Beautiful Butties

On Monday (August Bank Holiday), the girl-who-came-to-dinner and I visited the Wirral Food and Drink Festival at Claremont Farm in Bebington. She bought four different types of fudge and some jars of relish - one of which (the lemon and mint grain mustard) found its way into my fridge. I'd made some butties to take with - home-cooked ham & English mustard, mature cheddar & homemade sweet pickle, and ham, cheddar and tomato salsa - and Hannah brought some reduced-price fruit packs.

Once upon a time you could rely on blagging enough tasters to fill you up but, sadly, no more.

I sampled the "Friendly Food & Drink" mustard the following day - with some garlic sausage from Heron Foods in Liscard: the salmon pink colour may not be that inviting but I do get 36 decent slices for £1.10, and it does actually taste pretty good.

To accompany my butty I had an absolutely delicious cheese scone - a trade freebie from Mary's Homemade Cakes (www.maryshomemadecakes.co.uk) - slathered with real butter and piled with mixed leaf,  radish and spring onions.

The Hovis bread is on special offer at the moment at the Co-ey, down to £1.13.

Bon appetit!

Tagliatelle, Med Veg, Mushrooms & Smoked Haddock

I know I'm going on an awful lot about Frozen Bargains in Old Swan - but some of the ingredients for Tuesday night's supper didn't come from there!

The instructions on the noodles & veg were most confusing: for best results shallow-fry in a little water!
I ignored that and microwaved a couple of handfuls instead, while frying a chopped-up field mushroom (down to 75p for 4 in the Co-ey) in a little butter and oil with a teaspoonful of chopped garlic (Frozen Bargains) and a diced smoked haddock fillet (reduced at either Asda or the Co-ey and frozen a couple of weeks ago).

I added flour to make a roux and stirred in some milk, added a tsp of tomato purée and some S+P, before folding in the warm tagliatelle and Mediterranean vegetables.

To finish, I grated over the top some mature cheddar (£4.39 for 350g in a bogof offer at the Co-op).
Buon appetito!

(Oh, and the pasta bowl was in the TJ Hughes closing-down sale!)