Wednesday Morning

Yesterday (Tueday) was pleasant; the weather was clement and the sun shone. I was able to have a long telephone chat with my sister who is visiting our Mother at the weekend: first time for more than a year because of health issues.

In the afternoon, we had a meeting with our kitchen designer who (it turns out) is a bit dippy and forgetful. Nevertheless, it was useful and I think some progress was made. Another visit in due course when the design has been redrawn and costed.

Our journey home (it’s only about 10 miles, but through the west of the conurbation) was disrupted by queuing traffic. Some kindly local had put a sign on his car warning of a 5-vehicle accident ahead. Luckily, we were in a place where we could divert. Still took twice as long as usual, though.

As a result, dinner was an easy option: left-over roast pork from the weekend, stuffing, chips (fries for my American readers) and pickles. Thoroughly pleasant, actually.

MONDAY morning

It's a nice sunny day, foecast dry but not warm...

So dinner last night was interesting. Starter was asparagus with a soft poached egg. However, the main was something I’ve wanted to try for years, but somehow never got round to it.

CHICKEN WITH 40 CLOVES OF GARLIC

(some recipes say 30, I didn’t actually count).

It really is ridiculously easy, basically one just puts a chicken, garlic (cloves are NOT peeled), seasoning and a LOT of olive oil into a casserole at 200C for around 90 minutes. Only real risk is overcooking the garlic, so one needs to be vigilant and remove them early if necessary. Served with some boiled Charlotte potatoes. We squeezed the garlic out of the cloves and spread it on the chicken and potatoes: it was very tasty and not at all harsh in flavour.

I’m glad I did it, but I fear we’re pretty garlic-y today, so I don’t know if I’d bother again…

SATURDAY afternoon

Just a short post:
It's been a really wet morning; almost windless, but a continual downpour. It made getting round the clay shooting course an exercise in endurance (fortunately, the people I shoot with [Alison & Phil] make it more than worthwhile). We shoot English Sporting Clays (where the targets emulate game birds). None of us are great but we enjoy it. Scores today (remember the vile weather) ranged from 42/75 to 48/75, respectable, not great (as usual, it's missing the easy ones that damages the score).

Anyway, I'm currently in the process of cooking dinner for tonight. The main is loin of pork that I'm slow roasting at 150C. Will turn the temperature up for the crackling at the end. Going to serve with french beans, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy. Starter is going to be a mixed plate including asparagus vinaigrette, eggs mayonnaise, a sweet pepper salad and smoked oysters. Alison says she'll do Eton mess for dessert, but she's currently at the spa, so who knows.

Enjoy your weekend!

Thursday

It's still quite early - around 08:00. Luckily I got up early as the exotic meat delivery arived about 30 minutes ago. Now have lots of interesting things to cook!

We had a vegetarian dinner last night - as a sort of antididote to Tuesday's Greek meal - it's a very simple thing: red cabbage and pasta. This may not sound especially interesting, but is suprisingly tasty and really quite good for you. Here's the recipe:

Red Cabbage

Take a red cabbage, remove the outer leaves, quarter and cut out the thick stem. Slice thinly (about 4 mm). Finely chop an onion. Fry the onion in oil in a large saucepan until soft. Add the cabbage and about 30 ml golden syrup (or you can use honey, or any sort of brown sugar). Cook over a very low heat for about 10 minutes. Add 45 ml of wine vinegar (or a mixture of wine vinegar and lemon juice), salt & pepper. Cook very slowly for about 2 hours, making sure that it does not dry out.

Serve with pasta as a meal or as a side.

You can add various things to this to change the flavour. Sliced cooking apples (with the cabbage) or sultanas (with the acid) for example.

[By the way, if you cook red cabbage without adding the acid, it will probably turn blue!) 

I have to wait for another delivery later, but it looks like it will be a pleasant day (in terms of weather at least) so maybe an opportunity to work in the garden?