We almost NEVER have Sunday lunch, not when we were first married, a life time ago, not when the kids were small, or bigger but still at home and even now , now we are foot loose and fancy free, Not even with our myriad of grandchildren. That’s not saying that they don’t get fed, when Chez Nous, it’s just not Sunday Lunch!

However, we usually have something special for Sunday dinner. Many years ago, one of my first favourite cookbooks ( Simcas cuisine) I would take one of her set meals, every Sunday and work my way through the book. Nowadays, I troll the books on my shelf, using stickies, to denote ideas/ recipes I want to try. Unfortunately there are too many on my list and the list seems to grow longer by the day. I love to cook but only so so about baking, whereas my son cooks and my lovely daughter in law bakes! A perfect combination!

This week was a bit of a cop out. I had mushrooms which I had to use ( we are away for a week) and also had marrow bones, which I had been dying to use and were not yet in the freezer. And Steak, I had two beautiful filet steaks, which cried out to me COOK !

The mushrooms were the easy bit, cleaned ( use a mushroom brush, but NEVER NEVER WASH! They go slimy), sautéed in olive oil with some chopped garlic and some chopped parsley ( actually had the leftovers on toast for breakfast! Yummy). But I digress. The first time I had grilled bone marrows was in a large Very French Old Hotel in Le Touquet. The hotel was a huge disappointment as was the restaurant EXCEPT the bone marrow. Grilled until the marrow melts, maybe with garlic and parsley dressing and toast.

I had been planning to have these for a while, but again, the choice was to throw them in the freezer for a rainy day, or to “Go for it”:So I went for it. I mixed together some panko breadcrumbs with chopped parsley ( did you know…… don’t throw parsley away, put into a bag and freeze it, then it smushes easily ready to use) and chopped garlic. Smothered the top of the bone marrows and put into a hot oven. Nothing could be easier!

Alternatively, if you have bone marrow in your refrigerator, scoop out the marrow with a teaspoon and mix it into good quality beef mince with at least 20% fat. Preferably 30% but if adding bone marrow the 20% will suffice. There is nothing worse than dry hamburgers!

But for my steak, I have been reading/ watching the latest way that chefs cook the perfect steak. Firstly, preheat your oven to 400F/200C, then pat the steak dry, a dry steak will sear better, season with pepper and then lob it onto a very hot grill pan ( oven proof) for about 2 minutes, flip over and repeat.

Then place steaks and pan into the oven and bake ( yes bake) for 5-10 minutes . At this point it is best to use a thermometer to test exactly the inner temperature of your steak, however, I forgot at that point that my thermometer had died, so I had to wing it, just by timing. Remove from the oven about 5 degrees inner temperature earlier than you think as you will now need to let them rest. ( to let them finish cooking and for the juices to be reabsorbed into the meat, making for a tender juicy meat.

So the end result for me was, my steaks were WELL DONE! Never mind, I need to get a new thermometer and repeat the exercise! To serve my steaks, I had the mushrooms along with a gratin of root vegetables which I had made previously and had frozen.