a weekend's cooking

It feels as though I spent most of the weekend in the kitchen – I fancied doing some cooking, and here’s the results:

banana and choc chip cakes2 x banana and chocolate chip cakes (basic recipe here – just scatter in lots of good quality choc chips).  This recipe is so ridiculously easy, and we nearly always have bananas going over from the veg box.  It freezes like a dream too.  This time I tried it in the food processor – just lobbed everything in except the choc chips.  Works fine, so no more mashing of bananas, etc.

One Christmas cake, made pretty much to this Nigel Slater recipe; we’re not overly fond of a heavy cake, so I bought 1 kg of dried fruits – pears, apricots, prunes, raisins – from Julian Graves for about four quid, chopped it up, and soaked it in Armagnac for a couple of hours.  There was also a small but worrying cake tin crisis; I have 18cm and 23cm pans … well, I have a 20cm somewhere, but can I find it?  After a bit of worriting, I did it in the smaller tin and cooked it for 15 minutes more.  It’ll be wrapped in foil today, and more brandy will be drizzled into it until it can hold no more.  And if we can resist starting it before the festering season, it’ll be a miracle.

ingredients for thai veg curryThai veg curry (basic recipe here) made from half a cauliflower, half a butternut squash, a pack of green beans, a big red onion, a red and a yellow pepper.  This made six proper meals’ worth, plus some left over which we had for lunch yesterday, with couscous.
Made a loaf of barley bread – never used barley flour before, and it was a lovely loaf, with an excellent texture.  Had half for lunch with soup on Saturday, and the other half toasted for Sunday breakfast.

Boiled up the remainder of the chicken to make soup stock, then Pete manfully stripped the boiled bones (a job I hate).  Enough chicken came from that to make a risotto for tonight’s supper.

Made a chicken pie filling – fried two rashers of bacon, chopped up, and a sliced leek in some olive oil.  Added flour to make a roux, then milk to make a white sauce, then the last of the roasted chicken.  This has gone in the freezer, because I can’t quite see when we’re going to eat it with the stuff that needs doing.

Made Saturday night’s supper – beautiful pork and apple sausages, with caramalised onion gravy and mashed potatoes.

moussakaMade Sunday night’s support – moussaka; although I will confess that the filling came out of the freezer.

butternut squash and auberginesHad half a small butternut squash and a third of an aubergine left, so chopped them up with a red onion, tossed them in olive oil and some (ready mixed!) Moroccan spices, and roasted them.  We’ll have them for lunch today, with some chickpeas.

And that was it, really …