COME ON ENGLAND!

A very happy household enjoyed Serbian food whilst Capello's boys turned on the magic and won 1-0, putting us through to the final 16 of the competition. Next match is Germany at 3pm on Sunday, which is right in the middle of the Lavender Festival in Battersea, an event which I am managing.

The photo above is of Cevapcici, a sort of sausage made from lamb and beef mince. The tall bloke couldn't find bell pepper powder (not available in ASDA!) and instead, used chopped up red chillies.

The Serbian salad was absolutely delicious - spot on for a hot summer's evening. It was refreshing on the tongue and accompanied the Cevapcici perfectly. High recommendation points scored for this dish.

France 1 - South Africa 2

I cannot believe France have gone out of the World Cup already! Bit of shame that the host nation went out before the last 16 stage, especially as they won against the sorry looking side from France. The tall bloke was out, so the best I could muster unsupervised, was baked Camembert (studded with olive oil and Rosemary) and some fresh bread, served with a salad (French dressing of course). It was a lovely, light supper for 1 small person.

Here is the link to my photo of said meal: http://tweetphoto.com/28922506

Mexico 2 - France 0

This evening's match was highly entertaining and a wonderful accompaniment to our French meal. Not only in default support of Ireland, I was behind the Mexicans all the way - having lived there for a year I'm shamelessly bias. However, it was the losing team's cuisine which the tall bloke chose to prepare tonight and as I arrived home from a late meeting, out of the oven came salmon en croute, with boiled potatoes and sprouting. It was delicious. The tall man made the sauce (between the fish and the flaky pastry) from a recipe he says he made up on the spot. It contained:
6 sliced chestnut mushrooms
soft goats cheese
parsley
butter
Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan, add the mushrooms and cook on low heat. When mushrooms are cooked through (they always shrink), add the goats cheese and parsley, stir and remove from the heat.

Allow to cool before covering the salmon with the sauce. Wrap in puff pastry, wash with egg yolk and put into the oven for half an hour at 200 degrees.

Tomato sauce from Italy (via London)

This recipe is used by the tall bloke in many Italian dishes. Here you can see it on the cannelloni we had for dinner whilst watching the match against Paraguay. I hope you enjoy it too:

Tomato sauce - Method
In a saucepan, gentle fry some onions and garlic, then when just about turning translucent, add a can of chopped tomatoes. Season and add sage, oregano and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Italy 1 - Paraguay 1

Since I have several good Italian friends and I do enjoy this familiar European cuisine, it seemed most natural to have some kind of pasta effort for tonight's meal. The tall bloke served home made chicken soup with Ditali rigati (pasta shapes), followed by cannelloni filled with spinach and ricotta, baked with tomato sauce and cheese on top. It was a triumph: the meal, not the match; Italy played Paraguay and drew one all (fairly unspectacular, except for the heartening super-man dive and slip, by the Paraguayan goal keeper). The soup and the tomato sauce was made from scratch. I bought the cannelloni, ready stuffed.

Chicken Soup - Method
The tall bloke stripped all the chicken off the carcass from Saturday night's roast dinner for England's match, to make into a stock. To do this, put the carcass in a large pot on the stove, then add a couple of pints of water, salt, pepper, mixed herbs, sliced onion, carrots, celery and reduce until half the amount of liquid remains. Then strain out the liquid and return it to the saucepan (discarding the bits) and add the ready-shredded chicken. Heat on low until the meat is really tender. Separately, boil the Ditali rigati (with a pinch of salt) and when cooked, added this to the chicken soup and top with parsley. Serve with freshly baked bread.

Come on England!

To celebrate England's first match in the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament, the tall bloke will be serving roast chicken. This is my all time favourite meal - I am known amongst my friends and colleagues to have the appetite of a bird, but when roast chicken is offered, I am always back for seconds! Obviously this is another dish we eat fairly often (Sundays usually - I'm quite a traditionalist), so the tall one changes the seasoning of the chicken and the accompanying vegetables. Tonight's version is as follows:

Menu

Roast chicken in lemon and garlic

Roast potatoes in ground nut oil

Roast carrots in honey and cumin (inspired by this story kindly supplied by The Nashman)

Tender stem broccoli

Sauteed courgette

Home made gravy (using juices of chicken)

Mexico 1 - South Africa 1

For our first 2010 World Cup meal, Dan chose to serve Mexican food. This is already a favourite of mine and something we eat at home at least once every few weeks. It is also very familiar territory for me, as I lived in Mexico for a year.

Here is a photograph of our tacos with beef, home-made guacamole (I did that bit), shop-bought salsa, topped with cheese, fresh onion and cherry tomatoes.

He cooks, I eat. Part 1

I like football and I have been looking forward to the opening games of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The tall bloke (him who lives with me) is a keen cook (he'd say 'chef') and I enjoy good food (my delicate tum is his harshest critic). Earlier this week, he came up with the idea of cooking a meal every day of the tournament, matching the food to one of the countries playing. I liked this plan and have decided to write a diary of the results. I hope you enjoy reading/seeing the snaps (tall bloke does the photography too)( You can see some of his photos here:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/danredrup/art/4664678-1-untitled