Grilled leeks wrapped in pancetta

Makes a nice vegetable accompaniment - doesn't everything taste better wrapped in bacon?

I did these at the end of March - time on the photo is 6:13am - it was a rather long day.....

So on the grill pan to get the bar mark flavour then add white wine & season, cover with foil and finish cooking in the oven till soft. Then when cool wrap in pancetta and roast in the oven. You get the pancetta flavours seeping into the leeks - what could be better?

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Meat free Monday #9 - Pasta with asparagus hollandaise and Blue cheese homity pie

Most Mondays are office days - I have around 30 job titles (last time I counted - and that was 3 years ago), and Monday is when I catch up with my clerk, accountant, events organiser, purchasing agent and secretary roles.

This Monday was no different - a full on 16 hour day attempting to catch up with the backlog. As it was also St. Davids Day, leeks were on the cards.

Lunch had to be quick - in between phonecalls and emails (as soon as I answered one email another came in, then the phone went). I looked in the fridge. There were baked new potatoes left from the all vegetarian canape party a couple of days before and leeks from a leek and sweet potato risotto from another party I had on that night. There is always cheese of some kind around - in this case Blue Shropshire - all the ingredients for a homity pie so that is what I made (always have spare tart cases around).

Homity pies are just another classic from my nana's repertoire - ever since one of her WI friends made them some 20+ years ago for their WI bake sales. She brought them and liked them so much she sought out the recipe. Doesn't get much easier - but the easiest things are often the best. There's something very comforting about the cheese, potato and onion mix - and it was often a Saturday lunch staple on our monthly (they did live 180 miles away) visits. Comfort food is just what you need when you are surrounded by bits of paper, emails and figures.

Still going strong by 21:00 of course (another 5 hours to go), but the hunger pangs were kicking in again. There were also the asparagus stems left from the canape party (only use the very tips for the baked potato and asparagus canape) so I roasted these rolled in a little olive oil while the pasta cooked. I was thinking of asparagus hollandaise (can't beat a classic?) but as I had some fresh tarragon in the fridge turned it into bearnaise - rude not to.

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Meat Free Monday #4 - Sweet potato and leek pearl barley risotto with portobello and spinach

Another post-midnight meat free Monday into Tuesday feast chez nous.

The previous Saturday (now writing this 6 days later) we had been cooking for 31 in the midst of a powercut which lasted the whole night from before we got there. Burn out at the local substation. We couldn't even get in through the electric entrance gates when we arrived. One of the guests kindly reversed their car down the long drive and I transferred everything from the van, balancing on the cattlegrid in the van hadlights (don't look down) and into his car. Some 45 minutes later we were ready to cook..... without the electric oven or hob. Luckily there was an aga which I was already well acquainted with (another interesting saga with pigeons in feather and frozen pheasants for 26 guests which they had brought with them for me to cook around 11 months previously). The aga is on permenant go slow. The potatoes which normally cook in 10 - 15 minutes took 1 1/2 hours, and the water for coffee and washing up around 1 hour. If I had not pre-cooked the pheasant before we came out (even the electric oven there only goes up to 180 oC and is quite small for 30 people - and only useful when you have electicity) I am not really sure what time they would have eaten the main course. Front of house of course, everything was perfect - and everyone was really happy ("it was more than I could ever have hoped for - and that was in normal circumstances"). Chocolate fondue went down well too. With all the years of experience we had bewteen us, it was just another challenge - you have to have a sense of humour about these things. Great new trio of fish starters - but couldn't actually find the camera in the candlelight to take a photo - it really was hard to see anything - only found it by accident clearing up around midnight.

That was Saturday (and 3 1/2 hours of Sunday). Then it was a rapid turn-around on Sunday into Monday gearing up for the next party on the Monday night. So by midnight on Monday the only thing I could think of was fast food (above) - sweet potato and leek pearl barley and spelt risotto as I had served on Saturday night (the best one yet - so annoyed I didn't find the camera), and portobello mushrooms and spinach left from Gill's Saturday party. The spelt was accidental - I had picked up the wrong packet from the shelf in haste, but decided to try it anyway, and it worked really well. I used cider instead of white wine in the risotto base, and there was a bit of rosemary mixed in too from the garden - the only herb I could see out there in the dark.

Might get round to the sweet and sour jerualem artichokes later for this week's MFM.

More info on Meat Free Monday here.

Related posts

Other Meat Free Monday dishes

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Smoked salmon, leek and tarragon lasagne

Shown halfway through making on Saturday afternoon - this was the second layer of salmon. This was one of the bistro main courses, along with coq au vin before the coffee creme brulee with hazelnut shortbread and lemon tart. Normally I use fresh tarragon, but as tarragon featured in the starter, I used fresh chopped dill to make the main course instead.

Related posts:

Coffee crème brûlée with hazelnut shortbread
Lemon tart with rapspberry sorbet and raspberry coulis


Bistro Menu: http://www.bensonofbroadway.co.uk/autumn_and_winter_bistro_menu.html

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