WHERE IS MY BRAIN? BRING ON SPRING! (includes recipe)

The non-plastic plastic bags my veg come in

Well that was an odd week.  I was a week behind in my head.  Both my partner's and daughter's birthdays are this week and I was convinced they were next week (or as I'm late with this post; this week).  Confused yet?

Anyway kitchen duties weren't too bad but I'm still suffering from non inspiration.  Been thinking that maybe I'm awaiting Spring and am getting a bit fed up with Winter food.  Looking forward to asparagus and spring greens.

Had a few bananas left over and as we had run out of apples and my son loves his bit of fruit in the evening, I made a banana bread.  Not that healthy I hear you say; why not just give him a banana? However, my son doesn't like bananas as bananas; as he says "the only way to eat bananas is in banana bread".  So I cooked one and he was delighted and snatched a slice before I could photograph it, haha.

Son's favourite Banana Bread

This wasn't the only cake made this week as partner likes a coffee cake so a coffee and walnut cake was made for his birthday.  Luckily I found some chocolate butter cream in the freezer which I must have put in there over Xmas; I don't waste anything if I think it might be worth keeping and butter cream freezes beautifully.

Partner's Coffee and Walnut Cake

Whilst rummaging around in the freezer I came across one last batch of frozen pastry so thought a roast vegetable and bacon pie was in order to use up the leftover Sunday veg.

Roast Veg and Bacon Pie with mashed potato and greens

Rest of the week wasn't as inspirational and my shift of dinners ended with a rather quick and easy storecupboard dinner of tinned hotdogs, tinned beans, scrambled eggs and toast!

Am hoping next week will be a bit more exciting.

This week's box delivery

COFFEE AND WALNUT CAKE - you will need a food processor or something similar

140g walnuts
150g caster sugar
5 eggs, separated
55g flour
1 tbsp instant expresso powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp boiling water
pinch of salt

Butter cream and some sort of jelly/jam to fill.

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4 and grease and line a 9in x 2in (25 x 5cm) cake tin.

Grind the walnuts with 3 tablespoons of the sugar and when ground blend in the flour (hence the need for a food processor or something similar).

Beat the egg yolks and the remaining sugar until thick and pale yellow in colour.

Sift the cocoa powder with the coffee powder and dissolve to a fairly runny paste (not too runny though).

Fold the walnut mixture and coffee/cocoa mixture into the egg yolks.

In a clean bowl and with clean whisk(s), beat the egg whites with the salt until they form stiff peaks and then carefully fold this into the yolk mixture with a spatula.  You can always slake the mixture by folding in 1 tbsp egg whites first and then folding in the rest.

Pour into the cake tin and bake for approx 45mins (check after 40mins to see if cooked).

Leave to cool for 5 mins before slicing in half horizontally and filling with the jam/jelly and butter cream.

Tah Dah!

DREARY FEBRUARY AND THE SHORTAGE OF LETTUCE!

Funny old week!  It’s very grey and miserable in the South East of Blighty.  February has arrived!  Although on the bright side bulbs are beginning to push green shoots out above the soil so the promise of colour is there.

Alfred the garden spider has decided to move home and taken himself off to the corner of the kitchen between the above sink cupboard and the wall; maybe he’s thinking of looking for a mate which is rather sad as he won’t find one.  If he lasts long enough and the warm weather finely arrives, I’ll reinstate him into the garden.

As to food and menus; I’m still finding little inspiration but then it is the ‘lean’ time of year.

The garden has a few turnips and leeks left but that’s about it although rosemary, sage, thyme, young mint and a few fronds of fennel are still there for the picking.  Talking of the garden I’ve had a tidy up and cut back a few bits as there is less risk of frost now.  Also found a few bulbs, that I hadn’t got round to planting in November, in the shed which were sprouting so risked planting up a couple of pots to see how they fair.  Next week will be checking over seed packets for dates and ordering new strawberry plants as the old ones have become far too old to produce much crop.

The festival of Imbolg was this week so I decided that Wednesday would be the day that I decorated the house with fresh flowers (supermarket unfortunately), greenery from the garden (eucalyptus needed a cut back), and candles and did a yellow and green themed dinner of smoked haddock, spring onion and pea frittata along with a fresh salad of lettuce (not iceburg I might add; more about that in a min), onion, watercress, apple, walnut and cheese.  I also took half the rhubarb out of the freezer and made an orange and rhubarb ‘cake’ with one of the blood oranges I had left and served this with custard.

Now to the lettuce issue!  Apparently the UK imports more than half its fruit and veg from abroad, which personally I find astonishing and rather worrying, and, as there is currently unusual weather conditions in Southern Europe, it’s affecting their ability to produce veg and this has meant a shortage of foodstuffs like courgettes, spinach, iceberg lettuce and now broccoli reaching our supermarket shelves.  My issue here is that why are we trying to buy courgettes, spinach, iceberg lettuce and broccoli now anyway?  To be honest why would you buy iceberg lettuce at any time of the year; it’s foul! Those are summer veggies! Why? Because we have become so used to buying anything at any time of year that we have become distanced from what we truly should be eating at any specific point. I often wonder if this is why illnesses have increased. Our bodies are attuned to eat certain things at certain times and to eat seasonally has a huge impact on our health and, obviously, the planet. Now I’m not being all evangelical about it; I love my blood oranges from Sicily and, of course, I’m still eating tomatoes in February which is silly unless canned, pickled or dried but I’m trying to eat as seasonally as possible and to grow my own or buy mainly from the UK and preferably local. I wonder how others would fair if they did the same. Perhaps if we did we wouldn’t be panic buying lettuce, yes people really are, with one supermarket rationing them to three per person.  On that point; to whoever is buying three at a time, all I can say is you must be eating a hell of a lot of lettuce as it wouldn’t last in my house and would go off before we could use it up.  Hmmm, more food waste I think.  May I make a suggestion?  Eat cabbage!  Red cabbage is around and that’s lovely and crunchy raw.  Finely shred it, shove in some grated carrot, possibly a chopped onion, maybe a few raisins or grated apple or both, add a light dressing and you have homemade coleslaw; tastes much better than lettuce anyway!

For further information I’ve added a couple of links below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/03/no-three-lettuce-heads-supermarkets-tell-customers-extreme-weather/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38666752

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/aug/12/seasonal-eating-vegetables-uk-does-it-matter

http://eatseasonably.co.uk/

Cya

Menu plan for the week is as follows:

Monday – Roasted veg pasta

Tuesday – Turnip and chickpea casserole with mashed potato

Wednesday – Smoked haddock frittata with salad and rhubarb and orange cake for pud

Thursday – Mushroom curry with rice

FFS!!! SLEEPY HEAD AND THEN FEELING ROUGH

A bit higgledy-piggledy this week as shifts swapped at work so worked Wednesday and Thursday instead of Tuesday and Thursday and ended up feeling rough towards the end of the week.  Was rather nice to have a couple of days off at the beginning of the week and the plan was to spend some time in the kitchen getting ahead, but that didn’t happen as I’ve gone into hibernation mode and am struggling with sleep and then not waking up and then was ill from Thursday with stupid viral thingy which made me freezing cold and headachy.  Hopefully within the next few weeks this will all rectify itself and I’ll be full of the joys of Spring, haha.

Forgot to mention last week that we had snow!  Well, a few centimetres of snow anyway, but it did make everything sparkly and pretty for an evening and half a day.  Brought everything to a standstill as usual although have no idea why as it was hardly anything and other places manage to keep going through masses of it on a daily basis.  Come to the conclusion that we South Englanders are pretty naff when it comes to snow.

Snow in Gillingham. Picture: Alan Spoore

Kent Online

This week I had two boxes delivered as they had an offer on ‘pick me up’ foods (quite funny considering I had no ‘up’ to be ‘picked’ by Thursday) so took a nosey in the cupboard and what was available and did a little order which included my blood oranges (yay), watercress (mmmm, soup!), venison mince and pigeon breasts (both now in freezer) and yogurt (I get through rather a lot as have it with my gluten free oats for breakfast instead of milk/water).  The veg box was quite standard as it would be at this time of year but I was able to double up on the broccoli meaning we had a decent amount.

Menu plan for the week is as follows:

Monday – broccoli and butterbean bake.  Was a lot better than I was expecting as I’d chucked it all together and laid slices of emmental on top; got eaten though and there was enough left over for me to have at the weekend instead of chips.

Before the slices of Emmental were added

Tuesday – Game pie with mash potato, the remaining broccoli, Brussel sprouts and carrots. Luckily pie was already made and in the freezer, so just an easy job of removal and allow to defrost before ensuring heated through in the oven.

Luxury Game Pie

Wednesday – Teriyaki quorn chunks in the slow cooker.  Hmmm, must use less Tamari next time.  Used the same amount as the note said for soy sauce, but the tamari was quite strong, so probably will halve it next time.  They all ate it though, so can’t have been that bad.

Thursday – After shoving flour, oil, water, yeast, sugar and salt in the bread maker before going off to son’s trampolining class, I made pizza.  Dough was good and I covered it in tomato sauce (ketchup), chopped onions, sliced mushroom, pepperoni, ham and cheese.  Made two of the paninis in the fridge into garlic breads for them and a bowl of salad to go with it.  Unfortunately I was starting to feel pretty crap by the time I got back from work, so the couple of slices of pizza they had left me were enough.

Pizza before cooking

Spent Thursday night, all day Friday and Saturday wrapped up in layers of clothing and a blanket whilst drinking plenty of tea, water and vitamin C drinks and reading a book.  Partner cooked for them and I ate sarnies and the broccoli bake as really wasn’t that hungry.  Luckily Sunday morning I woke up feeling rather a lot better.

RECIPE:
Mixed Game Pie with Sausage meat-stuffing balls
Serves 4 or 3 if you're piglets, which we are.

Sunflower oil
knob of butter
approx 600g mixed game (mine was venison, pheasant and partridge)
about 4 rashers of smoked bacon cut into chunky strips
1 medium onion, chopped
thyme springs (I used 4, but this is to preference)
400ml of stock (I used veg)
A good glass of port
1 tbsp of redcurrant jelly (although I used my Hips and Haws jelly so you could use cranberry or any other jelly to be honest)
3 bay leaves
couple of carrots, diced
couple of celery stalks, sliced
heaped tbsp of flour for thickening

Brown the meat in batches in the oil and butter and set aside, then brown off the bacon and set that aside.
Cook the onions, added a glug more oil if needed, with the thyme until soft and lightly browned. Stir in the flour and gradually add the stock, port, jelly and bay leaves. Bring to the boil and return the meat and the bacon and allow to simmer, covered, for about an hour.
Gently sweat off the carrots and the celery in another glug of oil and butter and when browned add to the meat dish and simmer, again covered, for another 15 mins until veg is soft.

Meanwhile make the sausage meat balls:
150g sausage meat (mine was, of course, gluten free)
2 rashers of bacon, finely chopped
Approx 50g of nuts (could be walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts; I used hazelnuts), chopped
grated zest of a lemon
20g of breadcrumbs (mine obviously gluten free)
chopped thyme to taste
salt and pepper.
Squidge all of the ingredients together and form into walnut sized balls.
Fry them off until brown all over and set aside.

You will also need 250g of shortcrust pastry (either bought of homemade.  You could use puff if you can make it or find it gluten free or use normal if you aren't gluten free)

Transfer the meat and veg from the game mix into a pie dish and reduce the cooking liquid to approx 350ml or slightly under.  Pour this back over the meat and arrange the sausage meat balls on top and leave the whole thing to cool.

Roll out your pastry and cover your pie and if you have a pie funnel use it, but I don't and just made a couple of holes in the pastry top.  Cook this 30-35mins in an oven of 220C/Gas 7 until pastry brown and filling it bubbling.

NB: It's a long winded recipe and I've tweaked the original a fair bit. This isn't something I would do on a weekly basis, but would use for special occasions.

AAAAAH! NORMALITY HAS RETURNED!

Sorry, this is a couple of days late.

Well, it was rather satisfying to get back into the rhythm of things today with a clean out of the fridge, veg rack and fruit basket in preparation for the veg box order.  I was pleased to discover that the veg rack is finally empty apart from a half head of celery which was looking decidedly brown and unappetising, so was fed to the worms in the wormery and the rack wiped clean ready for new goodies.  The fridge had been emptied of all its mouldering items as well, so apart from jars of half eaten preserves, a bit of blue cheese and a quarter of an Xmas pudding there is now nothing left to betray that there was a festive season.  Salad trays contained a fresh box of mushrooms, 3 lemons, 2 Little Gem lettuces and about half a dozen baby plum tomatoes; all were ok, so the worms didn’t get any other treats today.

Blood Oranges - Yummy

Box arrived and after giving the fridge a final clean down I could empty the gorgeous fresh stuff into the respective areas.  Firstly, a fine bag of blood oranges; mine, all mine, I might add.  I patiently wait every year for January and the availability of organic blood oranges from Sicily and woe betide anyone who sneakily nicks one.  They are my favourite and only available for such a short time. They were added carefully to the fruit basket along with apples and satsumas.  The bananas were removed swiftly and put aside for banana bread later as they are beyond eating as a snack but will be wonderfully sweet and gooey for a cake. More cherry tomatoes, sweet bite tiny peppers and chestnut mushrooms were put in the fridge and 1 fennel, bag of Brussel sprouts (yeah I know you’re probably all sick of them, but we love them), 4 sweet potatoes, leeks and a bag of Cavolo Nero were housed in the veg rack.  I know that there are still leeks, curly kale, parsnips, swedes and turnips in the garden along with various herbs such as rosemary, sage, bay, thyme, marjoram and mint.

Menu plan for the week is as follows:

Monday – Quorn sausage, tomato, mushroom, pepper, garlic, onion, plenty of dried oregano, splash of gluten free Worcester sauce and big squirt of tomato puree cooked to form a sauce and served with pasta for the boys and buckwheat pasta for me.

Tuesday – slow cooker of quorn mince, mushroom, walnut and rice filled Cavolo leaves (apparently these parcel type things are called Dolmades and I’ve made them before with cabbage leaves).  Stock and lemon juice will be poured over to cook and keep them moist – this didn’t quite go to plan as the Cavolo leaves were so thin I couldn’t stuff them, so layered them with the quorn mince filling like a lasagne.  Clean plates again tonight.

Apologies for the quality of picture; it really did taste better than it looks

Wednesday – chicken and vegetable pie made with the leftover roast chicken & the remaining roasted veg from Sunday and mash potato.

Thursday – a layered potato, sweet potato, fennel and cream concoction with plenty of cheese including the last of the blue cheese; wasn’t as much cream left as I’d hoped so topped it up with milk.  As there was plenty of cheese I knew it wouldn’t matter and the potatoes easily soak up the liquid.  

White Orchard - a touch of beauty in the drabbest month

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to you all.  Hope you intend to have a fab 2017 in the kitchen and maybe the garden if you have one, although a few pots on a window sill would suffice :-D

We started the New Year with an old friend coming for dinner so no cooking for me again as it was Sunday!  Roast duck stuffed with clementines and a couple of halved lemons plus a bouquet garni which made the gravy have a hint of citrus to cut through the meat.  Roast tatties, carrots, broccoli from the garden, leeks also from garden in cheese sauce and a red cabbage cooked in apple juice and raisins.  Yum!

To be honest I’m getting rather sick of all the leftovers now and, as I don’t eat much meat normally, I’m also getting a bit sick of meat so beginning to crave fish and veggie food, haha. So Monday was going to be, hopefully, the last whack it all together leftover meal. In this case I added together the remaining mashed potato from Saturday’s fish pie with the leeks in cheese sauce and the odd bits of leftover cooked carrots and broccoli from yesterday and heated it through in the oven until bubbling; this was served with cold cooked ham and the remaining duck and a choice of pickles.  Even after that I’ve still got cold ham left, but, at least, it can be used up in sandwiches.

Tuesday I awoke with a chronic stomach ache and a rash on my elbow which normally indicates I’ve eaten gluten (would also account for stomach ache) but unless the gravy had had flour added or stock granules which partner swears he didn’t do or the so called gluten free crackers weren’t as gluten free as they indicated I can’t think of where the suspicious gluten has come from.  Oh well I suffered for the day and did a much more ‘normal’ dinner of frozen bought pies for them with mashed potato and celeriac with peas on the side and the gravy from Sunday as there is never enough gravy in the pies.  Stomach felt even more swollen afterwards even though I, obviously, didn’t have pie, but I did pour gravy over the mash and peas.  Hmmmm, me thinks partner may be telling a porky which I’m not too happy about, but if he does ever admit to it it’ll be ‘but it was only a tiny bit to thicken it up’.  Not the point mate.  Anyway, son came down and was ecstatic to have a ‘normal’ meal and even stated that it looked yummy!!!  I have to admit, I’m definitely now craving veg and salad and soup even more.

Luckily I’d had the aforethought to order some sustainable trout for Wednesday night and after the past week of rich food and leftover mishmashes I can safely say that the trout was very much appreciated and not just by me. I wrapped it in foil with a bed of onions and a cover of lemon slices and dill seed and then cooked in the oven for about 15mins.  Was rather proud of myself as I managed to debone the fillets of the pin bones so no-one got any; I think I can safely say that my knife skills are obviously improving.  Did a stir fry of mushrooms, courgette, carrot, ginger, red pepper and a handful of salad leaves plus a sorry looking and lonely Little Gem lettuce was finely sliced and whacked in with some lime juice and tamari for flavour; the whole lot was served up with noodles for the boys ( I just had the veg and trout).  Yum!!  And my stomach is now singing songs of light and healthy food again.

Thursday was back to work so slow cooker was back in business with a chickpea and root vegetable curry which served us three nicely and gave me a small bowlful left for Friday so I didn’t pig out on chips which is normal Friday fare as Friday is the first day of partner cooking.  I do have to admit, however, that his chips are homemade and he’s got the crispy chips down to a fine art.  I can never be bothered to do chips from scratch so if I ever feel the need to do them they are frozen oven ones which are nowhere near as nice, but a damn sight easier.

Weekend has been his shepherd’s pie and another roast dinner as he never feels like it’s a Sunday unless there is a roast, even in summer which I hate.

Plus we celebrated Twelfth Night by going to a Wassailing Event at our local fort, so plenty of Morris Dancing to watch, a Mummer’s play, storytelling, cannons being fired and raising of glasses of cider with a shout of ‘Wassail, Drink Hail’ and a bumping into old friends.

'Wassail; Drink Hail'

Mummer's Play with a modern twist

 

Photos courtesy of local Moot member/s

CHRISTMAS WEEK!

I had a lovely Christmas weekend of not cooking as Xmas Eve was Saturday and partner cooks anyway and Xmas Day the man feels like it’s his job and always takes over the kitchen. Woo hoo!! 

So, slow cooked haunch of venison (I put money in the local butchers Xmas fund every month so we can have a decent bit of game as no-one likes turkey in this household) along with roast potatoes, parmesan parsnips ala Delia Smith, Brussel sprouts cooked with bacon, mashed potato, carrots, homemade gravy, Yorkshire puddings (normal and gluten free for me) and gluten free chipolatas (courtesy of the butcher).  He also insisted on steaming the Xmas pudding we’d made and defrosting a pavlova even though I knew none of it would be eaten as we’d all be stuffed with the main course; which we were.

Barmbrack

Boxing Day was cold cooked ham, leftover venison, cheese, salad and pickles; traditional I know, but rather lovely and I actually prefer it to the big event day’s food as I do like to pick.  Barmbrack was also served up, but very little was eaten as, once again, we were all stuffed.

Tuesday I decided to check out what was left in the fridge; plenty of cheese, mushrooms, leftover meat (still!!!), salad stuff and the remaining cooked veg from the big day, so I decided to blitz the veg and some cooked bacon and make, sort of, bubble and squeak patties which I froze flat on a tray ready for removing individually as and when we need them.  As I was off out early, I left them to fend for themselves as there were still plenty of leftovers.

'Bubble & Squeak' Patties

Wednesday, son had a mate round so I thought pasta would probably go down well all round. Fried off some chopped mushrooms, a courgette, one onion and some garlic in butter, stirred in half a glass of flat champers and then whisked 2 egg yolks into rest of tub of the cream and topped up with milk before pouring into the pan to make a creamy sauce.  I then added the last of the ham which I’d chopped up into smaller strips.  Once pasta was cooked I strained off the majority of the water and stirred in the cream sauce.  As it was still hot and only just cooked the pasta soaked up the sauce pretty well and was promptly devoured by all.

Didn’t feel too great on Thursday so knew it was going to be a chuck it together dinner again.  Veg tray contained a ton of veg still including carrots, celeriac, red onions, celery and red cabbage.  Also still had quarter of a sack of spuds, so used up the last of the carrots, half of the celery and celeriac, 3 red onions, garlic, potatoes.  Chopped up into cubes and shoved into a roasting tray with chopped rosemary and oil and roasted off for 40mins before lightly crushing and roasting for a further 10mins.  Served this with the last of the venison in which I stirred half the remaining gravy and a huge dollop of hips and haws jelly.  Wasn’t the most complicated of dinners, but was rather tasty. Froze the remaining gravy as it won’t get used up otherwise and I hate waste.  It’ll get put into a pie at some point in the future.

So I still have half a celeriac, a red cabbage, onions, mushrooms, salad leaves, tomatoes, half a red pepper, leeks and celery left!  Also cheese, nuts, cake and half a Xmas pud!  Hmmm, nut roast I think is required and probably a couple of pots of soup! As I have plenty of chocolate in the baking part of the cupboard I can see Xmas pud truffles being made if no-one eats it up soon.

Have a great new year people!!

SINUS, HEADACHES AND A DAY IN THE KITCHEN

Well, we are still getting kale, parsnips, cabbage, swede, leeks, chillis and turnips from the garden although it is all beginning to look a little bedraggled as we’ve had some early morning frosts and a fair amount of fog this week.  There is also fresh mint, thyme, oregano and marjoram, sage, bay and rosemary.  Rest of garden needs a good tidy which might have to wait until after Christmas now as I have to get on in the kitchen.

This week hasn’t been too brilliant as I ended up with sinus problems which made me feel like I’d been punched in the face and the headaches were awful.  Also not sleeping too good; combine the two and you’re not looking at a very productive week.

So Monday’s leftovers were turned into a pasta dish with the remaining roots in the cupboard.  Tuesday’s slow cooker dish was a white fish chowder using up the oddments of frozen fish, some green beans, potatoes, onions, leftover cream and veg stock with a bit of mashed potato added to help thicken. Wednesday was a fry up of bacon, gf sausages, eggs, beans and mushrooms and Thursday’s slow cooker meal was a Sumatran Lamb Curry which I found in my new Farmhouse Cookery book.  Used my spice grinder for the first time on this and I think it is now my favourite piece of kitchen equipment along with the zest grater.

Started feeling a little more with it by the weekend and after a lovely woodland walk with a mate on the Friday to clear the cobwebs I made Chilli Chocolate Brownies and soaked the fruit for Barmbrack on the Saturday.  Partner was out most of the day and all of the evening which meant a free kitchen.

Started on the Xmas decs at the weekend too; we have a real tree and I don’t like my decs up too early, so it’s normally the weekend before Christmas that they all go up.

Anyway, as promised, I can now list the flour combination that I use.  So if you are gluten free and/or have a problem with rice (as I do) this is it:

1 cup of potato flour

1 cup of gram (chickpea) flour

1 cup of soya flour

1 cup of buckwheat flour

½ cup of coconut flour

I’m sure that you could replace the coconut flour with ground almonds (need to experiment), but I would definitely include some sort of nut flour (unless you are allergic) as it seems to keep the moisture so I can now, eventually, make a decent shortcrust pasty.  If you are worried about using soya or can’t use, up the ratios of the other flours; as long as the potato, gram and buckwheat are of equal quantities you could miss out the soya.  I make this up as I need it and this quantity gives at least 8oz-10oz of plain flour (depending on size of the cup).  I have a large Kilner jar that I measure it all into and shake the crap out of it to mix it up.  I then top up as and when I need it, so if having a baking day that could be several times.  Most of these flours are of reasonable cost.  You could replace the soya with quinoa flour, but that is rather expensive in comparison to the others.

Cya next week

KITCHEN BLITZ AND PLANNING

Hi all,

This week has been clearing out the fridge and freezer of any bits and bobs and frozen 'half' dinners so that I have a fresh freezer to fill with baking and all the final leftovers have been used. I try and do this at the beginning of most months, but definitely at the beginning of December as there will be cakes, extra bread, Christmas Day meat, pastry, biscuit dough and all the other extras that will be needed over the festive season, although I'm sure that some of it will be still there in January.  Also the kitchen itself gets a winter clean with cupboards and drawers cleared out of 'stuff' and washed down along with double checking on cleaning tiles and those hard to reach corners.  Why I do a winter clean I don't know, but it's become traditional for me to do a pre-Christmas blitz.

So after a mega blitz, Monday's dinner was a big moroccan spiced 'stew' made from a fairly large, already moroccan spiced, veg dish I found in the freezer, last week's sweet potatoes, tomatoes and carrots, quorn pieces, lambs lettuce (in place of spinach) and more spice.  This was basically shoved in the slow cooker all afternoon whilst I cleaned the kitchen.

Stores cupboard (left side)

Stores cupboard (right side)

Tuesday was breakfast with a friend I hadn't seen for a while, bit of shopping, posting a parcel and some Xmas cards and then work in the evening.  I have to admit that after a very large breakfast I wasn't that hungry before work, so I passed the responsibility of dinner onto my partner and requested he bunged a pizza in the oven for me for when I got home.  Sainsbury do a rather good gluten free pizza and I do tend to keep a couple in the freezer for those days when either I really fancy one or when the boys are having them themselves; normally a Saturday when it's partner's turn to 'cook'.

Mushroom 'risotto' on Wednesday as I had a tonne of mushrooms in the fridge.  The risotto is in quotation marks as I didn't have risotto rice so used quick cook long grain rice instead.  After frying off some onion and the tonne of mushrooms in some olive oil, adding plenty of fresh thyme from the garden and a twist or two of black pepper and salt, I added this and a large mug of rice to an oven proof casserole dish, then added two mugs of boiling water, gave it all a stir and put in the oven, covered in foil, for 20mins on 180C.  Another stir and more boiling water, about another mugful, and back in the oven for another 10mins whilst I grated a largish piece of parmessan and a big chunk of cheddar.  Out of the oven again, check to see if rice cooked and then stir in all of the cheese.  Check seasoning, add a little more water if dry and back in oven for another five mins to melt the cheese.  Voila!

Thursday was another slow cooker day as it was son's weekly group trampolining lesson and then back to work a couple of hours later.  This time it was an 'anything goes' stew, meaning leftover roast veggies from the weekend, couple of spoonfuls of mashed potato which thicken the stew, sweetcorn, any veggies that were found in the bottom of the fridge, tin of tomatoes, tin of beans and some water.  Plenty of salt and pepper and herbage and I've finally got rid of all the odds and sods.  Hoorah!!

Friday is my first day of not cooking dinner, so after a private lesson in trampolining for my son, it was home to wade through a pile of cookery books with a cuppa and plan out some menus/dishes for the next couple of weeks so that I don't have to think too hard about what to cook whilst I get on with baking, present wrapping, decorating and card writing.  Shopping lists written and I can relax for the weekend. Although I actually did a fair amount of visiting, shopping and a rather lovely amble around a Christmas Fair where I bought a rather ingenious bowl that folds flat when not needed, so not a huge amount of sitting and relaxing, but was a well spent weekend.

Chicken Bowl

Chicken Bowl flat

Do you think this lot will fit in the bowl??