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.

Moroccan spiced soup...

It's a cold day and a late night of lectures for the boy, so after having found my Where's Wally fancy dress costume from town (don't ask), I finely chopped an onion and fried on a low heat for a few minutes before adding a large teaspoon of ground cumin and a little smokey paprika. I then turned up the heat before adding passata, a little veg stock, some diced red pepper and chopped red chilli. After some simmering and a tin of drained chick peas were added and warmed through, I stirred through some chopped parsley (last night's leftovers) and a big spoon of soured cream then served with another dollop of cream and final sprinkling of parsley just to make it look all nice and grassy.

Nice, and went down well for the ravenous, but oddly couldn't stomach it so late so decided upon a slice of toast and jam instead.

Smoked haddock and creamy mozzarella...

What’s in the fridge? The perpetual train home question. I decided I could make something out of nothing tonight and remembered that the boy had bought smoked haddock.

Anya potatoes were boiled with salt then left to cool and green beans and courgette chunks were steamed till just soft enough but not watery. Mix crème fraiche, lemon juice, a dollop of mayo, small capers and chopped parsley and mint. Two big lumps of mozzarella were torn into the mix. Then I put everything in a big bowl, stirred it around and tried not to dribble as it was spooned onto the plates.

The haddock went into a deep frying pan with half milk, half water and a couple of bay leaves… overcooked for the boy, undercooked to perfection for me. Ground black pepper over the top, et voila.

Menu ideas for the next supperclub...

Homemade gentleman’s relish, mushroom paté and pickles on warm homemade spelt bread

Individual rabbit pies (blue-cheesy wild mushroom pies for the veggies) with pickled red cabbage and mum’s special carrots and swedes and extra port gravy.

No thoughts about dessert yet though my dad keeps insisting that anything with suet will go down a storm.

My dad's dinner...

On my way back to the midlands then up north for a funeral, so it’s either an excuse for some crap fast-food (a not-very-guilty pleasure now and again) or waiting until I get to the folks to raid their cupboards.

As luck would have it, I’m able to get an earlier train and when mentioning the early arrival my dad this is what he declares he’s cooking for tea (sic – it was a senior-style text message). “Peruvian yak sausage, and abasnian potato mash with black onion gravy followed by Indonesian plum pie with sunshine custard.” Needless to say I duly told him it sounded shite and he should try harder.

Author’s note: Nar, I don’t have any idea what abasnian is either, or in fact what he may have been trying to text, but either way, I bet they have good fictional potatoes.

Author’s second note: To put this in context, when my mum started her own business, my dad was tasked with cooking the family fare of an evening. Not previously a culinary-type, his first ventures of pink or blue rice, red potatoes and almost entirely gravy-based fun were always massively appreciated and adored by us three. He’s now a damn good cook. Experimental of course, a term used in the most lovingly euphemistic way, but I’m assured by various recipients that his baked beans with chorizo and shortcrust cabbage pies take some beating.

Author's third note: The photo is of my dad's homemade fruit pie. Apple and morello cherry jam from Lidl. A classic apparently.

The world's richest Thai crab curry

Crab from Sally for tea. It’s always great to have a fish market connection when attached to a meat-less type. I don’t want to overwhelm it, but pasta on a Sunday night just doesn’t seem glam enough, so I’ll forgo the posh salad or crab, chilli and lemon crème fraiche pasta for some seriously rich thai crab curry an a little weekend indulgence instead.

I fried three fat cloves of garlic, a blob of lemongrass paste (maybe it’s just me but it seems to taste better than the actual grass), some grated ginger and some roughly-chunked yellow peppers in a little (actually quite a lot in the end) vegetable oil. After some quick and hot swishing around I poured in a tin of coconut milk, a small chunk of tamarind paste, three quarters of a fresh red chilli and some fish sauce. After a quick pop to the chapel to take some photos of the boy and his band play with their burgeoning bassist (I’m a rubbish photo-taker but beggers… whatever) I was back just in time to catch it from catching on the bottom, and in perfect time to pop on some basmati. No cardamon today, I’m trying to curtail my addiction and keep the rice as the simplest, plainest mopper-upper I can.

In went the random chunks of courgette next (random shapes taste better than slices. Fact). And 10 minutes later the crab, hacked coriander bunch and lime juice (from a bottle… neither time nor inclination for anything fresher).

The lot was gulped down hot as we could stand with the remains of the Sunday papers.

Gin and Jam

Giving up drinking alcohol has results in three particularly unusual fall-outs. I now have an insatiably sweet-tooth (presumably as I’m no longer imbibing glass-fulls of sugar), I need far less sleep (and now hold a Thatcher-like ambition of surviving on less and less so I can have time to do more and more), and I don’t have any friends. Not exactly true, but ‘going out for coffee’ on a Friday night doesn’t appeal to friends in the same way as going out for a bottle of red wine drunken purposefully on an empty stomach so to impart maximum impact on my withering fuzz-hungry brain. To say that I don’t even drink coffee puts another boot in.

So the newly-acquired sweet tongue (it’s never the teeth is it?) demanded some dessert, though as I’m also trying a health-kick on for size I’ve decided to live vicariously through my Christmas presents.

Sloe gin and jam-making are the order of the day. Though I normally pick my own sloes (almost always too early) whilst on a trip to my granddad’s house, he died (aged 100 years and about 3 weeks) between cropping seasons, and as it would mean a 200 mile round trip, I decided to get them posted mail order instead. As we all know, packaging is everything, so Lakeland once again came to my aid with their slow gin bottles and jam-making wares, as did Sainsbury’s white label basics gin that charmingly states on the label to be ‘nothing fancy’.

Taking recently to listening to iPlayer radio programmes whilst cooking (with the laptop at a safe distance from any splashes or drips after a horrific mug of tea incident.) I embarked on my sloe-pricking activities to the sounds of David XXX’s the unbelievable truth. Using a new so very sharp paring knife (I’ve never really been good at knife-sharpening), I stabbed each of the slippery sloes, and my grasping fingers, then realised the error of my bottle-buying ways when it became clear that the bottle’s neck wasn’t wide enough to fit anything other than the smallest of sloes.

Nevertheless, mirth from the audial entertainment encouraged me to continue, choicely selecting the smallest (therefore possibly bitterest of sloes) to stab and post into the bottle. A good slug of caster sugar later, (I’m quite sure caster-sugar can be slugged too, at least now I’ve developed my schoolgirl style sweets-crush it’s become clear that I was previously slugging a head-achingly tasty version of caster-sugar every evening.) and the gin is ready to douse the wanton berries.

I won’t go into quantities, but needless to say I was limited anyway by the number of tiny sloes I had on hand, and the quantity of caster sugar left in the cupboard, as yet un-attacked by our new mice tenants. Never one to prepare properly, I unevenly shared the sugar between the three bottles and topped up all three neatly with the cheap gin. Having just enough to make a double g&t left over I considered sneakily downing it over the kitchen sink, straight from the bottle in one slug and subsequently practising my best ‘who me?’ face, but my conscience (and dignity, damn dignity ruining everything again) took the better and I duly chugged it down the plughole.

Having spent three years collecting, washing, label-removing and storing jam jars, compete with matching lids, I have now found myself in the frustrating position of not having any jam jars in which to store my newly-made jam. Moving house and forgetting to check all cupboards has its drawbacks. Anyway, lakeland again came to the rescue.

Blackberries picked a few weeks ago in a godforsaken place near the seaside were washed, frozen, checked for radiation (this particular coastal hotspot had more ‘danger, nuclear waste’ signs than ice cream vans), and defrosted again overnight so now I must just go through them and check for stalks. Upon thinking that this is the most tragic of stain-based inaugural outings for my brand new massive le creuset (planning for the future clan-size) I bit the beautiful teal bullet (oh, should it have been classic volcanic orange, or maybe chic black… damn the indecision) and heated up my blackberry hoard with a unmeasured amount of jam sugar and after sufficient melting – some finely-sliced mint from the local park (washed of course). Yes they have Mint in the park. And Sage. And Rosemary, Thyme, Parsley, Lemon Thyme, indistinguishable other things and lots of weird guilt everytime I snaffle some. The last thing is to add just enough whisky to the cooled mix. Don’t add it when it’s hot unless you have particularly badly blocked sinuses and don’t want to keep the alcoholic fuzz inside the jam (it’d evaporate). Lucky recipients, I made less than intended in the end, so feel bloody lucky you were one of the chosen… erm… two. (well, we have to keep some for ourselves right?)

Midweek beef and mushroom pies...

Remembering the pastry from yesterday morning I got home from work in time to very thinly slice onions (I wanted them melty not chunky), chunking instead the mushrooms, frying some minced beef (or fake veggie alternative) and adding a generous dollop of dijon mustard and a squib of marmite, plus a touch of water, beef stock and cornflour to thicken. I wanted quite a dry pie, but can never resist the temptation to gravy-up a dish.

Using my weekend Lakeland purchase of a dozen individual pie tins (they were on offer), I buttered and floured the tins, then thinly rolled out the chilled spelt pastry and lined five of the pretty enamel tins. I spooned the mixture into the cavity and topped with smaller ovals of pastry, securing with the egg wash that then glossed the tops. I did the forky thing round the edge.

35 minutes in a medium hot oven later and I served two for the boy with lots of tenderstem broccoli and more mustard on the side.

Lollo rosso and balsamic vinegar...

Unbelievably cold day today, so following yesterday’s Lakeland excitement, I prepared pastry even before breakfast. The battery on my scales had died, so guessing measurements for a spelt pastry (half butter, half lard) and chilling it was a hap-hazard guessing affair.

Breakfast turned into lunch turned into brunch by the time we’d run, showered, taken the dog for a walk and found somewhere to eat, so as it was a Sunday and we’re both not drinking, we opted for the backroom restaurant of a local gastropub. The starter of goats cheese and beetroot salad was shockingly passé with the mixed leaves and balsamic vinegar. Surely lollo rosso and balsamic have no place in what’s deemed to be a restaurant. The beef roast with all the trimmings was far better though and I contemplated the next supperclub menu.

Crab & Gru...ergh...

Always one to love individual portions, I tried a more protein-rich starter of crab and gruyere tartlets today. I’m not sure where the recipe idea came from, but it struck me as a wrong flavour combination, so I was keen to quash my doubts with a tasty surprise.

Grated gruyere, both brown and white meat crab where mixed with egg yolk and chopped chives, plus plenty of white pepper (unlikely to have been included in the recipe after white pepper has fallen out of favour recently, but vital to my anti-recipe spirit). The lot was spooned into a muffin tin filled with squares of filo pastry and baked for 20 minutes. The muffin cases where too deep so the bottom bits of filo weren’t quite cooked enough, but this wasn’t the reason why I hated this dish. It was the over-tanginess of the gruyere with the delicate crab that confirmed my first thoughts and made me feel queasy.

Crab tartlets, yeah, maybe with a little parmesan, yeah, but with gruyere. Gru-yuk.

Testing supperclub recipes...

Supperclub has become quite an exciting prospect for me, so much so that I’m trying out recipes on almost a daily basis.

Mushroom pate is my new favourite veggie starter, so for this version I soaked some porchini, ripped apart a bunch of different mushrooms including my favourite ‘family basics’ pack form Sainsbury’s… so tasty, so cheap. I fried the fresh mushrooms in large gulp of little olive oil and added what seemed at the time to be a little too much tarragon, then just a little chopped fresh rosemary.

A handful of shallots that I’d painstakingly peeled and sliced (I always swear never to use them again when remembering how long they take to prepare), were added to the frying mushrooms, and after a while of intermittent stiring I threw in a slug of brandy and big dollop of left over crème fraiche. Adding enough salt and pepper to satisfy I then blitzed the lot and left in the fridge to set in ramekins, with fresh sage leaves and melted butter on the top to seal. I served these later that day with soda bread to much um-ing and ah-ing from me but cheerful appreciation from my guinea pig tasters.

Helloooooooo...

It does what it says on the steel.

Except that it's mainly what I cooked today, not ate, but lets not split hares (mmm... rabbit pie).