According to my fellow blogger, agrodolce is Italian for sweet and sour. Seeing as she is a multi-linguist and I am barely a mono-, who am I to question?
Main Course
Carp
If like me two weeks ago, you have never tasted carp and you think it would be interesting to give it a go, my advice to you is please don’t bother. There is a reason why carp is and anagram of crap.
Butternut Squash, Spinach & Mushroom Lasagne
My sister gave us a pair of homegrown, slightly hen-pecked squashes this weekend. Whether the culprit was Dolores, Fifi, Jolene or Daphne, we’ll never know. Roj Blake models the ‘Item du jour’ in rebel chic. A bat-winged action-jerkin with ruched cuffs, peek-a-boo neckline and casual below-paunch cummerbund. Generously tailored in easy-care non-shrink chantilly, this garment offers multi-season comfort both in …
Anchovy Breadcrumb Spaghetti
Anchovies. Along with avocados, tomatoes, asparagus, olives, prawns, marmite, facon, cheese, oranges, garlic, toast, squid, potato salad, humous, peanut butter, roasted peppers, gherkins, cashews, mustard, pasta, eggs, butter beans, smoked salmon and beer, anchovies are my favourite food.
January King Cabbage with Ricotta Toasts
‘Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms. In the most convenient definitions. …
Seafood Tagliatelle
If you’re lucky enough to live by the sea or a Waitrose, then use fresh seafood for this recipe. If you live anywhere else on this island, you’ll have to use frozen.
Celeriac & Chestnut Soup
This one goes out to VJ ‘Mr Prudence‘ – anarchist, transphormetic blogger, psychic geographer, algorithmic obsessive and occasional ActionScript guru. The other day he confessed he was in possession of a celeriac and asked what he could possibly do with it. I’m afraid my advice was a dismissive “either mash it or chuck it in the bin” A melancholic celeriac …
Chickpea & Aubergine Casserole with Preserved Lemons
I preserved some lemons in brine a few months ago, but to be honest they started to scare me as they lay suspended in their jar like some jaundiced medical exhibit. So what to do with them? Well you could do a lot worse than making this simple but admittedly time-consuming casserole.
Spicy Lentil Soup
Now there’s a thing. If you go to lentil.com you just get a crappy illustration of ‘Lenny the Lentil’ and an email link, lentil.co.uk doesn’t seem to have been registered, and lentil.org is the blog site of a senior network engineer called Robert Lister. I mention this only because I can’t think of an introduction to this recipe.
Herby Potato Gratin
Last week a report by the ‘World Cancer Research Fund’ found that among other things, bacon gives you cancer. The media gave this saturation coverage. At around the same time the German-based ‘Energy Watch Group’ concluded that global oil production peaked back in 2006. This barely got a mention.
Butternut Squash ravioli with Sage Butter
The butternut squash is the king of all the squashes, and right now it is squash season. So if you are feeling adventurous, have an afternoon to spare, and want to try something tasty then give this recipe a go.
Smoked Haddock Chowder
Flippin’ eck Tucker, one of the shops on the High Street is selling seven corn-on-the -cob for a pound and that is a bloomin’ bargain. Of course, sweetcorn is delicious eaten just as it comes, boiled or barbecued and simply accompanied with a knob of slowly melting butter, however tonight we decided upon this smoked haddock chowder.
‘Falafel’ Burger
If you like falafel and you like burgers, you’ll love this ‘falafel’ burger. Although perhaps as it is technically neither a falafel nor a burger it should be written ‘Falafel’ ‘Burger’ or perhaps ‘Falafel’ (Burger) or even “{‘Falafel’ [‘Burger’]}!”.
Spinach and Mushroom Fusilli
It’s nice to have a hobby, and one of ours is drinking strong Belgian beer. The Dovetail in Clerkenwell is a superb bar which claims to stock 101 different beers and who are we to question them. This is where we found ourselves last Friday evening for the traditional post-work, weekend-welcoming lager binge.
Hot Stuffed Avocado
It has to be said that the avocado is one of my favourite vegetables (sorry fruit), so much so that whenever asked to supply a username for a website, I invariably type in RicardoAvocado. However, I had never cooked one having always assumed that it would turn instantly to an oily green liquid as appetising as canal water. Poor Louie …
Carrot Soup with Ginger & Honey
Being the middle-class ponces we are, it is only natural that we should take delivery of an Abel & Cole organic vegetable box once a week. Carrots have featured fairly heavily of late and as a result we have developed quite a backlog of the things.
Fish @ Whitstable
Giddy with excitement from rumours that there might be a glimpse of sunshine in the east, we drove down to the North Kent coast for a spot of camping. Cursory research led us to ‘Seaview Holiday Park’ in a small town called Swalecliffe midway between Whitstable and Herne Bay.