Stuff yer bake

One bag of frozen squid is a little much for one person, so as I was on my own this weekend (the other half was living the high life in London for the weekend) I decided to do two different squid dishes, one for Saturday night and one for Sunday night. I had seen a Nigel Slater recipe for squid on TV a few days ago which got me salivating and I thought I’d give it a try. I did my usual trick of just going from memory and not bothering to look up the recipe so I ended up doing it quite differently.

I made up a similar marinade by pounding up zest of one lemon, 2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp thyme leaves, half a small garlic clove, 2 tbsp olive oil, tsp salt and lots of freshly ground pepper in a pestle and mortar. I then cut open about 6 baby squid and scored it as the recipe suggested, dried it thoroughly and fried in olive oil in a very hot pan. It cooked for only a few minutes until slightly golden and then the hot squid was tossed in the marinade. I then put the squid into a bowl with some salad leaves and tomato and tossed them together to coat the leaves and heaped in onto a plate. The other recipe looks good too… maybe I should try it sometime. 

I can never quite decide whether I like soup. If I’m ever in a restaurant and there is soup for starters on the menu, I never order it as I tend to think soup is rather boring. Don’t get me wrong, I have had some really nice soups and I have actually decided to do soup next week for an evening meal so I don’t know why I feel that way about it. It is generally a cheap quick and healthy meal, although I do tend to have a slab of bread with it, so it is ideal for a mid-week meal. Despite my indifference to soup I quite like this one.

I apologise for not giving quantities here as I never bothered to measure the ingredients and employed a slap-dash approach as usual.

Simply soak some butter beans overnight, then rinse and drain them and put into a saucepan with a couple of bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, an onion peeled and halved, pepper, a couple of garlic cloves and a potato and cover with water. Boil the beans until tender. Whilst the beans are cooking, cut pancetta into slices and fry until golden. Once the beans are cooked, remove the bay leaves and thyme and blend the rest of the ingredients (with the cooking water), seasoning with salt and a little more pepper if required. If the soup is too thick add a little water and if you want to be more indulgent add a drizzle of cream. Serve the soup in warm bowls topped with the bacon and drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and eat with crusty bread.

It was the other half’s turn to cook last weekend and he picked a very blokey dish of sausage and tomato bake. It isn’t a dish that I would’ve picked, probably because purely by looking at it I could hear the distant groan of my jeans as I try and force my sausagey bulk into them. The other thing is that it is a very simple dish and I sometimes struggle to do simple, thinking that complicated is more impressive. Having said all that the dish was lovely and just served with crusty bread and a glass (or four) of red wine it went down very nicely. The recipe is out of Jamie Oliver’s latest book Jamie at home.

Serves 6

• 2kg ripe cherry tomatoes, all different colours if you can get them
• 2 sprigs each of fresh thyme, rosemary and bay leaves
• 1 tblsp dried oregano
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 12 good quality Cumberland sausages or course Italian pork sausages
• extra virgin olive oilbalsamic vinegar
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Centigrade. Place all the tomatoes, herb sprigs, oregano, garlic and sausages in one layer in a roasting tin and drizzle well with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Mix this all together, making sure the sausages are on top and roast for 30 minutes. Take it out of the oven, give the tin a shake, turn the sausages and then bake for another 15 to 30 minutes depending on how golden you want the sausages. Remove the sausages from the tin and if the sauce is a bit thin boil it up on the hob until it is the consistency you want. Serve with warm crust bread and lashings of red wine. Real man food, but something for the girls to enjoy too. Grrrrrr!!