More Adventures at River Cottage

Generally, last week's recipes/meals were well received. No complaints from Mr FD about the reduction in meat, and everything was eaten, although as I added to my last post, the tomato sauce was disappointing.

Here are next week's meals - I'll edit and add comments through the week.
SUN: Chillies stuffed with Beans (except I'm using peppers) Mr F-W's recipe is on this link. The recipe suggests grilling & skinning the chillies/peppers. I'm not sure I'll bother; I'll probably just roast them for 15/20 minutes or so before stuffing & baking.
Edited (on Monday) to add: Mr FD really wasn't very keen on the idea of this recipe, I think, so I swopped it. We had Chachouka (see last week) again, but I threw in some chorizo to add to the spice level. Eaten with bread left over from lunchtime it made a very nice meal. I'll have to replan our beany peppers for another week. 
MON: Prawns with ginger - a fairly basic prawn stirfry with a sauce made of soy, ginger and honey. This is served with rice and sautéed leeks. I've taken this recipe from the cookery magazine "Eat In". However, Mr FD will be relieved to see some meat, even if it does have a fishy tang!
Edited (on Tuesday) to add : the recipe seemed a little dry, so I made up a sauce of cornflour, Muscat wine (tho' you could use sherry), rice vinegar and soy sauce. Together with the honey, this gave enough "wetness" to the dish. I didn't faff about with caramelising the ginger as the recipe suggested and I added some red peppers. Otherwise it was a very acceptable dish.
TUES: Pasta with greens, garlic & chilli Here is a link to someone else's site who made this. They used spinach, I'm using a savoy cabbage.
E(on Wednesday) TA: I was ready to not like this meal. It sounded boring and unpleasant, and I was in A Bad Mood. But actually, with quite a lot of chilli and garlic, and possibly too much parmesan, it was much more enjoyable than I expected. I might even make it again some time.
 WED: Chicken & vegetable stir fry. This is also from the cooking magazine. A fairly bog standard stirfry, it uses sweet chilli sauce to give it a bit of a kick. I'll use one chicken breast in the stirfry, and one to make Coronation Chicken for tomorrow's sandwiches.
E (On Thursday) to add that it was indeed a bogstandard stirfry. It wasn't helped by the fact that what I thought was sweet chilli sauce was just chilli sauce (of which I now have 4 different varieties!) I added some honey - but not enough, as the jar was almost empty. I used both chicken breasts though, as one looked very miserly, and we had bits for lunch today. I've also forgotten to take the fish out of the freezer, so we may be having sausage plait for supper tonight. We Shall See.
THURSDAY: Fish pie. I have some hoki in the freezer which needs to be used up, so I'll use one fillet of hoki and one of salmon. The recipe includes a bechamel sauce made using Boursin or something similar; that should add some flavour. (I'm fairly rubbish at bechamel sauce) I'll serve this with peas. I'm not giving you a recipe as I assume anyone can make a fish pie. Forgive me if I'm mistaken!
E (On Saturday) TA: It was a fish pie. It was OK. I made two and put one in the freezer (having cooked the previously frozen hoki first). I should have made a bit more sauce, as it wasn't really wet enough. I'll try to remember to make a pouring sauce when we eat the other - or maybe have cauliflower cheese or something similar as a vegetable.
FRIDAY: Noddy's Jammy Sausage Plait (Go, Sir Nod of Holdsworth!) This is the basic recipe, but instead of using an onion, Sir Nod suggests using onion jam or something similar. We have chutney galore and I may even have some onion jam to use. In the recipe magazine "Rock star Noddy Holder shares three of his favourite sausage meals" - you see, the life of an ex-Slade front man is not all champagne and canapés!!!

We shall be eating Noddy's plaits with carrots, courgettes and possibly a tin of baked beans to give a bit of "sauce" to the whole meal.
E (On Saturday) TA: I liked Noddy's Sausage Plaits. We actually had them as sausage triangles, as my circular pastry didn't really lend itself to plaiting. I used peach chutney, which was nice, but maybe next time a little cooked onion wouldn't go amiss. I warmed up a tin of potatoes in a cream sauce, to give the meal a bit of "wetness" but they weren't very nice: they had an odd texture. Next time, just stick with veggies, or something else saucy.
SATURDAY: Macaroni Peas I can't say I am particularly looking forward to this, but I did say I would try everything in the book, and I turned to this page. So here's the recipe (You'll need to scroll down to find it, but it's there.)
I'm not a particular pea fan, so it will be interesting to find out how I take to this recipe.
E (On Saturday)TA: I'm still not looking forward to this one!

As I said earlier, I'll edit and add through the week if I've got any comments on the recipes. I hope you find this interesting and maybe useful. Thanks for your comments - if I inspire someone else to try some new food too it will be great! I think it's too easy to get stuck in a rut of cooking the same cycle of dishes - often all very similar - which can sometimes sap your enjoyment of being in the kitchen. I'm hoping that this will at least get me excited about what the evening's meal is going to be...and if I can spend slightly less on food then all to the good!

Comments

  1. I'm so impressed with all this fancy cooking! The shrimp looks delicious.
    I'm embarrassed to tell you that I've been eating bare chicken breasts and prepared pasta!
    Have a nice weekend, Miss Mouse!

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  2. So pleased to have found your blog - really enjoying your recipes and story - I've signed up to follow :)
    Mary x

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  3. Okay. Yum. And really? You are in France? Wow! And third, you left a comment about the "Impossibilities" challenge on my blog (It All Started with Paint) but you show up as a "no reply" comment, so I can't just email you back.

    Could you send me an email at either of these addresses so that we can send updates and reminders about the challenge?

    And don't worry about the "level of difficulty" of your challenge-accepted project ... it's what you personally find daunting!

    Thanks!

    Linda
    linda@zbraden.com
    itallstartedwithpaint@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

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