Food and things over the holidays

Marsala mushrooms above.

Now there is no time frame or order here. Just a few snaps of good food from home and restaurants. Above are Michelle's yummy stir fried veges on New Year's day.

This smoked salmon from the Salar smokehouse on the Isle of South Uist in the Hebrides.

http://www.salar.co.uk/

It tasted out of this world and there was no comparison to shop bought smoked salmon. The business is one of Rick Stein's food heroes. Sophie and Andy's perfect roasties on Christmas Day.

Our succulent roast pork and kretheraki (orzo in Italian) on New Year's Day. A previous posting showed the wonderful Coulommier cheeses we baked as a starter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulommiers_cheese

I bagged the lamb bone on Christmas Day. New Zealand lamb which melted in the mouth. Of course.

We went to Simply Thai on New Year's Eve. It had been a semi-finalist on Gordon Ramsey's programme but it was both good and disappointing. The restaurant is very plain, no problem, but it took hours to be served and for the courses to come. Some were excellent and some were too salty to eat despite having a great taste. Above are Michelle's order of lime and garlic prawns which were good.
http://www.simplythai-restaurant.co.uk/introduction.html

Christmas day first plate with salmon, chorizo, stuffed peppers, tzanziki and assorted piquant charcuterie.

My Simply Thai crab spring rolls with their homemade plum sauce - again great. And below Costas' chicken satay, again very good. After the starters though we lost the will to live and to photograph the mains which apart from my chicken were inedible because of the salt.

Below my Chicken risotto from the Boat Yard in Kingston.

http://www.hartsboatyard.co.uk/

Below the asparagus recipe was taken from a fabulous food blog which I follow called Gastronomy Domine. I also got the Marsala mushroom recipe from it.

A rather cute little shop in Richmond - Costas liked the 'sandwicherie' tag!

Apple pie at the Boat Yard.