Garlicky Seafood Spaghetti - Tuesday 20th March 2012

Quick, tasty and nutritious, everything that could be wanted in a midweek dinner.  A pack of mixed seafood, some extra tiger prawns, crunchy golden croutons, garlic fried crispy in olive oil, some roughly chopped parsley. All just tossed into spaghetti. A lickety spit 15 mins from start to finish.

Including eating time.

Garlicky Seafood Spaghetti

Roast Lamb Salad with Thyme Dressing - Sunday March 19th 2012

We had a lovely roast lamb dinner on Saturday, slow cooked shoulder of lamb, so leftovers to use up on Sunday. Sliced up and mixed with warm new potatoes and mixed salad leaves with the delicious salad dressing recipe from the Guinea Fowl event on Thursday.

This is the original recipe:

4 tablespoons hazelnut oil

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 shallot finely chopped

1 teaspoon honey

Fresh thyme leaves


I didn't have any hazelnut oil, so used all olive oil. And I used whole grain mustard, as the seeds are nice in a dressing. 


You just pop all the ingredients into a bowl and whisk up to a nice creamy dressing, then drizzle over your salad. 

Roast Lamb Salad with Thyme Dressing

For St Paddy, Bacon and Colcannon - Friday March 16th 2012

In recognition of St. Patrick's Day on Saturday, I decided that Friday night's dinner would be bacon and cabbage in some form.  Gammon steaks are delicious just grilled so that the fat goes really crispy, and we had these with Colcannon and also Cauliflower with Parsley and Cheese sauce. 


My version of Colcannon is a relatively frugal take on the original as it has only a little butter, and no cream. I like lightly browned onions, freshly cooked or left over cabbage (any kind of cabbage) and freshly mashed potato, simply mixed together. (Any left overs of this are wonderful fried for breakfast by the way..)


So-bhlasta !


Gammon Steaks with Colcannon and Cauliflower with parsley and cheese sauce

Sausages with those fabulous Lentils we had the other week... Thursday March 15th 2012

I love this diary... Do you remember those fab lentils I made a few weeks back? I wanted them again, but couldn't quite remember what was in them. Cos I am an older person and have no memory cells left.

But Hey! I have a Diary Blog! And so I made the lentils again, with the addition of some fresh celeriac as well as the chopped celery. And it was equally as delicious. If you haven't made this, it takes all of 15 mins to make, and is well worth it.

Sausages with Fabulous Lentils

Pork Lemon and Thyme Meatballs with Thyme & Marsala Sauce, Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Everyone loves a meatball right?

These are pork with lemon and fresh thyme, in a light cream sauce with more thyme and lemon, and a nice side of steamed purple sprouting broccoli.

Pork Lemon and Thyme Meatballs with Thyme & Marsala Sauce, Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Smoked Guineafowl & Boudin Noir Salad with Sauteed Apples, Thyme & Mustard dressing- Tuesday 13th March

Fab evening with a lovely group of food bloggers learning all about French Guinea Fowl, we made and ate our own salads, and shared the fabulous stuffed ballotine that chef Andy Stephenson  made for us.

Smoked Guineafowl & Boudin Noir Salad with Sauteed Apples, Thyme & Mustard dressing

(We are very restrained we bloggers. When a large platter of delicious food hits the table, we reach for our cameras before our forks...)

With thanks to Sopexa for the invitation, and Divertimenti for their hospitality, and Andy for the cooking :) 

Spatchcocked Poussin with Celery & Pinenut Stuffing - Sunday March 11th 2012

Fabulous little roast poussin, stuffed under the skin, with proper roast potatoes and cabbage. Delicious Sunday Dinner!

I've explained just how to spatchcock and stuff the poussin over on A Greedy Piglet, do let me know how you get on.

Spatchcocked Poussin with Celery and Pinenut Stuffing

Retro Pie Day Two - Carrot & Leek Homity Pie & more coleslaw - Saturday March 10 2012

More Homity pie today with the addition of carrot and leek, and Jarlsberg and gruyere cheese in the mix.

And instructions on how to make the pie now in A Greedy Piglet, just for you to keep frugal..

Today's coleslaw is lots of carrot, sweetheart cabbage, red onion and celery, bound with a mixture of mayonnaise and Orange and fennel vinegar (home made, but you could happily use Womersley Orange and Mace Dressing) with black sesame seeds.

Carrot and Leek Homity Pie with Sweetheart Cabbage and Carrot Coleslaw

Retro Pie Day -Cranks Homity Pie & Crush Lemon Coleslaw - Friday 9th March 2012

It was British Pie Week this week, and all week I had been meaning to make a pie of some kind.  And it was also Eat Up The Fridge Week in the Clark household, so I was not about to buy anything new to make my pie.

A Twitter conversation a few weeks ago with Carl Legge about the seminal dishes from Cranks the famous vegetarian restaurant, in their time at Marshall Street just off Carnaby Street back in the 70s, had me thinking about some of the dishes I had loved from there - I had lunch at least a couple of days a week when I first started work in the West End in the mid 1970s.

One that was particularly delicious was Homity pie, a deceptively simple dish of potatoes onions and cheese in a pastry case. My version isn't the same exactly as the Cranks' one, the pastry is considerably less concrete-like than their was, but it was then, and still is now, extremely moreish and delicious. One to be blogged in detail at some time on The Greedy Piglet I promise.

Crank's Homity Pie with Crush Lemon Dressing Coleslaw

Amazing Crush Lemon Coleslaw with Frugal Sorta Chile - Tuesday March 6th 2012

Still frugally eating only what is already in the house, until I have nothing left that can make a decent meal. Today's foray should have been Chile con Carne, but I found out that I had no kidney beans, no chili spice, no cumin to make my own chile spice, no coriander and no yoghurt or sour cream.

So the Sorta chile has borlotti beans, smoked paprika, oregano and the sharp element came in the coleslaw.

Chile with borlotti beans is just a brown thing, delicious as it may be, so I want you to home in on the coleslaw in this picture.  Shredded red cabbage and carrots, finely sliced celery and red onion, poppy seeds & sesame seeds dressed in Crush's latest Lemon Dressing, it was simply divine!  The Lemon Dressing isn't up on the website yet, it is that new, I picked up a bottle at FeastEast at the weekend. Get some if you can, ask Brendan on Twitter  or Steve on Facebook I'm sure they'll find you a stockist.

Amazing Lemon Coleslaw with Borlotti Bean Chile on the side

Leftover Meatball and Black Pudding Frog in the Hole - Monday March 5th 2012

Leftovers.

Got to love leftovers. Even leftover meatballs, the ones that didn't go in the tomato sauce (tomato sauce in a toad (or a frog as only sausages make a toad) would be pushing it a little too far even for me.) and some hanging-around black pudding, and the odd pack of cubed pancetta. Mmmm. Meatfest.

Plus Yorkshire pudding. With herbs in.

You got the picture?

Leftover Meatball and Black Pudding Frog in the Hole

New York Pasta and Meatballs - Sunday March 4th 2012

Do you remember this from your childhood?  It was my favourite film when I was little, and for me, meatballs are, and always will be, Tramp and his Lady.





So when Dreamfields (who are American, like Tramp) kindly sent me some low carb pasta to try out,

then there could only be one result,

New York Penne with Meatballs...Ok it should have been spaghetti, but the Dearly Beloved voted for the Penne..

And I have to report that I was very pleasantly surprised. OK, it isn't lovely rough bronze die cut artisan pasta, but it IS pasta, and tastes like pasta. Which I wasn't at all sure it would being as it has been modified to reduce the amount of digestible carbohydrate.  Which makes it ideal for people eating a low carb or low GI diet, or who have dietary needs, such as diabetes.  I think for these people, this is a viable alternative to very small portions of ordinary pasta.

Although for me, who has no such requirements, I would have to say I will probably stick to my artisan pasta, as this costs roughly the same. But a qualified recommendation nevertheless. If you fancy winning some Dreamfields pasta to try yourself, there is a sweepstake on their Facebook page, so have a look, you may be lucky!

With thanks to Dreamfield for the pasta samples. There is a list of retailers on their website and also details of how to buy online.  

Sausage Toad in the Hole, Roast Beetroot, Glazed Shallots - Friday March 2nd 2012

Lots of rather ordinary repeated dinners recently, hence the hiatus, but Friday we had a smashing toad in the hole. For those of  non-UK origin, I hasten to reassure you that a Toad in the Hole has no toads (or frogs for that matter) involved in its making. We are not French after all...

A good Toad in the Hole should have nicely browned sausages in it, not nasty pallid little worms, so I like to cook mine before adding the batter. And like Yorkshire puddings, the fat must be hot hot hot before the batter goes in, so that it will rise up round the sausages, all light crispy and with lots of holes to fill up with gravy.


Toad in the Hole with Roast Beetroot and Glazed Shallots

Salmon with Edamame Stir Fry and Rice - Sunday Feb 26th 2012

Very partial to a bit of Salmon I am. I like it dry-fried lightly on the top so that it goes lovely and crispy on the surface, and then turned over to cook mostly on the skin side, which gives me deliciously savoury crispy skin.

We had this today with stir fried vegetables in oyster sauce and plain boiled rice.

Salmon with Edamame stir fry and rice

Garlic Fried Cornish Hake with oven fried chips and salad - Saturday Feb 25th 2012

Hake is a fish I have always associated with Spain. Up until recently, we sold just about all the Hake we caught to Spain, but now Cornish Hake is appearing on more fishmongers' slabs as our fisheries recover from the overfishing of 10 years ago. Hake is a deep-sea fish that is caught by static gill-nets rather than trawling.  Depending on the size of the mesh of a gill net it can be catastrophic for local fish in terms of by-catch, but the Cornish hake nets have been found to be highly selective in catching larger hake, and are awaiting the award of the coveted Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) ecolabel. Which pleases me, I really do believe that we have to take care to eat fish that has been caught as responsibly and sustainably as possible.  

Anyway, back to the fish. Hake is rather softer and looser in texture to a lot of the white fish we have eaten here traditionally, and needs careful handling.  I found that keeping the skin on helped to stop the fish falling apart, and a light coat of flour before frying also gave a firm outside, helping to keep the fish juicy and moist inside.  Garlic slices fried until crisp and then drained out of the fat, gave a delicious hint of garlic to the fish, and the crisp shards of sweet garlic added a nice variation in texture.  Just a squeeze of lemon to finish...

Served with unpeeled chips simply baked in the oven with a spray of olive oil, and a salad with shredded carrot and celery in lemon vinaigrette.

Garlic Fried Hake with chips and salad

Puy Lentils with Celery and Carrots, and a Pork Chop - Friday Feb 24th 2012

Fab fried boneless pork loin chop, fried the way I learnt in France, mostly in butter with a dash of oil, in a small frying pan over a very slow heat. The juices go all caramelised and delicious.

But seriously, the most flavoursome things on that plate are the puy lentils.  So simple to make as well. Quantities here are for a substantial side dish for 2 people, so multiply or divide accordingly.

Firstly, dice and boil a couple of carrots and 2 or 3 sticks of celery until just tender.

Meanwhile saute a couple of shallots, add a drained can of Merchant Gourmet puy lentils, a sprinkle of thyme, a slug of fruit vinegar - I used my home made grapefruit and basil vinegar  but you can use your own choice of flavour, lots to choose from at Womersley Foods, (you know how I love them) I would probably use a light one, lemon maybe. Let that simmer for a moment or so, drain and add the carrots and celery.  When the pork is finished, drain the juices from that into the saucepan, and reduce them down until nice and thick. Adjust the seasoning right at the end, as it will depend on how much you have seasoned the pork. .

I didn't think this needed any starch, but you could add some if you are extra hungry. And a green vegetable of course, sprouts in this case.

Puy Lentils with carrots and celery, with a Pork Chop on the side

Kate and Sidney Pudding - Thursday Feb 23rd 2012

It was a lovely clear day, harbinger of Spring, the birds were singing, the sky was blue. And I decided I wanted a home made, suety pastry, steamed. wintry, Steak and Kidney pudding.

Perverse? Me?  Nah.....just hungry!

Steak and Kidney Pudding, carrots and sweetheart cabbage

Ash Wednesday - Unburnt Lamb Kebabs with saffron pilaf rice & salad - Weds Feb 22nd 2012

Lamb, lemon, olive oil and oregano makes for a delicious flavour combination. Add the smokey charred tips of some red peppers and onions, and pop a little smoked paprika into the rice for good measure and you have a lovely bonfire of flavours. 

Lamb kebabs with saffron and smoked paprika pilaf rice, and salad dressed with grapefruit vinegar dressing

Shrove Tuesday - Pancakes with lemon, sugar and Flavour King plums - Tuesday Feb 21st 2012

It's Pancake Day today!  We hardly ever have pancakes, I have no idea why. They are so easy, cheap and delicious.   I am very traditional with my accompaniments, I like lemon and sugar best. I like the richer sauces, but I always come back to lemon and sugar, and particularly on Pancake Day. But today I had some delicious Flavour King plums, and thought their sweet juicy flavour would work well with the pancakes.

Flavour King plums are actually a pluot, a hybrid of apricot and plum, and I think they need a little acidity to bring out their flavour, so a squeeze of lemon worked very well with them.   I had three pancakes. I wish I had eaten more really....

Pancakes with lemon, sugar and Flavour King plums

Collop Monday, A Nice Pork Chop with Capers - Monday Feb 20th 2012

Did you know it was Collop Monday the day before Pancake Day?  It was the day before the day before the start of Lent, when you ate up all your last bits of meat, a collop being a slice of meat.  Then the next day, on Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday),  you ate up your last eggs and butter and then went and had all your sins forgiven (the shriving of Shrove Tuesday), and then for 40 days you ate vegetables and gruel....

Well, if I were a mediaeval peasant the most likely meat I would have had to eat up would have been the last bits of my family pig. So to keep in the spirit of the day, pork chops were decided on. With capers, green peppercorns and a drop of grapefruit vinegar to bring it into the 21st century.

Pork chop with capers, green peppercorns and grapefruit vinegar, with Apache potatoes and brussels sprouts.