
sources
chicken with tomatoes, peppers & cous cous - Delicious' Jamie's Quickies, August 2005, Jamie Oliver







I can't believe the only photo I've got for the pasta comes from April, and it's a dish I cook pretty much most weeks. That's slack. Anyway, we eat the pasta, milo has some soup and stew in the fridge, and the rest goes in the freezer for 'a rainy day'.
The lentils really make the dish - they're really beefy I suppose, with a good hit of chilli and garlic. I've also learned from last time and now we have the fish dish within a day of arrival. Frankly in this weather I can't be in the garden bleaching bins. Also, as a dish, it feels much more right in autumn/winter than spring/summer.
To be honest, it's fairly easy to cook but it's easier if you're not having to rescue your ladles, knives, lambs, paprikas, pots, chopping boards and magnets from small people wanting to 'help'. With episode two of Emma looming at 20.00, I start whilst he's having his afternoon snoopy-snooze, but typically it's still only just ready.
sources
To be honest, it's not that great. Kale's just rubbish isn't it? And orecchiette is possibly the worst pasta ever; under-cook it and it's like hard biscuits, over cook it and it's like gloopy cotton balls. Awful! Lucky I was a weeny-bit drunk.
Anyway, whilst the chicken is casseroling away I also take time to knock up some leek & potato soup for lunch this week, and a couple of portions for the monkey in the freezer.
sources
According to the accompanying pull-quote, Billy G uses spelt or wholewheat pasta because he 'really enjoys the nuttiness', which is obvious shorthand for 'totally not gay'.
I say 'two meals', but what I really mean is the first of two large helpings of the same dinner. Basically it's too easy to strip off lettuce leaves and help yourself as you plate up. Far too easy but on the other hand, what are you going to do with a third of a gem lettuce? Exactly!
Amazingly I don't need the DVD anymore, I can do it all from memory, and in an extra twist this pie has added (left over) courgettes. Get me.
Post-snooze we head into Sheen for a large Italian Ice Cream from Trente, where the milos gets to practise his Italian - Bongiorno, Ciao Ciao, Belissimo etc. He has vanilla and half of ana's lemon sorbet, but luckily he's less keen on my cherry ice cream.
As happens, in another burst of use-stuff-up energy whilst the chicken is doing it's thing., I also manage to cook another batch of the spiced carrot soup for lunch this week. Lor' Bless you Bill Granger, and all ten of your definitely-not-gay fingers.


Okay, it's not *much* of a twist.
As it turns out it tastes more like a vegetable curry than a rich stew, so it doesn't battle the elements too much, and in fact makes a decent accompaniment to a return to form of Jamie's American Road Trip, and Ben Miller's saving of Food Fight.
Food of the Milos
And we see loads of deer, one of which attempts to eat an annoying Italian child:
Okay, back to the *point* of the blog - the food. With a lock-down on spending, and knowing we've got loads of lentils in the cupboard I opt for an experimental dish from the October issue of Delicious. It looks a bit mad but it's pretty tasty. Ana makes an excellent point during Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour, the halloumi needs to be grilled so it goes crispy on the outside and runny inside, rather than griddled. She's right.
Shopped out, he goes to bed well early which is brilliant because we can tidy the house and have a nice lunch together in the garden before he's even awake! In the interests of health/using up stuff in the fridge and having enough for his dinner tonight, we have an experimental risotto courtesy of Miss D Hay.
Brilliantly there's so much he has some for his dinner, and there's enough for me to have as well whilst ana visits kendra kats and fieeeeeeen in the new flat. This is handy because I decide to spend the evening trying to create some Annabel Karmel veggie bites for the monkey.
It's the perfect accompaniment to the new series of Peep Show and secretly, it's one of my favourite curries. I'd forgotten how good this issue of Delicious is/was and I'm deeply tempted by spicy lamb, olive and caramelised onion pie, little mash pies, baked lamb and apricot cous cous, pan-roasted venisonwith creamy baked potato and celeriac, pea and ham soup and kale and chickpea soup. I could go on, so it's just as well it's getting colder...
Food of the Milos
I have to say it's pretty bloody good, particularly as I was freezing when I got home and even better, the heat was provided by another of our home-grown chillis. My one recommendation would be to skin the sausages before you cook them...
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...
sources