Rather than face the town, I’ve been in the kitchen making pizza.  It may certainly not be upto the Franco Marco standards (a spate of recent visits have happened in some food blogs I follow) – but I still think as long as it’s tasty then we all win!

I love eggs, and considering I’ve got way too many eggs in the fridge I decided that I’d add one to my topping list.  This was along with the other classic topings of capers and anchovies.

For those that would like to recreate :

I’ll let you choose any dough recipies out there, I personally use one from Nigella Express.

Base Sauce (for 1 pizza):
3 handfuls of cherry tomatoes - halved.
Dash of tomato puree
Clove of galric chopped
Pepper

Toppings:
 3/4 Anchovy fillets
Handfull of capers
Copious amounts of mozerlla
One Egg.

How?

• Preheat an oven (as hot as you can get).
• In a hot pan, add all the ingredients and let them simmer down till you end up with a nice rich tomato sauce. 
•  Add the sauce to your dough and spread out liberally covering the whole area.  
• Arrange all the toppings, bar the egg. 
• Place this on a pizza stone/baking tray and pop into the oven for 3 minutes (or once the mozeralla starts to melt/crisp).  
• Quickly open the oven, and pull out the tray and crack the egg over. 
• Return to the oven for a minute; and then it should be ready to serve. 
• Crack open the egg and enjoy!

Well, what a week.  The UK officially broke down, though whilst the snow started off in the south it didn’t allow me to get away with a snow day.  Sometimes being based in Birmingham has its downsides, I had to get in the car and drive to see some clients.  Let’s just say that the return trip was a bit hairy, what with driving in a blizzard on non-gritted roads!

Back at home, due to not having any food around I was a bit of of sync with my usual routine.  Nothing too amazing this week, though my friend did manage to make a good dinner on Saturday.  He was happy with 7/10, unfortunately like many people he had an issue with a chocolate mousse not setting!

Monday: Appalling room service – Greasy Pizza with Salami
Tuesday: Onion Risotto, Squid & Belly Pork, Coffee & Petit Fours at Anthony’s
Wednesday:  Chili Con Carne (salvaged from the depths of my Freezer).  Also baked some tasty flourless chocolate brownies [I have a slight craving for chocolate on a weekly basis]
Thursday: Toad in the Hole, with yorkshire sausages and a few strips of beef.
Friday:  Leftover toad 
Saturday: [Dinner at a friends: @RedWineBoy]
Sunday: A misty haze, Beef Pie.

So, for a change and with some rib-eye streaks from the lovely folks at Paganum (the people I lovingly refer to as my meat dealers).

I can honestly say that I’ve never eaten this cut before, a quick bit of research shows that it’s just as easy as any other.  Just a minute and a half on each side, in a stonkingly hot pan.  Then letting rest for a few minutes before serving.

Now that sounds simple, though as I was going to be serving some wedges on the side.  Which meant the majority of the time cooking involved the parboiling of sliced potatoes and waiting for them to crisp up nicely in the oven.

When everything was pulled together, I served with a bois boudrin sauce. Which is as simple as mixing some halved cherry tomatoes, lemon, olive oil, mustard and worcester sauce. 

Think of it like DinnerDiary, but for someone who isn’t organised enough!

Week 5: 26 January – 1 February
Monday: Chorizo Pizza
Tuesday: Scallops with buckwheat and spicy salsa
Wednesday: Ribeye Steaks, homecooked wedges & Bois Boudrin dressing.  Baked some chocolate cookies.
Thursday: Spagetti with Garlic & Seafood
Friday: [Nibbles & Liquid Refreshments ]
Saturday: Lasagna.  Baked some pretzels, hard work & slight fail!
Sunday: Seafood Risotto

Certainly a tasty mix, I think the Lasagna was the best I’ve made so far.  The true sign of delight is being able to finish a meal for 4, in 2 days, by just yourself.

Pop back, and hopefully I’ll be able to link the rest to some posts.  Enjoy your week, it’s going to be a barren desert for me.  Am away travelling, will attempt to find some culinary delights; unless I freeze!

Using the left over salsa from the chorizo pizza, I decided to spice things up a bit.  So I added in half a chopped chili, diced up the rest of a red pepper, two sliced spring onions as well as the remainder of some chorizo finely chopped.

I have vague memories of chorizo and seafood going well, (did i dream this?), so paired up this salsa with some lovely scallops.

The scallops, of the frozen kind, were panfried in butter till nice and crispy on both sides.  When they were nearly done I added in some white wine, and started to deglaze the pan.

This was all served up on some buckwheat (with some added lime), that I had prepped the previously for some lunch (I shock myself with my organisational skills sometimes).

Then it was a case of adding the sauce to the scallops, and serving with the salsa.  Truely delicious is the verdict.

After having a quick wander round the freezer on the weekend I had pulled out some pizza dough that I had put aside.  So, on a fine Monday evening whilst feeling a bit hungry I was torn – do I go for the glory of pizza, or instead the joys of lamb chops.

My solution was to go for both, so I heated up about 300g of cherry tomatoes (quarts), chopped up sundried tomato, as well as some puree.  With a couple of anchovies added for good measure.  This was left to bubble down, to a nice rich base sauce.

This, then combined with half a fresh chili and some red peppers was laid out on my ‘ultra–thin’ pizza base along side some lovely mozeralla.

After a good blast in a hot oven, my ’snack’ was produced.  Safe to say that I didn’t get around to eating the chops that night, instead I combined some of the ingredients into another meal (to come!)

Time to bring out the casserole dish, and make some more traditional British comfort food.

I’m sure we’ve all had this as a kid, the tasty treat made by our parents.  The trick is to make it nice and rich, with a lovely meaty depth.

For a portion good enough for 4 (or 2 greedy people) brown off a diced : onion, celery stick(x2) and a carrot in some lovely olive oil.  Once done, just add in your mince meat (500g) bit my bit and let it brown off. [If easier, feel free to remove the veg to make this easier.]

Then to impart some flavour add a pint(~500ml) of beef stock/stock cube, a generous dash of worcester sauce and a teaspoon of mustard.  Give it a good mix, and then let it simmer away with the lid askew, till it thickens up (30/40 mins) [You can always add some cornflour to help speed it up]

At the same time, add some peeled and diced potatos into some water and let them cook till soft.  Just add however much butter/milk/oil you want to make a rich mashed potato.  Don’t forget the S&P though.

Then it’s just about assembling into an ovenproof dish.  I’m a bit greedy, and rubbish at measuring potatoes.  So I had more of a meat fest, and a slight lack on the mashed side.  Though I think you’ll all agree that it looks good!

The bonus of dishes like this, is that they are great to freeze, and for tasty meals at work the next day.  I know I enjoyed it.

It was all about the sausage, like the taster with the lamb chops I kept it simple as I wanted to see what they tasted like with not much fuss made over them.

The result was rather delicious;  for those unfamiliar with such a great british classic it is simply loose batter mix, with meaty yorkshire pork sausages .  I served it up with a nice onion gravy.

I don’t think it warrants further description!

Thanks to the folks at Paganum, I received a rather big delivery yesterday.  Full of scrumpious goodies, and weighing what felt like a ton.  My fridge is stocked up with:
Pork Sausages (Lots)
Bacon(Nice and thick slices)
Stewing Meat
Lamb Chops (2 down, many more to go)
Burgers(8)
Rib Eye Steaks (4)
Mince (2X500g)

The meat is two/three layers deep!

So, fresh from the box, I made a quick dish of lamb chops, with an onion/garlic red wine reduction type thing; and few potatoeson the side.  Nice and quick, and very tasty.  Check out the pics below.

I tweaked the recipe to suit my storecupboard, though I kept it as a nice slow roast.  I rubbed in a mix of star-anise, white pepper and salt into all the scored skin and  browned it off in the oven at a real high heat (good thing its winter, helps keep me warm),  on a bed of cloves from a whole head of garlic (no such thing as too much garlic).

After it had been in for an hour and a half, I drained off the fat and placed in a mixture of dark soy and a dash of light, with a bit of chili oil.  I also added some star anise into the pan.  Then I just turned the temp down, and let it do some nice slow cooking topping it up with some rice vinegar, water and soy (and a bit of basting) for the next three or so hours.

To serve, it was kept simple and just placed on a bed of sticky rice with cucumber, spring onion and some of the thick syrup of garlic-soy sauce.  Even better as I had plenty to spare, it also made its way into a salad and a wrap.