Ruby Tuesday

My newish niece is actually called Ruby so I have to be careful now when I refer to curry as such. My sister happens to be going out with a chap called 'Hunter', so Ruby's surname is in effect Ruby Seal Hunter. Very very bloody good name. Even better if they slipped in 'the' as a middle name.

Anyway, the curry... blitzing garlic, onion, ginger and chilli in the whizzer (official name I'm sure) is always a good base, as is a glug of oil, some fresh coriander and fresh tomatoes if you want to make a quick one. Salt and a tiny bit of sugar are a must, as is Garam Masala, ground coriander and ground cumin. Fast. And decent.

Kebob Sir?

The boy loves turkish. Or whatever this type of scran might be. We were both starving and so needed something fast, tasty and full of flavour.

The cous cous was hydrated with chicken stock and bay, then a little marjoram, smokey paprika, mint, oregano was added with some fresh coriander and a little pesto. Then some red pepper and chargrilled artichokes were chopped and stirred through. The kebabs were brushed with oil, salt and pepper and a little more oregano. Then the tatziki was actually tatzucchini as I used courgette instead of cucumber, but plenty of garlic and a bit of sea salt.

It was washed down with an inappropriate but lovely glass of chilled Pinot Noir. Monday night loveliness.

Weekend brekkie in the garden...

Tinned tomatoes, happy eggs, paprika, garlic, dried chillli flakes, erm... owt else? Hmmm... oh yeah, lashings and lashings of hot buttered toast. Can you lash toast?

Spring chicken casserole

A lot nicer than it looks. Chicken, chicken stock, spring greens, new potatoes, spring onions and pesto. Yummity yumski yummo. It was really nice.

Catch up...

Pizza and a nice stir fry using wholewheat udon. Yum. The pizza was one of 6 made for our local community christmas party... at the end of Feb!

A good pizza base recipe is here:

1kg strong white OO flour

200g spelt flour

2x7g sachets yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

4 tablespoons olive oil

Enough water to make the consistency right.

Let it rise for an hour after some substantial kneading, then knock it back (punch it) and roll into little balls before rolling (or flinging) flat. Note: don't put too much topping on, wilt your spinach first and don't go overboard on fresh anchovies.

Trout, potato cakes and a lemony dill watercress sauce

Does what it says in the title really...

The sauce was a whipped-up, whizzed and throughly obliterated mixture of watercress (no shiz), dill, creme fraiche and lemon juice, warmed through. I put far too much watercress in it, and half as much or less would have meant it less bitter.

The potato cakes were boiled potato, finely chopped cabbage, leek, little cornichons chopped up and salt and pepper. They were then mixed with a little plain flour and patted into cakes in a cookie cutter.

The trout was fried with garlic butter.

That's it really.

Lamb & lentils

The boy was out watching the football so a solo supper of MEAT was in order.

I simmered the lentils in cider and stock, chopped some pak choi, herbs (I had coriander, basil, parsley and thyme left fresh) and put a frying pan on to heat up.

I seared the lamb with garlic, salt and pepper in a very hot pan until browned but still pink inside, then stirred the herbs and greens into the drained lentils with some lemon juice and lamb-pan juices. Yum, yum, yum.

Goats, squirrels and stem ginger

This month's supperclub menu was a pretty last-minute plan, having decided to do squirrel pie, the, the numbers fluctuating from 4 to 11 and back down to 7, and work taking priority over menu devising, it really wasn't prepared for what was to ensue.

Actually can't exactly remember the recipe for the starter of goats cheese puddings (which were really souffles, but who on earth wants to admit to making souffles in 2011?), but this Nigel Slater recipe is what I based it on.

135g of freshly grated parmesan

4 eggs

300g soft goats cheese

100ml double cream

chopped thyme

Whisk the egg whites separately to the yolks, and then mix the rest and fold together. Et voila. Goats Cheese & Thyme Puddings. I served mine with a seared pear salad of watercress, walnuts, seared pear (obviously) and a rape seed oil and pear cider dressing.

The main was actually a huge disappointment. Who knew how hard it would be to fillet a squirrel...? There's little meat, less flavour and the million hours of casseroling it (and separately casseroling the game for the individual pies) did nothing to 'jujz it up'. I tried port, bay, thyme, onion, mushrooms and beef stock, glugging in some more red wine nearer to the end... the game pie was nice barring one meat (unspecified!) that went ultra-hard. The spelt pastry was nice, and the squirrel pie 'tail' of parsley was a funny (but I stressfully forgot to take a photo).

Dessert was double ginger cake, again a Nigel-based recipe, (this time I vaguely stuck to the quantities and ingredients) though I put blackberries in mine.

250g self-raising flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

half a teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch of salt

200g golden syrup

2 tablespoons syrup from the ginger jar

125g butter

2 lumps stem ginger

125g dark muscovado sugar

2 large eggs

240ml milk

A cheeseboard of british cheese, more pear and oatcakes (with some scottish ginger chutney gifted to the boy along with the oatcakes by his lovely aunt Maggie - of Maggie's Kitchen Menus - a fab blog on my blogroll).

So that was the last of the winter. Frankly, I can't wait for spring.