We are coming into Strawberry season here in the UK now, and I will put my hand up and say that Strawberry season is one of my favourite food seasons.
It really is a beautiful cake and perfect to serve with these lovely fresh berries.
Its moist and dense and very, very moreish. Even without any fruit and cream.
But don't take my word for it. Bake it and see for yourself. I think you better get ready to fall in love. ☺
Bon Appetit!
Here I am again with another Meals of the Week post! It seems that you all enjoy these posts and I have to say I am happy for that because I really enjoy putting them together. Somehow sharing what you have eaten makes you more accountable I think and helps to keep me on the right path! There's no getting lazy when you know you are going to be sharing some eating inspiration with others!
I do think that when you are a person who lives all on their own, or if you are an elderly person, the temptation is there to just not want to bother much with cooking and preparing meals. It is all to easy to just open a can or pop a frozen dinner into the oven or the microwave.
The truth is however those ready meals are more often than not loaded with fat, salt and preservatives and I happy to believe we are worth much more than that and worth the effort! They are okay once in a while if you really get into a spot, but a steady diet of them is not a very good thing for anyone!
With that in mind I aim to share my weekly menus with you each week so that, hopefully, you can be inspired to want to cook and plan some of the same for yourself!
A lot of time was spent with family this week, but I still managed to cook me up some incredible deliciousness. Here we go!
SUNDAY, July 9th - Dinner at my sisters
Most Sunday's I go to my sister's for supper. This week she had pot roast which my brother in law cooked on the BBQ. (Its been quite warm and humid.) My sister just puts everything into a deep tin foil pan, covers it tightly with aluminum foil and pops it onto the BBQ.
My Brother in law closes the lid the BBQ and it roasts as if it was in an oven. Just on a medium low heat and he rotates the pan every so often. It wasn't a large roast, just a medium to small one and there were potatoes, onions and carrots in the pan, plus beef broth.
Another way to beat the heat and cook a good pot roast is to use an Instant Pot. You can access my recipe for a delicious Instant Pot Pot Roast here. Its fabulously tasty and very simple to make.
MONDAY, July 10th - Cold Plate
On Monday, it was still pretty hot and humid. I had all sorts of cold salads left from my sister's Birthday Celebration on the Saturday so I put myself together a Cold Plate. Cold Plates are very popular here in the Maritime Provinces in the summer months. I shared a tutorial on the blog on how to put one together.
On this particular day I had some cold roast chicken, potato salad, macaroni salad, coleslaw, cucumber sticks, tomatoes and lettuce. It was delicious and because I already had the salads in, not a lot of trouble. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy as they say!
TUESDAY, July 11th - Tuna Melt Sliders
It was still pretty hot and humid. That's July here in Nova Scotia. Every once in a while we will get a big thunderstorm to help release some of it and cool things off. On this particular day I turned my oven on briefly to make some Tuna Melt Sliders.
This was a small batch recipe. My favorite tuna salad, combined with a layer of grated cheddar cheese in soft slider buns, which had been brushed with an onion Dijon butter prior to baking. They are only in the oven for about 15 minutes altogether so not long enough to really heat up the kitchen.
Just long enough to melt the cheese. The buns stay nice and soft with crisp tops and the cheese is all melty gooey. I enjoyed this with some crinkle crisps (potato chips) on the side.
WEDNESDAY, July 12th - Lunch at Jonny's Cook House
I had wanted to take my sister out for lunch on her actual birthday the week before but the place we wanted to go to was actually closed and so we rescheduled for this week. My cousin Sheri joined us with her little boy Sawyer. It is one of our favorite places to eat! The food is great! And they have a bazillion different flavors of Ice Cream.
We had fish and chips, because theirs is really good, but usually we have the True Newf Poutine. Since I developed a copy cat recipe for it (see link in previous sentence) we usually have fish and chips. That True Newf Poutine is fabulous. Hot crisp fries, cheese curds, hot gravy and a generous amount of Newfie style stuffing scattered over top! A real favorite around here!
THURSDAY, July 13th - Tater Tot Chicken Pot Pie
I used some leftover cooked chicken I had in the freezer to make a two person sized Tater Tot Chicken Pot Pie on Thursday. This has all of the delicious flavors of a normal pot pie, with a rich and creamy gravy filled with cubed chicken, onions, peas, corn, and carrots.
This is put into a baking dish, topped with a layer of grated cheese and then frozen tater tots are put on top to cover. Baked in the oven the filling gets all lovely and bubbly and those tater tots get golden crispy brown delicious! So yummy. I enjoyed with a side salad for a wonderfully economical and tasty supper!
FRIDAY, July 14th - Delicious Instant Pot Beef Stew
My son arrived on Friday with his sweet wife and their three boys. They had requested that I make stew for supper. They love my stew. I doubled my Instant Pot Beef Stew Recipe and used potatoes instead of gnocchi this time around. They loved it! Tender chunks of lean beef and vegetables in a rich beef gravy. Delicious!
I also baked a loaf of my favorite Cheese Bread in the bread machine which went down a real treat with the stew!
For dessert we had Peachy Lemon Whip. This is a simple refrigerator dessert I have been making since my high school Home Economics days. Its simply delicious with a graham cracker crust bottom, a lush lemon whip over top and tinned peaches to cover.
SATURDAY, July 15th - Cheese Crusted Grilled Cheese
After feeding up my son and his family on pancakes, sausage and bacon for breakfast, they went on their way to camp. They will be back again once camp is over for a few days and we will have our real visit then. I am looking forward to hearing all about their camp!
I was exhausted though by the time supper rolled around so I made myself something simple. Just a cheese crusted grilled cheese sandwich and a mug of tomato soup. It was perfect. Not a lot to clean up afterwards and nice and filling. No fuss, no muss.
And there you have it my meals for the past week. I tried to keep my kitchen nice and cool this past week! I think I will be doing the same in the week to come! It was a very delicious week nonetheless and I got to share a lot of it with family, which was the best part of all!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
One thing I have always been fond of is tinned salmon and tuna, not so much other tinned fishes myself, but the Toddster really loves Sardines and Mackerel. I was really pleased recently to receive a fabulous Bumper Pack from the people at John West containing a lovely variety of their newest products. I used some of them to make these lovely Salmon Melt Sliders, the recipe of which I will share with you today, but first . . . a little bit about what was in this truly fab hamper!
John West offer a range of succulent fish products soaked in different flavours including tuna, salmon, mackerel, sardines and crab amongst others. We’re also excited to introduce our season and stir; tender chunks of fish with a flavour to add taste to your dish as well as our brand new steam pots. These are the perfect lunchtime snack for work or home.
My very British Husband is quite fond of telling me that eating peanut butter and jam together is completely insane. That didn't stop him from scarfing down three of these as soon as I had them finished though! (Me thinks he is a bit of a porkie pie teller and that he secretly LOVES the combination as much as I do!)
Could it be that I have finally indoctrinated him to my wild and wooly North American ways???? Could it be that his veins are beginning to run a tiny bit with peanut butter and jam??? I like to think so at any rate! This is a combination I love soooo much! It's that sweet and salty thing!
Today I decided to indulge it by making little peanut butter cookie cups. I was going to make them snickers cups . . . but then I got sidelined by the Thames Jubilee Pageant and so I just filled them with jam before baking and then topped them with a quick buttercream icing. I wanted to sit and watch all the fun!
(Oh my but it was fabulous! I've never seen anything like it. Everyone was turned out beautifully. I thought Kate was just gorgeous, as always, and the Queen looked positively radiant!)
This is the type of thing I would positively make for Her Royal Majesty, did she ever chance to drop in for tea. I would want to bake her something to with her cuppa that was ludicrously North American and what can be any more North American than Peanut Butter and Jam!! (I don't think she'd enjoy porqupine . . . not really.)
Crisp peanut butter cookie cups . . . baked with a sweet dab of jam in the middle . . . then topped with a peanut butter flavoured butter cream frosting. Oh so scrummishly moreishly decadently good!! Bet YOU couldn't eat just one either!
*Peanut Butter and Jam Cookie Cups*
Makes about 36
Printable Recipe
Tasty little peanut butter cookie cups, filled with jam and baked until crispy and then topped with a peanutbutter flavoured buttercream icing when cool. M-O-R-E-I-S-H!!
For the cookie cups:
200g of flour (2 cups)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
172g of unsalted butter at room temperature (3/4 cup)
135g of creamy peanut butter (3/4 cup)
96g of caster sugar (1/2 cup)
100g of soft light brown sugar (1/2 cup packed)
1 large free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla
seedless raspberry jam
For the frosting:
6 TBS unsalted butter at room temperature
100g of icing sugar (3/4 cup) sifted
135g of creamy peanut butter (3/4 cup)
3 TBS heavy cream
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Have ready several mini juffin tins. Spray with some nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
Cream together the butter and peanut butter until thorougly combined. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Whisk together the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda. Stir this in to make a soft dough. Shape the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place one in each muffin cup. Press in with the bottom of a rolling pin, or a pastry damper to make a shell. Fill the centres with about 1/2 tsp of jam. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. They should be lightly golden brown around the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 5 minutes, then remove and set on a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
To make the frosting, combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Spoon or pipe a little dab of this frosting into the centre of each cookie cup to cover the jam. Allow to set completely.
Alternately the cookie dough can be rolled into walnut sized balls and pressed flat with a fork on a lightly buttered baking tray. You can then bake them for about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Put together with a layer of jam and a layer of the peanut butter flavoured buttercream!
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. If you can eat just one, you're a better woman than I am!!
In any case if you didn't want to go to the trouble of making these as cookie cups, you could just bake them as regular peanut butter cookies and then sandwich them together with some of the frosting and some jam!
Reuben Soup
Ingredients
- 1 TBS unsalted butter (Only because the pastrami is salty)
- 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
- 1/2 small head of cabbage, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
- 1/2 tsp caraway seed (or less if you are not fond of it)
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 1/2 TBS plain flour
- 1/2 pound sliced pastrami, rolled up and cut into slivers
- 1 1/4 litre of chicken stock (5 cups)
- 30g thousand island salad dressing (1/4 cup)
- 130g of grated gruyere cheese (1 cup Swiss) divided
- minced chives or parsley to garnish
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onion and cabbage.
- Cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat until beginning to soften without browning.
- Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant.
- Add the caraway and the flour and cook for a minute.
- Stir in the chicken stock and corned beef and bring to the boil.
- Reduce to a slow simmer, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes to meld all the flavours and make sure the cabbage is nice and soft.
- Stir in half the cheese along with the salad dressing. Stir to melt the cheese.
- Ladle into hot bowls and garnish with the remaining cheese and minced chives or parsley.
- Serve immediately. Crusty bread or rye bread goes very well with this.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
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