Delicious Kake Food

Chicken and summer vegetable stew.

Sauté finely-chopped onion, celery, and carrot in olive oil until soft. Push to the edge of the pan, add a little more oil to the revealed space, then add chicken meat (I used thighs, deboned, skinned, and cut into bite-sized chunks) and let it brown.

Add a splash of white wine, some finely-chopped capers, a splash of liquid from the caper jar, a good squeeze of tomato purée, and some vegetable stock (I used diluted Touch of Taste brand veg stock concentrate). Mix well, then add cubed radishes and courgettes.

Bring to a simmer, then cook for about 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the liquid is mostly gone.

Served with jasmine rice done in the rice cooker.

Pork and lentil soup. Made with leftover roast pork from Tuesday, plus onions (fried in the pork fat that came off the roast), garlic, split red lentils, finely-chopped greens, chopped radishes, veg stock. Served with sourdough bread.

Roast pork shoulder. From the happy pig we bought from Yorkshire Meats. Left unwrapped in the fridge overnight for the skin to dry out, then sprinkled with salt and plainly roasted. Delicious.

Glazed radishes. Topped and tailed radishes braised in vegetable stock (Touch of Taste) and jaggery — I didn’t bother with the butter/oil mentioned at the link.

Roasted potato cubes with garlic and paprika.

Plain boiled cauliflower.

Gravy. Made with the meat juices, a slosh of red wine, a sprinkle of flour, water, soy sauce, and a bit of jaggery.

Bento lunch: Japanese rice, beef soboro, egg soboro, sliced sautéed red and orange peppers, boiled edamame, home-grown radishes.

Tonight’s menu changed dramatically as the number of guests expected waxed and waned. In the end, it was just me!

Spicy chickpeas and spinach.

Spiced mushrooms. With mustard seed, tomato, and fresh coriander.

Radish and cucumber salad. Seasoned with salt and fresh lemon juice.

Basmati rice. Done in the rice cooker.

bob cooked tonight.

Skin-on mackerel fillets coated with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and cooked in a griddle pan.

Samphire panfried with groundnut oil, butter, and squeezy garlic.

Red salad. Grated beetroot, grated radish, grated carrot, chopped celery, all mixed with some sliced crispy bacon (done in the oven) and dressed with bacon fat, white wine vinegar, olive oil, horseradish mustard, and some light brown sugar.

Vegetable and bean stew. A base of chopped onions, garlic, carrots, and celery. Flavoured with veg stock, sundried tomato purée, finely-chopped olives, a good splash of white wine. Finished with quartered radishes, sliced cabbage, chopped radish leaves.

Herb-crusted boar chops. Free-range boar chops, patted dry, seasoned with salt on the bottom side, spread with a mixture of chimichurri and squeezy garlic on the other. In the oven at 180˚C for 20 minutes.

I had the rest of last night’s rice; Bob didn’t bother with a carb.

I haven’t really cooked at all this week — it’s been a bit of an exhausting week due to work stress and illness. So I am not ashamed to admit that tonight I served a ready meal for dinner, specifically Bigham’s moussaka. It was pretty good for a ready meal, though not as good as home-made.

I wanted a very easy side dish to go with it, so I cut up some radishes and courgettes, salted them generously, let them sit for 10 minutes, washed off the salt, dried them in a teatowel, and then marinaded them for another 20 minutes in some pre-seasoned sushi vinegar. This is a handy thing to do with pretty much any vegetable that’s edible raw — turnips, carrots, whatever. And it’s really easy. You can call it pickles or salad, whichever you find more appetising. Leftovers will keep in the fridge for a few days; they become more pickle-like and less salad-like with time.

A simple, fresh-tasting vegetable stew served with jasmine rice done in the rice cooker.

Vegetable stew. Finely-chopped onion and garlic sweated gently in olive oil. Added celeriac and carrots, cut into batons. Stewing liquids: cider, vegetable stock, tinned tomatoes, splash of soy sauce. Later, added green beans, broccoli, radishes, courgettes, and a finely-chopped pickled gherkin. Cooked with the lid off until done.