Last night's dinner for Simon, me and our friend Lucy - chorizo and chick peas, tortilla (though not strictly Spanish as it had vegetables in!) and Cous Cous, with bread and garlic olive oil & balsamic vinegar.
First time using our new Spanish dishes since we got back from holiday, where we bought them in Mijas. I think we're trying to assemble a dinner set, 2 pieces at a time!
One of mine and Simon's favourite weekend brunches is Nigella Lawson's Croque Monsieur Bake. It's deliciously cheesy, with a mustard tang, and soft eggy bread.
At Christmas, as well as fajitas for Christmas dinner (brilliant plan!) we had tiramisu, and I thought I'd share it as we got festive with the cocoa decoration. Simple star stencils cut out of paper, but they made it look lovely.
A bit late now, but I thought I'd post this pic of the crispy cakes we made at Easter. They have these cute bunnymallows on half, and more traditional minieggs on the other half.
Today we got some beautiful steak from our butcher, Paul South. Simon did a wonderful job of cooking it, medium and tender. We had it with mash, sugarsnap peas and carrots, and he made a wonderful peppercorn sauce.
This weekend at the farmers' market we got a gourmet mushroom selection from http://www.moretonmushrooms.co.uk/, and so I decided to do a potato and mushroom gratin. First I fried off the mushrooms in my lovely Purple casserole dish, with some butter. Then I added finely chopped leeks, garlic and broad beans, and left them on a low light to soften.
I thinly sliced the potatoes, and made a white sauce, then layered the mushroom mix and the potatoes, added the white sauce and topped it with grated cheese and Polish breadcrumbs. It went in the oven on about 170c for 20 minutes while Simon and I played Small World, then had a few minutes under the Grill.
It was gorgeous, tasty, mushroomy, with lovely soft potatoes. Definitely one to do again.
This post was supposed to have pictures, including a gorgeous one of all the different types of mushrooms, but my phone crashed and deleted them - grrr!
Tonight's dinner was what we called barnyard pie. I'd been wanting to make a chicken variant of cottage pie for a while, and it was gorgeous, tasty and comforting, definitely one to make again.
Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
2 leeks
2 carrots
2 cloves of garlic
2 rashers of bacon
Flour
Milk (about a pint in total)
Brie (most of a generous wedge)
Potatoes
Butter/margarine
Cube and fry the chicken off in a little oil. Cut the leeks in half lengthways, then into little strips, and add them to the pan. Peel and slice the carrots, and stir them into the mix. Fry the bacon off in one end of the pan, and then stir through. Add two cloves of crushed garlic.
Peel and chop the potatoes, then put them on to boil for the mash.
Sprinkle about a tablespoon of flour over the meat and veggies and stir through. Pour about 2/3 of a pint of milk over the mix, and turn the heat up to a simmer to thicken. Chop the Brie into chunks and stir into the sauce. Add pepper if desired. Once the cheese has melted and the sauce is thick and tasty, turn it down very low and put a lid on it.
Preheat a hot grill.
Once the potatoes are ready, mash them with the rest of the milk and the butter, and top the sauce with the potatoes (fork made mowing lines optional, brrm-brrm noises very optional!). Pop it under a nice hot grill until the top is lightly browned.
Nom!
