Vongolle a la Nazca with tiger prawns and scallops

I cooked the vongolle in white wine, finely chopped onion, garlic and olive oil for a few minutes. They all opened up, it was going to be my day! ;-)

I emptied the vongolle from the saucepan but left the juices behind and reduced them.

Meanwhile, I pan fried the tiger prawns and scallops in butter and olive oil.

To the wine reduction I added fresh oregano, fresh parsley, lime juice and a double cream. And then added the shelled vongolle to warm through.

I arranged the seafood around the bowl and served the vongolle sauce on a mound of basmati.

No pics I'm afraid. You'll just have to imagine the large smile on my face too :-D

Cookies!!!

Recipe is here. The only difference was that I used vanilla extract rather than expresso (I don't drink coffee so buying expresso was not an option really).

See food and eat it!

I was in the mood for some seafood today. So I went for quick, easy and sublime.



In a little butter I pan fried the scallops and tiger prawns for a couple of minutes. Then lifted them out and placed them on the buttered toast. Then into the butter I added a little olive oil and the asparagus. Near the end I added a little balsamic vinegar.

Salt and pepper and consume!

Pork Stir fry (sans pictures)

Super hot wok, veggie (or any high flash point) oil and preperation. That's all you need for a good stir fry... well, assuming you have ingredients of course.

Having everything julienne'd (er, sliced nice and thinnly [this was done after four pints of Guinness {not recommended to extend your life }]) before hand is always a bonus. Then you just fry them in order of cooking time.

Day 1: Pork strips, baby sweet corn, spring onions, orange pepper, bamboo shoot, water chestnuts, chilli, garlic, lime juice/peel, bundles of fresh coriander and soy sauce. Served with stir fried noodles.

Day 2: Pork strips, baby sweet corn, mushrooms, spring onions, chilli, garlic, ginger, lime juice/peel, bundles of fresh coriander and soy sauce. Served on naan bread (obviously!). It had to be quick, England were about to pulverize Trinidad & Tobago... well, kinda! ;-)

Get it all in

I was going down to London on Friday to celebrate England's first game in our inevitable sucessful World Cup. So I needed to get rid of the perishables on Thursday.


After slicing the raw chicken, I put paprika and cayenne pepper on/into it and pan fried it. I added red peppers, red onions and mushrooms. And emptied them onto baby tomatoes. Onto that went fresh parsley and (torn) fried eggs.

I sliced the chicken and added that to the mix. The concoction was then forced into pitta bread and snaffled pretty quickly.

Pork belly a la curry

Some regular viewers will remember I did a root vegetable soup not so long ago. Yesterday for those with memory problems. Today I had a pork belly joint to cook and left over soup to finish. What to do?

I rubbed Thai 7 Spice into the pork, with a little paprika and salt, and let it rest for about 20-30 minutes. Then into the oven (190c) for 70 mins.

I reheated the soup I had left, added tumeric, cumin, dried coriander and cayenne pepper. Let that cook out for about 30-40 mins and then added the juices from the pan of the resting pork and stirred.



I still have that other half for tomorrow. I think it'll be soup again tomorrow too, kinda over -bought on the veggie side!

Muscle surprise

No pic today I'm afraid, tough game of football this afternoon so I couldn't manage the stairs again after upping them twice already :-)

As I was in a dire need for food and a beverage I started by opening a bottle of Spitfire. Mmm hopy goodness :-)

Then I emptied, into a saucepan, the leftover Cornish pasty mix from yesterday. Potatoes, swede, onion and carrot. Fried that in olive oil for a min or two, then in went salt and black pepper [I under-peppered the pasty yesterday :-( ], a dried chili (whole, but split down one side) and two cloves of garlic (whole). Then boiling water to cover and a little dried oregano because it was looking at me from the cupboard.

Into the serving bowl I ripped some flat leaf parsley, and chucked in a few plump mussels. I removed the chili, and crushed some of the soup contents to thicken it a little. Then poured it over the muscles. It was surprisingly edible, it went down nearly as gratifying as the beer :-)

Cornish pasty

I've been weak recently. Ordering pizzas and buying easy food. Today I had some time, in between X-Files DVDs, so I whipped up a proper pasty.

The filling consisted of a mix of raw steak, potato, carrot, onion and swede. Seasoned with lots of salt and pepper. I laid a pile in the middle of the shortcrust pastry (store bought) and added a little butter on top. Then I folded it over and expertly crimped it, as you can no doubt see ;-)

The pastry was a little soft, you may be able to pic out a few patches. I cut a little hole in the top too, I didn't want any explosions!

40 mins at 220-230C and all was ready. The little one to the side was part of the leftovers...