Abandoning River Cottage for a bit

 Just a quick reminder that I have another blog, View from the Teapot, which can be found here.I blog about my life in France a bit more over there. This is mostly just food!!

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Much as I like Mr F-W River Cottage Veg Every Day! I'm finding it more difficult to trawl through the book and find something that makes me think "Mmm, yes!" - especially as many of the remaining recipes are for salads, and the weather at the moment is definitely NOT salad weather! It is grey and rainy today. And chilly. So, I'm leaving River Cottage to explore New Horizons (two booklets I won in a giveaway from Ang) and to revisit Old Favourites, for a few weeks.

                          So, here is a painting of a horizon (!!! How's that for a spurious link!?)

We had an enjoyable evening last night - Mr FD and I went up to see Cathy. Our friend Richard was there, with the two boys from next door. We had dips (courtesy of River Cottage, we had  bean & artichoke dip - I can't find a recipe online. But it's cannelini beans, artichoke hearts and seasonings whizzed together. - houmous (I always use Nigel Slater's recipe for this, but with half the amount of tahini), and a made-up-as-I-went-along salmon (tinned) and cream cheese dip) then pizzas, then very creamy desserts, courtesy of Carrefour, via Richard. We watched "The Eagle" on the big screen

which we all enjoyed, although it was only loosely based on the wonderful, wonderful Rosemary Sutcliff book:

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I have a version, called "Three Legions" which includes three of her Roman Britain stories. Meant for young teenagers, I still enjoy reading them today. I felt the film showed a lot of (beautiful) scenery and riding through Wild Scotland, plus a lot of chasing (a little bit like Doctor Who - there's always rather too many shots of The Doctor running about) and lacked some of the excitement of the book. But, isn't that often the case with films of books? Here is a really interesting article from The Guardian about the books, about the author and about the journalist's reaction to the book.

Here is a Roman wallpainting of dinner, which helps us to link in to this week's menus.

TODAY (SUNDAY) We're having what I'd planned to have last night: it's not what I call a "Sunday dinner", but tant pis. It's beef and pepper fajitas - recipe made up, but basically fried, spicy beef, peppers and onions. If the avocado is ripe, I'll make guacamole as well.
MONDAY There's a vegetable lasagne in the freezer, made from last Sunday's roast veggies. So we'll have that.
TUESDAY: Ham linguine, I think. This isn't quite the recipe, but it's quite near - although the one I'm doing is slightly lower fat, as it doesn't include creme fraiche. As I'm not a great peas fan (which could explain why Mr F-W's Macaroni Peas didn't get a resounding vote of confidence!) I may use courgettes instead of peas.

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(I just want to add that the site that I've taken this photo from looks really good, with some delicious very-good-for-you recipes. I've just bookmarked it. )

WEDNESDAY: "Les Mis" night up at Cathy's - we're watching Les Miserables on the big screen and eating crepes. Mr FD is not a fan of musicals, so he'll be at home. I'll have to find a dinner for him. There may be something in the freezer.

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THURSDAY: I think we'll be having Cous-cous and apricot stuffed aubergines. This isn't the recipe I was planning on using, but looks so much nicer than the one I have! I think I'll do this one instead!!!

                                                                                             Source - as recipe
FRIDAY: Cauliflower/broccoli cheese, with fried bacony bits and chips. Full of artery-choking goodness (plus a few veggies as well!)
SATURDAY (I'm adding Saturday now, instead of at the start of next week, because I'm finding I have less time on Saturday to catch up with the blog. It seems to be becoming a Sunday thing instead.) So we're having meatloaf, from the other booklet that Ang sent me. I'll have to tweak the recipe though, as it users hard boiled eggs which Mr FD can't stand. Otherwise, it's a standardish meatloaf, using both pork and beef mince, with a layer of tomatoes, fried bacon and olives (and hard boiled eggs) between two lots of mince. It uses a heck of a lot of meat (almost 1kg!) but I'm hoping it will do us two meals plus two lots of sandwiches, in order to get value from it. Maybe I can bulk it out a bit with oats, and use less meat...? Does anyone know how this might work out? I'll also cut down on the number of eggs used to bind the mixture - 4 seems excessive. I'll see how I get on with two. We'll have this hot with jacket potatoes (using the oven at the same time!) and a tomato sauce and maybe some green veggies.

I hope you all have a week full of fun, and delicious food! Do let me know if you try any of the recipes as well. I'd love to know your reaction to them.