Tuesday 22 December 2009

Norfolk

Again, I've been neglecting this blog. I've got lots of photos and things to update over the next couple of weeks, but I'm going to start with my holiday in Norfolk. Sorry, no photos this time.

My boyfriend and I went to a cottage in Norfolk for a few days r & r, after a manic term. It was lovely to get away from it all, and have some time out. Luckily, he loves food too, so he was happy to plan lots of nice meals with me. We'd intentionally chosen self-catering so that we could cook and not just eat hotel food every night.

The first night we were using some of the things from an M & S meal deal, which was a meal for 2 for £10. I'd bought two at the weekend, one for Saturday night, before we went, and then another for Monday, our first night there. We had a whole chicken, which I roasted, along with M & S roast potatoes, which I think are pretty good, but ours are better! We bought some parsnips to roast too - I love them - and we had some green beans. We were far too full for dessert after that.

Tuesday lunch was fabulous. We went to a place called The Pigs, and had their 'Norfolk Tapas' to share: mushy peas (one of my favourites, and these were really good), little pork sausages with honey and mustard (pork was evidently a specialty), herrings, and cauliflower fritters. We also shared a portion of mussels and chips, which was just the right amount of food.

After spending the afternoon shopping in Norwich, we went hope, and my boy made a dish he's always talking about: pasta with squash and bacon:
Roast one large/a couple of small squash, then cube when soft enough
Meanwhile, cook pasta
Add to cubed squash a couple of rashers of bacon per person and cubed feta cheese and return to oven
Combine! So simple, but so good!

Wednesday we headed off to Sheringham and Cromer for the beach, but it was miserable weather! We found fish and chips in Cromer - it was recommended by the tourist information board, and was good, although we were the youngest people in there by about 20 years! I had haddock and chips, with mushy peas, and he had scampi.

We didn't last long at the beach, but we did take two dressed crabs home for our starters that evening. We had those first, with some champagne (we each had been given a bottle as a present and we decided to take them with), then we had left over baked salmon and potato salad (from home) and a green salad.

Thursdays lunch was all left-overs, with some bread and some M & S cheese from our meal deal.
Thursday dinner was a Thai beef and aubergine curry with rice.

So it was a pretty good eating week, all in all. We managed to drink two bottles of champagne, and two large Tiger beers, but we only got 3/4 of a bottle of red in the whole week!