Roast chicken, allotment and butternut squah & walnut ravioli

Roast chicken, carrots, broccoli, roast potatoes and gravy for Saturday dinner, made stock from the carcase. 

Allotment on Sunday morning, got some more parsnips, rhubarb (I have a plan...) baby leeks (no plan yet)

Cheap butternut squash in SQ, so roasted it with garlic, pureed it, then mixed in a good handful of chopped walnuts into half, froze the other half.  Made fresh pasta (so had egg whites left over), for ravioli, bit hit and miss, pasta was a bit dry, so some split a little when boiling!
Sauce:
roasted tomatoes with olive oil, balsamic, salt pepper and thyme, sweated shallots in butter and olive oil, added some capers, glass of white wine, when that had boiled off, add stock from yesterday's carcase, then roasted tomatoes.  Blended then poured over ravioli, finished with Parmesan.
Apart from the issue with the pasta being a bit cracked, whole thing was a little bit sweet, squash and tomatoes, need to make a less sweet sauce next time

Egg whites: Meringue - whisk until stiff, add castor sugar spoon by spoon(-ish), spoon onto baking paper lined trays into oven on gas mark 1/2 for about an hour, switched over off overnight.  Tested one at 6:30 this morning, not sure that is a balanced breakfast.  I am going to stew the rhubarb with some vanilla sugar I got from Christmas tonight, cut the meringues in half and put the rhubarb in, hopefully it will not dissolve into dust and will be lovely.

Vintage Kitchen

Wednesday and Thursday - nothing special just heated stuff from freezer, I'd previously made.  Friday - Vintage Kitchen.  Our third visit and the gaps between visits are getting bigger, as booking is getting harder and harder.  I think we booked 6pm on Friday (in April) back in February!

Why?  It's tiny, 30-ish covers, BYO, very rare in Dublin, great value 2 x 2 course €56, great service and absolutely stunningly fantastic food! My friend MES, says consistently it's her favourite restaurant and it is hard to disagree.

We brought a nice 2010 Shiraz, we had picked up in our previous visit to Sydney in 2013, for starters San had mushroom pancake, in a Gorgonzola sauce, served in a mess tin, a bit like a runny lasagne, but that does not it justice (Quote: "the nicest thing I've eaten ever!") - I had hake in prosciutto, with a gorgeous fish cake, which was almost like an arancini, served in a caper sauce, stunning.

Mains, San had cod (huge), mussels, lump fish caviare.  I had the special, biggest piece of belly pork that exists that I think they had started slow cooking on the day I was born, crispy crackling, black pudding, onion jam,  masses of champ and parsnips.  Could not finish the veg and I had to waddle out!  It's a shame we've never had enough space for dessert in there, as they look lovely.
Went to walk it off for half hour, strolled through Trinity, obviously too student-y for me and always great to see a cricket match being played in the heart of Dublin!  Quick pint in Kennedy's as the rain started, bus home, nice glass of Rioja.

Not raining yet today, off to allotment to do some weeding.  Roast chick et al today

Stock and leftovers from the lamb

So, as I cooked a leg of lamb I had a big bone left over, into pressure cooker with a bit of fat to brown it, add mirepoix, water, bay, thyme, peppercorns, salt. About an hour cooking.  Strain into another pan, bring to boil.  Whisk up three egg whites to a meringue like state and pop onto of the simmering stick to catch the bits, about 20 minutes then discard the egg and strain again through a fine sifter.

Made about 3/4 litre of stock, in fridge overnight, fat settled to top, removed that (but not discarded).

So for Monday's dinner, back to pressure cooker, lamb and chick pea stew.

Fry shallots, green and yellow peppers in lamb fat, add diced lamb, home made chilli sauce, tin tomatoes, tin chick peas 1/2 pint of stock, left over (and well overcooked cauliflower). Cook for about 30 minutes, add a diced aubergine and courgette, about another 20 minutes

Little bit of lamb left for tonight, warm it through, serve with a potato salad.  Boil potatoes, allow to cool, add diced spring onion and (microwave for about 1 1/2 minutes) thinly sliced sugar snaps for a bit of crunch, stir in mayonaise and I'm hoping will be lovely

Lamb and allotment

Lamb is my favorite meat and a roast leg is the best :)  Parents-in-law here Sunday, so did that.  We got a marinade recipe, I think, on an insert into a newspaper a good few years ago and it's a winner.  On Saturday, made it - crushed garlic, chopped rosemary, wholegrain mustard, soy sauce, mixed spread liberally over the leg wrapped in a large bag and overnight in fridge.  Trivet of onion, celery, carrot (parsnips as well, see below) into oven for 3 hours on 5.  Roast potatoes, cauliflower and broccoli (unfortunately very overcooked, but I've cooking for the Irish, so no choice), carrot and parsnip mash, roast potatoes, gravy.  Standard gravy, softened shallots, old lamb stock from freezer, couple of glasses of win, juices from roast and once the meat is resting deglaze the roasting tray with a bit of stock and mash the veg trivet through a sieve.  A mixture of cornflour and Colman's mustard powder in a little cold water to thicken it.

I made a dozen carrot (and parsnip) cakes to finish, I think the recipe is in an earlier post.

Allotment, weeding and digging, my back was broken on Saturday morning, but OK again by Sunday, warm(-ish), fairly sunny and lovely out there, I have potatoes, rhubarb, garlic, onions, beans, carrots and beetroot in with some fruit bushes and herbs.  Some leeks and parsnips from  last year, as above I harvested a good few parsnips on Sunday, that went into the dinner and cakes.

I have tomatoes, cauliflowers, aubergines, courgettes, chillies and broccoli in the greenhouse just starting.

Kebabs

So many years ago I used to go to an Indian take-away (Abdul's in Rusholme)that did that best kebab evah.

So as the missus was out and I could make something very spicy I had a run at this recipe:

Minced lamb, diced chillies, corriander, salt pepper, mixed than made into sausages, pushed onto pre-soaked wooden skewers (about 1/2 hour in sink), grilled on quite low, turning regularly until completely cooked. 4 from ~300g of meat

Large brown wrap / soft tortilla etc (Abdul's used a thinnish large naan, but I'm not great at making naan and I never seen any large or thin enough)

Lettuce, I used baby gem, bit of crunch, sliced red onions, tomatoes (this time I used cherry ones I'd oven dried and stored in oil in the fridge), 2 kebabs.  I then poured on some chilli sauce I made earlier in the year, should do a recipe for this, as I made a big batch and the jars in the fridge at work get used up pretty quickly.  I chopped up some mint from the garden added to yoghurt and poured that on.  Couple of chopped up pickled chillies and folded it.  I made 2 batches of these, cooked separately as I like meat hot.  Happy boy.

Early Saturday morning now, off to allotment to do battle with slugs and weeds

Baked potatoes

I like the way I cook baked potatoes, took me a long time to get them how I like, but although I don't love potatoes like the local orcs do, this is the way I like them.

Put oven on full blast
Wash, fork the potatoes, put on plate in microwave with kitchen roll over it.  Cook on full power for X minutes, turning once or twice.  X minutes depends on size and type of tatties, 2 big rooster took about 12 minutes tonight.  Put straight onto shelf in oven for about 20 minutes, turn at least once, until crisp.  Remove flesh into bowl, add stuff (tonight strong cheddar, diced onions, butter, white pepper and salt), but I might do tuna, ham, chorizo, chillies, spring onions, piccalilli, smoked salmon, any strong cheese etc.  Back into oven and / or finish under hot grill, yum, yum, but maybe big sleeping pill :)

  

old pictures

Chicken Thai green curry. following the recipe I posted in my Recipes post. Will try and add all the random pictures I have from allotment, restaurants and a bit of cooking, from memory food is from Dublin, Berlin, Malaga, Nerja, Sydney, if requested I could guess some of restaurants...

Booked weekend in Dusseldorf for May Bank Holiday, beer and pig - yum!!!