While the husband's away, the Chef will play . . .

An odd yet delicious dinner

This evening I have made the following for dinner;

Shepherd's pie with garlic sautéed courgettes for Ged, his mum and dad.

Fish fingers, rice and green beans for Joe.

Pasta with courgettes, roast peppers, cherry tomatoes and parmesan for Zoe.

And then  . . . .






A collection of Israeli bits and bobs at Carrie Ann's tea rooms  for our TV pilot; roast red and green pepper salad, tehina, tabbouleh, merguez sausages and fried matzo rolls filled with both spinach and feta, and smoked aubergine and pine nuts.  Actually, I think I forgot to put the pine nuts in.  And a fiery chilli, fennel and sesame seed condiment - I'm not sure what to call it  - it's sort of a paste but more lumpy.

Then finally . . .

I came home and after putting the kids to bed made myself a plate of mashed potato, topped with creamed garlic spinach and lots of the yummy chilli/fennel/sesame thing.

Ged hates spinach, mash and chilli so, much as I am missing him, I am very happy that I can comfort myself in the pleasures of his larder-from-hell.

This afternoon I dipped into Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food  (my bible, or should I say, my Talmud even though I'm not Jewish) to see if she included a recipe for my matzo rolls.  I was pleased to see that she didn't.  The recipe comes from my ex-mother in law who was a Greek heritage Israeli living in Tel Aviv.  The matzo rolls were made during Pesach when no leavening is permitted. I would be happy to give you the recipe but you really need to see it done as it involves washing the matzos and precise timing of when they are just wet enough to roll and fry.  So you will have to wait for the TV series.

It's now 10.20pm and I still have to gather the washing in from the line.  This is my only gripe about sunny days - one feels too guilty to use the tumble drier.  This means one has to spend a lifetime pegging it out, staying in to watch for clouds (or kicker thieves), then dragging it all back in after too many glasses of Retsina to find it all needs ironing because Little Miss Sunshine has rendered everything crisp and crinkly.