Where has this week gone? Honestly I haven’t a clue, but indeed it has gone. Mornings are brighter, evenings are lighter, and flowers and blossom are blooming! Spring is almost here!

I feel that The Sunday Times has been spying on me. Last week there was an article on flavoured butters ( and how I love flavoured butters) and this weeks here was something else, that I thought” Wait a moment” I’ve been doing that for years!

This week has seen a lot of RECYCLING and by that I mean food! It has to be obvious, it is impossible to make just one meat pie or beef stroganoff or kedgeree or Peruvian beef or ?

The extra has always been portioned, frozen, vacuumed packed, labelled and stored away in the recycling freezer drawer! Once upon a time when Himself was working and travelling every week and I traveled almost as much and sometimes more than him, the freezer had magnetic labels with notes written on, saying what was available for dinner.

Flavoured butters, I have been using some of them for years, mainly Garlic butter, Garlic and Parsley butter and Anchovy Butter. Chefs make several butters, which they make into a roll, wrap in cling film, and freeze ( or refrigerate), slice off a bit as needed. Me on the other hand, make my butters and freeze them in Ice Cube trays, pop into a plastic bag and freeze.

I have been buying Trout from Chalk Stream now for the almost a year and is the easiest thing to cook for dinner and SO enhanced with Anchovy Butter. Snails, with Garlic Butter, Garlic Bread, Maple and Cinnamon, with Pancakes, Sriracha Lime and Coriander, Harissa Butter, Horseradish and Pepper, Blue Cheese butter, Chimcichurri used on meats and fish or vegetables and the crème de la crème is Marmite Butter ( now available in Marks and Spencer! The list is endless, I also make my ginger and garlic mix and freeze in the ice cubes, along with my fresh yeast, my ice cube trays get used a lot.

This weekend we tried another Gourmet Take A Way. This time from a company called Dispatch. The service was excellent, delivery on time in all recyclable packaging.

We chose this meal from St. John, a restaurant in central London that was founded in 1993. We have eaten there just the once. The starter was Bone Marrow and is so easy to cook and is delicious, we Love It. The Main course was Braised Duck Legs served with carrots and Aioli and the Pièce de resistance (NOT) was the dessert, and Eccles Cake with a bit of cheese. They do to be honest actually serve the Eccles Cake at their restaurant, but I have to say it looked very sad. And what is more, there was just One Eccles Cake and one sliver of Cheese. Ok, maybe we didn’t need more but to serve it elegantly, put on a pretty plate in the middle of us along with the cheese.

Himself gave the meal a mere 6/10 the Photo shows, three bones on the plate, we had two, three carrots and we had two. The duck was lovely but found that the Aioli superfluous, it actually says in the instructions add a DOLLOP, which we did, but the sauce was nice without it.

The really disappointing thing was that St. John never replied to my question ” Has there been a mistake with just the one Eccles Cake?”

Would we have another meal, Yes, Dispatch offers menus from several and varied restaurants, so we have at least another month to go, so watch this space.