You may have spotted by now that I cook proper meals every day, and that I use a fair number of recipes from cookery books and magazines/newspapers, as well as devising my own recipes. I thought it would be interesting to sometimes write a diary for the week showing you what I have cooked for dinner. I am not including breakfasts, as my breakfast is usually the same each morning – Greek yoghurt with fresh fruit and honey. I have not photographed every meal, especially as sometimes we eat left-overs of a previous meal. For lunch I usually make sandwiches or have left-overs of some dinner which needs eating up. I’ll include the lunches if they were particulary notable or if I made some bread from a recipe that I’d like to share. Sometimes I shall also include some home-bakes for afternoon tea or pudding.
Sunday 10th September
Dinner: Roast Chicken and Potatoes with Apple Stuffing, Carrots, Peas and Gravy
Although I have no photo of this meal, I’d just like to tell you about the stuffing. We have three apple trees in our garden, all of which produce reasonable crops each year. Having not had time to make an apple pudding, I decided to make an apple stuffing. For this I mixed 4oz breadcrumbs, 2oz melted butter (you could use suet instead), a handful of freshly chopped herbs such as parsley and thyme, a beaten egg, two grated apples and a little lemon rind and juice. On this occasion I stuffed the body cavity of the chicken, but you could also make stuffing balls. To make this meal easier, as we were sitting in the living room having drinks and nibbles with relatives whilst it was cooking, I put some unpeeled maincrop potato pieces in the tin with the chicken whilst roasting it.
Later on I cooked fresh carrots and peas together in a pan with a small amount of water, rosemary, vanilla extract, a knob of butter and a teaspoon of sugar. I cooked the carrots for about 10 minutes before adding the fresh peas and then cooking them together for another five minutes. I always make my gravy by adding some vegetable water, wine, dijon mustard and a spoon of home-made jelly to the juices in the roasting tin.
Monday 11th September
I unexpectedly went out for an early dinner/meeting, so made pizzas for Paul and Jess. My dinner is pictured below. We went to the Black Boy pub in Shinfield: https://www.baronspubs.com/blackboy/
The meal was excellent, and the staff were really helpful and available with accurate information for a colleague who is gluten intolerant.
Tuesday 12th September
Pork Osso Buco with Aubergines, Apples and Chickpeas, served with mash
Okay, confession time! This recipe was not one of my best! I wanted to leave something for Paul to put in the oven whilst I was out at yet another meeting. I could then make the mashed potato on my return. The dish would have been perfect without the aubergine, but it was in the oven too long and was of too soft a texture to go with the other ingredients, particularly serving it with mash. I cooked the meat in some lovely cider which we bought on holiday in Spain this year: http://www.agroturismoarratzain.com/
So in future, I’d leave out the aubergine and use some fennel instead for a crunchier texture.
Wednesday 13th September
Ratatouille and Melting Mozarella Crumble from Sainsburys Magazine September Issue
This dish was a real winner! We eat vegetarian food at least a couple of times a week, and this dish fitted the bill and satisfied Paul, who misses the solid taste of flesh more than I do! It is a fairly standard ratatouille recipe with the addition of spinach. It is piled into a baking dish and has mozarella torn over the top before adding a crumble topping made with breadcrumbs, rosemary and toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds. You then bake it until it is crisp and bubbling. I think that my breadcrumb mixture was particularly tasty, as I was using up some mini bruschetta topped with tomatoes and olive oil. They had gone soft, but were perfect blitzed into crumbs, tomatoes included.
Thursday 14th September
Indian-spiced Celeriac Rosti with herb yoghurt from Sainsburys Magazine September Issue
In the picture you will see that I did also eat up the remains of the aubergine sauce left-over from the pork casserole, so for me this was not quite a vegetarian dish. Rosti are a fun dish to make and to give a different texture to vegetables. Apparently celeriac is also very low in calories. The suggestion was to serve the rosti with mango chutney, and I just happened to have made a couple of jars of that recently – so much better home-made!
Friday 15th September – Fish Pie made according to a Jamie Oliver recipe (The Return of the Naked Chef 2000)
I have made this wonderful pie many times, and have adapted the recipe to suit my tastes and preferences. The best tip I learnt from Jamie by making this pie was that it is not necessary to cook fish before putting it into a pie. This means that you use fewer pans, and that the fish holds its shape better. Jamie includes spinach and carrot in his recipe. I have always used more carrot than he suggests, and I also add fennel and celery. Originally this was a way of bribing my daughter Jess into eating more vegetables, as she has always loved fish pie. I continue to make the pie with these additions even if I am not trying to deceive children.
Saturday 16th September Chicken with Chorizo, Chick Peas and Kale from Davina’s 5 Weeks to Sugar Free
I was not particularly looking for sugar-free recipes, but I spotted this book in my mother’s house and noted a few really good recipes in it. Chorizo and chick peas are two of my favourite ingredients and I could happily just make a meal out of these ingredients. This went really well with a jacket potato and butter.
During the week I also made Portuguese Custard Tarts using this recipe: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/portuguese-egg-custard-tarts
Apple and Rosemary Loaf, using an Alice Hart recipe in the Waitrose Magazine September Issue, and Jaffa Cakes using one of Felicity Cloake’s Guardian recipes: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/oct/27/how-to-make-the-perfect-jaffa-cakes
These are more like cakes than the commerically made variety, and have to be consumed fairly quickly! See my photos of the home-baking below:
