What's everyone cooking this week? 2

[Gruney2 Profile]

I've just made a lovely Spanish dish, comprising chicken thighs and olives - with a slosh of white wine and brandy, onion, garlic and rosemary.

[liketocook Profile]

That sounds good Gruney
Chicken here too though it's cooked piri piri breast I took out to defrost yesterday evening. I was thinking salad and Ayrshire tatties but it's tipping it down so might have rethink later.

[Suffs Profile]

Supper didn't go quite according to plan yesterday .... smoked gammon steaks crispy oven backed sliced potatoes (parboiled then sliced and cooked in duck fat) fried eggs ....... baked beans

Disaster ... OH broke the tin opener the other day and was going to bring another home from work ... but forgot ... and the Branston beans in the cupboard didn't have a ring pull. I didn't really have time to go out and pick some runner beans or do anything with courgettes, but we did have half a bag of salad spinach leaves .... I steamed them quickly and stirred in some butter ... and the meal was served and pronounced a success ..... Phew!

[herbidacious Profile]

Yes once it gets going it comes together quite quickly especially if you use a mixer. Great to use up surplus cream.
When the boys were at home we made it a few times for various projects (school & cubs) by shaking a jar which was great fun. I think shaping it was their favourite bit.

I went from cream to butter in about 4 minutes. Shaking a jar method. It's for the science experiments book.

[herbidacious Profile]

Last night was a garden produce (courgette, two types of French beans and another unidentified bean) omelette with emmental, with sweet potato 'fries' on the side.

That's my whole annual quote of omelettes (two) blown in the space of about 7 days!

[liketocook Profile]

Yes once it gets going it comes together quite quickly especially if you use a mixer. Great to use up surplus cream.
When the boys were at home we made it a few times for various projects (school & cubs) by shaking a jar which was great fun. I think shaping it was their favourite bit.

I went from cream to butter in about 4 minutes. Shaking a jar method. It's for the science experiments book.

Sounds like the type of book my boys would have enjoyed when they were kids.
Are you including the diet coke and mentoes fountain? It was a firm favourite with them though definitely one for out doors

[herbidacious Profile]

Not sure if that's in there. I think we are trying not to do things that are in all books of this sort. The problem with it is that at the moment the approach is start of with a question, then give an experiment to demonstrate an answer. You can twist a lot round to work but it seems to preclude quite a lot of otherwise exciting experiments. But I am not really into the swing of it yet so maybe when I am I will find a way round this for most things. I have to say it's far easier just to come up with exciting experiments and then offer a scientific explanation.
I am wondering if this is the book for me... My two co-writers are going great guns with it. I'm a bit luke warm.

I did genuinely enjoy the butter one though.

[liketocook Profile]

I don't envy you herbi, wouldn't be my thing either. What about bubbles? You can do lots of things with them.

I have decided that summer or not I'm having mince & tatties tomorrow. I've a real hankering for some and DS2 isn't so keen unless it's made into cottage pie! Ayrshire tatties though rather than mash - will cook extra spuds tonight since I'm boiling some anyway to go with chicken and veg.

[KeenCook2 Profile]

Tonight we had this Nigel Slater tomato tart recipe: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/j ... berry-fool

It was absolutely delicious! I didn't have 750g shallots, only about 325g (prepared), and about the same weight of tomatoes.
I used fresh oregano and some dried thyme.

I rarely - if ever - make my own pastry, always using ready-rolled, but this olive oil pastry was dead easy. No kneading or hand mixing - just drawing it together with a spatula.

I'll definitely make it again.

[liketocook Profile]

Oh my that looks delicious - definitely getting added to my "to make list" once my tomato crop gets properly going.

[herbidacious Profile]

Looks good. I might try that when I get back. I have approximately that many tomatoes harvested from my plants.

[liketocook Profile]

Looks good. I might try that when I get back. I have appoximately that many tomatoes harvested from my plants.

Lucky you I'm still getting 1s and 2s , most of which don't make it to the house.

[herbidacious Profile]

I've been doing that (snacking in the garden) on cherry ones since the beginning of July. I suppose this is because I started them off rather early. Apart from that, I have had two very small crops (about 750g) of larger tomatoes, but mostly I have a load of green ones (including on the plant I snapped the main stem off at the weekend ) with just a couple of those are starting to go red. Bear in mind I have about 24 plants on the go.
Meanwhile the snails are also snacking on the cherry tomatoes...

It's just not a tomato summer. Or a chilli or a pepper one. Aubergines seem to be doing ok. I am hoping my greenhouse will prolong the season. But if we don't get some hot sun soon... I will not be having a freezer full of passata to last me through until next summer as I usually do.

[liketocook Profile]

No I'm not expecting to get enough to make a passata stash this year, though due to the garden work I opted to grow fewer plants this year so it was always going to be a lesser amount than usual even with a decent crop. I can see me ripening a lot of green one's in the conservatory this year though that said I still have around 20 plants!

Savoury mince with lots of veg in it and Ayrshire tatties for dinner shortly. The weather has obligingly turned a lot less summery over the last hour so it won't feel completely out of place as a meal

[Badger's Mate Profile]

My bush toms are producing well but we've just started getting blight, which will put the kibosh on them. The greenhouse toms might escape.

I like to make a tomato & feta filo tart, following a Michael Michaud recipe, but there's also a Provençale one I've been intending to have a go at. There's a recipe, I think, in a Tessa Kiros book, but almost certainly in the Elizabeth David compendium and possibly Floyd on France.

[Suffs Profile]

Supper yesterday was 'Cornish-style' pasties with home grown toms and salad. Somehow I picked up the wrong bag of flour and made the pastry with SR flour rather than the plain ... but used my usual Rough Puff technique .......... a huge success ... a light short pastry that didn't crumble all over the place ... it might be my pastry of choice for pasties in the future ...

Bread & pasties.jpg (74.61 KiB) Viewed 1987 times

Some for us, some for the freezer

[liketocook Profile]

Gorgeous looking pasties and bread suffs
"Fridge use up" hash tonight - cooked tatties, spring onions, red pepper, mushrooms and chorizo. Probably a fried egg on top.

[liketocook Profile]

Yesterday the kids came for lunch. I roasted a chicken which we had with Ayrshire tattie salad, a tomato & feta salad, green salad and some cooked cocktail sausages.
Today I'm boning and stuffing with haggis two small turkey drumsticks which we'll have with roasties, carrots, broccoli, green beans and peppercorn sauce.

[Suffs Profile]

Supper last night was our usual Saturday Sourdough pizza ... the Artist expects ...

[KeenCook2 Profile]

We had friends round last night for supper the first time since goodness knows when - we've seen a few people for lunch in the garden, but this was the first time we'd had dinner guests!

It was delicious.

We started with crisp focaccia toasts with h-m coriander pesto and goat's cheese and some rather tasty lentil crisps, then had a lamb's lettuce and tomato salad, then salmon with artichokes and lemon and new potatoes with dill, then the Nigella version of Claudia Roden's orange and almond cake with (unwaxed) clementines. Our friends brought some fab Waitrose chocs, which we had with our mint tea.

It was so enjoyable they didn't leave until 12! (Usually we're in bed around 11.30/11.45) So by the time we cleared up it was pretty late

Here's a pic of the nibbles

We had English wine - white (Waitrose own label) and rose (Chapel Down).