Steak and Chips

Since the arrival of our son some 18 months ago our ability to eat out at night has been somewhat hampered.  We still manage to sneak in the odd pub meal but these tend to be Saturday or Sunday lunches and not nights out.  The reason for the lack of blog action these last few days is that we are currently on holiday in Edinburgh, visiting my Mum, and I've tried to keep as far away from technology as possible.

We have still been eating well; salmon in soy and ginger, baked piri piri chicken and a massive take-away curry to name a few meals.  Tonight, however, Mum has volunteered to babysit so that Z and I can go out for a pre-anniversary meal.  The last few times we have been up to Edinburgh we have been eating our way around the mini-chain of The Dogs restaurants and tonight we have finally been able to complete the set, with a meal at Amore Dogs.

Amore, as you can probably tell, is an Italian restaurant.  Its laid back atmosphere, plastic jugs of water and images of dogs all over the place, all help to remind you that you are only downstairs from the original The Dogs, which is a modern British bistro.

As it's a special occasion* I did what most right minded men do.  I ordered a steak, although I wasn't daft enough to order the t-bone.  The sirloin marinaded in garlic and rosemary was great.  Z had pasta with a duck sauce which didn't quite hit the mark but the tomato salad that she ordered to go with it was great.

Hopefully Tonight's Menu will get back on track once we're back home.

*it'll be our 8th wedding anniversary in a couple of days.

Beetroot and Goat's Cheese Salad

We had a lovely day today wandering around Local4Lent, a food and craft event that took place in Leeds Corn Exchange.  We always go to these events looking for inspiration for our evening meal and today was no exception.  The deciding factor for Tonight's Menu however, was not found on the food stalls, but was decided upon after stopping for lunch and possibly over-eating, a bit.

We went to The White Swan, next to The City Varieties for lunch, as we knew it was baby friendly.  Rather than choosing sandwiches or something from their light bites menu we ended up with burgers*, which might not have been the best idea as we were stuffed by the time we had finished.

We decided that a salad and some nice bread was the only thing that we all wanted after the large lunch, and as we were in the Corn Exchange anyway,  I popped to Anthony's Fromagerie and Bakery for bread and cheese.  I have an admission to make at this point, I can't for the life of me remember the name for the cheese that I bought.  I know it was a British goat's cheese and I know I'd recognise it if I found it again but that's about all I can tell you.

To go with the cheese, I roasted some beetroot, crushed some walnuts and made a dressing using pumpkin oil.  The salad leaves included some rocket from our front garden which has bounced back from last year in all of this unseasonally nice weather.

For desert, Z and her Mum had brownies from #brownies which they bought at Local4Lent.  Washed down with chocolate wine.  I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I didn't partake, but I'm told they were great.

*I had the falafel burger which was brilliant!

Friday Night Take-away - Turkey and Spinach Korma

We have Z's Mum staying with us this week.  She's helping with childcare/toddler wrangling while we pack up the entire ground floor of our house.  In return for all the help that she's giving us we're paying in food and drink.  Having a third person to cook for is no hardship, it's only a little bit more food.  It also means that you need to consider the other person's food preferences which is a good workout for the internal recipe book.

Z's Mum is not a big red meat eater, so white meat and vegetarian cooking is on the menu tonight and tomorrow.  Tonight, as it's Friday night, I cooked a curry but rather than using the ubiquitous chicken, I cooked turkey instead.

The curry was a nice quick one to make.  Onions and garlic were fried before the spices were added, with a splash of water to stop them from burning.  Then the turkey was added along with a tin of coconut milk.  After simmering for a few minutes add some pre-cooked spinach and a bunch of chopped coriander and serve.  We had chapatis and basmati rice.

Toulouse Sausage and Bean Casserole

Sausage casserole is fast turning into a house standby.  The main reason for this is the huge variety in the meals that you end up eating due to the huge variety of sausages that are available to us.  At its heart, a sausage casserole is bangers, onions, beans and stock.  Whether you use chorizo or cumberland sausages is up to you, it's your imagination which makes the difference.

Possibly the most famous sausage casserole is the French Cassoulet and that is what I recreated for tonight's menu.  I bought a packet of Sainsbury's* Toulouse inspired pork sausages especially for this but you can use whatever you have.  They were cooked together with some bacon, onions, carrots, butter beans and stock for about an hour and served with a green salad.  Bon appetit.

*other supermarkets are available, as are local independent shops and markets.

Conchiglie with Broccoli

There aren't many food rules that I abide to and there are a few that I take great pleasure in breaking.  My favourite "rule break" is putting the wrong sauce with the wrong pasta shape.  The idea of having multiple packets of pasta on the go at the same time just in case I fancied a creamy sauce rather than a tomato sauce one night is baffling.  I am, however, willing to try new recipes when they present themselves.

In the interest of not cutting my nose off to spite my face, I try to buy a different pasta shape whenever I run out.  This time I have ended up with Conchiglie, or shells depending on how poncey you choose to be.  I received The Geometry of Pasta book last Christmas, which is an encyclopaedia of which sauce to cook for which pasta.  I duly turned to it to see what it recommended.

I was expecting a snail ragu, or a chunky sauce that would catch in the pasta, so imagine my surprise when the book suggested a simple sauce of romanesco broccoli.  We didn't have a romanesco but we did have a standard broccoli so we substituted that instead.  You can find the full recipe here.

Steak and Guinness Pie Revisited

Just a quick post tonight as we're eating the remains of the pie that we cooked for St. Patrick's Day.  We're even having it with similar accompaniments only served slightly differently.  The pie was warmed in the oven, wrapped up in tinfoil to make sure that the pastry didn't burn.  Tonight's potato and cabbage were boiled and steamed respectively and the whole lot was served with onion gravy.

As leftovers go, the pie was great.  The filling had improved the way that stew or curry made a couple of days ago does and the pastry hadn't gone soggy!  The down side was I'd completely run out of Guinness.  Still, you can't have everything.

Simple Paella

You may, or may not have noticed a couple of my favourite foods include anything Spanish and risotto.  The simple paella that I cooked for tonight's menu combines the two.

Start by frying finely chopped onions and celery in olive oil until soft then add your rice.  If you can get hold of some, use Spanish rice.  It is a short grain rice, like arborio, but it doesn't leach out as much starch during cooking so you end up with a much cleaner dish.  Once the rice is coated in the oil add chopped garlic and chorizo.  Stir this briefly so that the flavours start to mingle and the oils start to come out of the chorizo before adding peppers and stock.

So far this is very similar to how I make a risotto and it's where the two take separate paths.  With a risotto you stand over the pan, lovingly stirring and gradually adding more and more stock as each ladle-full is absorbed.  This is the secret to a really creamy risotto.  With paella you add all of the stock in one go and then leave the pan alone.  The next time you stir the paella will be moments before you serve it.

As with most dishes there are purists that will tell you that paella needs a raft of ingredients before it can truly be called a paella. These range from chicken, rabbit and snails to prawns, mussels and squid.  Personally, I'd be happy with any of the above but tonight I have none of them. Tonight I have good bread, good wine and good company.