Bangers, Mash and Garlic Gravy

Ahhhhh, Friday, I was officially on holiday at last and we were due to leave for a long weekend getaway on Saturday. Friday night I thought I'd make a favourite but I'd been so busy at work that I didn't have time to pick up any onions.

Rather than try a new recipe I decided to use a couple of cloves of garlic and follow the usual recipe and it was a success. Usually the garlic gets a bit lost in the onion but without the onion, it was lovely. 

Bangers, Mash & Onion Gravy

Bit of a blurry picture I'm afraid courtesy of the darker evenings. The Linda McCartney bangers, lovely creamy mash and the best onion gravy in the world ( I think!) went down very well with my brother on Sunday night.

Bangers, Sweet Potato Mash & Onion Gravy

On Wednesday I used up the rest of the boiled new potatoes and baked sweet potato as mashed potato and added our usual Linda McCartney sausages, carrots, peas and the wonderful Anna's Onion Gravy. 

Bangers, Mash and Onion Gravy with Runner Beans

Why are we eating mashed potato and onion gravy on one of the warmest days so far this summer? Because we had potatoes to eat. Who cares! It's awesome. Had some nice runner beans from a colleague's neighbour too.

Bangers, Mash and The Best Onion Gravy in the World

Thankfully Linda McCartney bangers, mash (made with soya milk and sunflower spread), peas and the famous Anna's onion gravy are all dairy free. I realise that this isn't the typical kind of meal for July but the weather wasn't much like July weather either and Mr VST and I have to have this about once a month or we experience withdrawal symptoms! 

Bangers, Mash, Broad Beans and Onion Gravy

This speaks for itself really. The onion gravy was as lovely as ever. We had it with some broad beans from my colleague's garden too, delicious. 

Bangers, Mash and Onion Gravy

Sunday evening classic last night. The onion gravy was SOOOO good!

Bangers, Mash and Baked Beans

Can I start by saying that the macaroni cheese with leeks worked and that I successfully completed the Great West Run today - Whoop! Thirteen and 1/10th of a mile in 2 hours, 9 minutes and 16 seconds. Having given a lot of thought to what I wanted to eat before the run it didn't occur to me that I might want to plan something for afterwards as well.

When we eventually got out of the car park and got home Mr VST and I finished off the macaroni cheese. For dinner I decided that I would stick with the easy to cook, easy to eat,  nursery food theme and went for bangers and mash with baked beans.

Bangers, Mash, Onion Gravy and Veggies

On Monday night I had the family over for dinner. I went for an easy and delicious option - bangers (Linda McCartney's of course), mash, Anna's onion gravy, broccoli, braised red cabbage and carrots.

It went down well with everyone and then we tucked into a lemon meringue pie from Marks and Spencer for pudding. 

Bangers, Mash and Onion Gravy with Braised Red Cabbage

Good old favourite.

Mushroom Stroganoff with Mashed Potato

A new recipe tonight from the Quorn Cook Book. I was really looking forward to making this new dish. The Quorn Supremacy had given it a very good review. I dashed home from work and made it very quickly, then ate it very quickly before going to the dentist. Thankfully I did manage to eat it because he put some stuff on my teeth and asked me not to eat or drink for two hours. It was tasty, I just wish I'd had more time to taste it. I'm hoping I will be able to savour it for lunch tomorrow.

Strange mushroom

Toad in the Hole

This evening's supper was made at Mr VST's request. Not just the main itself but the way in which it was to be done. Starting off a week of eating batter, he requested Toad in the Hole (I am going to get fed up of typing this so TITH it will be from now on). Not just TITH but a big TITH. I usually make mini ones as as seen here but a big one was requested and I went about upsizing the recipe. I still used Delia's batter recipe but doubled it and I used the very reliable Anna's Onion Gravy Recipe and served it with braised red cabbage and mashed potato.

This was the giant TITH when it just came out of the oven. I thought it looked spectacular. I served it up with all the accompaniments and it seems that Mr VST had been thinking even deeper about the toad. In his mind he had envisaged the sausages being cut in half, lengthways and spread out across the top. What he doesn't know is that there would be no place for the burnt halves of the sausages to hide if I did that!

Anyway, all was truly delicious. A proper end to a Sunday.

Cottage Pie with Sweet Potato Mash

I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow in the hope that I have shifted the last of the layer I put on over Christmas. My clothes are certainly back to fitting better anyway but I would quite like the scales to confirm it. This is all before I go away next week on a snowboarding holiday which is fully catered and as I understand it we will be fed breakfast, tea and cakes on our return from the slopes and then a three course meal with wine each evening. I'm not sure if the snowboarding will cancel out the calories consumed but I'm not really that bothered either!

Anyway back to today. Cottage pie made with Quorn mince and half normal potato and half sweet potato mash has to be one of the more filling low calorie dishes that I make at about 235 calories a portion and when I am counting that makes it a winner!

Not Meatloaf with Mashed Potato and Braised Cabbage

I've made this before and decided to give it another go. It's described by the Quorn Cook Book as Sweet Potato Loaf, however it only has 100g of sweet potato in it. It also has 100g carrot and 150g of Quorn mince so I think it's just a Quorn meatloaf isn't it?

Anyway it was very nice served with some creamy mash and braised cabbage.

Bangers, Mash, Onion Gravy, Braised Cabbage and Peas

A Sunday evening feast! Absolutely delicious of course and much needed after my weekend of making an baking. My back is still aching from standing all day! My goodies look (and taste) pretty good though, I'm pleased with them. I'll post about my baileys and white chocolate and dark choc, orange and rum fudge and my cinnamon mince pies when I can.

Vegetarians as guests....

Do you dread having vegetarians as guests? Whenever I have guests with special dietary requirements I usually enjoy the challenge of being out of my comfort zone cooking-wise. When Mr VST's coeliac cousin came to stay I served Dahl (which seems to be every diet proof) and made this gluten-free lemon drizzle cake with mashed potato, yes MASHED POTATO, warm for pudding with cream, it was absolutely delicious.

This weekend we were the dreaded vegetarian guests but our hosts did their usual wonderful job. Mr VST was doing the hell runner at Longmoor and we went to stay with our friends in Somerset so that we were (a bit) closer to Longmoor. Friday night's carbo-load was pasta and sauce with chunky roasted veggies and goat's cheese - delicious.

We got up to have the breakfast of champions (baked beans on toast) at an un-Godly hour for a Saturday and then made our way through the Winter wonderland to Longmoor. When we got there the ground was frozen as was the water in the bog of doom! Being the supportive wife I carried bags, cheered on when Mr VST started, got out of the bog and finished and provided him with a hot chocolate to warm up.

Here are some of the Hell Runners coming out of the Bog of Doom.

We had a couple of cheese and pickle sandwiches and delicious sticky toffee cake and chocolate brownie with thick chocolate butter icing on top to get us back to our friends' house.

When we got back we had pizza and chips and then later in the evening as we all were collapsed in a heap we nibbled on cheese and biscuits.

I also extensively sampled out hosts tea collection. Mr Host had bought himself the kind of tea box that is usually seen only in hotels and filled it with every kind of herbal tea imaginable. I was very jealous of his box. I think it may be going on my Christmas list!

Bangers and Mash

Tonight's dinner was another classic (I must find a more imaginative term!) Linda McCartney sausages, mashed potato, peas and Anna's onion gravy (recipe on the cottage smallholder blog in links).

You can see from the photo that the gravy really is the main part of the meal!

We now eat this with a knife, fork and spoon. Mr VST licks the plate behind my back. He says that the day he doesn't lick the plate I'll know I've made a bad batch - it hasn't happened yet!



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