Bacon, avacado and watercress salad… for a tired and starving family!

It was the first day back at work and school…. by the time 5.30pm came we were all exhausted, Jon and I had sore throats from the first day of teaching and Abbie had fallen asleep in the car on the way home and was now grumpy. I needed to think quick and salvage the situation! So I made a salad – something for everyone!

Abbie serving up!

I had to take the photo quick whilst there was still some left in the bowl....

Bacon, avacoado and watercress salad with new potatoes Fed 3 hungry people

For the salad: 5 rashers smoked back bacon, new potatoes (about 14), avocado, large head of little gem lettuce (or 2 small), good handful of watercress (I used about 1/2 the packet), cherry tomatoes – as many as you want!

• Halve and cook the new potatoes in a pan of salty water for about 15 minutes once the water is boiling.  Whilst they are cooking make your dressing: 2tsp dijon mustard, 1 tsp honey, 1/2 lemon juiced, 4tbsp olive oil – add some chopped basil just before serving
• Dry fry the bacon until crispy
• When the potatoes and bacon are cooked, drain potatoes, and chop up the lettuce, bacon and avocado.
• Put all ingredients into a large bowl, pour over the dressing and toss before serving. 

Hot chorizo salad with butternut squash and baby tomatoes…. a yummy end to the holidays!

Boo hoo! The end of the Easter holidays and back to work….. I thought we should have an extra yummy dinner to finish the holiday off, after all, it has been amazing weather which has allowed us to have loads of fun times in the last few weeks.

We chose this salad from Thomasina Miers’ ‘Mexican Food Made Simple’, a book that we say ‘we really must have more from this’ every time we cook a recipe as everything we have made from it has been more than delicious. I rate all recipes that we cook and this would definitely get a 10! The flavours are wonderfully balanced and it has lots of bits that Abbie will eat….. all in all a wonderful way to end the holiday.

Abbie's portion

A happy customer!

Find the recipe at: http://www.hellomagazine.com/cuisine/recipes/201010064271/butternut/squash/chorizo/1/

A stroll amongst the bluebells, lunch from samphire and a ‘frozen’ dinner……

Jon was ill today… a nasty headache…. so Abbie and I left him at home and off we went to Blicking woods to see the bluebells…

Abbie running to find more bluebells - where were they hiding?!

Found them!

 

On the way home we dropped in at Samphire’s pop-up shop, such a shame they don’t have a proper shop at Blickling any more – grrrrrrr! We bought pate, a slab of chocolate tiffin and one of their incredible rare breed pork pies to cheer up Jonty! Seriously, I challenge you to find a better pork pie – it’s in the pastry, there’s is a lightness to it that you don’t get in other pies…. no stodge here! Anyway, served it all up with toast, salad and some yummy asparagus chutney from Aylsham farmer’s market (another amazing find!).

Our bountiful table!

Abbie helped me in the garden this afternoon and boy did we get a lot done….. tomatoes moved into the grow-pots, chillis transplanted into larger pots, climbing french beans, sweetcorn, 2 types of pumpkins and patty pans all planted into pots ready for the greenhouse.  All this amongst bouncing on the trampoline and waiting for an ice-cream man that we could hear, but not see!  I found one of the cottage pies that Abbie and I had made together lurking at the back of the freezer and shoved it in the oven for 30 mins at 180C… a nice easy meal, one that we had made earlier…..  and that I knew that Abbie would wolf down. I was not surprised – the sweet potato/cheese topping is killer!

I froze it in individual portions when we made it...

easy peasy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kid’s Cottage Pie (although adults would love it too!) – makes 4 pots

450g sweet potatoes                    1 carrot, diced
25g butter                                     150g lean minced beef
3 tblspn milk                                150g tinned chopped tomatoes
1 tblsp veg oil                               150ml water
1 clove garlic                               150g cheddar cheese

1. Peel sw. potatoes, chop into small chunks and boil in a pan of water until tender. Drain and mash with butter and milk, season with salt and pepper, put to one side
2. Chop onion and fry in oil until soft. Finely chop garlic and add with the diced carrot and mince to the pan, cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally
3. Add tomatores and water to pan, cover and cook on a low heat for about 10 mins
4. Divide the beef mixture between the pots and put the mash on top. Grate the cheese over the top, then grill for a few mins until the top is brown (or freeze when cool)

Good Friday, good morning, great pancakes – white choc and cranberry……

Abbie wanted pancakes for breakfast this morning and as they are also my favourite, who was I to resist….. I had made white chocolate and cranberry cookies on Christmas morning – a huge success with all of our families, so I wondered whether I could repeat the triumph in pancake form!!

served up with raspberries on the side

 

White chocolate and cranberry pancakes – makes about 15
 (I freeze the leftovers and reheat in the microwave when needed)

150g plain flour
1 desertspoon baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tablspn vanilla caster sugar (or caster sugar and a drop of vanilla extract)
1 egg
250ml milk
1/2 tblspn oil at most

White choc chips and dried cranberries

• Mix flour, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, egg and milk together – I do this in a mini-food processor
• Heat the oil in a frying pan or flat skillet – I brush the oil around my skillet
• Pour pancake sized blobs into the pan – beware they will spread – these are the American style of pancakes so about 10cm diameter at most
• Sprinkle the pancakes with white choc chips and cranberries as the first side cooks, when it looks bubbly on top, flip it for a short while on the other side (not too long or the chocolate will burn)
• Serve hot (you could also make this for a pudding and serve with vanilla ice cream…)

A ‘good’ cocktail for Good Friday!

Had the most amazing cocktail at our hotel in Tunisia on holiday – called the ‘Riu Palace’…. tried to recreate it and think I did an awesome job actually, especially considering I had no quantities…

Anyway whether you have spent the day entertaining the children, we have been for a bluebell walk and to the beach, or just chillin’ you deserve a great cocktail once the sun is past the yard-arm and this one is full of vitamins!!

Fee’s take on the ‘Riu Palace’ cocktail – Tall glass or hurricane glass

Double of vodka, shot of Creme de Bananes, shot of cherry brandy

Top up with 300ml of a mixture of pineapple and orange juices (or… pineapple and ‘tropical juice’)  and splash of lime juice to taste

Shake in a cocktail shaker and pour over ice, garnish with a slice of orange….

A confession….. and it’s not even Good Friday yet!

Ok, so we have been on the go all day… not doing anything much (swimming, library, gardening, cleaning out the sand pit, cycling to the park for a play on the swings…). We got back home at 4.59pm and I knew that Jon needed to eat quickly as he had to be out of the house at 6pm for touch rugby.

So… dinner was a bit trashy! Boil in the bag fish in a butter sauce, Buzz Lightyear potato and veggie ‘spaceships’ and peas.  Abbie picked out all the bits of fish that were in her culinary opinion inadequate; the ‘spaceships’ and peas all went – in fact if you haven’t tried the BL potato things, you can find them in Tescos and they really are yummy!

 

I thought I might as well finish off the meal as we started… so we had vanilla ice cream in a cornet, topped with chocolate sauce (if I’d had Ice Magic it would have been perfect!) and SPRINKLES!!  Abbie asked to put on her own sprinkles, ‘no probs’ I thought…. next moment a pile of sprinkles appears as Abbie has gone for the ‘pour’ option!

Lemon linguine… yum yum! A family favourite!

A busy morning today.. swimming and gardening! Abbie is still very confident in the water since our holiday and spent her time jumping in and swimming between us, on our backs and practising swimming on her back! Jon and also managed to get a few lengths in ourselves and consequently we all worked up a healthy appetite! So I didn’t feel guilty about our calorie laden lunch….

This recipe is taken and adapted from ‘How to Eat’ by Nigella Lawson and is a great one to make with children as you can make the sauce up whilst the pasta is cooking and there is no cooking involved in this stage…

Lemon linguine – fed 2 adults and 1 child – our quantities

200g linguine
1 egg yolk,   1/2 lemon
Good splash cream
Good handful grated pecorino/parmesan
Big knob butter (25g)
Chopped fresh corriander

• Basically – cook the linguine for how long it says on the packet…
• Meanwhile mix up egg yolk, cream, 1/2 a lemon zest and juice and the pecorino
• When the pasta is drained, add the butter to the pasta pan until melted and chuck the linguine back in to coat it
• Add in the creamy sauce and stir until all the pasta is coated and you can’t see any bits of cheese
• Serve with a sprinkle of the corriander on top
• If you would like the Nigella recipe and method for a larger quantity, you can find it here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/lemon-linguine-recipe/index.html

mixing the creamy sauce...

chopping the corriander with a mezaluna

'such fun' to eat.... clearly I have been watching Miranda too much lately!

Alongside our creamy, moreish pasta dish, we had broccoli and some baby salad leaves foraged whilst thinning out my lettuces…. delicious!

Korean Keema….. the perfect end to a perfect day cooked by my near-perfect husband!

I am currently getting our upstairs bedroom and bathroom ready for Abbie to move into on her 4th birthday – not long now! The job at hand at the moment is painting 2 of the bathroom walls ‘disco glitter pink’… and I can only get to it when Abbie is sleeping, so whilst I painted… my wonderful husband cooked Nigella’s ‘Korean Keema’ from her most recent book ‘Kitchen’.

It uses the Korean chilli paste known as Gochujang paste, which we managed to find on Norwich market, in an Asian foodstore.  We have used this before, when making Korean squid from the same book and now need to find more recipes which call for it as have a tub to use.  This is definitely one recipe which we will be making again… if you make it don’t be put off by the turkey mince smell (not pleasant), the spicy hot, smoky, sweet flavour of the paste masks any turkey mince nastiness!

The finished dish – next time we’ll use sushi rice, but two meals in one day didn’t seem like a good idea!

We should have served the keema over the top of sushi rice, but having had sushi for lunch… we dipped pittas in instead! I also put a dollop of sour cream with mine.

 

Korean Keema (Nigella Lawson) – served 2 generously

 

250g turkey mince

6 thin/ 3 fat spring onions, chopped

125g frozen petit pois

1 tsp veg oil

2 tablspn rice wine

1-2 tablspn chopped corriander

 

For the sauce:

2 tblsmn gochujang paste

1 tblspn honey

1 tblspn rice wine

2 tablspn soy sauce

 

• Whisk together sauce ingredients and stir in turkey mince – leave to steep for 5 mins
• Heat up wok (while heating up, pour boiling water from a kettle over the frozen peas in a sieve) and add oil to wok, add peas and spring onions – stir fry for 3-4 mins
• Add turkey and it sauce and stir fry for 4-5 mins until cooked
• Add 2 tblspn rice wine adn 4 tblspn water to remainder of sauce and empty into pan, stir fry for 30secs more or until piping hot
• Serve over rice with a generous sprinkling of chopped corriande

What a fantastic dish – a real winner for Friday night after work or when you need something quick to make that satisifes aching bones (something I am encountering more and more these days!)

A day in Norwich…. culinary delights optional!

We had an enforced stay in Norwich today.. my car had to be serviced.. so we all walked in and whiled the beautiful day away in a number of shops, cafes and one of our fave restaurants; Shiki. Abbie had not eaten Japanese food outside of our home, but her love of fish, edamame and homemade sushi made it a no-brainer for lunch.

So…. famished, we took a look at the menu.  Jon and I opted for a mixture of sushi (spicy tuna roll, california roll, ebi-ten prawn roll, salmon tempura hand-roll) and sashimi. We ordered Abbie a lunchtime bento box and managed to swap the accompanying miso soup (not one of Abbie’s favourites) with edamame, which she adores.  The sashimi plate of salmon, the most amazing tuna, octopus and yellowtail arrived first and to our surprise, Abbie dived straight in, also trying out her chopsticks.  Salmon was given the thumbs-up, tuna was ‘alright’ and everything else rejected; I was stunned as I thought she would refuse the lot!

Salmon sashimi

Edamame..

Bento box; salmon teriyaki, sushi rice, salad with a sesame dressing and chips with wasabi mayo

Two thumbs up.. you can see how much is left!

 

The bento box was excellent and the fun presentation of her meal definitely encouraged Abbie to try everything. Shiki is a fantastic restaurant; Jon and I have always enjoyed eating there… we’re thrilled that it is now a great family option as well.

 We rescused our car, Minty, from the ‘car doctors’ and went back home where we went out for a bike ride only to find an ice-cream man on the door step when we arrived back!  As Abbie had eaten so well throughout the day, she had a treat and I decided to not worry too much about what she had for supper…. in the end cheese, crackers, apple and other accompaniments did her fine and she went to bed a very happy and full little girl!

Chillin with an ice cream

A quick, bitty supper - cheese has already been eaten!

A bicycle made for two…. and the best meatballs ever courtesy of Nigel Slater

Another day of fantastic weather! After putting up with her parents loading and unloading two car loads of crap at the dump, I thought that Abbie deserved a treat….. so I finally fixed her new tag-along and we went for a spin – TWICE!  Abbie absolutely loved cycling and has now insisted that we go out every day ‘even if itis raining Mummy’!  This will definitely help towards next month’s Healthmonth pledge!

After a couple of long cycle rides and some much needed work in the garden… we made ‘Pork and lemon polpettine’ from Nigel Slater’s ‘The Kitchen Diaries.  Abbie and I used the mixer to speed up the meatball making process and then formed quite a production line to make and flour the balls.   I served them with buttered pasta and brocolli. Abbie loved the meatballs and even had seconds!

To the recipe…

70g cup white breadcrumbs

500g ground pork

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1 large handful of parsley, chopped

6 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves stripped from stems

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

10 anchovy fillets, chopped

Flour

 

To cook:

2 tablespoons olive oil

40g butter

200ml chicken stock

 

Combine the breadcrumbs, pork, lemon juice and zest, parsley, thyme, Parmesan, and anchovy in a big bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly.

Roll 18 or so balls of the pork mixture. Place them on a baking tray/chopping board that you’ve dusted with flour. Roll the meatballs in the flour just before cooking to coat.

 

 

 Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy sauté pan over medium-high heat. Fry the polpettine in batches, careful not to overcrowd the pan. Cook for five or six minutes, turning for even browning. (I rolled them only twice during this time, to create a good crust on each side and make sure they don’t fall apart.) The meatballs should be crisp and golden. When they’re bronzed, put them all back in the pan, reduce the heat a bit, and sauté until they’re cooked through, an additional seven or eight minutes.

 

Now, remove the meatballs and pour out most of the fat. Add the chicken stock. Let it simmer down for a few minutes, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Serve and enjoy ‘A meatball to beat them all'(Nigel Slater).