Raindrops keep fallin' on my head.

It's a rainy day in Scotland; the natural state of things. I cooked most of the day and looked up various hotels and venues for my trip to Canada in a few weeks...I'm really excited at meeting up with my old friends in Toronto, visiting Montreal and walking the Bruce trail, possibly staying at Niagara on the Lake and visiting some wineries. Can you hear that high pitched noise? That's me, screaming in a pitch reserved for cats and dogs, so the kids can't hear how excited I am.

I made Carrot, Honey and Ginger soup for lunch today, alongside pan toasted ciabatta with cheese and chorizo, cheese and ham and just plain ole cheese. I stuck to the soup only, letting the rest of them wire in to the bread, having lost another 2 pounds this week and not wanting to put it back on in one sitting!

Carrot, Honey & Ginger Soup
5oz/150g onion, thinly sliced
3/4 oz/20g root ginger, thinly sliced
3oz/75g unsalted butter (I used much less than this-around 1oz/25g)
1oz/25g honey
21oz/600g carrots, sliced
1.5 pints/1 litre water (I used a mild chicken stock)
One third oz / 8g salt (just added it to taste!)
Fifth oz/5g white pepper (just added it to taste!)
Squeeze lemon juice

Sweat onions and ginger in butter over gentle heat for ten minutes...do not brown so keep and eye on them. Add a droplet or two of water if required.
Stir in the honey and let it melt.
Add carrots and stir. Pour in water or stock.
Add seasoning to taste, bring to boil, cover then simmer for 45 minutes.
Pour into liquidiser and process to a puree.
Check the salt and pepper, add more if required, add lemon juice and serve with a little cream.

This soup is excellent if left to get cold, placed in fridge and reheated.

For dinner, I made pizza & chips; not any old pizza and chips but homemade pizza: the dough, the sauce and I even milked the buffalo myself....ok, I lie but the rest is true. The chips were made with sweet potato, cut into chips, drizzled with a little olive oil, sea salt and thyme and roasted in a medium to high oven for 20-30 minutes, until soft and browned a little on the outside.

Home-made Pizza with fresh Tomato Sauce and sliced Mozzarella
Pizza Dough
250g plain flour, good Italian 00 flour is best but isn't necessary
1 heaped teaspoon easy-blend dried yeast (half 7g sachet)
Half teaspoon salt
150ml warm water with 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil added
1 baking sheet, lightly oiled

Combine flour, yeast and salt and pour in water and oil mix. Form a dough, adding more water if necessary. When it looks bound...it'll still look messy though...plop onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes. Put into an oiled bowl, turning once to oil both sides of the dough, cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place to rise for an hour.

Make the tomato sauce. This is the same as my usual tomato sauce recipe except I use 2x500g cartons passata and I do not add the water/stock or milk. This can then be used as a pizza sauce and for a variety of other uses.


Put oven on to 240 degrees Celsius/gas mark 9.

Make the chips.

When dough has doubled in size, punch all the air out of it and knead for another minute. Press out onto the baking sheet, atop a baking tray or pizza tin; press out until it nearly fits the tin. spoon over some sauce and bake in the oven for approx. fifteen minutes. Check, you don't want it to burn.

Turn oven down to about 220 and add a little more sauce...just a little and fresh mozzarella, sliced. Sprinkle with a little salt and black pepper or any other toppings of choice. Pesto or basil would be lovely with this. Cook until mozzarella has melted and browned a little...approx. 5-10 minutes.Serve with the chips, salad and some cold meats; you have the option of course of putting the meats...salami, chorizo, pepperoni...on top of the pizza before the cheese. Enjoy.


Edited to add: I forgot to say, with this being served for a family of five, the calorie content per person was 372 calories. There is also lots of tomato sauce left over for pasta and bread pizza.

Shopping List 24th July-2nd August 2009

It's been a while since I've had to go shopping but yesterday, after our small adventure exploring the side streets of Bearsden and ice cream at MacDonalds, we headed to Asda. I think I may have to consider changing supermarkets as their stock seems to run low really quickly these days and the fishmonger wouldn't skin lemon sole for me "cos I don't have a skinning knife..."! Lucy turned to me when he was out of earshot and said "I don't think that's true, I just think he couldn't be bothered"...even an 8 year old picked up on that.

With him left holding the lemon sole, I continued my shop, and bumped into Dave and Olwen, my old English teachers, looking tanned and healthy after a walking holiday in France. They looked healthier than I did, despite them having had the journey home just an hour or so before and being 20 years older. Sigh.

Brian is away looking for gold once again so we've played in the garden, read, chased each other and they all helped make the bread. It is a lovely day and I'm considering scooping them up and taking them to Massimos as it would be a nice walk there but the house is brimming with food and everyone seems quite happy and content so we shall see.

I spent £54 exactly and have enough meals for at least 10 days. The menu so far:

Children & Adults:
Garlic & Parsley, Rosemary & Thyme Hearthbreads with cold meats and cheeses.
Seasoned Sausage Ragout with Baby Jersey Royal Potatoes
Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding
Pasta Fest
Ciabbatta toasted with cheeses, tomato and basil
Hearthbread Pizza with homemade tomato sauce and fresh mozarella
Vegetable curry with Chick Peas and Rice
Vegetable soup
Afternoon Tea: Cucumber, Egg and Ham Sandwiches, Scones and Mini Pancakes
French Toast
Lahmacun with green leaves and goats cheese
Lasagna
Children:
Salmon Fishcakes
Lamb Meatballs with Rice
Chicken Noodle soup
Penne Pasta with tomato Sauce and Parmesan and garlic bread
Adults:
Pan-fried Salmon with Tomato and Rocket Pesto Salad and crispy courgettes
Lamb Burgers served in a wholemeal bun with sweet potato fries
Carrot, honey & ginger soup
Spaghetti with Pesto, Goats Cheese & Pine Nuts with leftover Hearthbread
Cakes:
Scones
Scotch Pancakes
Bread & Butter Pudding
Danish Pastries inc. Almond
Fresh Gingerbread with lemon icing
Breakfasts:
Pastries, Fruit Loaf, Toast, Pancakes, Cereal, Porridge and Eggs.

I made the hearthbreads this afternoon and we had them with chorizo, salami, parma ham, thin slices of Parmesan, tomatoes with seal salt and basil, olives and olive oil for dipping. We will have some of the remainder tonight with ham, turkey and green salad.
Garlic & Parsley, Rosemary & Thyme Hearthbreads
This recipe is inspired by Nigella Lawson's Hearthbread recipe
Makes 2 baking sheet sized breads. You will roast your garlic before cooking any bread so set the oven to 190 degrees celsius/gas mark 5.

500g strong white flour (I used strong white bread flour)

1 sachet instant yeast (7g) or 15g fresh yeast

1 tbsp salt

300ml warm water

5 tbsp olive oil plus extra for the parsley mix and drizzling

1 head fresh garlic, top sliced, drizzled with oil, roasted in the oven in sealed foil for 45 minutes

Bunch of flat leaf parsley, most stalks removed (don't worry about this too much)

A small handful of chopped, fresh rosemary and thyme (dried would work though)

Maldon sea salt or other salt for sprinkling

2 small baking trays and parchment paper, lightly oiled

Method

Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl and mix together in a jug the warm water and 5 tbsp olive oil. Stir wet mixture into the dry one and combine the two...use more water if you need but this should be plenty. Place dough onto a lightly floured working surface. Knead for around 10-15 minutes or until dough is supple, elastic and smooth. Knead using the balls of your hands, just below the thumb and push the dough away from you and then wrap it all up again, occasionally turning over the dough and adding a sprinkling of flour if required.

Clean your large bowl or, like me, use a different bowl and lightly oil it with olive oil. Place the bread inside and then turn over so that all the dough has some oil on it. Cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for around 1 hour until is has double in size. I placed mine inside the plate cupboard.

This is the point I roasted the garlic but you could do it beforehand. You want it to cool down and then you add it to the parsley which you have chopped in the food processor and blend. I add a little sea salt at this point. As it is slowly blending, add some olive oil, not too much. You don't want it too runny but more of a pesto consistency. Set aside. Put the oven up to 200 degrees celsius.

After your bread has risen, punch down dough and leave it for 10 minutes, then, divide into two. Place each dough onto the parchment paper and pull out with your fingers, pressing it into a rectangle or oval shape. Place dough, still sitting on parchment paper, onto baking tray. Cover with tea towels and leave for a further 25 minutes.

With your fingertips, poke all over the bread to dimple it, pushing it out a bit more in the process. Sprinkle the breads with a little sea salt and pour the garlic and parsley mixture over one of the breads and a liberal sprinkling of olive oil and the rosemary and thyme over the other.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until the top is golden; if you tap it, it should sound hollow. Once they came out of the oven, I laid little slivers of butter on the rosemary bread and a good drizzle of olive oil on the parsley bread.

I served, the kids ripped it apart and we really, thoroughly enjoyed it. Never getting enough olive oil, I had a little drop in a bowl to dip the bread into. Delicious. Really delicious.

Food for thought.

I realised immediately that my resolve for not drinking too much would be put to the test by who turned up and how good the band were. I'm not for a minute attributing blame for my gin habit to those friends who buy double measures (you know who you are) but it can and does add to the quantity consumed; add a good band with excellent covers and you never know what could happen.

As it turned out, the band were good, including a particularly well versed Pink Floyd rendition (although the Frankie Goes to Hollywood cover kind of threw me off track, despite taking me right back to my youth) and a Kasabian number. The people were not the kind to force feed anyone and in fact, in that particular crowd, I'm probably the imbiber. This was no bacchanal evening however and a few gin and tonics with a glass of wine thrown in met our needs.

I was unsure beforehand of course and took the precaution of having scooby snacks ready in the fridge, lots of bottled water and a low fat, tasty dinner just an hour before going out. Cannae take that hangover, girls.

I opted for a undyed smoked haddock fillet and having quantities left of pesto sans pine nuts, I decided to try it with the fish. Pesto goes amazingly well with lemon sole and that is in fact one of my favourite dishes: lemon sole with pesto, crispy courgettes, spinach and sauce verde. More on that later! I placed the fish on foil, smothered it with the pesto and squeezed a little lemon juice atop alongside a few thin slices.

I packaged up the foil and placed it onto a tin, ready for the oven. I then chopped up a selection of tomatoes, spring onions and red pepper, mixed it all with a little pesto, added some fresh thyme, salt and pepper and placed in the tin alongside the wrapped fish.

The fish and salad veg was placed into a hot oven, bottom shelf as the chicken was cooking for the kids and Brian on the top shelf, for 10 minutes. I served it on a bed of mixed leaves including watercress and spinach as well as some rice and green beans.

T'was yummy!

The kids and Brian had roasted lemon and thyme chicken, roasted pearl potatoes, thrown into the chicken 30 minutes before the end. Once the chicken was cooked, it was plated and wrapped in foil to rest. The heat was turned up on the oven and the potatoes put back in-they start to caremalise at this stage because of the lemon juice and chicken gravy still inside the dish. That was served with rice and green beans.So, today, I awoke with only a very mild sore head, thanks to the water, toast and butter and sleep I had last night. It was all go today with parties, walking and the likes so the traditional rolls and bacon were consumed with some frozen yoghurt and berries as an afternoon snack. I felt in the need for some stodge but needed to get it from somewhere other than the chippy! So I made my own version of fried fish and chips....calamari. The recipe for this is as follows and it really was perfect, not too high in fat and I'm full and happy.

Salt and Pepper Calamari with Mixed Rice
A handful of calamari, washed and dried. Calamari is incredibly cheap, the amount I used costing around 70 pence.
Sesame oil
Flour
salt and pepper
Chilli flakes
Vegetable oil for frying
Cooked Rice (I used yesterday's leftovers)
Chopped peppers, cucumber and spring onion and whatever else takes your fancy.
Green Beans

Drizzle over the calamari a small amount of sesame oil, salt and pepper, and mix. Roll in the following mixture: two tablespoons flour, lots of freshly ground black pepper, a good pinch of sea salt, chilli flakes to taste.

Pour oil in pan to cover bottom. Get really hot and add the calamari in batches...don't crowd the pan. The secret to tender, tasty calamari is to treat it like meat: you either cook it very quickly over a high heat or stew it slowly for a long time over a low heat. Cook quickly until the outside turns brown and then turn over. This should only take a few minutes. Place on kitchen towel to dry.

Mix chopped veg into the rice, sprinkle over some soy sauce and place the calamari on top. Eat with chopsticks and enjoy. Hangover, begone!

Olives

You either love them or hate them. If you love them then the best are from Somerfield's Extra Special Range, in particular the large green olives with garlic. To make your own cheaper, extra special kind, buy a large pack of Asda's small green olives, usually Spanish. Drain them and put into a dish with a tablespoon of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice and possibly a little bit of rind, sea salt to taste, lots of freshly ground black pepper, some leftover thyme (basil works well too) and a good, fine grating of Parmesan cheese. I have a jar of seasoned garlic cloves which I add and occasionally some feta if I have any left over but these are extras. Mix well, cover and leave for at least 12 hours. Delicious and a fraction of the cost.

Pasta!

I have occasionally bought cold pasta from the supermarket which tastes like feet and doesn't last long so I decided to come up with my own. I wanted a dish that was lovely whilst hot but just as good cold. This is the best so far.

250g Penne Pasta
1 roll soft goats cheese (packet from Asda)
Rind and juice of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons of olive oil
4 tablespoons (or more) of grated parmesan
2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves removed to use, stalks discarded

Cook the penne as per instructions. Drain and add all of the above ingredients; use only half of the goats cheese though, chopped up. Mix all the ingredients through and then crumble over the remaining goats cheese, some extra parmesan and a grinding of salt and pepper.