A few glorious spring pictures

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

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

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

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

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...

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...

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.