Grilling on the Peaches

Part two of my Saturday Dinner for my guests needed to be a little lighter as although the Mock Duck Stir Fry contained a lot of fresh ingredients it was quite heavy in its own way. That said we needed something lighter for our pudding.

Keeping with the exotic theme of the mains I had picked up some out of season Peaches at the local supermarket. I prepared them with difficulty by halving them and de-stoning them; this took plenty of brute force and a very sharp knife.

Next I mixed together in a jug the juice of one Lime, a tablespoon of Cinnamon and a tablespoon of Madagascan Vanilla and left the mixture to one  side.

I then grilled the Peaches on a medium heat for eight minutes turning them occasionally. After that I took the Peaches off the grill and served them topped with the Lime, Cinnamon and Madagascan Vanilla.

They proved a light and quite tasty snack for us with the Vanilla taking the rough edge off the Lime as we sat in the conservatory watching the rain roll in off the hills.

Walking on the Peaches- freshly grilled and topped with the sauce.

Fake Shredded Duck

The last weekend in January included a top notch curry in one of the town's premier restaurants, a trip to two local pubs and a winter walk in park that was important for both of us. It also featured me hosting some friends from my university days and cooking them an Oriental themed dinner. One of my friends lived in China for a few years and his better half is from the Philippines originally;so tough crowd...

So what were the ingredients of this innovative dish? Well they were as follows:

Fresh Onion
Fresh Ginger.
Tablespoon of Chinese 5 spice.
Tablespoon of Dried Basil
Tablespoon of Dark Soy Sauce.
Three of Cloves Garlic.
Eight ounces Sugar Snap Peas
Four steamed Pak Choi
One Steamed Broccoli.
Fifteen Ounces of Mock Shredded Duck.
A can of Sweetcorn.
A can of Beansprouts.
Forty Ounces of Noodles.

I started by cleaning out the Le Cresceut and putting sunflower oil in the bottom of the dish. Then I diced a White Onion and peeled and chopped finely some fresh Ginger. I added these to the Le Cresceut dish with a tablespoon of Chinese 5 Spice, a tablespoon of dried Basil, a tablespoon of Dark Soy Sauce and three cloves of sliced Garlic. I sweated them on a medium heat for around twenty five minutes while stirring them occasionally to stop them sticking to the bottom of the dish and burning up.

After twenty-five minutes I added some mock shredded Duck, which is essentially a quorn-type version of traditional shredded Duck and just as delicious, and Sugar Snap Peas to the dish and stirred them in. At the same time I cut up some Broccoli and cut the bottom off some Pak Choi and put it and the Broccoli in a steamer and steamed it for a further twenty minutes.

After adding the Mock Duck and Sugar Snap Peas I continued to stir the contents of the Le Cresceut dish and once the Pak Choi and Broccoli were cooked I added them to the Le Cresceut dish with a can of Sweetcorn and a can of Beansprouts.

While I had been cooking these ingredients I'd taken the opportunity to boil up forty ounces of Noodles and once they'd been cooked for the length of time required on the packet I served these evenly on each of the plates set aside for my guests. I then added some of the mock duck stir fry to the plates and served them for everyone.

The dish certainly passed the acid test as my friends with the Chinese and Philippine connections showed their appreciation of it and it went down well with everyone too.

Noodles, Broccoli, Sugar Snap Peas, Sweetcorn and Mock Duck amongst other things combine in this delicious dish full of fresh flavours.

Saucy Eggs and Cod

On 22 January 2017 I took a chilly winter walk with an equally chilly dog through three woods that were my regular walking patch when I still lived at home. It was the morning after myself and a group of my friends had locked horns with local brainboxes in a fiendishly challenging quiz at a nearby golf course. We had come third and more than held our own with each different team member bringing something invaluable to the party.

On the player to give some inspiration for Sunday Lunch was Elvis' Aloha From Hawaii, which records a now famous gig by the King from Hawaii that was transmitted internationally via Satellite TV. The idea was well ahead of its time and beat Sky Television to its punches by the best part of two decades. The gig, which happened back January 1973, finds our man still on form and just about in control as he ploughs expertly through an energetic set list.

Carrying on the New Year theme of fighting the winter blues with seafood and green vegetables I made Cod with Eggs, Shallot Butter Sauce and steamed New Potatoes.

After cleaning the New Potatoes I steamed them for half an hour.

I then put one Cod Steak on a greased baking tray and cooked it on Gas Mark 4 for 25 minutes.

While the Cod and potatoes were cooking I made the sauce and the ingredients were as follows:

2 diced Garlic Cloves
1 thinly Sliced Shallott.
3 ounces Margarine.
1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
3 ounces Cress.
1 tablespoon White Wine Vinegar.
Juice of 1 Lemon.

The sauce was easy to make as after I had melted the Margarine in a saucepan I then added the other ingredients and stewed them on a medium heat for 20 minutes stirring them occasionally.

Doing my best to multi task; about twenty minutes prior to the Potatoes and the Cod being ready I brought a pan of water to the boil and added the Yolk and White of three Eggs. I then boiled them in the pan for five minutes stirring them regularly. After that I drained the Eggs by which time the Potatoes, Cod and Sauce were ready.

I laid out the Cod steak and Potatoes on a bed of  lettuce on my dinner plate and then decorated everything with the Sauce.

What I had created was a meal that was delicious, rich yet full of protein that definitely helped keep any winter stress away prior to the start of action-packed week that saw me visit a variety of eclectic locations.

The barely visible Cod Steak rests on fresh Lettuce Leaves and is surrounded by Potatoes and Eggs while being smothered with Sauce.

Winter Vegetables in a blender

In this house cold January days equal lots of one pot recipes and/or homemade soups. They also seem to signal a deep subconscious desire to listen to progressive rock amongst other things.

Today Emerson, Lake and Palmer's ambitious Brain Salad Surgery album was on the playlist, partly because I remember buying it in a January about 7 years ago following an extremely messy night out with entertaining colleagues at an old employer and also because of the very sad deaths, in different ways, of two of the band's three members in 2016, Keith Emerson and Greg Lake.

Not long after the record's release the band headlined the California Jam, a huge event where the acts that preceded them on the bill included giants Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Both heavy rock acts with the guitar firepower to fill stadiums. To modern listeners it may seem bizarre then how a band such as ELP, who's main sound was rooted in Keith Emerson's electronic keyboard virtuosity could have the ability to headline such a huge event. The answer perhaps was that the musical tastes of the early to mid 1970s allowed for this kind of thing to happen and musical history is all the better for it.

So the soup recipe, whereas I'd recently prepared a soup recipe that had the taste of a pureed curry, this recipe was more of a pureed winter casserole.

The ingredients were:

3 Cubed Potatoes
3 Diced Carrots
2 finely sliced Shallots
A tablespoon of Italian Seasoning, largely comprising of dried Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
Half a pint of vegetable stock.

First I fried the vegetables and the seasoning in sunflower oil in the Le Cresceut for 20 minutes with the lid on.

Second I added the stock and stewed the ingredients on a medium heat for an hour with the Le Cresceut lid on.

After that I left the ingredients to cool on one side for about another hour. Then I blended them and returned them to the Le Cresceut dish where I heated the soup through for ten minutes and then served it in a bowl topped with some more Italian Seasoning.

The taste was one that was best described as full-bodied and despite the absence of meat, was very filling and helped cancel out the chilly weather that had intruded into the previous working week.

Herbs afloat, a dusting of Italian Seasoning on top of this soup helped round off the flavour.