Lamb & Cucumber Burgers

Readers, I have a confession to make.  I think I'm in love.  With a supermarket.  Waitrose, to be precise.  Last week I found myself fabricating a flimsy excuse to go to the Wharf (something about overdue library books, I don't even remember it myself) just so that I could spend ten minutes wandering around its spacious aisles.  Sigh. 

I had a very happy time looking at Italian polenta and Japanese soba noodles and Chinese rice wine and imagining a parallel universe in which I actually knew what to do with these foods.   And then I found myself in the fresh meats aisle.  And then I saw a range of burgers designed by Heston Blumenthal.  And then I saw that the lamb and cucumber burgers had a 25% off sticker on them.

In my book, that's fate.

They were AMAZING.  Fresh-tasting and juicy, with the cucumber giving the meat a lovely clean aftertaste.  We griddled them for about 3 minutes on each side, so that they were still pinkish inside.  And then we inhaled them in ten seconds flat.  Oh yes we did. 

Our accompaniment to this delicious burger-fest?  Wine. 

Here is my glass enjoying the works of Charles Dickens.  How cultural!

We've got some time off work next week, and oh boy have we been looking forward to it.  We've been feverishly planning how many activities we could possibly cram into seven days, and have come up with a plan of action called The Week Of Fun Things.  I'll be posting updates as we go - I promise at least ten food-related Fun Things.  They'll probably all be either calorie-laden or alcohol-sodden.  Does that sound like a deal?

Culture Clash Salmon

The title of this post is really just a fancy way of saying that we threw together a whole load of random and unrelated ingredients and called it a meal.  Sometimes, when you're too tired/lazy to shop, you just have to ransack the fridge and hope for the best. 

This is what we came up with:

- A couple of frozen salmon fillets (bought in a multi-pack months ago, rescued from the bottom of the freezer)

- Onion (one small, had been living a lonely existence in the vegetable box)

- One half-full box of Ebly (has been kicking around the cupboard for unspecified amount of time)

- Tomatoes, tomatoes, and more tomatoes.

So we marinated the salmon in some soy sauce and lots of fresh grated ginger.  Cooked the Ebly with a chopped onion and plenty of butter.  Made a bouncy-fresh tomato salad with oodles of parsley from the garden.

It was surprisingly good for a meal that ignored all the usual traditions of food matching.

We followed it up with fresh strawberries:

..which, yes, since you ask, I did coordinate to match my living room carpet. 

Dinner for One

I had a headache at work on Friday.  I blame the unseasonal weather.  And not the wine + champagne combo from the night before.  Definitely not.

I made up for the excesses of the night before with a very spartan dinner for one.

Heinz tomato soup, eaten on a tray in front of an excellent episode of Underage & Pregnant.  I don't know about you, but for me that makes for a pretty good night in.   

Come Dine With Me -The Herne Hill Edition

It rained last Thursday.  It rained all.day.long.  And then it rained some more.  It seems that someone up above missed the memo about it being August, the supposed height of summer.  But all was okay, because it was the lovely J's turn to host a come dine with me evening - and there's nothing that can't be fixed by copious amounts of wine, food, and gossip.  Yay!

J had made a huge pan of paella, with generous amounts of prawns, chorizo, and peas. 

She used finely chopped leeks in place of onions, and they were perfect in it - just the right kind of sweet softness you need in a paella.  Our bowlfuls were perked up by fresh lemon wedges and handfuls of chopped parsley. 

The dessert was a last-minute addition she'd decided on that day and was feeling kind of dubious about.

K:  "So, what are you making for dessert?"

J:  "Ummm....samosas."

[slight pause]

K:  "So, a savoury Indian snack?"

Turns out the samosas she had in mind featured lots of apple and plenty of sugar.  I'm pretty sure this is the recipe.

These were the perfect dessert - light but really more-ish.  J put lots of cinnamon in with the apple when cooking it, and the spicy gooiness of the apple inside the crisp pastry was a really good combination.  She served them with dollops of Greek yogurt.

It's possible that we finished off the meal with a glass of champagne.  Or two.  Or three.  I can't possibly say/remember. 

Grilled Vegetable Salad (with Goat's Cheese & Bacon)

The subtitle of this post could be How to Make the Unhealthiest Salad In the World.  Despite the virtuous-sounding name, B was in charge of making this meal, which meant that it miraculously featured cheese, bacon, AND croutons. 

It did also include lots of lovely summer vegetables (peppers, courgettes, french beans) which he'd griddled until they were soft and smoky-tasting.  But let me be honest, they were sort of overshadowed by the cheesy, bacon-y goodness.  But it tasted ohh soo goooood!

Mushroom & Spinach Tart

This was supposed to be a quiche.  I had promised B that I would make one on my day off with the lovely box of mushrooms we had in the fridge.  But, well, it didn't happen.  I looked up a couple of recipes and really, quiches seem like a lot of work.  Lots of ingredients.  Lots of eggs and cream.  I felt tired just thinking about it.  Then I stumbled across this little treasure in Delia's Winter Collection (hmm, unseasonal again) and I was sold.  It's pretty similar to a quiche, without any of the hard work.

First, I slaved over a batch of homemade pastry reached for the Jus-Rol.  I accepted long ago that I don't have the patience or the light hands required to make proper pastry, and I think the ready-made stuff is delicious anyway.   I used an ordinary flan tin for the tart - Delia makes hers in little individual pie tins, which are very cute but unfortunately not readily available in the supermarkets of East London, so I used what I could find.  Once rolled out and cut to fit the tin, the pastry takes about ten minutes to blind-bake in a hot oven. 

Whilst the pastry was cooking,  I assembled the filling.  One onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, and some sliced mushrooms got stir-fried in olive oil until soft.  The spinach doesn't need to pre-cooked, just chopped and added when the rest of the ingredients have been cooked. 

When the pastry case is looking golden and crisp, whip it out of the oven and spread the filling evenly out inside.  Then crack an egg into a cup, and carefully slide it on top.  Repeat with another couple of eggs, trying to space them out evenly.  You can see from the picture below I did not do a good job of this.   Also that I didn't use enough eggs.

Scatter some grated Parmesan over the pie and bake at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes, until the yolks of the eggs are set.

I will admit that Delia's tarts are much neater and prettier, but my version tasted pretty good nonetheless.

Grilled Mackerel With Tomato Salsa

Oh hi there, tomatoes!  What a surprise to see you featuring in a Daily Yum meal.  Welcome.  What are we eating with you today?  Mackerel, you say?  Yummy.  And fresh corn on the cob?  Awesome.

Fresh Tomato Salsa

Chop a good handful of cherry tomatoes into a bowl.  Add one small chili, as finely chopped as you can manage.  Add the juice of half a lime, and salt-and-pepper generously.  Serve. 

Mackerel is the perfect fish to serve with this, because its flavour is robust enough to stand up to the zingy freshness of the salsa.  We simply topped it with a smidgen of olive oil and some sliced garlic, then whacked it under the grill for 10-15 minutes.  The corn took the longest to prepare - we wrapped each cob in some brown paper that had been coated with olive oil, pepper and smoked paprika inside, and then roasted them in a low oven for about 40 minutes. 

I know this meal sounds ridiculously healthy and virtuous (where are the CARBS? I know), but you didn't see the size of the double-choc-chip cookies we had consumed that afternoon.  I'm pretty sure there were enough calories in those bad boys to fuel us for a week. 

Tomato & Courgette Salad With Cannellini Beans

I opened the fridge this week and was struck immediately by two thoughts.

1.) Holy crap, that is a LOT of tomatoes.  

I wasn't lying last week when I said tomatoes are going to feature on this blog every day until October.  A couple of sunny days have sent our plants into a production bonanza, and every evening B brings in the ripest by the handful.  It's lucky for us that tomatoes are diet superheroes.  And that biscuits don't grow on plants.

2.)  Ah, the Inevitable Courgette.

Anyone who has a regular veg box delivery will understand this feeling.  It's the feeling you get when the same vegetable turns up in the box for the fourth week running.  It's not your favourite vegetable, in fact you're a bit on the fence about it, and you've run out of ways to cook it.  You've still got some left over from last week's box, actually.  It seems to have taken up permanent residence in your fridge.  Ahh, the Inevitable Courgette.  (In winter, it's the Inevitable Beetroot.  I don't know if I'll be able to face yet more borscht this year). 

So I tried to think of recipes that would use both courgettes and tomatoes, but would not be ratatouille (yeck, I hate that stuff.  Although not this.  I liked that very much).   Riverford send a couple of recipe ideas in their boxes every week, and that was where I found this.

I've become a little obsessed about taking photos in front of my kitchen window.  Have you noticed?

We played about with the recipe a little bit - because we were eating it as a main meal, we added in a whole load of salad leaves to bulk it out.  And we didn't make a basil dressing (which we thought might drown out the flavour of the tomatoes) - we just drizzled olive oil, balsamic, and plenty of crushed salt and pepper over everything.   It was not bad at all.  

Ginger & Chili Prawns With Fresh Coconut

It's a sad day at The Daily Yum, my friends.  Because the time has come to say goodbye to the Sinister Coconut.  He's been staying with us for some time now, and I'd got really rather fond of his slightly scary face and general hairiness.  But frankly he was taking up too much space in our fruit bowl, and the apples were complaining.  So we took out a hammer and sacrificed him to the great and noble cause of Dinner.

Ginger & Chili Prawns with Fresh Coconut

You need:
1 lime
Piece of fresh ginger, chopped
1 fresh chili, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
About 1/2 a fresh coconut, grated
Large uncooked prawns - enough for 2
Handful sugar-snap peas

First, you need to marinate your prawns.  Put your ginger, chili, and garlic in a large bowl and add the prawns.  Squeeze the juice of a lime over everything and mix well.  Leave aside for about ten minutes so that all the fresh and bold flavours can get friendly with each other. 

Next, heat a big pan and fry your chopped onion until soft.  Then add the prawns and the grated coconut. 

Stir-fry until the prawns are cooked, adding in the sugar-snap peas at the last moment (you want them to stay crunchy). 

Serve with rice, or noodles.  And wine. 

Eat with chopsticks and pretend you're beach-side in Thailand. Sigh. 

Summer Vegetable Lasagne

Oh dear, this is another repeat recipe.  I obviously have a repertoire of meals that lasts approximately 3 months, and after that all inspiration fails me. 

This lasagne featured red onion, peppers, courgettes and runner beans - all contents from last week's veg box that needed using up.  It also featured two kinds of cheese on its topping - mozzarella and Parmesan.  Now that's a good lasagne, people. 

Because the sun was shining, we had a sneaky cocktail before dinner.

Sloe Gin Fizz

Pop a couple of ice cubes in each glass.  Measure out a double shot (oh come on now. Don't give me that look) of sloe gin.  Top up with soda water and finish with a slice of lime.  Drink and pretend you are somewhere more exotic than east London. 

Ham, Egg & Chips

It was one of those days when B and I just couldn't agree on what to eat. Anything that one of us suggested, the other immediately shot down immediately.

- Spaghetti bolognaise?

- NO. I'M SICK OF PASTA.

- Some nice fish?  

- NO HEALTHY RUBBISH.

(I'll let you guess who said what.  This really continued for quite some time.  An entire tube journey home, in fact.)

So we ended up wandering around the supermarket in a hunger daze, up and down the aisles like zombies.  Until we chanced down the fresh meat section and lo, a bright light did shine from the sky and lo, verily did we exclaim in unison HAM AND CHIPS!

There was some nonsense from B about having ham, chips and peas, but I soon put him right.  Because everyone knows the only proper accompaniment to a plate of ham and chips is a fried egg.  And lots of ketchup.

Home-made chips with plenty of salt.  Potentially heart-attack-inducing, but soooo good. 

Dinner at Bocca Di Lupo

A couple of weeks ago, my friend J sent round an email asking if we wanted to go for dinner at a new-ish restaurant she'd read about called Bocca Di Lupo.  A quick glance at the reviews convinced that we did indeed want to go....Italian-style tapas?  Sounded perfect.
 

There's a long bar at the front of the restaurant, with lots of yummy-sounding cocktails (J had a lemon meringue concoction with actual meringue in it, score).  The dining area itself isn't massive, but we were lucky to have a corner table so we weren't sitting on top of the other diners.  (Tip:  you do need to book well in advance, and tables are timed to two-hour slots.) 

We ordered a variety of small plates to start the meal - deep-fried courgette flowers with anchovy and mozzarella, clams and mussels with borlotti beans in a delicate broth, a plate of sweet summer peas and onion ("we have to have one healthy dish," J said as she ordered).  K was the bravest and went for the crispy-fried tripe. 

It came in golden-coated chunks with lots of parsley and fresh lemon to squeeze over - if you didn't think too hard about what you were eating, it was surprisingly tasty.

Then it was onto the main courses.  J had a beautiful bream that had been baked in salt, with a heap of green samphire on the side.

K went for grilled langoustines, and M had the suckling pig, which came with grapes that had been cooked on the stem.  I ordered the gnocchi with spicy sausage ragu. The tomato sauce was rich and thick, and the gnocchi were perfectly tender and flavoursome.  It was a bit on the heavy side, however, so if I were ordering again I'd probably choose it as a small plate and have a salad on the side.

We were too full for dessert, which is such a shame because this was on the menu:

-  Sanguinaccio - sweet pate of pig's blood & chocolate

Intriguing, no? 
Or we could have gone across the road to this place for ice-cream....mmm. 

It was a delicious meal, and we all agreed it would be a good choice for a first date: not too intimate, with a nice buzz from the bar, but still stylish and a bit different.  Some of the dishes are spendy, but if you pick small plates and mix them up you could have a lovely and varied meal.  Or take a cash-ready beau who wants to impress :)

Tomato & Mozzarella Pizza

We got some lovely-looking mozzarella in our veg box this week. 

Now, I know that there are probably a million and one recipes that use mozzarella, but for me only one ever seems to come to mind:  pizza.

So that was what we made.

More home-grown tomatoes!  Our plants have gone into production overload, so expect to see tomatoes in every recipe from now until autumn. 

I made the crust with 100% wholemeal flour, which equals super-healthy, you know.  It definitely balances out the huge amounts of cheese in the topping,  Definitely.

Vegetable Wraps With Guacamole & Cheese

Can you guess what we're having for tea?

Yay!  This. 

We used fresh tomatoes from the garden, and our very first chili!  Aww, look at it.  So cute.

This really is one of my favourite dinners, especially when preceded by a cold Mojito in the garden (no photo...I drank it too quickly for that).

Since this is sort of a content-light post, I'd like your thoughts on something.  What should I do with this? 

I won him at a fair, and since that triumph he's been lurking in my fruit bowl looking sinister.  I'm only really familiar with coconut when it's dried and in my cereal.  I've never approached the actual fruit before - have you?  Any suggestions welcome!

Fishcakes With Homegrown Sides

Oh, those pesky mid-week dinners. You're home late from work, you're hot and bothered from the tube - you need food, and you need it now!

May I suggest that you enjoy some fishcakes?  We picked up some exciting-looking "melt in the middle" ones from the supermarket (fancy!).  With them we had some fresh beans, rocket, and parsley - all courtesy of the mini-allotment in our garden.  And a whacking great portion of coleslaw.  It looks kind of disproportionate to the rest of the meal, doesn't it?  B strenuously disagreed, and ate my leftovers to prove it.

Laziest Thai Green Chicken Curry

Do you ever have a day when you really, really can't face spending time in the kitchen, but at the same time, you crave a "proper" (i.e., not takeaway pizza) dinner?  We were having one of those days.  We'd cleaned the house from floor to ceiling, we'd done the supermarket shopping for the week.  We were tired and sooo hungry.  Here was our solution to this.

The Cheater's Thai Green Chicken Curry

You will need:

Some chicken pieces (we used a mixture of thighs and drumsticks)

1 x onion, chopped

1 x courgette, chopped (totally optional, we only used it because it had been hanging out in our fridge for WEEKS)

1 x tin coconut milk

3 tsps green curry paste

Noodles (the kind that only require a brief immersion in hot water to be cooked)

How to cheat:

Bust out your slow cooker.  Oh yeah!  Whack in your chopped onion, courgette and chicken pieces.  Pour over the tin of coconut milk and stir in the curry paste.  Put the lid on your slow cooker and go off to have some fun for about four hours.  (We went to the cinema.  We saw Captain America.  I very much enjoyed Dominic Cooper's shocking American accent.  Also, Chris Evans' chest.)

After about four hours of cooking, take the lid of the slow cooker so the sauce has a chance to thicken up.  Cook your noodles, throw everything into a bowl, and serve.  Yummy....and no effort whatsoever. 

Fancy Sunday Lunch At The Wentworth

On Sunday, we went for a big family lunch at The Wentworth in Suffolk.  The Wentworth is a fancy hotel right on Aldeburgh seafront, which is lovely when the summer is finally showing its sunny face. 

Hello sunshine!

Because there were so many of us at lunch, we'd had to choose our dishes in advance.  I am bad at this.  I always make snap decisions (usually I just tick whatever contains cheese/chocolate) and then I get terrible food envy when I see the other options being served.

For the starter, I plumped for the pork and duck pate, which came wrapped in bacon (score!)

It was accompanied by crunchy Melba toast and some kind of chutney, which was a touch too jammy for my taste.  Still, a nice starter and very prettily presented. 

For some mad reason I chose the salmon to follow.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love me a bit of salmon.  And this was perfectly cooked, flaky and not too dry.  And the tomato salsa that came with it (which is invisible in the above photo) was herby and delicious.  But, really.  My sister-in-law, sitting next to me, had a plate of sliced roast beef, roast potatoes, and not-one-but-TWO yorkshires.  Why oh why didn't I order that?

For pudding, B and I democratically split the fruit salad and the chocolate torte.  There isn't a photo of that because I cleared the plate so quickly it was almost like it never existed.  Something I couldn't convince the waitress of, unfortunately. 

Wedding Buffet Bonanza

We went to a wedding on Saturday.  It was in the countryside!  It didn't rain!  It had amazing food!  And champagne!  What more could you ask for?  Love and happiness, you say?  It had those too!

Oh my word, I do love a buffet.  It's an excuse to cram as many food groups into the limits of a plate as you possibly can. 

Then sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour.   But be tactical, people.  Leave room for dessert, chocolates with your coffee, and potentially wedding cake also if your restrictive wedding outfit will allow it. 

Raspberry & hazelnut roulade mmmmmmm

Congratulations, L and K.  Your wedding was lovely, and you are too!

Mushroom & Pesto Cannelloni

This sounds like a dish that had a lot of time and thought put into it, doesn't it?  Cannelloni.  It summons up visions of Italian mamas cooking tomato sauces from scratch, and patiently stuffing those fiddly tubes of pasta with complicated yet fabulous fillings.  But I can't lie to you, readers.  This dish took under an hour to make and required minimal effort from my poor, tired, mid-week self. Yay!

We happened to have some cannelloni tubes rattling round in the cupboard (and when I say rattling, I really mean it.  They had long ago set themselves free from their cardboard packet and were just rolling merrily around the bottom of our big pasta storage box. But dried pasta never spoils, right?  Right!) We also had some leftover pesto (yep, still hanging around from this meal), and a tub of ready-made, supermarket tomato sauce that we'd intended to eat with this, before the never-ending pesto took over our lives.  All these things needed eating.  So at the supermarket I bought a couple of cheap pallets of mushrooms, and set about making a mushroom and pesto cannelloni.  B was openly sceptical.

Firstly, I sliced the mushrooms and let them soften in olive oil for about ten minutes, until squidgy and more pliable.  Pliable is important in cannelloni making!  Then I tipped in the pesto and gave everything a good stir until all the mushrooms were covered with greeniness.  Next, I got out a Pyrex baking dish and covered the bottom with a thin layer of tomato sauce.  Then, out came the frankly battered-looking cannelloni tubes.  I stuffed these (carelessly, because really, who has time to be neat) with the pesto-y mushrooms - a fork works best.  The tubes then nestled into the baking dish, the leftover mushrooms got scattered over, and then everything was topped with the rest of the tomato sauce.  It then went into the oven for 35 minutes.

It came out looking like this.  All of B's scepticism miraculously disappeared. 

It's not really suitable for a dinner party, I will grant you.  The mushrooms turn pretty black in the oven, and the badly-stuffed tubes fell apart. But it tasted amaaaazing. The combination of garlicky mushrooms, pasta, and rich tomato sauce was a real winner.  We hoovered it up whilst lounging on the sofa in our tartan pyjamas.  And it's perfect for that.

Lamb-Filled Flatbreads

We normally plan our meals around our Wednesday veg box delivery.  Are mushrooms included?  Then we might have this or this.  Lots of greens?  Then we'll probably be knocking together some stirfries.  But for one reason or another, we didn't get round to ordering a box this week, leaving us totally idea-less on what to cook.

"What would you like for dinner on Tuesday?" I asked B.  "You can have anything you like!"

"Er...." he said blankly.  "Um....."

After staring into space for a while, inspiration struck.  We simply asked ourselves:  What Did Nigel Do?

We have a much-loved and much-used copy of this book, where Nigel Slater writes about a year in his kitchen.  It's full of seasonal recipes and it's my favourite go-to for simple, delicious, fuss-free meals.  We checked out the July and August chapters, and discovered Nigel's description of lamb-filled flatbreads.  How could we resist?

We used rump steak rather than the fillet steak suggested, because we would have to re-mortgage the house to buy fillet at our local butchers.  The meat was rubbed with cumin and coriander, and then grilled until beautifully pink - so delicious.  Alongside, we had a bowlful of spinach, watercress and rocket leaves (straight out of a bag, of course).  Plus wholemeal pitta breads (the nearest to flatbreads that our local supermarket could manage), and tzatziki made with cucumber, mint, garlic and thick Greek yogurt.  We should have added a bit of salt to the yogurt, because it was on the bland side, but we'll know for next time.

We sprinkled smoked paprika over the stuffed-to-bursting pitta and dived right in.  The cat didn't even get a look in.