Homecoming

After our little weekend away (see the last post), we felt the need for simple food and an early night; having brought back a few Dexter rump steaks uneaten that can’t be refrozen, I decided to throw together a beef stir fry to use up half of one of them at least.

We also have a surfeit of oranges, so I cut the steak into strips and marinated it in the juice (and a bit of pulp) from one, along with a slosh of teriyaki, a larger slosh of rice wine and a bit of maple syrup.

While that was sitting, I chopped three small shallots, julienned some garlic and ginger, cut a tired courgette rescued from the fridge into small batons, and finely sliced a deseeded red chili.

I fried the shallots, ginger and garlic in some groundnut oil in the wok, added some fivespice then the courgette, fried some more, and then added the chili. The beef along with its marinade went in next and cooked down for a few minutes. I added a slosh of tamari at the end, then tossed in cooked noodles, and stirred in some fresh basil just before serving.

Just the thing to eat whilst watching the extended HIGNFY off the Tivo, and nicely followed by the last two slices of chocolate, walnut and coffee cake warmed in the microbe and an episode of Boston Legal before bed.

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Team Waste cooking

Every year, a whole bunch of us gather at a mate’s place just outside Carmarthen, and spend a few days drinking and talking (mostly) bollox.  It’s been traditionally held over the August Bank Holiday, but Geoff decided to give it a try in May this year, and it worked – I have returned sunburned and insect-bitten!It’s hard to explain what it is, really – this was the 11th year, I think; it’s possibly my favourite weekend of the year, catching up with old friends, drinking whisky round the table till the early hours then stumbling back to the tent to sleep, watching some of the guys completely wreck a piece of automotive machinery … I suspect that pictures will give a far better idea than words, so take a look at the Team Waste Flickr group for more edification, should you be interested. I provide dinner on Friday nights, cooking up a huge gammon (5 kgs this year), using Nigella’s poor white trash method of cooking it in full fat coke.  The rest of the time we eat mostly barbecued stuff, and I fancied a change, so this year I packed a huge cast iron pan and a travelling larder of Stuff, together with chopping board, knife, wooden spatula and slotted spoon, and stopped at a butcher in Monmouth for things to cook. So, on Sunday afternoon, armed with lots of chicken breast, and fortified by quite a lot of cold white wine, Jacqi and I constructed a stir fry.  Using a heavy duty burner on the end of a tank of propane, and the aforementioned pan, we started with two rashers of bacon that hadn’t been put back in the fridge – fried them off to get the fat.  Then we cooked unfeasible amounts of strips of chicken breast – in batches – and set them aside with the bacon. Then in went onion and garlic, begged from Sheena (the lady of the house) and olive oil.  It was quite hard to keep these from burning, as the burner seemed to be pretty much binary – hot or off – but we managed, and kept adding more oil, although I switched to rapeseed quite quickly due to the heat.  Then heaps of sliced mushrooms were added and fried off. Back went the chicken and bacon, together with sea salt, black pepper,  plum sauce, teriyaki, and garlic and chilli sauce (it was a very well stocked travelling larder!), together with a few slooshes of white wine to keep it at the right consistency. We hurled in some chopped basil (which I’d picked up from the supermarket for mini pizzas) at the last minute. Quite a few slooshes of white wine also went into the cooks – it was very hot out there in the sun, never mind the cooking! Sheena had made a pork curry and cooked a stack of rice, so it all blended rather well together. I was going to do something with steak and red wine in the evening, but everyone was a) full, and b) suffering from the sun, so I brought it home again; there’ll be some recipes from there later – it came out of the freezer, so needs to be used up.

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mini pizzas

Our hostess at the weekend did these for Saturday lunch – so simple, and utterly delicious.

Take pitta bread, spread with tomato paste, cover with grated mozarella and bake in the oven.

I’d brought a pot of basil back from the supermarket that morning, so some of that was chopped and added, and you could add any number of things to make them interesting.

Top idea, Sheena!

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a cross between lasagne and moussaka (with lentils)

We had spinach to use up, and we’d normally make a lasagne or a moussaka. But there was no bolognese sauce in the freezer (and didn’t have any mushrooms left), and no aubergine.  What to do?

Well, I did a hybrid.  It doesn’t sound great, I admit, but trust me – it was utterly lovely.

I chopped an onion and some garlic, and sweated them down in some olive oil.  Then I added about two dessertspoons of the black masala we made at the weekend (I didn’t use precisely this recipe, but it’s close enough for jazz), and fried it off.

In went a mug of brown lentils, and 2 mugs of water, plus a good pinch of salt.  Brought to the boil and simmered on a diffuser for about 50 minutes.

Made a white sauce, then layered an ovenproof dish with lentils <-> lasagne <-> spinach  <-> white sauce <-> lentils <-> lasagne <-> white sauce, and topped with cubed feta.  Into a hot oven (gas 6) for about 35-40 minutes.

Honestly – it was really nice.  A bit fusion-y, I know …

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asparagus egg-fried rice

We had friends over for Eurovision on Saturday – we cooked up an Indian feast: beef in coconut and black masala, split moong dhal, cucumber/carrot/red onion raita.  There was a stack of rice left over, and a bunch of asparagus to eat.

Trimmed the woody bits off the asparagus, cut the stalks into thirds, and blanched for five minutes or so.

Chopped garlic, spring onions, fresh ginger and a red chilli, and stir fried for a minute or so.  Added the asparagus and some soy sauce, and fried for a few more minutes.  Added the cooked rice and stirred it about, then added an egg beaten with a dollop of sesame oil, and stirred *that* around using a chopstick (to distribute the egg).

Absolutely gorgeous – really fresh and light.

Choice of rhubarb crumble and/or chocolate/walnut/coffee cake to follow.  Groan.

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this week’s veg box

From Box Bush Farm, £15 bought us:

• 1 bag potatoes
• 1 bag carrots
• 1 bag rather nice pale green beans
• 1 bag small chestnut-y mushrooms
• 1 bag rocket
• 1 lettuce
• 1 bag spinach
• 2 small cabbages
• 1 bunch asparagus
• apples, oranges, bunch of bananas

Difficult week, as we have people round for Eurovision tonight (cooking Indian, details later), and are away for a few days from Friday morning.

Must use up asparagus, spinach, rocket first.  Will ponder. Suggestions welcome.

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chicken soup

As I mentioned, there was a bit of a soup crisis yesterday, occasioning me to fetch the chicken carcass out of the freezer and bung it in the slow cooker to make stock.

This morning, Pete nobly stripped the meat off it, and there was enough for at least one more meal!

I put the stock in a pan, added the remainder of the swede/carrot combo.  Chopped a leek up, and cooked it in some olive oil to kick start it.  Added that to the soup pot, with some pearl barley, and half the chicken from the carcass, cut small.

So chickie! soup for lunch today, with baguettes.

The remainder will go for a dhal with chicken on Thursday night – Pete also cooks the dhal in this house, and I’m out at a School Governors’ meeting that evening.

So that chicken did:

• roast on Monday
• stir fry on Tuesday
• fennel and chicken risotto on Sunday
• chicken pie last night (will do another day)
• soup
• lentils

12 servings plus soup for several days.  Don’t waste food!

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chicken pie

With what I thought was the last of the chickie!, we made a pie.

Roughly chopped an onion, and fried it off with a pack of pancetta cubes in some olive oil.  Added some of the carrot/swede combo that I cooked on Sunday, some chopped sage from the herb garden, and some chopped chicken, and warmed it through.

Stirred in some flour (about 1.5 tablespoons, I’d guess) until everything was coated, then added milk bit by bit until it reached an appropriate consistency.

In the meantime, P had rolled out the thawed puff pastry and lined the pie dish (I may like cooking, but I’m damned if I’m making puff pastry in the week!).  Decanted the filling in, put on a pastry lid, brushed with milk and into the oven at Gas 7 for about half an hour.

Ate it with boiled spuds and steamed cabbage.  Enough for another meal too!

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woe …

I forgot to put the soup in the fridge on Friday (which I normally do, as we don’t normally eat it at the weekend). Given the temperature, and remembering that both P and I were quite ill after eating some shoop that had gone over, we have reluctantly poured it into the compost bin.

Thankfully, I had a chicken carcass in the freezer, so I lobbed that in the slow cooker and set it going, so there’ll be some stock to make some more in the morning.

:: slaps self upside the head

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weekend cooking

On Saturday morning, I peeled and diced the two swedes from the veg box, and several carrots, and set them to boil with a load of potatoes.

There was some massala left from the other day, so 1/3 of the potatoes were fried until crispy in some groundnut oil, then added to the massala sauce to bulk it out a bit. Then we ate it for lunch, accompanied by a tortilla (I know, I know, but they needed eating).

Half the swede and carrot, and half the remaining spud, went into a bubble and squeak for Saturday supper (I had to boil some cabbage especially!), which we consumed with Toulouse sausages.

Due to the lack of veg box hereabouts recently, we haven’t had banana cake or muffins for weeks and weeks, but last weekend the farm shop had brown bananas. I bought some and left them on the side for a few days, and on Saturday afternoon, I turned them into a brace of banana cakes (seemed a shame to turn the oven on for just sausages, you see).

The last 1/3 of the spuds went towards yesterday’s brunch: bacon, black pudding, some wizened mushrooms, fried potatoes, fried egg. Lovely jubbly.

Sunday supper was meant to be chickie! pie – that would have included some of the remaining swede/carrot mix, and the last of the chicken from the previous Sunday. However, after 5 hours straight gardening, we couldn’t be arsed, so we’ll have it tonight. We just stir-fried some asparagus with chilli and ginger and had it with basmati rice, and followed it with a bar of Green and Black almond choccy, as a treat.

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