Day four - Wednesday 4th Feb

Today I discovered three things:

1) I didn't buy enough milk and orange juice 

2) We drink more milk and orange juice than I had thought reasonably possible

3) Suggesting that we don't buy any more milk and orange juice until the weekend results in significant and on-going problems in my personal life

So guess what? I've gone shopping. We were due to have stew tonight with the ox cheeks so I needed some ale anyway but my remaining budget had significant pressure, far more than I could fulfil in total  After buying those items required to save my marriage, I managed to also get everything needed for tonight. I wanted mayonnaise for future use but in a fit of culinary inspiration Mrs P exclaimed: 'we've got oil and eggs, just get some mustard and a lemon then we can make our own!' Well, I was sold at once but having never made my own mayonnaise, I failed the primary test: looking at the recipe. For those of you considering making your own mayonnaise, let me tell you this: eggs, mustard, lemon juice and oil are only four of the five ingredients needed. When you go shopping for these things, make sure you take enough money for white wine vinegar as well. I didn't. I guess I'm waiting until the weekend for that one then.

Getting back to the daily detail (I know that's why you're really here), The Child had cereal while Mrs P and I enjoyed some toast this morning. The Child was then sent off to school with an apple in her bag for a snack and the adults tucked into left over chicken pasta for lunch. I must admit that the spaghetti didn't keep at it's absolute optimum but it was fine and still (according to Mrs P), better than a salad.

For dinner we were supposed to have ox cheek stew, leek and cabbage and cous cous.  Not content with the mayonnaise incident, Mrs P also managed to persuade me to make 'cous cous burgers' and flat breads from scratch. In retrospect, this was a lot to do and maybe may have been better split into a couple of days. It was a good job then that my mum dropped by and decided stayed for dinner - no pressure then.

The stew: first whip out your massive ox cheeks and be awed by their enormousness:

These things were massive and steal at just over two quid, where else can you get lovely soft beef at that price? Second, curse loudly as you nearly chop off your finger trying to cut the damn things into chunks - they were seriously tough. Then dust them with salt and peppered plain flour and set them frying with chopped but chunky carrot, onion, celery and a couple of cloves of garlic.

When the bottom of your pan is starting to go brown and sticky, throw in half a pint of your beer. Decant the rest (don't mind if I do), half fill the bottle with water and throw that back in stirring to get all of that stickiness off the bottom. Crumble over a beefy stock cube, bung in bay leaf, cover and put in the (pre-heated) oven at approx 120 degrees C. Then leave it for three hours. Open it up towards the end to make sure it's not going dry, or if it's not thick enough just add a bit of flour and stir to make sure it doesn't clump. You will get beautiful, soft meat with a rich silky gravy and if you are lucky enough to have my mum is in your house when you cook it, she will probably take you off guard and persuade you to add jam (ours was raspberry). You can if you want, it does add another dimension and a bit of depth but I would say you could go with or without the jam and the stew will be tasty either way.

Next in this story is the flat breads - these were great. Again, something that I've never made before but google threw up Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe via a really good blog (Mean Mother Cooker) which was really simple and tasty. A nice surprise and I guarantee I'll be making them again.

Finally we come to the cous cous burgers, again from another blog we found. These were not quite as successful. Despite the fact that we didn't have most of the ingredients, we decided to press ahead and try it anyway. The results were not really up to par and it was decided to re-mix the whole thing up again and try to forget it ever happened. Whatever was left we'll have for lunch tomorrow.

So there we are, we managed to cater for an extra adult tonight and still come in with left overs - The Child goes to a club tomorrow night and needs dinner turn around quick smart. We've still got some mash in the fridge so bang it all together and voila! Instant tea!