Grilled Lamb Shoulder Chop, Radish & Carrot Salad, Buttered Jersey Potatoes - Thursday April 26th 2012

Lovely meaty shoulder chops of lamb today, with some more radish and carrot salad, dressed with Crush Lemon Dressing this time.  (My bottle of Lemon Dressing is nearly out, .. think it might be time for a little judicious begging for more as it still isn't on the website...and I am nearly out of Crush Rape Seed Oil too)

Jersey Potatoes were going to be dressed in Garlic Mayonnaise but Bob put his foot down.. no mucking about with the Jerseys! Hot and buttered please!

Naimh's Buttermilk Chicken with Red Kale & Roast Potatoes - Weds April 25th 2012

I have been meaning to cook from Naimh Shield's book Comfort & Spice for ages, but sometimes it is easy to be overwhelmed with so many good things, that you end up cooking nothing.  But I bought a rather tasty free-range chicken at the Farmer's Market on Sunday, and thought that the Buttermilk marinade Naimh used for her fried chicken sounded delicious.

As it happens, I had all the ingredients, buttermilk, garlic, rosemary, but didn't want to fry the chicken. So I decided , after a quick check with Naimh on Twitter (@eatlikeagirl ), that roasting would work ok.  The marinade is easy, just slice up your garlic, and rosemary and mix with buttermilk and a little seasoning, and then marinade the jointed chicken for around 4 hours. Drain it, and roast with a little olive oil. I added some lemon chunks as well, rather offputting when I opened the oven to baste, and found the dish swimming in liquid. The lemon had split the buttermilk, releasing the whey. But the flavour was still astounding. Naimh had said that the buttermilk acts like brining, and makes flavours really sink into the meat, whilst tenderising the meat. All of which was true.

I also had some Purple Sprouting Broccoli and some amazing Red Curly Kale, also from the Farmer's Market, that needed to used, and so dinner created itself.

The Rest of the Lamb, Wild Garlic Potato Salad, Carrot, Radish & Celery Salad - Tuesday 24th April, 2012

The last of Sunday's slow cooked lamb, served cold with a delicious trio of salads.

Fresh Italian baby leaves, shredded carrot with sliced radishes and celery, with poppy and black sesame seeds, and a gorgeous potato salad made with Apache potatoes dressed with spring onions and chopped wild garlic leaves.

All dressed with olive oil and Womersley Lemon, basil, bay and juniper vinegar 

You could almost think it was Spring.

Slow Roast Shoulder of Lamb, Very Crunchy Roast Potatoes, PSB and Leeks - Sunday April 22nd 2012

Not a frequent occurence in this house, a proper Sunday dinner, so this was a really nice change.

A shoulder of lamb, roasted slowly for around 4 hours, with rosemary but no garlic.  As tender as a young girl's thigh.
King Edward potatoes, (the only ones in my mind for roasting,) cooked at a high heat in olive oil to make for a crunch to heard a mile away.
Purple Sprouting Broccoli, still just in season, and to be made the most of whilst it is.
Leeks, adding a lovely sweetness to the plate, just sweated in a little butter.
Proper gravy. Made with the copious juices from the lamb.
and Mint sauce. Don't forget the mint sauce..

An English Sunday Dinner. 

Fat Bangers, Jersey Potatoes, Roast Mediterranean Vegetables, Mushrooms - Saturday April 21st 2012

Lovely little fat, mustardy pork sausages, Waitrose finest offerings. With roast mediterranean vegetables - you just chop up red peppers, courgettes, onions and aubergines, toss with olive oil,  lemon juice and herbs, and roast on a high heat for 45 minutes.

A tip here:  toss the peppers, courgettes and onions first with the oil and the seasonings, and when these are thoroughly coated, add the aubergine cubes. The Aubergines will take up the excess oil from the rest of the vegetables, but won't suck up all the oil leaving everything else dry. Makes for a very even coating with no over greasiness.

I roasted the mushrooms in with the sausages for around 45 mins as well, an easy dinner, just cooks itself, all you need to do is boil and butter some Jersey potatoes 10 mins before you want to eat. S'easy!

Sausages, Mediterranean vegetables, mushroom and Jersey potatoes

The First Jersey Potatoes - and a Lemon Sole -Friday April 20th 2012

A nice little grilled lemon sole, but the star of the piece is the buttered Jersey potatoes.. mmmmm...

I love Jersey Potatoes.  You can look forward to seeing them a lot over the next little while :)

Leftover Lasagne & salad - Thursday April 19th 2012

Lots of lasagne left over from a family dinner on Tuesday, I was out for a curry yesterday, so it got eaten up today.  Really love warmed over lasagne, the whole thing melds into a cohesive lump of deliciousness.

Pasties! Much better use of cream cheese pastry - Monday 16th April, 2012

I had half of the batch of Dan Lepard cream cheese pastry left in the fridge, and half a bowl full of the filling for the pork mince pies from Saturday, so I added in some chopped cooked potato and carrot, and some left over cabbage chopped up, and made pasties with the remains.  Cooked at a higher temperature for a shorter time , and much more successful.

I still think as a pastry it is rather too heavy and dense for my liking, but it does handle beautifully when rolling, and makes a sturdy case for fillings like this.

Here is the filling , you can see it is still rather grainy, and I would probably make a different kind of filling next time, but this was at least more edible than the original version! 

Really not that successful Pork Mince Pies - Saturday 14th April 2012

Not a total success today, edible but I really wouldn't go any further.  The meat mixture was too grainy, and I overcooked the pastry, I used Dan Lepard's Cream Cheese pastry,.  Handy Hint: DO NOT OVERCOOK this really very nice pastry...it doesn't like it. It won't go brown and biscuity like hot water crust pastry, it will just go hard and dry.

 But fast forward a couple of days and you will see how I turned the leftover filling and pastry from this into something much more tasty!!

Lemony Lamb Kebabs with roasted Mediterranean vegetables - Friday April 13th 2012

Friday the 13th!  Well, I wasn't unlucky tonight, I had this delicious plate of lamb kebabs, marinated in lemon and oregano. How lucky was that!

Lemon and Oregano Marinated Lamb Kebabs, roasted Mediterranean vegetables, tomato salad and Basmati rice

A Perfect Pork Pie, home-made coleslaw & potato salad - Wednesday April 11th, 2012

This is the pork pie to beat all other pork pies.  A Bray's Cottage pork pie, lovingly made by Sarah, and cooked by me. And believe me, a pork pie takes a lot longer to cook than you would think in order to get that biscuity pastry. .

But the end result was so worth it. Served just lukewarm, with home-made coleslaw and potato salad. Fabulous.

Sorry about the photo by the way.. it is rather overexposed. But by the time I discovered this, the pork pie was in my tummy.

Chipolatas, lentils and cabbage. Tuesday April 10th 2012

Comfort food of the highest order.


Chipolatas, lentils, cabbage and apache potatoes.

Gammon and Lentils - Tuesday April 9th 2012

Fabulously wintry dish for a chilly spring day. The gammon and lentils cooked together in a pressure cooker for 45 minutes, with some celery, carrot and onions in the water, a few cloves, and a spoonful of brown sugar. Made a lovely juicy joint, with the lentils earthy and sustaining as a sauce. With more boiled celery and vichy carrots on the side, and mashed potatoes to soak it all up.

Gammon and Lentils

The Paschal Lamb - Easter Sunday, April 8th 2012

Happy Easter everyone!

I owe you lots of dinner photos, been odd sort of time here, but I will work backwards so please bear with me..

But today, we have trimmed lamb cutlets with vichy carrots, spring greens and mashed potatoes and a spiced rosehip gravy. Delicious!

Lamb Cutlets with vichy carrots, greens, mashed potatoes and spiced rosehip gravy