Cooking

Quiet week after holiday, had ragu from freezer Friday, made a good risotto with chicken supreme on Saturday, boiled some bacon bones for lunches, cooked some lentil / barley mix in the water from the bacon bones for other lunches.

Sunday steaks, wedges and home-made coleslaw, really good

Need to make some warming lunches for the weeks ahead, plenty of curry, maybe a bit of Thai

Nerja / Malaga

Week in Nerja, loads of great tapas, cooked in most days, burgers, prawns and fajitas. A few pictures below, one great new find - pescaderia el arteseno a fishmonger / tapas bar, did not smell fishy, people eating, others buying and taking home, had a fiduela with clams and a handful of mussels as tapas, all they had was wine, cans of beer and still water, really authentic, did not smell fishy as all fresh.  Went to Malaga for a night, went to usual places, booked Tapas de Cervantes, good, but not as fantastic as other times, but it has been perfect many times, still has one obnoxious waiter who always annoys, but owner is lovely and still v good and cheap. Saw a tweet saying one day was work tripe day, so found a bar with callos, so happy

Nothing good coming up will try and do a bit of cooking after loads of docorating

Apartment in Nerja

As always last week in October in Nerja, lovely apartment, bit of cooking, plenty of tapas, few pictures below

Making fajitas tonight, burgers last night, tuna salad for lunch.  v warm for this time of year, v happy

meatballs

Took a Jamie recipe, pesto meatballs, instead of his rolls, did bucatini:

Really loved them, San not as impressed but OK. Made some dahl for lunches, but mostly painted for weekend so little fun.

curry and lemon

Saw a lovely looking simple recipe for charred preserved lemon in Irish times Magazine this week, but can't find it online. Made it but haven't tasted it yet.

3 (unwaxed) lemons, mine weren't so had to de-wax them
4 bay leaves
tsp pink peppercorns
tsp salt
tsp coriander seeds

Halve lemons and grill (recipe said do it on proper BBQ grill, but not available.  About 10 minutes on each side, until caramelised - I used blow torch on them to get a bit more colour.

into a clean sterilised kilner jar with all other ingredients for at least three days, so should be OK now, will try at weekend.

Made a thali (mixed Indian small bowls / plates) at weekend

Lamb curry, lentil curry, rice, chapati, red onion / tomato salad, tomato relish, raiti, brinjali pickle (from a jar), chilli pickle, bombay potatoes.

Had a couple of chapatis left, so I filled them with left over lentil curry and have shallow fried, like a savoury pancake -   tomorrow's lunch.

Nothing planned for this weekend, more decorating and think about packing for hols week after

cooking and chillies

Making pizza tonight, usual chilli, tuna and salami, made some curry cauliflower for lunches, below:

Mix garma (chickpea) flour with garma masala, chilli flakes, salt and pepper, cut cauliflower into large chunks, roll in flour mix, onto a lightly greased oven dish, hot oven for about 30-40 minutes, turn once.

Drying some home-grown chillies in the greenhouse, looks v pretty - what do you think?

The Chameleon

Meeting San in town after work yesterday at fairly short notice, so we hadn't booked anything, after a bit of to and fro we decided that having walked past The Chameleon plenty of times and talked about trying it.  Although it is in Temple Bar, not my favourite place, we would chance a walk in.  They had a table, for an hour and half, well long enough for us.  We had the set menu plus another tapas and a bao.  The set menu was 7 tapas size dishes, so right up out street.

A carafe of house red with it, the short rib, satay, bao, fried veg and salad were all great, nothing bad in the rest.  Little pots of sweet and hot chilli and great pickled veg were brilliant as well.

Making pizza tonight, also have a cauliflower to spice / roast and soaking butter beans, maybe with chorizo or jamon for a couple of lunches.  Roast chicken tomorrow

charcuterie

Didn't have pasta last night, had a big tea out with A before her flight, will have it tomorrow, leg of lamb marinaded overnight for today with roast potatoes, carrots, marrowfat peas (horror, but San loves them).  Thinking of fried rice for tomorrow, need some veg.

Instead last night had

Cheddar, d'Auvergne, Port Salud, sliced jamon and fuet with my tomato jam / relish on crackers

last of the harvest and chilli sauce

Got the last of the (mostly green) tomatoes and chillies from the patio / greenhouse.

Have some of the chillies drying in greenhouse, rest in the kitchen, will see which works better, half about 1/2 kg in the freezer.

With the tomatoes and chillies I made a sauce.

Sweated a red onion and 4 cloves of garlic in oil, for about 5 minutes added 3 anchovies, ginger, (loads of) chopped chillies, cooked for about another 10 minutes, then diced mixed tomatoes, brown sugar, cider vinegar, splash of fish sauce and reduced.

Into a couple of jars, very hot, so not for anyone else...

Been a long couple of weeks, but with the lovely A visiting, going home today.  Italian sausage in home-made tomato sauce with pasta tonight, leg of lamb with family tomorrow.

A bit of veg

So A is home for a week, so vegetarian only food and trying to be creative, veg soup (I HATE soup) but they like it, lots of eggs, veg curries, even a sneaky chips from the chippy... Truffles and flapjacks

Today I did bean burger, sort of based on Guardian recipe.

Boil potatoes, fry red onion and half a pepper, garlic, chilli.  Once the potatoes are soft, mash with half a tin of butter beans and a knob of butter, add other half of tin, roughly chopped, sweated down veg, salt, pepper, cumin and corriander, squeeze of lemon juice and handful of frozen peas.  Make into patties.

Chill in fridge then dredge in polenta, shallow fry.  Serve with  homemade  cole slaw, and a salsa of home grown tomatoes, cucumber and red onion in garlic olive oil.  Everyone happy - more truffles