Broad bean and Bacon with Mint and lemon juice salad, Potato and Celeriac Smash, Killer green beans on an awesome spicy tomato sauce, Crispy Roasted Fishcakes wrapped in smoked streaky bacon and Flapjack crumble

Hello bloggers!

I hope you are all well.

Yesterday I cooked not one, nor 2 or 3 but 4 recipes from Jamie Oliver's book.

I started cooking a little late, at 4 P.M. and I was slightly late with dinner, I couldn't get it ready before 10 past 8 at night...oh well!!!

I started by making the dessert: Flapjack crumble. I crushed mixed nuts in a pestle and mortar and put them in a bowl along with chopped mixed fruit, ginger and oats. On top of that I poured golden syrup with butter to obtain a dough base that I then, spread on an ovenproof dish (I have a Le Creuset one, perfect size!).

Then, I baked it in the oven for 15 minutes. The AGA was a bit too strong and slightly burnt the edges of the base but it wasn't too bad.

I then prepared the apples with blueberries (sorry, the rain has absolutely destroyed all blackberries around the area, Kingsland and even the bushes around Totnes, we did try!) and homemade sloe gin.

Last but not least the crumble. I didn't use the right sugar I think and the crumble got a little sticky, especially because the kitchen was boiling hot and butter got above the ideal temperature for pastry, but it tasted ok in the end, so why bother?

Mixed oats, nuts, fruits, etc

The base all spread evenly. I used the pestle from the pestle and mortar to push it down

After preparing dessert, I boiled the potatoes for the fish cake and potato and celeriac mash and while I was waiting for the potatoes to cook I started preparing leeks for the fish cake in the pan and runner beans in tomato sauce.

Leeks, ready to be chopped

Chopped leeks

Frying spring onions and anchovies for the tomato sauce

Ok folks, making that tomato sauce from scratch was a bit time consuming, as Jamie asks to grate the tomatoes and it takes a few minutes to go through all of those tomatoes, if you are lazy I would recommend you take the skin off the tomatoes and blend them in the blender but it might alter the texture of the sauce.

When the potatoes were ready I boiled the celeriac (because I forgot to do so before!) and started making and shaping the fish cakes. I stretched the bacon like the picture below, this is a very easy step but it would have benefited from an extra stretch.

Stretched bacon slices

After mixing the ingredients for the fish cakes I shaped them in patties and dug them in flour, eggs and breadcrumbs. The additional work was preparing the breadcrumbs in the mixer with olive oil, chilli and parsley.

 Shaped fishcakes

Eggs, flour, fish cake dough

Shaped fishcakes with bacon slices around them

Right, if I can criticise the fish cake recipe I would say I would have put far more fish in it as we could hardly taste the fish and I would have made them slightly smaller, to have some more bacon around it, instead of 6 fishcakes, I would have shaped 8. I would also drizzle a bit of olive oil on top on them when putting in the oven to add a bit more moisture and flavour to them. Here is my tip, otherwise they were fine.

The starter was quite simple. I fried some bacon and put it on top of broad beans and added some mint and lemon juice, voila!

Broad bean and Bacon with Mint and lemon juice salad

Here is the main all dished out: Potato and Celeriac Smash, Killer green beans on an awesome spicy tomato sauce and Crispy Roasted Fishcakes wrapped in smoked streaky bacon

My plate...yummy!!!

And finally, the Flapjack crumble all ready to be served

In a bowl with Greek Yoghurt

This dessert was an absolute hit and everybody (but me) had seconds. It is a bit laborious but well worth it. My husband said it was the highlight of the evening and he also said he found the starter a bit difficult to chew (quite substantial broad beans are) and the main course they loved the potato and celeriac mash. I like the runner beans, they were very tasty but again, I would have added a few more anchovies to give a bit more punch.

Here are more pictures for you, curious people!!! :-)

Our lovely guest and neighbours Kathy and Peter 

 David, Kathy and Peter

I couldn't take that many pictures because I was running like a mad thing in the kitchen to try and get dinner ready more or less on time and I didn't have much time to stop and take pictures.

Tuesday I have another dinner and I am about to go out and go shopping for this one, so I will have to leave you for now.

See you soon,

Gisele

RECIPES 32, 33, 34, 35