Chicken and wild mushroom strognoff

Mr P made his weekend special this morning... pancakes. Once again I had sugar and lime juice whereas Mr P had cheese and ham. They were the perfect consistency and were delicious.

For lunch we had a prawn and peanut satay stir-fry which was basically just a bag of stir fry veg, with prawns, noodles and a sauce. It was surprisingly tasty though and I will definitely be getting the sauce again, although I now can't remember what brand it was, which could make it difficult.

We had some friends round for dinner, so Mr P and I rustled up a feast.

For starter Mr P roasted cubed butternut squash and half an onion, with salt, pepper and thyme in the oven for half an hour. He then put in in the food processor to liquidise it before straining it through a sieve to get rid of any slightly more corse bits. This was then left to the side before we were about to eat, when we heated it up in a saucepan for five minutes. We served this with pan-fried scallops, which I fried in a little bit of olive oil for around 3 mins on each side. We then sprinled tiny crunchy pieces of bacon [something we prepared earlier by slowly grilling a couple of rashers then cutting them up] over the top. It all went beautifully togeter, a very good flavour combination in my opinion.

For the main course we had a chicken and wild mushroom stroganoff. For this I fried some chopped onions until translucent and then added some chopped chicken. I fried this for around 5/10 mins and then added salt, pepper, thyme and parika and left it sizzling for a futher few minutes. The mushrooms were those dried porchini and other sorts which you have to soak in warm water for half an hour. I then added the soaked mushrooms with half of the delicious mushroomy water they had been soaking in. I left this on a very very low heat for 15 mins before adding a teaspoon of dijon mustard, a glug of white wine and a tub of sour cream. IIonce again left it on a very low heat (while we ate our starters) then served it with some beautifully fluffy rice, which Mr P made. I once again enjoyed this course, the only change I would perhaps have made would have been to have some roughly chopped fresh herbs on top. I think this would have been a perfect finishing touch.

For dessert we had blackcurrent jelly [which was almost slightly disaterous after collapsing on getitng it out of the mould] with vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce and sprinkles. I nice childish end to a tasty meal with lovely food, delicious wine and excellent company.