january 2012

 
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Sunday 1.01

Lunch: curry of chickpeas, cauli with tamarind and tahini

Dinner: mushroom soup with fried bacon, leek, spring onion

6 largeish portabello muchrooms, 1/3 onion, 1 garlic, a few porcini pieces. Slice mushrooms. Fry everything. cook together with a little cream and stock then liquidise and add some water to make it more of a soup. Fry 1 small leek, a few spring onions sliced diagonally, about 1 rasher streaky bacon, as a garnish.

Rack of lamb with ras and cumin crust, roast potatoes and baby leeks, sauce of stock and balsamic with cocoa

Sorbet, chestnuts, preserved ginger, lemon shortbread, cream

very much leftovers but very good all the same

 
Monday 2.1

Lunch: pasta (C), bulghar and various stuff (T)

we went for a ride, I asked Colin how long for, he said 2.5 hours which I ignored and we did 3 hours instead.

Dinner: carrot and feta tart

4 carrots (med-large) boiled, 1/3 onion softened with some dill, a glob of creme fraiche, 2 eggs, about 3 tbs flour, a slice of feta. All this mixed up. Make pastry with 4oz flour, 2 oz butter, bake blind then with filling. Took about 30 mins to set.

Guineau fowl legs, puy lentils and chorizo, purple potatoes

Tuesday 3.1

Cauli cheese, peas, fried potatoes

Quince, cream etc

Wednesday 4.1

celeriac cubes wrapped in prosciutto, baked; leek and gorgonzola sauce, bruschette

pears, cream, amaretti

Thursday 5.1

celeriac and apple soup

chicken, peppers, chilli, tomatoes, artichokes, rice

Friday 6.1

Ate out

Le Marrakesh

 
Saturday 7.1

Lunch: spag various

I went for a ride in the morning and Colin in the afternoon, just because that's the way it worked out so we did our own thing.

Dinner: baked stuffed onions

puy lentil galettes, red cabbage-beetroot slaw

both from a newspaper freebie sample from Yotam Ottolenghi's book, which we'll buy when it's in paperback, cos we are cheap

Sunday 8.1

Lunch: spinach with chorizo and onions, fried potato and polenta

Dinner: potatoes and onions slow cooked with Parma ham, cos salad with tomato and olive dressing

pears with candied ginger and the usual stuff

 
Monday 9.1

WR corn fritters, salad

tortillas with chicken, avocado, peppers, tomatoes, coriander

Tuesday 10.1

Jerusalem artichoke and cashew soup

NRY was selling Jerusalems cheap so I bought a load and made tons of soup.

Fillet steak, porcini and mushrooms, peas, rice

Wednesday 11.1

potatoes, onions, ham; braised little gem lettuce.

We have at last, some 30 years after they became standard in UK kitchens, a microwave oven. The main dish tonight was the same as Saturday's; Colin cooked two lots. This was less successful than the other perhaps because the porcelain dish does not conduct heat as well as the metal one so it didn't cook as much. But the microwave did a good job of heating it.

Christmas pud

Thursday 12.1

black beans in chipotle-chocolate sauce, tortillas, fried spring onions

sausage, red cabbage, rosti

Friday 13.5

pumpkin gnocchi, pecan and gorgonzola sauce; braised red chicory

By pumpkin I mean crown prince squash. Half of a medium sized one came to about 1lb of flesh. by the way, swords in stones in eg the Arthurian style have nothing on a kitchen knife embedded in a crown prince. I boiled this in small chunks then tried to dry it out a bit in the oven but it is still quite a lot of water. I tried not to put too much flour in. I mashed it and mixed in 3oz flour but this was nowhere near enough so I think 5oz went in eventually. Even then the mix is quite wet. I cooked them in 3 batches, kept warm, then mix with sauce. They worked very well. Amazingly when cooked just right they set to just the right firmness even if they were very messy shapes. Magic.

This was all in a terrible panic rish because I'd been to Waitrose then gone for a run and had about 23 seconds to do all this and have a shower before my sweetikins came back home

lemon brioche bread and butter pudding

I had bought a brioche loaf in the xmas panic buying, just in case. This used 4 slices of it. I made a sort of custard with juice and zest of a lemon, 1 egg, what seemed like loads of sugar, and some single cream, maybe about 4floz. This all got sqauched into the small oval gratin dish with some candied peel and sultanas. Then cooked in te oven. It was just about perfect, the balance of custard and bread. But maybe a teeny amount more sugar would not have gone amiss

 
Saturday 14.1

Lunch: spag with tomato basil cream

Dinner: Guinea fowl, apricot, walnut and dried orange peel stuffing, raost potatoes and

we had been for what was planned as a 2 hour ride. We rode north keeing below the hills, because it had been frosty. We did 2 and 3/4 hours. We were hungry.

WR cheesecake

Colin said he wanted something indulgent (meaning, not like the Tracey special yesterday)

Sunday 15.1

Lunch: dhal and rice

Dinner: ate out

Bras Blanc

 
Monday 16.1

Butter beans, chorizo; WR focaccia

WR pancakes, choc cherry cream sauce

Tuesday 17.1

WR boreks, cos salad

Borscht

Wednesday 18.1

Guineau fowl legs, stuffing, orange sauce, braised chicory, potatoes

Parsnip cake, cream

Thursday 19.1

Jerusalem artichoke soup

Pumpkin in sesame and sesame, fried; chard and red onion, polenta

Friday 20.1

Guineau fowl leftovers, fried, sesame seeds; chard, cbbage, beans, ginger; soba noodles with tamarind sauce

Cheese and cake, at Janet's

 
Saturday 21.1

Lunch: quinoa, chorizo, cauli and flower sprouts

Dinner: Duck breast, peaches, fried potatos, peas

Parsnip, carrot, ginger soup

Sunday 22.1

Lunch: spag with chard, flower sprouts, cream, balsamic

Dinner: Ate out

Zizzi, we inevitably both had the arancini

 
Monday 23.1

risotto of beetroot, feta, hazlenuts

peaches, brioche, cream

Tuesday 24.1

lamb sausage, braised onions, bubble and squeak

pancakes, with rum raisin cream

Wednesday 25.1

carrot tart

vegie haggis, mashed swede and potato, onion gravy

Thursday 26.1

salad of blached cabbage and flower sprouts, fried apple and haggis

black pudding, cauliflower thing, pumpkin scones

the cauli thing was half a cauli cooked in milk then pureed then I mixed in an egg and baked it. It set in a convincing way

 
Friday 27.1

Ate out

Mayflower

  Saturday 28.1

Lunch: Ate out

Malvern Hills hotel

Dinner: at Chris's

I did a pave for dessert

Sunday 29.1

Lunch: eggs, leeks, potatoes

Dinner: Risotto with feta, confit tomatoes, olives

Christmas pud, ice cream

  Monday 30.1

Spicy peanut soup. 1 large sweet potato, 1 red pepper, 2oz roasted unsalted peanuts made into a butter, about 4oz tinned tomatoes, an onion, some garlic, some chilli and ginger. Slice the pepper, fry until soft, sweat the sweet potato and onion, add the garlic, chilli and ginger to soften, then the tomatoes, pepper and peanut butter; simmer for 20 mins; liquidise.

Manglalore curry (potatoes and mushrooms), rice

Tuesday 31.1

Ate out

Grille, with John

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