What’s for dinner?

I have to say I’ve been eating and drinking rather well recently, both outside at pubs and restaurants and at home. Maybe a bit too well 🤔I’ll share with you a few of the highlights.

“What’s for lovely dinner?” my husband asks me every day around tea time. He usually is genuinely excited by the menu. We’ve been married for a long time, I know what he likes.

The above photo is crab and saffron risotto I made the other night. The recipe was from BBC Good Food magazine. It was so yummy. It seemed very exotic, the saffron, but so easy as you just add a pinch out of a jar. Et voilà!

Today I went out for lunch at The Greene Oak, Oakley Green. Another pleasant meal outside with friends. I’m getting used to the al fresco dining life. It even spotted with rain a little. Who cares! I enjoyed the potted shrimp to start, the calves liver main which was very tasty, and some crisp chilled Sauvignon blanc and sparkling water.

On Monday I made my first banana cake for ages. Who says banana cake is just for lockdowns?

If you want to join in the fun, the recipe is here.

I like to freeze some of this for later, and it seems even better and more moist when it’s been frozen for a while and defrosted. Happiness is having home baked cake in the freezer 😊.

I made this rhubarb cake for my Mum’s birthday recently. It smelt so good, I really wanted to eat it myself.

On Monday night we had scallops with black pudding on mashed potato (mixed white and sweet potatoes). No pics of this, gobbled up fast!

On Sunday David and I had a great time at Gogos Waterfront restaurant at Windsor racecourse marina. Look at this gorgeous setting! Windsor à la Caribbean… sadly not that warm though!

I had the fish board… meant for sharing (but I didn’t!)

It had big king prawns, squid, cod goujons and big mussels. David had the meat board and we shared some chips.

David then had this massive chocolate brownie for pudding. I helped him out a bit with this.

I also had a Gogos sunset cocktail to finish, which was sweet and refreshing. Vodka I think and lots of fruit juice.

On the home cocktail front, we enjoyed amaretto fizz recently. This is Disaronno, orange juice and sparkling wine. It tastes kind of Christmassy and I recommend it. The recipe is here.

This weekend I’ve got my eye on an Italian margarita recipe, which also includes amaretto, or else Bajan rum punch to remind us of our holidays in the Caribbean. We are now both firmly of the opinion that “Cocktail Saturdays” are one of the best things about the lockdowns for us. This is something we want to keep, pandemic or no pandemic, and a new skill I have learned. Hurrah for the cocktails and creativity!

So tonight it’s tartiflette on the menu. I last had this in Les Gets in France quite near Switzerland. It’s a bit like dauphinoise in that there’s sliced potato, cream, milk, but together with bacon and ripe brie. Sounds highly fattening and high in cholesterol. Oops! I must plan some lighter meals for next week.

My new Wednesday morning day off habit is lying in bed in my Cath Kidston pyjamas with a cup of tea, surrounded by a few of my favourite cookery books and Good Food magazine perusing leisurely and planning the meals for the following week. I note the ingredients on paper and then shop online from my iPad with Ocado. So lazy but also so productive and nice! Who wants to be walking around Tesco’s with a trolley that has a mind of its own. Not me!

I believe Winston Churchill did some of his best work with a stiff drink in hand in bed.. just saying. Personally I’m now dreaming of some sort of cocktail shelf for the bath. Does anyone know of one? I cannot be the first naughty person to have thought of this?!

So busy blogging I haven’t had my banana cake fix for the day, so I’m going to rectify that now with a small piece and a cup of tea. Pause and then a little yoga before tartiflette in the kitchen. Have fun. Eat well if you can. Back soon 😊Xx