We're not a foodie family - that isn't to say that we don't enjoy our food. We certainly do. Possibly a bit too much sometimes. The Boy (aka The Husband aka Daddy) and I are pretty adventurous eaters, especially when it comes to food from East Asia (The Boy's mum makes THE most amazing Chinese food). However this doesn't always translate into the food that we eat at home, where we often tend to revert to the tried and tested. Hopefully this blog will inspire me to have a go at some of the 123 dishes that I've pinned under "recipes to try" on Pinterest...
Anyway, I digress.
Fancy pants foodies we may not be, but I do enjoy cooking and try to cook from scratch wherever possible. Our freezer is generally stuffed with all sorts of time savers and unidentifiable pre-prepared goodies (note to self, must learn to label).
Move Date is T minus 5 weeks, so I really need to start running down the stocks. Sunday's dinner was inspired by the contents of my freezer and one of Small Boy's favourites... cod, spinach and potatoes. Small normally has his whipped up in a few panicked minutes before his lunch. However, we try to eat our dinner together at least once at the weekend (Small eats at a rather unsociable 5pm, earlier given half a chance...) so I was after doing something a bit more adult friendly.
A trip to good old Pinterest later, I used this recipe for inspiration: http://www.aglugofoil.com/2011/01/cod-mornay-easy-one-dish-recipe-for-cod.html?m=1
Cod Mornay
I have to admit that I didn't really measure the ingredients, so this is a rough approximation.
Fed two hungry grown ups and the Small Boy generously
Ingredients:
2 fairly large potatoes
2 frozen cod fillets (I buy the ready frozen ones from Aldi)
3 cubes frozen spinach
Breadcrumbs (made from some random crusts that I had in the freezer) mixed with grated cheese (probably about 50g)
25g butter
25g flour (I ran out of plain - made me come out in a cold sweat - so used half plain/ half wholemeal)
Milk
Preheat the oven to 180c (160c fan)
Slice the potatoes really thinly and microwave with a little water (covered with cling film) for about 5 minutes (I did 3 minutes (Cat E) and, on reflection, they could have done with a little longer)
Meanwhile, start making the sauce - melt the butter in a decent sized pan, turn the heat to low and add the flour. The only reason that I know the quantities for the butter and flour for the ingredients list is because my life was changed forever on the day I discovered that you need to have equal parts butter and flour for white sauce. Seriously, don't do it by eye. It will go all lumpy and then you'll go all grumpy (see what I did, there?!)
Cook for a minute or so and then start adding the milk, make sure to do it slowly so that it is absorbed into the flour before adding more. Keep adding until you've got a sauce of the thickness that you're after bubbling away nicely on the stove.
Once the potatoes are done, cook the fish and spinach, again in the microwave, for about 5 - 6 minutes. They don't look very appetising before they are cooked...
"Ooooh yummy!"
Drain and add to the white sauce.
In an ovenproof dish, put a layer of potatoes on the bottom, top with sauce and repeat until you've run out of both (ideally, you want to finish wtih sauce)
Top with the breadcrumb and cheese mix and bake for about 40 minutes
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As you can see, I served with peas and sweetcorn (again, running down the freezer stocks). Unless you are a Small Boy, whose peas were removed when they started to be jettisoned across the room. Tut.
Apologies for the shocking photos... turns out this "perfect life" blogging malarky is a bit more tricky than it looks (and "styling" a photograph is last of your priorities when you have a hungry tummy and something like this waiting for you!)
