mozzarella, peach, basil and parma ham salad

We've got crossed wires tonight, although not in a terrifying "you're not the person I thought I married" way. More in a "I'm making salad because I thought we were going out... oh, that's next week. Well, we've still got salad because I've made it." It's a fairly drama-free marriage round our way.

So, salad tonight because I thought we were going out to look at the prints from a free photoshoot Ana and Milo went to last week. And because the Bank Holiday has mangled Ocado's deliveries, dinner is entirely dependent on what the John Lewis Food Hall on Oxford street has in stock. Mozzarella, peach, basil (from my homegrown plant) and prosciutto crudo salad it is...


You can't go wrong can you? It's weird how some dishes just catch the imagination though. It's been one of our staples since 2005, and I've made it at least eight times this year alone but suddenly there's variations of it popping up everywhere, and most of them feature griddled peaches. I might give that a spin next time...

Food of the Milos
I can't really remember what he had for tea today, suffice to say he spent most of it riding it around Barnes. For dinner *however*, he had a large splodge of last night's pasta with cherry tomato sauce.

sources
mozzarella, peach, basil and parma ham salad - Delicious, August 2005

pasta with cherry tomato sauce

It's a beautiful sunny Bank Holiday Monday, Barnes is freakily empty so what better reason do you need to go riding on your new bike, all day, with your new wellies?

Having cycled up and down the hall, relentlessly, we cycled to Orange Pekoe for some coffee, we then cycled to Vine Road to paddle the new wellies in the pool, and then to the pond to show the new bike to the ducks (and to have a celebratory ice cream), before washing up at The Treehouse for a late lunch. Having cycled home, and then up and down the hall whilst we're out in the garden Milo sparks out in bed by seven. Wowzers, we're going to need to get another bike before he wears this one out...

Knackered and broke, we settle down with spaghetti and tomatoes (which costs less than a fiver) to accompany ITV's marvellous Marple mystery, The Pale Horse. Hurrah for Bank Holidays!



Food of the Milos
His good day of being lovely and entertaining was equally matched by a good day of food, naturally leavened by ice cream...

Inspired by The Tiger that Came to Tea, Ana created an amazing breakfast of banana slice cakes, raisins and waffles *all* of which got eaten in double-quick time. Having ridden around the major sights of Barnes, he has sausage, chips and broccoli at the pub. Actually, it's such a late lunch he doesn't really need any dinner when we get home, but he does help make and eat some popcorn.

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

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.

rich beef ragu

Do you know, left-over spiced cauliflower curry *doesn't* make the best next-day lunch? Don't get me wrong, it's okay (although you do need to find some rice from somewhere to soak up all the leftover gravy), but the cauliflower does tend to have gone a bit soggy by the following lunchtime. And it stinks out the kitchen.

Needs must though, and following a frugal-friday lunch, we've got another dose of cheap eats tonight with a life-saving batch of frozen batch of rich beef ragu:


Once it's defrosted I chuck in some courgette and left-over peppers from the salad crisper, but weirdly despite having had time for the flavours to further infuse, it's less intense than when I originally made it last Saturday. I suspect the addition of the half-carton of passata also malingering in the fridge to bulk it out may have thinned out the flavour. Point to remember there...

Food of the Milos
Pretty much the same as yesterday, and include the games involving pouring mummy wine viz waffles, banana and grapes for breakfast, and more sausages and mini-broccoli for dinner.

sources
rich beef ragu - Delicious, March 2007, p51

spiced cauliflower curry with red pepper and peas

What is going on? That's two nights in a row of returning home absolutely sodden, and tonight I had a coat! What happened to summer? However I'm spurred on by the certain knowledge I've got a warming curry for dinner.

Certain because I know we've got peas in the freezer, an onion in the veg bowl and a red pepper in the fridge. All I need to do is pick up a cauliflower and some curry leaves at lunchtime. Again, we're leaning heavily on trying not to spend too much money ahead of Tuesday's payday, but also this dish is great for warming me up, and for waging hearty war on Ana's cold. It's all the ginger and turmeric I think...



I'm going to go a bit random here and admit something odd: I've become obsessed by killing the greenfly on my windowsill chilli plants. Honestly, everyday, at least twice a day, I spend a good 20 minutes crushing the little buggers which is immensely satisfying. They burst like nature's bubble-wrap. I could do with some ladybirds to finish the rest off though.

Food of the Milos
Milo has clearly been affected by the past couple of weeks. Breakfast (waffle, grapes, cheese, apple and raisins) was taken in his tunnel in the front room, which he referred to as a pub, with his friends sat in the pub garden. This was later followed by a new game in the bath - pouring mummy glasses of wine. Hmmm, nursery is going to be a shock to his system. Either that or we'll be having to explain a lot of things to his new teachers.

Beans on toast for lunch, and for dinner he had carrots, broccoli and sausages with strawberries for pudding. Not only that he actually fed himself for once - hurrah!

sources
spiced cauliflower curry with red pepper and peas - Delicious, June 2010, p153

baked chicken, green beans and tomatoes

It's juicier (yay!), but I forgot to finish it off with the lid off the pan, so the chicken is anemic rather than bronzed. Bugger.
sources
Jamie Oliver via Ana via Kendra via Rosie Marinelli

tomato, red onion and creme fraiche tart

After four days living it up in Wales, we've come back to a demi-empty fridge, definitely empty bank accounts and sleep deprivation. Who said holidays were relaxing?

I know I've got enough in the freezer and fridge to make tomato, red onion and creme fraiche tart, if I nip to the shops at lunchtime to get some creme fraiche and salad, so it's budget-friendly. I also know whilst a little bit labour-intensive, the fact it quite happily cooks for 40 minutes in the oven means we've got time potter around after the first day back at work.

However, I don't think I let it cook or rest enough so the end result is a little bit sloppy. Nothing disastrous, just a bit annoying. The apple, walnut, watercress and spinach salad was good though, and hopefully it'll firm up (steady!) in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.


Holiday-wise it was like the Brittany trip only on a smaller scale: Lots of day trips, one day of good weather and excellent evening drinking and cards.

Here's a picture of Ana and Milo enjoying the medieval weather at Pembroke Castle:



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