dinner with my bairns

even though my children have left home we have dinner together at my place each wednesday fortnight..it's a time when we catch up with each others news and if one of us has a pressing issue the rest offer support..i am continually grateful for the close bond that we have established and for the opportunity to cook for my children on those wednesdays..if time and circumstances permit i like to extend my culinary repertoire..last wednesday fortnight i made nettle pasta for the first time and it was a much greater success than my nettle gnocchi..i made a sauce with home bottled tomato puree, homemade chicken and bacon stock, fresh red chilli, capers, kalamata olives and i garnished it with parmesan and wafer thin crispy free range bacon..

bacon was put on after the parmesan

and for sweets i made creme caramel..

and meringues..

and i served the creme caramel with the meringues roughly broken in four..

and quarters of a homemade candied orange slice..

and a good dollop of cream..

by the way my other daughter's mia because she was the photographer.. 

last night's menu consisted of a beef and guinness pie which i'd never made before..and i made short crust pastry for the top..

there's a bird in my pie!

and the accompaniments were petit pois, mashed potato, that my daughter and i took turns to push through a fine sieve, with garlic infused olive oil, butter and cream and mushrooms with garlic, a couple of pinches of powdered coriander and finely cut parsley..

rustic plating!

and sweets this time was a lemon and passionfruit delicious with cream..

and today i had enough beef and guinness and pastry left over from making yesterdays pie to make a pie in a cup for dinner..

and i reserved a couple of pieces of potato from those i boiled yesterday for the mash and today i put it into this loaf of sourdough bread..

it's darker in real life

what's happening in your kitchen?..jane