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.