Delicious Duck

So today we had duck again and instead of doing Delia's lovely recipe with coriander seeds, Seville marmalade, and port, I wanted to do something different. http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/roast-seville-orange-glazed-duck-with-port-wine-sauce.html Well I can tell you it seems quite difficult to find a recipe that wasn't just a variation of the aforementioned, but success in the end. Ainsley's "Five-spice duck breasts with vegetable sticks". Well they weren't really vegetable sticks but anyway stir-fried veg and foolproof basmati rice.

I have never found cooking rice to be particularly easy and in fact, even Savio struggled a bit when he was here a couple of years ago - if that makes you feel any better. I've heard many times from Asian friends that the rice here's not good - in fact one English friend of mine tells a story of how he and his Thai wife were cooking at his mother's. They had forgotten to bring any rice with them from home and so rooted around in his mother's cupboards and found some Uncle Ben's. On seeing it, his wife exclaimed: "we don't even give our prisoners rice as bad as that!" So I recently set about trying to find a foolproof way of cooking rice and here it is:

Serves 4-6
Prep: 5 min
Cook: 20 min

400g basmati rice
600ml cold water

Rinse the rice in several changes of water until the water runs clear. Drain and transfer to a pan with a good-fitting lid. Add 600ml cold water, stir and bring the water to the boil. Immediately turn the heat to very low, cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, do not remove the lid and leave for 10 minutes for the rice to finish cooking in the steam. Fork up the rice – the grains will be separate and fluffy – and serve immediately.

Honestly it has - so far - been foolproof!

And Ainsley's duck was delicious, too. http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/516583 So much so that I don't have any photos to show as I was practically licking the plate!!!

Hmm, what shall we have next time?

Race for Life - well, sort of......

Today Mum and I did a 5k walk at Herne Bay. We had both registered to do the Race for Life there on 12 July but unfortunately I ended up going to Malta for an operation. So we decided to do our own special one - still in aid of Cancer Research. http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/cazza158
Wasn't much of a race but here's the evidence all the same!

Sunday Lunch and assorted musings

So Mum and Dad went to a "not-very surprise" party for David and Viv but as Adam wasn't doing anything (I assume that's the reason) he came round and we had Roast Chicken. The last couple of times we've had roast chicken we've used the Jamie Oliver recipe where you boil the potatoes with lemon and garlic and then stuff them (not the potatoes) while still warm into the chicken. Well today I did a slightly different one, but also using Jamie for inspiration. Onions carrots and a couple of garlic cloves on the base of the pan and then put the seasoned chicken on top, stuffed with a lemon that had been sitting in the fridge since I made the Pork Loin dish and a load of herbs from the garden: tarragon, thyme, rosemary and parsley, to be precise. It was very successful and the gravy was particularly delish with added flavour from the onion skins and some white wine that just happened to be lurking in the fridge. Coo we were pretty stuffed.

So why is my rocket doing weird things? It says on the packet to thin it out so the plants are 4cm apart. I've been waiting til they're big enough and now the seeds that were sewn really tightly together are doing well and the ones that were sewn (?) or sewed (?) more thinly look like they're dying - does that mean I don't need to thin them after all? well I suppose that's quite good news.

I also had to make bread this afternoon - out of a packet, mind. Sunflower brown bread from Sainsburys - only 75p a packet. Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Pork Loin and Lentil Salad

Looks nice, doesn't it? Another time I'd cook the pork just a little bit longer but all the same it was rather tasty. And finished it off with a nice big bowl of strawberries from the boot fair (!)
Recipe was from Zest magazine, April '09 issue - I think..... What shall we have next?

Samosas

So yesterday I had another go at making Samosas. I made some last year, actually, but I can tell you they were so fiddly to assemble. So anyway I had another go yesterday. I used a combination of 2 different recipes: Mad Jeffrey (as she's known in this household) and the one from the novel, "The Hindi Bindi Club", by Monica Pradhan. I used a slightly different technique for assembling them and cooked them in the oven, but they turned out very well, indeed..... In fact I can't stop eating them today!!!! I wonder if I should put the recipe here, too?
Today we're having Pork Loin with Lentils - recipe from a past copy of Zest magazine - wonder how good that'll be?