very quick asparagus and pasta

We love asparagus, but we only eat it in May/June, when it is British grown – somehow imported stuff doesn’t taste the same. Well, it doesn’t taste of anything, really. So we tend to gorge a bit when the local stuff is in season.

I picked up two bunches from a roadside stall in Norfolk on Sunday, and we ate the first last night. While the pasta water was coming to the boil, I trimmed the asparagus spears, and put them in the steamer basket as 150g of fusilli was cooking. Made a rapid dressing of lemon juice and 30ml of olive oil, grated  about 30g of parmesan, drained the pasta, and stirred it all together with lashings of freshly grated black pepper.

Took 15 minutes start to finish, and was lovely and summery. Approx 475 calories per serving.

Mediterranean vegetables and lentils

I often make a Moroccan lentils sort of thing – lentils with ras al hangout spices, garlic and onions.  I generally cook up a batch for the freezer, and they turn into a nice aubergine bake, or a lentil moussaka. I got a tub full out the other day to make the former, and then didn’t get round to it for some reason. And we were going away for the weekend, and there were veg in the fridge that needed using up.

So I chopped up two aubergines. one red pepper, some red onions, a sweet potto, and a butternut squash, and cooked them down in a little olive oil. Added garlic and ginger, and a tin of coconut milk, and then enough water to cover the veg, and simmered until they were cooked – about 40 minutes, I think. Then I added the tub of Moroccan lentils, and warmed the lot through thoroughly

it was surprisingly nice, and made eight portions, six of which have gone in the freezer.

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lovely veg

A new middle eastern grocer has opened up round the corner, so we went and had a look. I don’t know if they’ll always be as cheap, but they were doing three aubergine for £1, butternut squash at £0.75 each, and all manner of other stuff. So we bore loads home, including the aforementioned, plus oranges, sweet potatoes, courgettes, red peppers, etc for the princely sum of £10.24. And they gave us the 4p off!

So on Sunday I made a *huge* tray of roast veg, and we had it with a gorgeous piece of lamb neck fillet which mugged me when I’d popped into Normans for some bacon. And a red wine sauce.

And on Tuesday, for lunch, we had roast veg with a coriander naan from the Indian shop (4 for £1). And on Tuesday, we had the last of the roast veg with fennel sausages.

All in all, a remarkably cheap and extremely nice thing. I shall go back in a couple of days and stock up again.

pork and pasta

I had a boneless pork chop, about 120g worth, loitering in the freezer. We’re trying to eat up all these oddments, so I fetched it out on Monday to do a stir fry. Pete volunteered to cook it, and while it was very nice, it would have been even better if he’d remembered to put the bloody pork *in*.

So last night I fashioned it into a quick pasta dish. I cubed the pork and fried it off in a little olive oil, then set it aside. Put chopped onion, courgette, garlic and mushrooms in the pan and sweated them down, then put the pork back in with some salt and pepper. It was a bit … blah, so I rummaged on the spice shelf for inspiration, and added some aniseed. When the pasta quills were cooked, I added them to the mix, with about three dessert spoons of creme fraiche, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

About 454 calories per serving.

quick onion gravy

We had sausages and root mash last night – one of our favourites. But I forgot to organise onion gravy.

Ideally, for onion gravy, you should cook the onions slowly, but by the time I thought of it, it would have been too late to cook them properly at all. So, in a bit of a rush, I devised a quick version. Please don’t revile me.

I made a roux with a small knob (25g, maybe?) of butter and a tablespoon of plain flour. Added about half a glass of red wine, left from a bottle opened about three weeks ago (!), and not finished – whatever is wrong with us? Whisked that until there were no lumps,  then added a little stock pot thing that I picked up in Morrisons yesterday, 8 for a quid. Then water until the consistency was right. And then – oh the shame – I added a couple of spoonfuls of crispy dried onions.

And, do you know, it was perfectly acceptable. Not as nice, of course, but did quite well enough for the job. One to remember.

a trip to the butcher

I am currently between treadmills – sold the old one (basic, no inclines, no programmes) and it was collected on Wednesday, and its replacement (whizzy!) is arriving this afternoon, ghods willing. And so, the horror, I have taken myself *outside* to the park for my constitutional the past couple of mornings.

Yesterday it was -2C, and frosty paths, but a beautiful sunny day. And on the way home, I noticed that the inestimable T L Norman of Princes Ave was actually open at 8.30 a.m. So this morning, I added a shopping bag and my purse to the iPhone, and set off round the park (less cold, but chill wind and very grey, thank you for asking), and called in on route for home.

I bought:

1 huuuuge chicken (which will have been scratching about in the dirt outside)
about 1kg of pork shoulder, skinned and diced for me
8 fat rashers of back bacon (no water in that, no sirree Bob)

And then he informed me that he had venison “in the back”. And brought me out a selection of cuts. I picked a leg roast, which I could slice into steaks if we wanted, but I suspect it’ll go in as is. Well, it’ll almost certainly go in the freezer first, but you know.

That little lot came to £25.40. And we will get at least 5 meals off the chicken, plus soup. At least 3 from the pork, probably 4. And at least 2 from the venison. Which comes to 22 portions of cracking good meat for just over a quid a throw. Which is nice.

chicken and ricotta

We had a chicken stir fry a couple of days ago; when I got the chicken out of the freezer, I discovered there were two breasts melded together. One went on the stir fry, and one was left.  On Sunday, I made a quick cheesecake, as the friend coming for supper had requested same. So there was a tub of ricotta, and half a lemon, left over from that.

Diced up the chicken, and fried it off in a very little olive oil. added three cloves of garlic, some sliced chestnut mushrooms, and a chopped red onion. Stirred it about for three minutes or so, then added the lemon juice, and a small slug of white wine from an open bottle in the fridge. We seem to be slightly overrun with white wine – no idea why, because we don’t buy or drink white.  I think people bring it, and then decide they like the red on offer better!

Put a lid on the pan, and let it simmer down while the fusilli cooked. At the end, stirred in about half a tub of ricotta and some torn basil leaves. 

About 210 calories, plus pasta. 

goats cheese, mushrooms and pasta

Not terribly exciting, I know, but there was ⅔ of a goaty cheese left in the fridge.

So we chopped an onion, some garlic and a bunch of chestnut mushrooms, and fried them off in the smallest amount of olive oil possible. Mushrooms are horrors – they just slurp up all the oil and don’t give it back for a while so I had to stand over the cooker; the horrors of being on a diet :)

When the veg were cooker, I added some penne pasta that had been simmering at the same time, ⅓ of the cheese, and some basil leaves. It really was very nice. And very quick.

377 calories, by my best estimate.

smoked salmon, spinach and goat’s cheese omelette

We’re going to be away for a couple of days, so I’m Using Stuff Up. Aldi had some smoked salmon at half price last week, so I bought a pack. About 2/3rds went into a pasta dish, and the rest was still in the fridge. As was about half a bag of baby spinach.

I won’t tell you how to make an omelette – you’ll all have your own way, and anyway, I’m not very good at them :) But I made a 4-egg omelette, scattered the salmon, spinach and  about a quarter of an Aldi goat’s cheese over the mix, folded it, and we scoffed it. And it was dead good.

About 410 calories, as far as I can tell.

mushroom, spinach and mozzarella wraps

About half a punnet of chestnut  mushrooms and some spinach needed eating up, so I deliberately made last night’s cabbage dish with only half a mozzarella ball, and saved the rest for today’s lunch.

Finely chopped the mushrooms and set them to cook down slowly in some olive oil. Put the wraps on individual plates, and scattered some raw spinach leaves on them. Chopped the mozzarella quite small. When the mushrooms were done, added salt and black pepper and the rest of the spinach, and stirred till it wilted. Then added the mozzarella.

Bunged the resultant gloopy mess onto the wraps – as always I’d made to much, so some of it oozed out, but that didn’t affect the fab flavour one iota!

About 360 calories, I reckon.