tomato, red onion and creme fraiche tart

Recently Ana has been bullying me into actually moving my pile of cut-up Deliciouseseseses (Delici?) from off the top of the drawers in the bedroom, and into the books I brought over a year ago.

It's a good plan if I ever get around to do it, but one immediate benefit of my prevarication has been the rediscovery of a tonne of old recipes, and tonight's is the first off the production line:


It looks and indeed tastes, really fresh and herby. The only downside is, for various reasons, we don't eat until gone half ten. This is something Kay and Mike haven't planned on. However given the fact every time they come up we seem to eat closer to midnight, they should've at least prepared themselves with some scotch eggs on the journey up.

Food of the Milos
Post-fruit salad breakfast, Rhyme Time gets a visit from the classic Mummy-Milo tag team, which the smaller member of the gang loves. Having expended his energy dancing like a loon, he re-energises with a hearty lunch of sausages and chips at The Corner Cafe.

Sadly last night's chilli doesn't go down as well, although a combination of ana distracting him, and Kay shoveling it into his gob, gets the job done.

sources
tomato, red onion and creme fraiche tart - Delicious, 2005-2006 sometime...

hot chilli

With half the salad stuck to the back of the fridge - including the spinach I'd planned to make meatballs with - ana's make the executive decision to have Hot Chilli, as she's cold.

It's a top idea because we haven't had it for ages, and more importantly I've got two handy versions: The weekend recipe, using a secret combination of many many spices, and taking many many hours of slow simmering (and constant 'testing' with small pieces of bread), and the 45 minute mid-week version courtesy of Delicious.



Personally I think it's perfect for the monkey, but ana thinks it's too spicy for him. Only later I realise the evil genius of the woman, as she scarfes down an extra milo-sized portion. Man she's good.

Food of the Milos
Nero returns this morning, but luckily not on our watch. Instead Julia has to feed him pate on toast for breakfast (!), before refusing fish pie for lunch. With grim inevitability, not eating fish pie at lunchtime doesn't preclude him eating fish pie at dinner time. What is going through his mind?

sources
hot chilli - Delicious. I don't know when this was, I would suspect it was from the years 2005-2006, which I've now cut up to make space.

stuffed peppers & salad

Will this diet never end? Actually, I don't mind as it's all very quick to put together although on the negative side, there's not an awful lot for the milos to have for tea tomorrow.

Also, I discover a top new rule to enforce - DO NOT PUSH THE SALAD TO THE BACK OF THE FRIDGE!

This is mainly because somebody keeps playing with the temperature control, so you suddenly find half your rocket frozen to the back wall, and the other half as mush in the bottom of the bag.

It's all very vexing, particularly as 90% of our weekend shop was salad. Although not as vexing as tonight's out-of-focus delight:


Here's a selection of in-focus pictures for those whose eyes are hurting by the above monstrosity, and are intrigued by what it should look like.

Food of the Milos
Weetos and apricots for breakfast, and cottage pie (loads) for lunch at Julia's, and then his own version of salad of jacket potato, avocado and tomato for dinner. Followed by the inevitable jelly for pudding.

sources
stuffed peppers - Delicious, April 2009, p31

salad lyonnaise

Another sunny day, another installment of the weight-loss salad trip and ana is immediately challenged by my version of Salad Lyonnaise - Salad Barnnaise if you will.

There are several reasons for her disdain: She's hungry, will one egg be enough, and why aren't we having it with garlic bread? As it turns out she does make a good point, one egg wasn't enough...



Food of Milos
More fruit salads/snacks/grizzling today, enlivened by meatballs and pasta for dinner. Ana tactically reserves two meatballs for her to 'test', and Milo tells me I'm no longer his friend, and he doesn't like my face. Oh dear.

sources
salad lyonnaise - Delicious, August 2009, p80

roast chicken and three-rice salad

Having had roast chicken last night, there's a certain grim inevitability about tonight's dinner - roast chicken and three-rice salad here we come. Again.


Actually it *doesn't* quite come together properly tonight, mainly because somehow the rocket had managed to freeze itself to the back of the fridge, and is now a splodgy mess. It definitely affects the flavour, and I don't use quite enough seasame oil either. Ho hum.

Food of the Milos
Now, after the last couple of weeks of up and down, we're definitely, definitely in a low period. Our usual excuse is "he's in a growing phase". It's probably close to the truth now - everything, everything is hard work, and the smallest thing ends in tears, but he's eating loads: A massive fruit salad for breakfast (bananas, apples, raspberries, grapes and blueberries), followed by a picnic of snacks sat on a log in richmond park. No lunch, but left-over chicken and pasta salad for dinner. And a jelly.

sources
roast chicken & three-rice salad (although I use one rice) - Delicious, July 2008, p64

chicken salad

I wish we'd made more effort whilst it was sunny yesterday, cos today is drizzly and mizzly and a bit cold. Bugger. Plans to go to Kew get shelved - although milo and I do manage to squeeze a babycino and lemon moon in at Orange Pekoe during the five minutes of sunshine in the morning - and instead we go to the tip. Hurrah.

For lunch we have the rest of the tiger bread/ham/goats cheese before heading out for a post-snoopy-snooze trip to Palewell park. Just in time for the afternoon sun - double hurrah!

Given half the fridge is taken up by a dead, corn-fed chicken, we decide to free it up by using the bird for dinner *and* Hayley-Fisher Harlock, I coated it in my lovely present - Cuban blend mix. It was dead impressive, particularly as ana doesn't eat crispy chicken skin (or chicken itchings), so I get it all.





Food of the Milos
More of the same today: grapes and cheese for breakker, no lunch again but loads of snacks in the afternoon, and then another pig rendered down into sausages for dinner. Where does he put it?

sources
roast chicken - Simon Hopkinson, Roast Chicken and Other Stories, p36

chorizo & tomato salad

Saturday dawns, and it's a scorcher! Naturally rather than properly enjoy it, we spend it shopping, tidying the garden and going to the playground. Still it's all very pleasant and relaxed, and monkey is on fine form.

Rather than last weeks fish-fest, this week's key message is 'frugality', it being the last week of the month an all.

So, whilst somebody is relaxing during his afternoon snoopy snooze, we use up the asparagus in the fridge for a sunny lunch of pasta with asparagus, pesto and poached egg. With a glass a champagne - shabby chic innit!

Post-snooze-and-trip-to-the-park, we have classic chorizo and tomato salad, partially inspired by this week's Jamie Does... Andalucia. I'm going to say it now, I've been cooking this for years (well almost four), it's a Fino recipe, but I Jamie's addition of goats cheese and iberico ham are pretty inspired. We have it with pan del tigre.


Food of the Milos
Toast and cheese for breakfast and then the little bugger bought us two bars in chocolate in bed, which he'd liberated from the fridge. Snacks-a-go-go, during the trip around Sainsburys, and a picnic of grapes, rice cakes and apricots on top of the climbing frame. As he's been so good he gets his baby-crack for dinner - sausages! Loads of them.

sources
pasta with asparagus, pesto and poached egg - Delicious, May 2005, p110
chorizo & tomato salad - Delicious, July 2006, p59

fragrant chicken & spinach curry and turmeric potatoes

Having rescued herself from being stranded in Portugal using the medium of paying a youthful Brit a stack of Euros to drive her to Biarritz, tonight we're entertaining the lovely Miss K Smither. Rather than the 14 hour meatball-fest I "treated" her to last time she was in Blighty, we opt for classic curry.

Amusingly I overtake her walking into Barnes, giving me ample time to get to Waitrose to get the booze and back before her arrival. Double amusingly, I had to leave her on the doorstep and then make her sit quietly in the front room whilst we inveigh a tired blond bombshell into bed. Here she is later, making up for the enforced quiet time:


The great thing about Kate is she's passed from being my friend to ana's friend, and the two of them spend all night gassing on and on, the highlight being an amazing theory on drinking and a lady's special time. Fascinating, and a conversation I didn't want to join in whilst stirring curry.


Why is Ana always in the right of these photos? Anyway, as this is supposed to be a food blog here is a lovely picture of the turmeric potatoes:



Food of the Milos
A morning of the usual heavy-snacking in lieu of breakfast at Julia's, followed by pasta. For dinner he's back on the left-overs and stuffs himself with last night's lamb pilaf. Hurrah!

sources
fragrant chicken & spinach curry - Bill Granger, Every Day, p141
turmeric potatoes - Bill Granger, Holiday, p190

lamb & chickpea pilaf and spicy dhal soup

The rama lamba ding dong continues today with another dose of the lamb & chickpea pilaf - and yes Les Bren, you're spot on because the neck fillet I got from the butcher's was twice as big as the supermarket one, and only a couple of quid more. Bargain.

But that's tonight, first ana has to get past the fact I have to make soup for lunch, before breakfast. Naturally she's challenged - isn't she always? But the proof is in the eating, and it turns out to be the perfect accompaniment to Rebecca in sunny Golden Square.


Good job I found the recipe in the to-be-stuck-into-a-recipe-book pile. Anyway, here's the pilaf and given the fact I had to pay £5 for the Ras El Hanout, we'll be seeing more of it very soon.


Also, I've been doing some more retro-publishing thither

Food of the Milos
It's the first day back at school so the days of living it up like Caligula are over, and it's back to random breakfasts in a pram. Today's feast featured crackers with nutella, strawberries and a croissant, cottage pie and a yoghurt for lunch, and then spag bol for dinner.

sources
lamb & chickpea pilaf - Delicious, March 2010, p25
spicy spinach and dhal soup - Delicious, 2005 or 2006, p46

lamb tagliata

The virtuous diet continues with one of ana's favourite salads, Jilly Dupleix's Lamb Tagliata.

It's extra tasty tonight for a couple of reasons. Rather than fall into the usual trap of buying oddly-sized cuts of meat over the internet, I get some lamb from the butchers on Saturday - two cutlets, and a neck fillet. It's slightly more expensive *but* you get more and better meat for your English Pound Sterlings. Also, I bulk out the rosemary salt with a good handful of the dried rosemary from the herb collection my mum gave me for Christmas.



As I say extra-tasty, and mildly healthy.

FYI Brenda, I have added this post from the past - I couldn't be cracked to sort out the photo until now...

Food of the Milos
Emperor Nero requested grapes, apples, tomatoes, marmite rice cakes and bread in a lunch box for breakfast today. He then had another packed lunch at Kew gardens with Kiki and Finn, only this time it consisted of housmous, carrot sticks, and Baby Bel cheese. Brilliantly, he spurned last night's fish and lentils and demanded another picnic for dinner. So more apple, cherry tomatoes and tangerine, and some Munchy Seeds. Oh, and a tiny piece of chocolate. He's well odd.

sources
lamb tagliata - Jill Dupleix, Delicious, October 2007, p138

roast cod on spiced puy lentils

Tonight we get the final leg of our three-staged fish marathon, something we've survived remarkably well. The lentils are always a winner, and tonight the cod gets an element of experimentation.

Usually the fish we get from the supermarket comes sans skin, but the fishmonger just cuts it off the head and descales it. So tonight I try for creating a crispy skin for the first time.



Although I went slightly overboard with the crisping, it certainly bears a second go and even the ana ate all of her skin. The house now stinks of fish though...

sources
roast cod on spiced puy lentils - Delicious, Eat your way to Better Health supplement.

steamed thai-style sea bass with rice

Summer is definitely looming. So much so me and the milo spend all day in shorts and t-shirts and the monkey even gets a tan on his neck!

After last weekend's jaunt to Worcestershire, today we go and see Greg and Spandy's new gaff in St Albans - and v pleasant it is too. Greggy fires up some amazing meatballs and pasta, Spandy supplies doubly amazing chocolate pudding, (and easter eggs) and we also get to play on a brilliant playground. Suntan, flying foxes and meatballs - what's not to like?

Getting home slightly later than planned, means we have the slightly quicker/easier stage two of our triple fish week, the steamed thai bass.


Despite the shonky picture, it's one of my best yet mainly because I got the fishmonger to descale, fillet and pin-bone it. It means I don't bin half the fish due to my shonky knife skills, and we don't end up with mouthfuls of scales. Why didn't I think of this before?

Food of the Milos
Another Nero-style breakfast of cheese and grapes, a hearty bowl of Greggy's meatballs for lunch (and chocolate cake) and some of Spandy's excellent scrambled eggs on toast for dinner. And a Kinder Egg. All this eating may well have contributed to him jumping two shoe sizes as he's now a 10.

sources
steamed thai-style sea bass with rice - Jamie Oliver, Cook with Jamie, p229

crab linguine

What happens when you go to the farmer's market on a beautiful sunny day, with some spare cash in your pocket and a little friend who insists on stroking all the crustaceans and seafood within reach? Three consecutive days of fish dishes, here we come!

So after a delightful day spent in the sun, quaffing frothy-style coffees at Orange Pekoe, and chasing over-excited babies around Waitrose (we shouldn't have bought him those converse) we have a family dinner together - Jamie Oliver's "Lovely" crab linguine.



To be honest, I felt guilted into buying the crab given somebody had been mauling it earlier, but it's a total winner - much, much better than the previous Bill Granger crab/pasta combination. One down, two to go...

Food of the Milos
Somebody is rapidly turning into a modern day Roman emperor. He has toast and marmelade (in bed watching Shrek and Charlie & Lola) for breakfast, followed by cheese and grapes. The usual quota of snacks on the playground/pond/farmer's market trip, followed by two lemon moons at the Pekoe. A smorgasbord of carrot sticks, avocado and cheese in the garden for lunch, and some bribery jelly dinosaurs before the crab pasta - which he wolfs down.

sources
'lovely' crab linguine - Jamie Oliver, Cook with Jamie, p74

And just because I can...



Trumpets!

lime chicken curry

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted we've skipped a day. Taking advantage of the fact ana is away I meet Mr Gregory McPartlin esq for some delightful drinks around London's trendy Shoreditch.

We started here, but moved along to the chintzy homeliness of here on the basis we were far too untrendy for the Bells. Certainly Greg's hair wasn't asymmetric enough. Full of pork scratchings and Doom Bar, we have a quick Guinness (or two) in the Wellington before meeting some of Greg's co-colleagues in The Big Chill Bar. It's left-over broccoli and cauliflower pasta cheese for tea.

Luckily for my slightly-hungover state today, the ana's are back and not only do I get lovely baby hugs when I get home, but I also get to watch The Mentalist whilst my lovely wife cooks classic Delia lime curry. She's aces, and so is the curry (even though she may have been ever-so slightly heavy handed with the chilli).



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

macaroni cheese with cauliflower and broccoli

It's a new Midsomer tonight, and I've been so effective in clearing the fridge it looks like I might have to resort to eating Ana's giant box of Milk Tray for dinner.

However, three turkish delights down is more than enough slightly sickly sweet chocolate for anyone. Even more controversially I revisit a previously failed dish *only* this time I do it RGB-stylee...



The cauliflower, broccoli and pasta all get longer in the pan than before, and I create a hybrid of Annabel Karmel's base sauce, with double doses of parmesan and cheddar, and an unexpectedly large twist of nutmeg. Result, blydi marvellous and enough for lunch in Golden Square tomorrow.

I'm a genius

thai meatball curry

Operation Empty Freezer continues apace with some of last week's thai meatball curry. However, whilst the Operation seems to be working out fine, the camera is definitely suffering from another dose of battery gah (or maybe shutter knack?), so you'll have to either imagine what the amazing dish looks like. Or you can just look hither, or indeed thither.

I wasn't sure about this incarnation of the curry when I cooked it last week, it wasn't as pungent as the first time I made it, and the meatballs didn't quite hold together, but freezing it makes all the difference. Freezing seems to concentrate the flavour, so tonight it's much much better. Top tip there.

Lucy Lou, you will notice I backdate my updates. Whenever there's a small break in the updates (due to excess facebooking or searching for Scandinavian design pieces on the internet), I try to do the most recent and on the same night, the furthest away. Does that make sense? So tonight I'll also update last Tuesday...

sources
thai meatball coconut curry - Delicious - August 2009, p55

spinach & smoked salmon pasta with lemon

What's missing from this picture?



Ana and milo have taken themselves off to the Diamond Isle for the week, so you would be correct to say "ana having a large glass of rose, whilst milo watches The Gruffalo in the background", but that's not the answer I'm looking for. Also, I've got a bottle of wine open just out of shot, so that's not the answer. Give up?

It would appear ana was only half-listening to me last night, as I explained my plan NOT to go shopping this week and instead clear out the freezer and fridge, *apart* from tonight when I'll use up the rest of last nights smoked salmon. I only spent 40 minutes trying to find a suitable recipe, before coming home today to find the fridge bereft of smokey smokey fish. She's dead to me.

Still, the spinach pasta with lemon was okay(ish), but you definitely need the fish to cut through the richness of the cream/creme fraiche.

sources
spinach & smoked salmon pasta with lemon - Donna Hay, The Instant Cook, p61

A weekend in the country

Spring has definitely sprung, and a weekend in the Worcestershire countryside predominantly spent in the sun, bouncing on a trampoline with milo only reinforces the feeling.

The usual form with visiting the Taylors is the boys do something together one day and the girls do something together the next, but this time it's different. We all stay together, and other than a quick trip to Evesham for some pink fizzy wine on saturday, we all stay in the same place. It's a revalation, made all the better by Dave and Lucy's excellent cooking and our less-than-excellent washing up.

For the record we had:
Friday night: Dave's special chicken curry, aloo gobi and rice & peas. With beer.
Saturday night: Stuffed tarragon chicken with cannellini bean stew, which we'd road-tested with Magnus a couple of weeks ago. Lucy's stew was creamier and smokier than mine, and I think her addition of puy lentils was accidental genius.
Sunday: roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli.

We came back stuffed and hungover, fit only for the mini-est of snacks. Ana made Nigella's halloumi bites, and I made a Kendra Kats classic smoked salmon on rye bread with IOW Garlic farm horseradish.



The only downside of the weekend was the realisation we were much, much thinner compared to Lucy's wedding photos. The diet begins/restarts/slowly kicks in NOW!

spinach & feta tart

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

thai meatball curry

There's an element of planning ahead tonight, I know the ana's are off to the Diamond Isle next week so it would be good to have something in the freezer, it would also be useful to use-up the remainder of the curry paste in the fridge AND I also want to try milo on a mild-ish curry.

Sadly there's gap between my glorious plan and the photo-actuality. To start off with I only got half the amount of pork I thought I'd ordered, and then I find one of the peppers I'd kept back had gone mouldy. Insult to injury is added when I forget the big frying pan isn't actually very good at frying. Everything just sticks to the bottom, so rather than brown the meatballs just kind of mush.



It looks more successful than it was to be honest, and that's with a knackered box brownie. Even the flavour lacked some vibrancy for some reason. How vexing, but at least I got some in the freezer for next week.

sources
thai meatball coconut curry - Delicious - August 2009, p55

roast chicken and three-rice salad

What comes after a roast chicken? In these lard-dodging times it can only mean one thing - chicken and rice salad. It doesn't look much but with sesame oil, lime juice and fish sauce it packs a decent punch, and it's remarkably filling. We have it with tortillas rather than bread these days, so it's also quite filling.



Brilliantly enough, there's enough for ana to entertain Melissa with tomorrow and I make some sort of soup out of what's left of the potato and sausage casserole for my packed lunch.

sources
roast chicken & three-rice salad (although I use one rice) - Delicious, July 2008, p64

roast chicken

It's the last day of the long weekend, so naturally we only bother to do something fun today. Having had a lazy, Charlie & Lola-fuelled lay-in we get into gear and head out to Battersea Children's Zoo for the afternoon.

As the monkey didn't have an afternoon sleep, we get him into bed fairly early which meant we could take our time over classic Simon Hopkinson roast chicken and salad.


There's enough left-over chicken for another batch of chicken and rice salad tomorrow, and even time to make a batch of Jamie vegetable and tomato sauce for small people's dinners this week. I'm thinking its a pizza base, a sauce for meatballs and some orange-looking veg mush.

Food of the Milos
Fruit loaf for breakfast, and once again my half of the bed which ends up covered in crumbs, and buttery fingers to add to the current selection of marmalade splodges and marmite smears. Ana dishes up boiled eggs for lunch, and after a vanilla ice cream and some broken chocolate egg as zoo-based snacks, he had last night's sausage stew for dinner.

For the record, his favourite animals at the zoo were the cows and giraffes, neither of which were there, and the bat we found in the kids playground.

FYI, the camera is farqed so we're going to have to get a new one. Sorry for their duffness

sources
roast chicken - Simon Hopkinson, Roast Chicken and Other Stories, p36
tomato sauce - Jamie Oliver, Delicious, September 2005, p 32

sausage, pea and potato casserole

Happy Easter! After last night's curry-and-booze-fest we're feeling a little jaded this morning, *some* of us more jaded than others.

After several hours playing in the tunnel/food/rolling Tom Kitten in pastry and eating him, Hanne Signy Natvik and Robert wander over with Kornelius and we go to The Treehouse for lunch. For the third weekend running.

For the first time the anas go 'off menu' and has fish cakes rather than herby, curried crepe, and is ultimately disappointed. A bit too fishy apparently. I opt steak and chips (pretty good), and the milos stick with what he knows best - sausage, chips and broccoli.

Having finally got a very tired boy into bed, I really can't be bothered to pfaff around in the kitchen. So, whilst ana knocks up an amuse bouche of limey halloumi bites I get a sausage casserole on the go before slumping in front of the telly for Come Dine With Me.


Food of the Milos
Easter dawns with the usual visitor for milky, followed by Charlie & Lola and the new classic, Peter Rabbit, on YouTube. Hot cross buns and porridge for breakfast and then lunch down the pub.

Even better, they had an Easter Egg hunt in the garden - yay! He managed to find three Kinder Eggs (actually he found more but through a system of putting back the spares as he found them, he only left with three), to add to the three at home making a grand total of six eggs which is pretty good for a small blonde person. We've also got three others hidden...

After some amazing dragon impressions he had rich beef ragu with pasta for dinner, and then sparko.

sources
halloumi bites - Nigella Lawson, Nigella Bites
sausage, pea and potato casserole - Waitrose Food Card

old-fashioned chicken curry, turmeric potatoes and spiced aubergine

What better way to welcome Kornelius to Blighty, than by taking him to the Boat Race, then the pub, and then cooking up a farqing massive curry?

Actually, the ana reminds me last time Hanne and Robert came over I cooked them a curry, and I should've realised since Hanne has spent loads of her life over here, she would naturally get a take away on a Friday night. Triple bugger! Still a slight swerve from Bill to Atul, a fridge full of hearty ale, and we're onto a winner...

From the top, rice, turmeric potatoes, old fashioned chicken curry and spiced aubergine curry:


With pudding care of Gu and a my new favourite drink - Crabbies alcoholic ginger beer - it all goes very, very well and as a special request from Robert, here's the recipe for Old-Fashioned Chicken Curry:

(Serves 4)
3 tsp oil
1 bay leaf
4 green cardamon, 2.5 cm cinnamon stick, 10-12 black peppercorns, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 2 cloves all pounded together in a pestle and mortar
250g onions, finely sliced
0.5 tsp garlic
0.5 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp coriander powder
0.5 tsp turmeric powder
salt
100g tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 tsp tomato paste
600g chicken, chopped
0.5 tsp garam masala
2 tsp coriander leaves, finely chopped

1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the bay leaf and pounded spices, and stir until the spices crackle and they change colour. Add the onions and saute until golden brown. Then add the garlic paste, stir continuously to stop it burning to the bottom of the pan.
2. Add the powdered spices, but not the garam masala. Mix quickly, add the salt, the tomatoes and puree and cook on a slow heat, stirring slowly.
3. Once the tomatoes breakdown into a rough sauce, add the chicken and cook on a slow heat for 20-25 minutes until it's cooked.
4. Serve on rice, sprinkled with the garam masala and coriander leaves.



Food of the milos
Weetabix and toast for breakfast, half a biscotti in Nero during our usual jaunt to the pond before his lunchtime snoopy snooze, followed by chips in the pub and then a tomato puff for dinner. He's on excellent form today, cheering the boats (all of them, including the RNLI) during the race, and wanting to cuddle the Kornelius.

sources
old-fashioned chicken curry - Atul Kochhar, Observer Food Monthly, February 2009, p24
indian-spiced aubergine - Delicious, March 2010, p83
tomato puff - Delicious, June 2008, p152
turmeric potatoes - Bill Granger, Holiday, p190

minced turkey with thai basil

Hurrah for bank holidays! We've got nothing planned this weekend *other* than we're seeing Hanne Signy, Robert and their new friend Kornelius. Throw in some easter eggs, the boat race and a curry and I've got high hopes for a most felicitous weekend.

In the morning whilst ana buffs the flat up to her high OCD/hospital corners standards, me and the milo take a trip to the elephant slides at Putney pool, which has the added bonus of two trips on the bus and a Noddy ride.

Knackered out from his extensive splashing, one of our happy gang go to sleep, whilst the remaining core members have wine, salad and the rest of last night's tomato tart tatin for lunch, before heading off for a family trip to Sheen in the afternoon.

Now we've already got an Ocado delivery coming but I've decided you can't guarantee the sizes of meat or fish on t'internet, mince aside, so I'm going to get them direct(ish). Also, we've got Norwegians visiting so we go crazy on the booze, including some amazing alcoholic ginger beer.

Before all this however, there is dinner (and The Mentalist) to consider. Ana has decreed we need to up the salad intake, and decrease the lard so welcome to the world of salads 2010. This Thai salad proved popular aaages ago, so it gets a second outing whilst we wait for Sarah to supply the recipe for the cream of her young guy. Aren't we all?



Food of the Milos
Toast and marmelade for breakfast, post-swimming snacks (fruit yo-yo, quavers, etc), and a cheesey omlette for luncheon. Dinner provides an answer for my drunken fumblings in the kitchen last night as I discover where some of the previous nights double-sized rich beef ragu had gone. It seems somebody's wife hadn't noticed I'd already frozen half and portioned up the rest, and had proceeded to do some unauthorised freezing of her own.

sources
minced turkey with thai basil - Delicious, October 2009, p126

roasted cherry tomato tarte tatin UPDATE

This is what happens when you lose your carefully magnetised lists, you completely lose track of where the hell you picked up the recipe. I know it's Valli Little, and I know it's from Delicious, but can I remember when? Can I bobbins.

Anyhow to business, I suppose we've had a variation of this recipe a couple of times before but hey, spice of life and all.



I'm not sure if I prefer it to the puff or not, they're pretty similar and the roasting of the tomatoes didn't make as much difference to the flavour as I thought. Still, a good way to use up the three or four half boxes of tomatoes lurking in the fridge.

UPDATE - I found the recipe *finally*. I hate it when that happens, it just sat in my mind for ages...

sources
roasted cherry tomato tarte tatin - Valli Little, Delicious, April 2009, p124