Suka it and see...

I've had a couple of quiet weeks following my London outing, mainly in preparation for running the Derby 10k again.  Also because my mother has given up wine for lent (foolish) so I am attempting to abstein in solidarity.  I have now come down with a cold thanks to the healthy lifestyle, which is pretty frustrating as I only have two weeks of training to go!  The plan is to eat lots of vitamin c rich stuff in a bid to get rid of the plague.  To that end I am in the process of making a butternut squash, spinach and feta lasagna, I'll let you know how it turns out.
Since I last blogged the boy and I have enjoyed plenty of tasty meals but generally I've been revisiting old favourites rather than breaking any new ground, so none of it has really been blogworthy in its own right.
We had pancakes on pancake Tuesday, with a very tasty filling of spinach, mushrooms, spring onions and blue cheese.  Every year we say how much we like pancakes and how we should eat them more often....then along comes the next pancake Tuesday.  You'll be the first to know if we eat any more pancakes this year.
We've had tuna steaks with salsa verde, a variation on the salmoriglio theme with the addition of chopped gherkins (and capers but the boy has an aversion to these so we left them out).  See my swordfish recipe last August if you like the sound (and look) of this; it was good, ever so garlicky but that is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

We've had a couple of Laabs, and enjoyed a lovely carvery out in Buxton with the folks.  I've also recreated some of the delectable dishes I sampled at Polpo, namely proscuitto wrapped artichokes, yum!
However on Saturday night we sampled one very different cuisine; Filipino.  This occured because the boy brought home a bottle of Suka Pinakurat, which caught his eye because the bottle is so cool.  It  looks like crazy, cartoon medicine.  He got it from the ever fascinating Chung Wah supermarket, a godsend in Derby which is packed with weird and wonderful foodstuffs.
Suka Pinakurat is a "spiced natural coconut vinegar" which is used a lot in the Philippines as a marinade and condiment, and goes well on just about anything by the sounds of it.  I found a recipe that combined it with soy sauce and honey and used it as a marinade for chicken thighs, served simply with a fresh salad of cucumber, tomato, onion and coriander, and plain boiled rice.  The end result was delicious, if not totally mind blowing, the Pinakurat has quite a chili kick.  I'd love to find some traditional Filipino recipes as it is a cuisine of which I have no knowledge, I have been to the Philippines but I was under the age of 10 and I can't remember much about what I ate there.  (Although I do remember feeding sponge finger biscuits to a mouse in the Manila Holiday Inn!)
Right, off to eat my lasagna, which is smelling divine, will let you know the verdict...and share the recipe.