01/02/2015: Hot dogs with onions, American mustard and tomato sauce – own recipe

SUPERBOWL! Every year Mark and I stay up and watch the superbowl and eat hotdogs, nachos and whatever other American food we can find or make. This time I also made a jalapeño popper mac and cheese to have alongside our hotdogs and made our own guac and salsa to top the nachos. We usually have people over but a lot of people were busy this year or out of the country altogether but I’m pretty sure we prepared the same amount of food…

02/02/2015: Favourite winter salad with halloumi, fennel and pomegranate – Jamie Oliver

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/cheese-recipes/favourite-winter-salad/#PlDG65jDb6kdJFqO.97

This was yummy but quite rich for a salad. The pomegranate and fennel brought nice fresh flavours to it but the combination of halloumi and a rich anchovy yoghurt dressing seemed to cancel that out a bit and the garlic levels were pretty high. I think I would add less garlic to the sauce next time.

03/02/2015: Pomegranate, Kale, and Wild Rice Salad with Walnuts and Feta – pinchofyum.com

http://pinchofyum.com/pomegranate-kale-wild-rice-salad-with-walnuts-feta

This salad was pure genius. It was so easy to put together, with the onion dressing being the only real effort – but an effort that was totally worth it because the dressing absolutely. makes. this. dish! We just popped the rice into the rice cooker until that was done, rubbed the kale to break it the bitterness down and avoid boiling away any goodness, and just chucked in the feta, walnuts and pomegranate at the end with the dressing – so simple! This also made a great cold lunch too that we’ll definitely be making for a lot of our lunches this year. Mark and I both absolutely loved this. You should make it! Now! No – after you finish reading this post…but then you should totally make it!

04/02/2015

Lizi: Wild rice and kale bake – own recipe

I bought a huge bag of kale yesterday so you may notice a theme emerging this week… As Mark was out I just thought I’d make something simple with things that we had in the kitchen to use up. I re-hydrated some dried mushrooms, roasted some sweet potato that we had in the fridge, added some kale and cooked wild rice from yesterday’s salad, topped with some grated cheddar and warmed it in the oven for a bit. It was pretty good and used up some ingredients.

Mark: Punjabi dinner at Tayyabs

http://www.tayyabs.co.uk/

Tonight I was dining out at Tayyabs, a Punjabi restaurant in Whitechapel. There was a large group of us from work so we went for a set menu and sharing plates, but the mix was broad enough to be unique. Highlights included the sizzling lamb chops and seekh kebabs for starters, and the chicken karahi was delicious. Considering the number of covers the restaurant was churning out (this place is massive) I was also really impressed with the quality of naan. Small negative was that there wasn’t enough food when it came to sharing the mains. Standard BYOB rules also meant the drinks were cheap!

05/02/2015: Roasted Swede and Kale Soup – ChoosingRaw.com

http://www.choosingraw.com/roasted-rutabaga-and-parsnip-soup-with-kale-and-coconut-bacon/

So with Burns night over for another year and half a swede in the fridge, we needed to find a way to use it up! This recipe looked good because it also used up some…KALE! We have a new gadget too – we bought ourselves a food processer (with a large number of unfathomable attachments…) so we can now make our own soups (and a number of other things I’m sure…with all those attachments…). Soups are really easy so this was a good winter weeknight option and tasted great. Unfortunately we didn’t have the right ingredients for the coconut bacon and weren’t really up for trying to find them so we just used some regular bacon bits. We served it up with one of the lovely part-baked baguettes too.

06/02/2015: Dominos Chicken Feast Pizza

https://www.dominos.co.uk/menu

So we caved. It was inevitable.

07/02/2015: Fusilli Gorgonzola – Prezzo

http://www.prezzorestaurants.co.uk/main-menu/

Tonight we were out at friends and we all ordered an italian take-out from Prezzo. As Mark and I had pizza yesterday, and to avoid using up too many pizza options this early on, we decided to go for a pasta option. I’m always a little nervous about ordering a take-out pasta but this was beautiful. The pasta wasn’t overcooked and the sauce was just right and not too rich.