Three French, two Japanese, a Scot and a woofy

So it was the boy's Japan gig last weekend, and as such we had a whole host of performers staying, including French and Japanese types, so I decided to prepare a light lunch of the very British ploughmans.

Cooper enjoyed the meaty leftovers and although they were quiet on the matter, the French seemed willing to try the British cheeses and even tucked into some pork pie & pickled onions.

The next morning I followed up with a hangover busting (or generating, depending on how delicate you're feeling) full English Breakfast. Except I guess it wasn't as it included tattie scones (at the boy's insistence). They scoffed the lot with only a few black pudding leftovers being passed down to the awaiting mutt.

Ruby Tuesday

My newish niece is actually called Ruby so I have to be careful now when I refer to curry as such. My sister happens to be going out with a chap called 'Hunter', so Ruby's surname is in effect Ruby Seal Hunter. Very very bloody good name. Even better if they slipped in 'the' as a middle name.

Anyway, the curry... blitzing garlic, onion, ginger and chilli in the whizzer (official name I'm sure) is always a good base, as is a glug of oil, some fresh coriander and fresh tomatoes if you want to make a quick one. Salt and a tiny bit of sugar are a must, as is Garam Masala, ground coriander and ground cumin. Fast. And decent.

Kebob Sir?

The boy loves turkish. Or whatever this type of scran might be. We were both starving and so needed something fast, tasty and full of flavour.

The cous cous was hydrated with chicken stock and bay, then a little marjoram, smokey paprika, mint, oregano was added with some fresh coriander and a little pesto. Then some red pepper and chargrilled artichokes were chopped and stirred through. The kebabs were brushed with oil, salt and pepper and a little more oregano. Then the tatziki was actually tatzucchini as I used courgette instead of cucumber, but plenty of garlic and a bit of sea salt.

It was washed down with an inappropriate but lovely glass of chilled Pinot Noir. Monday night loveliness.

Weekend brekkie in the garden...

Tinned tomatoes, happy eggs, paprika, garlic, dried chillli flakes, erm... owt else? Hmmm... oh yeah, lashings and lashings of hot buttered toast. Can you lash toast?

Spring chicken casserole

A lot nicer than it looks. Chicken, chicken stock, spring greens, new potatoes, spring onions and pesto. Yummity yumski yummo. It was really nice.

Catch up...

Pizza and a nice stir fry using wholewheat udon. Yum. The pizza was one of 6 made for our local community christmas party... at the end of Feb!

A good pizza base recipe is here:

1kg strong white OO flour

200g spelt flour

2x7g sachets yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

4 tablespoons olive oil

Enough water to make the consistency right.

Let it rise for an hour after some substantial kneading, then knock it back (punch it) and roll into little balls before rolling (or flinging) flat. Note: don't put too much topping on, wilt your spinach first and don't go overboard on fresh anchovies.

Trout, potato cakes and a lemony dill watercress sauce

Does what it says in the title really...

The sauce was a whipped-up, whizzed and throughly obliterated mixture of watercress (no shiz), dill, creme fraiche and lemon juice, warmed through. I put far too much watercress in it, and half as much or less would have meant it less bitter.

The potato cakes were boiled potato, finely chopped cabbage, leek, little cornichons chopped up and salt and pepper. They were then mixed with a little plain flour and patted into cakes in a cookie cutter.

The trout was fried with garlic butter.

That's it really.

Lamb & lentils

The boy was out watching the football so a solo supper of MEAT was in order.

I simmered the lentils in cider and stock, chopped some pak choi, herbs (I had coriander, basil, parsley and thyme left fresh) and put a frying pan on to heat up.

I seared the lamb with garlic, salt and pepper in a very hot pan until browned but still pink inside, then stirred the herbs and greens into the drained lentils with some lemon juice and lamb-pan juices. Yum, yum, yum.

Goats, squirrels and stem ginger

This month's supperclub menu was a pretty last-minute plan, having decided to do squirrel pie, the, the numbers fluctuating from 4 to 11 and back down to 7, and work taking priority over menu devising, it really wasn't prepared for what was to ensue.

Actually can't exactly remember the recipe for the starter of goats cheese puddings (which were really souffles, but who on earth wants to admit to making souffles in 2011?), but this Nigel Slater recipe is what I based it on.

135g of freshly grated parmesan

4 eggs

300g soft goats cheese

100ml double cream

chopped thyme

Whisk the egg whites separately to the yolks, and then mix the rest and fold together. Et voila. Goats Cheese & Thyme Puddings. I served mine with a seared pear salad of watercress, walnuts, seared pear (obviously) and a rape seed oil and pear cider dressing.

The main was actually a huge disappointment. Who knew how hard it would be to fillet a squirrel...? There's little meat, less flavour and the million hours of casseroling it (and separately casseroling the game for the individual pies) did nothing to 'jujz it up'. I tried port, bay, thyme, onion, mushrooms and beef stock, glugging in some more red wine nearer to the end... the game pie was nice barring one meat (unspecified!) that went ultra-hard. The spelt pastry was nice, and the squirrel pie 'tail' of parsley was a funny (but I stressfully forgot to take a photo).

Dessert was double ginger cake, again a Nigel-based recipe, (this time I vaguely stuck to the quantities and ingredients) though I put blackberries in mine.

250g self-raising flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

half a teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch of salt

200g golden syrup

2 tablespoons syrup from the ginger jar

125g butter

2 lumps stem ginger

125g dark muscovado sugar

2 large eggs

240ml milk

A cheeseboard of british cheese, more pear and oatcakes (with some scottish ginger chutney gifted to the boy along with the oatcakes by his lovely aunt Maggie - of Maggie's Kitchen Menus - a fab blog on my blogroll).

So that was the last of the winter. Frankly, I can't wait for spring.

American style pancakes and crispy bacon

Nigella's got it going on. Yes, a mad stare, a clearly resentful brood of children and a bosom that clearly needs to be unleashed, but also a lovely recipe for american style pancakes.

225g flour

A tablespoon of baking powder

A pinch of salt

A teaspoon of sugar

30g of butter melted then cooled

2 eggs

300ml milk

Whisk the lot then leave for a bit before using (probably does some gluteny stuff that helps the texture), meanwhile put your bacon in the oven to crisp up (far better than frying) and dig out your sticky jar of maple syrup.

Works moderately well with faken (for the boy), but he declared it needed cheese (very little he eats doesn't) and so I'm not sure he agreed. Though much to my chagrin it did make me think that parmesan pancakes might be nice... so maybe he has a point.

Mango chicken

This was surprisingly lovely actually. So I made a pilau, which is kinda like Asian risotto without the creaminess and stirring. Finely chopped onions in oil, then bay, a cinnamon stick, cardamon, cumin seeds, basmati, garam masala and ground coriander, chicken stock and fresh coriander at the end.

I made a pocket with the chicken then stuffed it with mango chutney, sealed it with a cocktail stick and then rolled it in cumin seeds and a load of ground spices in a bit of oil. I oven baked it for a bit.

The salad was watercress with clementine bits. And was a very nice addition even if I do say so myself.

Flapjacks

The boy's aunt, (and the lady behind the fabulous Maggie's Kitchen Menus - Link on left) bought him a lovely food hamper for his birthday, and so we've been steadily getting through all the smashing scottish fare.

Tonight, I fancied something sweet after the sour and salty puttanesca dinner, so what better than oats, honey, butter and a nice brew.

Easy as anything, all you need to do is melt butter, sugar and honey then stir through the oats, spread out on parchment and cook on about 150øc for 30/40 minutes. Cool then scoff with rooibos.

Gnocchi

In a new year's resolution-type way, we've decided to alternate fish and cheese on each evening. That's mainly because the boy is moderately obsessed with cheese and in lieu of juicy meat (the man is meat-free... barring turkey on Christmas Day and the odd chicken kebab it seems), I NEED protein.

Anyway, we have a massive chunk of stilton left over from Christmas, and so tonight's tea was a homemade gnocchi with stilton sauce affair (and masses of salad to make it feel at least slightly virtuous).

So, the gnocchi... Delia's recipe was combined with that of yer man Locatelli, and so I basically guessed at the quantities, but I think it was about 100g of plain flour, 300g of potato, and 1 egg (plus a little salt and pepper).

I boiled the potatoes whole until only just done, then pealed them, whisked them until the steam steamed off and they were mushy but not glue. Floury potatoes helped.

I then mixed the lot with the egg and flour with more whisking (mainly because it's fun to choose the wrong vesicle and cover the kitchen with floury potato bits). I then learned that rolling sausages of the dough, cutting little chunks then pressing into shape with a fork is a very tedious affair.

I boiled the gnocchi in batches and scooped them out as they rose to the surface. Meanwhile, I made the sauce from a little lose roux, milk, and an obscene quantity of stilton. It was surprisingly lovely actually, and worked... which was a big surprise.

Holiday scran

We just went to Hell on holiday. I once went to a place in Norway that was actually called Hell, this wasn't, and this terrifying example of little Britain abroad will rename nameless. If only to protect the locals. Poor, poor locals.

Anyway, we had some nasty food, and some nice food (for which we searched far and wide). Here's an example of both. And just so you know, the greasy brown mess was an alleged national dish of unspecified animal steak with banana in chilli sauce. True fact.

Squidsiz

There must be a song about calamari...? I can almost hear it... oops, calamari (alriiight). Maybe that's just in my head and as sung to the macarena tune...

Anyway, I can't take an ounce of credit for how nice last night's tea was. It was M&S's ready to eat chargrilled squid rings (guaranteed tender no less) that added a lovely smokey flavour to the spaghetti. I also just spent the weekend at the fancy Champneys spa, and as their food was all ultra-healthy (in a slightly overly didactic way, even with instructional crockery), I thought I'd maintain the healthy vibe.

So thinly sliced runner beans, fresh tomato, green chilli and a little parmesan made up a sauce with a little veggie stock and olive oil. I added the calamari at the end just to warm it through and stired the lot into spaghetti. Of course as usual I made too much spaghetti and had to throw some away. But life really does have to be too short for a spaghetti measuring tool.

The messiest cake ever

The boy's birthday cake. Three tier lardy heaven, but not easy to cut and keep looking fiiiine.

A good little tip is the glaze for the strawberries... just melt a little jam and water (though I used redcurrant jelly cos it's clear), and then sprinkle in some gelatine powder, warm til it melts and pastry-brush it on. Makes it look double yum even if I do say so myself.

The main was the boy's favourite of mac cheese (he's a scot), and you would've been mightily unimpressed by the photo of that, so cakey-goodness it is.

Fish n stuff...

T'interwebs has gone down at home, so I actually cooked this a while ago, and can't exactly remember the constituent parts... But I think it was oven roasted potato, courgette, onion, and peppers with marjoram, then fresh parsley and coriander stirred in afterwards, and a blue cheese sauce with some kind of white fish. Evidently. It will have been mildly moral though, line caught etc.

Brrrr....

The boiler broke over the weekend, which isn't so bad as luckily we were countryfying it up in sunny Surrey (well, rainy surrey but anything countrysidey feels sunny). Though when we got back and had to break the ice off the washbasin and de-ice the inside of the windows... I realised I wasn't good at extreme cold. So glad I'm off to -15 NYC in a couple of weeks then off to Lewis for Christmas and New Year. Brrrrr.

Better get currying. Without red wine or brandy it's the only way to stay warm. (And eating dinner in bed in my new duck down padded jacket is soooo unbecoming).

So tonight's hot affair was cauliflower, red lentil and red pepper curry. I par boiled the lentils and cauliflower in some weak veggie stock first, while frying onion chunks and garlic with cumin and garam masala. I then added the red pepper chunks to the deep frying pan and added the fresh ginger and fresh red chilli.

After a few minutes and some basmati whacked on the hob with cardamon, I added 4 chopped tomatoes, some finely chopped fresh coriander and a little salt.

When the cauli and lentils were tender, they went into the mix. I put some fancy-pants garlic naan in the oven to warm through, and chopped some more coriander to stir through the curry right at the end. Nice.

Pie 'n' peas.

Midweek pies ey? I must be feeling decadent. Actually, I was feeling stressed, and there's nothing guaranteed to calm me down and chill me out more than a good stint in the kitchen.

I'd inexplicably ordered lots of mushrooms on Monday so had to use them up, so wild mushroom, leek and tarragon pies where order of the day. With runner beans. Yum.

I slowly and gently friend the leeks with garlic, and then the mushrooms in oil and butter, before adding the tarragon, marjoram, some stock, seasoning, english mustard and a little cornflour to thicken. That was spooned into pie tins and shop-bought puff pastry rolled then put in the top. I brushed them with beaten egg yolk for some nice oven-colouring fun.

Pickled Red Cabbage.

Nothing reminds me of home as much as my dad's stew with pickled red cabbage on the top. Not sure if this is a midlands thing, a northern thing or an entirely seal-based thing, but it tastes bloody good. And as I haven't yet decided whether to use pickled or braised red cabbage as part of the main for my supperclub, I pickled some last night in preparation... just in case.

You can't leave it as long as bought stuff (probably something to do with preservatives and me licking my stew spoon before digging it into the jar), but it'll certainly last you through a long winter.

Try it with anything gravy-based, meaty, blandish or in need of a piquant kick. Or even just for a flash of colour. (I'm wearing red slacks today in semi-celebration of the red cabbage).

I have a porchini problem...

I have to admit it. I can't stop using dried porchini mushrooms. Maybe it's their umaminess (I get mixed up between umami and Shooting Stars' uvavu), or the novelty factor, or like capers, they just make everything taste so much better.

Anyway, so here's some mushroom soup.

Re-hydrated porchini (soaking liqour and actual mushrooms)

Field mushrooms

One portabella

One random mushroom for Sainsbury's exotic mushroom mix

Salt

White pepper

Cream

Fry the mushrooms first. Then add the liquid and then cream at the end. I only really sprinkled on some parsley at the end to look a bit fancy.

Victoria Sponge

The boy's favourite cake is Victoria Sponge. So instead of saving that until his birthday, I figured I'd whip one up today and make something more exciting for the birthday cake instead.

I got up early, and without any creaming of butter and sugar faff, blitzed together 8oz of self-raising, 5oz caster sugar, 5oz of butter and three eggs. I couldn't be bothered to look at a recipe, so guessed at quantities following a remembered sponge ratio of 8/4/4/2, but wanted to make this a little richer so upped the fun stuff of eggs, sugar and butter.

It worked out perfectly and I broke my usual moral of only adding jam in the centre and cream on after, because the boy insisted... and it is his favourite after all.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but the taste (having cut a slice just a little bit too big) was scrumptious.

We shall have a fishy...

...in a little dishy, when the boat comes in.

Now in the pie world, or to put it more accurately, the 'enclosed food kingdom', with pie being a species (pasties, calzones etc are other species) then 'potato topped' pies are either a subspecies or genus. Just like the inimitable shephard's (though cottage is just a cow sheep's clothing), the fish pie doesn't fit for some people into the pie species at all. altogether lighter, less carby and less lardy, non-pastry pies are more like serving suggestions for filling than a dish in itself, however... I love a good fish pie.

I once went out with a food snob and being one myself (barring a late night crisp sandwich or occasional McDonalds cheeseburger at 2am) we bantered our way into a competitive corner of mid-week fine dining (at home of course) and cooking clubs. His one guilty pleasure however, was a frozen Mariner's pie. 45 minutes in the oven and contained in the worryingly melted plastic container was his salty sloppy idea of indulgence.

Myself, I prefer to knock a real one up, and no-two have ever been the same.

Yesterday's delish dish was chunks of haddock and prawns (I couldn't be bothered to go to a better/bigger supermaket to find anything more interesting than that), in a cream-cheesey bay leaf sauce with peas and buttery mash. Served with some reduced green beans and english mustard for the boy (put on everything... except cake).

It was nice, but not great. I forgot the capers, still haven't got round to buying a black peppermill so had no pepper, but the creamy sauce (roux, then milk then bay then onion salt then bit of philly) was smashing and with a grated cheese top it was the perfect end to a freezing day.

Turkish...

...is good. Nuff said.

It's about leftovers... it's always about leftovers.

Creamy tomato, prawn and chilli pasta. Last night's pizza base tomato leftovers with leftover single cream, leftover red chilli, and prawns and spinach. With farfalle. The boy's favourite I discovered tonight.

Leftovers can be amazingly tasty and welcome when its late, you're hungry and there's a tube strike on.

A pun about kneeding...

Three ingredients, two evenings, one pizza.

I like pizza. A lot. but I don't like the chicago town, pizza hut, dominoes or pizza smut (there must be a cheap pizza emporium in east London called that, there really must) versions.

The boy's cafe recently got a pizza oven and they do mighty nice pizzas, but I wanted to have a crack myself.

In lieu of a pizza oven, pizza stone or, well, any actual ability, I had a go anyway. I've still not got round to scales, so by eye (and crossed fingers) I measured out 7g of yeast, stuck in some luke warm water, a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt (dammit, that's four ingredients if you include water) and waited for the foamy fun to begin. When it was all nice and weird, that was tipped into 500g of flour and kneeded to silky heaven. The dough was left to do it's thing, but that meant overnight for me.

The next evening I rolled and squished the base. The sauce was made from cooking tinned tomatoes, basil, garlic and oregano. Mainly because it's illegal to make a pizza without oregano. And I fried some sliced field mushrooms and red peppers for the top before popping on.

Scandal upon scandals... I forgot to photograph it in a pre-hot oven state. And forgot to photograph it when cooked and whole. So you have to look at the ugly sliced version here.

It tasty smashing. oddly healthy and damn nice. I recommend trying your own homemade pizzas highly.

A pun about funghi...

Working late again but felt like indulging in something creamy, mushroomy, cheesy and unctuous. Soaked porchini, fine-ish-ly chopped shitakes and sliced big field mushrooms were fried in thin garlic slices, butter and oil.

After a few minutes and a little kitchen iPlayer (my latest indulgence), I put the spaghetti on and added single cream leftovers, Philadelphia, some pasta water and the porchini liquor with a bit of seasoning to the melty mushrooms.

I popped the chunks of tenderstem broccoli in a steamer over the pasta and when everything seemed done I mixed the lot together in a the pan. But then you can see that.

Speed risotto

I was working late and the boy was at uni, so at first I figured we'd just grab something on the way home, until I remembered we'd had our Sainsbury's delivery, so had lots of nice scran in.

So as the boy took the dog for a walk, I quickly chopped up a couple of a small onions, melted them in olive oil and butter, and got ready to fry the mushrooms for the wild mushroom risotto I was planning, in the frying pan.

But, alas, no wild mushrooms. They were out of stock and as I'd already begun to soak my porchini, I was a bit lost as to what to do... What do we all do in times of need... that's right, turn to the great man himself. Mr freezer.

So the porchini was fridged, and the prawn and pea risotto was underway.

Three things to remember when making risotto....

1) It's nicer if you give it time

2) It's nicer if you have wine

3) It's nice

This was a particularly lardy one, with single cream (their substitution for the sour cream I ordered that never arrived), and plenty of parmesan. Which probably the reason the boy uttered the same quote I've heard at least three times before. "Now I don't like risotto, but this is really amazing." Glad I could please. It actually really was lovely. I heartily recommend a rushed late night risotto of a Tuesday.

Flatbreads and...

...veggie sausage casserole.

500g of flour. I have no scales at the moment but forgot until I was ready to make them so... like, about two pints of flour, half a teaspoon of instant dried yeast melted in warm water, a glug of olive oil, some maldon sea salt and heafty tossing (ooh-err) of marjoram.

Kneed and leave in the warm under clingfilm for an hour before rolling out (I basically just squidged them out rather than rolled... rustic beauty or laziness? You decide) and baking in a hot oven on an olive oil dribbled baking tray. Sprinkle some more sea salt for the fancy effect.

The sausage casserole looked rubbish (though tasted good) so hence the lack of photographic evidence and was made from exactly what you'd expect, but with the addition of lots of mustard powder, a little red wine, then served with a table spoon or two of pickled red cabbage. It was minus something silly outside so hot from the oven carbs and casserole were exactly what our cold bones needed. Hackney Marshes is a chilly place to take the pooch for a wander of an evening.

Minestrone

I have absolutely nothing witty, engaging, inspired or enlightening to say. So rather than say nothing at all, I shall list the ingredients in this lovely minestrone I made for Lea (late lunch / tea). Assume everything vegetable-based is finely chopped.

Onion

Potato

Carrot

Courgette

Black beans

Passata

Veg stock

Basil

Parmesan

The leftover spaghetti from Thursday chopped up

Chopped up parma ham for me (the boy doesn't dig on swine)

A minotaur's heart...

...is what the boy described celeriac as. Nice. It is the ugliest vegetable (not counting jerusalem artichokes mainly because they're a lie... certainly not a vegetable, just a sick joke some botanist played years ago that stuck).

So more poorly food was in order as I'm still feeling under the weather from the, well, presumably, the stupidly fast-changing weather, and as the veg box had presented celeriac as a tempting opportunity, celeriac dauphinoise was order of the day.

So fresh chunky haddock, what's left of the spinach and creamy melty, thoroughly unhealthy carbs worked wonders.

Two tips: 1) toss all the thin slices of celeriac in your milk/cream/onion salt/mustard powder mixture before layering into the dish. 2) take it out the oven a good 10 minutes before you're ready to serve. That way you can remove it from the tin without floppy, sloppy disaster.

And... the boy was late home, so forgive the massively over-cooked fish yeah?

Tinned spaghetti

Okay, that's a bit of a lie. But got you wondering right?

I love spaghetti. I cook far too much of it every time (I know, I know, measuring-schmeasuring) and leftovers of spaghetti are rubbish the next day, but what can I say, my eyes are bigger than my belly.

We had our very first organic veg box delivery in the new flat today. How exciting. I've converted back to Able & Cole, and not because I was in any way dissatisfied with Riverford, but just because I'm massively shallow when it comes to good design and content, and Able & Cole give you booklets, little notes, recipes and fun, fun, fun. It's a brand I want to dislike a little bit (though not sure why... maybe it's because I feel like they're becoming the Tesco of the veg box world - which surely negates the very point) but I just can't.

Much like brands such as Howies, they realised that to get some serious brand love and loyalty, you need to give the consumer more than just veg or clothes. You need to educate, share, entertain, engage and add value. If that's via recipes and stories or poetry and pretty pictures. Spend the money, put it on nice, thick, embossed stock, with some handwritten type and 'real people' photos. Job done. Happy consumer. Seal suckered. Dammit.

So tonight I was feeling poorly and wanted something very hot, wholesome and tasty.

4 garlic cloves finely chopped

2 teaspoons of small capers

A big bunch of real grown up spinach (non of that namby-pamby baby spinach for us anymore)

Half a red chilli (plus seeds)

A tin of sardines in oil and lemon

A tub of cherry tomatoes - quartered

A small tub of black olives

Spaghetti (adding more salt in the cooking than you might expect really helps the mmmm factor)

I'm sure you can imagine what I did with the above ingredients so I won't bore you with instructions. But note: electric hobs are the kitchen version of hell. I need a bigger pasta pan. Yes, I have woodchip in this flat, but hey, it's only til Jan and almost free. How nice is my giant teal Le Creuset...? (Even if it won't fit in the cupboard so it has to live on a hob).

Prawn, pea and feta tortilla

So it's come to my attention that I'm a rubbish photographer of food. I'm a rather rubbish photographer of everything, but my main failings seem to centre around the thing I currently need to be able to do the most. Hmph.

Hence this, the only good photo of my food so far (and, to be fair, the food looks rather rubbish too but that's because it's a bloody tortilla and it's hard to make them look good yeah? Oh... a I becoming defensive? This is not a good side of me...) was taken by the boy.

Phew. Now that's out of my system, on with dinner... I'm becoming a bit obsessed with 'using things up'. And as I had week old eggs, past-its-prime coriander, an on-the-turn orange pepper and some sour cream, I figured I would whip together some tortilla action.

I hate hard potatoes in tortilla, and lost my metal-handled oven-proof frying pan in the most recent house move so opted to par boil the potatoes beforehand. Meanwhile I fried onion chunks and the pepper. After slicing the almost perfect potatoes, I tossed them in a big bowl along with beaten egg, chopped coriander, small chunks of feta, frozen peas, chopped mint, a dash of cayenne and some onion salt. My black pepper grinder is playing up so they only got a little fleck.

The lot was put on a low hob for 15 minutes then put under a low grill for another 15. This was mainly because I was waiting for the boy to come back from his rehearsals and I don't like it when the egg gets too hard. I served slices up warm with some sour cream and a little greenery.

Bubbling concoctions...

Went to the upmarket today at the Truman Brewery in east London. Bought a butter dish, frock, some woolly jumpers and a Nutella crepe. It was a bit early for any more savoury fare, so I photographed it instead.

The top photo is for Cooper (the lovely mutt). It's the bone remains from a spare rib sandwich stall.

Fern curls...

*

People from Hull say things like 'the purp made a fern curl to ask to ask for curka-curla for the rurd'. Which is obviously nonsense about the holy father, a mobile and his penchant for a particular soft drink beverage, but is also something I couldn't forget when I recently sampled a unique Canadian vegetable - Fern Curls.

So if you haven't arrived here from my other blog - Eat Meet Supperclub

http://eatmeetsupperclub.blogspot.com/ then it'll be news to you that I also do a supperclub, and besides it being loads of fun, you occasionally get invited to food-based things to blog about them and generally help spread the foodie love of that particular ting.

Well it was the turn of the Canadian Tourism to recently share with me and other foodie bloggers how good their produce is. We learned lots about their cuisine, different culinary influences and how utterly horrible scallops and liquorice can be!

Here's what they cooked for us:

Scallops three ways:

With liquorice maple syrup (ergh)

With sauce vierge (shallots, tomato, olive oil, basil, garlic and hemp seed oil - yum)

With pancetta and maple syrup (pancetta = good + maple syrup = nasty)

Seared Duck with pumpkin purée wild rice and chocolate

Baked cod with mash potatoes and morel sauce (madeira, the morel liquor and cream)

Bison with a port and green peppercorn sauce

Fiddleheads (these are the fern curls... literally made from fern buds and when fresh, taste like tiny delicate asparagus apparently. We sadly only got frozen ones as they had a nightmare trying to import all the Canadian produce it seemed.)

Chocolate Soufflé with maple syrup

Apples with ice wine cream

Buckwheat pancakes with loganberry sauce

Ice Wine and Ice Cider is made by leaving the grapes (or apples) on the vine to freeze in the frosts, and is sweet and lovely.

So, as a far as a recommendation goes... I would certainly suggest you go to Canada, not only to be genuinely convinced that the cuisine is more exciting than maple syrup with everything (with scallops though? Seriously), but also to try the bison steak – which was pretty phenomenal when rare, and to sample one of the weirest but nicest vegetables I've tried in years - Fiddleheads / Fern Curls. (Now try and think of them without thinking about Hull or the purp.

*Caveat (confession actually) – I forgot to take photos, and so the one above is nicked from the people at this lovely blog courtesy of google images... www.thenourishinggourmet.com please don't sue me... I think you're great.

Honey chilli peanuts...

(This isn't a photo of the honey chilli nuts obviously. Just the most peanut-related photo I have. We were feeding squirrels in the park and these are remnants.)

Hamlet tonight at the National. That’s three plays in four weeks. I almost feel cultured. I’m looking forward to it (though it’s a bit weird the lead is my sister’s ex), but won’t have time for tea of course. It’s 3.5 hours and that’s abridged… the last time I saw it was with Ben Wishaw and I’ve never needed a wee so much in my life, in fact, sadly that’s what I remember most from that ace performance.

Anyway, tonight’s will surely be a great, and though a post-play dinner after might normally have been sensible, I’m not feeling tip top and have a driving lesson at 6.30am, so I’ll grab a bite beforehand, and while I ponder what I’ll get (yes, I’m working, honest) and you ponder why I’m telling you all this not-very-food-related stuff, I’ll tell you exactly what I want to be cooking and eating right now. Though I’m not, instead I’m contemplating just how caffeine-giddy another brew will make me…

A medium bag of unsalted peanuts (they’re less oily so the mixture sticks better), four big tablespoons of caster sugar, a little water, a large pinch of salt and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Melt everything but the peanuts which are to be stirred in afterwards when the sugar is definitely no longer crystals, then spread them on baking parchment to cool and harden. Nice.