Saturday Scallops

There's something about the second weekend in February that in the past I've found challenging. Sometimes it's been the weekend when the snow arrives and brings with it ice, such as the type that once made me fly up in the air and bang badly the back of my head back in February 2009. On other occasions it's been the unrelenting February rain. Normally it's been a weekend where I've had quiet night in and an early night.

This time round the second weekend in February had some claustrophobic grey cloud and wet snow.

This weekend though had one important difference as I was heading out to see one of the few people who can tempt me out of the confines of my warm house on a mid-February Saturday night like this.

To fortify myself for the forthcoming bus journey and couple of delicious pints I decided to cook some Scallops with Avocado Pear Salsa and a side of Broccoli.

On the player was the second instalment of Frank Zappa's memorable six part "You Can't Do that on Stage Anymore" collection. This two-disc second volume covers an entire concert that he and his band delivered in Helsinki in 1974. It is an enjoyable and typical example of the high quality of Zappa's concerts during this period; as it's interspersed with great melodies, soaring guitar solos, Zappa's unique comic timing, dance-offs involving audience members and great playing.

I filled up the bottom of the steamer with water and then cut up the broccoli into small heads and put it in the steamer to steam for twenty minutes until it was soft but not so overcooked as to lose its flavour.

In the meantime I prepared the salsa. The key ingredient was the avocado pear which, according to the label at the local fruit and vegetable shop, was imported all the way from Israel. I cut the wooden stem off the pear and peeled the skin from it to find the flesh was just like that of a standard Avocado. I separated the flesh from the stone and then cubed it. I also sliced up three Spring Onions to add to the mixture. I took a tablespoon of Dried Coriander and mixed it with the Avocado flesh, Spring Onions and the juice of one Lime to create the Salsa, which I left to one side in a bowl while I dealt with the Scallops.

I defrosted ten ounces of Scallops by putting them in a colander and rinsing them thoroughly in water. Then I took two ounces of Margarine and melted them in a frying pan before adding the Scallops and frying them for eight minutes. I turned them regularly as I fried them and when they were ready I poured them onto a plate with the melted Margarine, Salsa and Broccoli.

The fresh taste of the Broccoli coupled with the rich protein of the Scallops and exotic taste of the Salsa was just what was needed to give me the energy for the trip to the pub. This was definitely a dish laced with superfoods to push away late winter lethargy It was then followed by a lovely trip to the pub with great company- those mid-February weekends are not so tough after all.

Health Food that looks good and tastes even better.

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.

Pizza The Hutt

The sky was a deep blue and in the shade and on the higher ground there was still snow and sheets of ice. It didn't stop me having a long walk in the winter sun; just as the weather hadn't stopped us exploring the beer selection at a newly opened bar in town the evening before.

On my walk I'd bumped into someone I'd not seen since schooldays; and we had a good chat and he mentioned he'd seen my cooking exploits on Facebook. That said I decided to challenge myself in the kitchen that day. As well as the morning's talk being my inspiration I remembered that the dad of a friend of mine has the rare skill of making quality homemade pizzas from scratch, he's told me that one day he'll sell his secret pizza recipe; he should do as they're delicious.

More music from my distant past was on the player; in fact the record I chose was one that I first bought around the time I last saw the bloke I'd seen on my morning walk. It was Dire Straits' multi platinum selling Brothers In Arms; a record that people tend to either wax lyrical about or downright despise. It's perhaps not their very best record but anything that contains hit songs like "So Far Away", "Money for Nothing", "Walk of Life" and the title track amongst others clearly has a lot going for it.

Task number one was to make the topping by lightly frying in Sunflower Oil two diced Shallots and eight ounces of cubed Butternut Squash for 20 minutes. The key in doing this was to make sure the Butternut Squash was softened properly and the Shallots were translucent but not burnt.

I left the Shallots and Squash to one side in the frying pan once they'd cooked and turned my attention to the dough. I mixed 14 ounces of White Bread Flour with 7 fluid ounces of water and 1 teaspoon of Yeast. The technique for getting the consistency of the dough is not the easiest but if you start by mixing the Flour and the Yeast before adding the water gradually you stand a decent chance of ending up with a dough that's sticky but can be shaped using your hands into a circle.

After I'd got the dough into a flat, yet chunky circle I left to rise for half an hour on a south facing window ledge to allow it to rise.

To finish the topping I tiled the dough, until the top was almost fully covered, with slices of Double Gloucester and then I spread the Shallot and Butternut Squash pieces across the top with a liberal scattering of Pine Nuts.

I then cooked it in the oven for 25 minutes on Gas Mark 6. This allowed enough time for the Double Gloucester to melt properly and bind the other elements of the topping together and also to ensure the dough was totally cooked.

The end product was a pizza that contained a topping containing two super foods, pliable dough that was soft and rich and perhaps, as the bloke I'd seen earlier that day pointed out on Social Media, gave a local takeaway a run for its money.

Straight out of the oven complete with melted Cheese and Pine Nuts aplenty.

Taking a slice: even a quarter of the Pizza provided a surprisingly filling meal.

Seasonal Scallops Order

At this time of year, i.e. the interregnum between Christmas and Springtime, it's easy to find things difficult with the short days and chilly weather. Some people call this Seasonal Affective Disorder and others the Winter Blues. Either way the experts say one of the best ways to combat it is to eat lots of green vegetables and seafood.

The Sunday Dinner I had in mind combined both these ingredients with a tasteful sauce thrown in as part of the bargain. Often I find that my weekend dinners consist of binging on Cheese and Crackers after a morning walk with my mouthy Terrier. Sometimes it's good to break the mould though and, as a good friend of mine often says, get out of my comfort zone.

If the recipe was something out of the ordinary for my Sunday Lunch, the choice of music wasn't. Sometimes at this time of year or when I think the chips could be stacked against me, or both, I'll go back to familiar things from my past and so the album on the player was Dire Straits' 1984 double live record "Alchemy" that I purchased one dark and wet February as a fifteen-year old about to survive his GCSEs. It's an album that is still top drawer after all this time and with Mark Knopfler's Guitar sounding like a highly amplified Spanish Guitar throughout proceedings what isn't there to like about it?

Scallops are food that's the province of specialist and generally high end restaurants. I'd first tasted them several years previously at a long defunct country pub and then again a few years later in Glasgow at a specialist seafood restaurant with an exciting companion and a bottle of champagne. In the food budget of a (fairly) young homeowner they can make a little bit of a dent but expensive luxury that they are, one of my New Year's Resolutions has been to save more but spend money on good quality food instead of other more trivial things.

These Scallops had come from the seaside via my freezer and I defrosted them by rinsing them thoroughly in a colander which in turn stopped them from sticking together.

While the Scallops defrosted I laid out four large Lettuce leaves on a dinner plate, having first washed them, the Lettuce came from my local independent fruit and veg shop that generally runs rings round the local supermarkets in terms of price, quality and variety.

Next I lightly fried the Scallops in a small amount of sunflower oil in a frying pan for ten minutes while turning them occasionally to stop them sticking to the bottom of it.

In between turning the Scallops I made a sauce. I did this by melting three ounces of Margarine in a sauce pan and then mixing two ounces of chopped chives, a pinch of Black Pepper, a pinch of Mustard, the zest of one Lemon a tablespoon of White Wine Vinegar and four ounces of Pine Nuts into the Margarine. This created a rich sauce that contained at least one super food.

I warmed the sauce through and then put the Scallops, once cooked, onto the Lettuce and poured the sauce evenly on top of them. As I sat in the conservatory watching the rain close in from the hills I started my lunch. The flavoursome and fresh taste of the Scallops coupled with the, local Lettuce, Pine Nuts and the rest of the sauce made this feel a healthy yet delicious lunch that was a departure from the norm. A sign of things to come perhaps?

Golden Globes: the Scallops taste best when smothered in this sauce.