A redo of 16 February. We had the pasta from the night before which I'd cut into wide strips and frozen. They cooked well straight from frozen. I'd forgotten the lovely silky texture of home made egg pasta. With that we had previously made mini burgers. I like the flavour of an equal weight of minced lamb and minced beef. In addition a carton of courgette bake pulled from the freezer. This is my favourite way of using up a glut of home grown courgettes and tomatoes in season. As`well as an accompanying vegetable the bake makes a delicious sauce for pasta.

Burgers

Lamb mince 500g

Beef mince 500g

Thick slice of bread, crusts removed, soaked in milk to cover

1 large onion

2 cloves garlic

Soften the finely chopped onion and garlic in oil. Place the 2 meats in a large bowl. Add the bread which has had the excess milk squeezed out and the cooked onion mixture. Mix all well together- most easily done with your hands. Have a preheated griddle or frying pan on the stove top- no need to grease it. Pinch off suitable sized pieces, flatten slightly and cook gently on each side until brown. This makes at least 18 2.5-3" diameter burgers. The excess freeze well.

Courgette Bake

No precise quantities for this. Its a good way of using courgettes which are on their way to marrows. Cut courgettes into pieces about 2"x2" thick. Halve or quarter tomatoes depending on their size. Peel and roughly chop onions. Put all the veg into a large roasting tin. For a roasting tin of size 14"x12"x2" depth, I use 2 large onions, enough cut up courgette to fill most of the tin, and probably about a dozen medium sized tomatoes. To the veg add a generous glug of olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, and salt and pepper. Mix so that seasonings and liquids are well distributed and roughly level off contents. Put in preheated oven at 180C. cook for about one and a half hours, turning every so often, until most of liquid has evaporated. (freezes well)

Potato bake

Cut unpeeled potatoes into roughly 1-1.5cm wide slices or chunks. Slice peeled onions. Put onions and potatoes into pottery baking dish so the layer of vegetables is about 5-7 cms thick. We like more potato than onions, but we do this by eye. Season with salt and pepper, then lubricate well with olive oil and mix all together. Cover, and put in microwave on high for 20-25 minutes. With this we had grilled pork sausages, lightly cooked cabbage, drained and seasoned with soy sauce, butter and balsamic vinegar. And,to set it off, tomato chutney.

Tomato chutney

5lb tomatoes

1lb onions

3 cloves garlic

2tsp salt

2tsp paprika

2tsp cayenne pepper

2tsp crushed mustard seed

8oz sugar

3/4 pint wine vinegar

Peel tomatoes. chop into rough pieces and put into preserving pan with the chopped onions, garlic and a little vinegar. cook slowly until the tomatoes have turned to pulp and the onions are soft, but still retain some texture.

Then add all the other ingredients and continue to cook until the chutney is thick and well blended. This chutney benefits from a long slow cooking.

Pot into sterilised heated bottles. Can eat straight away, but keeps for months.

Recipe modified from: Jams, Pickles & Chutneys. David and Rose Mabey 1975. I bought this book very cheaply in a local library sale. It's the only recipe I've (or to be more exact, my husband) has made from the book. I often find with cookery books that I only do a few recipes. Often nowadays I do an internet search for a recipe.

February 8 2009

The purpose of this blog is mostly to record what we have for supper, and sometimes lunch, most days. We get into habits of eating, and it will be good to look back and see what we have especially enjoyed and then forgotten about. Also, to be able to keep a record of my recipes.

Tonight we will be having an easy supper: spaghetti with roast tomato sauce. The sauce was made last September.

Roast Tomato Sauce

Cut fresh tomatoes in half. Fit snugly into roasting tin. Scatter with chopped garlic, salt, and pepper. Drizzle with lots of olive oil. Put in oven at 180degC until well cooked and starting to blacken. Let cool a little, then puree. Use as a sauce for spaghetti or on bread. Its quite a strong flavour. Excess puree freezes well.