Toad in the hole with fried kale and stuffed mushrooms

So, after getting the boys to write down their favourite food, I didn't have any excuses: toad in the hole for lunch. But I couldn't resist trying kale on the side. Kale is not on anyone's mmmm, delicious list, but I thought I'd try it anyway - with garlic slivers and little bits of bacon, two things they actively like, and a little sugar. It tasted just like the so-called seaweed you get in a Chinese restaurant, and was very good, although Alfred didn't eat much. There were also stuffed mushrooms: Alfred ate one without comment, Horatio said he liked the stuffing but not the mushroom.

Last night we went to dinner with Dick and DD at the boathouse down by the river. We sat out on the verandah as the light faded, fed the ducks - and ourselves. DD made a wonderful potato salad in the morning: she boiled some potato chunks, dressed them with a lemony vinaigrette and ribbons of crisply fried onion, and left it all to marinade all day while she went out boating and read a thriller. And there was a lovely French bean salad, with chopped hard-boiled egg and slivers of fennel. Not something I could easily serve here. But just the thing for a jaded mother.


Quick fried kale

Fry some chopped bacon in oil; add slivers of garlic. Cook until the bacon is well browned. Add chopped kale and a spoonful of sugar. Cook for 10 minutes. Serve hot.



















Stuffed mushrooms

Easy peasy: remove the stalks from the mushrooms, put them in a food processor with a slice of bread, a de-seeded tomato, a spring onion, a little cheese. Blitz; stuff the mushrooms; cook in a hot oven for 20 minutes.

Horatio said it would have been better in a different vegetable, but he couldn't think which ... I suggest tomato or courgette.


Toad in the hole

Make a batter with three eggs, 1/2 a pint of milk, 4 oz of plain flour and a pinch of salt. Put the sausages into a baking tin and into a hot oven for 10-15 minutes until they start to brown. Pour on the batter (through a sieve if there are a lot of lumps), and bake for half an hour until the batter is well risen and browned.

(These quantities are for a large roasting tin, and did four of us with three sausages each; I would have used the same quantity of batter for six. The main thing is to give the batter plenty of room to rise.)


















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