Two meals to make up for the lack of posting

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Not having my own laptop is making things very difficult, although I am very excited about buying a Mac when I go to New York next week!

It's been a busy week. My parents went away last Wednesday, and so I spent most of the week with my boyfriend, which involved seeing quite a few of both his and my friends. We spent Saturday evening and Sunday at his grandparents' house in Suffolk, which was really very pretty. We had dinner there Saturday night and then Sunday lunch, and although it was lovely, it was fairly simple - salmon on Saturday, chicken on Sunday, with new potatoes and veg. On Monday I really fancied something a bit different.

After work on Monday the boy and I drove up to Oxford, to his new house, which he'd collected the keys for on the Friday before. As I have a car, we could take the first round of things up, and started to move him in. It also meant that I could see Emma, who is one of my best Oxford friends, and he could see two of his friends. We decided to join forces, and invite them all over for dinner, which ended up involving me cooking for everyone! I'd raided the fridge at home and taken all the veg that needed using plus some thai curry paste. I made two thai currys, one with chicken and one with veg and tofu. Emma just had veg, but everyone else had some of both, with rice. Whilst I do like making my own thai curry paste, using the shop bought stuff is very good and much easier!

On Tuesday night, I was on my own at home for the first time in a while. I had a craving for pasta, so I decided to make on of my favourites. I fried a red onion and garlic, and then added mushrooms and tomatoes, stirring until lightly cooked. Then I added a little chilli, anchovies, marinated artichokes, some pecorino, parmesan and pasta. I still love that pasta!

Cooking at home again, and a couple of fish dinners

I spent the weekend at home again, and did a lot of cooking.

On Thursday, mum was late home, so I was in charge of marinading salmon. Unfortunately, mum had run out of the usual bought marinade, so I had to throw together a terriyaki marinade of my own. I combined soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce, crushed garlic, 5-spice, rice wine vinegar and sherry and poured lots of it over a whole side of salmon. It turned out really well. To go with it, we served egg noodles, which we stir-fried in some chilli oil for a kick, and some green veg stir-fried in garlic and a little soy. Lovely.

Friday night there were 8 of us for dinner, and I made meat fondue. It's a very simple meal - cubed raw steak and chicken that each person cooks themself, with what we call saute potatoes: peeled, diced potatoes roasted for about an hour and a half so they go nice and crispy. To go with it, lots of raw veg to cook in the oil, and salad, as well as a selection of sauces, garlic mayo, mustard mayo and thousand island dressing that we make, and hoisin and plum sauce.

There was left over cubed steak, so on Saturday for dinner I cooked that with sweet potato aubergine in a great thai red curry. There was enough of it to bring back to Oxford and eat with the new boy in my life one night. He enjoyed it too.

One night in Oxford, after a long day of revision, I ate left-overs from home, mum's Spanish fish with green veg and garlic spinach.

The fish itself is white fish, cooked in a tomato sauce, with two types of beans, and sliced potato on the top. This is only a small portion of the fish! The garlic spinach was frozen spinach defrosted then added to a pan of garlic fried in a little olive oil. It was lovely!

Last night I again had fish left overs from home, grilled trout with almonds this time, and creamed leeks and spring veg.
The creamed leeks (on the left of the fish) are one of my favourite veg. Slice leeks and put in a pan of melted butter (just a little, maybe a teaspoon, depending on the amount of leeks). Cook slowly until the leeks are soft, then season and add a couple of tablespoons of mayo. Much better than it sounds, I promise!