Friday food links – 8 April 2016 « Using Mainly Spoons

This has been a four-seasons-in-one-day week: some days were blustery, with rain and hail, as well as blue skies and sunshine. Lots of the spring flowers are out – and I got to walk past this glorious 60 year old magnolia in Lincoln’s Inn this week too.

To keep with the spring theme, I made fresh ricotta at the weekend. It’s a pretty satisfying process, but I failed to plan how I would use it all in the week. I have hovered between tortas and cakes and tarts, and fiddly pastas, but then had to acknowledge that these were not weeknight projects. I’ve eaten some just spread thickly on toast and sprinkled with salt, but I couldn’t get through the whole tub in that way!

In the end I settled for spinach and ricotta stuffed cannelloni from a Cranks Bible recipe, using up a box of dried cannelloni tubes that have been lurking in the pantry for ages. As an added bonus, I also chopped the leftover roasted veg from Tuesday’s sausage tray bake into the filling, and topped it with leftover mozzarella from pizza at the weekend.

The main food occupation this weekend will be planning food for The Second Birthday Party. We’re not going over-the-top; just a family party – but I’ve already been persuaded by Pinterest to buy some coloured fabric bunting, so I think I should probably step away from the Pinterest boards now. But there’s still the cake to decide on. And it has to somehow improve upon Smitten Kitchen’s amazing banana monkey cake.

Recipes:

Homemade ricotta
Chicken chili – from a Slow Cooker library book
Slow roasted shoulder of lamb, Persian rice – from Persiana
Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni – The Cranks Bible

Without a recipe:

Sausage tray bake with tomatoes, onions and purple sprouting broccoli, served with sweet potato wedges
Chicken curry from the freezer
Oven fish and chips
Pork ragu lasagne
Sunday night pizza

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