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What We Ate Last Week: 6

Week ending Friday 19th June.

A second week of holiday food.

Saturday

Cornish Fresh Trio - Sat

We went to the Scilly Isles today and were back late so had supper out – A Cornish Fish Trio of lemon sole, gurnard & monkfish fillets with a cream and prawn sauce.

Sunday

Rice, quinoa and chicken stir fry - Sun

Quinoa, rice and chicken stirfry.

Monday

Crab - Mon

Another crab.

Tuesday

Scallops and bacon  - Tues

Ed’s birthday, we went out locally for dinner  started with a scallop and bacon salad, followed by lobster.   We had specially ordered the lobster on Saturday when having supper – the fisherman was at the bar in the pub and had promised us a good one – sadly my camera battery went flat when I tried to take a photo.    Suffice to say that a 4lb lobster is a lot of lobster and a treat probably best enjoyed once per year!   (We managed yet another crab at lunchtime)

Wednesday

Megrim Wed

Megrim – a type of sole bought in Cadgwith.

Thursday

No photo – fish chips which we ate in the car before flying the new power kite!

Friday

Crab Friday

One last crab for our last night’s supper!

Roasted New Pots - Edit-1

New potatoes are lovely and best enjoyed plain with butter, pepper and salt – simple is best and I think that doing anything else with them is a waste.   However once they are past their first flush of youth there are many ways of cooking them.   Here I boiled and then roasted the potatoes with black olives, capers and onion.   I thought that I had made enough for supper and lunch the next day – but we gobbled them all up!   This had been added to the cook again list!

Continue Reading »

What we Ate Last Week: 5

Week ending Friday 12th June 2009.

With 2 weeks away and a busy week back in London I am horribly behind with my food diary.

Saturday

We had pollack and chips in the pub in The Lizard where our holiday cottage was.   No photo.

Sunday

sunday-sticky-chicken-with-fried-rice

Sticky chicken with fried rice, recipe to come, but the stir fried chicken had a large dollop of chutney in it to add flavour and a sticky coating. Continue Reading »

A Cornish Holiday

Gunwalloe Cove

Gunwalloe Cove

It has been all quiet on the blogging front as we have been in Cornwall for 2 weeks.      Continue Reading »

Daring Cooks Prawn pot stickers / Gyoza with sweet chilli & soy sauce

It is Daring Cook challenge time again!   It only seems like a few days ago that I was making tofu ricotta gnocchi (I made them ages ago, but posted late).  I am also writing this on the 5th June and setting an autopost so it appears along with all the others on the right day when I shall be on holiday.

Our host for June was Jen from Use Real Butter who chose Chinese  dumplings / potstickers or gyoza for the challenge, saying that they were  ”something that looks daunting, but is actually pretty straightforward. It’s the first recipe I cut my culinary teeth on when I left home for college and the flexibility makes it a good candidate for the Daring Cooks “.  We love gyoza and it is a regular in the Fuss Free Kitchen (my last ones were sweet and fruit filled), I usually buy packets of dumpling wrappers from the Chinese supermarket and I also have the cutest gyoza press from the Japan Centre in London, which together makes making goyza a fuss free breeze! 

Not this time however!  Jen’s instructions were clear that we would be making our gyoza wrappers from scratch and assembling them by hand!  Not to be deterred I rolled up my sleeves, donned an apron and got stuck in.  I used Jen’s basic wrapper recipe below and filled my gyoza with a mix of prawns, chives, sweetcorn and a few capers.   The dipping sauce was equal quantites of sweet chilli and soy sauce with a teaspoon of  sesame seeds thrown in.

Continue Reading »

What We Ate Last Week: 4

Weekending 5th June 2009.     It has got to week 4 of WWALW and I have already forgotton one night’s supper!   I think that the only sensible way to keep this up is to start writing the post on a Saturday, save it as a draft and update it everyday. 

Saturday

Ed was away, I had been hard at work sorting out the flat all day so I ordered a pizza in.

Sunday

I can’t remember what we ate and did not take a photo!

Monday

garlic-puy-lentils-feta-beetroot-monday

Warm garlically puy lentil salad with roasted beetroot, feta, and Dijon mustard dressing.  Delicious.  I cheated and used ready cooked beetroot which only took 10 minutes to roast.

Tuesday

poached-egg-mackerel-cous-cous-tuesday

A very quick supper of smoked mackerel, poached egg and cous cous – delicious and very simple.  I usually hate poaching eggs, so was very pleased at how this one turned out.

Wednesday

We were away again, but had a lovely fish pie and peas.

Thursday

griddled-asparagus-capers-thursday

We had the June Daring Cooks Challenge (to be revealed on the 14th) with a dish of griddled asparagus with charred capers and balsamic vinegar.

Friday

BBQ – sausages, chops, burgers and butternut squash (which BBQs well) followed by the June Daring Bakers Challenge to be revealed on the 25th!

What We Ate Last Week: 3

Week ending Friday 29th May 2009.

Saturday

Pizza Express Pizza spinach salad

I had been out all day so had a Pizza Express Pizza from the freezer, with a spinach salad.

.Sunday

tamarind-chickpeas-and-beans-sun

I spend the day at the Spitalfields City Farm at their wool festival.  It was far too hot to cook so this was an easy freezer to microwave to plate meal. 

Monday.

Tempeh with soy herbs liquid smoke

My first try at tempeh, simmered then fried with soy sauce, herbs and liquid smoke.  I thought that it was delicious; but appreciated that it could be an acquired taste.

Tuesday

anchovy-chilli-caper-tomato-pasta-tues

Favourite comfort pasta also know as pasta with anchovy, capers & chilli, with the addition of a few tomatos.   We eat this every few weeks.

Wednesday

We were away, staying in Cambridge with Ed’s sister, supper was soy glazed griddled beef with roasted pepper salad & red rice and quinoa.  

Thursday

bar-bites-Henry's bar cambridge 

 I met a friend in Cambridge for supper and we feasted on a rare treat of tasty (but unhealthy) bar bites, washed down with a bottle of pink summery wine each!

Friday

We were still in Cambridge with Ed’s sister and had a delicious apsaragus risotto for supper.

Daring Bakers Apple Strudel 2 

Daring bakers apple strudelThe May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

It seems like I am constantly playing Daring Bakers / Cooks catch up so yet again I am a few days late.  Apologies once again to the lovely Daring Bakers hosts who tirelessly host these challenges.

I was delighted to see that the challenge was for Apple Strudel, something that I have never made before, and something that; compared to some of the more indulgent challenges is relatively healthy – even counting towards my 5 a day!

I actually found this a very easy challenge to make, I was suprised at how easy I found the stretching of the dough to be (I worked on a large tea towel which I could rotate on the work surface).  For my filling (I had run out of bread to make crumbs from) I used a layer of  homemade apple butter (if you have not made this then I higly recommend it as it is delicious) topped wtih a layer of bramley apples that had been tossed in a demerara sugar and cinnamon.   

This is definately on my to cook again list – I can see an apple and mixed berry strudel for autumn or an apple and ginny damson strudel to use up the damson gin damsons!

Continue Reading »

Darking Cooks tofu ricotta gnocchi 

The Daring Bakers have expanded to encompass Daring Cooking too! For the inaugural challenge the founders of the Daring Bakers; Lis and Yvonne, chose Ricotta Gnocci from Judy Rogers’s the Zuni Cafe Cookbook

Usually gnocchi is made from potato so a ricotta based gnocchi provided the classic Daring twist and challenge. 

I choose to go vegan for this first challenge; as diary increasingly does not agree with me, making my gnocchi from tofu ricotta loosely based on the Veganomicon recipe. Continue Reading »

What We Ate Last Week: 2

Week ending Friday 22nd May 2009.

Saturday

sumac-crusted-tofu-pomegrante-dressing-pea-shoots-saturday

Sumac crusted baked tofu with a pomegrante dressing on cous cous and pea shoots.   I had found a recipe for sumac coated feta in the Ottolenghi cookbook, which looked delicious, sadly this wasn’t.  I need to experiment, but the sumac coated baked tofu was bitter and oddly tasteless at the same time.

.Sunday

pepper-and-caper-pasta-sunday

Pasta with charred peppers and capers, this has the potential to be delicious, but needs twice the quantity of peppers.   Watch this space for the reworked recipe.

Monday.

We were out for supper, a non cooking friend prepared a feast of baked potatoes, cold meats and fish, cheese and salads.  All washed down with far too much fizz and wine!

Tuesday

We were away last minute and had supper at the local Chinese – crispy duck pancakes, followed by beef in black bean sauce.

Wednesday

We were still away, supper was asparagus, followed by fishcakes then strawberries and ice cream – 3 course suppers are a treat mid week!

Thursday

Fried rice cous cous beans peas corn

A quick freezer led supper, fried  mixed rice & cous-cous, aduki beans, peas & corn and green olives.  Served on wilted spinach with nutritional yeast, chill flakes and soy sauce – simple, delicious and instant.

Friday

Having been away for half the week I had missed my kitchen.

Golden Syrup and Plum Cake

Golden Syrup & Plum Cake I loved this,  Ed took most of it sailing and it was greatly appreciated.

Ciabatta filled with black bean and Butter nut squash

Lunch was a ciabatta (bought last week reduced to 25p and frozen) filled with the  frozen left over filling from the black bean and butternut squash tortillas.   Fiona the Fugal Cook would be proud of me.

3 veggie burgers and queso

Supper was 3 types of veggie burger that I found in the freezer, One each of a chickpea, black bean and mung bean base, served with queso, which; although vegan tastes of cheese and has the texture and colour of a cheesy dip and is utterly addictive and delicious.

vegan queso

The original queso recipe is from the talented Crystal of Vegan Explosion, I have changed the recipe to make it more UK kitchen friendly and have simplified the cooking and will be posting my version soon.

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