Sunday's fish pie

Matt, my husband, had declined my offer of roast dinner. Wisely because roast dinner would probably have consisted of bean burgers, roast potatoes, peas and gravy. So I would have to be a bit more imaginative. Whilst ferreting in the freezer earlier in the week I had noticed a disproportionate amount of smoked fish. I tend to buy this (and other fish) when it's reduced and then freeze it for use when we fancy it. One of the things I like to make is fish pie, but in the absence of any plain white fish and only a massive side of salmon (which I should have chopped up before freezing but is now going to have to be deployed when we have lots of people round sometime) this wasn't an option in the traditional sense. What I envisaged instead was something with the smoked fish (2 of the 4 fillets) and tomato. There was also half a tin of sweetcorn, half a punnet of mushrooms and some spring onions that needed using up. I wouldn't normally buy spring onions but they were on offer so were effectively free with the celery (not deployed in this creation) that I had brought. So I decided to add the mushrooms and sweetcorn to the tomato / fish mix and to make some sort of fancy mashed potato to go on top of it all.

This had the potential to use a lot of pans, something that I generally strive to avoid. So I spent a few minutes working out how to reduce my pan usage. I got it down to a wok, a saucepan and an oven-proof dish. Unfortunately I had used my multifunction hob / oven dish for the previous day's curry and hadn't yet washed it up, otherwise this would have reduced my pan usage by a third.

Strategically, I started off cooking the chopped spring onions in the wok while the fish defrosted in the microwave. This has had the unfortunate side-effect of smoked fish aroma emanating from the microwave every time we used it for a number of days subsequently. I am yet to discover the way around this – apart from of course to be more organised and get the fish out the freezer earlier so that it can defrost naturally. I was reminded of one of the reasons why I don't buy spring onions very often – they were so full of mud and required a disproportionate amount of washing for their small volume.

Spring onions to one side – they would go in the mash. I replaced them in the wok with the mushrooms and once these were cooked down (and I never cease to be amazed just how much they do cook down) I added a tin of plum tomatoes which I chopped a little bit with my wooden spoon. While that heated up a bit I prepared the fish. This mainly involved deskinning it, which is relatively easy as long as you have some good soap for afterwards so that you're not afraid to tackle to quite assertively.

The fish went into the mushroom / tomato mix and I put the potatoes on to boil. I am of the opinion that lots of the goodness in a potato is in its skin. Therefore unless you are an exceptionally honoured guest or the potatoes have particularly grotty skins you will find that my mash has the added texture and flavour of the skins which I leave in. In posh restaurants I think they call this crushed potatoes, really it is just slack mash. I stirred the sweetcorn into the mushroom / tomato / fish mix and then had to wait for a while until the fish was cooked and the potatoes were ready for mashing. Rather than twiddling my thumbs I grated some strong cheddar that I decided would augment the mash rather nicely.

I finished off the mushroom / tomato / fish / sweetcorn mix with a tablespoon of crème fraiche (it seemed like a good idea) and lots of black pepper and transferred this to my oven-proof dish. I mashed up the potatoes with the spring onions and cheese (this smelt amazing in itself and I would have been quite happy just to eat this for my meal) and then carefully applied this on top of the mushroom / tomato / fish / sweetcorn mix. There was a little bit of mash left over but I didn't mind – I would look forward to eating it as reheat.

The whole thing went into a hottish oven (the standard 180°C for when you don't really know what temperature you should really be using) for about 20 minutes and I cooked a little bit of broccoli (one of my favourite vegetables but not one of my favourite spellings) to go with it. The smell coming from the oven was (even if I say so myself) amazing – that wonderful combination of smoked fish and cheese I think. And when it came to eating the smell lived up to the expectations that it had created - a delicious alternative to a slack roast dinner. This is definitely one that's going to be recreated, hopefully with fewer pans next time.

Monday's potato dumplings

My mum and I had shared the vegetarian sharing plate at a local restaurant for lunch but another dish on the menu inspired me for the evening meal: gnocchi. I had planned to make a lasagne for us all (me, mum and dad, Matt – my husband – and my mother-in-law) but I thought that gnocchi would be no more complicated and a bit unusual. The pressure was on because Matt needed to eat before 7pm. Normally this wouldn't happen on a school night, but I had the day off work so with a bit of planning and the assistance of my mum as sous chef it should be possible.

I've made gnocchi once before (or maybe twice), and they were slightly gloopy so I decided to try a different recipe. My thoughts were that the sauce(s) would be easy (and slack) so I concentrated my initial efforts on the gnocchi. We debated for sometime whether the potatoes should be peeled before or after cooking, the recipe said afterwards but this would increase the time because:

1. They'd take longer to cook if whole rather than chopped

2. They'd have to cool down before peeling

So I put mum to work peeling the potatoes. And then boiling them.

Then I thought I may as well start the sauce. This would be the ideal opportunity to use up the leftover butternut squash. I started off by chopping a red onion and some sticks of celery and putting them in a big pan to sweat. Then I peeled off the skin and chopped up the squash. This was looking more and more like a reprise of the risotto flavours from last week. And it was such a good flavour I added mushrooms to complete. I mixed thing up a little bit by changing the seasoning, obviously some veg stock and black pepper but I also added some thyme from the garden. According to my mum I need to give my thyme plant a hair cut. I also set off a very easy pepper and tomato sauce by chopping a load of peppers and putting them in the oven to roast with a couple of sprigs of rosemary from the garden. I don't think that needs a hair cut.

Once that was all under way, I returned to the gnocchi. The potatoes were cooked and now needed mashing. I don't really like mashing potato (which is a shame because I love eating mashed potato), but this wasn't so bad as you're actually supposed to leave it a little bit lumpy. Once that's done you add an egg, flour, cheese, salt and pepper. On this occasion I used a hard goat's cheese – mum had already displayed her sous chef skills in grating this. It looks really dodgy when you first start to mix it up but comes together fine and then you tip it out and kneed it a little bit. This is very messy – wear an apron and remove hand jewellery. When it looks a bit less messy you have to roll it out into long thin sausages (about 1.5-2cm diameter) and then chop into pieces 2-3cm long. Maybe you could roll it all into little balls, but maybe this risks “over-handling” (if this is possible with gnocchi).

When it comes to cooking the gnocchi use the biggest pan of boiling water that you have but they need to be able to move around freely – I did mine in 4 batches. They're done when they float to the top and you need to remove with as little water as possible – I used a slotted spoon. In retrospect a chip pan would have been ideal but I don't have a chip pan. You can keep them warm in a buttered dish in a warmish oven (not the same oven that you're roasting peppers and by now tomatoes too in).

I finished off the butternut squash and mushroom sauce with a load of crème fraiche, and removed the sprigs of thyme. This was a good tea from the point of view that I could put everything in dishes on the table for people to help themselves. As well as the gnocchi and sauces there were some green beans that my sous chef had brought from her garden and prepared for me. It all seemed to go down very well. An improvement on my previous gnocchi, although they would probably have benefited from even more cheese (but what doesn't). No-one had any space for pudding which was a good job because there wasn't any. And we were nearly done by 7pm.

Monday's medley of soup

After a leisurely start to the day it was all systems go to equip the garden. The leisurely start included reading an old book – I’m sure I’m enjoying it more because it smells old.

The equipping of the garden first involved removal of junk from the boot of my car at the dump. This included:

1. An enormous and cute, but slightly mouldy teddy bear, that had been freed from our loft by my cousin, Alastair, in January. It had been sat around in a black sack in various locations since as I had been intending to fettle it up with a trip to the launderette but finally thought better of it.
2. A whole load of VHS tapes which I had discovered whilst spring re-arranging (more enjoyable than spring cleaning) yesterday. Both mine and Matt’s and none of them viewed in at least the last 7 years.
3. My condemned sandwich toaster.

Items 1 and 2 disposed of according to plan. Item 3 disposed of causing Matt great hilarity. Today I was fulfilling the role of dumping whilst Matt watched from the car. This is often beneficial as the men at the dump are generally quite keen to help ladies with their dumping. I was duly assisted with items 1 and 2 but today the electrical waste was unmanned.

Taking health and safety seriously I called out before throwing the sandwich toaster into the skip to check that there was no-one inside it. There was no response so I went ahead with the launch of the sandwich toaster. Unfortunately I didn’t launch with quite enough force and the sandwich toaster rebounded from the side of skip, plug flailing and narrowly avoiding my head. It was whilst I was picking up the bits that Matt wound down the car window and told me, between fits of laughter, to walk round the other side of the skip. Where the side was down and I could just place in the sandwich toaster with no risk of head injury.

A successful trip to the garden centre ensued and 8 terracotta, mosaic encrusted pots later we began the return journey. Matt had seat belted the larger pots into the back seats with the rest in the boot so there was limited capacity for shopping from a “luxury” supermarket. One of the best things about said luxury supermarket is that when they reduce things they do really good reductions. Today’s best bargain was watercress and I picked up 4 packets. I also picked up a packet of reduced salad which when put together with some reduced beetroot, the remaining salmon & prawn leftovers and a homemade dressing made a very nice lunch.

After lunch it was back out to another garden centre where we successfully equipped ourselves with garden tables (that sort of match the pots) and a hose. And what appears to me to be an extravagant hose attachment but Matt assures me that we will not regret it.

Once home I needed to turn the watercress into soup while it was still nice. I think that potato is the traditional thickening to go with this but I prefer lentils to add some protein.

Realising that we’d had watercress in the lunchtime salad I thought that I should mix up the day’s flavours, I decided to make another sort of soup too. I got a leek and potato one on the go. 

Then I thought: why stop at two? We had eaten the last portion of frozen soup yesterday (the parsnip and apple one) so there was scope for restocking.

One of my other luxury supermarket bargains was a pot of sun ripened tomatoes and I thought I’d try these with some slightly wrinkling peppers. Having started to heat some olive oil to sauté an onion I noticed that there was quite a bit of oil in the tomato pot and not wanting to waste this I got out another pan and heated that instead.

So now I had a spare pan with olive oil and the only logical thing was to use this to make another soup. I had used up nearly all of the fresh vegetables in the house but there were still some carrots. And I had a little knobble of ginger so decided to try carrot and ginger. To improve the flavour I oven roasted the carrots before adding to the onion and ginger. Whilst the carrots were roasting and I was pondering this creation I felt inspired to add orange juice. This would be the perfect opportunity to use up the oranges and satsumas etc that had been sat, unloved, for a good long while (some I fear since 2012) in the fruit bowl. This is because I love nice citrus and am often tempted to buy. But if I buy a pack, eat one and it’s disappointing then it puts me off the rest. But I hate wasting food so the citrus stay there. (If it’s nice the whole lot may well get devoured in one sitting.) Matt can usually be counted on to help consume food but he isn’t keen on oranges due to the peeling issue (not that I’ve ever perceived that as a particular issue). So I was pleased to be able to squeeze some semi-decent juice out of my languishing fruits, which I added with some stock and red lentils to the other ingredients.

The tomatoey-peppery soup was looking rather insubstantial so I added a tin of tomatoes to that. And some red lentils.

Once all the soups were blended up (separately) we faced the dilemma of which to eat tonight. Matt went for the watercress (with a dollop of crème fraiche) – I am told it was scrumptious. I went for the carrot / ginger / orange. It too was scrumptious. I think that I’ll call it velvet carrot soup as the lentils gave it a gorgeous texture (although I did miss a few bits of carrot in the blending process).

Now I’ve just got to find enough containers to freeze it all. And replenish the lentils. 

Friday's fishy and lemony dinner

I do find bank holiday weekends rather disconcerting. Having been confused by the days all week I’ve been convinced since I woke up that today is Saturday. When a “weekday” radio show has come on, rather than re-orientating me to (Good) Friday, it only goes to make me feel even more bewildered that that they are not airing Saturday’s programmes.

One benefit of the bank holiday is that I felt unusually enthusiastic for cleaning the kitchen. By about 2pm it was looking lovely and shiny (I had been doing other things in the course of the morning) and therefore I didn’t feel like messing it up. So I grabbed a quick lunch of my mum’s carrot cake and headed off for a swim. And 180 lengths later I think that I must have burnt off said carrot cake and most of last night’s rice and lentils. The main challenge of this swim was the paradoxical one of needing the loo and also being very thirsty.

Lucy and Barbara, my sister- and mother-in-law, were to be joining us for dinner this evening. Last weekend, whilst at my mum and dad’s, I had hastily purchased a whole salmon. Mum had said that it was fine to invite some friends round for dinner but that we’d need a bit more fish. When I got to the fish counter whole salmon were on a special offer just too good to leave behind. So mum cooked the whole fish, we ate about half of it last weekend and she sent me home with the rest.

So this morning, with a view to constructing a fish pie, I extracted the salmon, along with some pollack and prawns from the freezer. I’d assumed that there’d be some smoked fish there too but that was not the case but since I was going to have to visit the shop anyway it wasn’t too much of a problem.

After my swim the insufficiency of my lunch hit home. Firstly I missed the turning for the nearest supermarket. So I had to detour around one of my least favourite roundabouts.

Whilst trying to select broccoli I observed the man who was refilling this on the shelf cough all over it. Rather than go for the time sensible option of selecting some of the pre-packed stuff I decided that I would leave said supermarket and head to a different one with hopefully better food hygiene standards. Or at least I wouldn’t know otherwise. The main disadvantage in this course of action was that the supermarket that I was about to leave has the advantage of selling French set yoghurts with a lemon flavour in the pack.

I was then hit with indecision. Should I go to the slightly more distant but larger supermarket that would definitely have everything that I needed? Or should I go to the smaller but nearer supermarket which offers a more pleasant shopping experience with less risk of unnecessary purchases but a higher risk of not having everything I needed. I could tolerate almost anything else on my list not being available but without the smoked fish the pie would just not be right.  

When I got to the junction where I had to make a decision I took the gamble on the smaller supermarket. It was obviously my lucky day. Not only did I get the last pack of smoked haddock it was also reduced. Not only did they have French set yoghurts, these included “new” lemon flavour (replacing I think the slightly peculiar pineapple). Not only did they have broccoli, it was 50% extra free.

I made the fish pie with leeks and mushrooms. I used some bay leaves from our garden in the white sauce which I think I found disproportionately exciting. And chives from the pot that my mum had sent back with me last weekend in the mashed potato.

My mashed potato is slightly unconventional as I choose not to peel the potatoes – all the goodness is in the skins surely. I omitted to pre-warn our visitors but Barbara hadn’t noticed until I pointed it out and Lucy had noticed but seemed to think it was ok.

Whenever I eat with Matt’s family I am struck by how slowly I eat. Today everyone else had finished but I had only eaten my veg and had my whole portion of fish pie left. I always eat my vegetables first because I can’t stand them cold.

And then on to pudding. Lucy had asked for something fruity. I needed to use up a couple of lemons. I identified something that fitted the bill: “lemon layer pudding”. This is one of those recipes where you mix everything together and when it cooks it divides into a spongy layer (although in this instance more sponge-soufflé) and a sauce layer. Having cleaned the kitchen earlier I took extra care to avoid splattering the mixture all over the worktop with the electric whisk.

Barbara declared the pudding to be one of the nicest ever – and I don’t think she was just being kind.  Lucy and Matt demolished it swiftly. I feel suitable inspired to try it with different flavours.

We finished off the evening with some (more) wine (always a risk when Matt’s female relations are around) and a board game. I love games!