12/07/2015: Chilli and garlic pasta – own recipe
http://www.pastificiorizzo.it/
While we were in Venice on our recent trip to Italy, we found Pastificio Giacomo Rizzo – a treasure trove jam-packed full of all the different colours, shapes, and flavours of pasta that you could imagine! We spent ages pouring over the different options deciding what we could realistically fit into our suitcases. In the end we bought a couple of souvenir packets of pasta in the Italian colours for family (as mentioned in an earlier post), and for ourselves we bought one packet with a mix of very interesting flavours (watch this space!) and this packet of chilli and garlic flavoured pasta. I was keen to keep this simple as see how the flavour of the pasta came through. I tasted some of the pasta as it was cooking and thought that the chilli flavour was coming through with a nice spicy kick, but that the garlic might want a helping hand, and so I mixed a little bit of garlic purée into some olive oil and mixed that into the pasta once it was cooked. That was all it needed!
13/07/2015: Tomato bruschetta – own recipe
I LOVE making these easy peasy bruschetta – they are SO simple and SO delicious! I like to use the kalamata olive bread that you can get from Sainsbury’s. I mix up some garlic/garlic purée with some olive oil and spread it over sliced olive bread before grilling it for 2 minutes on our George Forman grill to toast it up. Then I mix chopped cherry tomatoes with some basil and a drop of balsamic vinegar (so we used the vinegar we bought in Italy). You can really get away with just using a tiny bit as it’s really just meant to enhance the flavour of the tomatoes, not taste of balsamic vinegar. The finishing touch is some grated parmesan to top it all off. MMMMYUM.
14/07/2015: Beef panang with coconut rice – Mae Ping, Wimbledon
This dish is a true favourite of ours and we finally decided that, now we’re half way through the year, we can probably let ourselves have it. Unfortunately, I don’t have a link to include here as the restaurant has since either rebranded or changed hands and I believe is now called “imm Thai Fusion”, but their new URL is giving me an error message! I’m sure it’s just a small teething problem and we plan to visit sometime soon as I’m sure the food is just as delicious as it was at Mae Ping!
15/07/2015: Kale and smoky bacon pasta – BBC Good Food
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/kale-smoky-bacon-pasta
Another simple recipe for a weeknight dinner that we really couldn’t go wrong with. Smoky bacon is always good with creamy pasta and then the kale just makes it feel healthy!
16/07/2015
Lizi: Mixed barbecue – Kensington Roof Gardens, London
http://www.virginlimitededition.com/en/the-roof-gardens
Tonight I was out at my work summer party to celebrate our company’s 50th anniversary. We were at Kensington Roof Gardens which is a beautiful rooftop with gorgeous architecture and flowers. They also have flamingos, but they weren’t around when we were there apparently because the wind was quite strong. For dinner there was a really long barbecue where they were cooking all sorts of foods. I had lamb, squid, asparagus, mushroom, salmon with some salad and bread. It was all absolutely delicious!
Mark: Chicken arrabiata – M&S Food
http://www.marksandspencer.com/c/food-and-wine
Lizi was out tonight and I got home from work late so didn’t fancy being too inventive. I had an M&S meal left over from a lunch deal so decided to have that (as they are actually meant for dinner). It’s a simple dish but tasty enough. I also grated some cheese on top for something extra.
17/07/2015: Tagliatelle with courgette and bacon cream sauce
Our friends were round this evening and I was slightly worried that I hadn’t planned what we were going to eat and I was running late at work so didn’t have much time. I arrived home to find them beavering away in the kitchen cooking us a lovely dinner of tagliatelle with courgette and bacon! It was delicious and their lovely company was just what I needed after a fairly stressful day in the office. We’ll definitely have to visit them and return the favour!
18/07/2015: Prawn and vegetable foo yung – Healthy One-Dish Cooking, Reader’s Digest
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-One-Dish-Cooking-All-One/dp/027644406X
Mark picked this recipe from our Healthy One-Dish Cooking book probably because we have a LOT of eggs! What a great way to use them up! The foo yung was simple to make and the sesame oil really took the flavours to a new level. I also loved the addition of the thin strips of egg that you use to decorate the top. It was simple to do but looked pretty fancy, so a good one to keep in mind if we have guests…
19/07/2015 – Oki, Wimbledon
Today we have completed 200 days of our challenge!
Lizi: Salmon teriyaki bento
Mark fancied Japanese and so I went for the salmon teriyaki as Mark has had it already. Salmon teriyaki is such a simple dish but it never fails to impress me. I also like how this bento box didn’t just have the salmon and rice, but also some sushi and pumpkin croquette which as you know I ADORE!
Mark: Miso pork katsu ramen soup
I rarely try katsu ramen dishes and tonight confirmed why. Although I love pork katsu, and I love ramen, I’ve come to realise that I really don’t love soggy katsu. The fact that this was a take away made it worse as the pork had been in the soup for a good amount of time before I ate it. This is not a criticism of the dish, as it was pretty obvious what I was ordering, but just a comment on my personal preference. The ramen and flavours were good and nice chunky vegetables provided in the soup. Next time I’ll stick to regular meat in my ramen!
A Year in Dinners 