Sunday Night Round up

Its been a busy day and I have got all the washing done - do not like doing it on a Sunday but sometimes you have to deal with things when you have the time.  That means ironing tomorrow night.

I have spent most of the afternoon cooking.  I started off with making carrot and swede crush from scratch to go with tonight's tea. (I have some in the freezer but I had some carrots to use up and another swede so in the spirit of waste not want not I used them up.

I do get cross with the supermarkets though selling carrots in polythene bags and they go off after a few days which is rather hypocritical as most of the carrots we buy have been stored in clamps for quite some time.  Perhaps they sell them in polythene bags so they go off quicker and we have to buy more. I am a tad cynical.

 Then I had some tomatoes which I had got for 50 pence a bag to cook up with some Sofrito and fresh herbs and I have roasted them up in the oven to use during the week as one night we are going to be having home made Lasagne for tea using some of the Aberdeen Angus mince I bought the other week.

We have had a roast leg of lamb for tea which I managed to get on offer at Christmas.  I studded it with garlic and fresh Rosemary out of the garden and then dribbled some mint jelly over it to give it a nice glaze.  I cooked it over a bed of Sofrito to keep the lamb moist (I cook it low under a foil with a little water in to keep it moist. Halfway through the cooking I take the tent off to allow the meat to brown and this is when I put the mint glaze on (you could use redcurrant jelly for a change). So all the meat juices go into the vegetables and then when the veggies are cooked I press through a sieve and then make the gravy from the pureed veggies.  It gives it a much tastier flavour and a good gravy is always the making of a meal.Its a lot of work but we do like our food to be full of flavour.

I then roasted some par boiled potatoes and roasted them in some of the Pork dripping from last week and they were also very tasty.  We then had the carrot and swede crush, mashed potatoes, minted peas, cauliflower and broccoli as accompaniment with lashings of gravy and it was extremely tasty and enjoyable.

There is loads left so we will be having that tomorrow night with the remnants of the mashed potato, carrot and swede crush and the gravy.

This week I also cooked pudding.  I had some stale bread to use up and rather than waste it I decided to make marmalade bread and butter pudding.I used one of my jars of home made Seville Orange marmalade, but you could use chocolate spread with banana slices to ring changes.  I was intending to serve it with some tinned mandarin oranges, but unfortunately I could not locate the tin opener, so we just had it as it was (I had cooked it in a bain marie) so the custard was lovely and light

So I have had a busy but enjoyable Sunday afternoon doing what I love to do best - cooking and feeding everyone.  I am one of those that really do enjoy cooking.

Catch you all soon

Pattypan

xx