Christmas 2008

It's been a while since I added to this blog, and our festive Christmas meal of yesterday seems a good way to start it up again.

We did the 7 course meal that has become traditional since moving to The Netherlands. As there are only two of us, we need something extraordinary to feel festive.



Two amuses to begin: an avocado tartare and a carrot cream brulee. The tartare is very simple, and the secret is in the dressing. The full recipe calls for 1/2 cup of muscat vinegar, 3 tablespoons maple syrup, the zest of two limes and the juice of one lime. You reduce this until it becomes syrupy. I wasn't concerned about the maple syrup, as the amount you use per spoon is so small, it hardly matters. I didn't have any limes so I left out the zest and used juice from a tired lemon.

The carrot cream brulee called for juice from 4 oranges, reduced down, and a small amount of sugar. Once again, the amount per serving is so small I don't think it's worth fussing over.



The soup was a three onion soup, using red onion, white onions and a green onion. Meh, don't bother, it tastes just like normal onion soup. What was interesting was the parmesan crisp instead of the bread and cheese you would expect. They're easy to do, just make little circles of parmesan cheese on a nonstick baking sheet and bake at 180 centigrade until they just start to brown. I would say it takes about 10-12 minutes, I simply watch them like a hawk.



This was a salad of artichoke bottoms (fresh, but you could use canned, green beans and tomato petals. I was supposed to roast the tomato petals but these are fresh: I used centigrade instead fahrenheit when trying to roast them and ended up with tomato crisps. The dressing is the tomato flavoured oil from the tomato crisps and red wine vinegar.



My cop-out: giant garlic and parsley shrimp from the Albert Hein Festive Season selection. I did have to pan-fry them, though.



The main course was venison, a very Dutch choice. In this case, fillet of wild boar, which I just pan fried and serve with steamed broccoli and chocolate sauce. The chocolate sauce was from our Cooking Club Christmas dinner. The recipe (for 15 people) asks you to soften 500 grams of shallots and 4 cloves of garlic in 30 grams of butter, with 4 sprigs of thyme, 2 teaspoons of peppercorns and 2 bay leaves. Deglaze with 4 tablespoons of raspberry vinegar, then add a bottle of red wine and reduce down to 200 ml. Add 2 litres of veal stock and reduce down to 120 ml, then strain and season to taste. Just before serving, heat the sauce then add 80 grams of grated extra-dark chocolate. You can't reheat it after adding the chocolate, so either make it for a lot of people, or measure out small quantities of the reduced mixture and adjust the amount of chocolate you add.



These are goat cheese rounds wrapped in bacon that I bought from the organic market. I baked them for about 15 minutes then let them cool to lukewarm. They are served with a port wine reduction: reduce the port down to about a third of the original volume and chill. It's actually wonderful with all soft cheeses, and you need just a little.



This dessert looks spectacular and actually tastes pretty wonderful too. Per person you need a half apple, baked. You can remove the skin after baking. I used some pistachios and dried cranberries in the centre for a festive flair, but you can leave them out and obviously for everyday low-carb eating, the cranberries should certainly vanish! Cover the apple completely with Greek or Turkish yogurt, the 10% fat version. Then scatter grated coconut over it. I used fresh coconut, which I grated myself, but you can use store bought if you can find unsweetened.

Today, it's leftovers!

Trio of Leftovers

Last night I forgot to take a photo of the stunning stuffed portobello mushroom.
However, I have recreated some elements in miniature in this little trio of leftovers we had for lunch.

In the glass is leftover Chicken Avgolemono soup.

Top right is chunks of shrimp mixed with a herbed cream cheese and mayonnaise mix, on top of a slice of avocado. The original dish was portobello mushrooms with the stem removed, seasoned with salt and pepper, and then baked stem side up (well, where the stem used to be) in a 200 degree oven for 10 minutes. Then the mushrooms were flipped over and baked another 5 minutes. Leave the oven on while you fill the mushrooms.

Into the stem side went enough chunks of cook shrimp to fill it generously. This was covered with a sauce made of equal parts of mayonnaise and herbed Boursin (allow about one tablespoon per person), lemon juice (about half a teaspoon per person), and about a heaped teaspoon of parmesan per person. Mix well. The original recipe included some frozen spinach, but I didn't have any so I left it out. On top of the sauce sprinkle some parmesan as well, then pop the whole lot into the oven for about 5 or 10 minutes till the topping is warmed through. It was delicious!

Bottom right is a leftover portobello mushroom sliced in half lengthways (I had to make one mushroom serve two people so that's how I did it.) I baked it as above. Onto each half I put two thin slices of Brie, put some leftover chicken breast on top of that, and covered it with some leftover grated cheese I found in the fridge. Probably Gruyere.

Now if I hadn't told you they were leftovers, you would never have guessed, right?

Chicken Avgolemono Soup

This is a variation on the soup we had at Cooking club on Monday. Well, considering that Monday's soup was made with chicken wings and a special stock, plus basmati rice plus cornflour, I guess it's more based on that soup than a variation.

First I used chicken stock I had ready-made in the fridge. Every time I roast a chicken, and we've been having a lot of those lately, I throw the bones into a slow cooker with whatever vegetable ends I have, like carrot tops and bits of onion, and simmer it overnight. Then I strain out all the bits and reduce the stock to about 1/3 of the original volume. Then I cool it before pouring it into ice cubes and freezing it. In this particular case I had about two cups of jellied stock int the fridge that I hadn't yet made cubes with.

I had a couple of roast chicken carcasses, so I picked all the good meat off those. I would guess it came to slightly over a cup. More would probably have been better. I chopped that finely, added it to the stock and heated it up to boiling point.

Then I squeezed out half a lemon, added that to an egg yolk, and beat the two until foamy. I think 2 egg yolks would have been better, given that I didn't use rice or cornflour as an added thickener. I took some of the hot chicken with stock, about half a cup, and added it to the egg mixture. I did that twice more before pouring all the egg mixture back into the stock. I stirred and stirred while it reheated over gentle heat and thickened, avoiding boiling. And then I served it up with some flat-leaf parsley for garnish.

That's one way of doing it. You could make it from scratch by using a whole chicken leg, thigh and drumstick, with a medium carrot, small leek, small celery stick, 2 or 3 parsley stems, a small onion, a bay leaf, a couple of crushed peppercorns and about a teaspoon of salt. Cover that generously with water, bring it to the boil, then let it simmer for around an hour and a half to absorb all the flavour. Strain and measure the amount of stock you have. Reduce to about three cups, or add water to make it up to three. Remove the chicken from the bones, discarding the skin, chop it finely and add it to the strained stock. Reheat, then do the bit with the 1/2 lemon and 2 egg yolks.

The lemon gives it a nice freshness of flavour.

Pineapple carpaccio

It may be worth embarking on this diet just to eat this dessert. Understand that I don't really like pineapple, and you'll get just a glimmer of how fabulous it was.

You want to start with a nice ripe pineapple. The way to choose pineapple is to sniff the base. Once it starts smelling like pineapple, it is ripe, and the more pineappley, the riper.

Cut the top and base off, and then take off the peel as evenly as you can. Slice the pineapple as thinly as possible, about 1 to 2 millimetres. If you have a mandolin or electric slicer, that is ideal, otherwise just do your best with a really sharp knife and try not to cut your fingers off in the process.

Spread the slices out on a plate.

Now make the dressing. You need one part Kirsch to two parts fruit flavoured oil. I used Clementine. Lemon is more readily available and I think it will work. If you try it before I do, please post a comment and let me know.

Drizzle the dressing over the pineapple and leave it for at least half an hour to soak in. Just before serving, decorate with thick cream or yoghurt, and red berries.

Fennel cream soup

The weather is still glorious, so iced soup for lunch is an option.
This one is easy.

Take yesterday's leftover fennel salad and blend it with equal volumes of yesterday's poaching liquid. Stir in some whipping cream, chill well and serve in glasses for eye appeal.

If you want to make it from scratch, because you don't have any leftover fennel salad from yesterday, here's what to do. Allow about one smallish fennel bulb per person.
Take a slice off the base of the bulb, cut the bulbs in half and cut out the hard centre core. Leave the top green bits on. Poach the bulbs in water to cover, with about half a cup of white wine as well as a teaspoon or so of salt. It takes about 15-20 minutes for the bulbs to become tender. Let them cool a little so you don't burn yourself blending them.

Put the bulbs in a blender with an equal volume of the poaching water. This doesn't have to be exact. Add 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar and 2 teaspoons of olive oil per bulb, and about a teaspoon of parmesan cheese. Blend until smooth, stir in some whipping cream, a tablespoon or two per bulb, and chill.

You could serve this hot as well, in which case you would stir in the cream just before serving.

Steak kebabs with fennel salad

It's been gloriously sunny for a week, and not much incentive to stay inside and cook. That's why I used steak for these kebabs, it cooks very quickly. Adding vegetables means you can serve more people with less steak, which is also a win.

I used mushrooms, courgettes and red pepper because that's what I had in the house. It looked pretty, anyway.

You need three kebab sticks per person, and you should soak these in a bit of oil and vinegar for about ten minutes. That helps prevent them from burning when you cook, but only if you cook quite soon after assembly.

While they soak, cut your steak into cubes of about an inch, and then cut the other vegetables to match. Put everything into a bowl and toss with some olive oil and spice mix. Use any spice mix you like, I used a sun-dried tomato mix.

Thread it onto the skewers, then cook in a grill pan till done, about 5 minutes for a mediumish steak. Turn the kebabs several times so they cook evenly.

The fennel salad needs more forethought, so you should actually do that first. Cut the tops off the fennel and set them aside. Cut a thin slice off the base as well. Those you can discard or throw into your stockpot. Cut the bulbs in half and remove the hard middle bit, then slice into manageable wedges.

Poach these wedges in water to cover, with salt and about half a cup of white wine added. They will be tender in 15 to 20 minutes. Lift them out of the water, drain them and arrange them on a plate. Make a vinaigrette with one part white wine vinegar to three parts oil and drizzle this over the fennel. Now chop up the green leaves from the tops and scatter that over the fennel with a tablespoon or two of parmesan.

Don't throw the poaching water away. It makes a nice soup base.

Veal with asparagus and red pepper dressing

The dressing for this dish was awesome and I can't remember exactly how I made it.
I will buy some more red peppers and try it again to get the quantities exact and put that in the comments.

The main part of the dish is very easy. Per person you need one veal schnitzel, 2 spears of asparagus (use white or green, whichever you prefer) and 2 spring onions.

Start by preparing the asparagus. Bend the spears lightly so they break naturally. The bottom half is the woody part and you can discard that or add it to a stockpot.
Trim the top parts neatly. If you're using white asparagus, peel the outer skin off with an apple peeler if you're not handy with a knife. Then steam them until just done, which is not more than 10 to 15 minutes at most. You want them still a bit crisp, not soggy.

While they steam, pound the schnitzels as flat as you can with a meat pounder or the back of a heavy knife. Trim the edges so you have a piece as rectangular as possible, then cut them in half. You want two short pieces, not two long pieces. Trim your spring onions to about the same size as the asparagus spears.

Season the schnitzels lightly with salt and pepper. Then place an asparagus spear and a spring onion across each half, and roll the schnitzel around them. Fasten with a toothpick or two.

Heat some cooking oil in a pan that's big enough to hold the little parcels. I use cooking grade/non-virgin olive oil or coconut oil usually. Put the parcels in toothpick side down to seal them, and pan-fry them for about 5 to 7 minutes, turning regularly so that they brown evenly.

You need a stick blender for the dressing, which is one part wine vinegar, three parts extra-virgin olive oil and and unknown quantity of deep red pepper.

Lamb with peanuts

After a breakfast of fruit and yoghurt, and emergency food when we got back from the concert (grilled vegetables with feta) we needed something a little hearty for supper.

It came in the form of a lamb stew with peanuts, which falls into the life is wonderful category. The recipe came from epicurious: as I didn't have any jabaneros I used my canned chilis in adobo sauce instead. And I didn't remove them.

Vegetable platter with goat cheese

For lunch we had leftovers from our evening meal in Antwerp: blanquette de veau, beef carbonnade and I cooked up some green beans to go with it. It was a heavy meal, and filling, and we could probably have skipped dinner quite happily.

We didn't. But we kept it light. A vegetable platter with tomato vinegar butter and baked goat cheese.

The goat's cheese is easy: buy the ready sliced rounds, put them on a baking tray and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes till they start browning. At the same time I put in a platter of cherry tomatoes drizzled with oil.

While they baked, I steamed some vegetables of choice: in this case, asparagus and courgettes.

While they steamed, I melted three tablespoons butter in a small pan, and when that was a nutty brown colour, stirred in a tablespoon of tomato vinegar. You could use a champagne or herb vinegar too, or even plain lemon juice. I also fried a couple of mushrooms.

All the vegetables went onto a plate with the cheese, and then I drizzled the butter over them. Delicious!

Shuwarma ex pita

Normally you would expect a shuwarma to be served in pita bread. In fact, one day I must try this cheat in a thick slice of split aubergine. Not today, though. Here, I simply grilled some slices of aubergine sliced lengthwise. These can soak up vast quantities of oil, so I use a mixture of oil and water very successfully.

On top of that you place your fried shuwarma strips, and decorate with chopped lettuce, onion, tomato, sour cream and grated cheese.

Or whatever you takes your fancy.

Rack of lamb with Marsala Sauce

This is leftovers from Cooking Club. Rack of lamb is easy enough: heat the oven to 160C. While it heats, sprinkle the lamb with salt and black pepper, then brown in a hot pan with oil. Stick it on a baking tray lined with foil (saves cleaning!) and cook for 15-20 minutes depending how pink you like your meat. Take it out and let stand for 5 minutes before cutting into chops for serving.

The sauce was more complex and you need to start it long in advance. Finely chop about three cloves of garlic and soften them in a little oil. Then add 1 cup of marsala and 1 cup of stock. We used canned lamb stock, but you could as easily use chicken. Just strain out any bits of meat that may be in it before using. Stir in 1 tablespoon of tomato puree and about two tablespoons of red wine.Bring it to the boil, and then turn it onto simmer and reduce it down to about 1/3 to 1/4 of the original volume. Beat in a knob of butter and stir in some flat-leaf parsley and your sauce is ready!

I served this with the leftover green peas, double-shelled broad beans and peeled cherry tomatoes. Yes I know the peas and beans aren't on the food list, but that's what we had so that's what I ate. This would be nice with fresh asparagus, tomato and green beans or sugar snaps, which is what I will recommend for you!

Crustless Broccoli, Bacon and Goat Cheese Quiche

This was reasonably quick and easy, which I needed after spending longer at Scrabble than I intended. Plus I hadn't eaten much during the day, just some nuts and cheese. So I needed something robust for supper.

This was made with 125 gram bacon strips, which I fried until crisp; about 1 cup of broccoli flowerets, which I steamed in the microwave, and about 60 grams of soft goat's cheese, the kind that comes in a little roll. You can get these cooked while you heat the oven to 180C.

Sprinkle the bacon and broccoli over the base of an ovenproof dish, and spread the goat cheese across the top. I cut the piece into think slices, so they were little round.

Then beat 2 eggs with 300 ml of milk or milk and cream (I added cream, pour it over the bacon, broccoli and cheese, and pop it in the oven for about 20 minutes till it's golden brown. You don't really need to add salt to the quiche custard because the bacon is salty enough.

This served two of us.

Duck with apple and sauerkraut

Multiple courses this evening!I was feeling celebratory as I have a lovely new 22inch wide screen monitor which makes the food photos look fabulous.

Let's begin with the soup. It was sublime! Carrots are not my favourite vegetable, but we've been having a lot of them in the weekly vegetable bag. I took three medium ones, and half a bunch of celery, and sliced that all up. Then I put them in a pot over gentle heat to let them soften a bit while I peel about an inch of fresh ginger and chopped it quite finely. I added it to the vegetables with about 750 ml of chicken stock. You could easily use water; I just happened to have stock in the fridge. Bring that to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer till the vegetables are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste, then purée it till smooth. Add about half a cup of cream, then reheat very gently. I served it in a glass, and floated a little cream on top, sprinkled with ground ginger. This I will make for Gordon Ramsay should he ever come to dinner. Any famous chef, I don't care.



This orange and goat's cheese salad is finicky more than anything else, because you need to prepare the orange carefully. I used one orange for two people, but you can use as many as you like. You need to peel them, and then separate the flesh from the membranes. Do this over a bowl so you can catch the juice. Check out how much juice you have, and add about half as much lemon juice to it, then twice as much oil. Blend till smooth. Toss the oranges in some of the dressing, and drizzle the rest over the plate and the goat's cheese.



Duck breast is always quick and easy, so it made up for the care that went into the oranges. I use one duck breast for two people because I find it so rich. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper, then put it in a pan over low heat, skin side down and just leave the fat to sizzle out. After about ten minutes you can turn the duck breast over and cook the meaty side in the fat, also slowly. While you're doing this, you can chop some apple and mix it with sauerkraut, and heat that. I used half an apple to about a cup of sauerkraut. The other half I cut into thin slices.

When the duck stops looking red on the outside, after another 7-10 minutes, take it out of the fat and let it rest. While it does that, fry the apple slices in the duck fat, also over low heat.

Slice the duck, and serve it on the sauerkraut topped with the apple.

Don't season the sauerkraut at all: I did this and it was too salty. Otherwise, the combination was nice and a different take on duck.

Roast chicken with herb butter

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take a photo before eating. Probably because the cooking did not go smoothly.

It started off when I saw recipe for Roast chicken with sorrel butter in one of my books. What caught my eye is that the chef roasted the chicken without legs. Now, I just happened to have a legless chicken in the fridge, as I had removed the legs and smoked them.

I have no sorrel, but I thought sage and rosemary could be nice, so I made the butter and tucked it under the skin as instructed. The recipe said it should be ready in 25 minutes.

I took it out after 25 minutes, looked at it, and put it back for another 5 to brown some. It didn't brown all that much, but I left it to stand for 5 minutes and steam-fried some cabbage. When the standing time was up, I cut the chicken and it was still just too pink inside.

So I put it back in the oven for another ten minutes, and gave it some microwave help at 180 watts as well.

After letting it stand again, it was still slightly pink. I cut a thin slice off the top, that was white, and we ate that. The cat got some pink stuff.

It would seem even a legless chicken needs a full cooking time. But the herb butter was nice.

Bangers!

These pork bangers are not from the expat shop. I made them myself, with my own two hands. I used this recipe and may I say it was a good one! Yes, there are breadcrumbs in it, but spread across all that meat I doubt it matters much. I made a half recipe, and used about half a cup of breadcrumbs instead of three quarters. Also, next time I may reduce the salt in the seasoning slightly; I found the sausages marginally salty. Luckily, the cabbage was very plain.

The meat I chopped in my food processor. The butcher at In de Bogaard gave me some sausage casing when I went in to find out where to buy some; I filled the casing using a pastry bag and my widest nozzle.

I only made four, because the pastry bag was hard work. Time to look into an electric sausage machine I think, because I could do this more often. There are a whole lot of recipes on that site!

Steak and mushrooms

Paul had the day off, and what a lovely sunny day it was too! Cold meats and salads, then - let's pretend it's summer.

The carrot salad was the same easy one I've become addicted to: the dressing is one part passion fruit vinegar to three parts oil. That's it. The other dressing was leftover from the Cooking club Partner's Evening, as was the cold lamb. Otherwise it's all pretty straightforward.



We needed a quick supper, as Paul had to do a telephone survey and get to choir practice time. Grilled steak - what better or quicker? Cream does not go well with singing, so I did plain fried mushrooms. Normally I like sour cream in there, in the stroganov style. Plain, steam-fried beans.

Sole with Lemon Butter

Sole is one of my favourite fishes. We used to get quite nice frozen baby soles in South Africa, so when I saw frozen sole here I bought some and stuck it in the freezer for one of those days.

Well, today was one of those days, so I whipped out two soles. Unfortunately it seems that these soles should have defrosted in the fridge first - and not be cooked from frozen as is usually the case. Tough. I pan fried it from frozen in butter, then used the same pan to make lemon butter sauce. This is easy, just melt some butter (however much looks good to you, a couple of tablespoons is more than enough for two people) and let it get slightly brown, then stir in some lemon juice (how lemony do you like it? I never measure the lemon, I just add it until it smells right, but you could taste it I guess.)

I served the sole with lettuce, tomato and carrot salad.

It was a little tasteless, much like the sole I had in England. Whether this is because it was cooked from frozen, or because it's just naturally tasteless, I'll only know next time I cook it - then I will defrost it in advance, as suggested.

But I suspect that fresh sole from the fish shop is still the way to go.

Beef curry in coconut milk

The curries I like best are those simmered in coconut milk, so that's what I did here. I didn't use any particular recipe, just curry basics: fry onion, ginger and garlic in oil until soft but not coloured, add curry spice to taste. Then the cubed meat goes in, and you brown it slightly. Then you add the coconut milk and water to cover the lot and leave it to simmer for a couple of hours, checking to make sure it doesn't boil dry. The liquid should reduce down to a gravy that clings to the meat.
Stir in some garam masala towards the end, to round out the flavours, and check for salt at the same time.

Normally I would like to do a couple of sambals with a curry, such as yogurt, cucumber, chopped tomato and onion. In fact, I had none of these in the house. I did have a mango, and a wonderful sambal it made!

Instead of rice, I steam-fried some aubergine and then mashed it coarsely. It wasn't a great mix with the curry, because aubergine has a particular taste; it's not a bland vegetable. But it was all I had. If I were shopping particularly for this meal, I would get cauliflower, which goes with everything.

Shuwarma

This is the dead straightforward shuwarma strips you can buy at any supermarket butcher in the Netherlands. These were spiced with provencal spices.

The issue here is how to serve them without pita? I piled it onto slices of grilled aubergine. Slice the aubergine lengthwise for best effect, brush with olive oil (NOT extra-virgin!) and grill in a hot grillpan for a couple of minutes each side. You can pour in a little water while grilling: aubergines absorb an awful lot of stuff, and while I have no religious objections to eating oil-soaked aubergine, I just think it tastes better if the oil is diluted somewhat.

For the rest, do all the normal shuwarma toppings: chopped onion, chopped tomato, sour cream. It was yummy.

Cooking Club Leftovers

A three course tasting menu of leftovers! First on the list is the salad with liver and black pudding. Luckily I had some leftover, if somewhat bitter, lettuce in the fridge to make the liver and black pudding look more like a salad.



This is the leftover langoustine I described yesterday, complete with foamy goat's cheese sauce. Also the leftover ratatouille.



Finally, the leftover rabbit tournedo. Here I stirred mustard into the leftover goat's cheese sauce to make a mustard sauce to accompany the morsel of meat.

That gives you a brief glimpse of what we do at cooking club. There is a movie you can watch, taken in April last year, if you'd like to know more.

Cooking Club

No photos today as I don't usually take a camera to cooking club. I did once make a movie, which you can see here if you're really interested. I may redo it with a voice-over and post it elsewhere.

One of the things my cooking club has to understand is that if you're serving a six-course meal, then each course needs to be just a couple of mouthfuls. I usually eat half or less when the courses grow too big, and take the rest of the plate home, so you may still get to see some photos during the week.

The menu was:
Trio of Amuses. Well, I always through trio meant three, not an entire platter. I guess because they made a lot they thought it best to serve it all. The trio comprised:
- choux pastry filled with a trout cream. I managed to snag one of the platters with just one of these, as I'm not supposed to be eating any flour at the moment. I did, of course, on the principle that one day should not make that much of a difference in the bigger scheme of things.
- courgette roll-ups filled with ricotta. These were very nice and low-carb friendly. I may well make them and then you will be able to see what they were.
- A quails egg on a bed of radish.

Salad with calf liver and black pudding
Those are heavy meats, and you would expect just a sliver of each. Nope. That was a main meal and most of it came home with me. It was a bit of lettuce topped with a generous slice each of liver, black pudding and fried apple. The black pudding is one specially made for Paul van Waarden, one of our Michelin chefs, and you can buy it at Slagerij Waayer , 275 Frederik Hendriklaan, The Hague. I've never eaten black pudding before and found it delicious!

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Jerusalem Artichoke Chips
A very nice soup made with equal parts poultry stock and milk and finished with cream. Some lemon and shallots, but just a touch. Some of the artichokes were sliced thin and deep fried for garnish. I don't know if Jerusalem Artichokes are on the allowed list, they aren't mentioned, but I guess they're not commonly eaten in this part of the world.

Smoked langoustines with ratatouille and Goat's Cheese sauce
This was the dish I cooked, with Martine. We peeled and cleaned the langoustines (2 per person) and then smoked them for about seven minutes in stove-top smoker. Those are cute and I may get one. Then me poured basil and garlic oil over them (15 basil leaves, a clove of garlic, 100ml oil blended together) and left them covered in the fridge.

Interesting ratatouille method: chop up one aubergine, one red pepper, one yellow pepper, one courgette, into tiny 1/4 inch squares. These are each fried separately, until soft and just cooked, without colouring. One onion+one shallot+one clove garlic are all chopped finely and softened and then combined with a bit of tomato paste. I think I'd leave the paste out, it dominated the dish somewhate. The vegetables are combined and warmed just before serving.

The sauce was dead easy: 100ml vegetable stock, 200 ml cream and 75 gram goat's cheese for 15 people. Warm through and melt the cheese, then beat until foamy.

Just before serving we warmed the langoustines in the oven for about two minutes.

I have leftover ratatouille, sauce, and uncooked langoustines. The smoked ones were very rich, by the way, and two was more than enough.

Rabbit tournedos with mustard sauce

I brought most of this home as well, so a picture will come later.

Mandarin sorbet, chocolate tarte and orange compote

Yes, I did, I'm afraid. They did give me the merest sliver of chocolate tarte, which was a buttery crust with nuts and a chocolate ganache topping. Something I will make I think, it was delicious - but it will wait till I'm at least the weight I was in England. The biggest culprit was certainly the sorbet, as this is made with sugar syrup.

However, I am no heavier this morning than I was yesterday. I may take an extra dose of metformin during the day to compensate for the sugars.

Lunch was leftover greek chicken with carrot salad and tomato. Breakfast was simply a bowl of all-bran with milk though I had a bit of yoghurt at around 11. I just did not wake up hungry like I normally do!

Danish Cabbage Soup and Leftover Lamb

Saturday again, and once again we have things to do other than eat. It's sad that, as eating can be such a pleasure.

Anyway, brunch was a trio of hams, one from Spain, one from Italy, and one normal everyday ham. There is not much to choose from between the two specialty hams and I would guess you can interchange them. The taste differences are subtle.

Dinner we started with a Danish Cabbage Soup. This is actually surprisingly delicious! Also very easy to make.


For three people, slice a small onion, remove the core from about 400 gram of cabbage and slice the leaves very thinly. Melt a heaped tablespoon of butter and stir in about a teaspoon of soft brown sugar. Really, this is such a small amount of sugar it doesn't make any difference in anybody's life! Stir the sugar till it melts and caramelises a litte, which takes about two minutes. Stir the sliced onion and cabbage into the caramelised sugar and cook for about four minutes, till they're well-coated and starting to simmer, then pour in 400 ml of water or stock - I used chicken stock. Add a pinch of allspice, some salt and pepper to taste, cover it and let it simmer gently for about 35 or 40 minutes. Just before serving stir in about 75 ml of sour cream or decent yogurt, heat through and enjoy. It really was very nice!



Then we finished off the lamb from the other night, with some pumpkin and fennel. The vegetables were steamed very plainly, as the lamb fills your mouth with flavour. It was not as good as expected but perhaps we should have eaten the leftovers the very next day and not left them as long as I did.

Leftover salmon

Unless I vary from the usual egg and something, I guess there's no reason to write it down. I do need to make a better effort with lunch though.

Dinner today started with a simple salad of lettuce, tomato, onion and cashew. Probably a dressing of some kind, they're easy enough to make: one part vinegar, three parts oil, seasoning to taste. The trick comes in choosing nice vinegar and nice oil. Dressings are where extra virgin olive oils take pride of place: you ruin them when you cook them.

There was still leftover salmon, so I cooked some leeks until tender and combined the two, with a dash of cream to round out the flavour. Nothing exciting going on here at the moment.

Marinated pork

Breakfast and Lunch have long since been forgotten, but luckily photos remind me of dinner. It was a Thursday, so probably egg for breakfast, nuts and cheese for lunch. That nuts and cheese is very addictive.

Dinner was one of the sections from the gourmetten pack that we hadn't yet eaten: little morsels of marinated pork. I grilled them and served them with leftover sauerkraut and carrots. Sour cream just ... goes... with sauerkraut.

Steak, red cabbage and guacamole

Back to the usual breakfast. Egg. In this case and omelette with mushroom, cheese (recognise any leftovers?) and tomato.

Mid-morning I was hungry. I guess that's what comes from ditching the diet for a day. Rather than let my blood sugar plummet, I had slice of melon with yogurt and nuts.

Lunch was another slice of melon with 2 slices parma ham. Someone has to eat the stuff, it may as well be me. I also had some vegetable soup with slices of cheese instead of bread.

Dinner was a simple grilled steak with guacamole and a red cabbage and apple salad.



The salad was equal volumes of thinly sliced cabbage and peeled apples cut into julienne strips tossed in a dressing. Use any dressing you like. It doesn't keep well, so don't make too much.

Ditch the diet for a day

I need time off from this full time eating.

Breakfast. Well, seeing as I bought an entire melon to make two melon balls for the amuses, breakfast was leftover melon. A generous slice with yoghurt and two slices of Parma ham.

Then I gathered all the leftover bits of pieces from last night's Gourmetten. I softened the onion and fennel in a little oil, then added all the other vegetables plus the leftover chili in adobe, added water and let that simmer till I thought about it again. When I did, I tasted it, and it was a little hot with the chili. So I added the two turkey drumsticks and let it simmer some more until I thought about.

When we felt ready for lunch, I removed the drumsticks, took the meat off the bones, took off the soggy skin, chopped the meat and added it back into the soup. Everything looked a little thin, so I took half the soup, puréed it and added it back. Hey presto, instant body. For serving I stirred in the leftover sour cream and grated some cheese.

That was it I'm afraid. No salad. No 50 gram of something proteiny plus a side of veggies. Just soup.

Dinner was much the same. I took one complete set of meats, little marinated pork pieces, and grilled them. We had that with some sliced raw courgette (not carpaccioed, though I did add a little feta for the look) and a couple of cherry tomatoes. And we drank lots of wine.

I also took no metformin today, not at lunch nor before bedtime. (Too much wine!)

As I said, ditch the diet for a day.