My favourite brand of coffee these days is Percol’s Black & Beyond and I have recently had trouble finding it in my local supermarkets (and in some cases not so local). So as a result I decided to buy a pack of Percol’s Black & Beyond whole bean coffee. I’ve not used beans for a while, so though I do have an electric grinder, my son got out the manual coffee grinder. If you have ever watched Dances with Wolves
I have been making risotto much more often now, as you might expect, the more you cook it, the easier it is and also becomes less daunting. What I like about risotto is how easy it is to add different flavours and make something different each time. The key of course is to use the right kind of rice; I have started to experiment with different kinds of risotto rice. As well as the usual suspect, arborio, I have also been using carnaroli. The end results are very similar, the creamy consistency is what makes a risotto a risotto.
The process I use is as follows.
In a large frying pan, place some olive oil. Then add some finely chopped onion.
Soften the onions.
Bring up the heat.
Add the risotto rice and ensure that the rice is coated in the oil
and mixed in with the onion.
Now add some stock. I either use chicken stock or vegetable stock. If it’s in the fridge I also occassionally use some white wine.
Keep topping up with stock to ensure that the rice doesn’t dry out.
Stir on a regular basis. This will help create a creamy texture.
Once the rice is virtually cooked, add a large handful of grated parmesan and some freshly ground black pepper.
Serve.
For flavours I will either add the ingredients in with the onions, or cook them separately. With some ingredients such as mushrooms I may do both!
I am always a little disappointed with sausages from most places you eat out at (well the cheap and cheerful places). Partly as they use cheap and poor quality sausages, but mainly as they cook them in the deep fat fryer! As a result I rarely eat sausages when eating out, but as one of the little people in the house loves sausages I do often see the type he orders. You experience something similar if you order breakfast at a supermarket cafe.
Grabbing lunch at Sainsburys the other day and the Sausages and Mash was on special, I thought I would save a little money and take a risk. As I was expecting to be disappointed, I was in the end very pleased with the food that I got.
What I was really pleased with was the fact that these were high quality sausages that had been cooked properly. I think they were more likely to have been cooked in the oven rather than grilled.
The mashed potato was nice and wasn’t lumpy or overly creamy. A little too salty for my tastes, but not over salted. The peas were typical peas, so nothing special.
Overall I was really pleased with the meal and for the cold wet day I had it on, it was a really nice dish of comfort food.
Posted in mash, sainsburys, sausages
Needing a quick dinner and not wanting to spend a fortune and wanting to try somewhere different. I decided that it was time to go to Chiquitos. I have been there before, but that was years ago. Not been recently as generally when I go to where my local one is, I have the children with me and they aren’t fans of mexican food (at the moment), we go to Bella Italia or Frankie and Bennys.
As I was on my own, then I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and see what it was like now.
They had a special offer of a burrito and a beer for just £7.99.
Well lets go with that then. I decided to go with the pulled pork option.
Service was really quick and even though I was having the “special offer” I also got the complementary tortilla chips.
The burrito when it arrived, certainly looked interesting.
I am not sure I would have presented it in that way, I think I might have preferred the sour cream, guacamole and salsa to be served separately.
I think I would have also preferred it to be “freshly made” rather than as I think it was, just heated through. I may be wrong on that.
Overall it was very nice and quite tasty. Spicy but not too spicy.
I will probably go back and try something different another time.
Of all the pizza places available, the one I go to most has to be Pizza Express. I do enjoy their pizzas and the atmosphere (depending on where and when you go) is nice. I’ve generally had excellent service too, which is always a plus and is one of the reasons I make return visits.
On my latest visit there for lunch… well another reason I quite like Pizza Express is that they do Tesco Clubcard Deals, so I can get a meal for “free”, which means I can justify lunch there now and again. As I was saying, on my latest visit there for lunch I went for their classic Giardiniera pizza. It comes with artichokes, mushrooms, red peppers, santos tomatoes, courgettes, olives, garlic oil, tomato & pesto base.
The pizza base was good, tasted fresh, was crusty on the outside and soft inside. There was a decent amount of toppings without going over the top. There is a (and is it a small) window between not enough toppings on a pizza and too much. The topping shouldn’t overpower the pizza and as a result turn the pizza into a plate for toppings, whereas the actual pizza itself is the important part of eating pizza. The toppings are there to enhance and add a little something to the pizza eating experience, they are not the reason for eating pizza in itself.
Another reason that I like Pizza Express, it still has that Italian feel to the place, you don’t get “stuffed crusts” and all that, you get at other places I could mention.
I suppose my only criticism of the place is that I feel the starters could be better.
Overall I enjoyed my pizza, it was enjoyable and the service was excellent.
Posted in pizza, pizza express
