To A Haggis

Happy Burns Day!   Today, in Scotland, we celebrate Robert Burns, our national poet by eating, drinking, reciting poetry and generally making merry.   For our Burn's Supper, we eat haggis, after serenading it with it's own special Address...and other verse of such blethering words, only those who are Scottish, drunk or sleeping can understand it...oh, and how we love it!

Here is my daughter, Addressing the Haggis.....

Tonight, we had Haggis Pie with neeps and tatties.

We'll be having a Burns Supper on Friday night with friends.   Cullen Skink, Haggis Neeps and Tatties and Shortbread Pudding will be served alongside a wee dram or five.   I promise to explain what this all means, then.   

Sláinte

Leftover week 10

 Cassoulet Ecosse (Valentine's dinner)....or posh sausage n'beans with a bit of lamb n' haggis!

The freezer is fit to bursting with leftover this and that so this week, the shopping has been severely cut and the leftovers shall be left over no more; we shall eat what is there and come up with some weird and wonderful ways to use up the bits and bobs of fresh food tying up the 'fridgerator shelves.

Saturday's Lemon Drizzle Cheering Up Cake for Susan

We shall purchase a chicken, some fresh vegetables and the basics of eggs, butter, milk and bread.   But that is all.   By the week end, the cupboards should be bare.   The following is a mix of dinners, lunches, breakfasts and snacks and may vary:-

Roast chicken with fresh veg and mashed/roast potatoes

Chicken and rice soup

Pasta with roasted tomatoes, pesto and Parmesan

Spaghetti with garlic, broccolli and chilli

Spicy chicken noodle soup

Tuna mayo salad with baked potato

Camembert cheese and pesto tart with pine nuts

Cassoulet with potato slices

Chicken and chorizo stew

Veg curry and naan

Carrot and lentil soup

Cannellini bean soup

Chicken with gravy and rice

Thai Stir fry

Pancakes

Lemon cake

Cupcakes

Last week's one dish roast chicken dinner!

 

I have a dinner on Friday night with my friends and am looking forward to sharing one recipe with you in particular; butternut squash soup with griddled scallops and girolles.   This has got to be one of the best dishes I've tasted in a long time.  

Butternut Squash soup with girolles, griddled scallops and Parmesan;

the most divine dish on the planet....this week!

I had a trial run with it on our Valentine's meal and it was sooooo delicious.   I had the remainder of the soup without the scallops the next day and it was still divine.   I couldn't recommend a dish more but there is a story behind the scallops.....

Lovely, hand dived scallops were on my shopping list and although they cost a lot of money, I was only buying three (you half each scallop for this dish).   Scallops are indeed expensive but even the best should not cost any more than £1.60 per shell.   Since I'd heard there was a new fish shop in our local area, I headed there first, happy in the knowledge that I'd probably be getting some first rate scallops.   

The scallops on show didn't look particularly wonderful but were fresh enough.  They were, however sitting in water rather than ice; scallops soak up water and since you get charged per weight, it's a fishmonger's trick and of course, when it's time to fry your scallops, you have the water oozing out, toughening up the skin.   I decided to try them anyway, having run out of time.   Since they were rather small, I asked for four; the lovely chap behind the counter bagged them up for me and mumbled an incoherent amount as I handed over a £10 note, distracted by the other items on view.   As he asked me if I wanted a bag, the cost had made impact with my brain and I found myself asking him to repeat how much; £6.76 came the reply.   

£1.69 per wee, water soaked, scrappy scallop?!   I don't think so.   Of course, having been brought up to behave in a way that Miss Manners herself would approve of, I kept all of that to myself and said instead "no thank you, that is way too expensive, could I have my money back please?".   Oddly enough, he didn't look that surprised.

Off to Marks and Sparks to find a packet of cloned, identical offspring for the price of a small mortgage payment so headed off to Tesco instead; their offering was frozen and at £6 for five toti wee scraps, I reluctantly decided against it, at least until Friday, when I could get to the proper fishmongers in Glasgow.   As we were passing Asda however, I popped in as their scallops are usually pretty good; they looked about the same quality as the local fishmongers however the cost was vastly different; £1.20 for four!   Yup.

"Run that past me again...." came my reply.   He smiled: "they're half price just now"...but wait, that would still have only been £2.20 for four.   "Ok, give me eight".   They were delicious.   Looking forward to some hand dived, plump, super fresh ones in their shell from the fishmongers in Glasgow for Friday though.

 Mmmm, we LOVE these breakfast cupcakes, 

sprinkled with sugar before going in the oven to give a crispy, crunchy topping.

It continues to be the coldest winter but the sun has shone that past few days, casting a lovely light over the land.   I've never been even mildly tempted by a holiday in the sun but this year...oh, this year my friends, our holiday must be filled with warmth, sunshine and swimming pools.   I'm hoping upon hope that the cold winter means a warm and pleasant summer and the deckchair can be cobwebbed off and dragged out into the garden, kicking and screaming. 

 This bizarre looking concoction was actually really tasty and was a trial run for Friday's dinner; 

Chicken Pesto Roulade on a bed of mashed potato topped with crispy courgettes and leeks, roasted basil leaves and a white wine mustard sauce.

I promise, the flourless orange cake is to come, the original recipe was torn out of a magazine and I need to find it.   The chicken goujons too!

Thank you so much to those wonderful bloggy friends who have given me awards recently; I'll be posting them up this week.

To a Haggis...

 Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

Our haggis, neeps and tatties burns Supper...with a nip or two of 10 year old Macallan 

Happy Burns Day! 

Robert Burns, or Rabbie, as he's known, is celebrated on this day, his birthday by Scots around the world.   This weekend, we couldn't attend a proper Burns Supper for the first time in ages, so we had a wee one all to ourselves.   I'm glad we didn't wait as today I am poorly although I'm sure it will be shortlived; I'd have had to force that whisky down there...yeah...right....

A wee apology for not visiting blogs recently, my computer isn't working properly and will hardly let me post, let alone browse.   That's why I'm ill today...my body has went into shock!   I shall hopefully resume normal service soon, my lovely bloggy peeps.  Lots of cheap and lovely recipes to follow.... 

Til then, raise a glass.......to Burns!

slàinte!

Happy New Year!

Lang May Yer Lum Reek

The absolutely terrible...but only...picture we took on Hogmanay

We had a very traditional Hogmanay; the day was spent sweeping out the old, i.e. ensuring the house was spotless before the bells...'out with the old, in with the new' and 'start as you mean to go on' the old adages I remember hearing ever since I was but a wee lass.

Steak pie is the meal of choice on this night or the next; we prefer to have it on the 1st as a good start to the year soakin' up the hangover food more like and had a light supper before heading over to our friends Val and Ian's for a party and a late dinner. We brought shortbread as it has became the new year equivalent to 'black bun', the traditional offering...along with whisky or wine of course.

Having settled in really quite comfortably, we reluctantly had to shift ourselves to do a few rounds of houses before settling at another friend's house for the bells and to see in the new year. Every house we went to, kilts were in full flow and it was lovely to see the Englishmen who were visiting also donning the tartan and loving every minute of it.

The host Ken had to go and wait outside just before the bells so that he could 'first foot' ; first footing is the first foot in the house after midnight. To ensure good luck, the first foot should be a tall, dark (and preferably handsome) man. A blonde man meant trouble; in the days of the Vikings, a blond stranger arriving on your doorstep was no good thing! The first foot should bring a lump of coal or shortbread, salt, black bun and whisky or one of these things.

A hearty rendition of Auld Lang Syne was sung and haggis, neeps and tatties were put on for the late night snackers.

The kids were in their element, being allowed to stay up so late but by 12.30 I could see Fraser struggling to stay awake and so we bundled them up to walk home in the freezing weather; the streets were paved with ice and it was treacherous but also quite good fun with people calling out "Happy New Year!" as we passed them.

I had promised the kids anything they wanted for breakfast and when Brian tried to offer them a paltry bowl of cereal this morning, they retaliated; my morning was spent making pancakes with various fillings including chocolate chips, marshmallows, raisins and scooty cream! We always go for a big walk on New Years Day (Ne'er Day) and when our friends called about the trip to Mugdock, we just couldn't bring ourselves to hike in -7 degree weather so for the first time in a long time, we're staying in.

I hope you all have a wonderful new year and I wish you the very best to come.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face...

...Great chieftain o' the Puddin-race! That's right; we had haggis for tea!

Haggis, neeps and tatties