Recipes for a stormy day

[CoffeeFiFoFum]

Weather and various commitments mean I’m pretty much housebound today. There’s lots I could do, but not much I have to do.

I fancy a day pottering in the kitchen making something slow, mildly complicated and rewarding rather than the food-is-fuel type cooking I normally practice.

Ideas please? We’re two adults and two hungry late teens. No allergies or dietary requirements and no fussy eaters. I can get to a big supermarket or butcher but not any speciality food shops for any particularly out-there ingredients! **

The perfect day for making a lasagne or a proper from-scratch curry.

Thanks Remus, I did consider both but they’re things I make fairly regularly from
scratch (albeit with varying degrees of attention to detail)

Hoping someone has an idea for something as-yet untried by us…

A proper rendang?

Oh, of course that is curry, but not Indian so a bit different?

A lovely casserole with dumplings
Slow roasted lamb
Homemade sausage rolls etc for tea

Boeuf bourguignon with mushrooms and pureed potatoes
beef stroganoff with mushrooms and rice
apple tatin or pear tatin tart

or this: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/oct/23/autumn-meze-recipes-tabbouleh-yoghurt-dips-mushrooms-morito-sam-and-sam-clark?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

We've got leek and potato soup in the soup maker for lunch.
Chocolate brownies are just in the oven for after with custard I expect.
Then beef stew and dumplings in the slow cooker for this evening.

I recently found this lady and ALL of her recipes have been fabulous:

We are having the pork tomorrow and I did the green curry earlier in the week:
-https://www.recipetineats.com/chinese-barbecue-pork-char-siu/
-https://www.recipetineats.com/thai-green-curry/
-I've also made this with more of a Bolognese sauce, rather than just tomato www.recipetineats.com/spinach-ricotta-stuffed-shells/

This is the sort of day when I make Nigella’s oxtail stew from How to Eat. It’s a winter favourite in our house.

I love making oxtail soup too. The cost of the cheaper cuts like oxtail, beef cheek, lamb shanks etc have sky rocketed in recent years though. Where do you buy yours from?

Beef stifado and buttery mash

Lamb Tagine

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/fruity-lamb-tagine

What about making mincemeat, Christmas cake and Christmas pudding?

https://moro.co.uk/chicken-fattee-with-rice-crispbread-and-yoghurt/ Moro’s chicken fattee is one of my favourite recipes but takes a bit longer to make than most of our meals.

I love Bakewell tart, but as it needs you to make both pastry and cake mix I don’t make it very often.

Thanks all, some great ideas and new sites here.

I’ve been trawling though old recipe books too and am going properly old school with steak and kidney pudding!

Does it have to be savoury? Crumble or Jayne’s Patisserie Hobnobs.

If savoury, I’d make a proper beef chilli or rendang curry (I like the hairy bikers one, I use galangal paste)

Sticky gingerbread
of what about a good old fashioned steamed pudding with custard

Your lucky, lucky family! Was it good? I bet it was. Decades since I last had that.

P.S. Second the recommendation for RecipeTinEats. Excellent website. We enjoyed her biriani (both the chicken and the vegetable versions).

It was delicious Gasp0de! Not very pretty (and I should have realised that the steam would be a problem given I couldn’t open the kitchen windows very far!!) but really savoury and it hit the spot for comfort food.

Really liking the look of RecipeTinEats too, so thanks for endorsing PP’s recommendation.

Mmmm, thanks for reporting back! I think I would be the only person here who would eat it, so not sure it's worth the bother, although I suppose I could make the steak and kidney bit up, portion it up, use one portion and freeze the rest. Suet pastry is easy to make in very small quantities. Which recipe did you use?

I used the recipe in my ancient copy of Delia Smith’s How to Eat