What's for dinner this week - week beginning 28th April 2014

Wednesdays and Thursdays need to be quick and easy or pre-prepared the night before, as the girls do activities after school and I work longer days.
I prefer to avoid meat midweek, so there are non-meat alternatives.

Monday 
Beef enchiladas (Annabel Karmel recipe which was in BBC Good Food magazine May 2014) and Bean enchiladas

Tuesday
Honey & soy mackerel using mackerel fillets instead of whole fish for the girls (Waitrose magazine, March 2014), brown rice and green veg)

Wednesday 
Pesto jackets (Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook) - I would prepare these the night before (or even the night before that!). I make my own pesto but you can use a bought one.

Thursday 

Chicken/ Tofu stirfry with noodles (soy and sweet chilli sauce) - chicken breast/ marinated tofu, stirfry veg & noodles.

Stuffed baked potatoes with pesto – Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook

For 4:

5 baking potatoes (there’s an extra to fill out the other halves)

200ml crème fraiche

175g hard cheese, grated

150ml pesto

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 180C. Bake potatoes for about an hour, then cut them in half and scoop out the potato from the skins into a bowl. Mix all the other ingredients in with the potato and mix. Spoon the mixture back into the skins, filling generously. Return to the oven for about 15mins, until golden.

You can make in advance up to the just-stuffed stage and keep in fridge or freeze.

Friday night is definitely curry night

It's wet, it's cold and the slow cooker is back out.
Another family joining us tonight so it's;

Ruby rhubarb cocktails using the strawberry & rhubarb vodka from last week, with lime juice, lemonade and a sprig of rosemary. 
Apple, rhubarb and mint juice for the kids, using juicer.

Lamb, chickpea and spinach curry
Prawn and spinach jalfrezi for my no-meat friend (fry onions for 5 mins, add curry paste, chopped tomatoes, ginger, garlic. Simmer for 5 mins. Add prawns, after 5 mins and spinach and a splash of water if too thick)
Chicken korma for the kids
Rice, Yogurt and cucumber, Flatbreads (using Atta flour from Shipton Mill)

Dessert - Shop bought New York cheesecake which I will drown in sliced strawberries.

Quite a few pans on the go but the lamb starts much earlier in the slow cooker, making sure to hold back some of the chopped onions for the other two curries. The prawn is super quick, and the chicken korma will bubble away nicely.

I'm using Pataks curry paste to make Friday night a little easier. Jalfrezi for the lamb and prawns and korma paste for the chicken.

Bring on the weekend!

What’s for dinner this week…

April 2014 - Week 4

Monday – Easter Lunch. Leg of  Lamb with oregano, lemon zest & garlic roasted on a rack over sliced potatoes with steamed spring greens and Nigella's 'How To Eat' Birthday cake dolled up to look like an Easter cake.

Tuesday - Baked in a bag trout fillets with wild garlic pesto, boiled jersey royals, asparagus

Wednesday - Slow roast chicken thighs, home fries, corn on the cob, coleslaw

Thursday - Spaghetti and ragu

Friday - Spring Risotto with broad beans, peas, spinach, asparagus and parmesan, adapted from Rose Elliot's Green Risotto from her Complete Vegetarian Cookbook.

 Spring Risotto (Serves 2 adults, 3 kids)

Preparation time: 30 minutes.

Cooking time: 35 minutes, plus 5 minutes standing.

Ingredients

•           1 tablespoon olive oil

•           1 onion, chopped

•           1 celery stick, finely chopped

•           1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder or 1 cube

•           1 large garlic clove, crushed

•           400g (13oz) risotto rice

•           250ml (8fl oz) white wine

•           125g (4oz) baby leaf spinach

•           250g Spring veg (frozen peas, broad beans – skins off, asparagus)

•           3–4 tablespoons chopped herbs – parsley, mint, dill, chives, whatever is available

•           salt and pepper

To serve:

•           grated or shaved Parmesan-style cheese (optional)

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and celery, stir, then cover and cook for 7 minutes.

Boil 1.2 litres (2 pints) of water and put into a pan with the vegetable stock powder or cube and keep warm.

Add the garlic and rice to the pan with the onions and stir well. Add half the wine and continue cooking, stirring until the wine has bubbled away. Repeat the process with the rest of the wine, then add the hot stock in the same way, a ladleful at a time.

When the rice is tender and all or most of the stock has been used up – about 25 minutes, add the spinach, spring veg and herbs, cover and leave to stand for 5 minutes, until the spinach is cooked.

Season with salt and pepper and serve at once with a little Parmesan-style cheese, if you like.

Wild Garlic & Pesto

Sowed a second batch of rocket, spinach and lettuce leaves (Salad Bowl Red) and also some more kohl rabi.
My oregano has gone a bit mad so I'll be using a heap of it with the lamb tomorrow.

The first of the wild garlic, which I have in a pot, is just flowering.

I pinched a few leaves to make a very small jar of the amazing Sarah Raven's Wild Garlic Pesto.
Great with fish, chicken, meat, bread, anything! I love it and I love her! This recipe is from her 'Garden Cookbook'.

Also made a small jar of Parsley & Almond Pesto for our neighbours and a jug of Apple, Rhubarb and Mint juice for the kids to share. This was heavenly, will definitely juice this one again. Not having much success with my own rhubarb though. The snails and the netball seem to be giving it a pasting.


Parsley & Almond Pesto

 A handful of parsley
A few blanched almonds,
1 clove of garlic, crushed
Salt & Pepper
Sunflower oil (enough to cover parsley and then add more to get the right consistency
Blitz with a hand blender, pour into a jar and cover with more oil to keep the air out.

Easter Sunday

A rainy Easter Sunday...

...arts & crafts at home

Easter Chick cards

This is what the Three Little Birds made for their teachers for Easter.

Easter Family lunch tomorrow.

Ruby Rhubarb cocktails (Prosecco with Rhubarb and Strawberry vodka)

Quails eggs, radishes and smoked salmon

Roast lamb on potatoes (from this month's 'Country Living' magazine)

Easter Chocolate cake (Nigella's birthday cake from 'How To Eat', with mini eggs on top)

Easter Chick cards

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