Weekend Non-Cooking

I haven't done very much cooking in the last few days, mainly due to work, and being home.

I left Oxford on Thursday, to head home before the weather got too bad to drive. We really can't cope with snow here, but then, it's so unusual, it's not something that's worth pouring resources into. Anyway, we all ended up home, so mum made pesto-topped salmon fillets, with couscous, roasted beetroot, roast cauliflower, and green beans. It was really lovely.

I used up the leftover couscous in a good salad the next day, but it was definitely lacking my harissa dressing. I'll have to make that soon, I love it.

Friday night is an important meal in the Jewish religion. We had decided to go all-out on cheese, and had both raclette and cheese fondue this week, as we'd had quite a bit of meat recently. Lovely, but not too much cooking. We had little new potatoes, gherkins & silver skin onions with the raclette, and cubes of baguette, filled pasta, and lots of raw veg with the fondue. Very filling!

On Saturday, we were at my cousin's Bar Mitzvah, which had a nautical theme, and lots of fish. There were a seleciton of canapes, but I only ate the sushi, which I love. The starter was French Onion Soup, with gruyere croutons, which was lovely, but quite messy to eat in smart dresses, and quite filling. The main was sea bass, topped with roasted grated beetroot, potato & mushy pea mash, and roasted veg. Dessert was plum crumble tart with ice cream, custard and mixed berries. All really good food.

Sunday lunch at home is always bagels, and my favourite kind are black bagels, followed closely by rye. On my bagels I like egg mayo, chopped herring, smoked salmon, herrings in sour cream, and particularly, cods roe. All of which we had on Sunday. I bought some extra bagels from the deli to bring back to Oxford, so I can have them here too.

I ended up staying for dinner on Sunday night, because of the snow, and mum was having people over for dinner, so I had some of their puttanesca pasta, and apple crumble.

I left after brunch on Monday, which was bagel leftovers. On Monday night I went for formal dinner in my college. It was our grad guest dinners, which are the nicest kind. The starter was smoked salmon rillettes, smoked salmon wrapped around what I think was salmon and cream cheese, served on bread and butter. The main was poussin - and we literally had a whole bird! It was lovely, but quite hard to eat at a formal dinner in a civilised manner! With it were dauphinoise potatoes, college's speciality, and broccoli. Dessert was pavlova. Overall it was a particularly good night at college, and I'm sorry I don't have photos. The only poor part of it was the veggie option, which was pastry with scrambled egg in, and asparagus on top. Didn't look great.

I was out for lunch today, and for dinner tonight, back to cooking tomorrow!