Blueberries

Blueberries and yogurt. Because they're just gorgeous.

Rocket and fennel salad (and other things)

Matt wanted salad again. The mini lamb leg joints and the steaks are proving too much, on top of all the bakery goods :)
I've been pretty knocked out working 7 days a week, and haven't had as much cooking energy at home, nor time to get to the farmer's market (altho' i did get up at 7 last week and go before work, that's the only way its going to work).
So - here we have some crappy bread - which matt worked wonders with. He does completely the best cheese and ham on toast ever. I won't disclose the secret ingredients online.
The aspect I did rather have some enthusiasm for was a little fennel and rocket salad i got together: finely finely sliced the raw fennel, mixed with lemon juice, olive oil, seasoning, added rocket, done. Very tasty. Lemon and olive oil knock off the sharp aniseed of the rocket, leaving you with something very aromatic and cut through with lemon. Delicious.

Sticky toffee - mark II

Another day, another sticky toffee recipe.
I saved up my money to get pudding tins :) They're very cool.
I made the toffee: butter, cream, sugar - heated (but not boiled) up, so the sugar dissolves.
But - I wasn't using dark brown - only light brown and demerara. The crystals demerara are too large to dissolve easily, so struggled to get the consistency of toffee I wanted: very smooth, deep tasting.
Also - it doesn't produce the right tarry, deep blackish delicious mollasses-y toffee I wanted. This is literally a pale imitation.
Steamed sponge is always nice - but I messed up the bain marie - next time I'll use hot water in it from the off. SIGH. I must have been tired.

So - all in all - I made four very cute puddings, which needed DARK brown sugar, and a proper bain marie technique. We'll get it right next time.

Steak sandwich

The bread is the potato bread I made, painted with olive oil, griddled to a tasty char, mustard inside, steak griddled for a few minutes, rocket, tomato.

Something very satisfying about using your own bread in this way.

Herb-crusted mini leg of lamb, with rosemary cannelini beans

This was two nice dishes, which didn't really go together :)
Waitrose did this mini, boned, leg joint. It was on offer (as I suspect no-one knew what to do with it), so I got one, well two, and stuck them in the freezer.
I decided that herb-crust would be interesting to try.
I found a recipe by Michel Roux. Can't go wrong.
Take parsley, thyme, rosemary and chop up. Mix with breadcrumbs (i had some leftover sourdough, handy).
Brown the meat lightly, to seal it. Then put it in the oven. Don't do what I did which was to put the mustard on, put the crust on, then realise if you bake that at 200 C for 45 mins you'll have very burnt herb toast.
I covered mine in tin foil to protect it for the first 25 mins, and uncovered to crisp for the remaining 20. A little bit too long (should have known the packet instructions for 'medium' would be too far gone).

The beans I thought would be nice with the lamb, to have a delicate stew with the meat instead of potatoes and veg. But.. the tomatoes were overpowering, and altho sweetened and had red wine vinegar added, were still too bitter with the lamb. Rosemary can also have a bitter twang, so it wasn't a great idea to add that. It would have needed a great deal of cooking out to get where I imagined it.
However, that said, it was tasty - just two different meals sharing the same plate. 

Lentil Soup

This used to be one of my favourite meals: red lentil and fresh coriander soup. And it is still good - but the flavours are not subtle enough, or maybe its just how i cooked it. The garlic wasn't sweet enough, there was too much milk and not enough coriander to punch through it all. Overall - very nice to eat, but not interesting enough.

Potato bread

I saw this recipe in Prue Leith, and thought it would be fun to try. I am haunted by the tortanos of the Flour Station bakers in London, which are truly superb.
This was a different thing altogether: homely, close-textured crumb, very moist from the spuds.
Initially we couldn't work out if they were cooked or not - but after baking them as much as we dared (could be bothered) we left them. The next day - they were really really great. Who knew?