november

 
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Wenesday 1.11

Ovendried tomato and rocket risotto

Waitrose brie and bacon tartlet

Thursday 2.11

Ate out

Friday 3.11

Waitrose brie and bacon tartlet

Chicken casserole with chorizo, red peppers, white wine (from freezer); courgette

Saturday 4.11

NCG crab and bacon chowder

Pheasant breast with red wine and juniper; baby potatoes

Sunday 5.11

Roast Guineau fowl stuffed with ciabatta, black pudding, pine kernels, onion; gravy with fried japonica; roast potatoes; green beans in butter

Pears poached in red wine, with gorgonzola

I am back but very jet-lagged

 
Monday 6.11

Fillet steak on ciabatta croûton with pâté, sauce of mushrooms, cream, sherry, truffle oil; green beans, baby potatoes

Baked figs with preserved ginger and chilli

Tuesday 7.11

Butternut squash, lentil, chipotle soup with a cream of ground toasted cashews and mirin

Lamb in Chinese spices; shitake mushrooms, savoy cabbage, spring onions, oyster sauce; mashed potato

Wednesday 8.11

Guineau fowl, saffron almond sauce; broad beans, artichokes, rice

Quince, cream and yoghurt, shortbread

Thursday 9.11

Rabbit saddle with bacon and thyme; swiss chard with onion, garlic, japonica, stock; polenta and chickpea mash with parmesan

Apricots in Moscatel, toasted brioche, crème fraîche

Friday 10.11

Squash and lentil soup with bacon strips and crème fraîche

Partridge, roasted with balsamic-honey glaze, savoy cabbage with wasabi, potato and celeriac mash

 
Saturday 11.11

Lunch: spag with artichokes, chèvre

Dinner: Spanish lentil and pork stew, ciabatta rolls

Recipe purports to serve 4; that is, it serves 4 burly campesinos for a week

Sunday 12.11

Lunch: ate out

Dinner: Caesar salad

 
Monday 13.11

Aubergine slices, grilled, with a Sicilian sauce of tomato, anchovy, pinenuts, sultanas, cinnamon; peppadews (the hot ones) with tomatoes, olives, chèvre, artichokes; rocket; ciabatta

Colin was going to do red peppers stuffed with risotto, but the pepper was still in Waitrose.

Apricots in Moscatel

Tuesday 14.11

Cheese croquette tapas (Waitrose); chard with onion garlic tomato peppadew balsamic

Spanish lentil and pork; baguette

Wednesday 15.11

Cauliflower cheese

Rabbit hind legs, in confit; blackeye beans with spinach, onions garlic, stock; baguette

Thursday 16.11

Cauliflower and spinach in spicy peanut sauce (cumin, coriander, chilli, smoked paprika, tomato purée, ground salted peanuts), rice

Pumpkin mousse with caramelised pumpkin seeds.

This was an attempt to recreate a dessert I had at Georges, La Jolla. It wasn't much like it at all, but still very nice in its own right. 6oz butternut squash, spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, chilli, vanilla), 2-3 tbs sugar, 1 large egg, 1 sheet gelatine, 2floz cream.

I have broken a metacarpal. I can cook, but I can't wash up. The mousses I did yesterday.

Friday 17.11

Ate out

 
Saturday 18.11

Lunch: scrambled eggs on toast with truffle oil; baby leeks, button mushrooms, garlic, stock

The eggs get the award for least food miles – they are from our neighbours at the back. Colin rescued one of their hens, Lulu, who had escaped into our garden.

Dinner: NCG Puy lentil and Toulouse sausage

Venison steaks, mashed potato

I didn't write down what else we had. Colin has just informed me that the sauce was red wine, port, cream, something. I expect the veg was sugar snaps, as Colin tends to like that sort of thing.

Sunday 19.11

Lunch: dhal and rice

Dinner: Red pepper stuffed with rocket, chèvre, hazelnuts; saffron risotto, courgettes, fennel

Apricots in syrup and Moscatel wine, biscotti

 
Monday 20.11

Yorkshire Soup Co. Beetroot soup

Beefburgers, goulash sauce (tomato, carrots, paprika, chilli, cream) peas, sweetcorn, tagliatelle

Tuesday 21.11

Chickpeas, lemon, preserved lemon, chèvre; rocket; bulghar wheat with thyme and broad beans

Persimmon, poached, with orange flower water

...and all you could taste was the orange flower water

Wednesday 22.11

Sweetcorn and crab soup (garlic, ginger, soy, chilli, spring onions)

Aubergine slices in sesame batter; cavollo nero and onion (garlic, ginger, chilli, miso paste); Thai jasmine rice

Thursday 23.11

Ate out

Friday 24.11

NGC clam and bacon chowder

Oxtail, wheat kernels; cav. nero, onion, garlic, horseradish

Oxtail: 1 chipotle, bay, crushed black peppercorns, garlic, onion, carrot, Guinness.

 
Saturday 25.11

Dinner: with John

Bacon, clams, split pea purée, seaweed

This was supposed to be like the Welsh Breakfast of bacon, cockles, laver. But it’s not cockle season, and I can’t find laver. Not that Colin would eat it, he says it’s green sludge. He has never tried it. He’s just like his parents. The green pea sludge he did eat – I did 3oz dried peas, 1/2 onion softened, some roast garlic puree, drop of red wine vinegar, avocado oil. Really delicious. I didn't serve it all up.

John's mum is Welsh which is why we think we can get away with giving John strange things like this.

Sirloin steak, mushrooms and porcini, roast potato wedges, salad with roast garlic and avocado oil

The steak was Real Meat Co. I had kept a little of the oxtail sauce and added that to the mushrooms.

The potato was 3 Maris Pipers. I had been watching Heston Blumenthal’s television programme about chips. I cut each potato into 8 wedges, parboiled them, drained and cooled them and put them in the fridge - then roasted them. They were irresistible. We had no trouble getting through the lot.

The salad was supposed to be wilted spinach but Colin bought RWS salad by mistake; the salad was better.

Chilli and Vodka cake, Greek yoghurt

From Sybil Kapoor’s Taste book. It’s like a Greek citrus and almond cake, but with vodka and chilli in the syrup. I think we need more chilli, as we're getting too used to it. I think we have eaten little else over the last few weeks.

Montgomery Cheddar and Vacherin

Sunday 26.11

Lunch: spag with clams, bacon, 5 small tomatoes (the mouldy bits discarded) garlic, paprika, chilli, mirin

Tea: the cake (we took it round to Martin’s)

Dinner: Champagne, prawn and saffron risotto; broad beans.

I made the Christmas Pudding mixture. It’s more or less Delia Smith’s recipe, but with my own combination of spices, including wattleseed and chilli. I also reduce the sugar to 6.5oz, and use muscovado or molasses sugar

 
Monday 27.11

Steak strips and RWS salad; dressing of garlic, wasabi, soy, mirin, oil

Seabass fillets, fried; baby tomatoes and fennel; baby potatoes and oil

Tuesday 28.11

The lentejas y cerdo stuff from the 11th; courgettes and bread.

Cantucci and dessert wine

Wednesday 29.11

Salad with bacon and the last two of no.40’s eggs

Goat sausages, celeriac and potato mash with onion, garlic

Thursday 30.11

At Janet’s

 
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