23/03/2015: Penne with sweet potato and prosciutto – Alex Frampton’s A Cook’s Book of Pasta: Carbonara, Marinara, Napolitana
http://www.amazon.com/Carbonara-Marinara-Napolitana-Cooks-Pasta/dp/1740457552
This was one of those dishes that you come across in a book and wonder whether they just came to their fridge one day and whacked a bunch of leftovers together and thought “hey that’s not too bad – I’ll put that in my book”. It seemed like quite a hodge podge of ingredients but it really worked. I guess it taught me not to be afraid of the unknown and that you can put any number of things together into a pasta and – voila – you’ve got dinner. It also worked pretty well as lunch the following day too.
24/03/2015: Thai cashew coconut rice with ginger peanut sauce – Host the Toast
http://hostthetoast.com/thai-cashew-coconut-rice-ginger-peanut-sauce/
I was really excited about this recipe as the comments on the blog built it up a lot! I will say that you have to really like your onion for this as there is a whole load of raw red and spring onion in there. This salad has a bunch of flavours that I adore but I’m just not a fan of raw onion and for me it just punches through everything else. Next time I make this I’ll be taking out the red onion but maybe leaving in the spring onion as I think not having onion in this at all would be a shame. Then it will be my dream salad!
25/03/2015: Miso salmon with cucumber salad and rice – BBC Good Food
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4759/misomarinated-salmon
I came across this recipe when looking for different ways to use miso. Miso salmon seemed like a great idea for a weeknight as it was just a case of marinating the salmon in miso for a little while before grilling, making up some cucumber salad and serving with some rice. We fried the salmon rather than grilling it which may have been a mistake because we lost a bit of the marinade. I think if you grill it you get a better crispy miso layer.
26/03/2015: Beef and pork in Peking sauce with egg fried rice – Golden Place Chinese, Wimbledon
https://www.zomato.com/london/golden-place-wimbledon
We were hoping to order from McChina again today but for some reason we weren’t able to so we ordered here instead. Today we went for beef and pork in peking sauce (separate dishes) and the sauce was great. I preferred the beef version from this shop as the meat was really tender especially compared to the pork, but both were tasty.
27/03/2015: Brie and grape toasties – own recipe
Well what can possibly go wrong here? Tried and tested combination! I may have put too much cheese on but who cares?!
28/03/2015: Smashed avocado miso toast with poached egg and furikake – Jeanette’s Healthy Living
As soon as I found this recipe I knew I had to make it! What a great weeknight dinner that’s healthy and super easy to make. It’s also a great way to use up some leftover miso. My only complaint with this recipe is the ratio of miso to avocado. Maybe it depends on the size of avocado you’re using but I found it was far too salty. I would halve the amount of miso in the recipe, taste and use your judgement to add from there. Bear in mind that the furikake is also fairly salty. Apart from that the flavour was great and I think this simple recipe is a genius use of these two Japanese ingredients.
29/03/2015: Hungarian goulash with csiptke – Budapest by Locals
http://www.budapestbylocals.com/hungarian-goulash.html
We’ve been thinking about making this ever since my parents brought back this lovely tin of paprika from their trip to Budapest. I really enjoyed making this and all the smells it created around the house. My csiptke came out a bit hard but I didn’t think they were too bad for a first time. I also think I reduced the sauce a bit too much at the end as it was definitely more stewy than soupy but the flavour was definitely there and we really enjoyed it with some crusty bread.
A Year in Dinners 