shepherd's pie & cauliflower cheese

sources
shepherd's pie - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Meat Book, p504
cauliflower cheese - Annabel Karmel, New Complete Baby Toddler Meal, p54

veggie rabbits & lime chicken curry

Last night's accidental squiffyness thankfully doesn't result in any payback this morning, which is just as well as it's the first Saturday of the rugby season *AND* my first driving lesson since Toscano starts bright and sunny.

The driving lesson passes remarkably well, and when I get back I'm immediately ready to take the beastie off for the rest of the morning. We do the usual chasing squirrels and birds in the park thing, and get back for a smackerel of lunch - some of the mutant veggie rabbits! I think you'll agree Sarah, they're almost as good as the sandwich art...



After lunch he goes to bed, and I go to rugby. I'm a bit apprehensive after Ronald's little tweak, but it goes okay despite having to lurk on the blindside. First game back, we stuff London Welsh, one try in the bag and I hereby dedicate it to S R White Esq - it was a cracker as well!

The anas and milo meet me at the club for a quick drink, then we have to dash back for Ocado. Whilst we're waiting we have a couple of brewskis out the front with Steve from upstairs. Monkey in bed, we have classic Delia curry for dinner.


Food of the Milos
Toast for breakfast, a smorgasbord of the mighty veggie rabbits and scrambled egg for lunch, and Swedish meatballs, avocado, and tomatoes from the garden for dinner. He also had a large orange juice with ice, sat at the bar, in the rugby club. His mother has gin.

sources
veggie rabbits - Annabel Karmel, Top 100 Finger Foods, p24
lime chicken curry - Delia Smith, How to Cook Book Two, p107

hearty vegetable pie

After yesterday's unseasonable warmth, Sunday dawns cold and blustery which is handy because it finalises today's "thank you for driving us to France and back" meal for Rob and Claire. Being vegetarians (urgh!), roast is out but hearty vegetable pie is 'in', with the extra benefit of being able to cook triple the required amount to stock the freezer and the milos.

As the anas tidy the flat, me and the newly shorn blond bombshell go to Mortlake playground for the morning, before heading to Waitrose in Sheen to stock up on our guests preferred drink of choice, Jenning's Ale.

With glowing cheeks hiding his morning intake of babyccino, the monkey has a surprisingly successful experimental lunch from Annabel Karmel - Tuna Muffin Melts - before going for his afternoon snoopy snooze.

So with him asleep we go into power-clean-cook mode ahead of Claire and Rob's arrival. The full menu is: caramelised pear and rocket salad, hearty vegetable pie and cabbage, followed by most of the cheese we bought in France on our way back from Matt & Virginie's marvellous wedding.

Good job we managed to get the beers in because Claire bravely battled through a hangover to squeeze in a couple of drinks, and Rob squeezed into his official Jenning's T-Shirt:

As tradition dictates, the blond bomber wakes up just before pudding and joins the table in his sleeping bag for some cheese. A pleasant and restrained sunday lunch then goes out of the window during a postprandial walk to the pond which actually ends up as two hours in The Sun. Monday hangovers beckon...

Food of the Milos
Cheerios and toast for breakfast, and apricot snacks in the park followed by a babyccino. The tuna melts are surprisingly successful, he doesn't really bother with lunch (unless he's at Julia's) so it's good to discover a handy snack for him. Vegetable pie and cabbage for dinner, which he loves. Bish, bash and indeed bosh.

sources
tuna muffin melts - Annabel Karmel, Top 100 Finger Foods, p122
caramelised pear and rocket salad - Donna Hay, The Instant Cook, p44
hearty vegetable cottage pie - Delicious, January 2007, p28
cheese - france
ale - Jenning's Ale

keralan fish curry

The second week of the diet-and-no-booze-during-the-week has drawn new battlegrounds in Barnes mansions. The cracks start when I reveal according to the gym scales I've lost almost 4kg this week. The scales do not lie and I put it all down to a new regime of rowing. The two packets of chilli chocolate I've put in the fridge don't help either, although Ana has come up with a unique resolution: We can have chilli chocolate in the house if I ration it out *but* simply hiding it will be 'really annoying'. Hmmmm, I don't know what she's complaining about, she looks pretty good to me.

Anyway, back to the small portions of food and we go for some comfort fish curry tonight. I never thought I'd hear myself ever utter those words, but we do have a fish dish we both quite look forward to. It's doubly weird because before you get to the recipe you have wade through Nigella's cod temple-mummy bobbins. At least it's not 'express' shudder!

Food of the Milos
The week starts with weetabix for breakfast, force-fed into him whilst he grizzled about 'not wanting it', post-swimming pasta for lunch at Andrea's, and a Mummy-special pizza for tea. Plus the usual puffs, fruits and cheese.

sources
keralan fish curry - Nigella Lawson, Delicious Magazine, Feb 2009, p83
mummy special pizza - based on Annabel Karmel's finger food stuff

poached salmon and risoni salad

The rain coming home is biblical tonight, which makes the fact we've got *more* salad for tea seem less appealing. Particularly seeing as I've had to cycle up to Valentina's get the orzo on the way home.

Further insult to injury is added when I realise we've also got no frozen peas, so I have to run down to Sainsbury's to get some whilst the salmon is poaching. And then forgetting to pick up a lemon and some dill. I had the rest of the ingredients though...

Food of the Milos
This week the milos have been so sweet, so he gets one of his favourites for tea tonight - PIZZA! I'm damn lucky there's a couple of slices left-over for me when I get home, I can tell you.

sources
poached salmon & risoni salad - Bill Granger, Holiday, p14
pizza - Annabel Karmel - Top 100 Finger Foods, p28

orecchiette with broccoli

What to do with week old broccoli that has spawned a brother, courtesy of Mrs Taylor's sojourn here? Luckily I was tempted by a recipe I saw when I was flicking through a few old copies of Delicious. It seemed the obvious thing to cook although with the usual caveats of the challenging nature of anchovies, and as Milo Magic was going to get the leftovers (like he's some sort of dog), I couldn't cook it with chilli.

It goes okay until the anchovy dissolving part, which actually *does* 95% work, but I use too much of the pasta water in the sauce so it's runny rather than thick. And the bloody pasta is slightly over-cooked. It's okay though, even Ana concedes it's 'alright'.


She has of course changed her mind by Sunday, which is a shame as we've got a shoal of anchovies and half a kilo of orecchiette in the cupboard.

Food of the Milos
His pseudo-chicken pox have knocked his sleeping and eating out so he's up at stupid o'clock for milk, goes back for an hour or so before we're all up for a hideously early breakfast, which he doesn't really eat.

After a trip to the Farmer's Market and to see the ducks in the rain, he has a cheese on toast for lunch, something he's normally ignored but eats most of this time, and then pizza for dinner. Again he eats most of it, but he must be ill because it's usually one of his favorites. Luckily his mother and I heroically help him out.

sources
orecchiette with broccoli - Delicious, May 2008, p62
pizza - Top 100 Finger Foods, Annabel Karmel

jacket potato & salad

After a three day diet of stella and meat my body craves veg, or at least not booze. Me and Daviss get back late afternoon, just in time to go for a walk around the pond in the sun with magic before returning home for dinner.

We bung a couple of jacket potatoes into the oven and whilst they're baking we re-introduce the milos to broccoli. He didn't really like it last time, although he likes broccoli & stilton soup, so the obvious thing to do is cover it in cheese and pray. Luckily for my incipient hangover, he likes it, so it's into bath and bed for the monkey.

Just in time for the spuds to be ready, and with a hearty ana louise-style salad we eat in the garden. The bad ana's open a bottle of wine and my liver collapses.

sources
cheese sauce - Annabel Karmel, New Complete Baby Toddler Meal

barnes - dieppe pt 2

The France-England split continues. After a relaxing breakfast of croissants, baguettes and coffee, manly men play a whole day of rugby whilst slowly roasting in the sun and consuming re-hydrating stubbies. With the pool games out of the way we repair to a harbour side restaurant for a completely-not-gay meal of oysters and steak frites (Davisss) and a super-kilo of moules marinere (the russells). Fully zinc-ed up to the max, we have a couple of quiet drinks on the town. Until 04.30.

Meanwhile the girls completely lez it up with a candlelight meal in the garden. Honestly, you can't take them *anywhere*!


Food of the Milos
Continuing the Italian theme of the evening, although I suppose they really begin it, benjy and the magics chow down on a hearty Annabel Karmel pizza.

sources
baked tomato & mozzarella pasta - Every Day, p127, Bill Granger
pizza - Top 100 Finger Foods, Annabel Karmel

barbeque

Another beaut day so we finish the gardening via a trip to Homebase, and another barbie! I say another barbie, in reality I made double the mixture yesterday and merely added some hot sausage to the mixer.

Food of the Milos
We figure burgers are perhaps a stage too far for the milos, so he gets a whole annabel karmel pizza to devour, and devour he does!

Recipe Sources
Ultimate Beef Burger - Delicious, June 2009, p46
Tortilla Pizzas - Annabel Karmel, Top 100 Finger Foods

roast chicken, boulangerie potatoes and cauliflower cheese

Summer's coming, and we've also decided to have chicken and sweet leek pie this week, so we need a roast chicken - woo! Everybody says Simon Hopkinson has the best roast chicken recipe - and they're bang on although curiously I've not cooked anything else from that book.

Slightly controversially I redo the boulangerie potatoes premiered a couple of weeks ago, and annabel karmel's baby cauliflower cheese, with delicious' chicken gravy.

The negative side to all this mix-and-matching is the work surface is halved by various books, and the bottle of wine doesn't help.

Food of the Milos
You leave ana mccarthy for one second and she's immediately buying ready meals for him - tsk! In my drunken absence yesterday she buys him a Little Dish cottage pie, which he scoffs in seconds, leaving me only a small portion for 'tasting'. I eat his pudding to show him.

moroccan chicken stew with lemon and gremalota

It's a bit grim outside so we decide to warm up (and combat Ana's cold) with a hearty dose of turmeric and ginger to blow the blues away. We used to do a moroccan chicken stew with more cinnamon and dried fruit in, care of Melissa Turner, but this Delicious version has become the hands-down winner. Sorry Melissa...

Food of the Milos
The good thing about the stew is it simmers away on it's own for 20 minutes, which gives me time to do an experimental annabel karmel cauliflower cheese for milos dinner tomorrow