Inadvertently gave Mr B a pass to go
Inadvertently gave Mr B a pass to go out on a Friday night. Not sure how that happened, must concentrate harder. Missy B has had a large plate of halloumi and quinoa salad – her choice, she loves a cheese that squeaks – and disappeared upstairs to write a story. So here I am, thinking about what I cooked this week and how I am going to cope with a weekend which will involve a lot of eating out… Wednesday was lovely – my chum J and I decided to have a light dinner with no booze. So I rustled up this trout en papillotte, which I learnt how to make on a course at Leith’s wonderful cookery school.
It looks impressive, but after a few goes it’s quite easy making a leak-proof parcel. There are leeks in it though, as well as carrots, mushrooms, tarragon and a drop of wine (and even though it was open, we still resisted!). Served with a couple of lovely salads, a teeny tiny portion of new potatoes and followed by that cheeky chilli ice cream again.
Thursday was a bit more of a challenge – A & C came for dinner, with P & K, visiting from Spain. Always lovely to see them, of course, but a veganesque meal is required. C is a proper vegetarian and A gets the vapours if he comes into contact with anything that came from a cow. I can’t make cauliflower curry every time, so I scoured the cheese section for anything non-diary and made this gorgeous veggie roll (goats cheese, feta, spinach, pine nuts, herbs and such like things – all wrapped in filo pastry). Not the easiest job to roll it up and there was some emergency patchwork required on the filo but I got away with it – it went down very well and by the time Mr B got home from work there was only a sliver left for him to try.
The guests brought a lovely chargrilled cauliflower salad with them which was a perfect accompaniment (so there was cauliflower involved). And it occurred to me that the olive oil mousse would be fine for all dietary requirements, so I knocked up another batch of that, served with cherries, kirsch syrup and chilli praline. Another rip-roaring success!
