Pizza

Way back in April Z made pizza from scratch using a Jamie Oliver recipe.  The quantities of the recipe made more than enough dough for two fatties to gorge themselves on pizza and still have leftovers.  Jamie insisted that the dough could be frozen, so frozen it was, until today.

I'm always a bit wary with frozen cakes and bread.  I'm never convinced that they will defrost all the way through without being spoiled.  I had the same misgivings for the pizza dough, but I shouldn't have worried as it thawed perfectly.  Once defrosted, the dough rolled as thin as possible, covered in ham and three cheeses, it was baked in as hot an oven as was possible.  Home made pizzas are the future and so much better than anything you can buy in the shops.

Steak with Chimichurri Sauce

We eat a well balanced and varied diet at home.  In fact if you flick back through the last 170 posts on Tonight's Menu you will find very little repetition.  There are certain meals, risotto, meatballs etc. that we love and cook more frequently.  There are certain ingredients, especially chicken, that crop up so often that I'm starting to wonder if we eat too much of them.

Over the last week we have eaten three vegetarian meals, one each of chicken and pork and two varieties of beef mince in tomato sauces.  What I realised that I've missed is sinking my teeth into a properly cooked steak.  The last time we had some was two months ago and that was in a restaurant, so it doesn't count.

There was a packet of sirloin steak in this month's meat box from Swillington Farm.  I took that out of the freezer yesterday to ensure that we would be eating beef tonight.  I cooked the steak in a hot pan and finished it in the oven, but what to serve with it?  Well, one of the countries that I have drawn for The Olympic Food Challenge is Argentina.  I will be cooking steak on that night too.  Steak is to Argentina as chorizo is to Spain.  The clincher for me for cooking steak to represent Argentina is Chimichurri sauce, a garlic and parsley salsa that is ubiquitous with steak in that part of the world.

I did some research and discovered that everybody has their own version of chimichurri.  The base is garlic, parsley, oil and seasoning.  After that additions include; vinegar, oregano, chilli, coriander, tomatoes, the list is seemingly endless.  To give myself a fighting chance during the Olympic Food Challenge, I decided to make a simple version and make notes so that I could tweak the flavours in a month or so.

For tonight's chimichurri, I blended together; three cloves of garlic, half an onion, a big handful of parsley and two teaspoons of oregano.  I then added six tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, the juice of half a lemon, a pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of smoked hot paprika.  To say that it was punchy is a bit of an understatement.  It was fantastic, but next time I'll use red onion instead of white, include much more parsley and use a mix of smoked and regular garlic, assuming I still have some smoked garlic in the house.

Vegetable Miso Broth with Udon Noodles

When faced with a fridge full of vegetables what do you do? Panic? Make soup? Cook a curry or a stir fry perhaps?  We have ended up with said fridge of vegetables by buying too much for any particular meal.  This isn't our fault for a change, when cooking for two it is frustrating when things like pak choi come wrapped in threes.  Half a pepper is plenty for a lunch time salad.  We didn't need all of the aubergine for the satay kebabs at the weekend.  I can't remember why we have such a small amount of broccoli left over, but you get the idea.

Tonight Z managed to combine two of the above options to make a light and delicious meal. Without a whiff of panic Z stir fried broccoli and ginger with a splash of water, then added the pak choi stems, green beans and peppers. Lastly the shredded pak choi leaves and aubergine were added to the pan with dark and light soy sauces and rice wine vinegar.  In a separate pan she rehydrated udon noodles in a miso broth then added this to the vegetables.  Garnished with spring onions and toasted peanuts this was a great meal.  Although it's tagged vegetarian this is a vegan meal and probably one of the healthiest things that we cook.  Perhaps we'll go back to meat tomorrow.

Pasta with Chard

Technically we are the proud tenders of an allotment and a vegetable garden.  We almost lost the allotment last year due to the weeds outnumbering the plants in a staggering fashion.  Previously we had managed to convince ourselves that we were keeping an area of the plot "wild" to encourage friendly insects, but it had got out of hand.

Our plot is now being tended by a couple of Z's colleagues.  Next year R will be big enough to cause all kinds of mischief on the plot and we'll pick up our trowels again.  To keep us in the habit of eating our own we converted the front garden into a veg patch.  It is little more than 2m by 3m but last year it kept us in salad leaves and runner beans for the summer. This year we have managed to plant nothing.  All that we now have growing is the rekindled rocket and Swiss Chard that we planted this time last year.

The rocket has turned up in a few meals already but the chard has just come into its own.  I really love chard, it may well be my favourite vegetable.  Two veggies for the price of one.  The tender leaves that cook like spinach and the thick stems, which have a slightly beetrooty, earthy sweetness to them.

For tonight's menu I simply fried the stems in olive oil with some garlic, anchovies and dried chilli.  Once cooked, but still with a bite, I added some cooked pasta, the shredded leaves and a handful of parmesan and after a brief stir the meal was cooked and served.  As quick evening meals go this is one of the tastiest.  Sadly, there isn't much chard in the garden, but we'll eke it out to make sure we can have some again this year.

Pork and Aubergine Satay Kebabs

We had decided yesterday what we were going to cook this evening.  I had something akin to a craving and as Z was going shopping anyway, I dispatched her to Leeds Kirkgate Market to raid the stalls of Fish Row.  Sadly I had completely forgotten that mussels are now out of season* so a rethink was in order.

I had planned to make a Thai style mussel dish and serve some satay vegetables on the side.  It didn't take much to elevate the satay from side dish to main event.  We had already bought the sauce from Taste on Vicar Lane.  We also had onions and a green aubergine in the fridge so all that was needed was some pork.  The kebabs were marinated with lime juice and light soy sauce before grilling.  This was a million miles away from the food I was craving, but it was great.  I'll just have to wait until September before I can have the mussels I wanted.

*Only eat mussels when there is an R in the month.

Paella

The relaxation of the last few days continued today, all be it with a couple of hours at work thrown in for good measure.  There isn't much better than a sunny afternoon, spent in a beer garden, catching up with a mate who you haven't seen for ages.  While I was catching the rays and sinking a few suds Z went shopping for the ingredients for tonight's meal.

We had decided on Paella, mainly because we discovered that we had quite a lot of chorizo in the house*.  Back home, a little worse for wear, I tended to the paella while Z kept an eye on Eurovision.  I have a love hate relationship with Eurovision.  It takes itself far too seriously and the voting is always rigged but for a couple of hours a year it's a bit of a giggle, with this year's high/low-light being the Russian grannies.

The chorizo was cooked off to get some of the flavour into the pan before onion, garlic and a red pepper were added.  Once everything had begun to soften I added the rice and stock to the pan and left the paella to bubble away.  Right at the end of cooking I added a handful of frozen peas and the prawns that Z had bought earlier.  Washed down with a bottle of Cava, it was like we were back in Barcelona. We must go back soon.

*never a bad thing.

Lasagne

Today we had a family day out to Castle Howard.  We didn't bother looking around the house as it was far too nice to spend time mooching around inside, looking at old sofas.  Instead we wandered around the walled gardens, fed the ducks and bounced around the adventure play park.

By the time we got home it was already R's teatime.  Although we had given some thought to his meal, we'd had such a good time that we hadn't given a second thought to our own meal.  Luckily, in the fridge, there was a lasagne from The Secret Kitchen.  I'd bumped into Sarah, from The Secret Kitchen, at The Source in Kirkgate Market earlier in the week and, after a really nice chat about all things food related, she insisted that I took home one of her ready-meals.

We don't normally have ready-meals in the house, cooking everything from scratch is how we roll.  However, as the lasagne was made by Sarah's fair hand it was as close to cooking yourself as you can get.  We knocked up a quick salad and some garlic bread and let the evening unwind without having to wash up half a dozen pans.  A great way to end a great day.