WHAT DID WE HAVE FOR TEA?

[Moh]

Duck breasts, roast potatoes & garden peas tonight.

[Stanley]

I had cold mutton and a loaf of bread that needed to be eaten so I got some mint sauce out and had two small butties at dinnertime and three at teatime. Lovely meat. Mutton pot-roasted slowly is a much underrated meat!

[Stanley]

Started on the veggie stew yesterday. I was helped by the fact that when Mick came round at lunch time to rescue me from the UPS delivery fiasco he joined me in a bowl of stew for dinner. I had another for tea as well and a single fried egg butty on an oven bottom later when I got the munchies. (The veggie stew is good but has so little fat and meat in it it fails slightly on the satisfaction scale) Mick's contribution to consumption means that the stew will soon be cleared up! (It must be nice to cook for a family.....)

[LizG]

Salmon cooked on the BBQ with quinnoa salad. It's so hot here today!!

[Moh]

Steak & kidney pie, mash & carrot & swede mash tonight - winter grub!

[Stanley]

I agree with you Moh.... winter grub is just the ticket at the moment even though it is so mild!
I had veggie stew for dinner and almost had the last bowl for tea but at the last moment popped it in the fridge for today. Instead I had three oven bottoms with Cashew, Hazelnut and Peanut butter that I got off Elaine yesterday. Sliced tomato on with sea salt as well. No added sugar in the butter and they were lovely. I like to make sure I have my quota of nuts at least once a week, there are nutrients in nuts that you don't get easily anywhere else and I am a firm believer in having the most varied diet possible.
Did anyone watch the TV programme last night 'Eat cheaper at Xmas'? I was amazed at the excess that people consider normal at Christmas....

[PanBiker]

I saw the programme Stanley, what struck me you could do Christmas and have a holiday on what they considered the norm. Their budget for the day would feed us for about three months with no exaggeration and no one going hungry. £1400.00 for a couple of days is abhorrent coupled with not really knowing what to do with the afters made it all the worse.

On the upside and an example of forward preparation. I was taking Sally to the Station this morning so had a quick breakfast of yogurt followed by toasted Chia bread. I fancied a bit of jam on my toast but found myself "sans confiture". I went to the cupboard that Sally keeps replenished with her home made jams and chutneys and other stuff like that and recovered a jar of Hedgerow Jelly. The label shows she made it in October 2013. It has sat maturing in the dark for the last two years and has become what can only be described as "food of the Gods". I was just thinking how alien this scenario would be to the couple featured above.

[Moh]

I read that a handful of walnuts eaten about 30 mins. before a meal is good for diabetics.
Chinese black bean stir fry tonight with special fried rice & prawn crackers (home made not a take away).

[Stanley]

It would be good for anyone Moh. Nuts have a subset of minerals and nutrients that are thin on the ground in other foods. Nearest commercial equivalemt of 'wild food', you can't get much more natural.
I had the last of the veggie stew for dinner and for tea I casseroled four browned sausages on a bed of onions with the usual suspects and had them on two small oven bottoms for tea. When I hooked the sausages out of the gravy I put a pack of oxtail and a bunch of carrots in the onion gravy, added a little water and put the pot on the stove for the evening to argue with itself. This morning I de-boned and de-fatted the oxtail and skimmed the gravy off to sit in the fridge until the fat separates. I shall put it back in, load the pot with a chopped turnip and let it slow cook all day. By this evening it will be pretty good! (I'll adjust the seasoning later today)
My personal indulgence last night was to eat half the mince pies my friend Julie Lawson gives me every year. She bakes wonderful mince pies, naughty but so nice!
07:00. I'm well up to speed, I have just chopped a swede and added it to the de-boned and de-fatted stew, a bit more salt and pepper and a small amouint of water and it's sat on a very slow heat on the stove for as long as it takes. I shall not starve to death today!

Later in the morning, the oxtail is slowly coming on.... By teatime it will be pretty good....

[Stanley]

I had two small haslet butties for dinner and the rest of Julie's mince pies. This meant I wasn't very hungry at teatime so I just had a very small bowl of the stew. Lovely stuff after 8 hours slowly simmering on the stove. Have you ever noticed how slowly veggies like carrots and swede soften and cook when in a thick sauce?
I saw a TV chef roasting cauliflower last night. Interesting, I have never seen that done before. Could be worth and experiment! (RECIPE)

[Moh]

Looks good Stanley.
Roast loin of pork, apple sauce, roast potatoes, cauliflower, carrots & gravy tonight.

[Stanley]

You are a bastion of traditional English cooking Moh.....
I had oxtail and veggies X two yesterday. Last bowl for tea was a very small one so as to leave one good bowl for today so I topped up with seven small oatcakes (That's how many there are in the individual packet) with Stilton cheese.... Looking forward to my wrap up on Thursday!

[Moh]

Must be like opening a Christmas present!
Cold pork, apple, carrot & swede mash, cauliflower, mash & gravy.

[Stanley]

It is Moh.... and always very reasonable because I am relieving them of a small problem.
Steak pudding, peas and chips for dinner and the last of the oxtail for tea followed by the last of the Stilton on another seven small oatcakes.

[Moh]

Meat pie, chips, mushy peas & gravy tonight.

[Stanley]

First thing yesterday morning I popped two rolled mutton loins on a bed of chopped onion and olive oil with an Oxo cube and salt and pepper. Just a dash of Worcester sauce and then a bottle of vintage cider. After a morning simmering on the stove it was perfectly cooked. I fished the loins out strained the gravy off and put it in the fridge so I could separate the fat off it. For dinner I had the remainder of the small loaf Cathy gave me on Friday with generous collops of hot mutton on each with Mint Sauce. Three good butties and they were lovely, there is much to be said for slow cooked grass fed mutton! At teatime I wasn't hungry so just had fruit for tea.



The gravy this morning. Lovely clean fat that will go in the fryer and some nice gravy which when put back with its onions will make the base of some good veggie soup. So many people recoil from good hard fat like this but in moderation it's far better for you than processed vegetable oils. Let's hear it for good saturated fat!

[Marilyn]

I see the purity of it Stanley, but because we only eat red meat now and then ( in our case, lean minced steak that becomes meatballs or patties), we don't see a result like that (and we don't have a deep fat fryer...only an air fryer)
We use little oil/fat
Different climate though, so we don't need such fats.
That said, I am sure I would cook differently if I lived up your way. I still love the slow cook methods...just a small window of opportunity to enjoy them here.
Watched Deliah's Christmas tonight. (Lovely food but just not suitable for us when it is 40C)

[Moh]

Gammon tonight not sure what to serve it with yet.

[Stanley]

The veggie soup last night after adding even more sprouts. Xmas dinner is cooked.....
Had three mutton butties on oven bottom for dinner and the veggie soup for tea.....
Kath arrives with wrap up after dinner....

[Stanley]

I had a bowl of Xmas dinner at dinnertime. Carl delivered the wrap up at 15:00. So tea was different. Three oven bottoms with meat paste on and a small roasted half chicken to nibble on after. (They needed eating, all the rest went in the freezer.) I like wrap-ups, they make you change your diet for a day or two. I have all sorts to choose from but the first job is to finish the sprout stew off! I still had a pot-roasted mutton loin in the fridge for butties so I have cut that up and put it in the pot and popped the whole lot on a slow stove. Xmas dinner will be all right!

[Stanley]

I have to report I probably ate a bit too much yesterday. Not due to Xmas excess but the fact that I realised if I had big bowls of stew X two for dinner and tea I could finish it off and get on to other matters like dealing with the wrap-up! Never mind, not serious and I didn't eat so much I was uncomfortable. I wish you all the same!
Later at 08:00. I have decided to cook the two half chickens I got in the wrap up. I have defrosted them, cut them into legs and breasts and fried them until brown. They are now in the big casserole on the front room on the stove on a bed of onions with the usual suspects to enhance flavour. I shall take a view when they are cooked but at the moment I'm favouring Basmati rice....
You'll be pleased to know that when I'd finished the preparation I bleached the chopping boards, the tools and the sink. I have remembered the dangers of campylobacter! Not much point Tiz and me warning everyone of the dangers if we don't take precautions ourselves.

[Stanley]

Two small roast ham butties for dinner and half the chicken casserole on a bed of Basmati rice for tea. I shall curry what is left.....

[Marilyn]

I have had Campylobacter, Stanley...and the cure is as bad as the infection!
( I am therefore fastidious with Chicken)

Have made some Red Salmon Patties for tonight's dinner. All done and sat on a plate in the fridge ready to fry shortly. Garden Salad and Potato Salad made to accompany.

[Stanley]

Morning Maz.... You can't be too careful! I have a snow white chopping board this morning. You can't beat a Sycamore board and plenty of bleach and boiling water. I always remember a bacterial test to determine which were the easiest chopping boards to keep clean, wood won hands down and of them, Sycamore was best.....

[Stanley]

Curried chicken and chips for dinner. One small roast ham butty for tea, I wasn't very hungry.... One helping of chicken left for today.