Food for lovers

Pink Gin and Tonic

Valentine's Day - we don't do cards or flowers but it's always nice to have an excuse to cook a little more extensively than usual. There's nothing very novel here, mostly recipes I've made before or dishes that don't need a recipe but the scale of the four courses kept me busy for half an afternoon and of course, now we have leftovers enough for another three days!


Mushroom soup from the ladle

I made mushroom soup because it's the Mister's favourite. It was enriched with dried ceps we'd gathered in the woods last autumn and served with sourdough breadsticks.


Mushroom Soup plated


Descendientes de José Palacios Bierzo Pétalos 2004

With the main course we had this rather nice bottle of Spanish wine which was a gift from a friend.


Tomato Curry

I must admit part of the reason for choosing curries for our main course has to do with blogging. Taking pictures can interrupt the flow of an evening so I wanted stuff that could keep warm while we took the snaps. Also, although it's hardly obvious here curry was on this week's austerity menu list. So we're still on track there, in a manner of speaking!


Sag Aloo, spinach and potato curry.


Aubergine Tikka

The colour isn't very bright on this because we only had smoked paprika and that's rather too strongly flavoured to use with abandon.



We kept everything warm on one of those table top warmers powered with tealights that they have in some restaurants. Ours was a gift from the Stripey daughter.


Raspberries, blueberries and red grapes set in a port wine jelly

Something light and richly red for dessert. Made up as I went along but similar to a million other fruit jellies it ended up being more than the sum of its parts in a rather unexpected way. Very nice to eat but experiments are needed to pin down that novelty value.

And finally, the truffles. We rolled these at the table, an enjoyably sticky mutual task for a meal for lovers.


Chocolate, coconut and chilli truffles