15/02/15: BBQ chicken with beans – Reader’s Digest’s Healthy One-Dish Cooking
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-One-Dish-Cooking-All-One/dp/027644406X
This was really tasty and a great throw-it-all-in-the-pot meal, but it was definitely a different version of BBQ. The chicken turned out beautifully tender though.
16/02/15: Quinoa, carrot, and leek patties – Eat Well 101 blog
http://www.eatwell101.com/quinoa-and-leek-patties-recipe
Lizi – O.M.G. what a disaster! Totally didn’t read the instructions on the quinoa packet and totally ruined it…and then continued making the patties. Urgh they were horrid…but Mark seemed to still eat them. I would say that I would try them again but I’m not sure the flavour was impressive enough. The biggest problem was definitely the quinoa though – I won’t make that mistake again!!
Mark – I actually quite liked them! Mainly because I tried them with a lot of different sauces (even Nando’s), and things always taste nicer when you know they’re healthy.
17/02/15: Pancakes!
PANCAKE DAY! Ahhhh yeeeaaahhhh!! I’ve been so excited about today for aaages! Pancakes…pretty simple right? For the traditional pancake-day style crepe you get some plain flour, make a well, crack an egg into it, then add milk until you reach the desired consistency (or you could even buy one of these). Then cook, FLIP, cook some more then NOM NOM NOM with whatever toppings make you squeal with childlike JOY! I basically just laid the table with a bunch of random toppings both sweet and savoury and we just got stuck in so I can’t list what we had here. However, I personally recommend lemon + sugar (CLASSIC); Nutella + strawberries (sometimes with vanilla ice cream); banana + Nutella + peanut butter; mushrooms + chilli jam (my family love Cottage Delight’s chilli jam) + goat’s cheese; bacon + avocado + maple syrup.
Mark’s sister, Claire, joined us for our pancake feast. Claire followed this vegan crepe recipe to make her batter as she doesn’t eat dairy products or eggs. These were her comments: “So I didn’t use sugar like the recipe called for and I wonder if that was a mistake, because unfortunately I found the crepes quite dry and tasteless! It might have been the wholemeal flour’s fault as well. Obviously they were nice smothered in lemon/sugar/maple syrup 🙂 but I wouldn’t make them again. I’d either try another vegan crepe recipe or make vegan pancakes – the smaller, thicker variety of pancake where lots of vegan recipes use banana/yogurt/flax seed etc. instead of egg and you end up with very yummy pancakes.”
18/02/15
Lizi: Broccoli salad with bacon, raisins, and cheddar cheese – Julia’s Album blog
http://juliasalbum.com/2014/03/broccoli-salad-with-bacon-raisins-and-cheddar-cheese/
I feel like I’m saying this about a lot of dishes but this salad is unbelievably easy to make! I splashed out a little and got tenderstem broccoli rather than regular broccoli…I KNOW RIGHT?! Living the dream! The broccoli is the only thing you need to cook and then the rest is just chopping cheese and throwing in some dried fruit!! I bought crispy bacon bits so I didn’t need to cook that either. I prefer buying bacon like that for salads as it’s much crispier and you don’t have to use much to get the smoky salty flavour. This is a great salad for making ahead and having for lunch too.
Mark: Tapas – Dehesa, Ganton Street, London
Apologies on the photo guys. As you’ll know with tapas, food comes to the table when it’s ready so this is definitely not all (or even the best) that I had for dinner. I was out for a colleague’s birthday and we ordered a lot to share around the table. A selection of the more unique items were: confit old spot pork belly with rosemary scented cannellini beans; braised Iberico pig cheeks with celeriac puree and truffle gremolata (my favourite of the evening!); grilled chorizo with roasted peppers, pickled white onion and chickpea; chilli and garlic squid with turnips, baby spinach, pickled red onion and trozos de pan. Food was overall yummy and good quality however overpriced for the portion size. I can’t really recommend this place because of the cost.
19/02/15: Chicken in black bean sauce and sweet & sour pork – McChina, Wimbledon, London
http://toladverts.co.uk/mcchina/
We figured that as it’s the period of the Chinese New Year and the 50TH DAY OF OUR PROJECT we would get a Chinese takeaway. This restaurant/takeout was recommended to us by someone that Mark used to work with and it happens to be pretty near to where we live. We went for two old favourites of chicken in black bean sauce and sweet & sour pork and they were delicious – especially the pork. Will definitely order from here again and we may have found a new “local”…
20/02/15: BBQ ribs and Jack Daniels glazed chicken – T.G.I. Friday’s Covent Garden
T.G.I. Friday’s is honestly not a regular haunt for us, but we ended up here with a friend who was visiting because everywhere in Covent Garden seemed super busy. Mark and I were both torn between these two dishes so we decided to get both and share. I guess there’s not all that far wrong you can go with BBQ ribs which were, of course, really yum, but we were both pretty impressed by the Jack Daniels glaze on the chicken.
21/02/15 Zizzi’s Brighton
Lizi: Pescatore pizza
This pizza was huge! I was expecting a regular-sized pizza with half-and-half toppings not two pizzas effectively joined together in the middle! I’ll be honest, I wasn’t totally bowled over by the flavours and the weird double-pizza design just meant there was a lot of pizza base that didn’t have any topping and was a bit dry as a result. Probably wouldn’t order again despite my love of seafood!
Mark: Chicken and mushroom risotto
I was running the Brighton half-marathon the next day so was looking for something safe and relatively carb heavy. The risotto was well cooked, and mushrooms were particularly tasty. The portion size was a little disappointing so I ordered an extra pizza to help get me over the finish line 🙂
22/02/15: Breakfast Burrito – Laura Washburn’s Tacos, Quesadillas & Burritos
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tacos-Quesadillas-Burritos-Washburn-Hutton/dp/184975215X
I had heard of breakfast burritos but I can’t say that I had any idea what they actually were before trying this recipe. This isn’t a recipe for someone looking for a light dinner! It was easy to make though and great if you’re hungry! I particularly liked the chilli kick that wasn’t too overpowering but enough to wake you up a little.
A Year in Dinners 
One thought on “50 Days!”