Tuesday 15 November 2011

Salmon with lentils and patty pan (my own recipe!!!)

We are in the throws of autumn and I am a little late with this particular post.  But this summer has been something else!  I went on two holidays quite close together (i.e. ate and drank a lot).  I started slacking at the gym.  These two elements combined mean I have put on (more than) a little weight. 

In the absence of returning to my pre-summer gym regime, I decided to be a bit more careful about what I ate.  One thing I decided was to cut back on the carbs.  Not "cut out" but "cut back". 

With this approach, I decided to add more lentils to my repertoire, to replace pasta / rice / potatoes.

A meal I ate at a "chain" restaurant during the summer was delicious. I thought I would be able to recreate the dish without having to buy any of the ingredients.  I already had lentils in the cupboard and salmon in the freezer (always bought when there is a special offer on).  The herbs, garlic and vegetables were all home-grown (by A).  The patty pans also home-grown, were added as a side dish as we had them and they needed to be used.


Although this meal was not using a recipe from one of my books as per the objective of this blog, I did look up ways to cook lentils.  I kind of consolidated similar methods as follows: added chopped garlic, onions, carrots and celery all grown by A and also added some chopped pancetta.  I have since made it without pancetta but from a personal point of view, I think even a small amount adds to the taste - but of course you don't need to add any meat.


With the patty pans, I again looked up different recipes on the Internet and decided to keep it simple. I rubbed in garlic and mixed herbs with olive oil and roasted for about 20 mins.


Before!

After!!!

As you can see, my daughter did not add any patty pans to her plate, but she did eat everything else.

Well, that is the end of my summer recipes.  My next posts will be warming, comforting, traditional dishes, using recipes perfect for the cooling weather.  Until then....