Neat piles, ragu & pheasant-20/02/2016

Apologies for the slight delay, but REASONS.  There will also not be an update for the 21st, because nobody want to hear about a Costa sandwich, and that’s pretty much all I ate.  Equally the 22nd, because a Tesco £6 meal deal and disappointing stir fry do not make good reading.  But here, have a picture of Dan’s fly chopping skills before we ruined it with inappropriate sauce.

 

But back to the 20^th, when things when more to plan.  We started the day with an inheritance dish.  Much like an inheritance track (thank you Radio 4), this is a beautifully nostalgic dish usually provided by your parents.  In this case it is Delia Smith’s Ragu, lovingly served throughout my childhood by Mama Lowe, and thus ruining me for any Dolmio based abomination.

Before cooking

It contains several animals, including chicken livers, is cooked for several hours and freezes remarkably well.  It can be used for Spaghetti Bolognese (most common) or Lasagne (less common).  It is also something we cook and give as a gift to people we decide probably need some easy freezer meals in their life.  This is mostly people with new houses or babies.  J&T had a baby back in November 2015, but the rest of their friends and family have been so supportive they haven’t really needed us until now.  Now they have nine bags of ragu in their freezer than will either serve nine couples or nine very hungry individuals.  All before lunch.

Lunch was at Fancy Bakery in North Bedford.  This a spur of the moment thing based on D&S’s recommendation the previous evening.  Whilst we usually refrain from commenting too much on food we eat out but we felt we needed to mention two things:

1. Avocado on toast with a little cheese. Who knew?  Actually better than the chorizo toastie.  Which is not a sentence I ever thought I’d say.  Probably going to become a lunchtime weekend staple.
2. Their selection of gluten free cakes is amazing. We tried them (for purely scientific purposes of course) and found them delicious.  Definitely one to take our coeliac niece to.

Dinner was great fun.  The original recipe was supposed to feed four, but one quarter of a pheasant does not make a satisfactory meal.  I mean look at it.

Tiny.

The actual recipe was “Pheasant on Bruschetta with oregano and lemon ricotta”.  We would like to point out the bread is Waitrose, but the oregano is homegrown.  The ricotta also contained some chilli and we served the whole thing with watercress left over from last night canapés.

It was a pretty chilled dinner really.  Whilst the pheasant was roasting we mixed the ricotta mix, toasted the toast and rubbed the toast with garlic to make bruschetta. Then during the resting phase we whipped up a quick gravy using the roasting juices and white wine.

There were also cocktails.