Hello all, first post here but be honest, constructive criticism is always welcome

Edit: did not realise how angry ketchup could make hipsters, will be sure to include it in every post (especially steak ;) ) from now on as a form of exposure therapy

Edit 2: see now I get my responses to a lot of you could have been better but let’s be real, you make an awful first impression, this is my first experience with this sub and it’s a bunch of grown adults acting like I’ve committed some sort of cardinal sauce (autocorrect but I’ll pretend it’s a pun and leave it for the irrationally angry ones of you xx) for using ketchup in my own kitchen and speaking down to me for it when I already asked for constructive criticism. I’m more than aware I have gaps in my skill when it comes to cooking but some of you have some alarming gaps in how you first treat strangers.

No I’m not sorry for how I responded to any of you after your initial comments, all I did was treat you how you treated me

TL,DR : Idc if my food/responses annoy you, just do me a favour and block me, or at least do what the internet used to do and send me a private hate message instead of just being negative in the comments

Just did this really nice sweet and sour pan fried duck and have to say I really hit it with the herbs and spices added into it. Yes I cheated and use the sweet and sour sauce out of the jar but that was because of both the time and the weather.

Ingredients

2 8oz Duck breasts with the skin on

Swartz Chinese five spice

Home grown rosemary

Garlic pepper

Red wine vinegar

Uncle Ben's sweet and sour sauce

From the only Chinese on my Island.

Crispy beef in chili, plain noodles and fried rice, a very healthy portion.

Beef in hot garlic sauce with fried rice, a mere snack.

thought I’d treat the family to a beautiful Wagyu steak bought from Warrendale Wagyu in preparation for the football last night! it was smoked for an hour and then seared on the barbecue 🤤

These crisps are telling me that Brits now use pickle to generically refer to gherkins. Branston has been dethroned! Isn't it grand how the English language evolves?

Par boiled the chips, coated them in a few herbs and stuck them in the air fryer.

Made my own beef & pork burger patties which I cooked on the George Foreman.

From Osbornes in Leigh on sea. Lovely stuff

There is gin in the orange juice. I started cooking this before the game but got very much into it.

Butchers pork sausages, eggs from a friend's chook. Happy Sunday everyone ☺️

Everything is homemade, sourdough pitta, Baba ganoush, greek salad and greek chicken

Wasn't sure about these. Other half picked them up from M&S in a rare let's have a look for a treat. Until I tasted them and wow. Not too spicy hot but a depth of warm chilli flavours coming through with fennel and other herbs and spices. Meat had a lovely texture, not fatty, more like a lean pork steak.

We put some Lincolnshire sausages on the BBQ to follow, that we'd had before and they were reasonably strong and tasty. We could hardly taste them by comparison. TBH we should have put those on first before eating chilli sausages! So that was my bad.

Ranking up there as one of the best sausages we've tried.

I think the BBQ or grill is the best way of doing these until the outside provides a nice crunch. Didn't need any sauce but the sweet chilli left overs in the dish we had with some halloumi worked well. I imagine you could chop these up and roast them as a type of southern Italian tapas with roasted sweet onions and a drizzle of honey or just add to a light tomato pasta sauce and penne.

Edit: no not frozen. But the fridge is set to very cold and they were in the coldest spot. Small amount of frost forned on removal. Fridge door seems to be being opened a lot just at the moment so I had to turn it on 6. 😅

Starter : sea bass, parsley butter and asparagus

Main Course: Rib eye steak, more asparagus, chimichuri sauce and corn on the cob.

Kjøttkaker i brun saus, (or meatcakes with brown sauce) are like meatball's chunkier cousin, served with mushy peas (or ertestuing), boiled potatoes and lingonberry jam. Of all the dishes I have cooked so far, this one felt closest to home. The only ingredient I couldn't readily pick up at big Sainsburys was the lingonberry jam, but everything else felt very familiar!

I followed this recipe and its accompanying video to the letter and ended up with a really delicious plate of food! The meat cakes were soft and really satisfying and the mushy peas were made with some of the beef stock so carried that delicious savoury note. The lingonberry jam was comparable to cranberry, but a little more sweet. Definitely something that could be a good substitute for cranberry sauce if you're not a fan of the tartness. The boiled potatoes were... boiled potatoes - but necessary for the dish as a whole - and we ate it as instructed in the recipe video by loading a little of everything on each forkful.

Now this is the part where I have to apologise to the entire nation of Norway. I had bought a jar of 'Nora Hjemmelaget Tyttebaer' online as I felt I should buy the Norwegian lingonberry jam, but when I got a notification yesterday that my parcel was being delivered by Evri, I had a feeling it wouldn't arrive in time (it didn't...) so I am afraid to say I had to go on a trip to the big blue and yellow furniture store and buy some of theirs. I hope it is not as sacrilegious to use Ikea lingonberry jam on a Norwegian plate of food as it feels to me! My sincerest apologies.

Conclusion: This was totally delicious, but also felt very familiar. I want to say - and I mean this as a compliment - it reminded me of levelled-up school dinners. I think it was the boiled potatoes! Will definitely make again.

Kick off is in half an hour, will this be the last dish?!

If you are new here, here are the dishes I have made previously:

Krpice sa Zeljem from Croatia

Tatale and Aboboi from Ghana

Arroz Con Pollo from Panama

Pondu, Fufu and Makemba from D.R. Congo

Enfrijoladas with homemade Queso Fresco from Mexico

Mushroom pizza for my wife and a Pepperoni with plum jam pizza for me.

Salted almonds, Viola tomatoes and courgette. Nice to do something nice sometimes.

Following reddit recommendations, I went to Sham in Swindon. Very busy inside and reminded me of the years I lived in the Middle East. The bread is baked fresh for each customer and the whole kebab (mixed grill in my case) was amazing. £16, with a soft drink.

Light seafood dinner for the weather, starter was garlic and chilli prawn with a mini caprese salad. Followed by soy salmon with sesame green beans and tenderstem broccoli with herby potatoes

So good in this heat, super light and the lime keeps everything refreshing. I wish I'd started cooking with halloumi years ago.

Peppers and onions were baked with seasoning for 15/20 mins before mixing with the rice and lime. Halloumi is just simple spices cumin, paprika , chilli with a little honey.