Friday Night & Valentine's Weekend

We started off the weekend with a fabulous meal with some friends at a new Nepalese restaurant not far from where we live.  We saw a review of the Yetis' Retreat in Moor Mag (a great local free magazine) and decided to go there instead of another Nepalese place in Levenshulme that we go to.  Service was a tad slow but the food was awesome, and extremely spicy.  Not for the faint hearted, that's for sure.  My friend picked possibly the hottest curry I've ever tasted.  It was ok initially but the burn got worse and worse until your mouth was on fire.  The waiter said it was madras strength but it wasn't, it was more vindaloo strength.  I chose a paneer chilli massala and it was pretty hot but there wasn't such an after-burn and you could taste and appreciate the chillies.  The starters were delicious, some Nepalese dumplings, fish, and vegetable pakoras, plus something else which I couldn't identify - something fruity on top of a mini bread. 

We had a fab night anyway, lots of laughs and lots of drinks.  My choice of footwear for the evening wasn't the best though, as I found when I took a tumble on the cobbles on the way into the pub.  Platform shoes, booze and cobbles definitely don't mix!  I hurt my knee and foot and couldn't make the gym on Saturday :(



Mr W is away working for Valentine's Day so I've made an extra special effort this weekend starting with baking a cake.  I've also offered to bake a cake for a charity thing at work so desperately need some practice (not much of a cake baker).  I decided to do a coffee and walnut cake from a BBC Food recipe. 

Unfortunately, I have no idea about cake tins and their diameter so I came slightly unstuck.  Instead of a three-tier beast it ended up being one tier but it tasted great so who cares?! Must try harder for the charity cake...

For 'Watson Saturday Steak Night' I decided to make home-made oven chips and they were truly delicious.  Par-boiled Orla potatoes, tossed in olive oil and Maldon and baked at 220 degrees for quite some time.  We tried a red wine reduction, which consisted of beef stock and three quarters of a bottle of red wine and it tasted vile so it went down the sink.  What a waste of wine!!  I made some garlic and herb butter to make up for it and we had the steak served simply.  I was also a complete martyr and gave up my fillet because Mr W said it looked better than his rib eye.  I get fillet because rib eye's are generally too much meat for me but to be honest, my fillet looked extra-special yesterday (very dark with great marbling) so I must really love my husband to swap! 

I also started off my slow-cooked lamb shanks for Sunday dinner on Saturday.  I sealed the lamb shanks and put them in the slow cooker with some rosemary, then I fried some onions, carrots, celery, garlic and bay leaves with stock and red wine which I then poured over the lamb.  I let it sit over night and turned it on at 9:30am this morning and let it cook for 9 hours. 

I removed the lamb shanks from the slow cooker and put them in the oven covered with foil to keep warm.  I then strained the stock and added some ice cubes to skim the fat (a very handy tip!) and made some gravy with the stock, redcurrant jelly, port and cornflour.  Mmmmmmm, so good.

I served with creamy mash, mashed carrots and swede, spring greens and petit pois, and the gravy.  The meat fell off the bone and it was absolutely amazing.  Think I may have earned some serious brownie points this weekend ;)

The cats are sulking with me now though as I decided they both needed a manicure tonight.  Mr W held them whilst I clipped and Colin savaged my arm so full of cuts.  Never get pets!!!

x