What's for tea tonight? (#8)

[Biddlybee]

Never had Algerian

Ta kitty, too much to do tonight. I'll have to get some chestnuts soon.

 

[Biddlybee]

Never had Algerian

Ta kittyp, too much to do tonight. I'll have to get some chestnuts soon.

 

[TruXta]

Was it good then? Have heard very good things. And I'm less than 5 minutes away.

 

[tarannau]

Really liked Khamsa fwiw - despite its unglamorous Acre Lane roadside setting it managed to feel like a real haven against the cold. There's a lovely couple running the place - she managed that effortlessly unobtrusive yet friendly, attentive service thing down to a tee and the bloke cooked easily, checking on how we got on with the food on his visits out of the (largely open) kitchen

Food was more than decent. I think I may have stymied myself by getting a fairly safe beef, squash and chickpea tagine, which was very nice if not entirely exciting. But LQ's salmon tagine was a fine, more inventive plate of food. Some lovely touches in there too - some genuinely fragrant couscous to accompany, laden with pomegranate seeds and good spicing blends all round. Difficult to quibble with the generous portion sizes either (main course around a tenner), or the hefty lump of beautifully moist salmon on the plate.

Just a really welcoming, likeable place that I'd be happy to go back to. Didn't manage the big starter platter this time around (8 meze dishes for £8), because the place has apparently a bakery on site and the guys's an ex pastry chef - we wanted to save a little room for the truly ornate looking pastries on display. They're really quite impressively crafted little parcels of wonderment featuring dates, basil, almonds, rosewater and all kinds of unusual flavours. It'd be worth just dropping in to sample those and the lovely mint tea if nothing else.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Spag bol with lots of parmesan, here - and green beans. Raspberry sorbet for pudding (it's really not a sorbet sort of day is it? But I need to get the freezer emptied before Xmas if poss, so sorbet it fuckin is! ).

 

[Biddlybee]

Same here, without the green beans.

Stick stuff in the garden if you're short of space sheo

 

[sheothebudworths]

Yeah I did think of that (gentlegreen gave me the idea, unsurprisingly )....but there's still quite a lot in there so I can't quite be arsed.

I actually have a chest freezer downstairs too that had been off since we moved but I turned it on during the summer when I got a big seafood/fish order sent....and ofcourse now that's half full and could do with defrosting too so the idea really is to reduce it all to ONE freezers worth (which should surely to fuck be enough after all ) so I can defrost the upstairs one, then move everything slowly but surely back into that one and defrost and turn off the downstairs one again

 

[Orang Utan]

potato curry

 

[Badgers]

Dunno, my turn to cook I think

 

[Kanda]

Shepherds or Cottage Pie, whichever is the lamb mince one. Can't be arsed to argue the toss.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Shepherds (sheep, innit! )

 

[zenie]

I had cottage pie in the end last night

Tonight I'll be having this

 

[tarannau]

That's surely not your dinner in itself Zenie - that's a pouch of soup. I've been known to get one of those and a sarnie for lunch at work

Tonight it's a mushroom risotto with the leftovers of the roast from the weekend.

 

[Biddlybee]

I had cottage pie in the end last night

you get to the pub ok?

 

[zenie]

That's surely not your dinner in itself Zenie - that's a pouch of soup. I've been known to get one of those and a sarnie for lunch at work

Tonight it's a mushroom risotto with the leftovers of the roast from the weekend.

lol I'm having a biggish lunch And I won't get home til about 9, will be freezing cold, plus I can't eat start to cook a big heavy meal then! I'll be having it with the nicest bread I think I've ever tasted which I bought yesterday and some kind of greenery I expect. It's tea!!!

I think I also have a fairly small appetite

you get to the pub ok?

No I said it wasn't a good idea to drive so sacked it off. Mum had that waiting when I got home from food shopping so I thought why not

 

[Biddlybee]

Where did you get this nicest ever bread please?

 

[sheothebudworths]

Change of plan here!

Just me now, so will prob just have beans on toast, unless I can be fucked with doing much more than heating stuff up - in which case - baked sweet potato with goats cheese and green beans.

Not so bad though cos means I'll have the bolognese ready to heat tomorrow, instead, in the short space of time I have to feed them between bringing my daughter home from school and then all leaving again to go to my son's school for his parents eve (prob not so great for them mind you, cos I'd decided just to get them sausages and chips from the chippy on the way back but they would have been starved by then and anyway - what they don't know, won't hurt them! )

 

[ringo]

Ooo deary ME ringo! That's not good! Your spuds sound just the job.

I keep meaning to make them, but whenever I've had em in a restaurant they're quite clumpy and squareish, and all the recipes I've read ask for them to be sliced really thinly. How do you do them?

Yeah, rotten, but all OK again now.

I use a Leiths recipe for 'quick' dauphinoise pots, dunno how it differs from the standard method. Reckon if you wanted them thick you'd have to par-boil them first and they wouldn't go as crispy on the top. Don't fancy that idea tbh.

Serves 4.
Peel four or five good sized potatoes and slice as thinly as possible. Preheat oven to gas mark 6.
Put them in a pan with half a pint of cream, half a pint of milk, a couple of finely chopped/crushed garlic cloves, salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes until just soft to the point of a knife. Add half a tsp nutmeg and check seasoning.
Pour them into a buttered oven dish and bake for 30 minutes.
I've also added cheese before putting them in the oven dish if you want them really rich.

Tonight is baked spud => beanz'cheez in 4mm layers.

 

[Ron Merlin]

...baked sweet potato with goats cheese...

Sounds lovely! Might try it some time. I've only recently discovered the delights of the sweet potato.

Venison steaks and salad last night. Spag bol leftovers tonight.

 

[BoatieBird]

Sausages.
I am very excited by this fact.
I haven't had sausages since before I had my stay in hospital a couple of months ago (due to having to follow a very low fat diet now).
They are low fat cumberland sausages and will more than likely be very wrong, but I don't care because they are sausages

 

[zenie]

Where did you get this nicest ever bread please?

Waitrose Organic white loaf.

 

[sojourner]

Egyptian lentil soup, as it's called. It's just lentil soup with some cumin, coriander and lemon juice in it Might make some croutons though - never done em and for some reason I just fancy some

Fuck ME but this was good . One of those meals you cook that you can't stop thinking about all night. The soup was just fantastic, only tidgy bit of lemon juice made all the difference, no carrots made a change too. The croutons came out perfect (deffo doing them again rarr) and we had it with 2 biiig thick slices of buttered bread too. Fucking phwoar.

As I still have half an uncut loaf left, tonight's tea will more than likely involve poached eggs on beans on doorstep toast. And a pint cuppa tea. mmmMMMM

 

[sheothebudworths]

Plan changed back again - as schools are shutting early so ex won't have time to get there to collect my daughter, so spag bol is back on - which means I'm back to it being tricky tomorrow although tbf the schools'll prob be shut again and parents eve cancelled anyway!

 

[Biddlybee]

Waitrose Organic white loaf.

As I still have half an uncut loaf left, tonight's tea will more than likely involve poached eggs on beans on doorstep toast. And a pint cuppa tea. mmmMMMM

eggs on beans you say?

 

[Badgers]

eggs on beans you say?

I think that this is the correct order for this format

 

[Biddlybee]

toast-beans-toast is wrong

 

[Badgers]

toast-beans-toast is wrong

Why?

Next you will be telling me this is wrong:

 

[Biddlybee]

Why?

the sogginess of the toast

 

[Badgers]

the sogginess of the toast

I guess, depends how quick you eat though?

 

[Biddlybee]

I guess, depends how quick you eat though?

no, it's wrong