A week in food

Inspired by Melinda’s love for roundup posts, I thought I’d try one myself. It’s actually for last week, as it took me a while to finish, and I got distracted by other posts, but as the weeks seem to blur into one another, I reckon this is legitimate. The planning for the week in question was originally inspired by my husband’s annoyance with the fullness of our freezer. I like having a full freezer, I find it comforting in these strange times. My husband however, thinks food should be cycled through quickly, and is additionally irritated by the crammed in nature of everything -  and as opening the drawers is getting quite tricky owing to how full they are, perhaps he has a point. 


One of the things taking up the most space in the freezer is a pack of chicken breasts, so I started with those. Sparked by something I saw on Instagram I came up with the idea of breaded fried chicken (using a recipe from Ottolenghi Simple, which uses a mixture of breadcrumbs and seeds) and Caesar Salad. I didn’t have Caesar dressing (no surprise there) so used this recipe.

Caesar salad

The result was yellower than a normal Caesar dressing, although that may have been due to using English mustard rather than Dijon, but it tasted right.  For the chicken, you cut the chicken into strips, then beat it flat (#TherapeuticViolence) then dip it in flour, egg, and the breadcrumb & seed mix. Then you can clean the gunk of your hands and fry them. (Incidentally if anyone is out of or unwilling to sacrifice egg/flour there is a Jamie Oliver technique where you basically beat the breadcrumbs into the chicken, rather than trying to stick them on with egg, which is also effective, particularly if you feel you need a bit more of that therapeutic violence.

I remembered to take a process shot! Chicken being fried.

The rest of the chicken became Ottolenghi kebabs, recipe here . I have 7 Spice powder, because, as I think I’ve said before, I cannot resist a spice blend, but you could probably use any mixture you like. These turned out really well, I like the technique of charring and then oven cooking.


We also ate Aubergine Parmigiana, which is actually quite easy to make but feels virtuous, owing to having several stages (salt aubergines, make tomato sauce, fry aubergine slices, layer aubergine with tomato sauce, mozzarella and parmesan) and  a ready meal which came on our most recent Ocado delivery, because sometimes you just need a night off. These days, simply shoving something in the oven with no prep feels almost like a trip to a restaurant.


This was also the week I finally succumbed and baked banana bread, which seems to have become a lockdown classic. I wonder if in future years the lockdown will be commemorated by the baking of banana bread? Anyway, I used the recipe from Clair Thomson’s Art of the Larder, which worked beautifully, despite the fact I didn’t have the right flour or the right sugar. It also lasts quite well if you keep it in a tin.

Banana bread! Not pretty, but tasty. 

Because I seem to be incapable of baking just one thing at a time at the moment, I also used my last remaining blood orange to make these Honey & Co (yes, them again) pistachio and orange cakes. The recipe is bit complicated, but fine if you follow it carefully.

Orange and pistachio cakes: tasty and pretty