Smoked Salmon, Rocket & Horseradish Pasta

I’m on an ever-continuing quest to find non-meat meals that Ashley, my other half, will actually eat, and when I answered his ‘What’s for dinner?’ question last night, his response when I told him was less than enthusiastic, shall we say.   However, he really enjoyed it and even went as far as to say he’d eat it again, so it was a bit of a result, really.

I thought it was delicious, too, and as it was so quick and easy to throw together, I thought I’d post the recipe here.

Serves 2

200g pasta – I used fresh tagliatelle, but any old pasta would do.

100g smoked salmon, cut into strips.

1 lemon, zested, plus the juice of half of it.

4 handfuls of rocket, you can roughly chop it if you like, or if you’re lazy like me, not bother.  The original recipe called for watercress, so you could use that if you preferred, but as I had rocket which needed using up, I substituted that.

2 tbsp horseradish sauce

2 tbsp half fat creme fraiche

Optional: some finely grated Pecorino cheese to sprinkle on the top, and lemon wedges to serve.

1.   Cook the pasta according to instructions on the packet.  Drain and tip into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients.  Mix well, adding lashings of black pepper.

2.  Eat.  Enjoy.

See – couldn’t be simpler!

**Linking up with Mrs M’s Recipe linky **

Dinner For Eight

Last weekend, while enjoying a few glasses of vino in the sunshine on Sunday afternoon at friends’, I decided it would be a good idea to invite 8 people for dinner on Good Friday. When I woke up Monday morning, I wasn’t so sure it was the best idea I’d ever had, but hey ho, these things happen, and it’s happening tonight!!

I’ve decided to go simple with the menu, because 8 is a lot of people to cook for (I’m doing it all myself, as I invited them, and usually Ashley cooks when we have people for dinner), and this is what I’ve decided to cook:

Garlic & Stilton mushrooms served on a french bread crouton
* * *
Beef bourginonne (good old Delia!)
Roast potatoes
Carrots and green beans
* * *
Chocolate mousse (Nigella Express, quickest and easiest choc mousse in the world , and very yummy)
OR
Lemongrass and coconut panna cotta (also easy, Ashley’s current favourite)
* * *
Cheese and biscuits

I’ll try and photograph it and post it all up tomorrow, but I might be too harassed to do so!

However, hopefully it won’t be too arduous, as it’s almost all prepare-ahead stuff. In fact, hopefully yesterday’s shopping trip around Tesco will turn out to be the most arduous bit – I rather wondered if we were expecting a nuclear attack rather than a Bank Holiday weekend, judging by the trolley rage and panic buying that seemed to be occurring!

Just for Angie – Chicken Liver Pate Recipe

Angie has requested the recipe for the chicken liver pate that I made the other days, so here it is.

200gr chicken livers
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
15 g butter
75 ml dble cream
40ml sherry
bay leaves & black peppercorns (decoration)

Melt butter in pan and cook livers and garlic on med heat for 5 to 8 mins, until they are slightly pink in centre. Cool for 5 mins, then remove from pan.
Put livers into processor and blitz till smooth, then add dbl cream and sherry, whizz again till mixture is smooth.
Sason to taste (I forgot this bit!) and spoon into large or individual dishes. Cover and chill, then eat – yum yum!

Wednesday’s Food

Breakfast – bowl of dried fruit muesli with semi skimmed milk

Lunch – don’t know what’s happened to the photo, I definitely took one! It was a brown bread sandwich with turkey and salad.

Snack – packet of Marmite breadsticks.

Dinner – Ham, sweetcorn and spinach bake topped with sliced potatoes – it was very tasty (basically made with lots of leftover stuff!) and I could easily have eaten it all over again!

Tuesday’s Food

Breakfast – slice of melon, grapes and plum

Lunch – decided to have my main meal at lunchtime, as William had karate from 6 to 7, and it’s always a bit of a rush to eat afterwards, and too early to eat before. I had pasta (homemade, leftover from Ashley’s Saturday extravaganza) with a sauce made from a sausage, some roasted peppers, tinned tomatoes and a shallot, with a little bit of grated parmesan on the top. It was lovely, and there was enough left for William’s supper, too.

Snack – Ryvita cherry cereal bar (tastier than I thought it would be, and filled me up quite well, too!)

Dinner – brown bread sandwich, filled with a little bit of grated smoked applewood cheddar (yum), cucumber, sliced spring onions and sweetcorn, all mixed together with a bit of low fat mayo and a bit of 0% Greek yogurt. Really tasty!

Delicious Dinner

We had friends round for dinner on Saturday evening, and Ashley cooked a fantastic meal (it did take him all day, I might add!). I particularly enjoyed it and savoured every mouthful, as my diet starts today (more of which later). So here is a rundown of the menu:

Lobster Ravioli with lemongrass veloute served on a bed of spinach

(This is a Gordon Ramsay recipe from his 3 Star Chef book – the kind of recipe that starts “First make some shellfish stock …..” Not my idea of fun cooking, but it was bloody delicious, I have to say! This is the third time Ashley’s made this, and I think he got the pasta just perfect this time.

Sorry for appalling photo – Ashley insisted on serving this on a shiny black plates which, together with a flash, make for a very dodgy photograph. This was scallop with Chinese five spice served with black pudding and cauliflower puree.

And the main course – fillet of beef with wild mushrooms, served on a crouton, with truffle oil roasted potatoes.

Pudding (which I made – well, I thought I should make some sort of contribution!) Lemongrass & coconut panna cotta with a passion fruit & mint coulis.

Funnily enough, we couldn’t manage cheese and biscuits after all this!

HOW Much?

Ashley’s away working again, and I’ve had a really busy day today, so when William finished karate at just after seven, we decided to go and get a takeaway pizza from Domino’s, as I hadn’t planned anything for dinner and really couldn’t be bothered to go home and cook at that time.

We ordered one medium pizza, one portion of garlic bread and one portion of coleslaw. Now I must tell you here, that it is years (literally) since I last had a takeaway pizza of any description, but I was HORRIFIED when they asked me for £16.83 – I nearly fell through the floor. Am I just out of touch with the price of pizza these days, or does anybody else think that’s extortionate as well?

I wish I’d gone to the Chinese now – it’s a little bit further away, but it would have been half that price for a really tasty meal for me and William (and it would have been a lot more nutritious as well).

To be fair, it was a very tasty pizza – but I still won’t be rushing back in the near future!

Ma Hor

Last week on Masterchef, we saw a chap making a Thai starter of minced pork, chicken and prawn on pieces of pineapple. It looked delicious, and I spent ages trying to find a similar recipe online so we could try it at home. Unfortunately, my search was fruitless (no pun intended!), until Stephen & Kerri from the BRILLIANT Dinner Diary blog answered my cry for help, and found a recipe. They truly are the fountain of all foody knowledge!

It’s called Ma Hor, and we made it at the weekend, mostly following the recipe, but making a few of our own additions/changes here and there and I have the say the result was even better than we’d hoped for – really tasty with lots of Thai flavour. And it looks really good, too!

Definitely one for a dinner party sometime soon.

Duck For Dinner

Although duck is something I really enjoy, and often order when eating out, I’ve NEVER cooked it myself before. So when I saw half price ducks in Tesco this week, I bought one, and then spent an hour or so researching different recipes on the internet.

I decided not to cook the whole thing, and so we took the breasts and legs off. Last night’s dinner was Chinese Five Spice Duck Breasts, which was really delicious. The duck was crispy on the outside and pink in the middle, and really not bad at all for the first attempt. I served it, as recommended in the recipe, with steamed rice (Ashley added saffron, his own personal twist), and halved pak choi and sliced spring onions cooked in a sauce made from the duck juices, soy sauce, runny honey and a little stock. Overall a great success.

I’m planning to try duck confit with the legs, but as Ashley is going up to Sussex for work for a few days tomorrow, I think I’ll have to freeze them in the meantime.

That Monday Morning Feeling

It was a foul evening yesterday, an equally foul night, and this morning we are still being treated to high winds and driving rain, not to mention the fact that it’s almost as dark as night outside. Not a very inspiring start to the week.

It’s looking as though it’s going to be a busy week, as well – today I’ve got an opticians appointment in town later on this morning, and I need to do a Tesco shop as well; tomorrow a girlie lunch with a couple of friends in Torquay; Wednesday I’m working in the morning and we’re out for dinner in the evening, and Thursday I’m working in the evening.

Other plans for the week include doing some sort of exercise every day, finishing a sewing project that’s nearly there but not quite, sorting out some lists for Xmas presents and making a start on sorting out my photographs. Quite a lot to keep me busy then!

Above is a picture of a very nice Thai red curry I cooked on Friday night, with minced pork. It was really tasty.