Posh Sausages & Beans

Remember this entry, where I ranted about sausages only coming in packs of six?

Well.

In Tesco this week, I found sausages in packs of ten.  This must be due to one of two reasons.

1.)  My lobbying for more sensible quantities of sausages has triumphed in the face of big business, and the supermarket giants have changed their ways in face of my excellent reasoning;

or....

2.)  Sausages have always been available in packs of ten, and I've just been unobservant all this time.

Anyway, I celebrated this discovery by buying more sausages. 

B was at a late meeting and wasn't sure what time he'd get away, so I wanted a quick and easy dish that I could just stick on the stove and forget about, whilst I caught up on all the TV I can't watch with him (Don't Tell The Bride, Sex & The City repeats).   We had a big bag of kale in the fridge that needed eating, and a quick Google search of sausages + kale revealed this lovely-sounding number (another version of this recipe can be found here.)  I didn't chop the sausages into chunks (honestly, why bother - that's what teeth are for) and I omitted the cream, and it turned into a no-fuss, no-frills dinner, soothingly bland and sufficient stodgy for a winter's evening. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and chuck some more mini Mars Bars into the mouths of the baying trick-or-treat mob outside our door.  The kids along our street don't really have the Hallowe'en spirit, if you ask me.  Half of them aren't even in costume, and they bellow "MONEY OR SWEETS!" before the front door is even halfway open.  Ah, so charming.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

It was B's birthday last week, and I wanted to take him somewhere lovely to celebrate/commiserate this happy/unhappy occasion.  He's been a Heston fan since we visited the Fat Duck (back in the day when 1.) we were dating and he was still trying to impress me; 2.) you could get a reservation for a Friday night less than two years in advance), so a trip to his new London restaurant was likely to score highly on the good wife-o-meter. 

You can only book by telephone for Dinner, and only a month in advance.  I dutifully called on 1st September to reserve our table, and I was glad I did - despite it being a Monday lunchtime, every table in the room was taken.

Dinner is on the ground floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, and if you're lucky enough to get a table by the window, you can look out on a great sweep of Hyde Park.  The room is all heavy, dark wood and polish - elegant if not spectacular, although with the view it has you hardly need any more. 

We went for the set lunch menu, which at £28 for three courses is a more affordable option than a la carte (where main courses go for between £25 - £35, eeks).  For my starter, I chose the lemon salad, which came with slivers of fruit, soft goat's curd, golden raisins and crisp salad leaves.

It was a lovely dish - all perky, sour fruit playing against the mild goat's curd and the crunchy sorrel leaves.  B went for the other starter option, a ragoo of pig's ears, because he is a carnivore and thinks salad is for rabbits. 

My main course was a beautiful piece of cured salmon with beetroot puree (a recipe which dates back to 1670, apparently -how historical!)  The fish was moist and pink on the inside, and flaked fatly against my fork.  It came with a tangle of leaves and a slick of bright, savoury puree - nothing too complicated, which allowed the flavour of the salmon to really shine through.

I should mention, if you're thinking that the portions look a bit of the delicate side, that we had two complimentary platters of crusty bread and salted butter to start with, and these provided all the carbs we needed.  There are side dishes if you're starving, though. 

To finish, we split the two desserts on offer - a prune and tamarind tart (above) and a raspberry pain perdu.  The tart was a sweet pastry case filled with an egg custard-y filling, which wobbled satisfyingly under our spoons.  The pain perdu was crunchy and sweet, with a scoop of coconut and raspberry sorbet on the side.

Complimentary petit fours are a surefire way to win my heart.  We were served adorable little teacups of chocolate mousse, with a biscotti dipper - much more chocolate than mousse, although you'll hear no complaints from me about that. 

A completely non-food-related observation:  the bathroom was magnificent.  All marble floors and dinky little handsoap dispensers and individual towels.   I do love a good bathroom, and this was epic.

After lunch, we walked off our huge meal through Hyde Park, where the leaves were a-whirling and the ducks were a-quacking.  I think it was a pretty good birthday, all in all.

Tinned Peach & Ginger Crumble

This isn't going to be a long post. (Try to contain your disappointment.) It's going to be short because I've got a date with my husband, a whisky-and-ginger nightcap, and a particularly scintillating episode of Match of the Day.   I will be making insightful comments such as, "ooh, isn't he running fast!" and "which team is playing in blue, again?"  What a lucky man B is.

We've got just enough time before MOTD kicks off (ha! a football joke! AMAZING) to talk crumble.

I love me some crumble.

So easy to make and so comforting to eat.   The Holy Grail of winter puddings, I think you'll agree.

Crumble is even better when you don't mess about stewing fruit for the filling and just open a tin instead.  Sophie Grigson says it's OK.   She also says to put ginger in the crumble topping.  This is OK too.  She also says to scatter some pinenuts over the top before baking.  That was a step too far for me. 

The super-sweetness of the tinned peaches works amazingly with the warm, gingery, crunchy topping.  Happy winter eating, everyone.

Naughty But Nice: Takeaway Night

Er. Well, I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

Do you like how I've taken these photos with an arty iPhone filter to make them look a bit classier?  Hmm.

The Cat was very disappointed not to get a single crispy duck pancake of his own.

Colourful Chicken Curry & Rice

Are your eyes ready for the most colourful bowl of food, like, ever?  They are?  OK then.

The red chicken curry was made in the laziest way possible, by cooking some chicken thighs, a sliced onion, and some garlic with a tin of coconut milk and some ready-made Thai curry paste.  

The yellow rice - by the way, so much prettier than normal rice, don't you think? - is made just by adding a couple of cloves and a teaspoon of turmeric to the pan as the rice cooks. 

This is the ultimate cheer-up food...I defy anyone to be sad when your meal looks as bright as this!

Buttery Lentils With Broccoli and Bacon

Ha ha ha.  Did you see how I tried to disguise the "lentils" in the title above by surrounding them with more delicious-sounding ingredients, like butter and bacon?  That's because I know that any recipe involving lentils inevitably has a certain hemp-sandal, hippie-commune feel to it.  Sigh.   Anyway, I think lentils are yummy, and that's why, when I saw this recipe on the Riverford website, I thought it would be a perfect weekday supper and forced it upon B at the first chance I had.

Action shot!

Enjoy whilst braiding straw into baskets and tending to the family goat.

Spicy Baked Chicken & Roasted Romanesco with Tomatoes

Have you ever seen this vegetable in the supermarket?  Doesn't it look like something that just crash-landed from space?  I love it!  It turns up in our veg box deliveries from time to time, and we've always just treated it like broccoli and thrown it in stirfries.  This time, however, we thought we'd branch out and try something new.

Riverford recommended roasting the romanesco for about twenty-five minutes until soft, and then tossing it with some chopped sundried tomatoes and olives (full recipe here).  We had to improvise (as always, we didn't have all the ingredients we needed, and we are much too lazy to walk to the shop), so we omitted the olives and the breadcrumbs.  The roasted romanesco got covered with a tomato-and-garlic paste that we'd thrown together in a small saucepan, and cooked down until soft.

We wanted an oven-based dish to serve alongside the romanesco, to minimise on effort.  Since we haven't eaten chicken in forever, I decided to make some spicy drumsticks, which are quick to do and big on flavour.

Spicy Chicken Marinade (for 2 people, ie, 4 drumsticks)

2 teaspoons hot smoked paprika

1 teaspoon ground cumin

4 cloves garlic

Olive oil, to coat

Pound the garlic cloves with the spices and then add enough olive oil to make a thick paste.  Place your drumsticks in an ovenproof dish and smother with the marinade.  Leave in the fridge for 30 minutes (or longer, if you have time).

These will take about 30 minutes to cook at 180 degrees.

If you like spiciness, you can serve the leftover marinade in a little pot and dip some bread into it.  This is what Franklin the rabbit would recommend, and he's a bunny of excellent taste. 

Pasta With Spinach & Feta

This was intended to be a spinach and feta tart.  But someone - naming no names, but let's point out that it wasn't me, and it wasn't The Cat either, I'm just saying - forgot to buy pastry.  So, the tart ingredients got jumbled together with some sliced onions and garlic, and mixed into a big bowlful of pasta. 

And very good it was too. 

Country House Dining

So - it's a crisp, blue-skied, October day with just a little autumnal chill in the air.  What's a girl to do on a day like this?  She should take a road trip to the beautiful Derbyshire countryside, that's what!  Add in a stately home, a sculpture exhibition, wellies, sheep, plus lots of gossip and silliness, and you have one of the bestest days out ever.

There was food, too, of course.  (When is there not, when I'm around?)  We fueled the miles between London and Derbyshire with service station coffees and sugary goodness, and warmed ourselves against the October weather with some good old-fashioned country lunching. 

Ooh, hello, pool of melted butter!

Delicious scone-y goodness.  Mmm.

Carrot & Coriander Soup

Hello!  Happy Tuesday!  Would you like to read a post about soup?  I thought you would.

I like soup.  I really like it, in fact - I would probably be a member of its fan club, if such a wonderful establishment existed.  I happen to be quite particular about what kind of soup I like, however.  Mulligatawny?  Strange name and too many ingredients lurking in the bottom of the bowl to catch in my teeth - urk.  Leek and potato?  Always too pale.  Carrot and coriander?  Too bland.

But then we had a glut of carrots in our veg box, and I wanted to push myself beyond the reliable carrot and ginger soup that I always make.  So, somewhat reluctantly, I decided to give carrot and coriander a whirl.

Carrot & Coriander Soup

You need (serves 4)

1 leek

1 lb carrots, scrubbed and chopped

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp coriander seeds

Olive oil

1 1/2 pints water

Bunch fresh coriander

Salt & pepper

Firstly, finely slice the leek and arrange the pieces in a roasting tin.  Add the chopped carrots, spices, and a good drizzling of olive oil.  Roast in a low oven for about an hour, until the carrots are soft to the touch.

Tip everything in the pan into a blender.  Add water (not stock - this is a Delia Smith recommendation, and it's a good one.  You don't want much to distract from the sweetness of the carrots).  Add the fresh coriander, and salt and pepper generously.  You can afford to be liberal with the salt here, because you need to balance out the sugar from the carrots. 

Blend until smooth. 

If the resulting mixture looks too thick, feel free to add more water, or some cream if you prefer a more luxurious soup.  For the record, we didn't use any cream, and the soup was perfect - fresh-tasting, with the three different kinds of coriander giving layers of spice which play against the earthy sweetness of the carrots.

We served the soup with a homemade batch of walnut, apricot, and rosemary bread (recipe from this lovely book).   It didn't turn out as fancy as it sounds, but since it soaked up the soup beautifully, who really cares?

Grilled Red Mullet With Lemon and Fennel

B was working from home on Friday, which meant that he had a free rein when it came to dinner.  He outdid himself, I'll think you'll agree.  This is what I came home to:

Pre-dinner snackage of houmous and carrot sticks.  (Don't be fooled by the rustic-looking nature of that houmous.  It's not homemade.  I've never understood the point of making houmous from scratch.  Surely  the tahini paste  (whatever that might be) alone costs more to buy than the houmous itself?  Or am I missing something?  Hmm, this is a long bracket.) 

Spanking fresh red mullet from the fishmonger.  We had two each, because they are quite small once filleted.  And because we are greedy. 

The fish fillets got gently covered with a drizzle of olive oil, lemon juice, and a lot of feathery fennel leaves, before being lightly grilled for about four minutes per side. 

My contribution to the dinner was a warm potato salad with lots of garlic (softened in olive oil), butter, and more fennel tops. 

And then we had Eton Mess, with fresh blueberries and strawberries. 

He should work from home more often.

Butternut Squash Risotto

You might have noticed that risotto is a pretty popular dinner choice in the Plum household.  I make no excuses for this - it's so simple and so delicious, and best of all, you can include any old ingredients and still make a feast fit for a king.

Here's another yummy risotto idea.  Peel a butternut squash, and chop it into smallish chunks.  Place on a baking tray, and drizzle with olive oil.  Sprinkle over a tablespoonful of chopped fresh sage.  You can use dried sage if you prefer, but reduce the quantity a little.

Roast the squash at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes, until the squash is golden and soft.  In the meantime, make up your risotto in the usual way.  Once all the stock is absorbed into the rice, add the squash (and any yummy scrapings from the roasting pan). 

If you'd like to make the risotto look pretty, you could top with a couple of fresh sage leaves.

Tuesday Is The New Friday

Urgh, Tuesday.  I'm not a fan of you.  You're not even remotely close to the weekend.   And you never have anything good on the telly.  This week, you excelled at being rubbish.  Problems at work, delays on the tube, stupid windy weather that ruined my hair.  Thanks for that, Tuesday.

We cured our Tuesday blues with an evening out.

Cocktails first, of course.  Here's a Dark & Stormy in a cute jar-like glass.  It was happy hour, so two-for-one.  Yahoo.

Then it was onto dinner.  The restaurant had many, many lamps.  I'm not sure why, but they looked pretty.

Sliced pitta, olive oil and dukkah, anyone?  Yes please. 

A basket full of souvlaki?  G'wan then.

Cocktails + Greek food = not such a bad Tuesday, after all.

Oven-Roasted Mushrooms With Goat's Cheese

Me:  "These mushrooms are amazing!  And this meal is completely vegetarian, too.  Good for us!"

B:     "Er....."

Me:  "What?"

B:     "Well, I covered the mushrooms in all the gravy we had left over from the lamb yesterday."

Me:  "Oh!  So THAT'S why they're so delicious."

B:     "Yep."

Slow-Roast Lamb With Garlic, Rosemary & Thyme

When the nights start drawing in and the wind carries the chilly promise of winter, is there anything nicer than battening down the hatches and reading the Sunday papers on the sofa whilst a delicious dinner bubbles away in your handy slow cooker?  No?  I thought not.  

B and I picked up a shoulder of lamb at the supermarket (B wanted me to lie and say we bought it at The Ginger Pig, but we didn't.  A shoulder of lamb at that place may well be organically and ethically produced, but it also costs a gazillion pounds.  Sometimes choices must be made) and we literally couldn't wait to get home to cook it. 

We made a rub from several cloves of garlic, an onion, and lots of fresh rosemary and thyme, which we blitzed in the food processor with plenty of olive oil until they formed a delectable paste.  We covered the meat on all sides, then lowered it into the slow cooker with a cupful of red wine. 

We let the lamb cook for about four hours on a medium setting, while we lounged around watching West Wing repeats and loosening our waistbands in preparation for the evening meal.

About forty minutes before we wanted to eat, we took the lid off the slow cooker (so that the pot liquid could cook down into a rich, thick gravy) and prepared the vegetables.  We didn't want anything too fancy, since the lamb was the star of the show, so I simply sliced a handful of carrots thinly and drizzled them with honey and some chopped thyme, and let them roast until sticky and golden.  Some broccoli added a bit of colour variety.

Best.Meal.Ever.  Because it had been cooked long and slow, the lamb was super-tender and the ingredients in the rub lent it a delicious, delicate flavour.  We could have quite happily eaten the meat all by itself, but since we had to have vegetables, they were delicious too.

(Sorry for the massive box of Kleenex making a sneaky appearance in the photo above.  We have Man Flu in the house.) 

Lazy Lunching

Due to some rota reshuffling at the tin mine this week, I unexpectedly had the weekend off.  It was like Christmas!  An unanticipated free weekend!  Woo hoo! 

B and I celebrated by going a-wandering in Victoria Park, which is looking particularly lovely at the moment, all autumnal colours and squirrels. 

We picked up coffee here, and browsed the pricey-but-oh-so-tempting little shops by the park for some bits and pieces for lunch.

 Bread from here (amazing name for a bakery/cafe, don't you think?  I wish I'd thought of it.)

Cheese from here.

And the last of the tomatoes from here:

It's Paella, Jim, But Not As We Know It

I've never tried to make paella before.  In my mind, it was one of those complicated dishes that involve an armful of ingredients and an awful lot of concentration.  But then J whipped up this beautiful little number for us one evening, and it got me to thinking that maybe I could tackle this paella business after all.

It probably would have helped, however, if I'd looked up the necessary ingredients first.  I picked up some prawns from the shop on the way home, but it turns out that you need more than prawns to make a paella.

Hence why my attempt looked like this:

Ahem.  I had to use risotto rice, and red wine instead of white.  Also, spinach instead of peas.  And I only had a thimbleful of chorizo,   In all honesty, it can't be called a paella at all.  It was a big dish of rice with some prawns.  But my husband ate it just the same.  He's nice that way.

Sausage & Potato Omelette

Sausages.  Let's all think about sausages for a second (mmm.... oh sorry, got distracted there for a moment). Sausages come in packs of six.  Now, who are they being marketed at?  Certainly not your average UK family of four (six sausages are just not enough to go around, unless your family of four includes a couple of not-very-hungry mice).  Nor indeed are they aiming for your average couple - as B and I can demonstrate.  He always eats three sausages.  I always eat two.  That leaves us with one ridiculous sausage left over, which, let's face it, is no good to anyone at all, unless one of the aforementioned not-very-hungry mice happens to be visiting. 

On the scale of world problems, I appreciate that this doesn't rank very highly, but it still annoys me.  Sausage makers of the UK, I implore you to start stocking sausages in packs of five.  Or ten.  Just not six.  Thank you very much for your kind attention in this matter.

Since we made toad in the hole yesterday, we had one of these lonesome sausages taking up space in the fridge, so we used it up in an omelette.  Also starring in this omelette were: a solitary potato we discovered in the fridge, some spinach, and some tomatoes (of course).

Topped with a bit of cheese and grilled until golden, this made a satisfying and filling midweek supper.  And an excellent use for a leftover sausage, as it turns out.  

Toad in the Hole

Have you noticed that the weather has suddenly turned Arctic on us?  No more sunny day picnics for us - autumn is properly here, and I've had to bust out the duffel coat and gloves for the first time since spring.  But I can't be too sad about it - because the colder weather is the perfect excuse to make filling, warming, stodgy dishes....like toad in the hole.  Yay!!!

Because it's a hearty, calorie-heavy dish, it is quite clearly a man's responsibility to cook toad in the hole.  I sat at the kitchen table and enjoyed a glass of cider while I watched B work.

He makes a Yorkshire pudding batter following the classic Delia Smith recipe, and pours this around the sausages into a hot baking tin.  The smell of this cooking in the oven is officially the most mouthwatering smell ever. 

By the way, the sausages we used were from Waitrose and had apricot, ginger and thyme in them.  I only bought them because they were reduced, but people, they rocked. 

Sides were steamed broccoli (you've got to have some healthiness in there somewhere) and onion gravy.

It was a little bit of autumn heaven on a plate.

Pudding was some late British strawberries (Waitrose again, gah) which I marinated in lime, sugar and gin. 

They balanced out the waistband-expanding first course perfectly.  Come on autumn, I'm ready for you. 

Parcel-Baked Salmon With Roast Potatoes

Ahh, salmon.  It's such a superfood, isn't it?  You can always find it in the supermarket, it's easy to cook, and pretty much everyone likes it.  We tend to fall back on the baked-in-a-parcel method for salmon, since it scores highly in the minimum effort/maximum yum ratio.  This time, we simply popped the fillets on some greaseproof paper, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and topped them with some finely-sliced garlic and ginger.  Then the greaseproof paper gets folded around the fish, the neat little packages get placed on a baking tray, and it goes in the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees. 

To go with the fish, B made his stuff-of-legend roast potatoes.  Ladies, I pretty much married him for these potatoes.  They are that good.  He chops the potatoes nice and small (more surface area = more crispiness), and parboils them for around ten minutes until just soft.  Then they get tipped onto a hot baking tray covered in olive oil, salt-and-pepper'd lavishly, and roasted until golden and crunchy.  Look at those little beauties. 

After putting the fish and potatoes in the oven, we realised we hadn't made anything remotely green to go alongside.  Cue, the perfect five-minute vegetable fallback: edamame with chili and salt. 

I LOVE edamame.  You can buy them frozen in big packs, and then when you need an instant veg boost, defrost a bowlful, sprinkle with salt and a diced chili, et voila! You can even eat them with chopsticks if you want to! Sophisticated! 

Pitta-Pitta-Pitta-PICNIC!

Oh my goodness, wasn't the weather g-l-o-r-i-o-u-s at the weekend?  It was like a little slice of July had taken a wrong turn and ended up in October.  Like an unexpected, end-of-summer bonus.  Yay!

Because it was such a hot day, we couldn't face wasting a minute of it in the kitchen.  So, after an arduous spell of sunning ourselves in the park, we came home to a hastily-thrown-together but ultimately delicious picnic that we inhaled in front of X Factor (an activity which should come with a health warning, as we nearly choked on our pitta breads whilst shouting "KITTY?!" incredulously at the screen). 

We had two different kinds of houmous (because Tesco were running a two-for-£3 offer, and because we are suckers for fancy-sounding things in pots), pitta breads, a massive green salad, cheese, and a big bowl of my speciality - tomato salad.

Tomato Salad

Here are the things you need:

Salt, pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.  You will also need tomatoes (yep) and any kind of nice fresh herbs you can get your hands on (I used parsley and chives from the garden). 

First, slice some tomatoes and layer them over the bottom of your pretty glass bowl.  Sprinkle over a teaspoonful of olive oil, half of balsamic, and a twist of salt and pepper.  Snip over some herbs.  Your bowl should now look like this:

Repeat the layering process above until the bowl is full.

Look at that!  Amazing!

Beware of taking a mouthful just before Louis Walsh makes a ridiculous decision like putting a woman who un-ironically wore a light-up leotard through to the live finals.  Gahh.