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Friday 27th June
I do want to apologise for being useless... the truth is that this new job
is absorbing some of the spare time and energy that used to go into this -
not just writing things up but actually planning, shopping, preparing
food. I'll sort myself out soon. The other part of my excuse is the
summer... I haven't had the motivation to cook anything interesting.
Example: last night, we ate melon (canteloupe); ham (San Daniele); peppers
(roasted). Plus some fresh basil and a lot of lovely olive oil. Very
delicious, but more about shopping extravagantly than cooking
imaginatively.
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Thursday 19th June
A small moment of calm in the middle of May Week, if only to prove to
myself that watching this
hasn't made me too paranoid to ever host a dinner party again. So the
asparagus tartlets were aesthetically pleasing, at least (I went for the
rectangular/sardines arrangement rather than deal with circles) - though
the poached quail's eggs weren't, really. I still like the idea, though...
I just need practice. The involtini - vegetarian main course -
were fab: slices of aubergine rolled around an Italian stuffing (pine
nuts, capers, basil, mozarella) into fat little bundles, and baked in
tomato sauce. Dessert was fresh goat's cheese with nectarines, which also
needs refinement - the cheese was lovely but perhaps not as softly
fresh as it might have been - sometimes they are almost as light as
yoghurt.
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Wednesday 18th June
Things to stack on bruschetta - yes, thank you, when it is this
hot it is perfectly acceptable to make dinner out of a loaf of ciabatta
and a bag of salad - onions fried with balsamic vinegar and a tiny bit of
brown sugar; thin slices of a nice fat tomato that has been sitting in the
sun all day; crumbled-up goat's cheese; and a good scattering of basil. A
bit of a classic, that.
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Thursday 12th June
Oh, I'm sorry! There's been a lot of work and a lot of summer, and not
much cooking: but here is a (yet another?) nice light, summery pasta dish
of rocket and ricotta. It starts with spring onions instead of
the usual brown - not sure it makes that much difference, but they are
nice and green. Fry them off with some garlic and a little chilli. Cook
the pasta and when it is nearly done, add some vegetables: fresh peas if
you are blessed with a garden; failing that, frozen ones; maybe some
asparagus tips. Those should be ready at the same time as the pasta, so
that you can drain them together and toss them with the onion. Stir in the
grated zest of a lemon, two good dollops of ricotta and a good handful of
rocket leaves, plus a squeeze of the lemon juice. A bit of parmesan would
be no bad thing but some shaved pecorino would be even better. Worth
waiting eight days for? Depends how hungry you were.
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Wednesday 4th June
Just another variation on a theme, really - I've decided that avocados go
with anything pink. Last week smoked trout, this week avocado and
prawn salad, with a gorgeously gloopy dill dressing (I think it was
just the high proportion of mustard and lemon juice to oil - about 2tsp:1
lemon:2tbsp - which made it so thick). I suppose you do probably need more
than two examples before making such a generalisation: so Exhibit C is
bacon - but I'm sure it doesn't end there. Watch this space...
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Monday 2nd June
Braving the grill, I rolled lamb fillets in ground-up ras el
hanout and grilled for ten minutes or so - some were more successfully
pink than others. Then the couscous was a little confused, with harissa,
apple and coriander. But the fruit went quite nicely, I think, with the
rose petals - which are in the harissa as well as the ras el hanout spice
mix.
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