Virtuous Fish & Chips

After my enormous brunch blowout, I needed something simple and healthy for dinner.  We'd stopped in at the fishmongers after the butcher's yesterday, and picked up two spanking fresh mackerel.  OM.

Mackerel is great.  It's sustainable, it's good for you, it's easily available and it's cheap.  I know it's not the prettiest of fish when it's cooked, but it can taste delicious if you have the right recipe.  We pretty much always rely on Nigel Slater for this, because he is a god.  Soften a sliced onion in some olive oil, then add in chopped garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs and a good dose of smoked paprika (the mackerel has quite a robust flavour so it really can take all the paprika you like).  Spread this mixture onto your butterflied fish, then cook in the oven for about twenty minutes. 

Serve with crispy fried greens and homemade chips.  The perfect Sunday dinner.

Sunday Brunch

Brunch is something people seem to do a lot in films.  And Sex And The City.   There's something quite glamorous about it, isn't there?  Kind of decadent, like you haven't got out of bed in time for breakfast but can't make it through the agonising wait until lunch.  So on Sunday my friends and I decided to channel that movie sophistication and hit The Albion for a little weekend luxury.

It was busy, and the service was a bit slapdash (glasses of orange juice kept appearing at our table, despite us not ordering them), but the food was stellar.  J and I had granola, which was our way of feeling marginally healthy before the pastries came along.

It came with yogurt, and a yummy selection of fruits, including gooseberries.  Hello, gooseberries!  You don't show your faces enough in my life. 

Then came the dessert course (because it was past 12 by then, so we were totally allowed).   I had a flaky fresh croissant.  E had a big slab of chocolate brownie.  J hit the jackpot with a fruit Danish.

This pic is a bit blurry because the danish was making me feel weak at the knees. 

And that was our brunch.  I will be encouraging more of it in my life. 

Classic Pork Chops With Greens

Hello! How was your weekend?  Mine involved a lot of awesome eating.  Yay!

On Saturday we headed over to the butcher's to buy us some meat.  I could have bought pretty much everything in there, but in the end we decided some enormous pork chops.  We've actually never cooked these before, so we thought we'd give ourselves a challenge.

Since it was Saturday, we thought we'd get all fancy and have a starter too.

This is our first crop of fresh peas from the garden, which haven't been cooked - they're so fresh and small you can eat them raw, and they taste like sweets.  Honestly!  I sprinkled them over some salad leaves (which came straight out of a packet), with a few shavings of cheddar.  I dressed the salad with just a splash of olive oil and another of balsamic - I didn't want anything to overpower the lovely summery taste of the peas.  It was delicious.

Next came the pork chops.  We cooked them the Vefa way - seasoned with salt and pepper, then browned in hot oil for a couple of minutes on each side.  Once browned, we reduced the heat, added wine, water, torn sage leaves and some streaky bacon pieces, and let that simmer away for about 20 minutes.  We cooked a big pile of greens in olive oil and nutmeg to have alongside.

People, it was AMAZING.  Forget all the childhood memories you have of pork chops being tough, dry and weirdly fibrous (urk).  These were melt-in-the-mouth piggy goodness.  And I think that sentence says it all. 

Dinner At The Narrow

It's Friday night, you've had a long, hot day at work, and you just don't feel like cooking.  There's only one thing to do - head to a riverside pub and have dinner looking over the water as the sun goes down.

A little pre-dinner drink...

At the table, the waterglasses were these cute blue china numbers.  It was sort of like drinking out of a toothbrush holder, but cute nonetheless.

We shared our starters, because we're democratic and because we're indecisive.  You can see B's hand in this shot, poised to snatch up his fork and begin.  I think he might be growing tired of my photographing our food before he can eat it.

We had rabbit spring rolls, which were wrapped in thin, crackly pastry and came with a deeply savoury dipping sauce, and we had hot smoked trout with tzatziki and fennel flat bread.  The salmon flaked into lovely moist chunks; it played really beautifully against the thin crunchy flatbreads and the coolness of the tzatziki. 

B had the roast pork belly for his main course, which came with a crispy croquette of trotter meat and black pudding.   I had the lamb, which was on a bed of Swiss chard and came with a little sausage roll made from tender shredded shoulder meat.  I was charmed.   A posh sausage roll!  So adorable!  In the picture you can see our side dish of Cornish potatoes, which were nice, but unnecessary.  We could barely drag ourselves up from the table after we'd finished eating. 

What are you up to at the weekend?  Are you having food adventures?  I'm going to the butchers tomorrow to buy MEAT. Mmmm, meat.  See you there!

Sausages with Onion Gravy & Roasted Vegetables

I know, I know, we're in the middle of a heatwave.  I know we should be cracking open a tinnie and throwing some prawns on the barbie.   But sometimes you start thinking about dinner and your mind, despite the balmy weather, whispers mmm sausages.

And then it's only logical to make roasted vegetables and onion gravy to have alongside.  Eat whilst curled up on the sofa with the curtains blocking the glorious evening sunshine, saying things like brrr, it's nippy and I think the nights are drawing in again. 

Winter/Summer Wraps

So, you open the fridge and you discover that you have the following things lolling forlornly on the bottom shelf:

A couple of small, sad potatoes
Some cheese
A bag of (wilting) spring greens

What to do?  Well, you clearly need to buy some tortilla wraps and some shallots, and you've got a more seasonal version of Winter Wraps.   I wasn't convinced by the idea of potato wraps (even for me, that sounds like a lot of carbs), but they were delicious.  The key was to chop the potatoes small, parboil, and then let them fry softly until they're fluffy and crumbly.  Also make sure that your onion-greens-potato ratio is biased towards the non-carbs and you'll be fine.

We swapped the recommended creme fraiche for some grated cheddar, and also had a bowlful of salad leaves from the garden to add some freshness and crunch.

YUM.

Pudding was some blueberries that we bought from the fruit stall outside Stratford station.  £1 a box, people.  You can't go wrong.  They were so ripe we ate them by themselves like sweets.   Here's an arty picture in which I try to make cheap fruit look more glamorous than it is.

Detox Dinner with Salmon & Spaghetti

After the excesses of the weekend, we felt in need of something simple, plain and soothing for dinner on Monday. 

Salmon & Spaghetti

Let a sliced onion colour gently in some olive oil until soft and translucent.  Season, then add some chunks of salmon, and your vegetables - we used sliced mushrooms, spring greens, and some frozen peas.  Let that all cook over a low heat until the fish is cooked through.  Boil some fresh spaghetti, drain, and pile into bowls.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Next, scoop up your fish and vegetable mixture and tip a generous amount onto your spaghetti.  Finish with some fresh dill or fennel and a good squeeze of lemon juice.

Perfection.