Cooking the Week #2

Hello! What should we cook this weekend? I’m thinking of some bright, tasty, good food to see us through a busy week ahead or set us up for a good Saturday night catch-up with friends.

Welcome to my second ‘long form’ cooking vid, a sort of cooking class where, together (or so I hope), we cook a few dishes that will spin out to a few meals.

All the recipes, plus a shopping list, are below. And if you like, you can print them out, do a shop, carve out some time and cook with me.

Today, the brief is tasty, bright, and easy food for busy days.

The video goes for almost one and a half hours, which I know is a lot, but by the end of it (save a bit of pausing here and there), we will have made the below. And that, in turn, will stretch out to at least two dinners and hopefully a few working lunches.

Of course you can skip the video, skip the whole thing, cook one or two or cook the whole shebang with me. Whatever works.

Either way, thanks for dropping in here. The post below is behind a paywall for paid subscribers, thank you if you are one of them and please let me know via return email or a comment below what you’d like me to cover/cook in our next video.

Sophie x

Dinner ideas from this menu

• Serve up the polpettone in its tomato sauce, with pickles and a simple green salad. A golden garlic bread would be an excellent addition, or a loaf of something fresh and crusty.

• Reheat the fritters in the oven and have them with the parsley yogurt sauce and salad. You could add a boiled or poached egg on top.

• Crumble up the polpettone, fry up, add extra tomato sauce and toss through pasta.

Lunch ideas

• Slice any leftover polpettine and either have a cold or fry up in a pan then sandwich between two nice slices of bread with a few of the pickles. Maybe a smear of the tomato sauce, too, if you have any left.

• Warm up a few fritters and have them with the tomato sauce. You could put in a wrap or between bread or as is.

• The corn and farro salad with extra pickles is an excellent lunch. It travels well and lasts for a few days. You could add a boiled egg, tin of tuna, any leftover roast chicken etc, if, you wanted a protein bump.

More ideas

• Use the green parsley yogurt to dress a simple potato salad or drizzle it over a tray of roasted veggies.

• Use leftover pickles in a tangy, healthy egg salad. Try this recipe here and swap the capers out for chopped-up pickles.

• Thin out the roasted tomato sauce with stock for an intensely flavoured tomato soup.