Falafel

400g can of chickpeas
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons of fresh parsley
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons flour

Put onions, garlic and parsley in food processor and 'chop'. Add to food processor all other ingredients and process until smooth-ish paste. Form into balls and deep fry in oil until golden brown (5-7 minutes). Alternatively form into patties and shallow fry until brown.

Serve in pitta bread with shredded lettuce, cucumber and a tahini dressing (equal parts tahini and yoghurt with lemon juice to taste - try 1.5tbsp with juice of half a lemon)

Friends who we haven't seen for 7 years came for lunch yesterday. Lunch consisted of Pot roast chicken and rhubarb and ginger icecream. Catching up on 7 years including the wedding of their eldest last year was brilliant. Sounds like we might be meeting up again in a couple of months time as he turns 60.

Wedding feast

After weeks of worrying about mouth sized jam sandwiches, bananas and rice crispie slices for the Devizes to Westminster canoe marathon and then recovering from ensuring said items were fed to M and his teamate along the banks of the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Thames, a great day yesterday was spent with a group of friends watching the wedding followed by a barbeque. Everyone came with meat and a salad or pudding. Part of my contribution was the rest of a rhubarb sauce that I made last week to go with duck breast - it went very well with the pork fillet that one of my friends contributed to the feast.

Chinese spiced Rhubarb sauce

200g rhubarb roughly chopped
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tsp chinese 5 spice
Honey to taste
Simmer until rhubarb is cooked through. Taste and adjust sweetness with honey

Beef Braciole - Roast Pork and Rhubarb

My new favourite dish cooked by Mr B yesterday:
http://www.italianchef.com/braciole.html

For Mothering Sunday today I cooked Roast Pork and Rhubarb. A recipe that I can't find online but definitely will do again and goes something like:
Prepare the pork joint for crackling (score, dry, rub in oil and salt) and put in hot oven for 30 minutes. Take out and put pork onto a plate turning oven down to 170C. Make a layer of sliced red onions, thyme leaves (from about 6 sprigs of thyme), 2 star anise, 3 bay leaves. Put the pork back on top and pour 1 pint of dry cider around it. Cook for remaining cooking time minus 20 minutes. Total cooking time will be 30 minutes per lb and 30 minutes over.
For those remaining 20 minutes again put pork onto plate, drain off any fat in the pan then add 1lb+ chunks of rhubarb on top of the onions and drizzle with 3-4 tbsp runny honey. Put pork back on top and cook. At the end, leave the pork to rest, stir the onions and rhubarb etc together and serve with the pork.

Spiced Beetroot Salad

I had this salad with some roughly chopped onion bhaji and spinach pakora left over from the curry instead of naan. The next day I mixed the remaining salad in with the rest of the pilau rice from the curry meal, and had with naan. Spiced Beetroot Salad 250g cooked beetroot chopped into cubes Stir in: - good pinch each of cumin and paprika - 1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves - 2tbsp olive oil - juice of half lemon - salt and pepper Taste and add more of the spices and/or lemon juice. Cover and chill for at least an hour. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves and cucumber pieces. Top with a dollop of natural yoghurt and a sprinkling of cayenne pepper. Serve with naan bread Menu this week: Shoulder of pork roasting in the oven as I type. Am roasting it on top of thick slices of apple - just because I had a couple of apples that need using. M Jacket potatoes, sausages and coleslaw T Sliced pork in piquante sauce W Mozzerella and Tomato Pasta bake Th Pork rissoles F Root vegetable bake with Ham

Moroccan Chicken Pie

4 friends from the village came round for supper on Friday. Such a fun evening! The meal started with greek dishes - dolmades, marinated aubergine and tomato keftedes served with pitta bread pieces and a garlic and chive yoghurt and mayonnaise dip. The Moroccan Chicken Pie, served with a green salad, was followed by a selection home made ice cream and sorbets with my own shortbread. There was still room for cheese and a glass or two of last year's sloe gin for some. A number of recipes to write up but here is the main one:

Moroccan Chicken Pie

Put a 1.5kg chicken into a pot and cover with cold water. Peel an onion and 6 cloves of garlic and add to the pot along with 2cm piece of root ginger, halved, the rind of half a lemon and half an orange, a cinnamon stick and the stalks of a small bunch of corainder. Bring to boil and then simmer for about 45 minutes until chicken is tender. Remove chicken from liquid and leave to cool. Strain the poaching liquid and reserve 25 fl oz.

When cold remove the flesh and shred (don't use the skin).

Heat oven to 175C

Finely chop 2 onions and fry over medium heat in 1tbsp olive oil until soft. Add 4 crushed garlic cloves, 2cm grated root ginger. 1tbsp turmeric, 3tsp ground coriander, 3tsp ground cumin and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in chicken, chopped leaves of 1 bunch coriander and half bunch flat leaf parsley.

Moisten with some (to all) of the reserved poaching liquid then stir in 2 beaten eggs, 125g chopped almonds and 175g roughly chopped dried apricots. Season to taste.

Mix together 1 tbsp caster sugar with quarter tsp ground cinnamon.

Butter a 5x20x25cm baking dish and layer with 5 sheets of filo pastry, ensuring that there is excess filo pastry overhanging, brushing each sheet generously with melted butter and lightly sprinkling with the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Fill with the chicken mixture and fold over the overhanging filo to cover the top. Brush top with melted butter, sprinkle over the rest of the sugar/cinnamon mixture and a handful of flaked almonds. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil, turn oven upto 200C and cook for a further 5-10 minutes until browned on top.

Freezes well uncooked. Cook from frozen in 175C for an hour removing foil for last 15 minutes (leave oven at 175C). Ensure heated through before serving.

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Beef brisket, pot roasted in the slow cooker, tonight. The menu for the week is:
M Something from freezer
T Phili Steak 'Sandwiches'
W Chicken Curry (probably Korma from a jar)
Th Mr B's sticky sausage casserole
F TBD
S Pasta and fish

Lovely weather looks to continue so a number of salads for lunches.

Honey ice cream

The Duckworth's, parents of M's team mate for the Devizes-Westminster canoe race, came for supper on Friday to discuss support team tactics. Menu was Chicken Tagine with herby cous cous and a green salad with pomegranate seeds followed by honey ice cream, meringues and a melon and pomegranate fruit salad.

Honey Ice Cream

Beat 5 egg yolks with 10 fl oz runny honey in a bowl. Heat 1 pint milk until boiling. Reduce heat so that milk reduces to a simmer. Pour over the egg and honey mixture stirring continuously. Return to the saucepan and stir until thickened. Remove from heat and strain. When cool stir in half pint double cream and 1tsp vanilla essence. Taste and add more honey if necessary (as with all icecream/sorbets, the mixture should be slightly too sweet to taste prior to freezeing). Freeze using ice cream maker.

Chicken in Barbeque Sauce

Another good recipe for using up any cooked chicken

I large onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
14oz tin tomatoes
1 carrot cut into fine sticks
2 tsp Worcestor sauce
2 tsps lemon juice
2tsps soft brown sugar
1tsp mustard
few drops Tobasco
1/4 lb frozen peas
12 oz cubed cooked chicken

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a saucepan and fry onion and garlic over medium heat until soft. Add rest of ingredients apart from peas and chicken. Mix well and then bring to boil; reduce to medium heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add peas and chicken and cook for further 10 minutes. Season to taste and serve with plain boiled rice.

It has been a week of eating out of the freezer as the number of meals in the freezer has been building up over the last couple of months. The above was the 'leftover' from the roast chicken last weekend. We've had roast beef today (request from youngest) and Mr B has list of meals planned for the week.... will write them up one evening if Imanage to make time.