Menu – 14 September 2016

Foolishly, I planned this week’s menu last week when I had lots of ideas (cravings) but already filled my list. This was before I realised it would be 30 degrees and that I would have little inclination to move, let alone cook 🙁

  • Chicken liver bunny-chow w/ mashed cauliflower
  • Coq au Vin with braised red cabbage
  • Wings & Ribs
  • Cod, chorizo, tomato and aioli on greens
  • Lamb curry with roast cauliflower
  • Steak, parsnip chips and blue cheese sauce
  • Bubble & squeak with York ham and eggs

Also knocked up two batches of soup (Broccoli & Stilton and a chunky Pesto & Root Veg)

New plates!

While editing and cropping my last batch of photos,  I noticed a lot of them look the same as I only have a couple of different types of dinner plate and I’m limited to where I can take pictures with natural light in my tiny kitchen.

So either I use a flash on my camera (which makes food look disgusting) or only cook in daylight hours and take stuff outside to shoot (not ideal when this is my actual evening meal, not a prop).

With winter approaching I needed a better solution so I’ll be investing*  in some new crockery and a homemade background board. Hopefully the results will be a bit less monotonous!

*time to visit Ikea 🙂

Cured belly pork

I was initially put off this recipe as it used sugar as part of the curing mix – but really pleased I tried it as the finished dish is gorgeous, and most of the sugar and salt is discarded with the extracted liquid.

Needs to be cured overnight (or at least a few hours) but then you just bang it in a low oven (150c) and ignore for 3hrs. Ridiculously tender pork with crisp cracking, and a 500-750g joint normally feeds us two a generous dinner plus leftovers for another night – unfortunately not this time 🙂

Served with a raw cabbage and apple slaw, crumbled blue stilton and pistachios.

 

 

Pesto Chicken

An oldie, but a goodie. Plus, gives me extra pesto for use later in the week to tart up an otherwise boring side of green veggies 🙂