More Thursday ...

It’s been an interesting day for food. Actually, a pleasant day for weather, too – the best day of this week I’m sure – forecast for tomorrow is more rain.

Lunch at Bohemia (my favourite neighbourhood restaurant) with a friend/colleague/student. Good home-made burger & chips: very nice.

Then I cooked for us and a friend this evening: turkey and peaches, which is much nicer than it first sounds. It ends up as a creamy (well, soured cream) concoction served on tagliatelle pasta. No wine, since the women were going out, but I’ve subsequently had a cognac.

Tomorrow probably won’t be so much fun, as we’re off to lunch with Ali’s aunt (who has quite advanced vascular dementia) and her cousin who is vegetarian. I have nothing against vegetarian food, but surely it’s supposed to taste of something? It does when I make it.

Catching up ...

Somehow, life’s been busy these last few days – I have continued to cook and eat, and to do other things too.

We went shooting at the weekend and I’d have done really well, were it not for a few stands that I just couldn’t hit: to be fair, a lot of other people couldn’t either. One stand had two clays that were so fast that I really couldn’t see them properly, never mind swing the gun that fast! (It’s interesting, because one of the stands that most people find difficult [‘Trench’, a slow R-L looper and a very fast high incomer] I do well on, another that’s two slow crossers that others find easy, I can’t hit!). Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we’ve joined the handicapping scheme for next year ...

On to food (the bits I can remember, anyway).

Last Thursday we entertained a friend for dinner (She and Ali go off to an activity later) and we had spaghetti, meatballs and tomato sauce: tasty and fun – I’ll get the splashes of sauce off the walls at some point.

At the weekend we had one of my favourite Autumn/Winter dishes (it’s getting a bit colder now), kidneys Turbigo (named after a town in northern Italy, apparently, in the same manner as Chicken Kiev. Basically, it’s a slow-cooked casserole of lambs kidneys and pork sausage, with onions and green pepper: it was delicious. Fortunately, there was a little left over, so I was able to have that for lunch on Tuesday (it doesn’t freeze well, but keeps in the fridge for a week). I you’re interested in the recipe, let me know and I’ll post it here.

Monday was the old standby of seafood risotto. We eat this a lot, because it’s quick and easy to make; the only issue is trying to make small variations so that it isn’t always the same. This week, I left out the cream and used saffron to season and colour.

Tuesday was steak and chips. I felt the need for something hearty and this fitted the bill well. It was rump steak and (cooked the Heston way) was tender and juicy.

On Wednesday, I went to lunch with an ex-colleague. We dined at Adams in Birmingham. This is quite a new place that does exceptional food (just been awarded a Michelin star). We ate from the ‘light lunch’ menu, such things as pheasant terrine, confit salmon, shin of beef, Pollock with black pudding and textures of chocolate. It was excellent and is highly recommended for that special occasion.

More to follow when I have time ...

Monday 14th October 2013

Somehow seems to have been a busy day: cleaned the house, did some teaching prep for a course I’m delivering on Thursday, tried to get to the new supermarket that’s opened just less than a mile away, but found the main road blocked with hundreds of like-minded drivers (it was raining, so I didn’t want to walk), practising the new guitar piece I’m learning, etc., etc.

Anyway, dinner was simple: Seafood risotto (prawns, mussels, squid, quite a lot of garlic) followed by some Manchego cheese (if you’re not familiar with this, it’s a hard Spanish sheep milk cheese). Whole thing was simple and tasty and probably only took 25 minutes to prepare and cook.

Will probably try for the supermarket again tomorrow ...

Sunday 13/10/13

So, now that I’m retired, I think I might do some more food blogging – we’ll have to see how long the enthusiasm lasts!

I couldn’t decide what to eat today, partly because it’s been a week of quite decent food and partly because I was feeling tired (visited the MIL in Wales on Saturday)...

So, some things came out of the fridge, some were bought from Tesco’s.

We ate:

Smoked salmon: a very simple presentation, just smoked salmon dressed with lemon juice and black pepper.

Pork loin. Usually, I’d casserole this to get some flavour in, but decided to flash fry it and use a sauce instead. I sliced the pork loin into about 8mm slices and cooked very quickly in hot oil, then left in the pan for a few minutes to rest. Served with crushed new potatoes (cook new potatoes for about 20 m. Cool and crush between 2 wooden spoons. Fry some finely chopped banana shallot, garlic and some smoked lardons in olive oil. Add the potatoes and let them start to brown. Throw in parsley). We also had steamed broccoli and asparagus. I made a sauce by reducing rosé wine (leftover) with apple juice, bay leaf, shallot, sugar, sherry vinegar, garlic. It was a very pretty light pink colour and had good flavour.

Ali made Eton Mess for dessert.

So, I'm thinking of blogging again so long as there are some interested readers.let me know?