Capers in the Kitchen

In which I roast a chicken (no, really)

2012-02-09T02:35:00.001-08:00

I have not gone mad. Of course I roast chickens all the time. Of course you know how to roast a bloody chicken. The last thing we need is yet another way to roast a chicken. And yet, and yet, there might be something else to try.

Last Sunday was a bit of a shocker. Still limping through the after-effects of flu, iced in (because of course we move to the North and become the only place in Britain not to get beautiful dreamy drifts of snow but blanket sheet ice literally falling in lethal lumps from a dour sky) with nowhere to go and dying of boredom, I decided I would cook the roast chicken I had planned for dinner The Heston Way (cue ‘dah-dah-DAH!’). This involved brining, a slow cook, a long rest and a final blasting roast. It looked to be a bit of a haul and I was sceptical as to how worth it it would be.

I had to cut corners not least because I decided to embark upon it at 10.30am, a good 14 hours later than Heston would have you start. First you theoretically brine your chicken in a 6% salt solution overnight. Do not panic: I too have no idea what that means so I followed his instructions of 300g salt to 5 litres water in a stockpot and plop in the untrussed chicken. I left it for 3 1/2 hours; this was all I could leave it for as I have a rule on Sundays we all eat together and that means dinner about 5.30 and this sucker had to cook for at least three of those hours left. I drained it, dried it off, smeared it with butter and shoved a lemon up its bum then stuck it in the oven at about 110C. Now, he stipulates 90C but my oven doesn’t have such a low temperature on the dial and I wasn’t even sure it would come on, so I upped it to visible temperature.

After 3 hours (about 4.30pm) I took the chicken out of the oven. It did not look promising. Pallid, flobby, and practically swimming in its own juices. Blee. There is a reason Heston tells you to put it on a rack. Do it. However I gamely stuck my thermometer into the thickest part and checked the temperature. He wanted it to be about 65C; mine read just over 70C. ‘That’s cooked enough for me’ I thought as I poured off the juices into a measuring jug and left it to rest sweatily on the side. I mean, roast chicken looks great, no? This really doesn’t. You have to keep the faith a bit at this point. Heston rests his chicken for 45 minutes before a final basted roasting for 10-15 minutes to crisp up the skin – but he forgot about the roast potatoes. This is where timing goes out the window but I don’t think it matters a jot.

Your roast potatoes are going to need, say, 45 minutes in a really hot oven, so get them boiled and ready to go in when the chicken comes out. Whack the oven up, get the potatoes in and get on with your gravy (if you make it separately like I do). If you do, spoon off the fat from the top of the juices, then pour those juices into the gravy to really concentrate the flavour. If you make yours in the tin, hold onto them for later.

20 minutes before the chicken is ready, melt a little butter and white wine together in a pan and baste the chicken with it. Perhaps brush it on with a sprig of rosemary. Season. Place the chicken in the oven and cook until the skin is golden and crisp. Mine took 12 minutes. Remove from the oven with the potatoes and foil over to keep warm.Working quickly, either reheat your gravy or heat the leftover juices in the roasting tin and season.

Finally, carve your chicken. Now, this is the thing. I think this method is really going to show results on a supermarket chicken; I think the better quality the chicken you buy, the less difference you’ll see in the end result. However, the point is the chicken meat is firmer, it tastes amazing and it is of course juicy (although I have never cooked a dry chicken, so I can’t possibly comment. I don’t know how you do cook a dry chicken.) The gravy with all those flavours returned to it is also knock-out. And the leftovers are where it gets really good; as the chicken remains so moist, the leftovers really do stay good for some time.

I have made the monumental decision to buy the book Heston Blumenthal at Home; not because I was so overwhelmed necessarily with the result, but because the method was interesting, easy to follow and methodical (if tiresomely long – my recommendation would be to do it for a Sunday lunch and then your afternoon is free) and, having watched the Channel 4 series, I long to have a go at his cheese sauce and fondue for the same reasons. Not because I can’t cook them, but because I want to know how I can cook them better.

Self-improvement. The name of the game for 2012.

Relocation, Relocation; or, in which I lost my heart

2012-02-02T02:55:00.001-08:00

Sometimes the only way you know you’re home is when you return. Sometimes you don’t even know that you have returned and found home in something you didn’t know you wanted in the first place. (Too cryptic? Try me after my next coffee). Sometimes your whole being throws out little anchors you didn’t realise were holding you safely in place until you try to tear away from them.

I’ve always loved moving around, perhaps because we never did as children, so I still love discovering new places. A particular joy of such a big move up to Cheshire is the constant discovery of new roads, new places, new people. It is a buzz. I knew I liked it up here; we’re enjoying ourselves, the slower lifestyle, the new friends and so on. I didn’t know how much till we left.

This sounds terribly melodramatic, so let me clarify. We merely went down to London for 48 hours to see my sister and for MCD to go on some almighty marathon piss-up with his friends under the guide of ‘sorting out a stag do.’ We drove to Bromley via the sat nav’s weirdly circuitous route of the Olympic site (big thrills for MCD there) and, as we drove through E London, as the buildings drew ever inwards, as the skyline grew greyer and contracted to glimpses of blue, I felt my innermost being contract as well. Something inside huddled a bit closer. The traffic got a bit more impatient and aggressive, the high streets looked surly – it all looked, well, unfriendly.

We had a fine weekend. Despite MCD Jr deciding to push his canines through and consequently spending much of it streaming from every orifice and wailing hysterically, it was a good weekend. I saw two of my best friends, I hung out and drank Champagne with my sister, we went to Chapter One where they thought MCD Jr a riot, fed him fishcake and he helped himself to vast quantities of rhubarb sorbet and crème brulée. It was fun.

But. And here’s the thing. As we turned on to the A500 off the M6, a mere 25 minutes from home, I felt my entire soul lift. I felt myself breathe in again; as if all weekend I had been holding my breath in tension. It was a feeling of home, of belonging, of right-ness. ‘This is where we should be, we are fools ever to leave it’, were my persistent thoughts as we came through the final leg and passed the Snugbury’s bear. I felt like I was coming back to my husband after being away, that same sense of slight desperation and excitement to see each other again. Is this love, I wondered?

It is a similar feeling to coming home to my parents’. I still refer to it as ‘home’ which still irritates MCD. ‘We have a home’ he insists, and he’s right, but in my head I had two homes: one where my parents are, and one where we are right now. I suspect it’s not that unusual. But now we are here in Tarporley, and even though we rent, the word ‘home’ has taken on a deeper resonance; as if I have indeed come home. I feel the same sense of security, of familiarity, of contentment as in my childhood. That makes it more ‘home’ than any place we lived in – and loved living in – in London.

Home is where friends and family are. That is a fundamental truth and not one I shall strive to overturn. However, I would like to make a plaintive plea for Place. Sometimes it’s not where your family is, or where you hang out with your mates, or where you grew up; sometimes it’s just a place that evokes all of those feelings in you, that conjures up that same sense of comfort and holds you tight when you leave.

Famine and feast

2012-01-26T02:42:00.001-08:00

As previously mentioned we’re doing a bit of a carb-free push. It got to the point where sadly, I could no longer pretend that I was carrying Caesarean scar tissue and baby weight (16 months on) alone, and that I was fine with it. So we picked up the Idiot-Proof Diet book again, put ourselves through no-alcohol hell for two weeks and we are slowly losing poundage. Well, I say we. MCD is has lost about 10lbs so far. Every week when I stand on the scales it starts at 0, climbs to 1 or 2 lbs under the weight I started (I’m not telling you) and then wobbles; when I descend the needle is no longer at 0. I think I have lost weight: I have a waist and my jeans are very loose; the scales are against me.

Anyway, it means I’ve been scouring my books for food that is both carb-free and non-diet-y. So far the runaway success has been the onion bhaji recipe in the IPD recipe book which I reproduce here, if only to point out that not only are they still good the next day, but if you lost the spices and the onions and substituted vanilla extract, perhaps cinnamon and blueberries or raspberries, they’d make fantastic pancakes too.

1 tsp cumin seeds
200g ground almonds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 fresh green chillies, chopped and seeded
4 eggs, separated
100ml double cream
3 onions, finely sliced into half moons
Groundnut oil for frying

1. Roast the cumin seeds in a dry hot pan until they darken and start to smell fragrant. Remove from the heat and cool.

2. Mix together the ground almonds, cumin, turmeric, salt, baking powder and chillies, then beat in the egg yolks and cream. The mixture will be quite stiff but never fear.

3. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, then fold in, a third at a time, into the batter with a metal spoon.

4. Gently fold in the onion slices a few at a time until incorporated.

5. Heat about 0.5cm oil in a large pan and, using a dessert spoon, fry spoonfuls of batter on both sides until crisp and golden.

6. Serve sprinkled with mint and dipped in yoghurt.

Another hit (sort of) was the Highland mussels out of Jamie’s Great Britain. I was really taken with the sound of this recipe – a base of leeks, garlic and smoked haddock and double cream, then throw in 6 shots of whisky and 2kg of mussels and simmer until the mussels open. I thought it sounded smoky and peaty and delicious. We made it and although MCD thought it was fabulous, I was a bit more ‘meh’. Grumbles: there was too much whisky – I would have halved the amount. I’m not sure I like mussels in a cream sauce; my marinière is always cream-less. The smoked haddock was yum but it was overpowered by the whisky. It was all a little sickly.

[Interlude: And while I’m on the Jamie topic, another moan: the serving amounts in this book are way out. Allegedly the above mussels recipe serve 6. We finished it between two of us. I also made the Worcestershire beef brisket sandwiches (I only ate the middle out of the bread… so sad, so very sad) for Sunday lunch the other day. Apparently 1kg of beef brisket will serve 10. My ass. It fed 5-6 and there was enough left over perhaps for 1 very generous sandwich. However, if you should care to restrict your friends, do make it. It is fantastic. If you want the recipe, let me know and I shall publish it up here.]

On the other hand, there’s MCD Jr who is going through his own classic toddler phase of famine and feast. Last night I made him a macaroni cheese with fish and peas. It went down like a train. Here’s the recipe – it makes enough for 3-4 generous portions. It’s good for adults too.

Cook 2 generous handfuls of baby pasta in a pan, adding 2 handfuls of peas 5 minutes from the end of cooking. When all is tender, drain. Meanwhile, heat a good 100ml of full-cream milk and a good splash or two of double cream in a pan and poach the fish fillets (I used pollock) for a few minutes until they flake apart.

Flake the fish into an oven-proof dish, then add as much grated Cheddar as you like into the poaching liquor. Stir until melted. Add the pasta and peas, coating them in the sauce, adding more cream if necessary. Tip into the dish and toss gently, then top with more grated cheese. Grill until bubbling.

This is him licking out the bowl after MCD made carb-free chocolate mousse. I do have my standards, so it was 70% cocoa…

Technorati Tags: idiot proof diet,recipes,atkins,carb free,childrens recipes,mussels,onion bhajis

The cleverness of Japanese crows

2012-01-19T02:08:00.001-08:00

As promised… This was actually part of a BBC2 programme about amazing natural events presented by Chris Packham which I wasn’t officially watching glued as I was to the campest fitness programme ever on C4. (Fatfighters, in fact. I was quite unable to believe what I was seeing with my eyes. However I justified the horror because my brain cells were being fed amazing snippets of information from the BBC2 programme.)

Anyway, it turns out the crows in Japan were very keen on the local crops of walnuts – I think walnuts. They don’t sound terribly Japanese – but had to figure out how to crack the shells. First they realised, being clever corvids, they could drop them from a height on to a hard surface, such as the road and that would weaken the shell. They then brilliantly progressed onto using traffic on the roads as giant nutcrackers, timing the drops so the cars would crush the shells. However, the retrieval of the crushed nuts meant for crushed crows, and the exercise was fraught with danger. So – and this is so unfathomably amazing I cannot get over it – they learned to drop the nuts on zebra crossings (again I question whether this was actually Japan, but on we plough) and then retrieve their bounty when the lights stopped the traffic. Hoorah, I cheered.

I shall treat you with another amazing crow story. The next unexplained phenomenon was the case of the exploding toads. Now, I missed some of the finer points in this due to the sheer inanity of the rival programme, but in short: somewhere in the world there was suddenly a mass number of toad carcasses found exploded. After examination they realised each toad had the same-sized puncture mark in the same area of the skin. What could have made the hole? It was a complete mystery. Bring on the crows (you could hear them being lined up in the wings, chattering about how finally they get their moment in the sun.) Toad skin can be so poisonous as to be fatal to any hungry predator. The toads also inflate themselves to make themselves look bigger and harder to tackle when under threat, ie from a peckish crow. What they discovered was that - and what I missed was whether this was through trial and error, because otherwise those crows should be summoned forthwith to the NHS – the crows would get the toads to inflate themselves, then, once the target area was increased and easy to get out, stab the toad with their beaks at precisely the place where the toad’s liver is located (the most nutritious part), snatch it out and cause the toad to explode. How they learnt about toads’ anatomy I simply don’t know, but there it is. Precision surgery.

I suspect next time we shall be told they have mastered light aircraft and were the first on Mars. I would not be surprised.

I haven’t written about food for a few weeks because I haven’t wanted to bore with our slight regime change. Essentially we allowed ourselves to indulge shamelessly over December and come January 2, I felt just disgusting. So we have turned to India Knight’s Idiot-Proof Diet, based really on Atkins, to get ourselves right again. I did it five years ago and it was easy and lovely and I can heartily recommend it. The joy of it is that it works and is really not only painless but enjoyable; the sadness is that it isn’t really worth blogging about eating lots of meat, fish and green veg and not drinking for 2 weeks, so I have sought to distract you with amazing facts. Normal service will be resumed soon.

Thought for the day; Or Thank god for the Irish

2012-01-12T01:51:00.001-08:00

otherwise everything you read wouldlooklikethis. ‘Twas the Irish who invented spaces between words. Based at the further reaches of the Roman empire as they were, they had no native Latin speakers and so any communications from Rome came in Latin, written without the spaces between words, as was the custom. The Irish, realising this was all a load of gobbledegook without a native Latin speaker, came over all practical about the matter and shoved spaces into the written documents to break down the barriers of communication.

And thank god for Radio 4 who offers you gifts of facts like these to brighten the day.

Next time, the cleverness of Japanese crows.

In which we get a little teary

2012-01-03T06:01:00.001-08:00

So how was it for you? Lack of snow aside (and how very disappointing it was to be snowed in the week before, yet cooking with the door open on the Day), was the festive season all you hoped it might be?

I’m going to come over all sentimental and say that perhaps Tarporley is one of the nicest places I’ve ever celebrated Christmas. On the Eve we – as in us three and my parents – took the dog for a bracing walk around the back lanes of the village and called in at my NEW FRIEND’S for a glass of Prosecco and a mince pie. I LOVE things like that. Back when I was small, people were always dropping round to our house for drinks, even on Christmas morning, and even now occasionally it can seem a bit flat, being ‘just us’. Anyway, the Prosecco was a swift one because we all simply marched off to sing carols outside the church. In my defence, I hadn’t realised it was DIY, but actually it was rather lovely; about 100 people just standing with their dogs and/or children singing carols at a swift tempo – which is important if you’re to avoid them being too dirge-y – and we romped through them for about 20 minutes. NB St Helen’s Church: How nice it would have been to put the lights on round the tree while we chorused… But it was still very Christmass-y, if a little dim at 3.45pm on a dull day in December.

Christmas Day was glorious, as it would be with a 15 month old who has recently perfected the art of walking backwards and whose favourite toys were the helium balloon and my Dustbuster. We have a very clean house. The beef was – may I say – cooked to perfection and I even managed whole mouthfuls of the Pudding. It’s taken me 34 years but I’m starting to not mind its yearly outing. Needless to say, MCD Jr ate it by the handful.

Boxing Day is the day of the hunt meet in Tarporley and it is – whatever your feelings on the event itself – so soaked in goodwill and community-mindedness it’s hard not to love it. Although it’s also hard not to love the acres and acres of coloured corduroy abounding up and down the high street; it’s clearly where mustard and poker-red cords come into their own. I wanted to clap my hands over my face and shout ‘MY EYES’ every time a pair approached but it might have interfered with the ‘goodwill to all men’ bit. All the pubs were open, offering bacon sandwiches and mulled wine. Santa rode through at a fair lick. MCD Jr stroked a horse with his Grandpa and nearly fainted with delight.

It was all so very lovely it left me feeling quite tearful and sentimental. The community here really is all for one and one for all, it’s a rare thing and to be a part of it is quite tremendous. I can think of no other place I’d want to bring up my son and I think that’s something worth striving for. The warm glowing embers of Christmas feeling are fanned all year round here and even just those three days went a long way towards convincing us we want to stay. If life here is as rich as the festive season heralds, we’re in for a blast.

Celeriac & Barley Risotto

2011-12-15T05:40:00.001-08:00

Rose Prince gave a recipe for this the other week in one of the weekend papers and it sounded so good I made it as soon as I got my hands on some celeriac. It doesn’t sound terribly promising, indeed I might even apply the adjective ‘worthy’, but it’s filling and warming and not at all stodgy. This makes enough for two.

Melt a good knob of butter in a pan and sweat a finely chopped onion. Cut half a head of peeled celeriac into matchsticks and add to the pan with a clove of chopped garlic. Stir in the butter for a couple of minutes, then add 150g or so of pearl barley. Coat in the butter, then pour over enough chicken stock to cover by 1cm. Put a lid on and leave for 15-20 minutes. Check how the barley’s cooking, it might need a splash more liquid. Cook until the barley is tender, but don’t expect it to amalgamate like risotto. The grains will stay completely separate. Season and squeeze in as much lemon juice as you like, but lots is the key, Serve topped with a good dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream.

Technorati Tags: celeriac,pearly barley,risotto,recipes,Rose Prince

It’s beginning to feel a lot like winter

2011-12-08T05:41:00.001-08:00

Or at least, it is up here. The skies are menacingly grey and low, the wind is actually howling (no doubt exacerbated by the gaps around the front doors), we’ve had hail and even a little snow. And yet, at the Tarporley Christmas Lights Switch On last Friday, I definitely overheard someone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about, saying how the multitude of holly berries meant we were in for a mild winter. Since then I’ve been carefully examining all the holly I can see and I can categorically state – and the people of Scotland can rise up in chorus – there really aren’t any berries on any holly up here. Maybe he has a special, sheltered one. In the Caribbean.

But it is definitely starting to feel a bit Christmas-like. I don’t need a small child to feel excited about it; I genuinely love the run-up and up here it’s all a lot less frenetic and – dare I say – a lot more fun to do the dreaded shopping. I’m not going to lie and say I’ve spent mere pennies on buying locally-crafted wooden toys for all made by cherry-cheeked Cheshire people, but there just isn’t the stress of a mass of humanity rushing to do the same thing in the same place at the same time. I’m also a bit more reliant on the internet which does take the fraughtness out of it. And I am sailing through a short but defined list of achievements.

1. We have decorated. See random picture (which for some reason I can’t crop) of our big tree.

It is purple and silver and the photo really doesn’t do it justice as I think it’s so so beautiful. I bought proper decorations (actually from the lovely garden centres round here) and it is splendid. We even have a small (real) one in the lounge for MCD Jr to stand and – oddly – rub his face against like a small cat. Whatever makes him happy.

2. I have ordered the Christmas meat. This year it’s a gigantic rib of beef. I follow Nigella’s Christmas book like a mantra, although in reality it’s no more stressful than a roast. On Christmas Eve we shall have a ham with her parsnip, potato and porcini gratin, which feels like the start of a tradition in itself.

3. I have mostly done the shopping apart from one last Amazon order and a little more internet magic. This I am incredibly proud of but I have been like a general, sending people spirit-crushing emails along the lines of IF YOU DON’T TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT BY THE END OF THIS WEEK, YOU SHALL BE GETTING NOTHING AT ALL. Two family members are in hideous peril of this actually happening; it makes me quite ill to think they might not have a gift to open.

4. I have organised our first ever pre-Christmas drinks. Actually what happened was I sent a text to my new friend asking if she and her husband wanted to come over. She phoned and said, in a terribly efficient manner ‘And shall I bring trifle or a cheeseboard?’ I leaned my head against the patio and admitted I had gotten no further than the excitement of making poinsettia cocktails out of Nigella and could we not make do with crisps? She countered with fried chicken from the kebab house. I am now making a lamb and date tagine (Nigella again!) to continue the illusion I am a grown-up and I hadn’t thought we might just sit and drink and everything would be fine in the morning.

5. I have bought a really large tupperware box to freeze the tagine in as I shall make it before we go away for a few days.

6. We stop and look at the nativity scene in the village every time we go past. This is in the vain effort to educate my 14-month-old son in the ways of a nativity sheep (he is one) and that they go ‘baaa’ and stand quietly, looking solemnly at the wonder of the new baby. I have an inkling his strategy is to employ his three new favourite noises which is to snort like a pig if he doesn’t know the animal noise; to follow with a slightly dampened roar (unlike his dinosaur roar which is full-on) which is his version of hee-haw (like a donkey) and then (his latest and never fails – alas – to send us both stupid with laughter and I know I shouldn’t encourage) to strain to make a fart because apparently it’s very funny when he does so.

It’s going to be a very noisy Christmas.

Rockett St George

2011-11-23T01:56:00.001-08:00

There is hardly one thing on Rockett St George I wouldn't want at any time of the year, let alone Christmas. Possibly everyone I know will be getting something from here. Love it. A lot.

On friendship, with a side order of soup

2011-11-18T07:22:00.000-08:00

NB: Rambly.

It’s a funny old thing, friendship. As Tania K points out, no-one really sings about it; Love is the eternal, the worshipped, the all-important ending. But friendship also – and sometimes even more so – lifts us up where we belong (to coin a phrase, although does anyone else find Bette Midler’s rendition particularly irritating, in passing?).

Living up here in Cheshire now, without the solid structure of friendships around me as I had in London, along with the age-old game of making new friends has made me rethink a lot of what I thought I knew. How do we make friends? At school, at university, in our jobs, through life-changing circumstances… all of these cause new people to be thrown into our paths and hopefully some of them might just be walking along the same path as you for a while. I’m not sure length of friendship or even physical closeness is what makes it hold faster; sometimes it’s just the very intensity of the situation in which you met can bond you tighter for a while. Once something changes, it’s only natural that first passion, for want of a better description, fades a little and the bond, the glue holding you together loosens just a little. Sometimes friendships survive it, sometimes they just fade away.

Longevity is a funny thing. We went to a wedding recently. It was one of our university friends, someone MCD lived with, incidentally marrying someone we have never met. Living in London, eager, or even not un-eager, to continue the friendship meant three of them would meet up every few months or so. It wasn’t necessarily a close friendship; do we just sometimes need to see people who knew us then. Who knew us as we were before responsibilities, ties, life got in on the act. Do we just need to be reminded of who we were as well as of the times we had? A device, rather than a friend, one might say. The wedding was all it should have been, but as MCD and I watched the First-Dance Shuffle, we realised that this wedding was about – as are all weddings – the friend’s life and we knew no-one else there. (In point of fact we were put on a table with his father’s friends…) We had moved to the periphery in each others’ lives and that former closeness had dissipated over the years. The fact we didn’t even know the bride spoke volumes. It left us sad, but curiously unfazed.

It got me thinking. I’m going through that first intense passion again – I have my first ‘hot date’ with a new friend next week and the thought fills me with joy. Moreover, an evening date with no children which makes me think she finds me interesting enough without a small child to distract and fill in the silences. My ego is boosted. But on the other hand, I have to maintain my friendships in London. The shorthand you get with familiarity and frequent meetings has already vanished and the phone calls must be planned and timed for sleeping children or abruptly terminated for the same reason. It makes it slightly awkward, with too much to say and not enough time. You have to learn to summarise briefly and observe the niceties by making sure you ask as much as you answer, ask after and send love. There’s more etiquette to fit in and less time for chat.

Then there’s the rediscovery of ancient friendship. I’m now living close to my oldest friend. She and I have been together for – being quite accurate – 28 years. (We have to minus a few years because there was the ‘Donna’ period and it all got messy in a 5-year-old triumvirate kind of way….). As I’ve said before, we haven’t lived this close since we were seven, and our phonecalls were practised pieces of our own kind of shorthand; friendship in precision, etiquette dealt with quickly before moving on to the hardcore stuff. Now I’m having to re-learn the art of taking it slowly with her, hanging out, learning the finer details of her life and finding more – and less – in common as we go.

In many ways, the essence of friendship can be trickier than love. Love tends to be viewed - wrongly - as a one-time-only deal, but even if you love two, three, four times in your life, the number of friendships are still going to be many times that - so many different relationships to be managed and thought over and fought over at the same time. Is love the steadier in the face of fraught friendship; the quid pro quo for when love goes sour?

Happily there's always soup for the soul in these moments. It's a long-winded process making ham and pea soup, but the final dish is so comforting on rainy cold days, it's worth the effort. It's a two-parter so you could always do it over a couple of days if you can't face whole hours in the kitchen, but there's not much to it other than occasional stirring.

Part 1: Place a large ham hock in a deep pot with a carrot, celery stalk and onion cut into chunks. Add some parsley stalks, a small handful of black peppercorns and fennel seeds. Pour over a bottle of dry cider (in this case 568ml) and top up with water to cover. Put the lid on and bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook the ham very slowly for about 2 hours or until it pulls away from the bone.

Once the ham is cooked, sieve the cooking liquid and discard the vegetables. Taste - it should be faintly salty and sweet from the veg and cider. At this point you can refrigerate everything, or just push on through.

I had about 1 litre of cooking liquor, so use this as a general measure. First finely chop (and by this I mean just blitz in a food processor) 1-2 carrots, 1 celery stalk and 1 onion. Fry gently in a little oil in a deep pan then tip in about 400-500g yellow split peas. Pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Put the lid on and cook gently for about an hour, stirring and topping up with water occasionally if necessary. When the peas are grainy and soft and collapsed, you're almost ready to go.

To finish: Flake the ham - as much as you want - into the soup and adjust the seasoning. Layer some good melting cheese - anything you fancy - onto a slice of toast, top with another and grill or bake until the cheese has melted. Once you've ladled the soup into bowls, I like to add a drizzle of cider vinegar on top (it's a straight nostalgic hit of Germany for some reason). Serve with the hot cheese toasties on the side.

Technorati Tags: ham and pea soup,recipes,friendship

Hot Lightning

2011-11-03T03:32:00.001-07:00

Which is impossible to say without the Grease inflection [‘Hot Latnin’ and perhaps a John Travolta finger point], I notice. Anyway, it’s my take on a very fine Scandinavian/German idea for potatoes, apples and pears which makes an excellent accompaniment to anything porcine. Personally I feel Halloween and Bonfire Night are prime sausage time (and as it’s British Sausage Week this week), and for me, good peppery Cumberland are just right.

This can be made with new potatoes, which gives you a slightly less ‘stewed’ dish. It’s up to you; I rather like the way the potatoes break down in the sauce. You may want to add a couple of crushed juniper berries for variation.

Take 1 large floury potato, 1 apple and 1 pear per person and peel. Cut into large chunks. Melt a good know of butter in a casserole and fry 1 rasher streaky bacon per person until golden. Remove from the pan, then add the potatoes and try to get a little golden colour on them. Add the bacon back into the pan with the apples and pears, season and add a really good slug of white wine or even cider. Pop the lid on and cook very gently until all is tender. You should stir occasionally to ensure nothing’s sticking. You may want more liquid, so add more if necessary.

Serve, perhaps sprinkled gaily with parsley, with your bangers.

Technorati Tags: hot lightning,potatoes,apples,pearson's arms,sausages,british sausage week

Apple & Gorgonzola Risotto

2011-10-28T01:07:00.001-07:00

An unctuous, comforting supper for a rainy dark night. Use any blue cheese, but something melting and sharp is good. You may also want to add a little texture at the end like crushed hazelnuts or chopped walnuts.

For 2:

Peel and finely chop one onion and sweat in butter in a pan until soft. Add 150g risotto rice and stir until thoroughly coated in the butter. Pour in a good glassful of white wine and allow to absorb. Meanwhile, peel and finely chop a Bramley or any apple you like, but something with a good flavour, and add about three-quarters to the rice.

Stirring frequently, pour in your hot chicken or vegetable stock a bit at a time. I find I usually need about 500ml to make a risotto. After about 15 minutes, add the rest of the apple – this won’t melt down as much, giving a bit of texture to the whole. Once the rice is tender, turn off the heat, add as much blue cheese as you fancy and a good knob of butter and season and leave to mantecare as the Italians say.

Serve with the chopped nuts in great big bowlfuls.

Technorati Tags: apple and gorgonzola risotto,recipes,blue cheese,autumn,nuts

Cheshire: Love Food, Love Life

2011-10-20T05:50:00.001-07:00

Sitting here in the study gazing at the dazzling-hued chestnut trees that line my back garden, I remember back in London I had medium expectations of foraging little local food treats. However it turns out I have yet to drive for more than 20 minutes in any direction without tripping over yet another farm shop, independent producer, butcher’s, greengrocer’s… It is my idea of heaven.

Tarporley itself is blessed with an excellent butcher’s (perfect for weekday shopping and really excellent sausages), a lovely chocolate shop, a wine shop and a Co-op doing the basics. The only puzzling thing is not so much the lack of fishmonger’s (people never use fishmonger’s and then they complain of their absence. Use it or lose it. It’s very simple. Here the problem is circumvented by the butcher’s stocking frozen fish), but rather the lack of a decent greengrocer’s. There evidently was one but clearly it befell the same fate as the fish and now we are reliant on the very basic offerings of the Co-op. Not so much a problem, but without a car, I was climbing the walls a bit until the monthly farmer’s market came along with all the glorious sunset colours of autumn vegetables.

So now I have a car and it takes every ounce of willpower (does anyone ever say gram of willpower? Imperial is imperative) I own not to simply sling MCD Jr in the back of the car every day and drive off to yet another rumoured treasure trove. It has to be said the only reason I’m resisting is the money it seems obligatory to spend, because I cannot walk away empty-handed.

Just 10 minutes up the road is The Hollies Farm Shop. This is one seriously glamorous outlet. Built on a scale to rival Harrods’ Food Hall, I have found that there is almost nothing they don’t stock. The prices rival Harrods too but for weekend treats and for guests, it’s a must. And it’s not just any old farm shop. You can ‘glamp’, visit The Christmas Barn or stop for lunch at their cafe, which is reasonable food but at inflated prices (says the Londoner).

In the other direction, down proper twisty-turny (and yesterday very muddy) lanes lies The Rose Farm Shop. Decidedly less Elizabeth Taylor, more Hilda Ogden, nevertheless the butcher’s counter remains a work of art, the vegetables are seasonal and fresh and the Food Hall is admirably stocked with everything you need and nothing you don’t. They even have a little Post Office and groceries section. They have a garden centre and a basic cafe which overlooks a field of friendly, demanding sheep. (MCD Jr’s first live experience and a bit of a shock).

Should you fancy ice cream, on the way into Tarporley is Snugbury’s, who announce their presence with a huge, 50 foot polar bear and cub moulded out of straw in the next door field. You can find their ice cream everywhere around here, along with Cheshire Farm. Tiresford make excellent yoghurt, particularly lactic and grown-up – again on sale everywhere local.

So far, a month in, I haven’t actually been to a supermarket. I’m led to believe there’s a big Sainsburys at Nantwich, which I shall have to get to at some point, but it’s not an appealing thought.

But if you didn’t want to cook, man, can you eat out. Tarporley itself has three or four pubs all serving good to really good food plus Piste, our local wine bar which is a bit more ‘London’. But five minutes away is The Alvanley Arms or The Fox & Barrel, both in The Good Food Guide. And that’s just what we’ve seen on drives past.

We still feel like we’re in a holiday cottage and at any moment we’ll have to go back to ‘real life’. It hasn’t quite hit yet – no doubt the winter will help) – that this is our life. It’s a pretty decent one.

In which we fall in love; or The Move

2011-10-18T01:58:00.001-07:00

Ack it’s been weeks. And not for any good reason other than ORANGE really F*CKED UP. (Let me just type this so it gets picked up by someone in Orange PR, then we’ll move on. ORANGE IS SHIT. There, that ought to do it.) Instead of transferring our account, they cancelled it. Then tell us it’ll take THREE WEEKS to reconnect us. Then we’ll move to BT.

Anyway, all of that fades into insignificance just a tiny bit against the brilliant background that is Tarporley, Cheshire. It’s a beautiful village with real amenities, like a proper butcher’s, post office, coffee shops and pubs and so on. Trundling round with MCD Jr in the pushchair has been a delight.

But the real joy has been in what lies outside. We only just got the second car last week so I’ve been a bit crazy with cabin-fever. It’s a good thing Tarporley is so bustling because it’s all I’ve seen for three weeks. But, oh, the rest of the county.

We have yet to drive more than 30 minutes in any direction and fail to come up with somewhere to revisit. The A49 alone could keep me occupied for hours… The Hollies Farm Shop (practically my new supermarket), Blakemere craft centre, the North-West’s largest remainder bookstore (…), beautiful pubs, the golf club up the road with spa, the walks foraging for late blackberries. It’s everything we’ve wanted.

Part of the loveliness is the lack of high street chains anywhere. Or at least not in such eye-searing quantities. No matter where you go, be it the village or Nantwich or even Chester, you’re more likely to find an independent before a chain. But if you’re desperate – and to be fair, this weekend we were – Cheshire Oaks in Ellesmere Port is jaw-dropping when it comes to brands. On one side it’s a designer outlet centre that took us fully an hour to walk around – without shopping. On the other there’s a few big high-street names which is a benefit because sometimes you really need a Boots.

And then there’s the house. We’re not quite unpacked. I have gotten so far and then realised I need at least two more bookcases, one more for the nursery, a chest of drawers and some more storage cupboards. So boxes remain, but for the most part we’re up and running. I’m learning to cook on an electric hob again (oh I miss gas), but on the plus side, I have three fridges and two freezers, so y’know, I’m coping.

And the food. Good grief. Down the road from Tiresford who make fabulous yoghurt, or Snugbury’s ice cream, or local meat and game at the butcher’s or farm shop. It’s not only easy to cook local, it’s practically impossible not to. (And not having a supermarket on your doorstep helps enormously). Every corner you turn, someone is selling potatoes or game or vegetables.

So in short, so far, after a brief amount of time, it’s fabulous. And now the cold weather’s setting in and there seems to be snow around the corner, we’ll see how we get on. I might end up screaming for the 249 bus after all. But I rather doubt it.

In which I go slightly off-tangent and emotional; Or We’re moving

2011-09-01T09:50:00.001-07:00

Warning: This isn’t about food. And it may be slightly emotional.

So we’re moving onwards and literally upwards. It has become a case of Move or Become Jobless which is not a particularly lovely tightrope to walk, but we have chosen the former with the hope of busting on out of there in the very near future and damning the consequences, as Norman Douglas would say.

There are very many positive, shiny benefits to moving to Cheshire, our destination. My oldest friend lives up there, will be no more than 20 minutes away, a proximity we haven’t achieved since we were seven. I have other friends of friends in the area, all of whom are probably somewhat aghast at my constant jokes about rain and lack of natural daylight, but whom I hope to get on a firmer footing with. Ma and Pa are but 90 minutes away; again, a proximity not achieved since I was 17 and champing at the bit to get to Durham. And I ache for change.

I have a bit of the wanderlust in me. I can do a few years in a place and then I get the itch and I need a change. I love change. I have a slightly naive tendency to leap in, feet first and hope everything just works out. It invariably does and mostly for the better. London’s good for that – there’s always something new around the corner. When the idea of a move was mooted, some months back, I immediately felt the itch return; the desire to seek out the new, get to know another place, go on another adventure (though I admit it’s hardly trekking the Andes). I get very excited about the thought of new coffee shops, restaurants, pubs – places where somebody might just one day know your name – all together now – and they’re always glad you came; new roads and towns; new PEOPLE.

MCD is, he would hold his hands up, naturally more cautious. His live-by motto: No-one likes change. He sees the obstacles, the pitfalls and takes only calculated, carefully weighed and measured risks; he is my perfect partner. I can see only the positive in such a move; he calculates the negatives and then puts on a life jacket before jumping in. I’m a bit more sink or swim.

But then there are the negatives. Mostly it’s to do with the life we’ve built here in Crystal Palace. I’ve always loved it; its village-y feel, the fact that actually quite a few of the places round here do know me and MCD Jr and it’s been a wonderful, still-freshly-amazing time to be so close to friends who had always lived in South London. I used to loathe being the only one heading home North and alone on the Tube at night. I have loved the nearness of them.

One of the benefits of having a baby is the new friends you meet, the network that gets set up almost without you noticing until you realise that there is rarely a week go by without coffees and baby lunches, playgroups and singing sessions. In fact we’ve just started hitting the 1st birthday parties, which is both incredible and rather pleasing. WE MADE IT, I want to keep exclaiming at them.

And it gave me the chance to properly get to know my sister again. It’s been such a brilliant few years being able to just drop in, hang out, get her to childmind while I work like a dog every now and then… I am not great at expressing emotion but I am going to miss her like gangbusters, as will MCD Jr. It’s going to be that bit lonelier and harder without her there.

I have LOVED my life in London. The last 11 years have been extraordinary and brilliant, life-enhancing in every way. Watching it burn a few weeks ago, however, only confirmed what I know to be true for our family. I want our son to have a go at life as my childhood was – a rural idyll where he might be safe for a few more years. I think everything has a natural lifespan; I don’t hold with Pepys’ old saw at all. I’m older and more tired (God, how very tired!) and I am now full of the things I don’t want to know (our local gang is called the Gipset Taliban. I never wanted to know that). I crave green and space and air.

Cheshire, here we come.

PS: I haven’t stopped blogging. But there may be a bit of a pause until I come over all unnecessary at new food finds.

The ONLY* drink I shall be drinking from now on

2011-08-24T01:27:00.001-07:00

I am a sucker for nostalgia. Anything that suggests a yearning sense of time passed immediately snags my attention. When I was living in Germany (I too have travelled) there was a tiny shop in Bad Nauheim called Zeitgeist. Over here it would have been too too kitsch; over there the oddities and collectibles were too tempting not to spend a couple of hours browsing through, if only for a misplaced sense of home. (Although how’s this for forethought: I bought MCD – at that time ‘just a friend’ – the most beautiful chess set, thinking one day he might use it to play with his children. It now sits in our dining room, awaiting MCD Jr’s no doubt keen involvement). The objects in there made me want to own them, to connect me in some tangible way to another time – most often the Twenties. I can’t be the only person who really quite desperately longs for a sepia-toned globe for a drinks cabinet? But then my ideal home is Eltham Palace and they have one, so you see where I’m coming from.

I am, as you see, quite suggestible. So when I read in Victoria Moore’s How to Drink about Negronis and their evocation of Florence and the Forties and palazzos et al, I think, That is the drink for me. I spent a very nice holiday pre-baby in Venice drinking 'lo Spritz – Prosecco with a dash of Campari - at nearly every opportunity, so glamorous and quasi-Italian did it make me feel. A Negroni is like a supercharged injection of Sophia Loren-ness. I don’t think I could pass a Saturday night without one now. When I shall fit my dirty Martinis in, I don’t quite know.

Simply pour one part Campari, one part red vermouth and one part gin over a generous amount of ice in a tumbler. Drink whilst ensuring you are feeling card-sharp and endlessly, Dorothy Parker-style witty. This feeling will increase as you drink. I’m not one to caution against drinking, but one of these is a rocket. I haven’t dared have two yet.

*Apart from the afore-mentioned martinis, wine both still and sparkling, Bloody Marys and cocktails of all descriptions apart from sweet and creamy.

Technorati Tags: negroni,drink,victoria moore,how to drink

Mexican sunshine

2011-08-22T01:30:00.001-07:00

God, Saturday’s weather was rubbish, wasn’t it? In fact, it was so rubbish, we got back from food shopping and were faced with something of a dilemma. MCD Jr was fast asleep in the back of the car; the rain was lashing down; we were shattered. We just couldn’t face getting out of the car; in fact we argued over who was going to get out and take the shopping in and who got to stay in to watch MCD Jr/snooze. In the end, we both decided passivity was the way forward and we all had a refreshing 45 minute snooze in the car - in the rain - on our drive. When we woke up it was still raining. But at least we could face the walk up the garden path.

We had planned a picnic in a local park for the weekend (more of which later), but for Saturday night I wanted to cook something a bit different. I had caught a glimpse of Tommi Miers’ Channel 5 show in Mexico where she put together a take on prawn cocktail and the idea inspired a complete Mexican feast. The recipe ideas are all taken from her book, so don’t think I’m suddenly revealing some authentic Mexican ancestry – I’m just copying.

We started with the prawn cocktail and this was sheer genius. One packet of cooked tiger prawns and one packet of those tiny queen scallops would probably feed 4, so I made this over two nights because it was so damn good.

Firstly make the sauce. It’s a bit like a Mexican Bloody Mary and is considerably enlivened by alcohol. (What isn’t, I ask myself?) Pour 250ml good –quality tomato juice into a measuring jug. Add the juice of 2 limes and 1 mandarin (or orange), a few good shakes Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco, a good squeeze of ketchup, salt and pepper and a shot of Tequila or vodka. Taste and adjust as you see fit, then refrigerate for at least one hour.

In little tumblers, arrange some diced cucumber, diced avocado and shredded Little Gem lettuce. Top with the prawns. Quickly fry off the scallops in a little olive oil for two minutes, tops then add to the cocktail. Pour over the tomato sauce and eat.

We ate this alongside guacamole, salsa and nachos – just a light starter. We followed with a derivation of Tommi’s chilli and tamarind-infused pork belly, only I used ribs, stuffed courgette flowers and a quick version of her smoky stuffed peppers. Here we go again.

Get the ribs going first. I tend to cook them in a 150C oven for 2-3 hours so they are meltingly tender before the final baste. Make a marinade for them by combining 4 smashed garlic cloves, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 tsp cloves, 1 tsp allspice berries, 1 tbsp tamarind paste, 1 heaped tbsp chipotle puree (I happened to have some chipotle relish in the cupboard so I used that), 3 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 2 tbsp brown sugar, salt and pepper. Coat the ribs thoroughly and cook as above, covering the roasting tin with foil and check them from time to time to turn.

While they’re cooking, make the peppers. Tommi makes a no-doubt delicious but slightly more time-consuming potato-based filling for this, but I frankly couldn’t be arsed so here’s my quick version:

Halve red or yellow peppers and de-seed. Place in a roasting tray. In a bowl combine: the chopped flesh of a ripe mango, 100g goats cheese, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, small handful oregano leaves, 1 crushed garlic clove. I stuffed the pepper halves with this and drizzled with oil, then baked for about 25-30 minutes until the peppers are soft.

The courgette flowers I have described before so just repeat. In fact, this time I didn’t even make a batter; I just separated the courgettes from the flour and finely sliced, then sautéed them both in a little oil.

We ate this with mucho Margaritas and followed with chocolate tiramisu from Gu to which I might be a little bit addicted. Even though I don’t actually like chocolate very much. Go figure.

Technorati Tags: mexican,thomsina miers,pork ribs,courgette flowers,prawn cocktail,recipes

Some summery ideas

2011-08-15T11:10:00.001-07:00

Not terribly sure if summer is planning on hanging around much longer; let’s face it – we’ve already had the Glorious Twelfth (and where is my grouse?) and we’re bombing towards the cornucopia that is September bounty, so I would suggest if, like me, you’ve barely opened a summer cookbook this season, just do it – barbecue in the kitchen, picnic in the lounge, dine al fresco in the rain – otherwise we’ll have gone from navarin of lamb to beef stew without so much as a by your leave.

Last night I made a pudding. It doesn’t happen very often, given I’m not that keen, but I had some delicious greengages waiting to be used and a sheet of puff pastry.

Divide the puff pastry into four equal parts. (Actually I just divided it in half, but we are big fat pigs and know no restraint, but for normal people a quarter would do.) Halve and stone the greengages and arrange within each quarter of pastry, leaving enough pastry to fold over and make an envelope.

Sprinkle the greengages with a good teaspoon of sugar and a little cinnamon. MCD had some raspberries with his too. Fold over the pastry and use the tines of a fork to seal around the edges. Make a slit in the top and carve your initials into the pastry. That's particularly vital. Brush with eggwash and bake on baking parchment in a 180C oven for around 20-30 minutes, or until puffed and golden.

Eat with creme fraiche or ice cream or any dairy product you have in. Apart from Cheddar.

I’m starting to run out of ideas for what to do with green beans and courgettes and marrows. Jamie’s tomato-based green/runner bean stew is particularly good, but I’m freezing bag-loads. As for courgettes I made a particularly good pasta dish the other night with the leftovers from a roast chicken and they worked well with it.

Based on Nigella’s Venetian-style chicken, simply cook penne-sized courgette pieces in oil with a couple of cloves of garlic until tender. Add in the pieces of shredded chicken, a handful of raisins soaked in warm water and a good slosh of white wine and a tbsp chopped rosemary. Simmer until the wine is syrupy, season and add a handful of toasted pine nuts if you have any.

Toss with cooked pasta and sprinkle effusively with parsley. It was rainy-night satisfying, especially with a pesto baguette along the lines of garlic bread.

Beans, beans, beans

2011-08-12T01:07:00.001-07:00

Never, ever, EVER, turn your back on an allotment. Not even for 48 hours. For you can guarantee that the tiny sweet baby courgettes that looked like they might remain in nappies for days yet will, by the time you look again, have turned into sprawling, squawking monsters whose pliable adaptable nature you have missed and with which you can do very little.

Sarah Raven peels and roasts her marrows, cubed in a little oil, with aubergines and onions to serve with a curry. I would toss them in cumin and coriander and serve with yoghurt and make them the focal point. Other than that I can offer you very little other than Nigel’s excellent Thai-style pork mince alongside or simply to give them to slightly startled friends and family.

But the beans are much more docile. True, they swarm up and down the canes like gangbusters, but you can at least freeze them. Last night I made an outrageously good side dish with them. The only negative was that MCD ate very little of it and I could have given him less and saved more for lunch today. God Damn.

I made this with green beans only, but now the runner beans are kicking in, by all means use a mixture.

Top and tail a large handful of beans and cut into 2cm lengths or thereabouts. Boil briefly in salted water for 3 minutes and no longer.

Meanwhile drain a can of flageolet beans and leave over the sink. Drain the cooked beans through the sieve, simultaneously warming the flageolet (the THRIFT) and combining the beans and tip everything back into the pan.

Whisk up a dressing of 2 tbsp grain mustard, 1-2 tbsp red wine or other vinegar (but not a sweet one), salt, pinch of sugar, pepper and a tsp of honey. Whisk in good olive oil to emulsify and stir into the beans. Taste and correct the seasoning if necessary and serve while warm.

We ate this with Barnsley lamb chops and some spinach on the side. Or at least I did. MCD seemed to toy with a bit of plate. If you do have leftovers, like I managed to scrape together (alright, I cleaned off his beans – I’m not proud), you might eat them alongside something like a pork pie perhaps, or some nice cheese.

Technorati Tags: green beans,runner beans,marrow,recipes,salad

Low

2011-08-02T07:06:00.001-07:00

This is not a good week. I have been snowed under with a vast and seemingly unending recipe project, I barely see MCD Jr, my sister bought a fabulous puppy last week which died yesterday and my grandmother appears to be intent on joining it. Poor dog. So what with writing about food all day and mourning the loss of a dog and the absence of my son in the evening, I haven’t been much of a one for the stove.

However, out in the allotment, picking beans not quite as quickly as they are growing, I can’t help but be bowled over by the sunshine yellow of the best courgette flowers we have ever had. It would be a crime not to use them, so I came up with the following as I don’t deep fry (vats of boiling oil would not – I suspect – be my best friend).

Clean and wash very very carefully two courgette flowers (with small courgettes attached for preference). Snip out the stamens and dry on kitchen paper.

Whisk together in a bowl 4 tbsp ricotta, small handful of oregano leaves or chopped basil, a little lemon zest and juice, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper.

Gently spoon the mixture into the flowers and press the flowers together to seal.

Make a batter by mixing 100g plain flour with 1-2 glasses of white wine. If it’s still too thick add a little water to make it the consistency of double cream.

Dip the flowers in and make sure they are thoroughly coated.

Heat 1cm depth of vegetable oil in a large frying pan and when hot enough, lower the flowers in. Fry for about three minutes until the underside is crisp and golden, then carefully turn over with the spatula to cook the other side.

Drain on kitchen paper and eat as an appetiser before an appropriately courgette-based main dish such as Jamie’s courgette carbonara from Jamie at Home.

This seems terribly downbeat – sorry. Back with the stiff upper next time.

Green things

2011-07-18T07:54:00.001-07:00

Working motherhood, then, and the ability of a 9 month old to come back from lovely afternoons with a doting aunt and fix you with a gimlet eye denoting utter contempt for your decision to be absent from the day’s entertainment and simultaneously shower said aunt with much affection before refusing to acknowledge your very existence in the intervening period between arrival and bedtime. I never expected to face such strong feelings so early, and I don’t think I am reading too much into it, but suffice to say that even three afternoons a week can see the guilt ladled onto your already heaped plate, seasoned with a hefty dose of frustration that you’re only doing your best and it’s never ever going to be enough for this small chunk of humanity. And I do mean chunk.

This blog too has become sadly neglected since I started working a bit and for that I apologise. However, I’m going to try to post at least weekly (haven’t I said that before?) to at least attempt to retain a reader or two.

In the garden, the allotment has shot into abundance verging on glut given all this weather we’ve been having. We’re still picking kale and cavolo nero, digging up potatoes and now the courgettes and green beans are begging to be picked. I thought I’d pass on ways to deal with the oncoming flood, although I’ll be damned if I’m going to pickle.

Green beans are just lovely freshly picked, but what to do with them other than simply boiled. Quite often it’s all in the pairing and I treat them much as I would broad beans, enjoying as they do all manner of dairy and porcine companionship. Particularly good is any cheese crumbled over still-warm beans and left to soften.

I’ve also taken to braising them slowly: Boil them briefly until just cooked, then drain and add to olive oil with garlic, perhaps an anchovy or two melted into it and a little water and lid on for perhaps 10 minutes until the beans are khaki and truly soft. I like to add a little white wine to the oil, or throw in some herbs or a squeeze of lemon at the end.

The greens I still adore sauteed with similar flavourings, perhaps a touch of dried chilli for good measure. I have some chorizo in the fridge and – with this rain seemingly set in for the week – it would sit perfectly in a Portuguese-style stew with potatoes and greens and some excellent bread on the side.

The courgettes and their concomitant flowers I shall come back to. I have some buffalo mozzarella in the fridge and tomorrow night’s dinner shall be some combination of them, probably with a pasta base. I shall keep you posted.

Barbecued potatoes

2011-06-27T01:49:00.001-07:00

My default accompaniment for anything barbecued is either a garlic-heavy panzanella salad, preferably heavy on the cucumber for ultimate refreshment or cubed potatoes roasted in the oven with rosemary and garlic. However, we appear to be going through what the BBC and the dear old Met Office are endearingly calling a heatwave (I would call it summer and slap on the sunscreen, but then I am not paid for hyperbole and panic-mongering) and the thought of having the oven on was enough to make me hyperventilate and swoon to the floor (you can have that hyperbole for free).

Flicking through the excellent Barbecue for their Memphis recipe for pork ribs, I came across their recipe for barbecued potatoes which fitted the bill entirely perfectly and justified the turning on of the BBQ. I of course jigged it about a little, because I can never leave well enough alone, but the idea is in essence theirs.

Serves 2 with leftovers:

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add roughly two good handfuls of either scrubbed new potatoes or larger potatoes but in half. Cook at an enthusiastic simmer for 5-6 minutes until just tender but offering a little resistance to the point of a knife.

Drain them thoroughly, even drying them out over a low heat for a few seconds, toss in olive oil and season liberally.

Whisk together the juice of 1/2 lemon, 5-6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp olives, stoned and chopped, a sprig of rosemary, finely chopped and a crushed garlic clove and season.

Thread the cooled potatoes onto skewers and leave them on the BBQ for around 15 minutes until they start to crisp and turn gold. When done to your liking, toss them in the dressing and serve warm.

Technorati Tags: potatoes,barbecue,side dish,accompaniment

An Italian slant on steak and chips

2011-06-20T11:29:00.001-07:00

or, in other words, without any chips at all. We love steak, love it, but I have to admit the whole idea of steak, chips and bearnaise sauce does pall and so I look for other ways to get the juices flowing. I should add at this point MCD Sr is always very happy with chips and bearnaise; was in fact disappointed when I announced my intention not to do chips at all, so I worked hard to find a happy substitute. I think I did it.

My basic premise was a ‘spread’; you know, the kind of thing that makes elderly ladies’ eyes mist over a little at the effort and sheer abundance visibly displayed on the table. I had at my disposal an ageing fennel bulb, some ok tomatoes and mozzarella, a can of cannellini beans, a cornucopia of fresh herbs growing outside and a couple of hours off from MCD Jr to play. Here goes…

First : none of these dishes are time-consuming so do them in the order suits you – they can all justify hanging-around time.

Patate al forno: Oven-roasted potatoes to you and I, but once you’ve cubed and tossed the potatoes in olive oil, put them in a 200C oven for 20 minutes. THEN and only THEN add a few cloves of garlic and some sprigs of rosemary, otherwise the flavourings will burn and it all tastes of forest fire. Once they’re cooked through, usually another 20 minutes, leave them in the switched-off oven till you’re ready.

Fennel: Ok, this is just genius. MCD Sr hates fennel, but I noted he ate 2 strands of this, so I count that a win. Make an envelope out of some foil and shove in the fennel bulb, cored and thickly sliced, the juice of the other 1/2 of the lemon plus the squeezed-out half, seasoning and a good glug of white wine and a little olive oil. Bake alongside the potatoes for about 30 minutes. It comes out tender, delicious and submissive – just how you want a vegetable.

Insalata Caprese: Again a plain old tomato and mozzarella salad, but I came up with a fiendishly clever dressing. Slice or chop the tomatoes, then lay on a plate. Whisk together a good few tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, a little red wine vinegar and seasoning then drizzle over the tomatoes. Tear apart a mozzarella and lay on top, channelling Jamie Oliver as you do so. If you happen to have any fresh mint and oregano around, this is what I used, but use basil or parsley or whatever you have, just simply smash them up in a pestle and mortar, then whisk in enough extra virgin to make a loose dressing and some seasoning, then drizzle over the cheese.

Beans al’Italia: When we went to Florence many years ago, on our first night we had authentic Florence bistecca and white beans on the side. Dead simple, absolutely perfect and a bugger to recreate ever since. I may have come up with a second-best, given I am using canned and not fresh or dried. (If you do have either of the latter, then can I direct you to Jamie’s Italy, where there is a lovely recipe). I simmered the beans very gently in quite a strong vegetable stock*, along with the zest of 1/2 a lemon, a garlic clove and some rosemary. Don’t go too fast or too long or they’ll break up. Once they’re soft and heated through, season and set aside. You won’t need all the liquor, so just spoon them out onto plates to serve.

The steak I simply griddled to medium-rare, so I won’t bore you with the details. Serve along a table interspersed with wine bottles and candles for full effect. Don’t forget bread for all the juices. We didn’t have any and I regret it still.

NB: Any leftover beans are delicious heated up with a spoonful of cream and served on toast the next day.

*I hate to boast but I am so proud of this thriftiness. My veg stock actually came from cooking MCD Jr’s noodles, chicken and veg for lunch; I simply saved the cooking liquor for the beans with all its ready-made flavour. I rock. You have my permission to use a stock cube.

Venison chilli–sort of

2011-06-15T07:49:00.001-07:00

Yeah, not really sure what to call this. It’s not one thing or t’other but it was really really nice. I had some venison shoulder steaks in the freezer and I thought they might not be meltingly tender cooked just as steak, so thought I might slow-cook them. Browsing, I came across Clarissa Dickson-Wright’s recipe for a Texas Hash in her Game Cookbook, which I adapted and messed around with and came up with this:

Slowly fry a sliced onion and diced green pepper (or whatever colour you prefer) in a casserole dish until softened. Meanwhile, chop up your venison; I cut it up into quite small pieces then add to the pot. Brown, then stir in a good tbsp of tomato puree. I poured in about 100ml passata, or use a can of tomatoes, and around 200ml beef stock, a good slug of Worcestershire sauce and a little smoked chipotle Tabasco which I happen to love, but ordinary will do fine. I simmered it for around 30 minutes, until the sauce had thickened and reduced a little, then seasoned and poured into a shallow lasagne dish.

Peel and finely slice some potatoes (sometimes, in the spirit of adventure I like not to use my mandoline but test my knife skills. The mandoline wins every time) and arrange prettily or haphazardly on top of the meat. Drizzle with oil and seasoning and bake in a 180C oven until the potatoes are tender. Frankly, this could take up to 50 minutes, so just keep checking. If the sauce reduces too much or the potatoes start to darken, slosh a tiny bit of water in and cover with foil. When all is tender top with slices of cheese and pop back into the oven for the cheese to melt.

Serve with a large helping of greens on the side for health.

Technorati Tags: venison,casserole,chilli,recipes

Cottage cheese–a retro pleasure

2011-06-10T05:49:00.001-07:00

Frankly, the whole cottage cheese issue is a bit like Marmite. So, if you’re in the camp that goes ‘yack’ at the mere mention, turn away now. Or be brave, stick around and try it again.

I quite often whisk extra-virgin olive oil, salt, and sometimes a little garlic and herbs into yoghurt to make an impromptu sauce for chicken or lamb. It’s particularly good in BBQ surroundings. I also do something similar to ricotta if I have it in, spooning it over pasta for a quick dinner. I had bought some cottage cheese a little while ago for MCD Jr, thinking to spread it on toast for lunch and so on. However, it was a big tub and going nowhere fast, so I had to come up with something like this.

Spoon some cottage cheese into a bowl and whisk in the e-v olive oil – perhaps a couple of tbsp. Season and then stir in a few fragrant fresh herbs. I happen to have a particularly pungent oregano growing outside the back door so in it went, but basil, parsley, even mint would work well, although in the latter case I would bring out the cheese’s sour notes with a squeeze of lemon.

I cooked an over-generous portion of pasta – trottoli actually, those tight, fat spirals – and tossed with some tomatoes I had diced and left to macerate in good oil, garlic, seasoning and a squeeze of lemon. You may like to add a few chilli flakes. Stir the pasta and tomatoes together in the warm saucepan, spoon into a bowl and top with the cold cheese mixture.

The concept works well enough for breakfast too, with the tomatoes laden on toasted sourdough and topped with the cheese; something I often have with a pot of good coffee.

It’s a budget supper, to be honest, but it’s also a good alternative if ricotta or yoghurt proves elusive; everywhere sells cottage cheese, and if you can overcome any textural difficulties – and I understand that point of view – it’s a bonus in the fridge.

Technorati Tags: cottage cheese

A motley crew

2011-06-06T02:05:00.001-07:00

I am just appalling at keeping up with myself, but I am back again. I thought it might be an idea to jot down a few suggestions to try over the summer, particularly as the lying BBC weathermen have us desiccating slowly away over the coming months (as I write this, it’s the wettest Monday morning in months...)

Suggestion no. 1 is a take on salsa verde, that pinging green sauce that goes so well with lamb, fish and practically everything else and ratatouille, given I had no courgettes or peppers. I had some lamb chops I particularly wanted to roast until rosy pink inside and wanted a refreshing side dish. I whizzed up in the food processor (you don’t want a smooth sauce, more of a sludgy paste), three to four anchovies and a little of the oil, a good squeeze of lemon, a big handful of mint leaves, a few oregano leaves, a tiny bit of grain mustard and enough olive oil to loosen. Check the seasoning and lemon juice in particular. Drain and rinse a can of borlotti beans (or cook your own fresh, naturally) and toss in the dressing. I roasted some cubes of butternut squash and aubergine alongside the lamb, then tossed the vegetables with some fresh chopped tomato, a handful of rocket leaves, then stirred them through the beans and dressing.

Coming back to the missing ingredients above, roasted peppers would work fabulously with the dressing, with or without the lamb.

Suggestion no. 2 is just a very simple dressing to spoon over squid or fish fresh from the BBQ. Squeeze a lime into a dish, add a little chopped chilli, half a tsp of cumin, a little salt and then whisk in some olive oil. It just lifts like nothing else.

No. 3: Going back to the asparagus and pea puree I made a few weeks ago, my most recent batch found a culinary bedfellow in the scooped-out insides of a baked potato, piled back in the skin and topped with a little grated cheese before being heated through in the oven. It would be lovely with something porcine – perhaps even such an old-fashioned thing as a gammon chop.

The hot sunshine of last week prompted a flick through some books to find an exciting salad recipe for no. 4. Jamie at Home has a recipe for strawberry and halloumi salad with speck ( a cured ham), which was just the ticket. Macerate the strawberries with a tbsp balsamic vinegar, a little lemon juice, salt and pepper and a little olive oil. Fry a few slices of halloumi in a pan until golden. Toss the strawberries through a salad leaves, top with the halloumi slices and if you have anything in the way of crispy bacon, ham or even speck, it’s terribly good with – and not so bad without.

A sort-of-broccoli pesto

2011-05-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

I am very much a fan of the kind of pasta dishes that don’t start with a sweated onion and a can of tomatoes. Blah, blah is all the unenthusiastic verbosity I can muster when faced with the inevitable store cupboard standbys. However, give me a handful of greens of some – any - description, some anchovies and garlic – and now we’re talking. The bitter, savoury, salty, grown-up flavours appeal to me much more than an over-reduced tomato base, and with a kick of chilli and a squeeze of lemon, it’s enough to roll you over and have you begging for more. Well, maybe, depending on how low your standards are.

I started with a bag of past-its-best purple sprouting (having bought two bags at the market in a spirit of hollandaise-based enthusiasm and conveniently forgetting MCD loathes the stuff) and thought about how I successfully used the woody asparagus ends last week. I took off the tiny stalky florets and set them to one side and then roughly chopped the longer woody stalks. I put them in the food processor with a large clove of garlic, a sprinkling of crushed dried chilli, a good squeeze of lemon, a couple of anchovies and some oregano for good measure and blitzed the lot.

I then slowly fried the mixture in some olive oil in a pan with a little water to help steam it; a little white wine would be good here too. Be warned: it does go a deep, perhaps unattractive, khaki colour but no-one promised you a rose garden. Meanwhile get your pasta of choice on to boil and about three minutes from the end of cooking time, throw in the reserved florets, then drain when all is tender.

Toss the pasta and florets into the sauce, then add a fierce amount of Parmesan and maybe more lemon and chilli if you really need a kick up the backside.

Technorati Tags: purple sprouting,pasta,sauce,recipes,broccoli

What to do with asparagus ends

2011-05-07T01:49:00.001-07:00

This comes courtesy of Lindsay Bareham in The Times. I’ve tweaked it a little but it’s still a brilliant use of the woody ends of asparagus that you would normally throw in the bin, or, if you’re extremely thrifty and clever, freeze for stock or some such. This is less work and fiendishly inventive, not least because you wouldn’t want to use whole asparagus in this, but it’s perfect for those who hate waste.

Chuck your snapped off asparagus ends in boiling water for two minutes. I used the ends of two big handfuls of asparagus. Then add around 100g frozen peas and cook until both are tender; I’d say about 3-4 minutes but keep testing. Drain them, then blitz in a food processor with a good dollop of crème fraiche, salt and pepper, a few mint leaves and a handful of basil. I added a little lemon juice too, just to freshen the flavour.

Lindsay suggests spreading the puree on toast and topping with the rest of the asparagus, steamed, with a poached egg and some Parma ham, which sounds fabulous. We had it bruschetta-style and MCD Jr had it stirred into baby pasta and devoured the lot (though to be fair, there’s very little he doesn’t devour, so I wouldn’t take that as a recommendation).

Technorati Tags: asparagus,recipes,asparagus ends,peas,puree,dip

Wild garlic cream–you read it here first

2011-05-02T11:14:00.001-07:00

Wild garlic is a wonderful delicacy at this time of year and when I come across it, I tend to go a bit mad and buy armfuls – like its spring companion asparagus - convinced it will go with everything; thankfully, it is an amiable accompaniment to most things. However, last night was a feast of sheer genius (I hope you don’t mind me saying) and I must, must write it down.

We were aiming for something around the theme of steak sandwiches and chips and in my head this seemed perfectly preceded by a bunch of asparagus roasted in the oven with olive oil, as is our wont. Pondering on how to include some of the wild garlic, I was seduced by the idea of a wild garlic cream to dip the asparagus and even the chips into. What follows is how I put it all together.

For the chips either: open bag of frozen chips and bake in hot oven for around 20 minutes or: cut peeled floury or unpeeled new potatoes into wedges, drizzle with oil and salt and bake in a hot oven for around 30 minutes, depending on their size.

For the wild garlic cream, gently warm half a tub of crème fraiche in a small pan (it’s hard to be prescriptive about this, but as much as you think you would like spooned over everything…). Finely chop a good handful of the wild garlic leaves and add to the cream, leaving it to gently bubble for a few minutes. Cube some Jarlsberg (again, hard to be dictatorial about this as this was simply what I had in; the Pecorino also in stock would have been a bit too big for its boots first time around, but I see no reason not to try it next time) and add to the sauce. Jarlsberg adds a lovely sweet nutty background taste that lets the wild garlic take centre stage. Check the seasoning.

Roast or steam your asparagus until tender and set aside, kept warm.

Griddle your seasoned steak until done to your desired degree. I tend towards rare as rare can be and underdo it on the griddle so that the resting time cooks it through a little more.

Split your sandwich bread of choice open (we had ciabatta) and smear with a thin layer of Dijon mustard. I find it impossible to have a steak sandwich without this essential layer; you may feel differently. Toss over some watercress. Slice your rested steak thinly and carefully, saving the juices and arrange on the bread then pour over the juices and season again. Spoon over some of the wild garlic cream and sandwich together.

Pour the rest of the cream into a pot and use for dipping asparagus and chips into. Heavenly creamy bliss in a few minutes.

You, my friends, are welcome.

Technorati Tags: wild garlic,sauce,cream sauce,steak sandwiches,asparagus,chips,recipes

How to dress a cow…

2011-04-25T05:46:00.001-07:00

Cold rare beef is one of the nicer things to have loitering in your fridge. (Can beef be said to loiter? It might be a bit regal for that). Its first outing was on Friday, with cubed roasted potatoes with rosemary, a simple tomato salad dressed with olive oil and seasoning, a green salad of watercress and pea shoots and a mustard mint dressing of Nigel Slater’s that is so utterly luscious and wonderful I shall share because I am kind and want only to enhance your day.

Whizz together 2 egg yolks, a large handful of mint, a tbsp grain mustard and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Trickle in 4-5 tbsp olive oil until the mixture has amalgamated and season as you will.

The lovely thing about the meal above is that the beef need not be piping hot and the sauce can be made at the last minute, so you have masses of time to do your sides. By which I mean the side salads, not your own sides. What quite you might be doing with them I can’t think. Moving swiftly on…

If you want to go Continental with your cold beef, think anything Thai, New Yorker style with gherkins and mustard getting involved or even just eat with any of the leftover sauce from above, perhaps on a piece of toasted sourdough with some peppery green leaves. Or you could try the following take on a Banh Mi – a Vienamese pork baguette and a particular addiction of mine that, I think, adapts well to other meats.

Grate a carrot and a courgette coarsely and toss together in a bowl. Throw in some leaves if you have any; other additions might even be a tin of beansprouts if you’re wondering what the hell to do with it. Cool and crunchy is the idea. Slice up a chilli, red or green and add to the vegetables. Whisk together a tbsp sugar with a couple tbsp white wine vinegar and taste – you want sweet and sharp and lip-smacking – then stir through the grated vegetables and leave for a few minutes.

Split a baguette in half and layer with the beef, as thinly sliced as you can, and the grated vegetables. Press together and enjoy. Alternatively, do without the carbs and have it over more salad or even tossed with noodles.

Technorati Tags: cold beef,sauce,banh mi,recipes

How to dress a cold chicken…

2011-04-23T09:05:00.001-07:00

It needs less layers than you think. Whisk together a couple of tbsp mayonnaise, 1/2 tsp of honey, a good squeeze of lemon juice and 2-3 tbsp olive oil. Check it – you may need seasoning and more lemon juice – then pour over the shredded chicken, which you may have arranged over some mixed salad leaves, slices of avocado etc.

That’s it. It’s just really really good. Next time, how to dress a cold cow.

So Belinda Carlisle did have a point…

2011-04-18T08:31:00.001-07:00

Well, at least a minor one… There actually could be truth in ‘Oooh Heaven is a place on Earth’ – and it might be Dorset. Pretty much all of it, apart perhaps from Poole. I’ll get to that later.

A quick round-up:

Favourite place to eat: Tricky. I loved The Olive Branch in Wimborne Minster, because it had a lovely garden and clever platters for sharing.

The Royal Oak in Cerne Abbas serves really excellent pub food in a village already gorging on good places to eat. And they don’t do children’s food, as such but prefer to do a smaller appetites menu. This makes me love them.

FishyFishy Brasserie on the quay in Poole looked amazing, Unfortunately we didn’t get to eat there because MCD invoked his right to eat lobster on his birthday so we went instead to Corkers which was deserted, with curiously old-style patterned swirly carpets and creaking waiters and lobster Thermidor, naturally.

West Beach in Bournemouth again is worth a stop – particularly for their takeout fish and chips, or indeed tempura prawns, to eat on the beach. Again I didn’t get to actually eat here because we couldn’t bloody find it the first time around and MCD Jr was gagging for lunch. And when I did find it, on a return solo trip, I wasn’t actually very hungry, but I am assured it’s good.

Where we stayed: Grange holiday cottages are beautiful.

This is Petersham, a one-bed cottage which suited us perfectly. I’ve never done a holiday cottage before and didn’t know what to take. Tip for the future: you don’t need washing up liquid, but do take ketchup, bin bags and check, if you have a small person, where you can bathe them. This had a wet room which was rather fabulous for us, but somewhat trying for MCD Jr, who had to be bathed in the sink each night and soon got tired of it.

Favourite village: without a doubt, Cerne Abbas. I expected it to be weirdly, horribly touristy but it was delightful, mostly because of the plethora of fabulous pubs, a sweet tea-rooms, a General Stores that was actually a proper, honest-to-goodness place where you could buy useful things, such as local meat, cheese, veg – in short, like nothing in London. Also because of the notices around the village informing everyone of an upcoming funeral of a local resident (I am assuming this was because she was much-loved, but this might not have been the case; still, the devotion to population was touching). And the giant on the hill with the big willy was quite far enough away not to impact really upon it. It’s not like it was looming priapically over the village or anything. Obviously seeing it all in early April means we missed the hordes, so it may become a hell-hole come late summer, but still – fabulous.

Least favourite place: Poole. Ok – not everywhere can be amazing but, considering its position so close to Sandbanks etc, it was strangely down-trodden, dated even. Apart from the quay – well, a bit of it – it just wasn’t very attractive. The shops were tired and clearly struggling slightly; we worked hard to find a decent place to eat (see above); it all felt as if no-one cared very much. And – this may be a very unfair comparison – we had just come from a buzzing Bournemouth, which although it can be seaside hell, still felt as if people wanted to be there. All very strange and I stand to be corrected.

Weirdest tourist attraction: The combination of the only exhibition outside China to be showing the Terracotta Army and The Teddy Bear Museum. MCD Jr loved the latter; MCD Sr loved the former – everyone was a winner.

Bonus pics:

This is actually as close to the Cerne Abbas giant as we got. But this was a good thing: if it is a fertility aid, I don’t want to be near it for some time.

A house named after my sister. Or maybe it’s the name of the resident. Either way, I rather like the idea of naming my house like this. ‘Come to Stanley’ I might roar, exuding bonhomie in my Dorset idyll.

Technorati Tags: dorset,royal oak,cerne abbas,bournemouth,fishyfishy,poole,olive branch,wimborne minster,grange holiday cottages

All in Good Taste…

2011-03-28T03:04:00.001-07:00

As one might properly hope on this blog. Sorry for the hiatus but the last few weeks have been thoroughly liquidised into one. MCD Jr is weaning (in fact, today is his half birthday and to celebrate he has his very first tooth) and I seemed to have done nothing most days other than think of and consequently make yet another delicious mixture of vegetable and fruit purees.

But then, this suddenly was not enough and now the child is devouring salmon with potatoes and carrots, chicken and parsnip stew and – last night – polished off a bowl of beef casserole with butternut squash mash. So I am still cooking for the little person and not much enthusiasm is is left for the big people and their dinner.

However, the big people have to eat too, so as the parents were due down last Friday, I set off up to Crystal Palace to inspect our brand new shiny deli, Good Taste. It was a treat. Two large fridges house a fine range of mostly British cheese, including a ripely perfect Waterloo, sharp tangy Dunsyre Blue from Scotland and even Lord of the Hundreds, a hard Pecorino-esque cheese Rose Prince is always banging on about but have never tracked down. There’s a cabinet of charcuterie including a wonderfuly rich cured peppercorn venison, bread from Born and Bread, dressers of olives, chutneys and jams and, at the back, a coffee bar where they can freshly grind your choice of coffee to take away.

Frankly we couldn’t wish for more in the area; all we need now is a decent butcher and life would be sweet. The new food fair coming to West Norwood next week, however, might yet improve things further – Good Taste are attending, amongst others. I shall report back.

I wouldn’t normally post a very self-indulgent picture but it’s been six whole months and we’ve made it and I’m very proud of us….

Technorati Tags: good taste deli,crystal palace,west norwood,feast,food fair

A Chicken and Lentil One-Pot Stew

2011-02-23T01:13:00.001-08:00

It doesn’t sound terribly exciting does it? I suspect that the mention of lentils is never going to set the culinary world on fire and have you racing to recreate this in the kitchen. I might add it’s a very brown sort of a dish. But cast those prejudices out the window - this is the kind of adaptable one-pot cooking that’s quite useful when you’ve got a couple of pieces of chicken and you want something soothing rather than the razzle dazzle.

So, chop up some base vegetables. By this I refer to the Italian concept of ‘soffrito’; think carrot, celery and onion. Perversely I used celery, leek and garlic instead but any and all combinations of the above will work. Sweat them in a casserole in some olive oil until softened. At this point, you may or may not want to add some pancetta or streaky bacon – it depends on whether you want the final dish to have that bacon hit of smokiness or something altogether gentler; anyway, it’s up to you.

Once the vegetables have softened, add (for two people) around 150g Puy lentils and a good handful of potatoes, chopped up. Again it doesn’t matter if you use waxy or floury potatoes, but the end result will differ quite a bit: waxy potatoes will keep their shape; floury ones will disintegrate into the sauce and make it a bit creamier. If you’re using floury potatoes, peel them before chopping. If waxy, simply halve or quarter them, according to size. Pour in about 500ml water or even chicken or vegetable stock (I might favour stock if there was no bacon), season and then place on top the chicken pieces you have and place the lid on.

If you’re using chicken thighs, this will take maybe 50 minutes to cook; if using chicken breast, check after 30 minutes. If you’ve left the skin on (and no reason why not, it’ll just add to the moistness of the chicken) don’t expect it to crisp up. In fact, if you’re averse to flobby skin, it’s best discarded once the chicken has cooked.

Once the chicken is cooked through and the lentils are tender, remove the chicken and set to one side. This is where you start punching up the flavour. Don’t get me wrong: check the seasoning and you might find that you like it just the way it is. But you might want to throw in a few things to freshen it up – try a good squeeze of lemon juice, a tbsp of English or Dijon mustard, a handful of chopped parsley or even chilli sauce if you really want the razzle dazzle. Stir in your chosen flavourings, pop the chicken into warmed deep dishes and ladle the soupy lentil stew around, finishing with perhaps more parsley and a drizzle of extra virgin. It ain’t pretty but it sure is good.

Technorati Tags: chicken,lentils,recipes,stew,soup

Entirely non-food-related…

2011-02-14T11:18:00.001-08:00

Right now the tidal wave of revolution and reform has reached Tehran and the citizens of Iran are endeavouring to create their own political change; the government appear to be adding to unemployment by making all pilots entirely jobless (you must forgive me if these news snapshots are inaccurate; MCD Jr is a bit distracting) but David Cameron is shopping at The People’s Supermarket so that’s ok and 118 dogs have been found near rotting to death in just one house (– how has gone unnoticed?) In other news I am loving:

The Killing: watching it on iPlayer bit by painfully slow bit as MCD Jr’s naps are generally only about 45 minutes and so the last 15 minutes are spent distracting him with the spare socks on the bed.

James Lee Burke: I have completely and utterly fallen in love. Every sentence is perfectly and divinely crafted and the descriptions of Louisiana and the Bayou are haunting. I have been borrowing them from the library but I shall have to buy his entire oeuvre at some point.

MCD Jr’s latest trick: at the moment he has discovered two - count them, two – different ways of blowing raspberries. I said to him ‘at very nearly 20 weeks, that’s quite impressive.’ Less impressive is his immediate desire once picked up to vacuum his open mouth to your shoulder and blow a dribbly raspberry on it. My clothes are either damp or crusty.

Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Diana Henry’s book on winter cooking. I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve been reading and cooking from it slightly obsessively. Watch out for recipes on sour cream, apple and pecan muffins; a whisky and marmalade sauce to go with grouse and Danish roast pork belly with pickled prunes and cucumbers. (Yes that was food-related. Tough)

Ngaio Marsh: A New Zealand crime writer whose books are a little curious and even old-fashioned but kind of fun and whimsical. I like very much.

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals: Oh my god. I know, I know, I wrote an entire post on how he’s missed his market, and I still think he has –in point of fact I’m taking the recipes off the Channel 4 website and just making the dishes to my own pace and rhythm. They’re good recipes and very cleverly done, but I still wonder at the will and burn of ambition to follow him to the letter and cook it in 28 minutes. I’m even more curious about his dream school. Is he actually angling for world domination?

The Bishop: pub in East Dulwich with 25% off for mums in the week. Really great food, nice cider and lots of space for prams and tipsy lunchtime weaving. Nothing more is necessary.

I now realise that was mostly food-dominated. Never mind, what else do you come here for?

Bringing home the bacon…

2011-02-08T04:07:00.001-08:00

I very rarely cook a ham. It’s not something that immediately springs to mind when I’m perusing the meat counter or stall, although I dearly love all things porcine. Having picked up, then, a piece of bacon collar in Waitrose a couple of weeks ago and stashed it in the freezer quite literally ‘for a rainy day’, I thought on Sunday it might be rather fine thing to have for dinner.

But how to cook it? Somewhere in the back of my mind lingered the flavours of vegetables poached in the ham stock and a parsley sauce was probably a must-have as well as a sugar-mustard glazed crust. But I also wanted mustard and the fresh sweetness of apple somewhere along the line, although I had no cider in. So here’s what we ended up with.

The bacon collar was just under a kg in weight. Now I’m not sure of any precise cooking times and I did want to add in a bit of baking time so, after checking with Delia’s similar cooking method, I decided 45 minutes poaching and then I would bake it in the oven for at least 30 minutes and see how the crust was coming along.

So into a deep pot went the bacon, an onion that I tried to stick with cloves (but has anyone done it without really hurting their thumb and breaking the cloves?) so the cloves rather drifted into the stock of their own accord, a couple of pieces of celery, some parsley stalks and 7 peppercorns and covered the whole with water. Bring it up to the boil, stick a lid on, bring it down to a blipping simmer and from time to time skim the stock of the impurities.

Meanwhile, chop into decent chunks swede and 2-3 celery sticks, clean some young carrots, or chop older ones into chunks as well, and perhaps you might like a potato as well, which we did. And it helps to remember it soaks up a little of the salt in the stock, so you might as well. I also sliced the cheeks off an apple.

After the bacon was cooked, I sieved the stock. I took the rind off the bacon, scored the fat into diamond shapes and coated it with a sugar-mustard glaze. This is best made with English mustard for the heat and a darker sugar for the smoky caramel, but use what you have. I then put the chopped vegetables back in the pot, balanced the ham on top and ladled back over the stock just to cover the veg – you will have some left over, but keep it. I added the apple and put it in a 180C oven to bake.

Once the ham looked golden-crusted I took it out and foiled it up to rest. You might find the veg are still a tad al dente, so just put the casserole on the hob and simmer until they’re tender. Fish out the apple skin.

While the vegetables are simmering, you might want to make a parsley sauce. It’s just a simple white sauce (yes you do know it – tbsp each of flour and melted butter to make a paste, stir in around 400ml of the reserved ham stock and 100ml of milk and stir until thickened and smooth.) I whisked in a good tbsp of grain mustard and a handful of chopped parsley just before serving.

To serve, spoon the vegetables into your dish, top with a couple of slices of the warm ham and spoon over your hopefully velvety parsley sauce. The leftover ham stock and cooking liquor will make a perfect basis for pea soup (later this week) with ham sandwiches, risotto or even as a soup base for some little cheese-stuffed ravioli perhaps…

(I don’t generally do pictures: I’m a rubbish photo taker and I never have a camera on me. But on Sunday’s walk with MCD Sr and Jr, we saw the first signs of spring. Thank god.)

Technorati Tags: bacon collar,ham,recipes,white sauce,parsley sauce

Two for the price of one: Chicken livers and a root vegetable stove-top bake

2011-02-03T03:15:00.001-08:00

I’ve been meaning to pass on this incredible recipe for chicken livers for about two weeks, but have failed to organise my time and MCD Jr efficiently enough to get it done. And then last night I made the most amazing vegetable cheesey bake thing and desperately wanted to share that too, so you get a double-whammy. Just don’t expect it too often.

For the chicken livers, clean and cut them in half if they’re on the large side. Sizzle some butter in a frying pan and toss in the livers. Cook for a couple of minutes until the underside is starting to caramelise then turn each liver over.

While they’re cooking, slice some chicory however you want, but thin strands seem most pleasing and when you turn the livers over, add the chicory. The whole point about chicken livers is that they are gorgeous if you manage to get them pink and moussey, and utterly disgusting if you over-cook them so feel free to slice into one or two to check their done-ness at any point. When they’re cooked to your liking, use a slotted spoon to remove them from the pan. Add a tbsp or so of grain mustard, a tsp or so of honey, a squeeze of lemon and a dollop of crème fraiche or cream – enough to make a sauce. Warm it through then check the seasoning and add a small handful of chopped parsley if you’ve got any. Add the livers back in to warm through then tip onto toast.

Ok – the veg bake: Finely slice an onion and fry gently in butter with some garlic in a deep-sided frying pan. Ideally you want the onion golden and silky. Then finely slice – as thinly as you can – half a peeled celeriac (mine was enormous so I only needed half for the two of us) and a couple of peeled potatoes. If you’ve got a mandoline so much the better.

Now you can either pile all the veg slices into the pan and mix thoroughly with the butter and onions; or you can carefully remove the onions with a slotted spoon and layer alternately celeriac, onions and potato. It doesn’t much matter but the latter makes for more even cooking and a more refined end result. Both taste delicious. Pour over just enough chicken or vegetable stock to cover and half-cover with a lid. Leave to cook gently for about 20-30 minutes depending on how thinly you sliced the vegetables. Test with the point of a knife: ideally the stock should have all but evaporated leaving only sticky juices and the vegetables meltingly tender.

Now, this is the good point. Thinly slice any cheese you fancy, as long as it’s a good melting cheese. I used Taleggio but I have used mozzarella in the past as well as Reblochon and Gruyere with equally good results. Place the cheese slices on the bake, pop the lid back on and leave off the heat for a few minutes while you cook – in this instance – some lamb chops to go with. You might want to drizzle said chops with a little balsamic for extra savour. Serve pink and rosy – both you and the meat – with socking great spoonfuls of the bake. If you’re lucky, there may be some left for tomorrow.

Salt and pepper squid with noodles

2011-01-28T07:50:00.001-08:00

Amazingly simple and quick.

Slit your squid tube (1 per person) down one side, open it up and slice it in half again. Score the outsides in a diamond pattern lightly with a sharp knife and cut each piece into three. Pat dry with some kitchen roll and set aside.

Heat a frying pan and toast 1 tsp each Sichuan and black peppercorns until slightly darkened. Pound them in a pestle and mortar and throw in about a tsp of sea salt.

Now’s the time to get the noodles and greens on. Tip your noodles into boiling salted water, give them 2 minutes then add in finely sliced greens of your choice. (Obviously if you’re using spinach, for the love of God don’t throw that in; instead wilt it in the heat of the drained noodles once they’ve cooked). After another 2 minutes, everything should be cooked, so drain reasonably thoroughly, put back in the pan and shake in a good 2 tbsp or so of soy sauce and a little drizzle of sesame oil. One thing I find every single time is that I’m too enthusiastic with the soy sauce and end up with puddles of it at the bottom,so go easy.

Get the frying pan back on a high heat and dust the squid with a little flour. Add the squid to the pan, in batches if your pan isn’t big, and cook until just opaque and ideally a little golden in patches. Toss in the ground seasoning and a few sliced red chillies and spring onions if you have them; dried chilli flakes will do if you don’t.

Tip the squid over the noodles, add a squirt of lime juice, and you may even like an extra dollop of chilli sauce. Lingham’s Garlic Chilli Sauce is my condiment of choice at the mo.

Technorati Tags: salt and pepper squid,noodles,chinese recipe

Caldo Verde–a variation

2011-01-20T05:36:00.001-08:00

Never gild the lily, so they say. It’s a truism, especially in cooking when sometimes the simplest things are the ones we find ourselves yearning for in quieter moments. It’s the austerity perhaps that we find comforting, particularly these days, and the ability to conjure something wonderful out of seemingly meagre pickings.

Last night it was cold outside it seemed a soup would be just the thing. I had potatoes, a bag of kale, an onion, a couple of pieces of stale bread in the freezer and – randomly – a couple of chorizo sausages leftover from the squid and chorizo pilaff from the night before. Slice the onion and sweat in olive oil in a casserole. While that’s cooking, peel and chop one potato per person into chunks; the size is up to you. Large chunks will hold their shape, smaller ones will crumble into the liquid and thicken it: a mixture of the two is optimal. Add them to the pan and throw in the chorizo, sliced into coins. Add a large sliced clove of garlic and cook gently for a few minutes just to allow the oils to leach from the sausage and coat everything.

At this point, I got out my gold spray equivalent, for also in the fridge, while rummaging, I found a few Jerusalem artichokes. It seemed the nutty sweetness would only add to the soup so I simply halved them and threw them in too. I added around 600ml chicken stock, brought it up to the boil and then let it simmer until the vegetables were soft and melting into the soup.

At this point, check your liquid and then throw in as many handfuls of kale as you fancy. Last night I used nearly the whole bag, as it cooks down to near-nothing, top up with more stock if necessary and simmer for a couple of minutes until the kale is cooked.

At this point, taste and season. I also added a tsp of paprika to bumph up the smokiness. The potatoes and artichokes had crumbled and thickened the liquid to a silky sweetness, counteracted by the smoky sausage and bitter greens. I toasted the bread, rubbed it with garlic, drizzled with oil and placed it in the bottom of the warmed (!) soup bowls before ladling the soup on top. Warming, nutritious and a lily barely dusted with gold but all the better for it.

Technorati Tags: caldo verde,soup,recipes,potatoes,chorizo,kale,jerusalem artichokes

A tomato-y, coconutty curry

2011-01-13T05:53:00.001-08:00

A really simple, easily adaptable curry – just the ticket for the kind of rainy, dank weather we seem to be enduring just now.

Brown 2 chicken thighs skin-side down in a little vegetable oil in a deep-sided pan or wok. Once the skin is bronzed, add in a sliced onion, a couple of sliced garlic cloves, a thumb-sized piece of chopped ginger and stir to coat the veg in the juices. When the onion has softened, add a couple of peeled, chopped sweet potatoes and cook for a few minutes more.

In go the spices: 1 tsp ground coriander, ground cumin, 1/2 tsp turmeric, a few chilli flakes and 4 or 5 cardamom pods.

At this point I ought to add that I had a tub of frozen roasted green tomatoes from the summer that I thought would add just the right tanginess and fruitiness I wanted, so in they went. You could just add a tin of toms or 3-4 fresh ones, chopped up and increase the tang with a little tamarind paste, which I added anyway because it is without doubt my favourite flavour in the world.

Pour in around 400-500ml of chicken or vegetable stock and leave to simmer for about 20 minutes. Then add in enough creamed coconut (or indeed coconut milk if that is what you have) to thicken, but go gently as it thickens very quickly and you might end up having to dilute again. Simmer for another 20 minutes or so until the chicken is cooked through and serve with whatever you fancy, although we had it just as it was.

Technorati Tags: curry,chicken,tomatoes,recipes

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals

2011-01-07T02:26:00.001-08:00

Let the record show that I bow to no-one in my admiration of Jamie Oliver’s good intentions. He may go at it all a bit gung-ho but his heart is essentially in the right place. But his latest book – 30 minute meals – has hit the headlines for exactly the wrong reason; cook after cook furious that the two/three course meals cannot be done in 30 minutes and in fact can take up to an hour and a half.

There are, I think, two sides to this culinary coin. On the one hand, I think that these recipes are probably do-able in 30 minutes, give or take (and I know that’s not the promise but let’s be generous). I gave the Sister a copy for her birthday and – as a competent if not adventurous cook – she found that she could do most meals in around 40-45 minutes at her own leisurely pace. The other inference here is that she is cooking from it on a regular basis, which surely indicates that the recipes themselves are tempting and inspiring. Her point was that the recipes could be completed within the allotted time if – and this is a big if – you have absolutely everything measured out, ready to go and you are confident both in your own abilities and in your kitchen and equipment. And, to be fair, having watched the accompanying TV series last year, he did start every show with that exact mandate: get everything ready beforehand – ingredients weighted out, kettle boiled, gas on, etc.

On the other hand, I have a couple of issues with St Jamie of O. Flicking through the book – of course – before handing it over, you can’t help but be slightly taken aback by the extensive equipment list detailed in order to be able to cook the recipes in 30 minutes. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but your average cook who wants to get a meal on the table in 30 minutes isn’t necessarily the same type of cook who wants to spend upwards of £300 on kitchen equipment, just to cook the recipes out of said book. A keen amateur, confident in the kitchen, who enjoys cooking as a pleasurable activity – and therefore doesn’t get het up about promises of 30 minutes, but would rather spend a leisurely hour enjoying the process – might well want to go and splash out, if they haven’t already got the equipment, but I think it’s a bit rich, in these financially stretched times, to ask people to spend a lot of money in order to create easy recipes whose USP is that they can be done quickly. Is it completely contradictory to add a coda along the lines of how long they would take using your own equipment.

The other dilemma is with the ingredients. There have been a lot of complaints that individual meals can cost upwards of £20 or £30. That’s a huge amount on one mealtime. And again, I would have thought that your average 30-minute cook wouldn’t have the time, inclination or maybe even the budget to shop so extravagantly. It’s not justifiable. I cooked the recipe for steak sandwiches with two or three accompaniments. I drew the line at spending over £3 on a jar of roasted peppers when I know I could buy a couple of peppers for mere pence, bung them in the oven at the beginning of the cooking process and hey-ho – roasted peppers are mine for a fraction of the price.

And this brings me on to the paradox of this book. I knew that I could roast the peppers myself, saving myself money and alter the cooking process to suit my own capabilities and budget. But does Jamie’s average reader necessarily have the knowledge or confidence to do the same? He enjoys huge success with those who have little confidence in the kitchen – and rightly so. His recipes are mostly (ketchup aside!) accurate, always tempting and he inspires confidence in those who might be lacking. These are all good factors. BUT, in this book he seems to miss his target somewhat. To inspire people to cook, and assure them that a multi-course meal can be on the table in only 30 minutes, is not a licence to demand they spend hundreds of pounds on equipment to do so and further needless cash on expensive ingredients simply to fit within an arbitrary time limit. It seems the ideal cook for this book would be a wealthy couple, time-poor with an expensively-fitted but under-used kitchen who want to expand their repertoire past the ping of the microwave. And how many of us does that include?

Smokin’…

2011-01-06T05:24:00.001-08:00

My name is Jo and I have a breadmaker and I love it. There, I’ve said it. I have made – and do sometimes still – loaves by hand but when you just want a loaf for sausage sandwiches or cheese on toast, I find my breadmaker indispensable. I just wanted to get that out the way at the beginning so we’re all clear.

Anyway, the latest find is Bacheldre Watermill’s oak-smoked malted blend bread flour. I bunged it in the machine with the normal amounts that would make up a 750g loaf, set it for a white loaf (I find for some reason on my Panasonic that a granary setting makes the loaf really dry. Answers on a postcard…) and let it go. I had in mind that it would be the perfect setting for Nigel Slater’s idea of smoked salmon, bacon, lettuce and chutney sandwiches.

Reader I was not wrong. I chose a beetroot, horseradish and apple chutney, leaves of Little Gem, smoked salmon with a little pepper and slices of streaky bacon – not too crisp for me. It was amazing. The bread is very delicately smokily flavoured and the malted granary gives a pleasing sweetness. It would be fabulous as a backdrop for smoked mackerel pate and I’m trying it now with the omnipresent sausages with slices of tomato and Dijon mustard. I’ll let you know.

And just on a tangent, last night’s supper was just perfect for this dank cold January. A sausage casserole, simmering the links in chicken stock with sliced onion, two sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped, a peeled, chopped apple. tbsp of flour for thickening and a tin of cannellini beans. Add a good tbsp of Dijon just before serving to counteract all that sweetness and it’s a real body-hugger of a dish. The potatoes crumble and thicken the stock, the apple melts and adds background sweetness and it’s a lovely convivial gathering of flavours.

Technorati Tags: recipes,bacheldre watermill,bread flour,oak smoked,sausage casserole,bread

A resolution-free zone

2011-01-04T04:00:00.001-08:00

I bloody hate them. New year resolutions, that is. Made in a fog of post-festive-indulgence guilt, they’re quickly broken because, quite frankly, January is the one month you need a bit of comfort and pleasure. After the come-down of Christmas and the always-slightly-anti-climactic New Year celebrations, it’s very comforting and somehow indulgent without being excessive to treat yourself to the odd sybaritic pleasure. It’s the old saw, I’m afraid, of everything in moderation.

So, having denounced he very thought of resolution, I have got a few thoughts on how to make life a bit better and more bearable with still months to go till Spring, when – with the burst of new life – it seems more appropriate to make plans.

1. In Victoria Moore’s excellent How to Drink, she recommends Spanish Albarino and steely, flinty whites to get us through to the warmer times. So I resolve to buy some decent white wine and treasure every sip rather than glugging back rivers of Sauvignon blanc and Pinot grigio in the mixed cases I so lazily order.

2. We always eat loads of vegetables, but Christmas lends itself rather more to fat-inducing carbohydrates (all those potatoes, parsnips and the bread for fabulous layered sandwiches) than most festive occasions, so I shall resolve to use my ingenuity and India Knight’s inspiring Idiot-Proof Diet Cook Book to spread the load a little more. Feeling sluggish and toxic this month is completely normal, and I don’t intend to go cold turkey either, but more pulses, more celeriac (heavenly in dauphinoise or in a version of patatas bravas), more greens.

3. To be nicer. I make this non-resolution every year: not to lose my temper so often; not to get so easily frustrated with the trials of every day life and the exasperating slowness of other people; and I fail every time. It lasts maybe three days and then I come across someone maddeningly not doing something as I want it done – impatience is my huge character flaw – or too slowly and I’m a goner. So this year – again – I shall try my best to curb my misanthropic tendencies and view humanity with vaguely pink tinted lenses. But please, can you all not walk just a bit quicker?

4. To really get the vegetable plot going all year. Last year we got it going like gangbusters for the summer but then lack of proper planning meant we had no greens or potatoes for winter, so I am going to make like Nigel Slater and get a notebook and draw the goddamn plants in. From there it is the merest of efforts to digging in the manure and getting the seeds in.

5. To nail down where we want to live in Dorset during one of our recce missions and then work towards it with the fury of two possessed. And obviously to have lots of fun with MCD Jr by the sea.

6. To blog more frequently – to get the recipes I love cooking up and out there and to push myself with the whole concept. Oh – and to conquer LinkedIn.

I’m reluctant to put down any more: I may have to hold myself to them and I don’t want to exhaust myself before March. Tally-ho!

Keeping it simple… Part III

2010-12-30T10:05:00.001-08:00

Ideas for leftovers are everywhere – how best to resurrect the beast (Our beast was half a crown cooked with goose fat – counter-intuitive I know, but utterly delicious) whilst making it seem joyously fresh and exciting and tempting to everyone’s somewhat jaded palates. I rather take the line with Jay Rayner and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that there is very little unimproved by frying in hot butter and I would apply it to turkey too. I’m really not that keen on cold meat, apart from rare beef, so it’s a practice I’ve taken to with enthusiasm.

Frankly, the best bit – of course – is the turkey sandwiches afterwards. There must absolutely be stuffing: even Paxo’s rather bullying sage & onion has its place here and I reheat my turkey (look away now if this makes the more salmonella-paranoid of you squirm) either in a good knob of butter in the frying pan or cut into thin slices and covered with a little chicken stock/leftover gravy and some knobs of butter in a dish in the oven. Make sure it’s piping hot, though. I also used to adore – God, it sounds revolting, but I truly loved it and so pass it on now – sandwiches made with hot turkey and stuffing and a good squirt of salad cream. Makes a change from mayo which is really only useful to lubricate the bread rather than add much in the way of flavour.

Boxing Day isn’t Boxing Day proper without bubble & squeak with Worcestershire sauce and however many types of chutneys and pickles you can fit on the plate. However, this year, having gorged on my mother’s B & S on Boxing Day, we still had our leftover veg waiting for us, as well as quarter of a can of chestnut puree from the stuffing. Reader, I made a Bubble & squeak soup, nicked from a recipe I saw from dear old Nigel Slater and adapted and it was luscious.Use whatever veg you have to hand.

Chop an onion and some celery and sweat in butter, then add a sliced leek. Toss in your leftover cooked veg and add stock to cover, then stir in the chestnut puree. Simmer until it tastes mingled – maybe 20 minutes – and throw in a handful of greens, leftover or fresh – for the sprouty taste – and cook for a further 5 minutes or so. Blend until smooth – or at least not lumpy and ladle into deep bowls. I had some stuffing and did as he suggests, cubed it and added to the soup before serving.

You might also consider making a Keema – a curry made with a base of sliced onion and garlic, garam masala, ginger and cumin with the chopped meat, peas, spinach, a can of tomatoes and a little water and left to simmer until thickened and shiny.

And don’t forget the pasta sauces made with the leftover cream (why do we insist on buying those mountainous pots of cream – what do we use it for?), turkey, bacon and mushrooms – ridiculously rich but comforting if the weather’s a bit dreich and drear.

Technorati Tags: leftovers,turkey,soup,bubble and squeak,curry,christmas,boxing day,recipes

Keeping it simple… Part II

2010-12-22T06:44:00.001-08:00

Last night was wild mushroom risotto. Now, I have to admit to a certain amount of seasonal wanton profligacy with this, due to a timely visit to Costco and the bulk buying of 500g wild mushrooms for less than a tenner, which has led to me throwing them with gay abandon into everything. And I also have to acknowledge that not everyone will find a half-eaten jar of Sacla anchovies with white truffles in the cupboard to also throw in with wilful wantonness, so feel free to edit these elements somewhat… If you wanted that savoury richness and had only ordinary anchovies, add them in with the onion at the beginning so they melt and form a backbone of flavour.

So: I soaked a good handful of mushrooms in some chicken stock while I sweated a chopped onion and 2 cloves garlic in some butter. I scooped out the mushrooms and added them to the pan, then added in around 160g arborio rice (carnaroli is my preferred choice, but we’re talking cupboard love here). Add a good slug of vermouth (or white wine) and allow the rice to soak it up, then proceed as normal, adding in the stock a little at a time, allowing the rice to absorb the liquid and stir, stir, stir. About halfway through, I added the anchovies which melted into the risotto as it cooked. You’ll notice the risotto is taking on a rather brown hue, due to the mushroom liquid, but think of it as autumnal woods and move on… When the rice is cooked,season and leave to stand for a couple of minutes while you add the incredibly important knob of butter and – for even more richness – a big handful of grated gruyere cheese. Warm your plates, then spoon the risotto onto them, adding a grating of Parmesan and a sprinkling of parsley. Heaven in a bowl.

Technorati Tags: mushroom risotto,dinner,recipes

Keeping it simple… Part I

2010-12-21T07:06:00.001-08:00

Pre-Christmas I find I crave meat less and less as the Big Day approaches: something I suspect to do with the surfeit looming. Particularly in this weather – and with MCD Jr having had his very first cold and cough – I’m paranoid about keeping up our vegetable intake and a lot of the meals tend towards the vegetarian, in a strange simulacrum of Puritan-like fasting before the main event.

Monday’s soup was the usual throw-unfeasibly-large-amounts-of-vegetables-in-a-pot-and-cook-with-stock-and-blend variety but the combination this time was particularly worthy of note. Half a pumpkin, laboriously peeled and cubed, a handful of Jerusalem artichokes simply scrubbed, a lone peeled potato found floating in the drawer and an apple for sweetness – all softened with a base of sweated onion and garlic. Simmer with enough vegetable stock to cover until thoroughly soft and then blend. The genius is in the velvety texture from the artichokes and the sweet combo of pumpkin and apple. Last night I just topped with a handful of toasted croutons (always mindful of Simon Hopkinson’s note that they ‘do something nice to the inside of your mouth’). This lunchtime I had the leftovers alongside a roll stuffed with grilled chorizo sausage in a riff on the old pea and ham soup-and-sandwich combo.

Edouard Pomiane, a warm and lovely presence in the food writing world, had a lovely way with cooked tomatoes, luxurious and warming without being cloyingly rich. Cut tomatoes in half and prick the skin side a few times with the point of a knife. Place cut-side down in a frying pan with a knob of butter and fry until coloured. Turn oven and cook – and this is his crucial injunction – until the juices run out. Pour in a dollop of cream, season well and scoop over hot toast. It’ll do for breakfast with a pot of hot coffee.

Technorati Tags: vegetarian suppers,meals,soup,tomatoes,pumpkin,Jerusalem artichokes,Edouard Pomiane

Haggis - it's never too early...

2010-12-10T02:27:00.000-08:00

The freezer needs some serious consideration if I am to fit all the Christmas goodies in that I intend to for the two of us (And I know there's now three, but if you're not on solids, you don't count on this particular occasion). I found - stashed in the back from last January when I optimistically bought it for Burns Night - a haggis. Being pregnant at the time, it was the first Burns Night in a few years I had gone without my customary haggis fill, but I need the space in the freezer now and it seemed the perfect solution for a warming supper toute seule.

Wrapped in foil and bunged in the oven for 90 minutes, half of it was comfortingly savoury with chips (of course...) and some - oh the shame - Bisto roast onion gravy which I almost never use but can get you out of a culinary hole when time is tight and only thick gravy will do. The other half - well, all I can say is if you haven't tried a haggis sandwich, you haven't eaten the best this can offer. I fried some mushrooms in a pan with some butter, added the remaining haggis and cooked through until completely hot. I spread a little redcurrant jelly (I know but work with me) on a slice of white (home-made!) bread, then tipped the contents of the pan over said slice, topped with another and applied to face. It strikes me now it would have been less messy to eat in a bun of some kind, but it was a very Scottish take on a Sloppy Joe, a deconstructed burger dish of which I am inordinately fond.

Naturally, come January I shall be going down the traditional route once more, but as MCD isn't that keen, I might have half on Burns Night and save the other half for sandwiches again. Who knew...?

Two quick suppers and a lazy one…

2010-11-18T02:06:00.001-08:00

The soup:

Sweat one sliced onion in some olive oil, then add a clove or two of chopped garlic and half a pumpkin (depending on quantity desired), deseeded, but not necessarily peeled. I should add that if you use a butternut squash you might want to peel that because the skin can be a bit tougher. Cook the vegetables for 10 minutes or so, allowing the pumpkin to soften a bit, then tip in a can of tomatoes and around 400-500ml vegetable or chicken stock. Season with some salt, pepper and chilli flakes until the pumpkin is completely tender. Whizz with a hand-held blender or similar until smooth. At this point you may want to let it down a bit with some more stock as it can thicken up withe pumpkin. Tip in a can of cannellini beans and reheat, then serve in deep bowls, marvelling at the bonfire glow of your supper.

The pasta:

Sweat one onion in a pan with some chopped garlic. (All winter recipes seem to start like this, I find). Add a chopped aubergine and a tsp of dried oregano, put on a lid and allow to sweat/fry until the aubergine is tender. Stir in around 400g pork mince and stir until cooked through then add a can of tomatoes, some chilli flakes and seasoning and a tbsp of tomato puree and simmer until the sauce is thickened to your liking. Add more oregano if you want then tip over penne pasta or even spaghetti and sprinkle with Parmesan.

The Sunday supper:

Disclaimer: This one does not involve a can of tomatoes.

Finely chop some rosemary leaves with salt and press into the skin of two duck legs. In a large casserole, brown the duck legs, allowing the fat to render out, until crisp and bronze of skin rather like some 70’s ST Tropez goddess. Add a chopped leek and soften in the duck fat, then some chopped pumpkin and some halved waxy potatoes. Throw in a glass of red wine, put the lid on and simmer very gently for around 45 minutes, but keep checking it. The pumpkin should soften into the sauce and the potatoes should be completely tender. Check the seasoning and serve with some sautéed greens, cavolo nero for preference.

Technorati Tags: recipes,pasta,soup,tomatoes,pumpkin,squash,duck legs,quick supper

Westow House, Crystal Palace–The return…

2010-11-15T02:53:00.001-08:00

It’s not traditionally somewhere you might take your 6 week-old son. Westow House at the junction of Anerley Hill and Westow Hill is locally known as The Meat Market: weekend nights are out of bounds unless you’re under 25 and of a certain persuasion and so far I’ve only been there twice, both times after about three vodka, soda and limes too many… and that was enough. It’s a shame because the interior was built for lingering weekend afternoons on the sofas, perhaps someone daringly tickling the ivories in the corner (as opposed to something more animate…)

But… but… Westow House has now been taken over by Antic Pubs, who also run Jam Circus in Brockley amongst others, and d’you know, it’s quite a change of pace. There’s now a menu of classic British pub grub-ness – think burgers, fish & chips, Ploughman’s and so on – and the vibe, particularly during the day, is one of calm and cosiness. Weird.

We’ve now been en famille twice in a week. Yes, twice. It was that good. Given that men have gone to the moon in spaceships with less technology than the pram we are toting, we’re always on the lookout for somewhere a little more spacious and you cannot get into Domali for love nor money on a weekday lunch for other buggy-toting mothers. We’d heard rumours of a sea-change at The Westow and ambled over for a gander.

Of course, being a Tuesday lunch, it was deserted apart from a man in the corner reading a paper, but he didn’t look as if he was going to start a riot so we settled ourselves in with a pint of rather good cider and perused the menu.

At £10 for a choice of four dishes from what they’re ludicrously calling the Tapas Menu, it was a bargain. NB: if they’re not Spanish dishes, let’s call them something else. Starters, maybe, or Small Plates, or Grazing or Snacking something-or-other but for the love of all that’s holy let’s leave the tapas nomenclature where it belongs. Anyway. Breathe… So we shared a wedge of a good meaty pork pie with personality-full piccalilli; a dish of tiny little sausages with a grape mustard and apple sauce combo; a bowl of hand-cut skin-on chips; and a thick slice of properly-made Welsh Rarebit that was so delicious I claimed a good three-quarters of it and let MCD have my chips. It was perfect – filling, good value and most importantly, it all tasted great.

So on Friday, we actually eschewed a pizza at Mediterranea (and that took some effort) and went again, this time going the main course route. MCD’s pollock and chips were bigger and better than the comparable dish at The Mansion in Gipsy Hill and I would say the same about my burger with Stilton, the only downside being they didn’t ask how I wanted it cooked. And just while I think about it, why fashion burgers so thick you can’t fit them in your mouth? Why not use the same weight of meat for a thinner patty that you don’t have to cut with a knife and fork, feeling like a poncy lemon as you do so? Just a thought…

We even had puddings. MCD’s choice of treacle tart with creme fraiche and blackberries was good, if not quite solid enough for my taste. The Green & Black’s chocolate fondant was perfectly cooked and would have been even better had it come with the advertised rum & raisin ice cream rather than vanilla. But again, we finished them both, rather at a trot as MCD Junior was showing signs of waking.

It’s a true revelation. Something approaching a gastropub in Crystal Palace and I can honestly say it’s all the better for it. Now all we need is to find out what’s going up instead of the Talon Salon…

Technorati Tags: westow house,crystal palace,pub,gastropub,antic pubs

Green tomato ketchup–a reprise, and other stories

2010-11-03T04:21:00.001-07:00

Ok, I’m back. A slightly longer absence than planned and much to write about. In fact, I’ve been putting off posting for a couple of weeks, having come over all shy. And then I thought ‘Bugger it’ and so here it is – a random post to get things moving and then normal service will be resumed…

So: green tomato ketchup. I did indeed get it made and I did forego the 350ml water and added the vinegar/sugar mixture straight in with the tomatoes. It made sod all difference to the end product as I simply reduced it down (within a magical 40 mins if I remember rightly) and whizzed it up. So clearly Jamie’s editors have made a slight recipe typo with that one. More importantly it need not take you 4 hours to make a jar of condiment.

Pumpkin cannelloni: I had a craving on Halloween for something using of the rubescent squash sitting on my work surface. Now that I can face pumpkin, squash, sweet potato and chorizo again (pregnancy hormones are strange bedfellows), I’ve gone a little squash crazy and the occasion seemed appropriate.

I roasted the wedges of squash with garlic and rosemary and a chopped up sweet potato for about 40 mins until caramelized and sticky. NB DO NOT add your garlic in at the beginning; it will just burn, so stick it in 20 mins before the end. Allow to cool then scrape the flesh from the skins into a food processor and whizz up with the roasted garlic, a good tbsp of ricotta, a handful of whatever herb takes your fancy (I used rosemary) and some lemon zest. Filling done.

I then pre-soaked some fresh lasagne sheets for a couple of minutes in boiling water to make them pliable. Remove from the water and brush with a little oil to stop them sticking. (Can I add at this point I was going to make the pasta sheets myself – got the machine out and everything – only to discover my pasta flour had weevils in it. Oh. My. God. And it went out of date 18 months ago, so I had to give that up. But I was going to.) Spoon balls of the pumpkin mixture along one edge of the sheet and roll up into tubes and place in a baking dish. I then spooned over a roasted tomato and chilli sauce before baking for 25-30 minutes and topping with Parmesan. I think a creamy sauce would be too rich, but conversely some ripped-up mozzarella or even Taleggio would be divine.

I’ve also dabbled with beef en croute (Note to self – cook AFTER feeding the baby, as if they hang around too long the beef will completely over-cook. A simply mistake, one I’m normally careful to avoid, but I’m still on a learning curve with the baby/cooking/timing issues…) which I served with a fabulous Madeira sauce. I added depth by stirring in the remaining tbsp of mushroom duxelles – the rest of which was lining the inside of the pastry – and the resting juices from the beef after it had been seared before wrapping in the pastry.

In surprise news, MCD has made a luscious chocolate mousse. There is a clear division in the kitchen: I’m not a pudding cook, although I will if pushed, but something about the precise mathematical nature appeals to MCD and his mousse was extraordinary. He substituted the suggested flavouring of Earl Grey tea with peppermint (given I can’t stand tea) and it was just a subtle wash rather than in-your-face After Eight madness. There may be more to come – we’ll see.

Excuse this short intermission while I go and have a baby...

2010-09-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

... although I am right at this very moment (while quietly and stoically contracting) making a green tomato ketchup as promised for comparison with the one I made the other week; I'll be back with notes on how it goes. The ketchup, not the birth. It's not that kind of blog.

Plum sauce

2010-09-23T01:34:00.001-07:00

There’s a Nigel Slater recipe from Kitchen Diaries that I’ve tried three or four times now and never quite managed to crack. The one where he roasts Fragola grapes around the pork for the entire roasting time and somehow ends up with sweet grape-scented jus instead of shrivelled black raisins. I’ve tried a number of different methods, including cooking on a lower temperature and covering the tin with foil, chucking the grapes in later in the process, hiding them under the meat and so on, but have always ended up simply chucking out the burnt debris, carefully deglazing the pan and throwing in more fresh grapes as I do so and squishing them down. It always ends up delicious, but I’m damned if I can see how he does it his way.

I bought a piece of bone-in pork shoulder from the butcher at the weekend and had in mind the same kind of fruity accompaniment, although, instead of grapes, I had some under-ripe plums which needed encouragement of some kind. I also enjoyed the grape-based sauce from the other week, but wanted something with a more Chinese-y aspect. It was a bit of experimentation, but here you go.

Sweat a chopped onion and carrot in a pan in some butter until translucent and soft. Stir in 1-2 tsp flour and let it cook out. Add a good wine glass of red wine, stir in and allow to thicken then add around 300ml chicken stock. I then added a couple of star anise, a merest hint of cinnamon and reduced it by half. I stoned a good handful of plums, halved them and added them to the sauce with a little fresh ginger. Simmer the sauce until the plums collapse, then press through a sieve, scraping the underside with a wooden spoon to collect all the plum flesh. Pour back into the pan and adjust the seasoning – you may even need to add a little sugar, depending on the ripeness (or not) of the plums. You’re aiming for a rich deep flavour with a subtle spice in the background from the star anise.

We had some of the sauce with the roast pork and roast potatoes and some sauteed kale, but it was even better the next day reheated and poured over diced leftover pork stir-fried with green beans and aubergine and tossed with noodles. When you reheat the sauce for this, you might want to increase the Chinese spices and add a little chilli.

Technorati Tags: plums,pork,recipes,Chinese

Oh Delia…

2010-09-15T07:45:00.001-07:00

Have you seen the new Waitrose/Delia advert? The one for Braised meatballs in goulasch sauce? We-ell, I don’t mean to be picky and I do try to avoid a bandwagon when I see one rumbling along, but – I have some issues… Because I am by nature a thorough and inquisitive being on your behalf, I made this recipe the other night – just from watching the ad on the TV (and, I have to admit, using a smattering of common sense), then I compared it to the written recipe online.

The balance between television and reality is a tricky one. You have to make the recipe sound and look easy, accessible, quick, yet still shove in all the salient factors such as prime ingredients, cooking time and so on. Obviously in the written recipe – available of course online – you can go into much more detail – y’know, those tricky details that enable you to get the dish right. It’s the disparity between the two that does my head in.

Point number 1: Delia rolls the ready-made meatballs in a tbsp seasoned flour, partly, I would suggest for a good crust on them during the browning process and partly because the flour stuck to the meatballs will also help thicken the sauce later on. All sound kitchen science so far. So why, then, does the advert and recipe then have her brushing in (what looks like considerably more than) the remaining tbsp seasoned flour into the pot for the sauce? The end result would be actual glue – particularly as the only other liquid added is from the 400g can of tomatoes. Which brings me to Point number 2:

Point number 2: (You see – consistency and logic right there – why am I not on Waitrose ads? I do exactly what I say…) No stock, no water – that’s it. Just a can of chopped tomatoes fighting for its liquid life against a tbsp (or more) of flour and an hour and a half’s cooking time…

When I made this, I chucked in my tomatoes after browning the meatballs and it isn’t very much liquid at all, particularly after you’ve braised the meatballs until completely cooked through. You would end up, not forgetting the thickening effects of the flour, with a very dry dish. Like meatballs with some tomato paste smeared around them. Because smeary tomato paste isn’t my thing, I added 250ml or so beef stock and then simmered the lot on the hob with a lid semi-covering the pan for around 35 mins.

Let’s think about this: the meatballs, whether you cook them very slowly on the hob with a lid semi-covering the pot like I did, or in a 140C oven like Delia, are going to cook very slowly and the sauce will reduce and thicken, such is the magical alchemy of cookery. That’s what you’re trying to achieve through the low temperature – so what’s the bloody flour doing in there as a thickener?? And how can there be enough liquid for 3-4 people from one 400g can? I used one can and the stock for just two of us and after a shorter simmering time I had a perfectly reduced but only just adequate amount of sauce to coat the meatballs and the pasta to accompany. Whatever way I look at this, the combination of unnecessary flour and not enough liquid is making my head hurt, so let’s move on.

Point number 3: The peppers. Again, I suspect this is more to do with the televisual aspect of it all, but if I’m watching the recipe on the TV and it shows Delia chucking in sodding great quartered lumps of green peppers, I’m going to be inclined to think that’s what’s got to be done. Never mind that there isn’t enough liquid (I know, I know – I can’t leave it alone) to cook such enormous pieces to succulent tenderness properly, why – aesthetically speaking – would you want them so large and not, say, chopped much smaller? Check the online recipe and they’re to be cut into 2.5cm dice: not quite the same, I think you’ll agree. Um – and I’d be surprised if they’d cook to tenderness in just half an hour in a 140C oven, but I’m prepared to be proved wrong.

Just for the record, I actually threw in some chopped field mushrooms in with the onions at the beginning of the recipe for depth of flavour. Really good addition. And I also didn’t have any green peppers to hand, but you’ll have to trust me on this one.

Point number 4: The half-fat crème fraiche addition at the end really annoys me. First, if it’s a goulasch sauce why wouldn’t you just advocate sour cream which is more traditional? Second, why the half-fat? It’s a healthy recipe – why the fuss over the calories in a mere swirl of dairy at the end? All that implies is that the main body of the recipe is unhealthily full of fat and there needs to be calorie-cutting to counteract it? It doesn’t make sense.

Point number 5: This is an eternal bugbear of mine, this anointing the cooked pasta with olive oil after it’s cooked. Please please don’t do this unless you have to hold the pasta for more than a minute before serving. All the addition of oil achieves is separating the pasta ribbons and prevents them sticking to each other, which is absolutely desirable if you’ve got to keep them hanging around. But if you’re saucing straight onto the pasta because – let’s face it - you’re reasonably intelligent and the meatballs are done and just begging to be spooned over the pasta, oiling them beforehand just means the sauce slides off the pasta instead of coating it. So the end result is oily Teflon pasta and a sauce that will have nothing to do with it, no matter how hard you twirl your fork of pasta in the bottom of the bowl. You may argue it’s to stick the poppy seeds to the pasta, but then I would argue back that you could just as easily sprinkle the poppy seeds over the top of the dish and avoid unpleasantly gritty pasta. Your call.

I notice that the online recipe is ‘adapted’ from Delia’s Winter Collection. I know Delia claims every single one of her recipes is tested by single-cell amoeba to ensure that even the dullest amongst us could not get it wrong but, personally speaking as someone who worked for a long time on professional recipe writing, I think this is lazy recipe writing of the worst kind: no logic, no common sense and no examination of the whys and wherefores. Just an assumption that, because it’s Delia, it has to be right. And just sometimes, it’s not.

PS: Just while we're on the topic of lazy, rubbish recipe writing on t'telly I managed to catch the edition of Jamie's Kitchen where he makes the ketchup. Well - there's no mention of 350ml water and he just chucks everything in at the beginning and then reduces like buggery until the consistency is right. My question is: what do you do? Do you faithfully follow the book or do you go with the flow off the TV programme. Readers, in the spirit of self-sacrifice I shall cook a green tomato ketchup with the latter instructions and let you know. It's enough to try the patience, etc etc...

Technorati Tags: waitrose,delia smith,recipe,meatballs,goulash sauce

Cooked out

2010-09-09T02:23:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was one of those days of almost surreal completion.

9am: Breakfast was a sausage sandwich and a near-perfect cafetière of freshly-ground coffee. This may not sound exceptional, but the bread was home-made, the sausages were pretty good and I savour my coffee when I actually have it these days. It’s my favourite breakfast and one I find actually very difficult to beat. So a gustatorily (?) perfect start.

11.15am I went on to BBC iPlayer to find the BBC4 documentary In Other Words that I missed last month, only to find it’s no longer available (why – why – do they do this? Why can’t they just bloody archive everything?) Instead I found a really rather fascinating documentary narrated by Dr Andrew Hussey on the culinary history of France, from Louis IV right up to present day. I was hooked throughout.

12.30pm I made ketchup from the pounds of tomatoes now decorating my kitchen windowsill in a spectrum of colour. I did this last year, following the recipe in Jamie’s Kitchen as the combination of herbs, spices and vegetables works really well. What I had utterly and completely forgotten was that a) last year I doubled the recipe to two kg of tomatoes, which made at least 3-4 jars of ketchup – this year I made it with just 1kg and it boiled down to just the one jar and b) it takes all bloody afternoon to reduce so 5 hours of kitchen time were diligently spent on the one sodding jar of admittedly delicious sauce. A somewhat disproportionate result but one we shall treasure, I’m sure.

NB: I really do recommend the recipe, but he does make the classic mistake of not mentioning how very long both reductions take - I suspect in the interests of not putting your average servantless domestic cook off making it. So you might as well factor it in for a rainy afternoon and be patient with it: the first reduction can take 2 hours, the second at least an hour.

1.30pm It’s not really a lunch worth writing home about but I enjoyed it: Take one slice of bread and toast. Sauté/steam some purple sprouting broccoli and when nearly done, chuck in some olives and halved cherry tomatoes. Pile onto the bread, tear up some mozzarella and melt in the oven. Drizzle over some extra virgin and some chilli flakes if you like. Lovely.

3.30pm Watched Julie & Julia on DVD and found myself wishing fervently they could have just made the whole film about Julia Child with Meryl Streep and forgotten the vapid, whinging Julie Powell story which added nothing and detracted much. She’s not a human being that comes across as worth knowing (and you might note I made mention of the same after reading the follow-up Cleaving). But it did make me long to go back to Paris and to cook. Luckily the latter scenario was still in hand by the time the film finished.

7.30pm A Goan chicken curry, rich with coconut and tamarind. I threw in some pineapple in a rebellious pro-Empire gesture and didn’t regret it. But I would draw the line at sultanas.

9pm: Another food doc on BBC4 with Andrew Hussey, this time on the food of the North West. As in lobscouse, chips, pies, tripe and so on. Striding around Blackpool like some Scouse Charles Campion, he’s a good presenter, but his background as a cultural historian could have given more insights into the consequences of the Industrial Revolution on our culinary heritage. The highlight was the World Pie Eating Champion – an old guy probably called Stan who dutifully followed Hussey round Wigan, clearly having been promised more pies. He got them in the end – he seemed to have a lower jaw that just unhinged to swallow said pie. Extraordinary.

Today I’m going to actually get out of the house. Out and about in society, nice and easy, that’s the way.

You mean you have to watch and read at the same time…

2010-09-08T02:31:00.001-07:00

Took myself off to Brixton’s Ritzy cinema yesterday for the second instalment of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy. As per last time, right up until the opening sequence rolled, it was just me and my choice of Swedish-themed snack alone in the room (last time it was smoked mackerel and cucumber pickle on rye bread; this time chilled cucumber and yoghurt soup – I must post the recipe). However, the discerning South London public trickled in – a father and son, a mother and perhaps her son (I hadn’t had it down as a family movie but perhaps they’d already seen Scott Pilgrim vs The World) and two teenage girls, whose presence both a tad surprised but also somewhat reassured me that the youth of today would choose the Swedish version over the soon-to-be-rubbish American version.

Hey-ho: the film started rolling and it was only when it was perhaps a good five minutes in that it dawned on any of us that we hadn’t magically been converted to fluent Swedish speakers by a secret mind-boring laser projected from the screen, but in fact they had inserted the Swedish-only version of the film without the subtitles. I have to say at this point, I was quite happy trying to deduce what was going on using body language cues, the odd glimmer of recognition when the Swedish was similar to German and leaving the rest to a mixture of memory and imagination. I’m not sure it wouldn’t have gotten a little wearing after a while but as a cerebral experiment I was prepared to give it a go.

Anyway, up gets the older man and turns to the back of the room and yells up ‘This is what they did last time – used the wrong film without the subtitles. Oy – change the film.’ (Just take a moment to ponder the size of the Swedish-speaking demographic in Brixton that would result in the cinema managers actually deciding it would be good to hold a copy of an unsubtitled version. Just in case…)

There’s much British murmuring at this – agreement combined with a certain wariness at his forthrightness at demanding what may be a more satisfactory outcome for the paying customer – and then one of the teenage girls had a lightbulb moment: ‘Hang on’, she said ‘Do you mean there’s meant to be, like, language, up on screen and stuff?’

The guy looks at her (in my head it’s a gimlet stare) and replies ‘Unless you speak Swedish.’ I chimed in (because I do like to contribute) ‘Because we’re all fluent…’ She looks unsure. You can sense she’s struggling with some fundamental flaw in our argument. ‘But, like, d’you mean you have to, like, watch and read at the same time?’ Again with the gimlet stare. ‘Yes that’s the general idea of subtitles.’ Huge sigh. ‘But I might as well just read the books.’

At this point I realise that all of us are struggling with the desire to turn around and goggle at them for one or all of the following reasons: there are actually two people in the world who have not read the books (myself speaking as a former bookseller); who don’t have a clue what the films are about; or that they are not yet released in English. (And at this point I’d like to give you another point to ponder – these two girls have wandered into a Swedish language film, the second of a trilogy, of their own volition and pocket but clearly without any idea of what they were seeing, despite the publicity surrounding both the books and the films.)

There’s much whispered discussion amongst them both. Clearly to ‘watch and read’ might be a multi-task too far. I silently gave them five minutes of re-booted film before they walked, blighting my initial favourable impression. They lasted three. But the film was jolly good.

Technorati Tags: millenium trilogy,stieg larsson,girl who played with fire

The language of Guugu Yimithirr

2010-09-03T03:44:00.001-07:00

Never say you don’t learn anything on this blog. Read and marvel at the language of Guugu Yimithirr from North Queensland

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?pagewanted=all

Technorati Tags: language,guugu yimithirr,australia,aborigines

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Café

2010-08-24T01:52:00.000-07:00

Recipe for Happiness in Karbaraovsk or anyplace

One good boulevard with trees
with one grand café in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you

One fine day
- 1972

PS: The tomates are ripening like gangbusters at last - all is right with the world

A curious but seriously brilliant sauce for pork

2010-08-18T02:25:00.001-07:00

I have brought home seemingly half a hog from The Sister’s engagement party and we have now – nearly – had our fill of hot pork and apple sauce sandwiches (with mayo of course). So what to do with the rest of it? I mentally flicked between a Thai-inspired curry with some not-very-tasty melon I found in the fridge and a ragu-style sauce for pasta but found neither particularly epicurean-ly satisfying. Then I hit upon the idea of something quite salty-savoury (oven-roasted cubes of potatoes with plenty of seasoning) against a backdrop of fruity-sweet. This is what I came up with.

Fry a chopped onion in a little butter and oil until golden and caramelised and deeply sweet. Stir in a mere tsp of flour as a thickener, cook out for a couple of minutes then pour in about 250ml red wine. (I’m trying to give precise amounts but mostly I just do this by eye). Add in a sprig or two of rosemary and reduce the wine to almost a syrupy consistency. Then pour in around 250-300ml chicken stock and reduce again until the sauce is the consistency and flavour you like. At this point I then threw in a good handful of halved seedless black grapes and – and I realise this is a curio but it was a blinding move – a tbsp of mulberry vinegar. Lacking that particular vinegar, I’d experiment with a fruity balsamic perhaps – anything with a sweet-sharp edge. Let the grapes soften and then season the sauce. Lay your slices of hog in to re-heat.

I served with those salty little potatoes and the first cavalo nero of the season (gulp) sweated in a little butter and garlic.

Technorati Tags: pork,hog roast,sauce,grapes,red wine,recipes

Um… I don’t think so…

2010-08-04T00:44:00.001-07:00

Taken from Dr Miriam Stoppard’s Conception, Pregnancy and Birth (1993)

Childbirth Classes: Techniques to get you through labour

‘Systematic desensitization: You gradually become more tolerant of pain. (Oh, what miracle drug/pain relief system is this, I hear you cry). An example used in many classes is your coach pinching your leg very hard (eh?) to illustrate how painful a contraction will be. (Really? You’re equating childbirth with leg-pinching? This should be a blast. Oh wait, we’re not done). This pinching is repeated every time you attend an ante-natal class (riiight…), and by the end of the course you will be able to tolerate harder squeezing for longer periods.’

I long to find out how many classes you were supposed to attend and how long were you pinched for?; didn’t this take up valuable time on other factors of childbirth or was there a special ‘pincher’ midwife?; were you supposed to form an orderly queue to be pinched or did she just get you at random to demonstrate the random nature of contractions?; how many people simply – in a Pavlovian fashion – elected not to attend an ante-natal class where pinching was de rigeur and opted for drugs instead?

So systematic assault from your potential midwife should generate a greater pain threshold than say, having an epidural. But it all saves money, right? Has anyone got Andrew Lansley’s email?

The flora and the vegetables…

2010-08-03T02:47:00.001-07:00

Things we have grown successfully in the garden include:

This stunning velvety chocolate cosmos

A dwarf sunflower at the very peak of perfection

A startlingly pink zinnia

Things that are not looking so hot right now:

An entire wall of non-ripening tomatoes. My only question is Why?

Technorati Tags: tomatoes,gardening,chocolate cosmos,zinnia,sunflower

A roast chicken dinner to die for

2010-07-26T06:00:00.001-07:00

So one must face the sad truth: I have killed the cucumber. I don’t think it will survive such severe mutilation and to cap it all, the few bottom leaves left now show distinct signs of powdery mildew. God, the frustration, especially as Pa informs me he could go out and pick oooh about 50 or so right now if he wanted. Once more I am reliant on Ma for her cucumber pickle.

Anyway in other garden news things are much more fruitful. French beans, broad beans, potatoes, salads, chard are all ripe for the picking – and freezing if this bounty continues – and even the surprisingly recalcitrant tomatoes are beginning to redden. So to celebrate – and to buffer against the sudden leaden dullness of the weather – I threw together the simplest, most fabulous roast chicken supper.

First, as the legend has it, unwrap your chicken. I then smeared it thickly in goose fat and added an extra tbsp to the bottom of the tin. Season generously and roast according to your own rules.

Cut floury or waxy potatoes into chip-like shapes and par-boil for 5 minutes then drain and steam for a couple of minutes to help them dry out. Then tip them around the roasting chicken and roast for a good 30 minutes before turning. Because the potatoes will need an extra bit of time to crisp while the chicken rests, I tend to give the chicken 20 mins at 210C, then turn the oven down to 190C and chuck in the potatoes. As it was a small chicken, I gave that 40 mins or so before lifting it out of the tin and leaving it on one side to rest. Then spread the potatoes evenly over the bottom of the tin, whack the oven temp up to 210C again and give the chips another 15 mins or so to really crisp up.

Meanwhile, I quickly boiled a mixture of runner and French beans for 4 mins or so in salted water, drained then added a couple of tbsp double cream, a handful of parsley, a squeeze of lemon and some seasoning. I also tossed together a mixture of lettuce leaves and sorrel in a light dressing of olive oil and white wine vinegar.

Plate up: the trick is to put the salad underneath the creamy beans and/or the chicken so that it slightly wilts in the heat and gets coated in creamy, chicken-y juices. Don’t forget to really season the chips. It did much to salve a soul’s guilt.

PS: Any broad beans you have that are getting a bit too large, simply boil them quickly for 5 mins or so then whiz them – grey pods and all – in a blender with olive oil, lemon juice and mint for an instant green hummus. Play around with garlic and parsley too.

Technorati Tags: roast chicken,sunday dinner,recipe,recipes,broad beans,hummus

Gazpacho for lunch – and a sad tale of thwarted cucumbers

2010-07-20T02:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday being another glorious sunny one, it was time for a little light gardening. I planted a particularly pink zinnia, phlox and finally got my hands on some chocolate cosmos, which I shall duly photograph and blog as they promise to be stunning. Along with the aesthetics I carefully questioned Roger in The Secret Garden about the best thing for a cucumber’s powdery mildew. We agreed on a light fungicidal treatment to be applied once every two weeks – nothing too arduous and given the cucumber was, in all other respects, completely healthy and fruiting, I was hopeful it was just a minor blip. (We also discussed how to get your courgettes fruiting when there seems to be masses of flowers and no actual baby courgettes: cut off the male flower (make sure it has a stalk and not a small budding courgette attaching it to the plant) and thrust it gently but firmly, in a seductive manner, perhaps all the while humming a little Barry White, into the heart of a female flower. Yeah – good luck with that.)

Anyway back to the powdery mildew. The fungicide was apparently quite strong and you only need a tiny bit so I diluted it into a watering can and tipped it over the worst affected leaves. Then I remembered seeing somewhere you were supposed to cut off the worst of it, which made sense, so I applied the secateurs to a particularly thick stem attaching the most mildewed leaves. It took a bit of strength to cut through; that may have been because it was actually the main stem of the plant and within maybe 10 minutes – and despite some emergency first aid involving much swearing and some masking tape – the top 5 ft of the plant wilted and died. On the plus side though, I may have invented the first dwarf cucumber and there is no more powdery mildew.

Feeling much annoyed with myself I stomped back into the kitchen for lunch. Given the heat I wanted something refreshing but more substantial than a salad – gazpacho seemed just the thing. Here’s my version – using the first and perhaps the last of our home-grown cucumbers. It was a sentimental affair.

This makes 2 portions.Whizz up in a blender the following: 4 large tomatoes, skinned and cored; 1/2 a cucumber, peeled; 1/2 an onion, chopped, 1 clove garlic, chopped; basil leaves – as many as you like; 1 slice of stale bread, crusts cut off; 1 tbsp really good red wine vinegar; a good slurp of extra virgin olive oil; up to 500ml water – but go easy with this, adding a little at a time otherwise you may just end up with a lot of water – I only used about 300ml in the end.Once smooth, check the seasoning and you may want to add more oil or basil or vinegar and then chill until needed.

You can of course add peppers – I just didn’t have any – and top with anything like croutons, hard-boiled egg, chopped ham, olives, more basil, whatever you like. Serve very cold in searing heat and really savour the cucumber taste because it may be the last one you get.

Technorati Tags: gazpacho,soup,lunch,recipes,gardening,cucumbers,powdery mildew,recipe

A Small Distinction

2010-07-16T05:06:00.001-07:00

I damn near fell off my chair on Tuesday morning when I was skipping my way through Tania Kindersley’s blog and found she’d nominated me for a Beautiful Blogger Award. I should say at this point – cue much weeping and Oscar-style histrionics - that I am an avid fan of Tania’s books and had been searching the web for news of anything she might have written in the last few years when I happened across her blog last spring. I immediately slid on a pair of virtual shades and trenchcoat and in the manner of a lunatic cyber-stalker, bombarded her with messages, including one on her old Facebook page which I’m pretty sure she hasn’t seen, given she’s not a Facebook fan (and I’m hoping that still holds true) and thankfully she hasn’t blocked me yet. Better still she reads this blog (oh shit) which gives me enormous and grateful pleasure. Anyway, it was T who introduced me to this whole blogging malarkey and you can blame her.

I am supremely touched and grateful and determined to do the right thing and pass this on to those whose blogs I treasure.

As Tania and LLG both pointed out the expected 10-15 blogs you’re supposed to pass it on to seems a little daunting, so I shall also stick with six. Also Tania has already awarded it to a couple of blogs I also adore – namely Mrs Trefusis Takes a Taxi for her elegant, concise, considered writing and Miss Whistle for her stunning pictures which never fail to make my morning – I’ve had to think quite carefully, so it’s actually eight in total.

Firstly A Life Reclaimed for her extraordinary bravery and stoicism about a nasty divorce and her absolute truthfulness without distortion. Up The Women, I say.

Life Happens Between Books by Lucy Fishwife whose blogs make me laugh and with whose sentiment I agree absolutely.

Jacob Wrestling – although infrequent – is always worth dipping into for the quirky random nature of her thoughts.

Hollow Legs – A food blog with good pictures and a wealth of information on just the sort of food I love.

Helena Halme – for her fascinating accounts of How I came to be in England and her takes on life in England and Finland.

Food Stories – Helen’s a well-known professional food blogger and with good reason – stonking recipes from a foodie about town.

And now – seven things you may not know. God, the trauma…

1. My life’s dream (hopefully to become reality in two years time in accordance with The Great Plan) is to move to Dorset. This people know. What they may not know (and T – feel free to call the anti-stalking cyber police now) is that the whole reason for this move to a part of the world I have never ever been to is because I read Tania’s Don’t Ask Me Why when I was 18 and was so entranced with her character Virge and her parent's’ house on The Isle of Purbeck that I immediately made the decision that was where I was going to spend my life. Luckily my husband agrees with me, although he too has never been.

2. My other life dream was to marry Gerald Durrell but unfortunately he died before I could fly to Jersey without parental supervision. I have managed to scratch the itch by accidentally contriving to live in Norwood where he lived both pre- and post- Corfu. Incidentally, it also gives me no end of pleasure that my favourite Dickens novel – David Copperfield – also features Norwood, albeit it’s where wet Dora lives.

3. This might actually be obvious but I have a great passion for anything from the glorious, roaring 1920s and actually the Mitford sisters. Nazi sympathies notwithstanding.

4. I spent many of the weekends of my formative years watching Tom Cruise films as Pa and I loved them. I can quote Top Gun verbatim. I’m not sure this isn’t a rather dubious life skill. And that goes for Pretty Woman too – in fact, every time Pa and I are out to dinner somewhere and I have to go to the loo, he says ‘Shall I order for you?’ and I reply ‘Um, yeah. Yes Please do so’. Again, not completely useful but entertaining even after 23 years.

5. I wooed MCD by playing to his Star Wars fixation with a plastic lightsaber from Hamleys. I bought it and left it outside the door of this flat in Elephant and Castle before going all the way back to my own flat in Finsbury Park. If it wasn’t for this, I’m not sure we would have ever got married. Although he claims this was his wooing technique – getting me to do the work…

6. If I can find an author that makes me heave with laughter, I’m a devotee forever. I just read Emma Kennedy’s The Tent, The Bucket and Me on Whitstable Beach and I had to get up and walk around to relieve my stomach muscles. That goes for people too.

7. I have synaesthesia. So for me time is a very visual concept (I can ‘see’ all the centuries laid out at once in a distinct pattern, as are days of the week and letters of the alphabet are in definite colours. And – call it 7a – I have no sense of smell, so Ma describes smells and perfumes to me in colours and shapes which makes perfect sense. It’s a little schmear of colour in an occasionally black and white world.

There you go. Have a nice weekend.

A Trip to the Seaside

2010-07-13T02:31:00.001-07:00

First things first: I must say an enormous Thank You to Tania Kindersley at Backwards in High Heels who has nominated me for a Beautiful Blogger Award. I am deeply grateful and quite shy-makingly overwhelmed and I shall give due thought and consideration to this in my next post, once I’ve mulled over my own nominations etc.

Ok, onwards (she mutters, wiping a tear from her eye). We spent the weekend in Whitstable. I should explain it’s one of the things we do – a weekend at the seaside each year, in a spirit of both holidaying at home and satisfying the deep inner need in me to spend some time near the sea each year. I know not where it comes from (actually I might proffer a guess that growing up in the very very middle of England – as far from the sea as you can be might have had something to do with it), but suffice to say our two-year-plan is to move ourselves to Dorset where I can be within a drive of the coast at all times. It’s my only brief. That and space for a dog or three. I should also point out that due to the fact we stupidly left the camera at home, I couldn’t take any pictures. I tried with my mobile, but the sun was so fearsome everything came out completely bleached, so in lieu of our own and to put the below in context, see here for imagery – keep it up in a separate browser window for ultimate effect.

So, Whitstable. We spent the weekend not doing much more than walking, sitting on the shingle beach (shingle beach is a much more pleasing concept than pebble beach, no? Perhaps something to do with the onomatopeic qualities…), eating and talking – we even bought raffia mats, although MCD drew the line at a shrimping net and bucket and spade, as he does every year, the meaner. The Whitstable Oyster Co is right on the beach and does a mean pint of local cider. Right next door is The Pearson’s Arms, a gastropub by any other name, but here in Whitstable, it’s just a really nice pub serving some excellent food. Try the lamb-ham – cured leg I would guess, which came with fresh raw podded peas (which made me feel like a kid again), pearlescent slices of pickled turnip and spiky notes of radish and watercress. MCD’s potted crab with thick sourdough was singingly fresh, although I personally would have liked a little chilli. Roast turbot came in portions not usually affordable in London with samphire, clams and brown butter. Day-boat cod was coated in a crisp brown batter accompanied by the largest chips I have ever seen. I think they might have just cut King Edwards in half and deep-fried them, but they were indeed cooked through. We could manage no more than a shared portion of elderflower sorbet with some strawberries afterwards and had to aid the digestion of that with a stroll after dinner. Truly lovely.

Make sure you take time to wander the fish market on the harbour. A fillet of hot smoked mackerel in a bun with a schmear of chilli sauce followed by a punnet of cockles or whelks should see you through to 4pm and an ice cream from Sundae Sundae on Harbour Street.

You might have heard of Wheeler’s – it’s a micro-model of Richard Corrigan’s Bentley’s in London, if that’s not offensive to either party. At the front is a cold fish and oyster bar where you can perch and order at will. I’d booked a table for an early dinner – last orders at 7pm – and, given its reputation, was expecting, I don’t know, something along the Corrigan line. I’ve never been more surprised. We were shown through from the oyster bar to what looked exactly like someone’s front parlour. Four tables in the dim light with one other couple choosing from the plastic menus. I briefly wondered if I’d got the wrong Wheeler’s. We quickly worked out it was BYO (the clue would be in the lack of wine menu) so MCD was barely to be seen flying out the door in the direction of the wine shop opposite to appear back with a bottle of Touraine rosé which seemed singularly appropriate to the seafood feast we were expecting, but which required a corkscrew to open – a moment of panic while the waitress couldn’t quite find one…

And then the food. Given the simplicity of our surroundings I was expecting it to be reflected in the food. Oysters, fish and chips, steamed puddings. Bring it on, I thought, albeit on one of the hottest days of the year. But no – think brill and crayfish lasagne with a Parmesan cream and asparagus tips; prawn and lobster raviolo with a smoked salmon and lemon cream and a dice of fennel. Mains were no less finessed. Baked hake with sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and crushed potatoes, crisp squid rings and razor clams were a coincidentally Spanish choice and sounded suitably rustic. What I got was three rondels of perfectly cooked hake wrapped in spinach and Serrano ham, a large quenelle of said crushed potatoes with olives et al, two wispily delicate squid rings and a razor clam shell filled with a mirepoix dice of mixed peppers and razor clam meat with a moat of basil oil. MCD’s roast halibut was delicate and I couldn’t begin to tell you what it came with because I wasn’t allowed any, so you’ll have to take his word for it that it was stunning.

We didn’t think we could manage a pudding, but I was persuaded by the cleansing properties of Lemon – three ways. A wee lemon crème brulée with a puddle of lemon sauce at the bottom; a marshmallowy meringue filled with a lemon cream and raspberries and a lemon curd ice cream. MCD just went for the knickerbocker glory – enough said, but it did come crowned with a cherry dipped in caramel. It was cooking of the highest order; by the time we’d finished all four tables were full with customers who were clearly in the know and wanted to keep it secret.

Just as a side alley to the above, rarely have I had the pleasure of meandering up and down such a well-kept, well-served high street; Mary Portas would immediately adopt it as her paragon. I counted no less than three butchers, one fishmonger, three greengrocers all advertising local fruit, various haberdashery and hardware stores, proper cafes, a wee museum as well as the pretty antique and tourist-y shops down Harbour Street. The proliferation of independent shops warms the cockles, indicating as it does a lack of chain-store hyper-malls nearby to drain the life from the high street.

We stayed at Copeland House – a B&B with the most fabulous breakfasts and friendly landlady, Georgina. Go there or rent a holiday cottage (which is our next plan, having been inspired by India Knight’s wedded bliss to the concept) and have an oyster by the sea for me.

Technorati Tags: whitstable,pearson's arms,copeland house,wheelers,beach,seaside,holiday,fish

Watercress sauce and other matters

2010-07-05T01:38:00.001-07:00

A blissful sauce for chicken hot or cold, over a salad or even – as I had the leftovers – knapped over slices of ham and tomatoes on toasted muffins.

Blitz a large handful of watercress in a food processor until a green paste. I also added a small handful of spinach for iron, but you could add rocket or even lettuce. Add a few good dollops of creme fraiche, a squeeze of lemon and season and whizz again until a smooth, green, unctuous sauce. Chill until needed.

This weekend I also had a yen for something smoky sweet and barbecued without the hassle – a take on slow-cooked pork seemed just the thing.

Rub a pork shoulder with the following:

1 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp cumin

1tbsp chilli powder

1 good tbsp dark brown sugar.

Drizzle in a little oil and mix to a paste. Taste to see whether you want it spicier, sweeter – whatever. You can leave the marinaded pork as long as you want – I had an hour but it would benefit from a day, then slow-cook it in a 170C oven for about 2 hours. You might want to check it every half hour or so in case the sugar starts to burn and completely ruin your roasting tin; in which case stick some foil over it. After about 2 hours (and it will come to no harm after 3) it should be tender and juicy.

While the pork’s resting, whisk together a tbsp each white wine vinegar and cider vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar, a good sprinkling chilli flakes and seasoning. Carve the pork and toss in the dressing before stuffing into bun of your choice with some coleslaw.

On a roll, I made Nigel Slater’s orange and lemon cheesecake from Kitchen Diaries – try substituting the juice of 1 lime for 1/2 a lemon.

Technorati Tags: watercress sauce,roast pork,shoulder,recipes,cheesecake,recipe

A rose by any other name…

2010-06-28T09:52:00.001-07:00

It would seem grossly unfair that I should spend a few days up with Ma and Pa and not come back with feverish pictures from the extravaganza that is their garden at the moment.

An unknown briar at the bottom of the garden with one resplendent red poppy; The small pond

I should have gotten closer to these hollyhocks and delphiniums

Looking up through the rose aisle to the ‘bandstand’

The ‘bandstand’ with just a hint of the roses surrounding

The vibrant pink on the left is a Rosamundi, the oldest known rose and brought over by the Romans

Roses from the ‘bandstand’ with the moat in the background

The rosamundi looking wistfully romantic

Looking down the garden towards the house

And you can’t have shots of the garden without the devil-may-care handsomeness and obliging nature of Sam

The rockery and waterfall outside the conservatory

More roses because who can get enough of them…

The best football summary ever…

2010-06-28T04:28:00.001-07:00

Sitting on the bus on the way to Homebase (me – not them) are two gentlemen, both one hundred and eleventy-twelve if they’re a day. They’re discussing yesterday’s debacle. (I didn’t watch it due to a conviction we wouldn’t win and the summer doesn’t last forever and my time would be more profitably spent with a good book in the garden. Reader, I was not wrong).

First man: “I watched it dahn the pub. They’d laid on some food an’ that but ah left at half-time cos it were no good.”

Second man: “No, they were no good.” (Cue random under-the-breath mutterings, no doubt vitriol directed South Africa-wards)

First man: “Ah knew it. We learnt all about this in the war. The Germans don’t like aerial bombardment.” He smacks the cross-bar on the bus out of frustration. “We should have brought on Peter Crouch.”

Technorati Tags: football,england,germany,world cup

It’s not what I expected… Part VI

2010-06-18T03:55:00.001-07:00

Wednesday afternoon the Bookseller turns to me and intones, in his inimicable - and sometimes unfathomable – way “Penguin have dropped a bollock.” I, knowing of old that such a statement will be followed by a hellishly good story, wait with bated breath. He hands me two Penguin versions of Lolita, one part of their brand-spanking new Modern Classics Library imprint featuring Nabokov, the other a standard Penguin issue. I scan the covers for typos but none is apparent and hang on for further enlightenment.

“They’ve only missed out the Foreword, written by Nabokov posing as a certain John Ray, in the new library.” This isn’t good; what makes it ever so slightly more unprofessional and bollock-dropping is that they HAVE included the afterword where it says After doing my impersonation of suave John Ray, the character in Lolita who pens the Foreward ... (sic spelling the Bookseller – I was not around to proof this).

The Bookseller went on to blog this on his world-famous outstanding blog, followed by thousands who, unable to make it to the shop for his pearls of wisdom, follow him adoringly in cyber-space.

This morning I called in only to be greeted by unusual high spirits from the Bookseller, who showed me this quite unbelievable piece in The Bookseller [the online version]. What is striking is the somewhat churlish attitude of Penguin – um, it’s not ‘just a few pages’, it’s an integral part of the novel. It’s like missing out Chapter One. You’d think they’d be grateful that we’d pointed out the error rather than resenting us for having to pulp their entire stock and start over because someone, somewhere was dumb enough to leave it out and then think no-one would notice.

To crown the matter, just as we’re getting over the heady rush of power of the individual (or the ‘small people’ as BP like to put it), the Bookseller then receives an email from the Guardian asking for an interview on his discovery. Has he actually started a publishing shitstorm? Will we ever be able to order from Penguin again? Truly, his power knows no bounds. I am in awe – although not always of his spelling.

Technorati Tags: lolita,bookseller crow on the hill,penguin

In which we get a little nostalgic

2010-06-17T01:35:00.001-07:00

Royal Ascot always brings out a touch of nostalgia in me. A few days when ladies ‘are painted to the eyes’, men look rakish in top hats and horses gleam and prance and show off just as much as any coverage-currying 21 year-old.

One of the great rakes of the turf – amongst many other things – was Clement Freud, an infamous gourmand, gambler and journalist. I recently picked up his Freud on Food and it is so headily nostalgic and redolent of a bygone age of food that I felt it ought to be acknowledged in the new world of the blogosphere.

To wit: Repeated throughout the book, clearly from a time when 1/4 bottles of champagne were readily available and in every bon viveur’s fridge, his thoughts on ham: “For the first meal from the ham [which you have cooked], cut medium slices and serve with no other garnish than a tablespoon of champagne.” Can you imagine…?

On weekday breakfast: “If you value your gourmet, here is a gently and abundant breakfast that will send him, and his innards, contentedly to work.

Tea or coffee, freshly made and kept decently hot

Fresh croissants with unsalted butter and black cherry jam

Brown toast, hot buttered, with poached eggs (eggs that are broken into a soup ladle, spilt carefully into boiling water to which a drop of vinegar is added and boiled for 1 minute before they are removed with a tea sieve)

Bradenham ham

Fresh peaches

If only a dozen families living within a half-mile radius of a baker ordered fresh croissants every morning, it would be worth his while to deliver them for breakfast, through the letterbox if you are asleep.”

I find myself rather longing for the days when a baker would a) have fresh croissants on the premises and b) cheerily deliver them each and every morning. And there’s more: mention of Precis, a ready-made roux you could just stir right in to soups; tinned asparagus and peaches; Curacao; tins of turtle soup and Chivers’ raspberries; Bath Oliver biscuits… even a mention of an entire impromptu late-night feast entirely made up of tinned food, including tinned ham (reheated of course in champagne) - and this was just in the well-stocked larder.

He covers children’s parties (involving a lot of booze and not just for the adults), wooing (complete with braised lamb’s heart), winter and summer cooking, Christmas – all splashed with a liberal helping of champagne and curacao (why have we stopped drinking this?) – there is barely an occasion that man did not give gastronomic contemplation to.

And to crown it all, yesterday I ate our first strawberry – with cheesecake for breakfast. It may not have been croissants, ham and peaches, but it was a hellish start to the day.

Miscellany to make up for lost time or In which I got fidgety

2010-06-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

I've been sadly neglectful of my poor old blog in the last few weeks. At first it was just frenetic everyday busy-ness getting in the way, then as the days passed, I got a little nervous about posting anything because I felt I didn't have anything in the least remarkable to say. I've been mute on the oil disaster, our new Age of Austerity, the Cumbria tragedy and more besides because I've felt - most peculiarly - it wasn't my place to add anything.

So to get back into the swing of things here's a picture of my startlingly lovely clematis last week.

And here are the violas, going like gangbusters and putting up a brave fight against the encroaching nasturtiums.

I also came up with a rather lovely roasted aubergine dip recipe:

Roast a couple of aubergines in a hot oven until blackened all over. Cut them in half and scrape out the insides into a food processor. Add a tbsp of pomegranate molasses, 1-2 tbsp tahini, a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper and a little olive oil and blitz until smooth. Be careful how much olive oil you add - it can make the dip a bit runny. Check the flavourings - I particularly like the tanginess of the pomegranate, but you may want more tahini and more salt. Scatter with chopped parsley and pine nuts et voila.

Given the lovely weather, I've also been reading like crazy. To prepare myself for Sylvia Beach's letters, recently published in the States, I've gone back to Noel Riley Fitch's biography of this extraordinary, selfless, generous woman who acted as a personal interchange and bank for many of the foremost writers of the earliest 20th century who found themselves on Paris' Left Bank, in particular James Joyce who, without the personal and financial aid, commitment and sacrifice of Sylvia, wouldn't have been published at all. A re-visit to writers such as Hemingway and F Scott is made all the more satisfying for another piece of the jigsaw pushed into place.

Jam Circus, Brockley

2010-05-11T02:13:00.001-07:00

If you’re a regular round the Triangle, you may not ever think of venturing as far as the outer wilds of Brockley, but for the uninitiated it’s a revelation. For a start there’s one of my favourite Italian restaurants in the South East – La Querce - as well as the Rivoli Ballrooms, a couple of decent pubs and a very large and seemingly inexhaustible cemetery.

Last night my foodie reporter friend Ben and I went under cover at Jam Circus, just by said cemetery, for a review for the South London Press. Well, I say under cover, but the whole shebang was blown, not, I hasten to add by my Marlow-esque trench coat and horn-rimmed glasses (although I feel they added a certain je ne sais quoi when required), but by the fact that there was no reservation in the book. Nor, interestingly was there one from 2 weeks ago when we’d had to cancel the original review date. The manager had forgotten to pass on details of our reservation. Twice.

Now this would normally not be such a sticking point, but, you know, a quick hint to PR peeps out there. If you want your restaurant reviewed by a public medium and you particularly go out of your way to stress that there are really only two venues in the entire chain of 20 that are worth eating at (!?), you might want to make sure the potential reviewer’s path to the table of feasting is clear first by informing the staff that are on duty that night of their impending arrival so they don’t have to sit around for 20 minutes while the friendly but clearly confused barman puts in an after-hours call to said lax manager… Okay, point made. On with the food.

Actually at first glance, the menu didn’t excite. It was incredibly short and, for my money, far too many of the mains came with chips, which means they either had to be bloody good or someone in the kitchen was lazy. Even the starters included home-made potato wedges. But look again and there were a couple of real potentials: a whole mackerel with a tomato salad, sardines on toast – we may have a winner. The mackerel was swimmingly fresh and grilled to charred lip-smackability, indeed whole, which seems generous for a starter (a theme we’ll return to) with a rustic chopped tomato garnish and plenty of leaves; the sardines were again grilled to sizzling crispness with a jaunty caper salad. Both were accompanied unnecessarily by gigantic chargrilled tranches of the same bread on offer as a side order. The bread was fantastic, soaked as it was in the oils and dressing, but it made the portions of a size you might reasonably consider enough for a decent lunch.

Mains were no less unstinting. Not fancying anything with chips, I opted for the pork belly with lentils and mustard mash. I cannot describe how gargantuan this was; on second thoughts, I’ll give it a go. Three thick slices of rolled pork belly (if I was picky I might query whether it was shoulder actually…) laid atop a mountain of well-seasoned but distinctly unmustard-y mash and covered with a shingle beach of herby, fabulous Puy lentils, but no crispy crackling alas. The taste was all there, the lentils in particular were more-ish beyond satiety, but the sheer size of it daunted even this trencherwoman. Ben the undercover reporter opted for fish and chips which were off the menu so chose the chickpea and sweet potato curry accompanied by yoghurt and so much rice they probably loaded it on by shovel. A side order of green beans were served perfectly al dente. We could have gone for what looked like a seasonal special of lamb chops with asparagus, but with the scarcity of British lamb these days, I would have been wary of its origins.

Ben managed to fit in a crumble whose topping could have done with another 5 minutes under a hot grill but which benefited from the two scoops of good quality vanilla ice cream. His Earl Grey prosecco – just for fun – came in a bone china tea cup, a whimsical sense of play.

We didn’t have wine, but the list was global and well-priced and there was a list of speciality beers as well as a cute and reasonable cocktail list. Prices for the food were again ungrasping, particularly in the light of the portions: starters around £5-£7, my pork belly amongst the most expensive mains at £10.

For a Monday night it was also busy: couples having a drink, plenty of board games to choose from and a local source tells me their Sunday lunches are excellent both in quality and value. It seems Brockley’s worth braving that 122 bus journey after all.

A garden on the edge

2010-04-29T01:49:00.001-07:00

Ok so again these might be somewhat indulgent but when Ma and Pa’s garden is trembling on the edge of summer, it’s an amazing sight.

The pond

Their daffodils are still going strong

The rockery and waterfall

Sam – just about – having a good roll

Technorati Tags: garden,spring flowers

Chickens and dogs…

2010-04-29T01:35:00.001-07:00

There has been much distress in the parental homestead this last few weeks. A fox and then a suspected cat has been ravaging their chicken population, causing much consternation both to MCD and Joey, both of whom have an almost untowardly obsession with the eggs sent down on occasion and to Ma and Pa, who took the trouble to ring-fence an entire acre field and provide numerous safehouses for the chickens, only for said chickens to prefer spending the night up a tree perched just on the fence border… let no-one say they don’t live by the seat of their pants.

So this week Pa took himself off to Chicken Market (apparently these still exist and one is going strong in Melton Mowbray) and came back with 5 Rhode Island Red ladies, all of whom are incredibly tame, inordinately fond of bread in a way that suggests their diet has been a little too carb-based in a previous life and all in all, most attractive. Now they just have to hope they lay the eggs for which they were bought.

And – because he was so completely unperturbed by the new additions and because he is so ravishingly handsome – a couple of entirely gratuitous pictures of Sam

More Spring pictures – to get us through the rain…

2010-04-29T01:19:00.001-07:00

I know I’ve already posted some pink blossom pictures below but bear with me. I beg forbearance because firstly with all the bank holiday weather they’re threatening us with, we may lose all the fantastic colour out there overnight and we may need to look back fondly and remember; and secondly because someone clearly needed to indulge themselves similarly as on my way to t’bookshop I noticed that a forward-thinking aesthete had placed a rather nice looking chair under the blossom.

I can only think it was so positioned so they could see this.

And why not?

Technorati Tags: spring blossom,crystal palace

The first asparagus

2010-04-19T07:11:00.001-07:00

At Brixton farmers’ market yesterday, rootling around in the sunshine for something other than cabbage and kale, I spotted, much like a pointer, bunches of the first early English asparagus. I had, I have to admit, been a little sceptical when they announced on Saturday Kitchen that the first asparagus was available; what with the long winter and the tiny problem of a volcanic cloud of ash blighting our skies, I hadn’t expected to be living off much more than greens and turnips for another couple of weeks, but hey, what do I know.

At £3.50 a bunch – not cheap, but hello it’s not cabbage – you have to be determined to make the most of it. I had, for reasons now unfathomable in hindsight given the weekend weather reports, defrosted a sirloin of beef for roasting for Sunday dinner; with the asparagus to bear in mind the whole had to become instantly spring-like. I roasted the joint of beef rare – you do have to bear leftovers in mind and who in their right mind can bear overcooked cold beef?, roasted some par-boiled Pink Fir Apple potatoes in rosemary and garlic and olive oil, briefly boiled some purple sprouting and tossed it in butter and melted anchovies and put together a tomato salad, dressed in nothing but olive oil and salt with some sorrel from the garden and wild garlic snipped up and scattered on top. The asparagus I did our favourite way and roasted it in the oven with a little oil and salt and then shaved a tiny bit of Parmesan over.

With the leftover beef, I had planned to make, to quote Nigel Slater, a ‘knife-sharp, groovy’ green sauce, but I came across the following from Rose Prince this morning and I shall make this dressing to drizzle over the beef, some leftover potatoes cubed and sauté ed until crisp like croutons, pea shoots, fennel, tomatoes and sorrel for this evening.

A winter sauce: (quantities don’t have to be exact but it needs to be consistency of double cream)

Mix together a couple of tbsp mayonnaise, 2-3 tbsp chicken stock to thin, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco and a good dollop of mustard to taste and season.

Dorothy Parker's poetry

2010-04-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

A lovely piece, courtesy of Arts and Letters Daily, on the poetry of the acerbic and ever-delightful Dorothy Parker.

A few glorious spring pictures

2010-04-15T02:34:00.001-07:00

Having discovered Windows Live Writer, I can now do very funky things within the blog. Anyway, momentarily stunned by the very outrageousness of their spring stance, the blossom caused me to stop and stare in the prosaically-named Norwood Recreation Park that I traverse on my way to Palace.

The picture of the red blossom is from my garden. It’s quite stunning every spring, but I have no idea what it is, although it makes my heart leap when the flowers appear.

A recipe for cornbread

2010-04-14T01:31:00.000-07:00

It's probably not something one makes terribly often, but cornbread is terribly easy and an incredibly useful thing to have hanging around once you've finished devouring warm slices of it with the BBQ rabbit as below or spare ribs.

1 tbsp caster sugar

150g cornmeal (you'll most probably find it as polenta)

250g plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

50g softened butter

A handful spring onions, finely chopped

2 eggs, beaten

150g yoghurt

300ml milk

I use a standard loaf tin which I grease and line with greaseproof paper, for extra non-stick.

Preheat the oven to 160C.

Then put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl, add the butter and spring onions and stir together. Whisk together the eggs, yoghurt and milk and add to the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Spoon into the loaf tin.

Bake on a baking sheet for 45-60 minutes until golden and risen. The timing is a little imprecise but you just have to keep testing with a skewer and seeing if it comes out clean. Leave to cool slightly in the tin, then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

You can also add loads of different ingredients: grated cheese, chopped chillies, herbs... It's whatever you want it to be.

A Bonus Recipe for Leftovers:

The picture doesn't really convey the sunshine beaming out of the breakfast dish above, but take my word for it, it can make you very happy indeed. I happened to have some leftover rhubarb poached in orange juice and honey from the day before, which I reheated and added in some chopped fresh pineapple sauteed in a little butter. I warmed the cornbread in the oven - it's too fragile to toast - and then spooned over the hot fruit. I topped it with a little Greek yoghurt and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

The Easter Bunny... Barbecue style

2010-04-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

Easter was for us this year a rather timid affair; both of us working at various points throughout yet we still managed to get the allotment dug over and planted up with potatoes (Duke of York), onions, shallots, garlic, broad beans and rocket; borage, lovage and oregano went into my herb pots and seed trays now adorn the kitchen windowsill filled with the potential of tomatoes of every hue and size.

Thus the dinner menus were also a tad subdued. Usually I go overboard with great legs of lamb and new spring greens but lamb is tricky to track down and I didn't have that much time. Easter Sunday turned out to be a roast chicken, but with goose fat-roasted potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli and the last few tiny baby leaves of kale from the allotment sauteed with garlic and a sauce made from pan-deglazing, white wine, crème fraiche, tarragon and halved green grapes.

But it was Saturday's quick meal that was really the highlight of the weekend. My freezer is chock-full of meat, mainly due to my inability to just say 'no' at the amazing cuts of beef at the farmers' market. However at the back was a whole jointed wild rabbit - of course - the Easter bunny, just waiting to be lovingly consumed at this appropriate junction. However, I didn't want to do the KFB recipe and I started thinking about the Deep South and barbecue.

Now, I know rabbit, with its tendency to dryness and its physical layout ain't that similar to pork ribs but I had a yearning for smoky barbecue sauce, coleslaw, cornbread and so on. SO:
Either the day before or in the morning, concoct a rub for the rabbit, mixing together a good slug of 3 of olive oil (helps keep the rabbit moist) with a tablespoon of paprika, ground ginger, cumin, a little (or a lot of) chilli powder, salt and pepper and a touch of mace or nutmeg if you haven't any. Leave the rabbit to marinate.

For the barbecue glaze, mix together English mustard, ketchup, cider vinegar, sugar, starting with a tablespoon of each and double the amount of ketchup and then tasting as you go. I added a dollop of barbecue sauce and a little of the smoky chipotle Tabasco I seem to have hanging around. You want it to be sweet, smoky, punchy with mustard and ultimately finger-licking.

Heat the oven to 180C and tip your now rather angrily-red bunny into a roasting tin, paint with half the glaze and whack in the oven for 15 minutes. Then remove from the oven, paint with the rest of the glaze (cover the tin with foil if you think it's burning a little with the sugar) and put back in for another 10 minutes. At this point the rabbit is cooked, but you may want to give it 5 minutes with the foil off to enhance the stickiness.

We had this with own-made cornbread (recipe to be posted), coleslaw and a garlicky, lemony baby spinach and tomato salad.

Ponte Nuovo, Crystal Palace

2010-04-01T02:50:00.001-07:00

We're not short of places to eat on the Triangle. And most of them are blessedly good, but we've never had a half-decent Italian, in my humble opinion. Lorenzo's is quite bog-standard but always startlingly busy; Il Ponte (as was) tried to be slightly more upmarket and only managed to be marginally more bog-standard. So to see Il Ponte become Ponte Nuovo meant a dinner out was on the cards.

The new owners have either scaled down the size of the restaurant inside or decorated it to make it look more intimate in cool slate tones; either way it works. The menu has undergone a complete renovation too. Think bottarga alongside calamari fritti, melanzane Parmigiana and that curiously beloved insalata tricolore (which I've never really understood the appeal of, especially in any month outside July and August). There's a good but not overwhelming choice of soups, pasta and risotto dishes which can be had as a primo piatto or secondo, a really excellent choice of fish and meat dishes and a tempting list of side orders. Looking good so far.

Our starters consisted of the calamari fritti, a generous portion, although to my mind the batter wasn't delicate enough and might even have been frozen; that insalata tricolore which looked fine but where the tomatoes had come from is anyone's guess; and the melanzane which came in a perfect-sized portion, bubbling hot, non-greasy and rich without being just too much.

Mains were more successful: my linguine with clams was again a well-judged portion, swimming in clams and a sharp-sweet cherry tomato sauce. The risotto marinara was full to bursting with a variety of seafood with rice just al dente and not too soupy, but the triumph belonged to the gamberoni with chilli garlic butter. As the plate was put down, I have to admit I genuinely thought they'd given' Joey' (for our purposes here he shall henceforth be known as Joey) a small lobster, also on the menu but a good tenner dearer. No, they were indeed 2 large succulent langoustines with a firework chilli dressing, butterflied and chargrilled for maximum flavour. The sides weren't the least of it either - chips (why do boys feel chips are de rigeur at every single meal?) were crisp, golden and moreish; buttered spinach was not reduced to a puddle of slime, but fresh and green and the zucchini fritti were fresh out the fryer in a tremulous batter that barely veiled their modesty but crunched pleasantly between the teeth.

Desserts were what you might expect. We were quite full but MCD and I, ever the troupers, had a creme brulee between us. The brulee was fine, but the creme was fridge-cold which is never particularly pleasant; I like mine to retain a vestige of warmth from the cooking. The wine list was reasonably comprehensive and well-priced - nothing outrageous and all good value. The bill in total for 3 of us, including a beer, bottle of wine, sparkling water and a glass of white came to just under £100 which we felt was ok value, considering it had barely been open a week and yet managed to deliver on both food and service.

NB: Next door Pizza Fresca has become Fresco, a pizzeria-cum-takeaway. I saw a sign last week advertising breakfast, but there's no hint of it on the menu. Reports come back that the pizza remains as good as ever, although the eat-in menu isn't as long as the take-out menu, but other dishes are disappointingly average and they're threatening to do Sunday roasts for which, my informant tells me, they were chastised for trying to do too much not well enough by one engaged customer.

It's not what I expected... Part V

2010-03-25T02:57:00.000-07:00

I am alone behind the till. The BookSeller is out back, ostensibly checking the Reading Recovery books but I know he's just bought his son's Beano and the comic is not with me behind the till. A woman enters - purposefully strides through the door - reminding me faintly and perhaps not entirely pleasantly of Nancy dell' Oily.

'I want a book' she says. I wait breathlessly. 'It's a book I've read and I want it for a present. It's called Death in Venice, Lost in Iraq. Or something like that. Something that's alliterative.'

I type venice and iraq into the Bertrams search engine and surprisingly - or not - come up with zilch. So I say 'Any idea of the author?'

'No. It's by a journalist and it's a travel book. It's got Venice and Iraq in the title. Is Jon here? He recommended it and he would know.'

By now her attitude is slightly starting to piss me off and I get stubborn and say - oh foolish me - that he's unavailable but I'm sure I can help. I surreptitiously google it - she wants Jeff in Venice, Death in Varansi by Geoff Dyer. Of course. We have a copy in stock in Fiction. I go and fetch it for her.

She lets me get back behind the counter, fixes me with a challenging sort of stare from behind the completely unnecessary sunglasses and says 'I want a hardback copy of Birchwood by John Banville.' I point out it's unlikely we'd have the hardback in but the paperback is. 'Oh, but it's a present.' I duly fetch it for her and she accedes. This time I ca' canny, because I sense she and I have not finished this slightly tedious game of How can I annoy the shop assistant, hand the book to her and say 'Anything else?'

She is clearly a master at this. She shakes her head and continues browsing new titles. I go back behind the counter and she opens her mouth and says 'I want the book about pandas. It's for...' and she says it in a peculiarly strained, emphatic, meaningful way, 'My Husband's Best Friend for his 50th.'

This time I do know what she's talking about - 100 facts about Pandas, a witty amusing little jokey fact book, none of it true and perhaps not entirely amusing for that fact alone. It came in only the other day and I am only too pleased to once again traipse to the end of the shop and fetch it for her.

This is clearly the end of the spree; she gathers them into a pile and then asks me to permanent marker over all the prices. I make sure I do this in front of her - something tells me this is risky as the pen might slip and I might accidentally permanent marker her face, but I do it anyway. I put the books through the till - again stupid, as she then turns away for wrapping paper and birthday cards. Meanwhile the 3 ladies who've been hanging out in the bookshop after their morning coffee next door approximately 5 years ago come to the till with a grand total of £18.98 to show for their browsing. I have to over-ring 'Nancy's' order.

She deigns to come back to the till and this time I manage to get actual money out of her. The sunglasses are still in place. She leaves, barely acknowledging my strained and perhaps snarled Goodbye. Later I find out The Husband's Best Friend is actually Rod Liddle. Good luck to him.

A case in point - about kitchens anyway...

2010-03-25T02:44:00.001-07:00

My kitchen from the right - note how every possible work surface is taken up with a gadget - coffee grinder, machine, bread bin, bread maker, radio, book overflow, the endless lists on the table and notes for vegetables and herbs to grow...

My kitchen from the left - how many teatowels and for what emergency does one girl need on hand?

My somewhat forlorn garden that I look out on to waiting for me to go down the garden centre. Note the faintly hopeful pink cherry blossom in the far right corner, the 4 brave daffodils. You have to admire their spirit.

It's been a while...

2010-03-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

I've been slightly out of commission for a week or so and I come back to find my world turned upside down. Barack Obama, quiet, resolute and determined, finally passed his 'Obamacare' bill (and I still can't get my head around the counter-arguments so we'll leave that to the more politically astute like Tania K), Sophie Dahl stopped being a model and started being a cook, albeit not in her own kitchen (would anyone actually ever put their own kitchen on TV? see above), and Marco Pierre White lost the plot completely and started batting for Bernard Matthews' turkeys - although not literally; perhaps he leaves that to their employees. India Knight wrote a terrific, typically funny piece on it last Sunday.

Meanwhile I have been cooking and pottering. Last Thursday I was down in Hastings for a spring day by the seaside, coming home loaded with home-cured bacon, gooseberry & sloe gin jam (particularly good on toasted muffins topped with ricotta) and a gloriously verdant pot of wild garlic pesto which seems to find its way into nearly every meal - including breakfast (try smothered on hot toast topped with roasted tomatoes) at the moment.

And I have spread my baking wings a little further. Nigel's Demerara Lemon cake from Kitchen Diaries was such a triumph I baked it two weekends in a row. This weekend I am making the dessert wine-based bread & butter pudding I made at Christmas, but instead of using panettone, I am using Columba, an Easter cake similarly spiced that I found in the Polish shop. More on that treasure trove in a mo.

But finally finally the irresistible pull of spring has begun in earnest. Venturing to the farmers' market for the first time in 3 weeks, my heart beat a little faster at the sight of Pink Fir Apple potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli and spring greens. I thought I'd just make a note of a couple of the more seasonally-apt dinners we've had that hint at the change in season.

Tuesday night: 2 enormous pork chops baked in the oven with a little seasoning and lemon juice accompanied by chicory braised in 1/2 cup of chicken stock, lemon juice and Parmesan until tender and a salad of those Pink Fir Apples, boiled until just tender, halved and tossed in a dressing of cider vinegar, olive oil, spring onions and plenty of salt and pepper.

Wednesday night: Lamb chops, again baked in the oven, with a little cherry tomato salad. I added moutabal - an aubergine puree that couldn't be easier. Bake an aubergine, slit all over, in a hot oven until wrinkly and collapsed - 45 minutes should do it. Scrape out the flesh and beat with a tsp or so of tahini, plenty of lemon juice, a crushed clove of garlic and season. I had thought I might make a chickpea mash to go with it, but I'm re-reading Nigel's Tender Vol 1 (another sign of spring) and used his recipe for chickpea patties. Whiz a can of chickpeas with an egg, parsley, garlic, mint, paprika, salt and pepper, ground cumin and coriander until almost smooth but with a bit of texture. (At this point next time I might add a scarce spoonful of yoghurt to add a touch more moisture). Shape into patties and rest in the fridge until you're ready to cook them. Heat some olive oil in a pan, slide in the patties and leave for a good few minutes to form a solid golden crust. When that's happened turn them over and do the other side. If you don't leave them alone, they'll fall apart. Serve the whole lot with a yoghurt dressing, made with olive oil, mint and perhaps some grated cucumber if you have any.

Thursday: Ah well it's raining, so I thought I might have a tinker with some of the goodies from the Polish shop. I brought home some 'country bread' which is a mixture of rye and sourdough (and was 50p!!! 50p!!!) and will be perfect with Ma's cucumber pickle, some Polish herrings, a schmear perhaps of Philadelphia and a little salad for lunch. Later there will be platters of pierogi - dumplings stuffed with potato and cheese - and pancakes, again stuffed with cheese. The pierogi, according to the shop assistant, are best not boiled as stated on the packet but fried until golden and served with fried onions. The pancakes are also fried until crisp. My feeling is they might welcome a dressing of sour cream and paprika and a side order of purple sprouting for the health. The assistant was slightly horrified when I suggested it, pointing out the sour cream would be better with the fruit filled pierogi. I shall trample Polish tradition underfoot and try both and let you know how it goes.

Stuffed Vine Leaves Saved My Life

2010-03-08T01:40:00.000-08:00

We love a new cookbook in the bookshop (and get your signed copy here too), although I am the first to howl with outrage at yet another seasonal/local/chef-driven tome. Last week saw the arrival of Nadia Sawalha's first cookbook. Stuffed Vine Leaves Saved My Life - a whimisical, family-oriented meander through the Middle Eastern recipes that formed the culinary backdrop to her childhood.

Dotted with family pictures and suffused with a deep warmth that puts you right into the heart of her extended family, Nadia's recipes range from the traditional to Cheese, coleslaw and crisp sandwiches - whatever takes your fancy.

I've tried a couple so far and loved them. Mussakhan - roasted chicken on a bed of sumac-infused onions and bread - is fabulous with a minty cucumber yoghurt dip and my new breakfast for summer is a take on Zait wa Zaatar, Nadia's father's recipe.

Zait wa Zaatar means Oil with Herbs. You make Zaatar, which you can either buy in any Middle Eastern store or combine dried thyme and marjoram with sumac and toasted sesame seeds. Nadia's recipe then follows her father's precise instructions for the compiling of the ingredients of the breakfast, which include pitta bread, Greek yoghurt (Rachel's is best) or labneh, honey, olive oil and pitta bread.

This morning, in possession of some ripe figs and a loaf of ciabatta (oh the agony of fusion) I put an homage together. One one side of a white plate, put a spoonful of yoghurt and then one on the other side. In between arrange a couple of figs, quartered and roseate. Over one pile of yoghurt drizzle a little honey. In a little dish (for I lacked Zaatar) mix together some extra virgin olive oil, sumac and dried oregano (delicious, although not Zaatar). Bake the ciabatta in the oven until hot and crisp, then serve up with the figs, yoghurt and oil and a pot of sweetened mint tea on the side.

A moment in the sun.

2010-03-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

We've been away for a quick week in Tenerife - blazing sunshine does wonders for the cerebral matter. I am a summer person; I'm never happier than when in the sun, feeling my inner self unfold and become somehow less introverted, less 'in myself' as I have a tendency to become over the long months of winter.

But, no matter how wonderful and recharging a week in the sun can be - and believe me, I needed it like nothing else - somehow it wasn't the same as the 40 minutes I just spent sitting on my back step in the first spring sunshine, noticing the first sprouting bulbs, the first tiny leaves on the clematis, reading Wolf Hall and turning my face to the brief heat and thinking 'At last, we're turning the corner.'

Although they promise it will all be gone by Wednesday.

A quick lunch with leftover roast chicken

2010-02-19T05:34:00.000-08:00

The remains of a roast chicken are a feast until perhaps Day 3; after that the excitement begins to pall just a little and you wonder what you might do to inject a little flavour back into proceedings. Well, wonder no more - this is a brilliant and quick ad-hoc solution I came up with today.

Finely shred any remaining meat and skin and add to a hot pan with a little vegetable oil and a crushed clove of garlic. While it's crisping (occasionally push around the pan so it doesn't stick), arrange aesthetically - or not - in a bowl, chopped tomato, baby spinach leaves and half a sliced papaya. These salad ingredients are simply what were in the fridge at the time, but try mango, pineapple, rocket, cucumber, spring onions - anything you fancy. Once the chicken and garlic are starting to fizzle and darken slightly sprinkle over a little sugar to help it all caramelise. Quickly whisk together a dressing with a good squeeze of lime, a little sugar, some chopped red chilli and a good drizzle of fish sauce. Then shake a few drops of soy sauce over the chicken and stir vigorously so the shards are sticky and dark gold. Tip the lot over the salad then pour over the dressing.

That's it. 10 minutes, tops. There is no photo - I ate it too fast. I would also try it with leftover roast pork, game and even lamb and beef - all are receptive to Thai flavours.

An extravagant Valentine's dinner

2010-02-15T01:46:00.000-08:00

Oh dear - I never claimed to have an eye for a photo (or indeed any restraint and it occurs to me I should have taken a photo before we dug in) and it did look rather better in real life than compressed and dulled by a mobile phone shot, but above is my love for MCD in cake form. It is in fact a chocolate loaf cake, adapted from Nigella Lawson's Feast (I seem to be using her a lot at the moment but she does have a wealth of cake recipes), where a simple chocolate cake is studded through with blitzed dark chocolate, poured into a loaf tin and baked for an hour. I then made a cocoa syrup and soaked the cake in it (that's the brown-y liquid there looking oh-so-appealing on the left there) and then shaved more dark chocolate over the top.

And because it was Valentine's Day and I like to embrace kitsch where I can, I decorated the top with silver heart dragees and scarlet raspberries and ate with Chantilly cream.

But that was the finale and I'm getting ahead of myself - what I actually wanted to tell you about was a home-y take on Tournedos Rossini, given we are embracing the spirit of the day and I had a couple of fillet steaks longing for love and attention.

First things first - the sauce. I sweated a sliced half an onion in some butter until golden and soft, then sprinkled with a little pinch of sugar to caramelise. I chucked in half a sliced carrot and a couple of quartered button mushrooms, sweated for a few minutes, then added a tbsp or so of brandy, which I allowed to evaporate. Add half a tbsp or so of plain flour and cook out for a couple of minutes, then add a good glass and a half of red wine and simmer for a couple of minutes. Then add 200ml beef stock, some parsley stalks and a good grind of black pepper and reduce until you have a slightly syrupy, intense-tasting liquid, then season. Strain and chuck the veg and set the sauce aside.

Make a mushrooms pate: Blitz a handful of button mushrooms, the other half of the onion and a clove or two of garlic until finely chopped. Heat a knob of butter in a pan and cook until golden - I added a splash of brandy again (the bottle was still on the surface within tempting distance) and reduced - check the seasoning and add a handful of finely chopped parsley. Set aside and keep warm.

Cut out 2 rounds of slightly stale bread and brush with melted butter and bake in the oven until lightly golden.

Cook your fillet steaks how you will and then make sure you rest them for at least 5 minutes, double wrapped in foil - very very important. Meanwhile, I simply cooked off some chopped cavolo nero, which I always do the same way - heat a little olive oil, add the greens and a pinch of salt and a splash of water (or in this case white wine), bang on a lid and leave to wilt for as long as the steaks are resting.

Pour the steak juices into the sauce and reheat the sauce. Spread the mushroom pate on the bread croutes and top with a steak. Serve your greens on the side and carefully pour the precious sauce around.

Feast. And use your finger to wipe the plate.

Three great breakfasts

2010-02-12T06:23:00.000-08:00

I can't decide which of these is the current favourite so I'm having them in rotation whilst also fitting in the odd bowl of muesli to keep my suddenly wayward IBS under control.

Breakfast idea no 1: A variation on the smoked mackerel theme, this time i mix together chopped tomatoes, avocado and smoked mackerel then souse the lot in lime juice and a good few shakes of smoked chipotle Tabasco. Pile onto lightly toasted sourdough.

Breakfast idea no 2: A slice of thick-cut honey-roast (or your choice) ham with a few sliced of halloumi, fried until patchily golden and dressed with a little lemon juice and a handful of lightly fried tomatoes.

Breakfast idea no 3: Bacon and sliced fresh tomato on toasted muffins. I had quite forgotted how delicious these are. Also excellent with sausages. Which in turn reminds me I had plans to make Nigella's Welsh Rarebit muffins to accompany sausages one weekend - I shall let you know.

You can quite see how time can get away from one when there are decisions such as these to be made...

Just a thought...

2010-02-09T01:58:00.001-08:00

Has anyone else noticed? The brave new man in the Lurpak ad makes surprisingly swift and smooth shortcrust pastry, beautifully evenly rolled (though a bit rough around the edges, cos, you know, he's a man), arranges it oh-so-clumsily on the pie and lo, when he removes it from the oven, by the power that is Lurpak, obviously, the shortcrust pastry has now become puff pastry.

And while we're on the topic of food on t'telly, was anyone else even slightly repulsed by the Hairy Bikers' feature on 1970's special occasion food, in particular the lemon 'souffle' with cream and grapes and the chocolate meringue cake smothered in uncooked meringue (really...?)...? I know, I know it was a time of Technicolour and learning and free love in the kitchen, but God - no wonder the era of nouveau was such a hit.

In other news - what are you cooking for Valentine's Day? Are you even acknowledging its existence? I'm going for braised short ribs and a quadruple chocolate loaf cake - recipes to be posted soon.

A warm salad for a rainy night

2010-02-03T02:16:00.000-08:00

It doesn't sound entirely pre-possessing, does it, salad and rain not being best buddies, but stick with me. I've blogged before on the fabulousness that is Jerusalem artichoke soup and it does tend to be my reflex cooking method as it somewhat dims the side effects. However, last night I was in the mood for something punchier and more textured. Pace Nigel Slater, this is what I came up with.

Bung a couple of chicken thighs, legs, whatever, in the oven to roast with plenty of salt and lemon. That's the protein taken care of. Peel a big handful of Jersualem artichokes and dip into acidulated water. Steam them until tender - you may find it easier to cut the larger ones in half so they all steam equally. It takes about 15-20 minutes, but go carefully because they do have a tendency to turn to mush.

While they're steaming away, fry off some pancetta or streaky bacon with a sliced leek. Once golden and appetising-looking, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Slice your artichokes into pound coin thicknesses and add to the pan with a little more oil if needed. Sauté until golden brown and crisp then add the bacon and leek back in and season.

Whisk up a good mustardy dressing - I used a tbsp Dijon mustard, a squeeze of lemon and a lot of olive oil, then add a good handful of finely chopped parsley. On a plate arrange your chicken pieces and I put alongside a handful of pea shoots for the colour and sweetness. Then toss your artichoke mixture in the mustardy dressing and spoon on top of the pea shoots so they wilt a little. Sprinkle over a little more parsley and lemon if desired and tuck in.

Is too much bulghur vulgar?

2010-01-27T02:08:00.000-08:00

I am rubbish at predicting how much I/we can eat. My eyes are at least 14000 times bigger than my stomach and when I'm measuring out rice or pulses or grains, my imaginary stomach gets the better of me and I end up eating said grain for days on end, mostly because MCD won't eat grains or lentils - they're 'bitty' apparently. So for the record, the amounts given below make enough for 4 people, I think.

I was muttering on about what to do with the lamb chops I had defrosted yesterday - my thoughts naturally wander to the ras-el-hanout spice rub I posted about below - but I wanted something different. The BookSeller mentioned tandoori-style, which seemed to hit the mental spot. I made a paste out of 1 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp and a bit of dried mint, 2 crushed cloves garlic, squeeze of lemon and 1/2 tsp chilli powder with some vegetable oil and rubbed it over the chops.

Leaving them to marinate, I cut a courgette into chunky half moons and tossed with olive oil and lemon juice and arranged in one half of a roast tin. I cut an aubergine into hearty chunks (really they shrivel down to nothing - you'll be amazed - like spinach) and tossed with honey, olive oil and chilli flakes (no, really - try it) and arranged in the other half of the roasting tin. They went into the oven for about 20-30 mins, depending, but watch the honey as it burns quicker than you think.

Put 1 cup bulghur wheat with 2 cups water in a pan, brought to a simmer and cooked for about 17 minutes, until all the water has been absorbed. Tip #1: don't add salt at this stage Tip#2: if you're cooking this for 1 and some leftovers, do halve the quantities.

Once the vegetables were bronzed, I mixed them through the bulghur wheat with a drizzle of olive oil and a couple of handfuls of rocket I had in the fridge - you could use spinach. I popped the lamb chops into a fierce oven for 5 minutes a side while I mixed a couple of spoonfuls of plain yoghurt with garlic, dried mint, a little lemon juice and some black pepper.

Assemble ingredients on plate and make sure you eat lamb chops with fingers as walls will get splattered with yellow-blotched yoghurt.

PS: Today's lunch is very much a reprisal. Tonight's dinner - sticky marinaded chicken wings - will also be accompanied by same. It is not at all helpful MCD has such an aversion to 'grainy' things....

It's not what I expected... Part IV

2010-01-20T02:01:00.001-08:00

New stock has arrived and I'm busy putting it on the shelf while the BookSeller looks on and sees that it was good. The division of labour has been tacit. A man walks in, takes a quick look round and then says 'Do you have a book about a fridge?' I notice it takes the BookSeller a couple of moments to compute this. I know that we are both thinking 'Why, yes Sir, in our White Goods section just by Self-Help and The Door to Fuck-Knows-What's-in-the-Office.' The BookSeller finally informs him that no, we don't have any books on fridges. The man looks quietly astonished before taking his leave. We are quietly astonished that he would come unarmed with his fridge model number, date of birth, mother's dog's maiden name and 22 forms of ID that you usually require to get help on any form of kitchen appliance.

It's not what I expected... Part III

2010-01-18T03:04:00.000-08:00

We're in the bookshop; it's fairly quiet, just a few people milling around wondering whether to get involved in the whole Stieg Larsson thing, or just to move quietly on to the scary New Titles. The silence is shattered as a woman manhandles a 4x4 all-weather buggy through the perhaps slightly-deliberately-difficult-to-negotiate entrance. We watch her for a few minutes as she clips the card spinner and the anti-theft device. She manoevres the buggy into position, conveniently blocking both egress and entry to all other customers. She asks 'Do you sell lunchboxes?'

'Nuff said.

Yak & Yeti, Crystal Palace

2010-01-18T02:49:00.001-08:00

We're not short of an Indian restaurant or two in the Palace and most of them aren't too bad either. Viva Goa stands out for its concentration on regional cuisine - the surest cure for the winter blues I know of.

But, folks, we have a new contender for Best Indian Restaurant in the Palace. I give you Yak & Yeti on Church Road, featuring Nepalese and Indian cuisine. I have eaten in and taken out and both times, it's been wondrous. Let me expound.

Tha Papri Chat - that tangy tamarind-laced starter with potatoes and crisp breads and chillies is enough the stimulate the appetite - and the Momo dumplings (vegetarian on our visit), a Kathmandu Valley delicacy, are delicately spiced and not overly heavy.

Kukhura Palak is chicken cooked with spinach, a mild creamy dish with enough interest in the spicing to stop you falling asleep. Achari Gosht was a rich tangy lamb dish, cooked in yoghurt with pickling spices - there was no one spice dominating, just a gentle harmony of the whole. I managed to sneak a spoonful of Seafood Mismas - prawns, scallops and shrimps cooked with ginger, garlic, lemon, cumin and coconut milk - The Pescatarian had trouble holding on to the rest of it. Lamb Nepal, barbecued and cooked with mango was sweet without being sickly and suprisingly butch in its delivery.

Naans are uber-fresh and taste it; the standard paneer dish is lifted to new heights with fenugreeek leaves and leave room to scoop up the Baigan Bharta - smoked aubergine pulp - with any naan you've got left.

The house wine is reasonable value and food-match at around £11 and dishes come in at around £2-£4 for a starter and £6-£7.25 for a generous main. I would also just add at the point that both times I dined under the influence of ongoing virus/tonsilitis and that I could still taste and revel in the flavours on offer was a small miracle in itself.

Not many venture to this end of the Triangle, most choosing to stay within reach of Gurkha Cottage. But for my money, once you've made it to the White Hart for a mulled cider, why go back down Westow St to the old when you could hop over the road and embrace the new?

Snow and Pomegranates

2010-01-13T02:33:00.001-08:00

The garden once again under an inch or two of snow this morning. I'm still not bored of it by any means, but then I don't have a 3 hour commute into work and I haven't been stranded overnight on the Devon moors, so I'll just keep quiet.

I haven't really felt like blogging much about food in the last week. An ongoing battle with tonsilitis and some kind of virus that is making me feel utterly rubbish means that, although I've been cooking, I haven't really been enthused. Last night was not much better, but I still fancied flavours that were bright and tangy rather than casserole-savoury.

I smeared a couple of lamb leg steaks with some olive oil and then sprinkled on ras-el-hanout and left for an hour. I roasted some butternut squash sprinkled with dried chilli flakes in the oven until tender and caramelised. Then I cooked the lamb steaks until pink and left to rest wrapped in foil while I sauteed some kale with pine nuts and soaked sultanas in the same pan. So far, so disparate, but I brought all the elements together with an eye-popping 'sauce' of Greek-style yoghurt stirred with a crushed clove of garlic, the juice of a lime and a healthy bashing of pomegranate seeds which looked so translucently beautiful against the white of the yoghurt, they gave me - pace Anne of Green Gables - a 'queer ache' (although that could just have been the effort of bashing the pomegranate...).

A gentle lift of spice from warmer shores combined with the tangy cooling pomegranate yoghurt briefly lifted us out of the mid-January slump.

Norwood Common in the snow

2010-01-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of pleasingly synchronous and serendipitous reasons to living where I live. My god Gerald Durrell and family lived in the grounds of the hotel just up the road both pre- and post-Corfu; Norwood is where Dora lived in David Copperfield, my favourite of the Dickens novels... Beulah (as in Hill, my road) is where the stolen FA Cup was found by Pickles the dog; um... I've always liked crystals and palaces... It's my kind of place and those tiny associations make my heart beat just a little faster.

Aannyway, the above picture of Norwood Common just a couple of minutes walk away is nothing particularly special and no different to anyone else's snow pics, except that I have just emailed it to myself from my new phone. And that, dear reader, means today has been a veritable triumph. I may have completed two very different pieces of copy. I may have cooked a delicious, thrifty lunch and I may well finish the 4th Henning Mankell Wallander novel today (I do love Ken's rendition but goodness they're abridged), but this - this - caps it all. My technological joy knows no bounds. What unfortunately the camera doesn't capture is the peculiar, bleached, Swedish, BBC Wallander-esque light that made me stop and stare and feel like I was at the end of the world.

Now if I can just capture the green parakeet and the redwing thrush that are feasting on the wild cherries by the kitchen window, I really will be flying.

It's not what I expected... Part II

2010-01-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

I am in the bookshop, I am coming down with tonsilitis but I am soldiering on. I'm tough like that. A woman comes in with her small son, Frank - or perhaps we might call him by his other name - Little Fucker. LF Frank is chuntering away as he barges round the shop. 'Ah' I think. 'Aren't small children funny when they have discovered the wonders of full sentence construction and can chat away like old pros.' Momentarily my instinctive very slightly anti-child facade lifts.

His mother comes to the counter with a book and some wrapping paper. I take the money and roll the wrapping paper and put the goods in a plastic bag. I notice LF Frank is eyeing me up in what might only be described as pre-meditative. I hand the bag to the mother and she turns to put it into the huge buggy (huge I can only imagine because there are leather restraints and a muzzle inside). LF Frank says 'Mummy, that lady punched me.' And he points at me. I am at this point standing some 2-3 feet away across a high counter that the snivelling LF cannot in any way see over. If I were Mrs Incredible, I could indeed have punched him. But I did not.

His mother tells him not to tell such terrible stories. He repeats the accusation. At this point, I empathise with every teacher in the land. I am about to be done for child assault. And for once, I am innocent. The BookSeller is mysteriously silent behind me, but I sense he could leap into action if required. LF Frank is hurriedly ushered from the shop. I'll be watching for him.

A beefy bargain and a thrifty lunch

2010-01-05T08:18:00.000-08:00

A rib of beef is a feast not often seen in this house. Usually outside of the budget, it's mostly reserved for special occasions. However, when the sweet man at the farmers' market offers me a double rib for half-price (it was so very cold and no-one could handle change and he was as desperate to get home as the rest of us) - the very same price as a pack of rib-eyes I was eyeing up - there's no way I'm going to say no.

I cooked it up on the Sunday night, following Hugh's tried and trusted 20 min 'sizzle' at 230C then 10 mins per 500g at 160C. Reader, it was perfect rosy pink. I served it with chips roasted in goose fat, creamed spinach and a little Mirabeau sauce, which is dead simple. Simply add a tiny smidgeon more fat to the roasting pan, melt some anchovies in it, then slosh in red wine and reduce. It sounds a little stark but it's a 'beefy' contrast to the meltingly tender meat.

So, as you might imagine there's a fair bit left for lunches. Yesterday I whizzed up a 'green sauce' to dollop over the top of the cold rare beef and some salad, but frankly the weather's cold, the snow's a-coming and I wanted something more substantial. This, dear reader, is the answer.

Cut up some purple sprouting broccoli and cook until slightly more than 'al dente' in stock to barely cover with a smashed clove of garlic. When they're nearly done, add some puy lentils (I use the ones in a can by Merchant Gourmet; you could also cook them from fresh, in which case simply reverse the order of broccoli and lentils) and cook for another 5 minutes. Drain not too carefully into a bowl. Make up a dressing of mustard, red wine vinegar and olive oil and toss the lentil mixture in it. (Note: you could - and preferably should, if you have any open - add a glass of red wine to the stock - it adds incredible depth of flavour. I just happen to have drunk mine last night)

This is a feast in itself, but I topped it with more cold beef and the remaining green sauce, but as I have half the lentil mixture left, tomorrow I shall have it with lumps of Gorgonzola piccante perhaps. You could try with a goats cheese, chilli, tomatoes - anything that takes your fancy really. The bonus is that overnight something amazing happens to the lentil/broccoli mixture, the flavours seeping and deepening.

Outrage...

2009-12-30T02:12:00.000-08:00

To begin completely irrelevantly, I can't quite bear to listen to Radio 2 just at the moment while still grieving over the loss of Terry, so I have - against all my better judgement - put the TV on while getting dressed (Can I just say at this juncture, I would listen to Radio 4 but this morning they were talking about UEFA Cup management (I think) for an extraordinarily long time and life is too short). Up came the ads in between GMTV and lo and behold, there's this - the newest product on the slimming market - Celebrity Slim. I swear to God, that's what it's called. It gets better - the tag line screams 'It won't make you a celebrity but it can make you thin.' I gaped in awe at the screen - Could there be a more depressing realisation of all the Noughties has stood for for women, aspiration, ambition, desire...

I am now going into the garden to eat worms. And anything else I can find, including the incredible amount of fox shit, if it make me less related to any species that might even contemplate buying into such bollocks.

PS: I blogged on this topic at length on Sugarvine. Go and have a look - let loose your howls of anger...

What now....?

2009-12-29T01:48:00.000-08:00

Right, that's Christmas over with. I shan't bore you with the details of yet another Christmas meal, but suffice to say, it was fabulous. MCD and I went up to my parents in Warwickshire where their snow made the garden look festive as you please. The lunch - or dinner this year as we got all rebellious and defiantly had the Meal in the evening - was perfection as always. We got our bird from Adlington Turkeys - highly recommended: free-ranging birds practically sung to sleep - you can tell they are cosseted from the large sign that reminds you as you drive up to turn off your headlights so as not to disturb them. I wish I had a sign like that for MCD's 6:30am starts.

I have also been introduced to the wonders of freshly ground coffee. One of the things I wanted this year was a year's subscription to Union Roasted Coffee. I opened up the parcel and was most dismayed to find that MCD had purchased the coffee as beans - and we don't have a grinder. But then, silly me, of course he'd added a Cuisinart coffee grinder to the pile and I have been grinding beans like gangbusters. Top tip: They recommend quite a coarse grind for cafetieres, but I found it was so coarse it didn't brew, so I make mine nearly as fine as for an espresso and it works perfectly.

It's now tipping it down - they promise more snow for New Year's which seems just the thing to round the year off. I shall leave you with the above picture of Sam, my parents' last baby. I have to say, I don't usually hold with dressing dogs in clothes (having said that, we've often put past dogs in their Christmas ribbons and even shocking pink Hair Flair wigs on occasions and I remember Sage, our only girl flatcoat, put on a star turn as Bullseye for the Dickens evening in the village some years ago, but then maybe it's just that Flatcoats look so dashing). Anyway, Sam received both a set of legwarmers and a set of Churchillian collar and cuffs and a squeaky cigar which he perfected the angle of holding incredibly quickly. Of course we had to put them all on at the same time.