The weekend

Some little glimpses from the weekend just gone.

Had two friends staying with us for the weekend, and we were pretty lazy. Lots of lie-ins and the well intentioned walk was cancelled due to it blowing a gale on the Sunday.

So we had an excellent chazzing session, went to Wagamama's, saw The Iron Lady, played Trivial Pursuit and ate a huge Sunday lunch.

{Frank Usher top from charity shop}

{scalloped edge, beads and sequins}

I'm mega pleased with the top - it's very heavy, so it hangs nicely, with a scalloped edge (very now) and fits in with my current black and gold obsession (more here). I'll wear this with my grey skinny jeans from GAP, or my black pencil skirt (which has recently celebrated its 10th birthday).

{Trivial Pursuit}

{Sunday lunch - recipe to follow}

Our guests were veggies, so out with the joint, and hello vegetable peeler. This recipe was great though - a good one for when you're trying to cut down on meat.

Roast winter vegetables with halloumi

4 small uncooked beetroot

3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled

3 small red onions, quartered

4 carrots, halved lengthways

3 parsnips, quartered lengthways

3 whole heads garlic

Olive oil

250g halloumi cheese, cut into 2cm cubes

Ground coriander seeds

1 tsp sumac

Parsley leaves, to serve

Extra virgin olive oil, to serve

Heat the oven to 200°C (gas mark 6). Cook the beetroot (in their skins) in a large saucepan of boiling salted water for about 20 minutes, or until tender.

Drain and allow them to cool slightly before slipping off their skins, then halve or quarter them, depending on their size.

Cut the sweet potato into 5cm (2in) pieces. Place them and the beetroot, onions, carrots, parsnips and garlic on a large baking tray and drizzle with olive oil.

Roast for about 50 minutes, or until the carrots and parsnips are tender, turning them occasionally.

Add the halloumi and spices to the pan, drizzle with a little more oil and season with salt and pepper. Return to the oven and cook for about 10 minutes.

Scatter over the parsley leaves, drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and serve. 

(I changed the amount of halloumi from 150g as was suggested in the original recipe to putting in the whole 250g pack - this amount of veg definitely needed the extra halloumi.)

{result}

{apple pie}

Then I made this apple pie with some apple pie filling I'd made weeks ago and frozen - a neighbour had turned up on the door step with bag full of apples, because he had thousands of the things - so I just bought some ready to roll pastry (nobody will know, say you made it from scratch) and Popeye put this together in seconds flat.

Where's this week gone? I've only just got last weekend's blog post together, and another one is upon us already.