It's cupboard-scraping time ahead of going to visit Davisss and Brenda's new country pile, with some side visits to a knife skills course for the boys, and playing rugby for the er, boys. Again.
To bulk out tonight's salad option (and to be honest we ate most of the salad last night) I hit upon the idea of using the last of our 'heritage' potatoes for Billy G's marvelous tumeric potatoes - can you get a yellower dish?
Points to note: 'Heritage' potatoes make excellent tumeric potatoes - deffo in the league of Kiki's and my mum's christmas potatoes - and secondly, you really DO need gruyere in the rice. Parmesan just isn't strong enough.
Food of the Milos Spag bol from the freezer tonight for the monkey, followed by fruit puree.
sources stuffed peppers - Delicious, April 2009, p31 tumeric potatoes - Bill Granger, Holiday, p190
After last night's disaster I'm back on it tonight *and* it's an experimental dish! Amazingly everything seems to come together - it's easy, it's tasty (thank Christ) and you only need one pan to cook it in!
Spicy, tasty genius from Billy G. Definitely a keeper, although my plans to keep a tortilla to make a pizza for the milos dinner tomorrow, and some spare veg for a jacket spud, go out the window and down the anas gullet.
Food of the Milos One silver lining from last night's stew farrago is it's bland enough, and funny-colour enough, to amuse the milos. He's at Julia's today and her feedback is he's been really hungry today. Looking at his book, and thinking about how much he ate yesterday, we reckon he might be on a growth spurt: Cheerios and raisins, toast and Phili and rice cakes all before lunch. Rice and bolognase sauce for lunch, followed by apple puree and then further snacks during the day - strawberries, a croissant, cheese and then another mango tonight. Hmmm
sources chilli bean burritos - Bill Granger, Every Day, p56
Another freezing day, albeit without the winter sun, so we go for another warming stew - classic moroccan chicken stew with a twist. The twist is rather than using chicken breast, I use a bunch of chicken thighs so there is enough for the milos to have for dinner tomorrow.
It's an almost unmitigated disaster. Taking it from the top: 1. I didn't realise the thighs had bloody bones in, so half of meat ends up in the bin due to my appalling butchery. I'm going to have to go on that course Lucyfer; 2. Somebody wakes up and demands attention so we end up eating with him running around the place, wanting to be hoicked up the back of the chair onto his "pirate ship" and squawking like a parrot; 3. I don't know why, but the sauce just tasted "yellow" rather than warming and lemony and gingery. Just "yellow" and meeeh.
I can't work it out, I put the usual ingredients in but tonight it just turned into weird slop.
We're going back to chicken breasts next time, and I'm whacking in more ginger.
Food of the Milos As if to rub salt into the wounds (although as this happened before I got home I technically didn't know about it), the milo turns his nose up at the Spanish Rice. He requests the fish curry, but gets jacket potato and mango instead.
sources moroccan chicken stew - Delicious, February 2008, p28
It's a beautiful start to the week! Bright, sunny, bone-chillingly cold with a mini-sprinkle of snow. Myself and my co-colleague Jessica even manage to launch our new cooking blog at work - Kitchen Daily! We've not quite got the hang of daily posts yet though.
Even better, I scored a free lunch as I won last week's gym challenge at work for being the top tosser. You all probably suspected that already.
Dinner is a gamble. We're on a budget, we need something we can give to the monkey the next day, and yet it needs to be hale and hearty to beat off incipient frost bite. Spanish Rice ticks all the boxes, and as a less-than-interesting aside, it's one of those dishes I always associate with my childhood. My mum used to cook a big batch to last us a couple of nights loads when we were growing up, laced with Tabasco and cheese.
It sort of works tonight, not quite the intense flavour I remember but a pretty good approximation and definitely worth trying again. Secretly I think it needs some more seasoning and Tabasco (shhh!) It's from the precious black book, via my mum's mind. Sorry Lucy.
Food of the Milos Nothing for breakfast today - oooh! By the time he got to Zoe's he had a smoothie, gingerbread animals, cheese and ham nibbles for lunch and remarkably, last night's fish curry for dinner. He'll be on the vindaloos next!
sources spanish rice - the black book of Pat Ferrick:
A busy day in Barnes Towers. Despite last night's broken sleep, partly because of his full day yesterday with Nanny, Danny and Dylan, we decide to take ACTION today and go to Kew Gardens.
Naturally by the time we get out it's late morning so we skip a sleep again in favour of looking at the giant fish in the Princess Diana Greenhouse thingy, looking at wild animals through "noculars", and having a babycino. When we get back we make some gingerbread animals - what farmyard beasts can you spot?
With monkey in bed early, we have an unusually early-ish dinner - a warming, gingery curry after a day in the frosty cold in Kew. Though I say it myself, it's one of my better ones...
Food of the Milos A better day of food: Scrambled eggs and soldiers for breakfast, a variety of snacks during the day, some roasted squash and peppers with pasta for dinner, and a gingerbread rabbit as a lovely snack.
sources keralan fish curry - Nigella Lawson, Delicious, February 2009, p83 gingerbread men - Donna Hay, Modern Classics Book 2, p77
An exciting, bright saturday dawns and the monkey is excited because Nanny, Danny and Dylan are coming up for the day. However we have to temper the high spirits with a trip to pond and Cafe Nero as my brother overslept...
Still, it's really nice to see them when they do eventually arrive *even if* I have to almost immediately leave to play rugby. Everybody trails along for the second half to see us thump Belsize Park 3s, and I come up with a 5 yard Barnes (me) classic at the end in front of the milos. He's more concerned about my muddy hands though, and gives me a baby wipe before I can cuddle him. I wonder where he gets his OCD/hospital corners tendencies from? I'm saying it's from the anas.
Once we pack everybody off home, and monkey into bed, we settle in with lovely, lovely giovanni's sausages. Extra spicy/garlicky sausages maketh the dish.
Food of the Milos A mixed bag today. Scrambled egg for breakfast, which is good, but this is followed by an iced bun in Barnes and a croissant. He then eats some burgers at the rugby club along with mini cheddars and an orange juice, and then he shares Dylan's chips for dinner. Hmmm
sources giovanni's sausages - Bill Granger, Every Day, p77
By crikey it's freezing today. When I turned onto Mortlake High Street this morning I was momentarily blinded by the tears starting in my eyes, I swear they froze to my cheeks.
By the time I got home it hadn't got any warmer, and after another broken night of certain piccalilly's waking up with 40C temperatures, I'm knackered and freezing. What better reason to fire up an extra spicy stew?
Sadly somebody appears to be on the road to recovery and has LOADS of energy, and incredibly gets up after we've put him to bed. The recovery isn't the sad bit, the sad bit is we have to lie about the sausages because the milos heart them to the max. We lie and we bribe him with chocolate, we're bad parents.
Food of the Milos Porridge and banana for breakfast, crumpets for lunch and lentil stew for dinner. Obvs this includes the usual snacks - Humzingers, rice cakes, smoothies etc
