Frolicking Foodie

Paint it Black - the fiddly Halloween

2009-11-03T11:15:00.000-08:00

Thanks to those of you who answered the cry for help in the previous post - particularly the post pointing out that filo pastry has no dairy! Brilliant!

What a face! I was trying to look all coy and 60s...

Well, cooking for the assembled vegetarians, omnivores and lactose-intolerants proved to be less of a hassle in practice than it was in theory. Once I had my menu and recipes sorted, it was all fairly plain sailing. I do love to prepare thoroughly and would much rather over-cater than under, so I made quite an array of dishes. Thankfully, all of these could be cooked in advance so I was able to enjoy the full murder mystery party. Everyone got completely into character and I'm so glad I didn't miss any of it by being stuck in the kitchen. There was one moment when I nipped to the kitchen to grab the starter and, with my hostess radar kicking in, totally disheartened to hear a complete silence from the 11 people in the other room. It turned out that they were all thoroughly engrossed reading their character low-downs! I recommend a murder mystery game if you ever have the chance to find one (I picked mine up at a car boot sale).

The menu was:

Lemon & cumin houmous (dairy-free)
Coriander pesto (vegetarian)
Flatbreads (used sheep milk yoghurt, so no cow dairy)

~~

Potato and spinach bureks (dairy-free)
Fattoush (dairy-free) [I call it this, because it's what I had in a restaurant once and I've recreated the recipe to taste like it did there - loads of lemon, mint, parsley, cucumber, romaine lettuce and tomatoes]
Roasted garlic and pumpkin mash (dairy-free)
Lamb, pumpkin and apricot 'tagine' (dairy-free, plenty of meat!)
Roasted veg (red peppers, courgettes, red onion, whole garlic cloves)

~~

Fig, apple and walnut crumble (dairy-free)
Cinnamon and Courvoisier cream (dairy-packed!)

And it was very tasty, even if I'm immodest and say so myself! At one point I mentioned that there was no need to be polite and that there was plenty for seconds - I was promptly trampled. Considering the amount I generally over-cater, there were very few leftovers. On Saturday I turned a portion of the leftover lamb tagine into a curry by cooking up some red peppers and onion, adding the lamb tagine and adding some extra cumin, garam masala and chilli. I had that with some home made naan (a recipe I've promised to some friends so that will be appearing soon, no doubt), and a heap of the fattoush. I've had roasted veg and houmous wraps for lunch, and am finally using up the last of the roasted onions and garlic in a tomato soup tonight.

The highlight of my evening was when one of my friends told me she was having a lovely time and that it was such a change for her to be able to eat nearly everything on offer. Making your friends feel at home and cared about is what it's all about, eh? *warm glow*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
p.s. Regarding the first picture of this post - well I truly have a new appreciation for the old black and white photos of my mum in the 1960s. My beehive was puny and still my scalp hurt all of the next day!

p.p.s. The second photo is of the body of Lord Michael Jagged I made out of polystyrene and TLM's clothes. I put this out some time before the party, and forgot to warn TLM. Cue being woken up at 3am by TLM shouting - having come in from a shift and found a strange man in our flat. Whoops.

Dairy Free + Vegetarian = Vegan Halloween Feast?! HELP!

2009-10-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

So TLM and I have somehow managed to co-ordinate 12 timetables to fit for a Halloween party. We got carried away with the theming/decorating/music of the event (Swinging, Halloween Murder Party - oh yeah!) and have forgotten all about the feeding people part. Unfortunately, the 12 various dietary requirements lead to a vegan conclusion - or at least mainly vegetarian with dairy and meat dishes on the side. Add this to the fact that restricted table space means this will be a lap-affair and I'm lead to thinking finger food starter, buffet-esque main and every-bowl-pushed-into-service-pudding.

So far I've come up with flatbreads, houmous and rough pesto for dippy starters. A crowd pleaser. Pudding will be a vegan brandified fig, apple and walnut crumble (with cinnamon cream for those lactose-tolerant).

The middle is lacking. I thought about cous cous of some variety, fattoush/tabbouleh, roasted veg, pumpkin & lamb tagine for the carnivores. But suggestions are needed! PLEASE HELP!

Still Jammin'

2009-09-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

Hello, thought I'd just check in. TLM has been working for what seems like forever, and we've got next week off together, hooray. Fingers crossed for clear bright days to continue!

The blackberry jam has gone down very well (not that I'm a fan of jam myself) and a fiery plum and apple chutney (adaptation of a Nigella recipe) was also met with approval. Got my hands on some cheap strawberries, so made 5 jars of strawberry jam. I'll get my official taster (TLM) to try it and if it's up to scratch I'll get the recipe up.

Hopefully I'll get my act together and post a bit more, but a serious of semi-calamitous events recently have left me with bigger fish to fry.

Wedding 'Photo Booth'

2009-09-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

#Well ever since I saw this on another wedding blog, I thought it was simply one of the best wedding ideas I've ever seen. A perfect way to keep guests busy, and a good project to include TLM in (while he likes the ribbons and stationery, it's just not the same as chopping up wood).

We went to the car boot sale at the weekend and picked up this assortment of frames. The large one (£2 - bargain) will be blank for faces, as will the medium-sized frame at the top right (30p - even better bargain). I've been collecting old family wedding photos for the others. I've been scanning them in, addding dates and captions so people will know where they've come from and when, and soon I can get some printed to the right size frame! Still might be seeking a diddy frame or two...

I added a little plaque to the big frame which has our names, the date and the faux title "Symphony of silly forms, No 297". As you can see, it's had its first poser already!

I have some snazzy green wallpaper lurking at my parents' house, so a bit close to the date we'll start construction.

I love it when a plan comes together! Pondering whether to have a small bin of props/accessories (tiaras, glasses, hats) to snazz it up? We've lovefancy dress, and have quite a stock, so it would seem to fit. What do you think?

Car Birthday Cake

2009-08-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

When you will go and make an outlandish, rainbow-coloured UN-birthday cake for your own party, it seems only polite to oblige when your beloved asks for something equally as ridiculous and time consuming for their birthday.

My brief was simple: a red car cake. With jam.

I scoured the internet for car cake tins (thought I could cut a corner - ho ho - here) but was thoroughly unimpressed at the 20-odd-quid price tag. They would also mean no jam, unless I were to start slicing it up which would sort of defeat the point of buying a cake mould. With a bit of inventiveness surely I could do it with what I had in already?

Using a remote-controlled car as a template and two slightly differently sized loaf tins I set to work. I used the same recipe as the UN-birthday cake, but only used 1/2 the sponge batter and 3/4 of the icing.

I poured 2/3 of the sponge batter into the larger loaf tin, and 1/3 into the smaller one. (Pictured below is the 'squodging' stage where I pressed the larger cake down when it was nearly cooked so it would be flatter to work with).

While I waited for my sponge to cool, I assembled my icing accessories (lights, number plates, wheels, wing mirrors, car badge), cake board with finishing line, chequered flags (made from cocktail sticks), trophy and candles (for the exhaust pipe).

I sandwiched the sponges with jam (only the top sponge needed a little cutting with a very sharp knife).

Then smothered the whole thing in a LOT of red icing, and started to add the pre-coloured roll-out icing accessories.

And TLM had three slices of it for birthday breakfast.

Get blackberry-jammin'

2009-08-26T10:03:00.001-07:00

"big dark blobs burned like a plate of eyes"

Seamus Heaney, a poet I hugely admire and have been lucky enough to see read in person, is who I hand over to to describe this time of year in England, where blackberries and greed abound:

Blackberry-picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

by Seamus Heaney

So don't squander your blackberries (I'm hoping there will be a final flush soon, if the sun comes out again)

by doing this:

to make this:

It is REALLY REALLY EASY. TLM has had the first jar, and apparently tastes good, is the right consistency and (honour of honours) tastes "just like normal jam ... "!

Ingredients - make 7 jars (which should be sterilized beforehand - by a thorough wash with soapy water, then leave them to dry in a medium-hot oven and make sure the hot jam goes into hot jars before screwing the lid on tight tight tight!)

1700 g blackberries (this is about an hour's worth of picking for one person, and the most a single person can take before being prickled beyond tolerance)
juice of 1 lemon
150 ml water
2 sachets of pectin (8g sachets)
1500 g sugar

How to make it

Put two or three saucers in the fridge. Wash the blackberries, dislodging any bugs (I try not to drown them, after all they were only being greedy too). Add the blackberries, lemon juice and water to a large pan and boil gently for 30 minutes. After this stage, add the sugar and pectin and boil rigorously for 5-8 minutes. Mine took about 8 minutes until it reached 'setting point'. This is where the cold saucers come in handy... to know when your jam is the right consistency (and not just a mushy syrup), you spoon a little jam onto the cold plate, let it cool slightly, and then draw your finger gently across the top. If the jam puckers - just a little - then you have reached setting point! You don't want full on wrinkles, just a little resistance rather than liquidity. Be warned that this is probably runnier than you think it should be for jam. Don't worry if you think it's far too runny as you spoon it into the jar, as the jam will thicken when it cools. For me, runny jam is better than jam you have to chop up with your spoon.

Try it!

It really hit home that this is a way of preserving, and so when I was using up the last of my apples in the garden and needed a bit more fruit, I bunged in some of this blackberry jam (removing some of the sugar from the crumble recipe to make up!) and it was scrummy.

The Fruit Preservation Society

2009-08-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

Membership: 1

I'm sure I've already told you that our garden here is a veritable Garden of Eden, and now we've lived here for a year we've had the full cycle of apples, plums, strawberries, raspberries, hazelnuts and (a few rather sad) passionfruit. This time last year we were just moving in and the plums and apples had mainly fallen. This year, I was well and truly ready. I plucked the plums regularly so that if any fell, I knew that had only fallen that day and, subject to strict quality controls ;-), were good to go. As there are four plum trees, I have had hundreds of Victoria (?) plums. It took me two hours to halve and stone these that remained after giving bag after bag away to friends, family and anyone who paused long enough for me to hook a carrier bag on.

and it left my hands brown and revolting. They're still stained despite bleach, nailbrush and a Lady Macbeth-esque frenzy.

This year's apple crop wasn't as good at last year's (pictured below). They were on the whole smaller and there were a lot less of them. It could be because of the weather, but I think the apple tree may be dying. It's not too happy-looking.

As we also live a short hop from the river (as in, a 20-second walk!) I've discovered that nearly on our doorstep we have mega loads of blackberry bushes! Knowing I wanted to make blackberry jam today I was up at 8 am to harvest about 2 kg of blackberries before everyone else decided that it would be a good way to spend Saturday afternoon ... mwah ha ha ha.

So for the past few weeks we've been having (and I've been inviting people round for) lots of fruit with icecream and cream, a lot of apple and blackberry crumble, apple and plum crumble, plum pie and various other combinations. However, I've decided it's time to STOP eating the glut of fruit and start to preserve it.

So today I went to town, got a whole load of jars (will need some more...) and various ingredients and set about making blackberry jam, apple and plum chutney, plum and ginger chutney, plum jam and Chinese plum sauce - alongside stewing plums and apples to freeze in portions.

Having never made jam before, I think the blackberry jam looks promising. It seems to thicken nicely as it cools. I was worried I'd stopped cooking it too soon while it was runny as I was scared of ruining my lovely stockpot.

I've run out of jars, I'm knackered and scalded, and the house smells of sugar and vinegar. Further reports will follow.

Let's start at the very beginning ...

2009-08-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

... a very good place to start!

There's been a lot of change recently, not least with TLM moving some distance away, living in a cupboard in the hospital and working in A&E (which means I'm seeing him infrequently - so far about 1 in 10 days). This leaves me with quite a bit of time on my hands, and with my cooking becoming a bit hit-and-miss, creating big batches to freeze and then picking at food in-between times. Cooking for one, it turns out, is much less fun. It seems my creative outlet is fast becoming planning and making things for the wedding.

It keeps me entertained, makes me think of TLM in a lovely way (rather than a 'my-world-is-falling-apart-I-miss-you' way) and is proving to be quite the money-saver.

If you're not interested in weddings, then turn away now. If you do, then I'm tagging all wedding-related posts as such and have a link on the left hand side of the blog.

---

So to kick things off, here's the wedding colour scheme I've settled on:
It is rather all-encompassing, but I've discovered that if things don't have to be too matchy-matchy there's a lot more scope for bargain-hunting. My 'theme' is Wessex as we're marrying here in the Westcountry in a little church on a hill and having the reception in the church's hall.

Keep posted if you're interested, though I expect it will only be my mother who is tuning in (hi mum!).

Lickin' Banksy

2009-07-10T12:01:00.001-07:00

TLM and I were up bright and early to visit the Banksy Exhibition at Bristol Museum and after a (relatively) short queue we shuffled into the main entrance, past a 'topical' image of Michael Jackson sat on the doorstep of a gingerbread house offering a candy cane to two small children. Once we were ushered into the museum we were able to roam free and as part of the first batch into the museum it was still relatively quiet as we looked first at the specially set-aside exhibition and then made our way round the museum, spotting substituted paintings, hash pipes in the 'boring old plates' room and muzzled lambs and beavers with trophies in the taxidermy section.

One of my favourites, the 'Flight from Egypt - budget version' was one of the substitutions in the main painting rooms.
The 'ANGEL OF THE NORTH' had me laughing my socks off (particularly as I'm going up to Manchester tomorrow for a girly night out). Fag, can, heels in hand and kebab wrappers on the floor.

The animatronic bunny sat filing her nails endlessly. I don't know why, but I was captivated. Maybe because she was ignoring me?

The exhibition continued: hilarious, thought-provoking, submersive etc etc. As we were coming to the end, hoardes of people were rammed in to the museum and a whole load of teenagers flocked from piece to piece, indiscriminately taking camera phone pictures of everything - quite befitting.

Afterwards, we wandered up the road and stopped in a little patisserie... (note the grubby finger marks)

and I ate the whole of this little delight, which was like a treacle tart but with added pecans. Hum-a-nah.

Passionfruit, Mango and Raspberry Mess

2009-07-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

As much as I love Eton mess, there comes a time in summer when it's just a bit too sickly. Strawberries? Again?

With the recent boiling hot weather, I decided a tropical twist on the English classic was the way forward. There is nothing more to this 'recipe' than great ingredients and very gentle folding (blitzed meringue just makes for a load of sweet cream rather than chewy texture variation). I used raspberries, shop-bought meringue (shhh), lovely Westcountry double cream and some of this lovely-jubbly passionfruit and mango coulis that I got at the Cheltenham food festival. (I tried the damson, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry...) I spoke to the chap, Nick, who own the company and apparently they regularly win taste awards. I'm not surprised, it is delicious. If only I can wangle some free bottles...

I whipped the cream, crumbled the meringue in large pieces in with it, added a touch of coulis and folded it over twice with a large spoon. Scooped out, daub of cream and a drizzle of coulis on top, raspberries sprinkled on top. Yum. Yum yum yum.

Back to the gym...

Megrim with Tarragon

2009-06-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

I have learnt from experience that it is better to wait until after you have eaten a fish to google what it looks like (monkfish was the point in case). So when I found out that the alternative name for a megrim was a 'whiff' and that it was specifically a left-eyed flat fish (a relative of turbot), I was surprised that it was actually quite a cute little critter. What's more, it made pretty nice eating pan-fried quickly and then lidded and cooked for 10 minutes with butter, fresh tarragon and lots of lemon juice.

It was a moist, meaty white-fleshed fish, which came off the bones easily and tasted just delicious. It was the first time I have put tarragon with fish and it gave a fennel-y zing to the proceedings.

I'd only gone for the megrim as they were reduced in the supermarket to £2.49 per fish - and I naturally chose the biggest one there was (which was probably twice the size of some of the others). Served with some bread and some lovely fresh peas and broad beans it was certainly stuffing.

It took longer to pod the peas and beans than it did to cook the fish! I love summer eating, where you can laze in the garden doing the prep before a quick flash in the pan.

Green Garlic Sausages in Quince and Grape Sauce

2009-06-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

Without doubt, the most swamped stand at the Cheltenham Food Festival was the Ragley Estate Meats stand as they were serving up tasters of their pies and sausages. People kept going back for more of their sausages, and when I tasted I could understand why! They were so deliciously moist. I snapped up two packets: one of their 'award winning' standard pork sausages, and one of their green garlic variety (which I was led to believe were very garlicky indeed).

One of the most exuberant stalls at the festival was a man selling a plethora of quince products. Never having tasted quince, I duly tried some and thought it was lovely, bought a jar and was given a handy sheet of recipes. I'll come back to that sheet, but I immediately thought of my bangers when I got the quince (I usually put apples in with my sausages).

Today a friend at work, who has been swamped by broad beans, brought a huge bagful of them for us all to dip in to. I took my handful and thought merrily about dinner.

Maybe it was because the broad beans are small and green, or maybe the quince man mentioned grapes, but I decided to include grapes too (I thought the garlicky sausages could hold their own against the sweet sauce). So I set to dinner, making the mash as usual and podding the broad beans.

My usual method with sausages is to give them a bit of a grilling (lets at least some of the fat out) and then put them in a pan with some caramelised onions and finish them off bubbling away under a lid. To make the sauce today, I cooked an onion for a long slow time, adding water at intervals to stop it burning on the pan. I added a tablespoon of quince jelly, a slosh of double cream and a handful of grapes. I then put the sausages in and let it cook for 4-5 minutes to combine.

The garlicky sausages were as good as I'd tasted them at the festival and their robust flavour worked very well with the quince and grape sauce. The broad beans added an interesting texture, but were perhaps overwhelmed (spinach next time instead?) - I did notice however that they tasted LOVELY and didn't have a yukky fibrous skin like school broad beans. In all, I think it almost worked. I'd cut the grapes in half next time and probably have spinach or broccoli or savoy cabbage instead of the broad beans.

Cheltenham Food Festival

2009-06-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Cheltenham Food Festival and have returned with a bag of produce and a head full with ideas. I'm sure they will feature on here before too long! I'm currently rather whacked, so here are a few highlights:

1. Seeing last year's Masterchef winner, Mat Folas, demonstrate his cooking. The best bit was when he told everyone to come and have a look (rather than remain hermetically sealed to the plastic chairs). The organisers were scurrying around, visibly stressed, while everyone tried the food and asked probing questions about basil, how to smoke things and what exactly was going on with Raymond Blanc.

There followed an incredibly teeny plate of food (his winning meal, I believe, of rabbit three ways - kidneys, loin and rack).

2. Being mesmerised by people with skills I can only hope to master. I watched while he filleted two fish.

3. Enjoying a 'wine talk' (I took notes) where the six wines sampled were given in rather generous portions. Because TLM was driving home I also availed myself of his after he niffed and sipped the wine.

It was a great day, sunny but not too hot, and has left me with lots of inspiration for both food and drink. Brilliant!

Elderflower and mint cordial

2009-06-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

This was a bit of an experiment as I wanted to use some of the mint which is growing copiously in the garden. I knew it would either make a deliciously refreshing cordial or something that tasted like toothpaste. Thankfully it turned out to be just right.

Ingredients (makes enough to fill 2 x 75 cl bottles)

15 large elderflower heads
1.5 litres water
350 g caster sugar
100 g brown sugar
25 g citric acid (finally found it in a chemist's, read the saga of the citric acid here)
5 full stems of mint
1 orange
1 lemon

How to make it

Boil the water (should be about one very full kettle's worth) and pour it over the sugar and leave to cool. Once it's cool, stir in the citric acid.

Lightly rinse the elderflower heads to remove any dirt or little insects (but don't plunge them in water). Peel the orange and lemon with a vegetable peeler and throw the peel in with the elderflower heads. Slice the fruit and add. Pick five tall, young stems of mint and add to the fruity and fragrant mix. Pour the now cool water, sugar and citric acid mixture over the fruity concoction. Cover with cling film and leave to infuse for a day.

Strain the fruit, through muslin or cheesecloth ideally to make it as clear as possible. The cordial should be put into sterilised bottles (I pour boiling water into the bottles, right to the top, pour the water out and leave them to dry in a hot oven for about 20 minutes) and the lids tightly added.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this cordial as it was heady and fragrant, but had a zingy and completely refreshing edge. It was the perfect antidote to a full morning's gardening:

During which I found these growing merrily! I'm going to eat them before anyone, or anything, else does!

Croissants, by the light of the silvery moon

2009-06-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

TLM has been working some extremely unsociable hours recently (two months down, two to go) and we often pass like ships in the night. We live in a perpetual time-delay, asking how the 'day' of work went some 18 hours after it happened. He arrives home after I've left for work and I wake him at 6pm as I return. We make the bed for each other, leaving the corner turned down and PJs for the other person folded up neatly (and, of course, Dr Cuddles who takes the place of the 'spoonee'). It's only right when the bed is in near 24-hour use.

When he's not working nights, he's working all weekend as long days (7am-10pm) and so I am left to my own devices. For a while I spent some fantastically self-indulgent days sitting in the park, cycling, getting my hair cut, shopping, wedding-scheming... and then I decided to try new, labour-intensive recipes that are not possible when you have to think about other people.

So I made croissants, using the recipe from the new River Cottage Bread Book. Lordy. They were everything they promised to be (waiting for dough in large bin liners, pounding butter between cling film, endless rolling, precise isosceles-triangle cutting) and more. They tasted fantastic, and I was overwhelmed with pride that they actually looked like croissants. They were soft, moist, crackly and endlessly giving. One was filling enough (TLM usually eats three, and a few pain au chocolat to boot). They really rewarded the effort that went into them.

Will I be bothered to do them again? Probably not. I just don't see how so much attention can be lavished on any meal, let alone a breakfast pastry. Also, I'm clearly terrible at cutting them as I had about 200g of wasted pastry (this I cannot tolerate) and so it's probably more economical to buy them. But to have a croissant with substance was a pleasing change. And they did work lovely as a 7pm dinner/breakfast for me/him.

Halcyon days, and a mission that would make Guy Ritchie proud

2009-06-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

There's no place like home and, for me, that means there's no place like the Westcountry on a summer day. Having spent recent summers tied to a desk at a university library, or cooped up in a sticky city, or semi-stranded on a tropic isle where the sun sets at 6pm every evening, I've been longing to get back home. Home to hot air balloons, cricket, ducklings on canals, fayres, cider festivals, bandstands, open fields and ekeing out hazy evenings with a blanket on knees.

One of the most evocative tastes of a British summer, aside from strawberries and new veg smothered in butter, is the elderflower. Near where we live all the elderflower were plucked from the riverbanks some time ago, so when I spotted a bush still bearing white flowers, I had to take my chance and merrily denuded everything within reach. I collected over 60 heads (perhaps a little over-ambitious) and made home with my haul.

now follows... the citric acid saga
in which many frustrations befall the frolicking foodie

SATURDAY:

3pm: with a veritable heap of flora, the ingredients to make cordial must be sourced - sugar, water, lemons, oranges... fine. Citric acid? Well that must be with the bicarbonate of soda.

4pm, a well-known supermarket: OK, so it's not in home-baking. Or specialist foods. Or the medicines aisle. Or the cleaning fluids. Or the alcohol. I'll ask this helpful chap. OK, looking it up on the store's system. None. Bugger. Looking it up on the Sainsbury's mainframe. 'no populated content for this search'. That means that there is none, in any Sainbury's supermarket, anywhere. Onwards.

4:30pm, a well-known chemist: So people cut their drugs with it and you can no longer sell it? I could try and independent pharmacist? OK...

4:35pm [by this point, running Anika Rice-stylee down the high street]: You do sell it! YESSS! Oh... you can't get it for love nor money? Elderflower cordial season y'say. Funny, that.

4:40pm, an independent kitchen shop: Oh you'd love to help me, m'lover, but everyone's been asking for it! You'ves no idea what's got into every man and his wife!

4:50pm, a health food shop: Well, I'm at least the tenth person to ask today for this citric acid stuff. Not quite sure what it's for, but tell you what if you like, there's the man that owns the little chemist on the end of the bridge, good Lordy, can't even remember the name of him. Could be Gerald, or maybe Germone? Definitely began with a G of some sort, and, well, he's pretty good with stocking stuff, he is. What's it for anyway?

4:55pm, Gerry's pharmacy (no clearer idea what his name really is): Why haven't I tried the home brew shop? WHY haven't I tried the home brew shop!!

4:59pm, outside the home brew shop (which is next to a small church with a bell tower), the clock striking out 5pm as I turn the corner to face the front door. CLOSED. I raise my fists to the sky, shake them helplessly at the air and let our a prolonged 'Nooooooooo'. I resist falling to my knees and sobbing into them. Just.

5:00pm, car: slight mini-tantrum thrown.

6:00pm, kitchen: elderflowers reluctantly placed in a shallow bowl of water and covered with cling film. Cordial scuppered.

MONDAY:

Home brew shop closed till Wednesday. Phoned every independent pharmacy in town. None, anywhere. There's been a run on it, apparently. Then I get a phone call back... there will be a delivery. They can't say when. They can take my name and my number. They can't sell me more than 100g, cause the law's on their back. But they can do me two packets, if I can come in at lunch time.

I go in at lunch time. I sidle up to the pharmacy assistant. Got any citric? No, all out. She eyeballs me. I'm on the list, I try feebly. Oh, well, she says. That makes all the difference, she says. She unlocks a drawer below the till and takes out 'the list'. She crosses my name off and hands me two small boxes of acid. I pay cash, and stash them in my handbag.

Got to be careful round these parts, anyone'll have you for 100g of citric acid.

Sunshiny Sunday: Barbecue Halloumi Skewers

2009-06-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

Sunny Sundays prompt the lighting of barbecues across the nation and after niffing the lovely smells weekend after weekend, today we joined in. We invited our fishy friends around (which is no insult, they are vegetarians who eat fish - pescetarians officially but 'fishy friends' makes me chuckle) so we were to prepare a mostly meat-free barbecue. Halloumi first came to mind.

Great minds thought alike and our friends also brought ingredients for halloumi, and tuna, kebabs. As per the natural order, the boys took charge of the barbecuing and sat at the table threading the skewers: halloumi-courgette-cherry tomato-pepper-mushroom. They too took charge of the cooking:

'Just chuck the oil over as well, it'll be fiiiiiiiine'

The tuna kebabs were first to be cooked (brushed with garlic infused oil and lime and sprinkled with salt and coriander). Consensus was that they were the best things to have ever come off a barbecue.

We were, however, mistaken. The halloumi skewers - picture at the top of the page - (brushed with lemon infused oil and sprinkled with salt and mint), slid into a lightly barbecued pitta bread were absolutely delicious. The courgette-cherry tomato-halloumi combination was particularly good!

I now have a spare chunk of halloumi and a recipe from said fishy friends for a halloumi salad including spinach and oranges...

(As a side note, we started the barbecue by supping some English wine from very close to where my parents live. It was the 2007 Sharpham's Dart Valley Reserve, and very nice it was too! I've had English white wine only once before, from a place called Wissett in Suffolk and it was NOT good. This, however, was light and crisp and I don't know if we were simply overcome with summer, but we could definitely sense a taste of the most summery of fragrances: elderflower.)

UN-birthday cake

2009-06-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

My heart skipped a beat when Heston Blumenthal, experimental chef extraordinaire, brought out a completely edible insect-filled garden and vibrating absinthe jelly at his Alice in Wonderland themed feast. My own Mad Hatter Tea Party had been planned for some time and now the bar had been raised and I had to do something special (for other pictures of the party, see here)

My head was filled with images of psychedelic, towering, toppling cakes exploding with colour... but it had to be achievable. And it had to give up a special secret at the last minute.

So I made a cake, smothered it in pink icing and stuck cards all around the base. And I kept the surprise all to myself. So as the cake was brought out to me and people sang my a happy UN-birthday, I was sniggering inside knowing I had my Heston Blumenthal moment to come. With great mischievousness, I cut the tall cake open to reveal...

A six-layered rainbow cake!

It was incredible to see the astounded faces of my guests. I can now completely understand the feeling Heston gets when he makes someone fill with childish smiles over the food they're about to eat.

It was completely worth the effort, especially as it was straight-forward to make, and I recommend it to anyone. It was just a Victoria sponge, a WHOLE jar of jam to stick it all together and a slathering of butter icing to hold it all together and make 'operation: wonderment' complete.

Admittedly, there was some special food-paste dye (which can be bought online and is worth the investment as it is vivid and doesn't alter the texture of the cake mixture) but there was a lot of washing up...

Luckily my mock-turtle kitchen assistant took care of that :)

UN-birthday cake (serves 25-30... which is just as well considering the ingredients)

450 g self raising flour
450 g unsalted butter or margarine
450 g caster sugar
8 eggs
food dye

(1 jar of raspberry jam for sandwiching the layers together)

for the icing...

250 g unsalted butter
500 g icing sugar
dash hot water
food dye

How to make it

To make the cake, cream the butter and sugar together until soft and white. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Alternate adding the beaten eggs and the flour in to the butter and sugar mixture. Mix until combined, but not totally smooth. Separate between six large bowls, add the relevant food dye and mix/beat until smooth (if you beat till smooth first and then added the food dye and beat again you'd probably get rid of all the air). Pour into sandwich tins (I think mine are 23cm) and cook for 15-20 minutes, depending on the amount of mixture (you're bound to have somehow misjudged the batter for one of the layers). Cook the sponges, two at a time, in the middle of an oven preheated to 190 Celsius.

Leave the layers to go absolutely cool before sandwiching together with LOTS of jam. Don't worry if it's a big mess, it will be fine once covered in icing.

To make the icing, beat the butter and sugar together, adding a little water if needed and the food dye of whatever colour you like. Ice the cake from the bottom up using a knife. Don't get too neat.

Decorate the outside however you like and then wait out the moment of the big reveal!

p.s. A special mention should be made of my mother who, though she can't cook, is an outstanding seamstress (a skill that sadly eludes me) and made me a fantastic costume:

also thanks to dad who scared the rain away by spending hours putting up tarpaulin, and a big hello to people visiting because I outed my blogging habit after a little too much sparkling wine (and absinthe?!) drunk from teacups!

Welcome to Wonderland...

2009-06-09T11:07:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to share a few snaps from my party before I post about the most exciting part...

which wasn't falling down the rabbit hole...

or meandering through the (tarpaulined) Tugley Wood...

It was of course the UN-birthday cake...

Jamie's Italian

2009-05-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

crabmeat spaghettini

This past week we've been having a bit of a 'home holiday' - both off work, but no plans to go abroad. I've been collecting leaflets for galleries and walks and researching for the best cycle routes and river swimming spots in preparation. We had a fantastic start to our week with beautiful weather and we embarked up and down the canals on our bikes with picnics and had a lot of gratis fun. As the week progressed and the weather got worse we spent more time and money indoors (cinema, spa etc) but because we chose not to go away we were able to place no restrictions on ourselves - if we wanted to get some cheese from the ridiculously expensive shop we absolutely could! So one day last week we went into Jamie's Italian on a whim as, for once, there appeared to be no queue outside.

We were greeted by a rather scatty but charming hostess who told us we could be seated in about 15 minutes, showed us to the bar and gave us a pager that would bleep and flash red when our table was ready. We availed ourselves of some drinks and as we waited a member of staff walked around offering samples of bread and cheeses, and a member of kitchen team stood at a pasta machine machine small nests of tagliatelle. Although it was about 2pm the restaurant was still busy (a good thing in my books) and had a lovely informal atmosphere. Just as we were settling down our pager started flashing at us with fury and we were whisked upstairs to our table.

You'll notice the coats on the backs of chairs and absence of tablecloths in the picture below, and it did feel a bit like a plush canteen, but I liked it: it had clearly been very well put together. We were given plenty of time to scope out the menu and we decided to go for a combination of starters to try as many different things as possible.

Below:
The higher board (balanced on tomato tins, which I personally felt was a bit contrived)
Is the meat antipasti plank selection. It had buffalo mozzarella, Italian coleslaw (squash, beetroot, celeriac and carrot with a lemon, mint and olive oil dressing), pecorino cheese with chilli jam, San Daniele proscuttio, mortadella with pistachio nuts, a special piquant Tuscan salami.

The lower board
Is the bruschetta which came as a bit of a DIY affair with chargrilled sourdough bread, a clove of garlic to rub the bread with and a selection of: ricotta, mixed tomato salsa, rocket and Parmesan pesto and something that resembles artichoke houmous (this differed from what was on the menu so I'm not entirely sure what it was, but it was delicious)

We also went for the bread selection, which came with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The bread selection included grissini sticks, foccacia, sourdough country bread, and 'music bread' with a rosemary gremolata (it's the stuff that looks a bit like a poppadom).

Our starter selection also came with pickles, olives and caper berries - but I'm not sure which dish they were technically supposed to go with.

OK, so where to begin?! I really enjoy starters in a restaurant - it's like a savoury pick'n'mix and, as someone who would chose crisps over chocolate, this is my idea of heaven. When all this loveliness arrived, my eyes just lit up. It took us such a long time to work through the starters and I spent so long nibbling, enthusing and enjoying everything. TLM particularly enjoyed the breads and the Italian coleslaw. I really enjoyed the somewhat unexpected artichoke concoction and tasting the pecorino, as I'd not had it before. The foccacia was amazing - definitely on my to make list next! The only thing I didn't really like was the mortadella, but that stems from deep-rooted associations with pink luncheon meat. I wasn't sure about the bruschetta being disassembled, but it worked for our purposes as I could eat the bit I chose, and he likewise. I didn't like the way they did the balsamic and olive oil as the balsamic sat completely unreachable under the vat of oil and I didn't want to sop the lovely bread in tons of olive oil to get the merest smidge of vinegar. It was tantalising (and I mean that with the original negative connotations). What shone through was the quality of the food and how wonderfully flavourful it was. I was very happy, and bordering on full, after the starters.

I ordered the crabmeat spaghettini (pictured at the top of this post) which also contained fennel, capers and anchovies and came in a spicy chilli sauce. The chilli tickled my lips before giving way to the saltiness of the anchovies. The crabmeat was divine, and there was plenty of it, and the fennel added a delicious fragrance. There was only one caper in my entire bursting bowl, but that didn't bother me so much as I don't really like capers. If I did I might have been a bit miffed. The fresh pasta was very good, and extremely filling. Next time I go, I'll definitely go for a smaller-sized portion if I have so much to start with as I had to leave half! I did find a few lemon pips in my dish (well, I found them in my mouth and had to spit them out) but have excused this as enthusiasm on the part of the juicer. The crab shell was a bit less excusable.

TLM had the traditional spaghetti bolognese, and allowed me to take a snapshot (all the while menacing me with his fork).

Hang on though. I looked at my plate of spaghettini, then to his of spaghetti. Are they not the same thing? And aren't they supposed to be different? Surely his spaghetti is a little on the spaghett-teeny side? I don't profess to know much about pasta, but I do know that they're designed to set off the sauce and that changing the pasta must make some difference? TLM tucked in with vigour though and allowed me to have a taste and it was particularly tasty - really moist without being slathered in tomato sauce. It didn't matter, but I was curious.

When the waitress asked us if everything was OK with our food, I did ask what the difference between spaghetti and spaghettini was and she said that spaghettini was thinner. I just looked at the plates again. Hmmmm - they were clearly the same thing on our plates. We carried on with the same level of enjoyment though, it was more an academic point on my part.

When we finished, the waitress came to offer us the sweets menu and very diplomatically told us that she'd asked the chef as she was curious too and that, indeed, they'd run out of spaghetti and were using spaghettini. It was really good of her to find out without being asked and it was all goodhearted and I was so pleased I wasn't mad!

I finished off with a delicious teapigs peppermint tea (my favourite) but we decided against pudding as I was just too stuffed and TLM wasn't sold on the gelato. We saw the size of the gelato scoops coming from the kitchen and, knowing the Italian-family-owned icecream shop with scores of flavours was just around the corner, TLM decided we should stop there on the way home.

So all in all we had a lovely meal. The staff were really great and made a big difference to our experience. The food was delicious, though there was too much fancy pants faffing in places (the tinned tomatoes, the discombobulated bruschetta) and not quite enough attention to detail in others (the lemon pips and crab shell in my pasta, subbing one pasta for another without notice). I would, however, not hesitate to recommend Jamie's Italian and will certainly enjoy going again for a late and leisurely lunch. The food was good value for such quality (we paid £45 in total for our meals and an alcoholic drink each - though we did buy a round separately at the bar before the meal) and it's clear why there is nearly always a queue of 40+ people waiting to wait for a table!

p.s. We spent a good 2 hours there, sipping and scoffing with our courses and drinks coming at a nice slow pace. I do wonder if they whole experience would have been different if there was the strain of the hordes outside and inevitable pressure to move along?

Malta-eser Cake

2009-05-16T07:44:00.001-07:00

Every year I watch Eurovision and every year I flounce out of the room at around midnight, fed up having wasted three hours of my life watching it.

This year we're going to friends' for dinner and to watch the show, hopefully in better humour. I will be taking a Malta-eser cake (geddit, geddit?) in honour of the country that always gives us some points. [[it's the Chocolate Malteser Cake from Nigella Lawson's Feast book]]. I've been wanting to make it for some time and had a practise during the week and it was so good - I'll definitely be making it again! I promise to make it for my dad who is such a fan of Maltesers (Whoppers, apparently in the US) and will find this not at all too chocolatey!

7 Things I Hate About You

2009-05-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been given an award which, sneakily, has a meme tacked to the back of it. I generally either find internet memes mildly amusing or pesky and presumptuous. Maybe I’m in a contemplative mood today (or the fact my lovely chap is working late) but this one given to me by the Heavenly Housewife, which requires you to pinpoint seven of your personality traits, had me totally taken in. So, egocentricity number one, right?

Some time ago I attended a session which involved a lot of navel-gazing, identifying your learning style blah blah blah. Over dinner that evening I innocently asked TLM if he thought I had a Type A personality. He slammed his cutlery down, mouth full, looked at me incredulously, remembered to swallow, and declared, “I have never met a more Type A specimen than you in my life”. He picked up his cutlery, carried on eating and I smirked to myself. Type A! A is my favourite mark! A for ace, awesome, amazing! Nambawan!

I later looked up what Type A meant and came across the following descriptions: competitive and achievement-orientated; over-developed sense of time-urgency; overwhelmed by frustration; highly-strung and intense; has free-floating hostility; is essentially an extrovert crippled by intrinsic insecurity.

*gulp*

It sounded like one of the descriptions in Theme Hospital (you know, deaf as a post, smells of cabbage, gets people’s backs up). And my nearest and dearest had declared me a prime example.

I know he isn’t wrong. When something goes awry in the kitchen I stomp my feet, blame the oven and vow never to bother again seeing as I’m so clearly terrible at everything *humph*. I still try and ice cakes when they’re too warm, even though I know better, and end up in a self-inflicted Sisyphus-esque task, scooping melting icing from stand to cake top. When I’m inconsolable over a split custard it’s probably hard to see the upside to a Type A personality, but I’m sure there are benefits to having such a restless character.

So here are the seven personality traits I have selected – as honestly as possibly – that are probably worthy of loving and loathing in equal measure.

1. WILFUL I will stubbornly persist in what I want to do. This has generally served me well, but can mean I have to have my own way. This is a trait I dislike intensely in myself. Unfortunately I don’t hate it as much as I hate not getting my own way. You see my conundrum.

2. FLIGHTY I go through life slightly delirious and given to frivolous flights of fancy. This is not to say I’m spontaneous as I love to have everything planned. But I will be taken by the idea that, say, I simply have to skip in the park, wearing my favourite dress and humming a certain song or NOTHING CAN BE RIGHT WITH THE WORLD. And it will be done (see: 1. WILFUL). This is partly why I like Chinese/Thai food so much – all the ingredients are chopped and ready to go, but I can still veer from fish sauce to hoisin to black bean and make my decision at the last second.

3. AFFABLE Maybe my only actually nice quality is that I’m very warm and approachable and I want everyone to be included and happy. Group hug? Er, no. I’m not tactile and I will bristle if you are not one of the select few people I am happy to cuddle.

4. INGENUOUS I found this word today and really quite liked it. I’m honest to a fault, often gullible, generally a bit naïve. This has served me less well as a lot of people out there in the world are able to lie, con, scam and cheat. I don’t know how they live with themselves. Oh and being artless also makes me open up in memes.

5. UNGUARDED Following from ingenuous, I am emotionally transparent and this generally disarms people – in a good way. I am, however, given to histrionic episodes (fancy way of saying tantrums) but keep my fits of pique to myself wherever possible.

6. IDEALISTIC Ah, youth (someone said that I was still a spring chicken today – huzzah!) I am prone to perfectionism, and set horrifically high targets for myself. I don’t apply these exacting standards to other people though: I lavish heartfelt praise on other people and enthuse about their achievements.

7. DO-ER As in, “She’s a do-er…” Creating and achieving… and then analysing how it can be better next time. I’ve only got one speed and it’s fast (or, rather, two speeds like a squirrel: pelting along or stopped stock still).

I found this task really cathartic, so thank you Heavenly Housewife! Rather than pass this on to 7 people (see, I will get my own way) I'll let people reply with what they can love and loathe about themselves if they want to.

Why lunch is sometimes bad for you...

2009-05-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I work in town, near some very lovely cafes, delis and shops. Previously it was the pastries that called to me at lunch time, but since my health kick I've shut their siren calls out. So...

Well I did need a carving board (I was fed up with meaty juices trickling slyly onto the floor and subsequently being slipped on). There was 30% off and it was actually a lot more reasonably priced and more robust than others I have seen. Moreover, the apron-clad people in the shop looked at me as though I lived in a barn-conversion with a stable door and a small lamb to incubate the the warming oven...

Have I done a very bad thing? ;)

Black Forest Fairy Cake

2009-05-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Today I discovered a truly delightful side-effect of my blogging. After a long day at work, followed by a hard slog in the gym I came home to TLM who presented me with the cake pictured above. What has this got to do with blogging? Well, he has just come off nights (so has a short reprise before getting back on the wards) and, unable to sleep, pootled on my food blog. Spotting these, he decided to go to town making a full-sized and thoroughly him version...

To paraphrase the method he described:

He started by doubling the chocolate sponge recipe which produced six (muffin-sized!) fairy cakes. An unsuccessful foray to the local supermarket meant he decided to make his own cherry jam (wow!) to, and I quote, "smear inside the hole". He then divided some cream, leaving some plain and combining the other half with "mashed-up" cherries. The pink cream went into the hole, followed by some more cherry jam, topped off by the excised sponge lid. A dollop of cream, a cherry and a sprinkling of chocolate - et voilà!

I am so ridiculously impressed! They were delicious and, knowing he might get a spot on my blog ;), beautifully presented. What a winner!

Thin Crust Pizza

2009-05-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

sun-blush tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, mozzarella and a whole heap of rocket

Had a productive bank holiday - got a lovely tray and new bike at a car boot sale. The weather left a little to be desired, leaving some dull light for photos, so we had another DIY spree (spice rack was the last one...) and made a lightbox. See results above - I'm so pleased!

Until six months ago I'd never cooked a pizza from scratch, but since I first tried to make my own I haven't looked back. This recipe makes enough for 6 individual-sized pizzas (I cut the dough into threes and freeze two batches) or 4 big sharers. These pizzas are great for a dinner with friends if the dough and toppings are ready to be assembled as each person likes.

It's really straight forward to make this dough, which is happy to be frozen after the first rising stage, and the pizza itself doesn't take much more time than throwing a frozen pizza into the oven. Honest. I sometimes make this dough before work and leave it rise in the cool, slowly. Today I whacked it together and hot-housed it in the oven by turning the oven on to its hottest setting, turning it off right away and then leaving it to rise in the residual heat.

For a white dough pizza (wholemeal coming up in another post) I like it thin and crisp.

Makes 4-6 pizza bases

500 g strong white flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsps sugar
1 sachet (7g) yeast
2 tbspn oil (I try and use oil reserved from sun-dried tomatoes or similar)
300 ml lukewarm water (not too hot or the yeast will not perform - trust me here!)

Mix the sugar, yeast, oil and water together in a jug and leave for 5 minutes to bubble up. Weigh out the salt and flour. If using a mixer (I know I am so very lucky to have one!) then you bung it all in together at once and leave it to do its thing for about 8 minutes. If going by hand (and I have done this as well) you plonk the flour and salt onto the surface, make a well and then add the watery mixture. Incorporate by bringing the flour into the well of water, gradually. In theory this sounds easy. In reality, it starts OK and then gets ahead of itself and there is generally a rabid scramble to stop yeast and sugary water running down the surfaces and onto your feet. Just go fast and think about the mess later. After this it's just a case of really pounding, kneading and showing the dough who's boss. After ten minutes and much huffing and puffing you begin to get there. Feeling it change under your hands is really quite special.

Whether you mix by hand or by machine it goes through three stages:

The shaggy, messy stage where you think it will never become dough.
The pastry-ish stage where you think it might be ready already...
The glossy, smooth, springy stage where the dough comes to life - you have reached your destination.

After this stage, slosh a bit of oil in with the dough and turn it around to get it nicely covered. Cover with a damp cloth and leave until it has doubled in size. Either in the cold (a long time), a warm room (an hour or two), or hot-housed in the oven (half an hour).

Once doubled, cut the dough into whatever size you want. I usually go for something the size of a satsuma. I copiously cover a counter in semolina (which gives the bobbly texture you can see in the photo) and roll out to about half a cm thick. Cover with a plastic bag for about quarter of an hour to 'prove'. This term, I believe, comes from 'proving' the yeast is still working as it puffs up the last time before baking.

Slather on your tomato sauce (I just cook down a can of tomatoes with loads of herbs and garlic and freeze some extra to go along with the frozen pizza dough), then place your toppings. Try not to go wild with them as the more you put on the soggier the base will get. Cook on the hottest heat you can muster. The above was about 20 minutes which is just before it starts to burn!

In future, for a healthier pizza, I might omit the mozarella (shock horror!) in place of a bigger pile of rocket.

p.s. I have been listening to 'Rocket Man' as I've been writing this post - have only just realised the unconscious connection!