battenburgbelle.com

Pancake Day and some soup

I know Missy B is now 14 but I can’t break the habit of providing at least some healthy stuff when she has her mates round at feeding time, so I duly bought a large bag of baby carrots for her birthday dinner (there were pizzas plus many cakes too, I am not cruel). Anyway, I think as many as five of the carrots were consumed on the day. But I turned the rest into this really lovely soup, with a hint of tarragon and some lemon. I got it out of the freezer this week and crumbled a bit of goat’s cheese in, just because it was there really.

For pancake day, I decided to go for savoury and take the opportunity to use up some meat that I’d cooked and minced previously: one portion was pork from a fantastic roast a couple of weeks ago (perfect crackling, I must say) and the last portion of beef from Buen Ayre. So I made a sort of bolognese-style ragu sauce. I soaked the meats in some red wine while I sautéed a finely chopped onion, five rashers of streaky bacon, diced, and a couple of cloves of garlic, crushed. When they were browned I added the meat, a coupe of tins of tomatoes, about a tablespoon of tomato purée and some torn basil leaves. I let that simmer gently, while I made the pancakes and a very cheesy béchamel sauce. I filled the pancakes with the ragu, covered in the sauce and baked for about 20 minutes.

It’s not an especially photogenic meal, but Missy B declared them “decent” (she’s not the most adventurous diner and this was fairly high praise…) Mr B and I thought they were very tasty. We had them with a big green salad. Missy B had another pancake for dessert with some shockingly sweet sauces she had snuck into the shopping trolley.

Although I haven’t given anything up for Lent, I didn’t feel the need to try this particular pud.