roast chicken & a weekend at the taylor's

Christ, if I thought it was cold in London it's nothing to the bone-chilling weather in the wilds of Worcestershire! Luckily for all concerned, the Taylor's are not short on massive fires and with the added bonus our suite has now been insulated.

We do the usual thing: arrive late on Friday night, eat an amazing selection of defrosted left-over curries, go to the pub for lunch, watch rugby, read magazines, let the children fight, do intensive youtube searches about barefoot running and suffer the usual floods of tears when we have to leave early because our rear-lights have given up the ghost. Future plans are also hatched.

Scraping in just before rear lights become legally necessary, we placate with another movie night (popcorn, duvets, scruffy dogs, central heating) whilst a chicken roasts away in the oven.

At least I didn't burn the flock out of it this time, although the potatoes aren't looking too plumptious... The random veg selection bespeaks an empty fridge.

Slightly Drunk Parents Conference: Ashton

With extensive holiday carried over from last year, this weekend we take a long trip down to our favourite West Country resort in Ashton-Under-Hill. It's noticeably our sober-est weekend yet, entirely due to Lucy letting her guard down for a moment and getting up spout, but still an ace weekend of putting the world to rights nevertheless.

I say 'nevertheless' but perhaps it was more-than-usually ace because we were mainly sober-ish?

Anyway, the culinary highlights were thither:

• Because we haven't had it for ages and ages, on Friday night I cook a chilli! I know, crazy, but it just felt right. Like an old friend coming back, this time with a soupcon of cinnamon included into to the spice base. Don't know where I got that idea from..
• Two curries. The first was at Gordon League RFC, and very pleasant it was after my impromptu extended kicking workshop! The second was made by Brenda and DT, and was a lamb and spinach creation by Anjum Anand, which was an amazing combination of spicy, meaty and with a silky texture from the spinach.
• A post cinema visit to Nandos for the boys, followed by party food for Ben's birthday - featuring possibly the 8th or 9th best birthday cake I've ever seen. Points deducted for anatomical incorrectness.
• A less-exciting Thai take away from somewhere in Evesham. It was okay, just a bit cold and underwhelming, so we won't be ordering to deliver here anytime soon.
• A frankly huge ploughman's from the pub.

By the time we got back tonight, I really couldn't be bothered to cook but luckily Ana managed to find some chilli in the freezer - who'd have thought it! So, more chilli for dinner tonight... *sigh*. 

international babs cabs weekend

It's another International Babs Cabs weekend, and this time it's her 70th birthday! Or 71st if you're my brother and completely deluded. Anyway, the usual rules apply - both the weekend the new exciting 'five of the best' style:

1. Scorchio!
Although not as baking as usual. We still manage to get the paddling pool out, *obvs*, and fill a bucket with icy, icy beer;

2. Chilli vs Quiche
Traditionally my mum's birthday lunch is hot chilli (and it is hot), and a variety of quiche, cold meats and cold meats. As ever, there's not enough chilli and about five quiche too many;

3. Being bullied by my mother
When we get down on Friday, my mum is on excellent form. So much so she gangs up with Ana and spends the evening bullying me into agreeing to move in September. Damn their eyes!

4. Funky Folkestone
Once again it's Triennial time, and the upshot is slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, the hometown is getting cooler, dragging itself out of being a thoroughly depressing place, into a quite cool place to live. Naturally we spend Sunday lunchtime down the coastal path, playing on the Pirate Ships and slides, with Grandpa in tow, and we even manage to squeeze a bit of art into the equation - ringing the church bell on the sea front;

5. Fridge raiding
No trip to the in-laws is complete without several bags of left-overs making their way home. This time we manage a swag-load of booze, some chilli for lunch tomorrow, sweets'n'treats for Milo, some Tiger Bread and two platters of German and Spainish meats. The latter allows us to have an evening snack of Fino's tomato salad (sans chorizo), bread and meat, whilst watching the previously-mentioned Horrible Histories. Ana is now a massive fan.

Wot We Eight
Friday Night: Tandoori King Prawn and Tandoori Mixed Grill from The Prince of India;
Saturday: Chilli, meat, booze, pasties and Singapore Noodles (for Ana);
Sunday: Sandwiches and boiled egg for lunch, pizza for Milo's dinner, and tomato salad and more booze for dinner.

a weekend in worcestershire

Whilst contemplating writing a post about our amazing Canadian holiday (which I've still not actually written, natch), I came across a new formula for dealing with these multi-day extravaganza's - I'm just going to list the five best things. Simples!

So without further ado, here they are:

1. A run around the hills of Worcestershire, followed by Chicken Dansak
After a slightly fraught journey, involving a sudden panic at work and my decision to go off-road to avoid the non-existent traffic, everybody is still fairly jolly on arrival. An hour or so of combination toddler-wrestling later, Dave and myself leave the ladies cooking a spanking chicken dansak and we head out to battle the hills of Worcestershire. DT immediately puts his local knowledge/longer legs/better fitness to good use to leaves me gasping in the middle of a wood. Despite our laboured breathing, and Dave's curious pickled onion fumes, we still manage to see a deer on the track, no doubt stunned by our majestic bearing as we crested a hill. However our return sees one small blonde boy still awake, and watching Scooby-Doo. Naturally it being beyond his bedtime he's on maximum cuteness levels, so it's not too bad. Strangely we don't drink that much...

2. summer spaghetti
After the usual Saturday shenanigans (rugby for the mini-men, shopping for the slightly bigger-ladies, and a trip to the pub in the rain for everybody), Lucy pulls out all the stops with a summer spaghetti recipe I've had my eye on in the latest Delicious. It's a weird combination of pretty much everything in the fridge, so I suspect it'll be a pretty good user-up-of-fridge-stuff recipe. Despite their carping to the contrary, the Taylors are excellent cooks, I thoroughly Bridport their work should you be in the neighbourhood - particularly Dave's Saturday lunchtime smorgasbord...

3. Father's Day at Cheltenham Food Festival
I like eating, Dave likes eating, so what better present than a trip to the Cheltenham Food Festival? Even better, it gave my wife a chance to demonstrate her X-Man powers of sniffing out free booze at 1000 paces, viz walking through the gates she managed to spot Beth's husband Tom and Hugo the van full of prosecco at an angle of almost 180 degrees behind her.

4. Hugh's baker's oven shoulder of mutton
Whilst we're living it up in Cheltenham, there's a thing of magic going on in the kitchen chez Taylor, as a leg of hogget is slowly roasting over it's own layer of boulangerie potatoes. I love a good roast, and I love boulangerie potatoes, but I've never thought of sticking the two of them together in one dish. It's a thing of unctuous beauty, the meat falling off the bone, the potatoes crispy on one side and soft on the other, and a salty gravy - mmmmm! It's not such a good pre-two and a half hour drive home dinner though, as it does tend to induce sleepiness.

5. The Number One Ladies Running Club
For the lack of anything else to list in an as-ever excellent weekend (why WHY did I pick five things?), I'm going to make cheap jibes at being invaded on Sunday morning by two red-faced, sweaty harridans, who appeared in the kitchen shortly after Lucy and Ana went out running. I know they like to encourage neighbours to pop over in the country, but I think in this case the open door policy went too far...

sources
chicken dansak - Anjum Anand, Anjum's New Indian, p87
summer spaghetti - Delicious, July 2011, p39
baker's oven shoulder of mutton - Saint Hugh, The River Cottage Meat Book, p241

chez mcpartlin

Having been an awful wife last year and forgetting to celebrate Greg's 40th birthday, this weekend we're heading to Stalbans for a belated-big-four-oh-on-time-forty-first birthday party.

With the shindig in mind, myself and Milo head out early doors to get Greggy a present and Ana goes to Zumba to get into shape before the influx of McPartlin-supplied carbohydrates.

The kids have a fantastic time running around the garden, however the birthday boy isn't in such good form suffering, as he is, from an attack of his rare broccoli-induced gout. It doesn't stop him hobbling around the kitchen cooking a fantastic meal though, which is just as well as Ana and Amanda weren't helping, they were in the lounge drinking fizzy wine and reading Hello!/OK!

For dinner we had really nice tomato, anchovy and celery salad with crusty bread, followed by saffron-poached fish, with parmesan and tomato baked aubergine, and then a really dense almond tart. And loads of Amaretto, small cups of coffee and more wine.

It was a most felicitous evening although if I could change one thing, it would be we never play shithead again, if only so I never have to see smugness like this again:

Food of the Milos
Brunch: The usual Saturday morning nibbles, followed by scrambled eggs with some of Hannae's dad's Gravadlax, on toast. Swingeing cuts, what swingeing cuts?
Dinner: Amanda and Hop-Along Greg cooked up a fine feast of sausages, mash and beans, which was accompanied by much small boy foolishness.

the royal wedding weekend

It's a beautiful sunny weekend and everybody is piling into London for the Royal Wedding, so naturally we're leaving town for the South Coast, and a weekend of hot, nanny action.

On Friday, whilst the ladies are oohing and ahhing over Kate's dress, the gentlemen are assembled in Jonny Osborne's garden putting up a shed, drinking, staring out over the channel and oohing and ahhing over Pippa. A bit later my brother - a trained chef no less - fires up the barbie and spends the rest of the afternoon flipping burgers and turning sausages. This tastiness is later supplemented by John Ashton who seemingly keeps pulling braces of poussin out of his pocket. I still need a couple bowls of my mum's chilli when we get home, mind...

The following day is another scorcher, so we head out in the sun for a trip to Howletts with my mum, Danny, Dylan and Michaela. I'd like to say Milo was well into the tigers and snow leopard, but in fact he was only interested in the elephants and the gorillas. With our monkey in bed, full of ice creams, picnics and macaroni cheese, we swing over to Clokey & Liz's for curry. And loads of silly booze, *obvs*.

Sunday is infinitely more relaxed: Mum takes Milo to mini rugby, Ana packs and I fix dad's laptop, before heading to Sandgate for fish and chips on the beach. Brilliantly not only does Dad almost manage to fall into the mighty rolling ocean, he manages to split his trousers trying to escape a soaking.

Knackered, slightly sun-burned and with an emergency Nanny-rinsing stop-off at Baby Gap, we head home, laden down with left-over chilli for tea. Hurrah for Nanny!

easter at the taylors

Easter holidays - what better reason can there be to head to the country with good friends, eat fine food, unleash the flavour on numerous tasty cans of brown fizzy water, play an intense garden cricket test, bounce on a trampolene, dance in a silly way, eat antagonistic sandwiches (or not) and shoot each other with Nerf guns? It's what the Easter Bunny would've wanted. Particularly a pissed-up Easter Bunny who likes air-powered guns.

In attendance: Lucy, Dave & Ben (obvs) / Rob, Sandy and Tilly / Greg, Amanda, Cerys and Harry / Us / Claire, Dan and Gracie.

What we ate:

Thursday: We turned up a day early, and were treated - treated I tell you - to an experimental curry. It was Black-Eyed bean curry from Anjum Anand's new book, and whilst Dave didn't look like he wanted to cook it at the time, it was actually v tasty - recipe please Lucy!

Friday: With most people in place, Lucy knocked up a lovely, summery roast butternut squash and feta salad for six, as you do. Well, five as Dave doesn't like butternut squash... This was followed with more salad for dinner, in this case Oliver Rowe's chicken, tomato, tarragon, bacon and sourdough salad, with Bill Granger's salt-roasted new potatoes. With Dave on bacon duties, and Greg on chicken-pulling-apart-duties, and Rob on being an anaemic, whining veggie tosser duties, it's a triumph!

Whilst highly tasty, and with the added health twist of the addition of pumpkin and pine nut seeds, it's not the best base for six hours of getting hammered on red wine, champers and dancing to The Stone Roses.

Casualties: Rob had to be taken to bed - vegetarians, tsk!

Saturday: Ohhh, it's scorchio! For lunch we take advantage of Lucy's bulk buying of the local fayre (not Pork Scratchings, the other stuff) and have pasta with Worcestershire asparagus and poached egg, along with a selection of meats and cheeses:

We don't have pancetta (to appease that Nazi Rob), but more interestingly I experiment with poaching and then immersing the eggs in iced water until I'd cooked them all. Oddly it works a treat, they're all perfectly runny and I felt just a little bit like a proper chef.

After a soggy, storm battered egg hunt we get we get a take out from the Thai Emerald for dinner.

Casualties: Pretty much everybody

Sunday: Everybody's off today, although we decide to hang around for another night. I manage to have two lunches, Dave's antagonistic sandwiches AND Lucy's antagonistic feta salad - hurrah! Even better, for dinner Dave cranks up the barbie with an amazing marinated chicken.

Casualties: Nobody, although I think we're all feeling a little brackish. Next stop, Greg's birthday BBQ

sheperd's pie at my mums

No pictures today, but that's more because Milo and I spent a brilliant day at my mum's. And I forgot the camera.

With a whole day of Ana trying to research the Ancient Greeks for school looming (which is odd as we actually met in an Ancient Greek lecture at University...), and after the by-now-traditional pancake breakfast, we head down to the Folkestone for a day's Nannying.

Mum's on top form and Milo has a great time. We spend an hour up the rugby club eating crisps and running around the balcony, have cheese sandwiches for lunch whilst playing with the huge collection of Playmen (a collection consisting of mine and my brother's toys, and Dylan's recent additions) in the attic, before watching Ice Age on TV and eating a Babs Cabs shepherd's pie special.

Even better, I also managed to rescue the presents we managed to leave behind at Christmas, which means I can finally reveal this year's Culinary Christmas Crackers:

A gravy separating jug from my mum, River Cottage Family Cookbook, an apron, a variety of garlic relishes from the Garlic Farm, IoW Tomato Ketchup (which is divine btw) and an amazing garlic chopper (the green thing) from Kay and Mike, as well as a selection of silicon implements from Ana. An excellent haul!

The only downer on the day was by the time we get home, Ana's starving and has to make do with some toast as we'd already eaten at my mums...

bonfire weekend at ashton under hill

Remember, remember the 5th, 6th and 7th of November, value lager, experimental cooking and IKEA. Admittedly it's not quite how the rhyme goes but it pretty much sums up another fantastic weekend in glorious Ashton under Hill.

Contrary to tradition Tewkesbury Abbey fireworks aren't on the 5th, so when we get down on Friday we let the kids go mental in Dave and Lucy's swanky new front room before settling down to some 2% Morrison's value lager (mmmm, refreshing) and the first of Brenda's amazing experimental dishes - stuffed roasted butternut squash.

This is a controversial choice for a couple of reasons:
1. There's only butternut squash, no side;
2. Dave wants a take away curry;
3. It's a recipe from She Magazine;
4. Dave wants a take away curry.

However it is a definite winner, and I've taken the recipe away to repeat Les Bren's stunning culinary success.

There is more success looming on Saturday, although not from a rugby point of view. The mighty Tewkesbury 2s lost a hard battle against Gordon League (crazy name, crazy guys), before Australia managed to cheat their way to beating Wales without a front row. Hmmm...

Things then get much, much better with an amazing bonfire and fireworks display in front of the Abbey, followed by some quality bouncy castle time for Milo. We then hit the motherload at home with a massive bowl of lamb and prune tagine, which I believe was from Delicious? Lucy?

Sunday is much slower affair; the girls go to IKEA and the boys go the pub for a Sunday roast, via the pub.

It's a long, sleepy journey home, but we can't wait for the next weekend trip to Worcestershire. Hurrah for the country!

north london, and further north

More visiting today, but again no photos. Sorry. Actually I *do* have a photo of Sash's mum's curry (it'll make sense in a sec), but I took it on Ana's iPhone, and I've forgotten to mail it to myself. I will though, don't worry. Like you are.

Anyhoo, we've got a bit of to-ing and fro-ing today. We do some quite dull chores (punctures, washing up, hoovering etc) before heading up to the divine Miss Sasha Breslau's in Stanmore for a house warming cum late birthday party. The draw isn't just seeing lovely, lovely people from C4, nor just to see Sash and Matt's bijou flat, but to try Sash's mum's curry and dhal. Okay, it was entirely the curry.

The dhal was definitely not what I expected, turning out as a soup starter rather than a gloopy side, but it was really, garlicky and hearty. In fact perfect for this autumnal weather. Also excellent for driving out the chills is the chicken curry.

Sasha's mum is West Indian, so it was fruitier than I thought it would be and actually it tasted a bit retro if that makes sense? It was certainly punchier, with really strong spices than you'd get in a restaurant. Oh it was good.

From curry (and Haribo if you're Milo) in North London, we head further into the grim north to St Albans for an evening recreating our Brittany glory evenings with Greg and Spandy. Sadly I wasn't able to demonstrate my mastery of Trivial Pursuit, but we did lay waste to a very huge late dinner platter of saucisson, three sorts of cheese and bread. Hurrah for McPartlins!

impromptu burgers

Curiously, Ana's cup of tea at Kendra Kats after her inset day at The Science Museum manages to turn into multiple wine bottle-fueled burgerfest. Who would've thought?

It is Friday night after all, and Kayosaurus and Mikeplodocus are in residence to deal with the Milos. So he gets quality grandparents time for a second week running, and once I managed to find a Boris bike to get there, we get quality K Kats, Brian and precious wine time. It's a fair swap I think.

To accompany the fine conversazione and fine wine we decide on take away burgers, in this case Byron Burgers.

Being a massive GBK fan I was intrigued to see what this posh competitor was like, and I'm glad I did if only to realise how much better GBK is. That's not to say the Byron Burgers weren't bad, they were pretty good, just underwhelming. In fact there was only one burger on offer, and it was up to you how you wanted it and what toppings and bits of leaf you wanted from a selection on the menu.

Me and K Kats wanted GBK Kiwi Burgers, and I reckon you could've created as close an approximation as possible using the menu of 'extras', but it would've taken ages to work out and it would've costed as much as their palatial Gloucester Road apartment.

Chips were good though, as was the company.

sources
brian - byron burger and chips, at least one bottle of white wine
russell - byron burger with blue cheese and mushroom, and chips, at least one bottle of red wine
ana - cheese burger, with everything on the side, and chips. On the side is very big with her. At least 3/4 bottle of white wine
kendra - cheese burger with no chips, at least 3/4 bottle of white wine

folkestone

Crikey, are Bank Holidays contractually obliged to be this busy? Milo and I have been sojourning chez Folkestone with two main aims in mind:

1. Visiting my mum, who has managed to break her foot visiting Dover Castle (long story);
   
2. Playing rugby at the Spitfire Tournament for the mighty Stella Hands;

In the end we managed all of this plus so much more. The least of it was having taken a bunch of Milo's old things to store in mum's attic (car seats, bits of cot and old toys etc ), we returned with the car almost twice as full as we left, including a new car seat, some wellies, a luminous bat t-shirt and a spanky new bike for Milo - woo!

In between the retail therapy we do manage some eating, but looking back at it not very much. This particularly becomes clear in the last two games of the tournament where I completely run out of steam...

So on Saturday night mum cooks up a big vat of Spanish rice, which was aces. We have porridge for Sunday breakfast and then, other than another bowl of rice before going home, that was it. Who needs to diet when you can have two bowls of dinner (okay, I had seconds so three bowls) over two days, and then play four games of rugby...

As we're so thin on the food front, how about a picture of Milo's new photo face? It's called 'Castle Face' as he developed it during our trip to Pembroke Castle. No doubt we'll be seeing a lot more of this soon:


Food of the Milos
Unlike me, he has a fairly full weekend of scoff - not all of it good. Due to the fact the rice takes a some time to cook, Saturday night he gets some microwave macaroni cheese, which he loves. For Sunday he gets a largish bowl of spaghetti of meatballs, and in between he has three packets of crisps, three ice lollies (one homemade), porridge, a KitKat, some Jelly Tots, a chocolate cake and a babycino. Hmmm, for the good of his help the end of holidays can't come soon enough.

the white lion, walkern & mediterranean salad

More visiting today. This time we're going to the country to visit Jacqui and Tristan who used to rent our flat in Dyer's Lane before we moved into it, and whom we bumped into in New World Wellington about five years later. They very kindly put us up and and then let us steal all their NZ friends once they'd returned to Blighty, so they're clearly top people even if they are foreign.

We haven't seen them since our wedding, but diligent Facebooking on Ana's behalf drew us back into their orbit and I for one am very pleased, particularly as they have a beautiful dog retriever-cross called Tui.

Like the troopers they are, the pair of them take us to a picturesque country pub called The White Lion, with a massive(ish) kids playground at the end of the garden. The food and service is pretty good - I think we all have burgers apart from Jacqui who had retro-70s gammon, egg and chips, complete with pineapple ring, and Milo who had sausages. Half of which ended up being donated to Tui, or "Fella" as Milo insisted on calling her because he confused her with Sophie's lab.

It's a lovely day but I find when you're visiting people, you do spend most of the journey home piecing together the half-conversations you've had, because you miss half of everything that's said as one of you has to be swinging or sliding or running around rather than relaxing with friends you haven't seen for ages.

We're going to do it again so maybe I'll pick up the bits I missed next time?

By the time we get home three hours later (thanks M25), we're both knackered and starving. Hustling a very well-behaved monkey into bed, I've only got enough energy to knock together a quick Ana favourite for dinner: mediterranean salad, this time with caper berries. She's only mildly challenged.



Then it's to bed to read a chapter of The Leopard, before getting a semi-early night ready for tomorrow's DRIVING TEST - ARRRRRRRRGH!

Food of the Milos
We're a bit all over the shop this weekend but today is pretty good *if* snack and chip heavy: Boiled egg and fruit bread for breakfast, snacks in the car up to Letchworth, sausage and chips for lunch, snacks stuck on the M25 (mainly marmite rice cakes) and then a smorgasbord of cheese, avocado, raisins, cherry tomatoes and cherries for dinner.

sources
mediterranean halloumi salad - Delicious, June 2010, p24

international babs cabs weekend

Forget the septics, July the 4th is all about the International Day of Babs Cabs. Unfortunately we've double-booked ourselves for my mum's birthday. So, the plan is to go down a day early, and come back late-ish Saturday night in time for our date with Australia's greatest entertainers on the Sunday. It's a triumph!

We get down just after lunch on a scorching afternoon chez Shepway, and spend most of rest of the afternoon splashing around in the paddling pool set in the west lawn of my mum's extensive grounds. There's time to marvel at my brother's ludicrous fake tan, and milo also seizes the chance to dress like a bunny:


Tuckered out from all the sliding into water, monkey drops off about 9-ish which gives nanny the opportunity to indulge in some vital babysitting time and me and bobyena head out The Clarendon for some summer evening seaside drinks.

Saturday is all-action:

1. We find a slow-worm by the kitchen door. To be honest, my mum's garden is heaving with them but this is milo's first one. He's not too bothered by it, and even picks it up by the head:


2. We slide down terrifying death slides with mummy:


3. And we spend all afternoon in the garden, splashing in the pool with nanny, ollie, dylan and TC. Clokey, Pam, Saucepan, Jan, Tom, Roisin, Dan, JP, Moose, Lee, Jo, Keira, Hannah and Sarah take the sensible option and recline on deckchairs eating my mum's birthday chilli - hotter than last year fact fans!

Somebody conks out in the car on the way home, and I'm not too far behind by the time we get back. It's a good day, and as much as I complain about the old fruitbat my mum's birthday's are pretty cool affairs. Happy Birthday Babs!

Food of the Milos and the Anas and the Russells
After a breakfast of boiled eggs, we have ham sandwiches and houmous for lunch friday, and we all have my mum's thai coconut chicken for dinner. Saturday isn't so good for breakfast but once out Milo does have space for a 99 with flake. An ice cream total he manages to triple by the end of the day. Party food is salad and chilli, and tactically I take one for the team, and have about six bowls during the day, mainly to stop most of it coming back to our house in an ice cream tub. It doesn't work, and we still come back with a box of salad, some beetroot, half a pepper and some celery.

pumpkin and feta risotto & virginie's birthday

Our usual Saturday routine is enlivened by an afternoon's trip to Kingston for Virginie's birthday BBQ. We couldn't go last year because Milo was suffering from a pseudo-dose of the pox, and ridiculously Matt has never had it. What an arse!

This year we're fully up for it, if only because the Kings do amazing food. Beforehand though we have lunch whilst Milo is power-napping, a cheeky risotto to use up the squash in the veg bowl and give us the necessary energy to run around a garden all afternoon:


It's pretty good even if I forgot the feta.

As predicted I was right on both counts RE the BBQ. Matt King does an amazing array of dead animal whilst Virginie creates lashings of amazing French salads - including a curious cucumber and cream number which I'm not sure about, but Ana loves. Obviously Milo eats none of it *apart* from handfuls of crisps, houmous and small Apericubes. He attempts a little burger but he's more interested in running full-pelt into a large beanbag in the lounge.

After a virtually vegetarian couple of weeks my arteries almost go into meltdown with the amount of delicious meat they have to process. The combination of meat and bean bags ensure we all sleep like dogs tonight.

sources
pumpkin & feta risotto - Donna Hay, Instant Cook, p66

book club & beans on toast

To reward your loyalty, today you're getting a BOGOF post - two days for the price of one.

This is mainly because we went out on Thursday and Friday, well Friday just did not happen for anybody.

So, Thursday night was book club at Kendras. On the menu tonight; roast chicken, salad, an amazing selection of anti-pasti (marinated artichoke, pulses - I can't remember K Kats, was it giant bulgar wheat salad or something?), and uber-chic mini-macaroons. Oh and a side-dish of paedophilia. I think it was best the book club we've had so far, mainly because we've all read the book. Apart from Beth of course.

Friday, well let's just say I can't be cracked tonight. For some reason we couldn't wrestle somebody into bed until 9, by which time The Mentalist interfered with my meal schedule. Ana doesn't wait and gets herself some beans on toast, and I don't even bother.

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

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!

roast beef and digestives

No photo today, because I spent the day with my brother visiting my newly-out-of-hospital dad down in Portsmouth, followed by the great-leaving-aol-party.

Stage one went pretty well, Dad and Dan were on good form albeit highly smokey form (I stank on the train on the way home), and Maggie cooked up a massive and amazing roast beef for dinner before I went. I was pretty much stuffed until halfway through the leaving drinks. Luckily ana had left me some digestives to munch on when I got in, cold and tired from the night bus. Bless

nordic fish hotpot

We're visiting Melissa and Chris' tonight, so after a brief stop at Gordon's Wine Cave for Tom's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAGE - it's time for the brompton's maiden voyage on public transport: The 19.02 to Surbiton.

Once there things start to look dicey. We're already pre-warned Melissa is cooking fish but the mound of salmon, herring and what could be codses or maybe haddockses looks quite challenging. The challenge level goes up to 20 when the lid is lifted on the final dish as it's quite-to-very fishy. However, despite the pungent fishy aroma it's bloody marvellous - definitely one to steal and perfect with lots of crusty bread.

Food of the Milos
The anas are at work again this morning, so he spends the morning at Claire and Islas. The usual battle to get something down him for breakfast takes place, but for lunch he has a tortilla which he likes. Once at Melissa's he gets one of his faves, spag bol, and spends the rest of the evening exhibiting.

sources
nordic fish hotpot - Jane Lawson, Snowflakes and Schnapps, p121