Ah, that's better

It all started some time ago.
Luke (Jan's youngest) made some chipotle paste and left us a jar. To say it was strong was an understatement, it was mind blowing and neither Jan nor I like it.
He's visiting at the moment and offered to make something with it that he thought we might enjoy. If you like chilli (con carne) and fancy giving it a lift, try this. Mix two teaspoons of chipotle paste with a crushed garlic bulb, five tablespoons of soft brown sugar and the juice of a lime. You can vary the quantities to taste but this amazing sauce will take your chilli to a whole new level. Drizzle over the chilli prior to eating.
It comes from a cookbook by this lady. Recommended.

Delicious

Just lately Jan has served a new dish which I really like.
The thought of grilled lettuce didn't really appeal but I have to admit this is delicious. The recipe is here but in order to make the food fit on the plate, Jan used Little Gem instead of Romaine lettuce.
It's really tasty and a great starter or snack especially if you haven't got any chicken to make a pie.

Go for it

I love Panzanella. At least the way that Jan prepares it and I think she follows the Jamie Oliver recipe. I've just seen this article in the Guardian which made my mouth water. Recommended.

Wednesday

Lunch was a favourite (OK, every day it's a favourite).
Jan makes her own pesto which is really good, (approx measures and all to taste, it takes five minutes, 2 handfuls of basil leaves, a handful of pine nuts, a handful of grated parmesan, half clove of garlic, salt to taste, all wizzed together in a small blender as you add olive oil). Sometimes we just sit and eat the pesto with a teaspoon. Yummy.
However a bowl of pasta with nothing but a pesto sauce can be a little bit boring so what she does is add a few tomatoes, usually her semi-dried oven ones. This adds an occasional change of texture and bursts of sweetness and, in my opinion, 'lifts' the dish. She used a mixture of two different pastas which look largely the same but the main one was capunti pugliesi.
My favourite pasta shape is orecchiette, from the south of Italy, which I used to watch my grandmother making as she hollered about the price of fish, but with this shape you would usually use a tomato sauce. There are definite rules about what sauce goes with what pasta shape. Jan and I used to shoot quick fire questions at my Italian aunt who always knew the answer. Funny and interesting.

The evening snack is not one of my favourites, but Jan likes it and I know it's 'good for you'. Smoked mackerel and beetroot (no vinegar) sitting on a green salad with a sweetish oriental dressing. Can't dwell on this one, it's a dish I have to be in the mood for.

There, that's it, a week of food chez nous.

Monday

Today was a Greek day. Moussaka for lunch with organic minced lamb.
Now I don't know about you but I don't do organic. In general I think it's a rip off (call it organic and charge a higher price - and what's organic anyway - something like 80% of 'organic' food is imported and every country has its own rules). Still, it was on offer at a substantially reduced price, so I decided that maybe organic wasn't so bad after all. Just call me fickle.

The evening snack was a Greek salad which I stuffed into a pitta bread to make a juicy, healthy sandwich. Love to all, Stavros.

Sunday

Lunch

Not a roast, as might be expected, but my ultimate comfort food, pasta. This one is a fairly simple dish of papaderle with meatballs in an enriched tomato sauce. The meatballs are Booths own, made by their butchery department, so unlikely to contain anything untoward, together with Jan's enriched tom sauce. Tomato sauce recipe below.


Rich Tomato Sauce
 Ingredients
 I onion
1-2 carrots
100 gms Pancetta (smoked lardons)
Olive oil (enough to cover bottom of saucepan)
1-2 cloves garlic
Piece of cheap: Beef, Lamb, Pork. Use more expensive cuts if you want to eat the meat afterwards.
Large glass of red wine
Tomato puree (about 1 tbspoon)
3 tins chopped tomatoes
 Chop onion, carrot & pancetta in food processor until in
small pieces. Heat olive oil and gently fry the mix until
softened. Add crushed garlic and fry for another couple of
minutes. Add meats and brown. Add red wine and bring to
boil.
Add tins of tomatoes and tomato puree and bring to boil.
Turn down heat to low and simmer for 1-2 hours until pool
of oil floats on top. Taste and add salt and pepper.
Take out meat – it can be eaten after the pasta. Serve the tomato sauce with any pasta.

Sunday evening snack
Light and very fluffy, steamed chicken buns with auntie Jan's dipping sauce and a cucumber salad with ginger, coriander, mint and rice wine vinegar dressing (courtesy of Jamie Oliver). 

Saturday

This is madness, I'm still photographing bloody food. Anyway, I told myself that I'd do it for a week so here's the next instalment.

This is a good one for lunch, Sticky Chicken with Sesame and Chilli. Jan makes it with her version of pilau rice and pak choi, and uses chicken thighs rather than drum sticks. Excellent, recipe below. For the evening snack it was leftovers again........... Sausages (leftover from Friday), potato cake (from Friday) with bacon on top and oven dried tomatoes (from every day of the bloody week). I'll spare you the photo!

Friday

I've changed things a bit and instead of posting each dish in a new post, I'll post one day at a time.
So today, Friday lunch, potato gnocchi, grilled radicchio and sausage sauce. I really liked this, Jan less so because it was a bit too fiddly, and it was the first time she had prepared it. The thing that took the time was the gnocchi. Potato gnocchi can be found in most chill cabinets so that's what I'd do to shorten the process. Still, IMHO it was really worth the effort. Recipe here.

Evening snack, left over mushroom stoup (correct spelling, from the River Cottage Every Day Veg book) followed by cheese and bacon stuffed potato skins (left over from preparing the gnocchi earlier), spinach and oven roasted tomatoes. A meal of leftovers.

Thursday snack - chilli cheese toast

This is a great snack, much more satisfying than cheese on toast. It's taken from Anjum Anands, Indian Food Made Easy. Recipe here.

Thursday lunch - mussel stew

Jan cooked this for mum a few weeks back. Mum liked it so much that she asked her to cook it again. The recipe is here.
IMHO the dish has quite a delicate flavour and can be overpowered if you add too much aioli.

Little things

Jan's back soon and I have nearly succeeded in my number one goal of not lighting the top of the stove. I say nearly because, without any help from anyone, I managed to get the oven going. One of my ready meals had to be oven cooked and couldn't be heated in the microwave. That is so inconsistent and inconsiderate and I shall be writing a strong letter of complaint to Morrisons. You never know I might just get a few macaroni cheeses out of it.
Reading the Sunday papers was a sheer delight. The opportunity to have them all to myself without anybody messing them up before I got to them was heaven. I get really twitchy if the Sunday Times is not pristine before I get to read it. I blame it on an old war wound.
Anyway,  a recipe in the magazine really took my fancy, it was an old favourite from Italy (where else), pasta with olive oil and chilli (technical note, Delia uses a fresh chilli but it should really be a dried one crumbled - I just couldn't be arsed to find a better recipe, sorry) however I still had several meals to warm up and it would have involved just a bit of cooking which also meant I'd have to light the stove. That idea got put onto the back burner, as it were. I'll let Jan cook it, she needs the practice.
I deserve that for being such a big brave boy and managing so admirably, and, she'll do a much better job than me (he said graciously).

A culinary tip

Just when you thought you knew everything.
I find myself constantly improving Jan's cooking techniques but do I get any thanks?



Thanks to Will for this.

Tartiflette

I mentioned a slap up meal in the last post (actually there were two) and I've been dreaming about it (them) ever since. So much so that Jan made one of them for lunch yesterday.
After nearly nine years in France we had to move to England to eat a delicious Tartiflette.
What a great dish. Glyn our host, who does most of the cooking Chez Glyn, produced the most mouth watering dish imaginable and, with friends visiting from France soon, we've decided to add it to the menus. Basically it's a one pot meal with potatoes, smoked ham/bacon and cheese.
Glyn's was particularly nice and I can imagine a few corrective interviews until Jan gets it just right, but I'm sure it will be well worth the wait.
Here's the recipe with some good pictures.

Tuna Tartare

When life's so mundane that you can't think of anything to write about. When your mother comes to dinner and Jan serves up a treat. When you have no cute baby photos to post, then it's time to post a recipe.
This is good, very good and very grown up (so why did she give it to you then? - Ed)
I'd like to say that's it an old family recipe handed down through generation but it isn't. We got it from Paula in Barcelona. Enjoy.


Tuna Tartare


Ingredients:

• 400 gr red tuna
• 2 avocados
• 1 spring onion
• juice of one lemon
• sesame seeds
• chives

Marinade

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 table spoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger
• wasabi paste or dijon mustard (to taste) My advice is leave it out

Mix together the marinade ingredients. Cut the tuna into very small cubes and finely slice the spring onion then mix with the marinade and leave for at least 30 minutes. Longer won't hurt if you want to prepare it in advance.

Peel the avocado and cut into small cubes and mix with lemon juice, a little olive oil and season to taste.

Using a circular mould, make a base of avocado and cover with a layer of marinaded tuna.

Splash over some of the marinade juices and sprinkle with chopped chives and a few sesame seeds.