h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm hoping this will be one of those threads that run and run.

I don't know about everyone else, but we frequently say "Mmm, that was tasty; must cook that again", and then when it comes to menu-planning and shopping day, can't remember what the nice stuff we had was.

Plus, hootoo is always a treasure trove of interesting and tasty recipes which we can pinch...er...share with each other.

There's a thread for eating out which is always viable, so let's have one for eating in.

And if you just heated up a supermarket pizza or ordered a curry, keep it to yourself. Being too lazy to cook is nothing to be proud of.

B

Tonight we had spaghetti with meatballs. Not pork and beef meatballs in a tomato sauce, but meatballs made from good sausages, skinned mixed with fennel seed and dried chilli, cooked with onions, deglazed with white wine and topped up with butter and creme fraiche. It looks fairly average, but tastes lovely.

B

Cook? For dinner??

Seriously. I love my family. Why would I want to poison them?

(hope I haven't derailed your convo on post 3.)

We keep a Notebook, specifically for the purpose of jotting down any "mmm that was tasty!" meals.

Tonight, I'm doing one of my speciality "making something out of nothing"s. We had a load of cheese, so I gathered the chunks that were starting to go too hard (mature gouda, some manchengo and cheddar) and made a cheese sauce. Grilled some bacon, also nearing its use by date. Cooked pasta. Added frozen peas to the pasta as they were nearing the finish. Stirred peas'n'pasta into the cheese sauce. Poured half into an ovenproof dish. Added cooked bacon and some sliced tomatoes. Topped with the rest of the mac cheese, and then crumbled some garlic bread leftover from last night on top. Popped into teh oven while I did my exercise workout, and Rog showed off the new car to a biker friend (its still in the oven as we speak - I shall report back later on how it tastes)

Who needs a notebook when you have a hootoo thread?

Sounds a bit rich, dear. Hope you can still move afterwards.

B

Mu, that sounds very similar to one of our faves - Nigel Slater's simple suppers sausage and mustard pasta.

No mustard in mine; doesn't need it.

B

spicy bean burgers and beans

there is salad, tomatoes , cucumber and half a pepper in the fridge

and sauces

The garlic bready crouton chunks weren't good - we easily got rid of those, and really enjoyed the rest.

Thawed some mashed potato. Mixed in leftover carrots and sugarsnap peas (chopped), and grated cheese. Fried onions, bacon and mushroom in butter, mixed all that into the potato mix, put the whole lot back in the pan to fry it over until it was heated through. Served with baked beans.

Mol

Marinated beef and broccoli stir fry. Thankfully appears to like chilli, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil.

Reheated pea and broad and green bean risotto, made with a stock from the pea pods and some parmasan grated in, with some roast lamb. It's true what they say about reheating risotto, but it was lovely yesterday.

Bea

your 'nothings' sound grand

38 degrees here so I decided putting my oven on full blast was a good idea...

I made a big puff pastry tart with spinach & rocket salad. Tart was a sheet of puff pastry with edges rolled and glazed with egg. Topped with a mix of sauteed bacon, onion and garlic with a dollop of cream cheese and rest of egg (I don't like to waste egg when glazing and only need a tiny bit).

Baked in hot oven for 15 mins til pastry starting to puff then taken out and topped with thinly sliced tomato (salt and blot water out of tomatoes or they go horribly soggy) and fresh mozzarella and basil then chucked back in oven for final 10 mins.

Had it with pretty green salad with spinach & rocket from the garden - had to buy the spring onions and cucumber though! For a hot night like tonight it was a lovely fresh tasting meal which fed 4 adults and loads left for lunch tomorrow.

I would like a slice Deakie's tart
Dmitri could have put that in a more circumspect way

I'm going away tommorrow, for maybe a fortnight.

Therefore I had a fridge to use up today.

The meals, of the day today, didn't really have 'names', like 'breakfast', or lunch, or 'dinner...

I had.

2 duck eggs fried (in cooking rings I was so anti them... until I bought them for making crumpets, and found them useful), in two home made (defrosted them last night), multigrain, poppy, sesamae and caraway seed rolls). that was about... err, 1 PM, so lunch/breakfast/brunch.

I then had a couple of courgettes home grown by William. topped an tailed, halfed, and sliced long ways, each section into about 9 err long bits... lightly boiled, drained, lots of black pepper, and nuked them after covering in half a tub of parmasan. oh, and a drop of mozarella that was left.

Then I had ceaser salad, which consisted of half a rahter well endowered cucumber, a whole large romain lettuce, about 200 Grams fetta, and more parmasan, plus the last of the ceaser dress ing I had left from... err ages ago


Then I got back from ten pin.

four rounds toasted wholemeal bread (retrieved and defrosted from the freezer). with, 'allofthecheese'..... parmasan, brie, cheddar (and some other cheddar), a drop of red leiscter, and, naa, no idea what the other cheese was, toasted under the grill.

Then a couple spoonfulls of icecream, from one tub, and a couple from another, to finish that off too (Cornish clotted was one, no idea what the other was, sadly no home made ).

Currently contemplating overdosing on home made bhaji to get rid of the ton of onions left... I can't face eating any more apples today

We had Bratkartoffeln and Bratwurst. It was yummy, but not enough.

Tonight will be a prawn stirfry.

I always keep a few bags of frozen prawns in the freezer - they're dead easy to defrost under cold running water while I chop the veg (red onion, scallion, orange pepper, courgette, chestnut mushrooms)

I will add a straight-to-wok slab of noodles, and a sachet of stirfry sauce (terriyaki tonight - the only one we have left, so jot down on the perpetual shopping list that we need to stock up)

I ate out for lunch, but I'm about to make a stew with lentils, ham, potatoes, potatoes, onion, tomato paste, thyme, sage, and rosemary.

Tonight, I'm going to make a pot of pasta fazool to bring to my father for tomorriw.

We don't eat meat. Tonight we had a Yottam Ottolenghi recipe - cabbage leaves stuffed with basmati rice and vermicelli, ricotta, pine nuts and herbs, covered with a sauce of tomato and white wine and a little Parmesan.