Day of the Tentacle

There was an octopus (actually, two small octopi) in my fridge.

Today, friends, I ate him (or them).

First I hacked them a bit and cleaned them - observe this fun pile of tentacles.

Then I braised them briefly in a tiny bit of water to tenderise, release the juices and start the cooking process.

And drained the juices - look - aren't they pretty?

And again, up close - see all the lovely suckery tentacles :-)

I chopped the chunks a little more and fried them in a bit (ok - a lot) of olive oil, with some onions, shallots and garlic.

And chucked in a tin of tomatoes, the reserved octopus juice and a splodge of red wine and vinegar (for colour mainly), brought to the boil and then turned the heat way down and braised for an hour or two.

Hey presto, delicious octopus stew!
Husband had pasta with his.
It was good - very good. I shall definitely do this again.

I also made some chocolate macarons (I made ice cream yesterday, so had a lot of egg whites knocking around - there are still some, actually, but I'm making progress, at least).

Not the best I've ever done, appearance-wise, but not too bad and they taste good.

I shall be trying to foist them on my workmates in the morning.