February Challenge #1 for Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Ambassadors: Cook for loved ones this Valentine’s day.

Easy!  That was always going to happen.

Our morning started with a little surprise for the children at breakfast with homemade cards and a chocolate heart treat – it was the weekend after all.

Breakfast was a baked blueberry sharing pancake which was rather predictable for us other than using a square tin.  Crème Fraîche is essential to cut through the sweetness. We always have the ingredients for this to hand as it’s mostly store cupboard staples and I also pop spare blueberries in the freezer before they turn.

Lunch comes around so quickly, especially following lazy mornings.  A bit of spare ham we roasted a few days back and a couple of mushrooms.. Oh what to make?

Thankfully, the friendly freezer contains all sorts of good stuff; homemade chicken stock, peas, broad beans, spinach etc. Combined with a little pasta, a potato, carrot, celery, onion, garlic and we’re away: Hearty Winter Minestrone.

Now onto the main event.  Felix has become obsessed with fish. Today he decided on a beautiful Plaice from the counter which we dusted in seasoned flour and fried in butter for a total of four minutes:

For us, it has to be steak for Valentines (or any other good excuse). Unfortunately we only had sirloin to hand, but at least it was excellent quality:

A classic Prawn Cocktail spiced up with grated horseradish and Rose Harissa:

A mushroom sauce, a tarragon dressing to smother the steak, deliciously crispy oven roasted chips, rocket and a bottle of Argentinian Malbec Bonarda:

Good honest food and the love of my life.  Bliss. Even if I did forget dessert.

Happy ‘Eating Nice Food’ Day. x