Dinner, 22/7/13: Squashed Tomato Pasta (with Rocket)

Fruit!

I do enjoy my summer fruits - today including some really nice peaches (very hard to get ahold of in the UK, I think) - I splurged on the ripe & ready to eat ones from Waitrose, and they were actually lovely and juice and sweet, with the proper texture as well. Peaches often seem disappointing over here - I'm hoping there will be some at a fruit stand near my mother's house when we are in the US...

Raspberries, strawberries and cherries, we do much better with!

Dinner, 21/7/13: Tacos

Not much to say about tacos, except Yum!

Peanut Butter Cookies

As Alex's teacher this year is a guy, my usual end-of-year teacher present of a handmade totebag got slightly altered to my alternative end-of-year present: baking. (This happened last year, too!) Mr Evans is a fan of things American, including peanut butter, so we've gone for the peanut butter cookie with traditional crossed-fork design...

An evening on Black Cap

Black Cap is an area on the South Downs, near Lewes, where we sometimes go for a walk and/or a picnic. Last time we were there the weather was not so hospitable for picnicking (though apparently, it was the end of August - 2011 - you never know in England, though), so we had dinner in the local pub after our walk, but it was much nicer this weekend, so we had a picnic. In fact, it was a bit windy and overcast and therefore ever so slightly chilly. In some ways, this was kind of nice, as we've been having a heatwave, but still, a bit of a shame while enjoying the great outdoors...

Anyway. Because it's summer, the downs were carpeted with orchids - mostly Pyramidals, like the one above, which are the ones which are mainly out this time of year - but also some Common Spotteds

...in a variety of colours. Many of them were gone over or beginning to go over.

And quite a few Fragrants, which are mainly what you can see above - there were areas where it was just orchid after orchid - lovely. 

The above are Fragrant orchids.   We saw lots of gone-over Twayblades which don't look like much once they are done blooming - but you can still see the characteristic large leaves and spiky stem. 

And remarkably, we even found one Bee Orchid which was still in bloom - it's quite late for them - this one is obviously either very sheltered or a bit of a procrastinator. Most of the lower blooms were turning to seed pods, but this one was still open and lovely. 

And this isn't an orchid at all, of course, just a little round-headed rampion, which I think very pretty. 

We had some kids with us - only one of mine, the girls being away at Guide Camp - but the folks we met up with managed to bring along two girls, which was lucky for Alex, so he wouldn't feel lacking in sisterly attention for the day! They had good fun climbing trees and the sides of the path, which are very steep. 

And of course, we had a huge picnic, which I didn't take a photo of (well, I think there's one on my phone, but it's not very good, so I shan't bother with it). 

Dinner, 19/7/13: Morrocan Chicken with lemon & basil couscous

Chicken recipe from Nigel Slater's 30 Minute Meals.  I left the raisins/sultanas out because we were out (Sarah would have complained anyway - she doesn't like fruit in savoury dishes, mostly). 

Dinner, 17/7/13: Thai Red Pork Curry

The last time we had this, I made a note that the hearts of palm were a little mushy and might do better added at the last minute, and so this time, tried that out - definitely true, much better having them just heated through. They are still soft, but at least not total mush...

Dinner, 16/7/13: Spanakopita (Spinach Pie)

Spanakopita is something we have so regularly I don't even use a recipe for it anymore. This time, I was a little short of spinach, so I added some par-boiled new potatoes, and that worked very nicely - might do it again.

Dinner, 14/7/13: Risotto (Mushrooms optional)

Personally, I like a nice mushroom risotto, but two out of three kids complain, so I usually cook the mushrooms separately and dump them on top at the end (or not). The texture is better that way, anyway. Today I added some pancetta as well, which worked nicely. 

Chocolate Chip Toblerone Cookies

I know I'm a bit mad to be baking on a day like today - not exactly a cool outside!  But I wanted to make some of these as a gift for someone, so I didn't have a lot of choice. And of course I made extra for us...

Dinner, 13/7/13: Thai Beef Salad, Noodle Salads

Ok, technically, this was lunch rather than dinner, but it was the main meal of the day, as we had friends around... As it was predicted to be very hot (32C) we went down the salad route - a Thai Beef Salad:

which is something we have lots of times in the past and always enjoy. Huge mound of lettuce, topped with various other bits and pieces, including Thai marinated steak.

And two versions of a noodle salad - one with soba noodles and one with rice noodles, which are gluten free - Geoff's struggling with too much gluten lately, so he's trying to cut back on consumption of it, when it's not too complicated to do.

And of course, as it's strawberry season, strawberry tart. The kids are in heaven this year as I've made 3 tarts so far (we usually only manage one or perhaps two). Probably won't be any more, unless we make one in the US, as by the time we get home, strawberry season will be over.

Dinner, 12/7/13: Salmon Tikka

We had this before, fairly recently, I think - but I had some salmon fillets in the freezer and it's a nice quick way to use them up for a midweek dinner...

Ice cream sundae

Olivia's latest nail creation - these are supposed to look like a strawberry ice cream with chocolate sauce and sprinkles.  Great fun!

Dinner, 11/7/13: Chargrilled Pepper Chicken with Lime Aoili

Sarah's turn to cook dinner. I think there may have been salad or something green as well. This was lovely, even though I didn't eat it until later when I got home from yoga - I had the leftover chicken in a sandwich with some of the lime garlic mayo. Yum. 

Dinner, 10/7/13: Pasta with pancetta, chili and lemon

Another really quick one - it's that kind of week!

Dinner, 8/7/13: Pork and Peanut Noodles

Very quick and easy. 

Strawberry Ice Cream

Yum, homemade strawberry ice cream - gotta enjoy it while it lasts, and it's the height of strawberry season at the moment, of course...

Dinner, 7/7/13: Crunchy Chicken Salad, etc.

This is lovely - it's like an Asian chicken coleslaw. I expect it will be nice for lunch tomorrow as well - I doubled the recipe to be sure to have leftovers. It's from BBC Good Food magazine, but I couldn't find it on the website - but then again, the recipe is from something like 2001, so perhaps it's not surprising...

As you can see, it was nice enough to eat outside again - hurrah, summer!

Dinner, 6/7/13: American style barbecue (mostly)

There were these...

...which led to this.  But before that, there was this:

and before that, some of this:

Happy 4th of July, a little late!

Dinner, 5/7/13: Herb & Veg Frittata

Mmmm, cherries - I love them, but they aren't cheap, so I always look for the sales...  This followed a lovely dinner (outside, my favourite!) of frittata  with potato, courgette, asparagus, and freshly picked (by my friend Lana) broad beans. 

Here are all the lovely veggies cooking a bit in the pan before adding the eggs (the potatoes have been mostly cooked separately).