England

England!

So across to England we go. It came time to cook Sunday dinner and you know what, I was exhausted. Earlier that morning I was up to do the Auckland half marathon and when it came time to cook dinner, cooking was the last thing on my mind. 

So I skipped the Sunday dinner. 

That week, it was Guy Fawkes day. Why the English celebrate this who knows, but given the date it seemed timely to make up for the delay with cooking England that night.

Entree: Curried Parsnip Soup

This soup was super easy to make. In fact I was surprised at how easy it was to make. 

It has a good spicy curry hit and would be a great started for an Indian meal.

The cream dash at the end was a great tip - it cut through was finished it off perfectly.

Main: Crispy Beer-Battered Tofu

Ok, so I'm sure you can tell this from the picture but.....i cheated. I've had this beer batter in my cabinet for years (well close to 2 years) and thought now was as good as a time as any to try it. Considering it was just the flour mixture I consider this only a minor cheat.

The recipe called for dulse flakes in the marinade. I had to look these up and after reading they were a sea lettuce I decided to subsitute them with roasted nori (seaweed). A lovely vegan paella recipe by Tal Ronnen uses them and so I was quitely confident they would work well to give that salty-from-the-sea taste.

For the beer I convinced Matt to open a bottle of beer (hard sell) but as all we had was Moa's Pale Ale, I was briefly concerned that it might be too strong a flavor, but it ended up great.

Given that this dish was essentially meant to be fish, what's more English than Fish and Chips. So I made some chips to go along side the peas. My recipe was:

Lindsay's chips/wedges

3 potatoes

Olive Oil

Salt and pepper

1. Heat the oven to 180 C

2. Cut the potatoes into wedges (half, and then quarters).

3. Liberally spray/cover in olive oil and salt and pepper

4. Cook until golden and cooked through - for me this was around 40 minutes

Side: Crushed minted peas

I've never made peas like this before and had some strange looks from Matt and the father in law when  I was crushing them with a rolling pin. I used a lemon infused olive oil and lemon and mint straight from the garden. Rather than straight salt and pepper I seasoned with lemon pepper seasoning (the kind usually used for steak). Yum.

Dessert: Trifle

I have a big issue with this one.

1. It uses jelly. Trifle should not have jelly!

2. It has no sponge cake? Trifle should have sponge

I realise these are highly contreversial statements and I know my friend Victoria and I used to have many a debate on this topic. In any event, I'll do it as per the recipe (well, sort of).

I luckily had some strawberry jelly from a vegetarian stand at the food show (or Green living show) still in the cupboard. The picture below is quite useful in case anyone else finds themselves looking for this brand.

The trifle was supposed to be vegan, but well, yea....that's just not me.

So the custard was made with milk and for the cream, I just used cream. Although I will be keen to try her vegan cream at some point.

To serve this I used small whiskey glasses which were the perfect size for individual servings and I think looked quite elegant (I originally wanted to use martini glasses but couldn't find 3 of the same size around our house)

While I may disagree with the lack of sponge, I can't argue that this was simple and tasty and a refreshing end to our meal.