ENGLISH MUM

So I’m pretty sure I’ve made these before, but seeing as they’re made with leftovers and we’re such utter pigs that there’s rarely any leftovers in our house, it was always going to take a while.  Yesterday, though, I made a chicken, pea and spring onion risotto and made sure I made some extra so I could give this one a go. First thoughts: it’s damned messy.  I mean, I’m...

I love butternut squash.  I love its sweetness, its softness, and its beautiful orangey colour.  I love risotto too, and the combination of both of them is one of my favourite meals.  I happened to mention to the lovely Matt, fellow blogger and ’Wine Evangelist’ (I love that title) at Curious Wines that I was going to knock up a butternut squash risotto and he very kindly offered to send me...

Ah, Mother’s Day.  A day for eating cremated bacon sandwiches whilst smiling broadly and going ‘mmm, delicious!’, drinking the half-cup of dodgy tea that was delivered to your bedside whilst secretly worrying how long it’s going to take you to remove the other half that’s been slopped up the stairs, and being the recipient of approximately fifteen hardly squeezes and twenty five...

  So our local butcher (well, I say ‘local’, he’s a half-hour drive away) does some really nice finely minced pork.  I usually make meatballs in tomato sauce, but since I’ve done both chicken breasts and lamb shanks (simmer for 2 hours until the meat is falling off the bone) in this sauce recently, I thought I’d try something different. For the meatballs: 500g minced pork 2 slices...

So last night we all sat down for a nice family meal to celebrate the end of term/prizes/the promise of good reports to come (#2 looked slightly green at the mention of those), etc.  I made little meatballs with my lamb kebab mixture, which I baked in the oven, along with some of #1′s famous tomato sauce. Hubby, generally a stranger to the kitchen (unless there’s scrambling of eggs or anything to...

So noodles then.  Unfortunately with noodles, we’re a family at war.  We all love them, but #2 likes stir fried chicken noodles with frozen peas (‘and NO juice’), #1 likes chilli, Hubby likes chilli and lots of soupy stock, I don’t mind chilli but prefer them with coconut milk… Oh the dilemma.  This latest edition, then, is a kind of mixture of stuff that everyone likes.  It went...

  Little Italian interlude today then.  Hubby’s away so we’ve been stuffing ourselves with pasta (which he hates) and all thoughts of a Sunday roast were quickly discarded as we were all suddenly overtaken by an inexplicable need for lasagne.  This, by the way, contains #1′s tried, tested and patented recipe for tomato sauce, which is the only one that his brother will eat, considering...

So we were all in need of a bit of comfort food last night.  And this packet of bloody Carnaroli rice has been sitting in the cupboard glaring at me every time I go in there for a tin of beans.  Me and risotto have a chequered history.  It’s not that I don’t like it, oh no, it’s just that every time I make it, I get that kind of ‘hmmm’ response from my lot that means ‘yeah,...

So you’ll like this one. Hubby, being a bit weird, can’t eat pasta at all – makes him gag, apparently (oh the drama). But he loves noodles, which as far as I’m concerned are exactly the same as pasta so I just substitute one for the other. When he comes home late from work I often put some noodles on as they’re quick and knock this chicken up, or sometimes I just do the chicken...

We had a right laugh yesterday. C&J came to dinner and I decided to rustle up a dodgy approximation of a Chinese meal. Actually, it went really well and although not particularly authentic, it tasted okay. I had that last-minute flap when everything suddenly either became ready or needed doing at the last minute, but that’s the beauty of having friends round, because they either don’t care, or...