Post 200!!

Gosh! I'm on Post 200. There's a surprise. I wonder how many people are still popping in to see me? It would be lovely if you left a quick comment - even if it's just to say "Hello". Thank you to dear Pompom who always leaves me a little word.

Mr FD cooked a really delicious beef daube on Wednesday - it was our friend Corinne's birthday last Monday and she was all alone (son & husband in the UK, daughter at boarding school) so we invited her for dinner. She was working on Monday so she came on Wednesday. As I was working all day, Mr FD was in charge of all food. We had Mushroom, chestnut and walnut soup to start. This is a recipe from my Good Housekeeping Mediterranean Diet pull-out and it has already become a firm favourite in the Fat Dormouse-hold:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g chestnut mushrooms, chopped
200g vacuum packed, whole cooked chestnuts, chopped
50g walnuts
1.3 L vegetable stock
4 tbsp creme fraiche
Parsley, chopped

• Heat the oil, and fry onions till soft. Add garlic & mushrooms and cook over a higher heat until the liquid given off has evaporated
• Add the chestnuts, walnuts, stock & seasoning. Simmer for 15 minutes. Zuzz until smooth.
• Add the creme fraiche & gently re-heat. Check seasoning.
• Serve, sprinkled with parsley & a drizzle of oil, if you wish.

Really easy and very delicious. Mr FD added some soaked dried wild mushrooms & their liquid to the mix, which increased the "earthiness" of the soup.

Then the daube - the recipe of which he kind of made up as he went along, I think- but it included a bottle of red wine, orange zest, beef, shallots and lardons. And it cooked for several hours in the slow cooker. Served with creamy mash, and Yve's cabbage and courgettes it made for a lovely meal - enough for 4 on Wednesday, two helpings on Friday for us and two in the freezer as well.

Cathy brought dessert - fruit pavlova. A lovely meal was had by all.

Today I had planned crispy cod, but because we had the left over daube on Friday I changed that to have the chicken and pepper pasta (planned for Friday). But in Carrefour yesterday, I found 8 turkey brochettes for 4€ and 8 merguez sausages for 2€. So we're having turkey brochettes and merguez for dinner, with soufflés Lyonnaise and a tomato/pepper/onion mix; I'll put 4 of the brochettes in the freezer though.

So, next week's menus look like this:

SUNDAY

Lunch: Leek & egg salad (a recipe from my 5:2 recipe book)

Dinner: Baked sausages with onion marmalade, boulangère potatoes, cabbage & broccoli

This is a Mary Berry recipe, which I copied from my MiL's recipe book If it's good, I'll post it at a later date!!

MONDAY

Fast day

Dinner: Tandoori chicken, with tzatziki, green salad and some noodles tossed in sweet chilli oil. (about 400 calories)

TUESDAY:

 Lunch: soup and small sandwich (probably smoked salmon)

Dinner: Nutty vegetable pasta

Another GH Mediterranean Diet recipe: a "dry" sauce for pasta, made with broccoli, white wine, chilli, walnuts and borlotti beans. I couldn't find borlotti, so I'm trying it with red kidney beans. This is a "I'm not really sure about this" recipe.

WEDNESDAY:

Lunch: sandwich in the car

Dinner: Apéros at Cathy's - there'll be loads to eat so nothing is planned. Beans on toast are available should they be necessary, but that is unlikely!!

THURSDAY

Fast day 

Dinner: Butternut squash frittata & salad. 

Due to my teaching schedule, Mr FD is cooking this. It's a frittata, with butternut squash. It's "exactly what it says on the tin"!! Made with ricotta cheese this is 248 calories a serving. (Because the recipe is for 6, and I'm halving it, it turns out as 372 cals a portion - still not too bad!)

FRIDAY:

Lunch: Mushrooms & lardons on toast (maybe + egg &/or beans)

Dinner: Low fat lasagne. And more salad.

This may be another Mr FD cooked dinner, or I may have time to prepare it ready for popping in the oven. I think it will be the latter. 

SATURDAY:

Lunch: Squash soup & cheese on toast

Dinner: Pork skewers wth coleslaw & potato wedges 

This is another 5:2 recipe (sans potato wedges!!) with the pork marinaded in a spicy sauce for 15 minutes or so before cooking, and the coleslaw also having a dash of piri-piri sauce in it. I bought two loin joints at a BOGOF offer in Carrefour (not often you see that) so I got two lovely lean pieces of pork for 6€. I froze them both, but will use one for this recipe and for Sunday's meal as well.

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Everything here is going fine. After a long wait, a disappointment and a struggle with the plumbing that turned the air blue, we finally have a new dishwasher plumbed in. Four weeks or so of washing dishes at a sink that is about 6" too low for us has meant that we really appreciate having a dishwasher again!! Especially as during that four weeks we had MiL to stay and had people for several meals, which generated extra washing up!

We didn't ever resort to this method:

 (Well, nearly never!)

Of course the cats helped Mr FD with the plumbing in, which included Bib climbing into the dishwasher when it was open & then cowering at the back so she couldn't be hauled out. Oh! The joy of cats!