Pork and Nettle Sausages with Wild Rocket Lentils

Last year, on Father's Day, Z and R clubbed together and bought me the River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook.  This was meant to not only inspire us but to also guide us through the potential trauma of weaning.  It started off well, we thumbed through the pages, realised that what we were doing wasn't that bad and moved on.  The book, as with most of our cookbooks, hit the shelves after a couple of weeks.

To give it its due, it is a well written book.  It's full of useful tips and moves through the seasons.  It also moves through the stages of a child's development into cooking for the family.  I suppose it was only a matter of time, as with all of the cookery books that we own, that we would open its pages again and this is precisely what Z did earlier this week.

What she found was a recipe for lentils with watercress and onions.  We currently have an over abundance of wild rocket so a substitution was instantly on the cards.  The lentils were cooked in pork stock, with a crushed clove of garlic mixed through it, until the stock had been absorbed into the lentils.  They were then finished off with fried onions and fresh chopped rocket from the garden.

R had a portion of the lentils for his tea* and we had the rest of them for our evening meal.  We had bought some pork and nettle sausages from Swillington Farm at the last Kirkstall Deli market out of curiosity.  We simply grilled these and served them alongside the lentils.  I don't know what I was expecting from sausages with nettles in.  Perhaps a little more bite but you could tell they were made from fantastic pork.  The one thing we will be taking from tonight's meal is, we will be cooking lentils much more often.

*well it is a baby and toddler cookbook recipe.

Lasagne

Whilst cooking last night's Moroccan Chicken, Z* also found time to knock up a Lasagne for tonight's meal.  She used the leftover bolognese sauce from Sunday, bulked out with some grated courgette.  Made a fresh bechamel sauce and got the whole lot layered in a dish ready for cooking this evening.

All that was left to do when I got in from work was to slam the lasagne into the oven and wait.  Normally, we would have salad and garlic bread with lasagne and save some for another day, but due to the time of the meal we just scoffed the lot and ignored the side dishes.

*the wonder woman that she is.

Moroccan Chicken

The last time we cooked Moroccan Chicken was on the 6th March and a lot has happened during the passing two months.  So much in fact, that I have had to go back and re-read the post to see what we had done that day.  What we had done, was to deviate off a tried and tested recipe.  I even stated that I would be annotating the recipe so that we cooked it that way again.

Needless to say, I didn't annotate the recipe.  I knew that we had cooked it previously for Tonight's Menu but I couldn't have told you that we had substituted black eye peas for the traditional chick peas, or that we had cooked carrots instead of courgettes.  If I had done my research, I would have realised that tonight was the first time that we had cooked this meal for the blog.

To give credit where it is due, Z did the cooking, following the same recipe as before, only this time with the correct ingredients.  All I did was joint a chicken and buy some pitta bread to mop the juices up with.

Szechuan Beef

I'm back working on the late shift but that is no excuse to stop posting our evening meals.  Z has wonderfully stepped up to the hot-plate and is taking the toddler-wrangling and husband cooking duties in her stride.  I'm not neglecting my duties.  Between us we've planned the evening meals for the week so that, where possible I will have prepared part of the meal before I set off for work.

Tonight that meant defrosting some steak from Swillington Farm and making sure the kitchen was clean for Z to work her magic unimpeded.  A stir fry is such a quick meal to cook that making sure that you have everything prepped in advance is vital.

By the time I got home Z had marinated the beef in crushed szechuan and black pepper corns, with a little oil and some rice wine vinegar.  She had also sliced an onion and some pak choi and was ready to fry.  Within minutes we sat down to eat and finally spend some time together.

Spaghetti Bolognese

It's Sunday and traditionally that would mean a nice Sunday Roast, or at least an opportunity for the three of us to sit down together for our evening meal.  If you had asked me on Friday what we were eating this evening I would have told you Roast Shoulder of Pork and all of the trimmings.  Had you asked me yesterday morning you would have had the same response.  However, by yesterday afternoon I had changed my mind.

Yesterday, to give Z some time in the house alone, I took R for a walk* around Wilton Park in Batley.  I had been once before, many years ago and I remembered the duck pond, the play park and the woods that led up to Bagshaw Museum.  It had been high summer on my last visit so I had absolutely no idea that the woods would be carpeted with ramsons (wild garlic).  I was stunned to see so much of it but with R in my arms I was in no position to pick any.  So today the three of us went back to Batley to fill our pockets.

What, if anything does this have to do with having Spaghetti Bolognese for our meal instead of a roast?  Well, the timings for the roast would have eaten into the day and we were determined to go out for a forage.  If we had held off cooking until we returned home after our long walk, R would have ended up eating on his own.  So last night I made a big vat of bolognese sauce so that on our return, our tea was only a pan of pasta away.

The wild garlic will make itself known over the next week or so as I have been challenged by Z to make her a Chicken Kiev using some of the leaves.  We'll see how that works out later in the week.

*I did all of the walking, R was content to be carried so that he was free to point at dogs, trees, cars and ducks.

Harissa Chicken

Last month we ventured out of our LS11 enclave and took a trip to Kirkstall Abbey.  The reason for the adventure was Kirkstall Deli Market.  Wandering around food stalls laid out in the cloisters of an Abbey is my idea of a fun way to spend an afternoon.  That day we took home venison for the evening meal but we also picked up a few additional items.

One gem was a jar of fresh harissa paste from Asharun Spices.  I've only ever found Asharun at Kirkstall Deli Market but I'm glad they are usually there.  There is always something new to try from their range and the fact that they wrap their wares in recipe cards takes the pain away from trying new things.

In the time that has elapsed from our trip to Kirkstall to tonight I've mislaid the recipe card but no matter.  I decided to rub some of the paste, with a little oil, into two chicken legs and let them marinate for a couple of hours before roasting them until the meat fell off the bone.  I served this with a couscous and roasted vegetable salad a little later than planned, but it was worth the wait.

Pepper topped Coley

There are positives and negatives to living as far away from our parent as we do.  My Mum is in Edinburgh while Z's Mum is in Windsor and her Dad is in deepest Shropshire.  At around four hours in the car to see any of them we don't meet up that often but when we do we always have a good time. 

One of the real bonuses of visiting family members that live miles away, is that you get to dip into a new local food scene.  Visiting Z's Dad gave us a day out in the foodie Mecca of Ludlow.  A recent trip to Edinbugh let us eat at The Dogs* and no visit to Windsor is complete without a farmers market or a trip to the Windsor Farm Shop which sells produce from the Royal farms.

Tonight's menu was inspired by the discovery, at the back of the fridge, of spoils from one of our visits to the Windsor Farm Shop.  A jar of caramelised peppers.  Z wanted the peppers smeared onto the top of a piece of white fish and baked and who am I to argue.  The peppers are sweet and sticky with a nice background kick but they are not so strong that they over powered the coley. 

We chose coley in the end because there is no reason not to.  It's a well flavoured white fish and usually costs half the price of cod or haddock.  If looks are that important to you, fine, but preserving the fish stocks and saving pennies are higher on my list of priorities.  The more pennies we have the more chance we have of going on family visits and picking up more fun food.

*a must if you get the chance