The Promised Posts

So, as I promised, here are my meals from my very busy week!

 

 

First up is Spring Onion, The Star!

 

 

Quite often, spring onions are used as a garnish, or just added to meals such as stir frys and the like, but they are hardly ever one of the main ingredients. So I was pleased to see a recipe for Tomato and Spring Onion Omlette in one of my books. Not that I need a recipe for an omlette, but I liked the idea. It was a folded omlette, so I cooked the omlette first, then added the tomatoes and spring onions and folded it in half before serving it. The spring onion flavour was strong (but not in a bad way!) as there weren't many ingredients, but I really liked it. I'll definitely try to find more ways to make spring onions centre stage from now on!

 



Next in line is Mushroom Stroganoff. I served this with the traditional accompaniment of rice. This worked quite well, as I could make the actual stroganoff in the time it took the rice to cook. I know there are quite a few methods for cooking rice, but the one I use is to simply pour in water until it reaches a couple of centimetres above the rice, then bring to the boil and cook for however long the packet says- usually about 12-15 minutes. Honestly, it works every time, and it's quicker than working out ratios of rice to water like some methods want you to do!

This is how the rice looks when it's ready; all the water has been absorbed and the surface has little 'pockmarks' in.

 

I had to get some wholegrain mustard for this recipe, which means I now own three different types of mustard. I think I have a problem... 

Third is A Twist on Tuna. This is not your usual tuna sandwich. While I like tuna and sweetcorn sandwich as much as the next person, sometimes it's nice to switch things up a bit, so I tried the slightly unusual combination of tuna, mayonnaise and sweet pickle. I think fans of the sweet and salty combination would like this, as the tuna and pickle together produced this sort of flavouring. And of course, mayonnaise and tuna always works well!

My fourth meal of the week was a stuffed pita bread. I was rather looking forward to this, as I love the combination of feta and tomato. That is really all there is to this, aside from tomato pureé mixed with a smidge of oil. You spoon the feta and tomato into a pita, drizzle in the pureé and oil, and you're good to go. Even though I would be having this cold, I still warmed the pita before I split it open, as it is SO much easier to split pitas when they're warm! If you try and do it when they're cold, the sides just split and and your filling falls out. Which is not good.

My prepared feta and tomato mixture.

And last but not least, Freestyle Friday #16! The base part of #16 was pepper and garlic polenta. I don't mean base as in the main part of the meal, I mean base as in bottom. You'll see.

To make it, all I did was chop some green and red pepper and garlic then mix it with some polenta and boling water. Then I scraped it to the side of the tray to set it before I baked it. I did this part the night before I would need it, then left it overnight to set. I then baked it the next day while I made the top part of the meal!

 

I can't say I was thrilled with this. It was edible, but there was a strange aftertaste that I just didn't like. The only thing I can think of is that maybe the polenta wasn't cooked enough, or the garlic kind of leached into the polenta overnight. The peppers were nice though, and there were a lot of them, so I did eat it in the end!

The top part was a mixture of mushrooms, white onion and spring onion cooked in a little bit of truffle oil. It ma seem an extravagance to use truffle oil for something like this, but I barely use it and I thought, why not?! I love the subtle taste it brings to whatever it is added to, and it goes so well with mushrooms. There wasn't really a reason not to use it.

 

When the mushrooms and onion (and rouge green pepper ;-)) were cooked, I added a little bit of crumbled blue cheese and stirred the mixture until it had melted evenly throughout. I have to say, this part of the meal tasted pretty heavenly. Subtle mushroom, slightly sweet onion and tangy blue cheese. Ohmygod. This is most definitely something I will repeat, I promise you that!

 

 

As always, this turned out nothing like the first thought I had in my head to do with Freestyle Friday. Garlic mushrooms on toast to this. I wonder what goes on in my head sometimes...