spinach and parmesan meatballs

Ahhhh, one day to go at AOL (or is it Aol.?) towers before I am the resurrection at SeeSaw, and I'm ever-so slightly drunk.

It's been a lovely, slightly-unreal, caffeine-fuelled day and now I'm home alone 'cos Kiki has stolen the anas (again) for a meal out at Mrs Danvers. This means I get the chance to cook one of my favourite meals - Angela Boggiano's meatballs from the classic December 2007 edition of Delicious. Bliss!

So, today. To start I had a breakfast meeting for the launch of uber-trendy 'urban' restaurant Canteen's debut recipe book.

Although I'm strictly embargoed from spilling any gossip until the 4th I can tell you I sat next to the head chef and ate bubble and squeak, which was divine, however I discover there is a distinct difference between interviewing feckless TV stars and recalcitrant music youths, and proper chefs. The key theme seems to be no matter how many episodes of Saint Hugh I've watched, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

*Sigh*, the freelance food blogging career has got off to a bad start. At least I managed to secure an invitation to Ottolenghi's book launch in a couple of weeks...

After breakfast I naturally have a lunch date with the equally lovely (and bad) Lucyfer Ferguson for another pizza at the Lyric, followed by some minor pfaffing at work, office-closing drinks and finally, via a quick stop at the off licence, here cooking.



And can you guess which celebrity chef helped me cook tonight? I'll give you some clues - he should've been in bed two hours ago, he filled mummy's wedding teapot up with chopped carrot, ate blanched spinach and, incredibly, demanded some more stories before he went back to bed.



As a final aside I've got to come clean, thanks to Murphy I'm now addicted to Ed Reardon. Damn your 12-year-old-mind Murphy!

Food of the Celebrity Chefs
Whatever he eats at Julia's today, we've got an ace up our sleeves - bolognese from last night awaiting his blonde pleasure. Oh yes, who are the best parents?

sources
spinach and parmesan meatballs - Delicious, December 2007, p46

chicken bolognese

Can you see what's wrong with this picture? Can you? No? If you were ana likescheese mccharfee you would immediately spot not only were there two different sorts of pasta , but I'd also tipped in the dregs so there were actual 'bits' of pasta in there as well. The whole thing, ruined. I'm surprised she puts up with it to be honest.

Food of the Milos
It's a down-up-down sort of day today. He spurned breakfast at Julia's this morning, but wolfed cottage pie at lunchtime, before getting back on the shunning horse and turning his nose up at last night's macaroni cheese. Instead he had a mummy picnic special: marmite sandwich, apple, humous, carrot sticks and some crisps.

sources
chicken bolognese - Bill Granger, Every Day, p87

macaroni cheese with cauliflower and broccoli

We've had some pretty good macaroni cheese dishes before. Jamie's is pretty darn good if expensive as it's got four different types of fromage in it, and though I hate to say it Annabel Karmel's is also okay (for a hag-faced witch). Surely Waitrose's will occupy the tasty middle-ground?



Despite going 'off recipe' and using stronger gruyere, it's surprisingly bland. Back to the La Oliver I think.

Food of the Milos
Porridge and aprictos for breakfast, mummy picnic special for lunch and then he scarfed down last night's sausage stew.

sources
macaroni cheese with cauliflower and broccoli - Waitrose Recipe Card

sausage, pea and potato casserole

How can it still be snowing? How? It's freaking freezing but I'm not only looking forward getting home so I can see the anas and milos, but also because I've got an experimental sausage stew to try. God I'm sad. Stew is freaking aces though - just what you need on a cold, cold night.



Food of the Milos
A boiled egg day for the beastie, and then one of his recently-discovered favourites - Fish curry! He's brilliant!

sources
sausage, pea and potato casserole - Waitrose Recipe Card

keralan fish curry

Another brilliant day for daddy-day-care. Having spent yesterday swimming and wandering around Barnes, today it is all about culture.

We go to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs again, with a side order the elephants and zebras and the added bonus of including trips on buses and trains. There were potential pitfalls, however:

Hammersmith Bridge is closed so we have to walk in the rain to the station, and on arrival I'd failed to take into account the fact it's half-term, so it's packed. Not only that there was a 45 minute queue to get into the dinosaurs because the mammals exhibit was closed. Double bugger.

Still, he was aces and proceeded to 'exhibit' for various foreigners, and then for the lovely Louise when she met us for lunch. We seek refuge in the V&A, where she quickly spots his ability to take advantage of an echo-y room with a loud roar, before going over to the Science Museum to play in The Basement.

We're back in time for mummy to return from the spa, and one funny bath later it's time for us to beat out the cold with an extra-gingery fish curry - hurrah for Nigella!



Food of the Milos
A relatively good food day - scrambled egg for breakfast, then a variety of snacks whilst we queued up (marmite rice cakes, apricots) and then some crisps and apple juice in the V&A. Although I noticed Louise used him as an excuse to buy a child's roast dinner. For dinner he had jacket potato and half a slice of cheese on toast.

sources
keralan fish curry - Nigella Lawson, Delicious, February 2009, p83

pasta with cherry tomato sauce

I think I'm getting gayer. I've spent the evening drinking rose, watching Wallander and I've eaten half a tub of Haagen Daz. And I defrosted the freezer today. Lucky there's some bloody association football on the TV. Grrr, how about them giants eh? The giants? But what a day!

Having spent the week being carried around on her golden platter on the Isle of Wight, the ana's are in need of some serious pampering and duly disappears off to Champney's with Kiki for the weekend. Which leaves me and the monkey's a daddy-beastie weekend.

We go swimming and he spends about an hour sliding down the elephant slides, taking running jumps off the edge and playing with the showers. We get the bus there and back, he wears his new jumper from Hayley Fisher-Harlock, which means he spends both both journeys doing his patented "Canadian" impressions. Post snoopy snooze we have a coffee, a cake and feed the ducks. He's on great form, and apart from occasional demands to "cuddle mummy", it's a brilliant day. I'm knackered though, fit only for pink wine and easy pasta dishes. Shame I couldn't find the Sex and the City DVDs for the perfect ending.



Food of the Milos
Other than about a litre of milk he has porridge with maple syrup and apricots in, more apricots as snacks, biscuits and some raisins but no lunch. A cake in Cafe Nero and then spaghetti juzzed up with some defrosted roasted squash and peppers.

sources
pasta with cherry tomato sauce - Donna Hay, The Instant Cook, p58

pumpkin and tomato laksa

After last night's quick couple of drinks after work, I'm feeling a bit sleepy today but I do have the added bonus of getting the whanau (eh-wana-waha-ehoo-ah-Te-Mana) back from Vectis. Icing on the cake comes in the form a delightful lunch with Bad Lucy at the Lyric.

Sprinkles on top of the cake arrive in the form of Nigel Slater's chilli-laden Laksa which not only uses up the leftover squash from the other night, but also gives double home-made thai paste. Then we get an extra cherry on top when we realise the new series of The Mentalist is on! Ana spends all night on Facebook (whatever that is).



sources
pumpkin & tomato laksa - Nigel Slater, The Kitchen Diaries, p336

sardine, chilli and lemon spaghetti

Another night without the anas and milos at home, so I do my usual lonely husband thing: wrap myself up naked in ana's new lambswool blanket and play the mournful sounds of the moomins on milos toy saxophone.

The fact I'm watching Robson Green's Extreme Fishing at midnight might indicate I *maybe* a little squiffy, and okay I am. Yet another leaving drinks tonight means I have to squeeze a couple of Doom Bars into me. It's the polite thing to do, and I have the added bonus of knowing I've got an easy pasta dish waiting for me at home. And it's got FISSSSSSSSSSSSSSH!

Slightly controversial I know, but it's great and I'm not just saying that 'cos I'm a bit drunk. Despite the booze I am sober enough to notice a simple rule: You can never make a dish involving sardines look anything other than sinister and/or a mixed-up bunch of random guts:


sources
sardine, chilli and lemon spaghetti - Delicious, April 2009, p26

pearl barley, bacon & leek casserole

A gentleman's evening tonight: red wine, the mighty arsenal on the television and a manly bacon, leek and pearl barley casserole. Crikey, I'm masculine. Maybe I'll listen to the Georgette Heyer novel on Radio 7 later, and read Nuts?


I've cooked this for the anas, which didn't go down well, so it's become one of those dishes I look forward to cooking when I'm home alone. It's weird though, the first time I cooked it and this time, it was fantastic. What did I do wrong last time?

If I was being critical, I would say the dumplings were a little stodgy, although using gruyere rather than cheddar worked better than I expected.

sources
pearl barley, bacon & leek casserole - Delicious, February 2009, p24

indian-spiced aubergine

It's cocking freezing today. I go into work in an ice storm, I come home in an ice storm - I definitely need some heat in my life. Being too tight to turn the heating up whilst Ana is away, I opt for an experimental curry - Indian-spiced Aubergine.


Sounds awful, but I'm lured by its siren call on the back of a dish Kate ordered when she came for dinner last year. Okay so it's isn't quite the same, and I used a little too much water and not enough seasoning, but once remedied it was really quite nice. It had a surprisingly delicate flavour for something with so many spices in - ginger, ground coriander, cumin seeds, onion seeds, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, chilli and turmeric - although this could be because I used too much water.

Whether Ana can overcome her eggplantphobia will remain to be seen, but I've got enough for lunch tomorrow so I'm alright.

sources
indian-spiced curry - Delicious, March 2010, p83

potato & cep stew

Can you believe it, ana and the milos have only been on the diamond isle for less than half a day and already everything is mean, and grey and minky.

It's freezing today, and when I get home there's no image of Shane Williams drawn on the lounge carpet in SA Gold bottletops, no banner reading 'My daddy!' Just washing up and empty cupboards.

One trip to Waitrose later and I've got classic potato & cep stew and leek & potato soup simmering away on the hob, plus I've stuffed a whole packet of jalapeno and cheese crispy things. Perhaps I shouldn't have eaten ALL of the stew though - I'm *stuffed*...


sources
potato & cep stew - Delicious, November 2009, p81
potato, leek and stilton soup - Delicious, January 2007, p104

lime chicken curry

How Valentine's change when you additional chums in your gang. In the old days we'd have had a lazy mid-morning brunch, maybe go to the pub in the afternoon and had a lovely meal out in the evening.

Has much changed? Hmmmm... Today we had a lazy morning watching Gigglebiz and Grandpa in my Pocket on iPlayer whilst drinking milky, then we went to the Wetland Centre to look at the miniature donkeys and rabbits in the rain, and then bath and bed. Happy Valentine's Day!

Actually, we did manage a romantic meal of ana's choice (delia's lime chicken curry), with some fizzy pop using my mum's excellent gift of Victorian style champagne glasses. Then we watch David Dimbleby - ah the romance!



Food of the Milos
Two boiled eggs for a mid-morning breakfast snack, and jacket potato, cheese, avocado and tomatoes for dinner. I can't remember what he had for lunch - we had snacks at the Wetland centre and he didn't have an afternoon catnap. Maybe it was just that, and the rest of snacks. Let's go with that.

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

t box

A bit uninspired today and strangely drained, for which I entirely blame the curate's egg performance Wales managed to put in against Scotland. Sorry Greg.

Lovely Kate comes round for some wine, but curiously ana fails to go out to get any so I don't really have any booze to calm my nerves. We make up for it by getting a curry in from the t box - and that's about it for today's update. Sorry.

spinach & feta tart

Our first book club meeting tonight (The Road), so we entertain the ladies with a healthy tart and salad - so that makes four tarts at the table mu-ha-ha-ha!


Brilliantly nobody noticed I used the wrong pastry, and the only way you could tell was because the pastry was slightly stuck to the pie base. But as I was serving, they wouldn't have seen that. So with great literature discussed, and healthy meals scoffed, we finish off with a chocolate pudding. I imagine it's just like the Bloomsbury salons!

sources
spinach & feta tart - Delicious, April 2009, p30

sausage and lentil hotpot

Ohh, a classic although it's done with a twist tonight - we add extra sausages! *GASP!* I know, I know, I've played with your minds but for a very good reason. The lovely garlicky sausages come in packs of six, which means certain sausage-addicted little boys only get to have sausage 'flavoured' lentils the next day. And he's not happy about that.

The other twist is I've created an arrow out of sausages, because it's all about presentation isn't it?



sources
sausage and lentil hotpot - the BLACK BOOK!

kay's beef stir fry

After the rigors of staying with the modern-day Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and Richard DeVere, we get our chums at Ocado to deliver some shopping and we kick off the week in hot style with an old Kay McCarthy classic:


Today also saw the inaugural use of my Ken Hom 10" wok, which was one of my excellent Christmas presents from the anas. Man she's good.

sources
kayosaurus' beef and pepper stir fry - Black Book

pasta with cherry tomato sauce

With mini-hangovers me and Davisss trek over Breden Hill with the kids to give our lovely wives a break, as they had given us the day off yesterday. The combination of the cold, the walk and the fact it was Sunday drive us to the local pub for roast to sustain us on our journey home.

Once back, we get the small blonde one into bed and we have classic pasta and cherry tomato sauce with what's left in the fridge. So that would be cherry tomatoes then.



Food of the Milos
Hmmm, not a great start to the day as he hardly ate anything other than a vague munch on half a hot cross bun which Davissss had incinerated for breakfast. However on the walk he wolfs down two humzingers, a couple of smoothies, a packet of noughts & crosses and a pot of raisins. At the pub he gets stuck into ana's yorkshire pudding whilst tactically ignoring his cheese on toast, and running around with Ben. Once home we defrosted some chicken bolognese which he *did* eat. Curiouser and curiouser.

sources
pasta with cherry tomato sauce - Donna Hay, The Instant Cook, p58

plaice en papillote, stuffed chicken supreme and 18 pints of guinness

The other reason for visiting the lovely Taylors was because me, Davissss and Dan Jupp had all been given a knife skills course for Christmas at Eckington Manor.

It was bleeding marvellous, I loved it and in fact I think I'm addicted to cookery courses now. By 2 o'clock I'm slightly tipsy having filleted a plaice, jointed a chicken (and stitched up the mutant halves), and eaten all the bits with some fine wines.

After such a great morning Wales chose that exact moment to ruin it by playing as if they'd never met before. How, with the tallest player in the Northern Hemisphere at the front of your line out, how can you lose all your line outs? How? How? And Gareth Cooper? And Tom James, Tom James - Jesus! Still, I had lots of love Guinness at the rugby club and I was very very funny when I got home, apparently.

late chilli

Alas poor Tewkesbury, we knew it Montellsio. Having packed the milos into the car after I get home for work, we head off to visit the Baxtertaylordale's new half a manor house in the rolling Worcestershire countryside. The utter bastards.

We didn't expect him to sleep, but what was more surprising was he let us listen to our music in between the fairy tales, and he actually liked Mumford & Sons!

Anyway, suffice to say despite Brenda greeting us with a hearty chilli, and Daviss providing some ale-based beverages (the first for a month), I still hate the pair of them.

sources
chilli - Lucy Brenda Baxeterdale-Taylor

stuffed peppers, salad and turmeric potatoes

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 turmeric potatoes - can you get a yellower dish?



Points to note: 'Heritage' potatoes make excellent turmeric 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
turmeric potatoes - Bill Granger, Holiday, p190

chilli bean burritos

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

moroccan chicken stew

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

spanish rice

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: