In our household, we tend to while away the hours in our little kitchen. The kitchen table is my favourite blogging and job-hunting space, especially when accompanied by a cup of tea. We've also been spending more time in there of late, with my mother, fuelled by the Great British Bake Off, bringing home a shiny new KitchenAid last week to help her with her sourdough quest. August has been a wonderful month for gastronomic experimentation: here's a couple of the dishes we've been rustling up these past two weeks!
Here's a take on classic mussels, given an Asian twist with lemongrass, lime, chilli and coconut milk. Probably a little bit healthier than my beloved moules marinières, and wonderfully flavourful. This one was mainly my mother's work, with me hanging over her shoulder expectantly.
A salmon fillet stuffed with salsa verde (and baked after these photos were taken!). I hugely enjoyed cooking this one. My knife skills leave a fair bit to be desired, so butterflying the fillet was a tense job, but garnishing it was so fun. The already delicious salmon was made even tastier by the addition of all these wonderful herbs, capers and olives, and a healthy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Roast lamb chops with diced potatoes and beetroots. This looked pretty before it went into the oven, but in hindsight the beetroots made everything a bit too wet, and the lamb chops ended up a bit grey, and I had to give them a bit of colour in a frying pan, resulting in them being just a wee bit overdone. They'd have been better off seared in the pan, which is how I usually cook them.
So some high points and low points this month, but I've really enjoyed playing around with what works and what doesn't! I'm so looking forward to the flavours of the steadily encroaching autumn: pumpkin, cobnuts, wild mushrooms, celeriac, fennel, apple, swede, swiss chard and so much more. I'm also particularly anticipating the roasts that start becoming much more frequent once summer's wound down! I say bring on the cooler weather, and the wonderful produce that goes with the cold snap in the air.
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