WHAT DID WE HAVE FOR TEA?

[LizG]

An old fashioned favourite for us, apricot chicken.

[Stanley]

I like the sound of Apricot chicken Liz.... What is it?
Two small boiled ham and beetroot butties for dinner. Meat pie, beans and boiled potatoes for tea.

[Marilyn]

Basically it's a Chicken Casserole with a tin of Apricots thrown in...
Have got the slow cooker on doing it's thing with a Beef Curry today.

I looked up Sesame Noodles on the net, Stanley. You will find a recipe if you put "Recipe, Sesame Noodles, NY" into Google. Quite a lot of obscure ingredients, but if you like it and make it often, you will get your use from them (without them turning into ancient relics in your pantry).

[Stanley]

I'll have a look Maz. I seem to remember rice wine, sesame Paste and peanut butter...... A bloke could live off them.....

[Tripps]

My lad and his family went on pilgrimage to Bury recently, and my present was a bottle of Grandma Entwistle's Lancashire Sauce. It was from Ramsbottom, and said to be from a 100 year old family recipe. You couldn't get a more Lancashire name than that even of you engaged a brand image consultant to dream it up.

I read the ingredients - like you do - and found it contained those traditional Lancashire ingredients - turmeric, fenugreek, coriander, mustard flour and garlic. I do wish I wasn't so sceptical of nearly everything - it's a curse.

Now the punch line. I tried a few shakes on some roast pork with gravy and vegetables, and guess what - I liked it. Very piquant.

Other sauces are available, but Lancashire Sauce

[LizG]

I like the sound of Apricot chicken Liz.... What is it?

Maz is pretty much right Stanley. It's just chicken cooked in apricot nectar with some dried apricots thrown in. Usually it is thickened with a packet of french onion soup but I don't like packet things made with numbers so I used real onions and some Moroccan spices (no numbers).

Had the family around for dinner last night so we made huge pan of paella. Big hit with everyone, even the small people.

[Stanley]

"I do wish I wasn't so sceptical of nearly everything - it's a curse. "
Nowt wrong with that David. Your body is a temple.... you have to check what you are shovelling in!
Liz, I agree about packets. Sounds good.
One small ham butty with tomato and beetroot for dinner. Cod steak, the last of the boiled spuds and the last of the baked beans for tea.

[PanBiker]

I cooked 2lb of minced beef just with onions and stock in the slow cooker on Saturday, morphed some with tomatoes into Spag Bol for Saturday tea. Cheddar cheese with garlic and chives on the top that we got from the Wensledale Creamery when were up in Hawes the other week.

I took a portion yesterday and turned it into a chilli using a nice hot orange one which Sally grew and dried out last year. I bubbled it all up in the slow cooker while we out on our bikes, had that with spiced rice and garlic bread (sorry Maz). Remaining portion of the mince and onions was frozen down for later use.

[LizG]

Never thought of cooking it that way. I'll give it a go next time.

[Stanley]

Slow cooking.... I was listening to a programme about meat cooked for 24 hours in hot oak smoke yesterday. Made me lick my lips! I've often toyed with the idea of making a smoker in the back yard and having a crack at it.
Haslet salad butties yesterday, One for dinner and two for tea. Both with beetroot tomato and lettuce. Filled the fruit bowls up after the weekend. I love my fruit.....

[Julie in Norfolk]

We have had a large smoker in our village for years, large enough to take a whole 100kg dead weight pig. It took the best part of 16 hours to cook that once the smoker was going right. The meat was soooo tender and moist, you couldn't carve it, you had to pull it off the bone. No crackling though.

The design of this smoker was similar to the old steam train tipped slightly backward (as though going up hill). The smoke box was in the front, the pig laid where the boiler would be and the smoke exited out of the chimney. The reason for tipping it slightly is to have a drain for fat.

[Stanley]

Interesting Julie, Was the firebox at the opposite end to the smokebox and chimney? I was thinking about a vertical setup. According to what I heard yesterday the key is to not have the meat too close to the fire, just bathed in the hot, but not fiery, smoke. You can get high quality wood chips online evidently from a specialist. I love hot-smoked fish and meat, possibly the nicest food I have ever tasted was Mallaig Kippers and smoked eel butties straight out of the smoker at Dordrecht in the Netherlands. The eels were the first of the season from the IJsselmeer. Superb if you like eels.....
They made the point in the programme that smoking is possibly the oldest form of cooking and the favourite meats are the toughest, like old brisket.

[Stanley]

Two small sausage, two poached eggs and chips for dinner. Two small sausage and salad on a butty for tea made on home made bread.

[Stanley]

Sausage and salad butty for dinner, sausage, boiled carrots and chips for tea.

[Stanley]

A salad butty day....

[Stanley]

Steak pudding chips and peas for dinner, one of my favourite foods! Straight chicken butties for tea, I treated myself to half a spit roasted poussin at Brown's.....

[Stanley]

A small meat pie and boiled carrots for dinner and two small chicken and salad butties for tea. The very slow weight loss continues, I am not trying to push it, just letting it happen slowly and naturally.....

[Wendyf]

A mushroom, spinach and cheese omelette (made with a giant double yolked egg that poor Mrs Duck laid the other day) served with sauteed baby turnips, steamed greens and new potatoes.

[Marilyn]

I will probably make a batch of Chicken and Leek Soup. Can't make up my mind.
We had visitors for lunch yesterday and expect visitors for lunch tomorrow, so I am not feeling too enthused about cooking at all today.
(because eating visitors can sure fill you up!)

[Stanley]

'Having visitors for lunch'. I like it Maz.....
Finished the boiled ham yesterday by having ham salad butties for dinner and tea. There are few better taste matches than ham and English Mustard!

[LizG]

Seafood chowder for us.

[Stanley]

Boring but efficient, Egg and chips for dinner, egg beans and chips for tea. I have put a loaf in the machine this morning......

[Moh]

White hake, new local potatoes, garden peas & parsley sauce tonight.

[Stanley]

Fruit shopping yesterday and I brought some carrots and a lovely fresh cauliflower (59p.) back with me. Boiled the carrots with the cauli in the steamer above them and had cauli and carrots for dinner, lovely! Bacon salad butty for tea.

[LizG]

I refused to buy a cauliflower today at $3.49. What a bargain at 59p! Chicken cacciatore with cous cous here tonight.