pepper and oregano). We also warmed a tin of sweetcorn for a bit of extra colour. Perfect. We had thought we'd get a takeaway but this was better by far.

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.

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.

More roast beef lunch

This joint is lasting forever... we each had another couple of slices from it for our lunch, and it's not even finished yet. This was my enormous meal - I got a salad from the canteen salad bar (mixed leaves, thai noodle salad. tomatoes, a boiled egg because they looked so nice and some grated cheese) and then added the slices of cold roast beef and some more grainy, cider and horseradish mustard. Lovely and filling.

Cold roast beef lunch

Mmmmm. I think as soon as we finish the cold remains of Sunday's joint of beef, I'm going to go and buy and roast another one. I'm not sure my arteries will like that much, but wow, beef is without a doubt my favourite meat. Tender, flavourful, bloody and fleshy looking - there's no way my lunch could pass for a soya-based Linda McCartney 'steak'.

I carved 4 slices from the joint this morning, wrapped two in foil for my boyfriend, and two for me. And we each had a dessert spoon of Suffolk Mud cider and horseradish mustard in a little pot. Then it was up to us to buy the rest of our lunch as we weren't sure if we'd want some sort of a bread roll with our roast beef or a salad later on.

I decided to go to Tesco and I bought (there wasn't a great choice of protein-free salads) a 'You Are What You Eat' mixed salad with seeds & balsamic & olive oil dressing. It was an attractive combination of escarole, wild rocket, lollo rosso, and lots of rather dry shredded beetroot. It had a sachet of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower and linseeds) and a sachet of ok balsmic and olive oil dressing. When I tried to tip it out onto a plate I realised it was huge, so the photo to the left (to follow) only shows about half of it. I was glad the seeds were there as there were a good amount and they really made a difference to the textures and flavour of the meal. The same goes for the mustard - it was lovely with both the cold beef and the salad.

Fairly healthy, nicely filling and delicious - I feel spoilt to have had such a nice lunch.

Weekend food

This picture sums up our weekend's food - local, Kentish produce.

We had a delicious venison casserole last night with jacket potatoes and green beans. The venison and potatoes were from my parents' local farmers' market, the tomatoes used in the casserole were from their garden - I doubt the beans or red wine were local though. It was delicious - a lovely November meal - warming, filling, rich-tasting, and with beautifully tender meat. I'm afraid I haven't got a photo of the plate - I was too hungry to find my camera.


For pudding we had a quick version of tiramisu in individual pots. Sadly, again, I gobbled mine up before taking a photo, but it looked delicious, covered in freshly grated chocolate shavings.

And today is Sunday - so it's a big roast lunch for us, upping the red meat stakes in our diet a little further. I should really confess that the meal you see next to this was not actually my meal... I usually avoid gravy (it depends on what it's made of - red wine = good, bisto or boring flour and potato water = bad. Actually, it's mainly because I can't abide soggy potatoes, and if the meat's good and tender enough it's beautiful without gravy, which can often mask rather than enhance the flavour). I put up a photo of one of my family's meals because I know that with gravy it looks like a better meal - even I can see my plate looks like there's something missing.

We had wonderfully succulent roast beef from the village butcher with all the trimmings (crispy roasted potatoes and parsnips with carrots and cabbage), followed by pudding which, if we discount the sugar in the crumble, had virtually no food miles involved in its transport from plant to table.

The same can't be said for the wine, which was once kept on a boat and probably travelled most of the way around the world several times before reaching our table - I won't go into the story of why we were able to drink it, but safe to say we were privileged today to drink one of the best clarets in the world - a Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1970 Bordeaux - probably a rarer find in homes like ours than the pears we had for dessert.

They were from a tree planted against a wall in my mum and dad's garden. They estimate it was planted in about 1890 - the area was once an enormous fruit garden - and despite how the plant has been ignored for the past hundred years or so, it still produces the most amazing fruit. They are actually cooking pears - very unusual these days. We had the pears poached with quinces from a garden down the road (see photo of the fruits looking pretty in a basket at the top of this post) and quince and apple (from down the road too) crumble, with a bit of vanilla ice-cream. See my half-eaten pudding on the left too.

And now, in my usual Sunday afternoon fashion, I think I'm going to go for a nap - weekend naps cannot be beaten, especially after such a filling meal.