You can happily enjoy Easter without being carnivorous, what with some of the best things about Easter being non-meaty (chocolate and hot cross buns, loaded with butter obviously). But if you fancy Easter roast lamb, then let me convince you that making your own mint …
I think we all need a little sweetness at the moment. Summer holidays, and the little dash of optimism and refreshment they deliver, feel like a long time ago indeed. Luckily, I have this spiced plum shortcake recipe stored up from my own summer holiday, …
Happy New Year! I was lucky to have a pretty decent 2021, and I know I am in the minority here. It was a shocker for many of my favourite people. Wherever January 2022 finds you (ideally somewhere relaxing and on holiday with many tasty beverages), I hope that a better year is ahead for you.
When I look back over the year that was, the Delta outbreak is the main stand-out memory. I’m positive I am not alone in this. Cooking has played a significant part in my lockdown experiences, both because I am a greedy-guts in general, but also because it is very comforting. I know people may expect themselves to have cooked a range of intricate and gourmet dishes with all of the extra spare time available when locked down, but for me I found that living in a pandemic is quite enough mental load all on its own, thank you very much. It’s a time for tried-and-true comfort. In our house, I put aside any expectations and we pulled out the old favourites that feel like a pair of well-worn slippers.
I love Nigel Slater an awful lot. I like to call him Uncle Nige, because honestly, how great would it be to have him as your uncle? Since discovering his roast chicken recipe from his Appetite cookbook, I have never followed another roast chicken again. He calls it “Unmucked about chicken” and I heartily recommend it. We ate this more than once – photos below.
I love making stock with leftover bones. I think it makes me feel good about myself. So, following many roast chickens, there were many bowls of my noodle soup with the stock.
Leftover roast vegetables lend themselves very nicely to a lunchtime frittata.
Ham and cheese sandwiches are generally pretty great. My husband got excited about ham and cheese about halfway through our lockdown and tried out BBC Good Food’s Croque Monsieur. It involves a lot of butter and cheese. It was good.
The other stand-out cooking memory for me is that 2021 is the year I finally put on my big-girl pants and braved making a bundt cake. I was gifted the beautiful bundt tin pictured below about four Christmases ago and I was always too scared to use it. Despite writing Lick Your Plate, I am not an overly skilled baker and a lot of stuff I bake winds up stuck to the tin. It was too upsetting, picturing half a bundt cake slopping out onto a plate with the rest remaining stubbornly welded to the intricate mouldings. Well, I felt the fear and did it anyway…and was really happy with the results. I used the lemon bundt recipe from the Chelsea sugar website. I recommend it – the cake was very light and lemony and came out of the bundt tin perfectly.
I’m looking forward to another year of cooking and writing about it – it’s a very enjoyable creative outlet for me, and one I want to indulge more often. My goals are to pick up the Edmonds cookbook again (still in the A section of the index, sigh), to write up more pudding and cake recipes and to include some quick-and-easy meals I make a lot.
Happy new year again and take care wherever you are x
My parents are amazing gardeners and I couldn’t resist this little scallopini left over from their crop. Mainly because, what a cute vegetable, everyone! How could you not want to take it home? Little and frilly and kind of like a flying saucer. I’ve eaten …
Sometimes, despite the best of intentions, fruit can go a little south in the fruit bowl. Things in general feel like they have gone a little south lately. This time a year ago our current COVID circumstances would have been unimaginable to pretty much all …
Do you get to feeling nibbly late afternoon? Does your mouth start watering as you fantasise about stuffing large handfuls of salt and vinegar chips into your mouth alongside stacks of delicious lovely cheese? Well, friends, have I got a deal for you. Because while my brain would like to cram in a whole lot of fat and salt at 4pm on the dot, my body would not thank me.
These bites will trick your mouth into thinking it’s had a whole lot more salt and fat that you’ve provided. They are pretty generously spiced with the merest smidgen of sharp cheese to ensure you get a flavour hit. There’s a reasonable about of healthy, non-animal based oil as I find it not only helps with satiety but also gives these a lovely, crumbly and slightly luxurious texture. Finally, the sunflower seeds toast up beautifully during baking to give a little crunch.
The secret it to keep them bite-sized. You just want one to pop into your mouth for a savoury pick-me-up, and they get in unmanageably crumbly if much bigger than a teaspoonful.
Ingredients
1 c oats
1 c plain flour, sifted
1 t each of chilli flakes and ground black pepper
1/4 t cayenne pepper
Pinch salt
1/2 c sunflower seeds
1/4 c sharp cheese, grated
1/2 c rapeseed oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
Method
Set the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line two baking trays with grease proof paper.
Mix together oats, flour, spices and seasoning in a large bowl.
Add the seeds and cheese and stir to combine.
Add the egg and oil. Mix and form into a stiff ball of dough, using your hands to shape and mould the dough.
Place teaspoonfuls of dough onto baking trays, using your hands to squeeze together loose crumbs.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool on a baking wrack.
I am busy looking after my garden, or is it looking after me? It’s working hard, growing many of my favourite treats, including raspberries, zucchinis and cucumbers. My rangy, imperfect little beginner’s garden is very restorative. I can nurture my plants and enjoy some success, …
Sometimes you just need some gently savoury food in your life, for comfort’s sake. I have felt this way recently. Freshly-baked bread, cheese scones, pulses and hot drinks are the order of the day. Infused oils are an excellent way to pep up most of …
Some things are meant to be. I’ve been thinking about Kahawai for a while now. Common in our waters, it seems to me – and correct me if I’m wrong – that people can get a little sniffy about them. Kind of like they’re thought of as some kind of second-best fish. Tough, people say. Or flavourless.
I’m always up for a food-related challenge. Determined to find out for myself, and with the entire month of February on enforced bed-rest plus all of the internet at my disposal, I’d been googling all manner of Kahawai-related things. I had just decided on ordering some smoked Kahawai from this lovely-sounding little outfit when…..
…my husband was invited on a fishing trip. He is not a natural outdoorsman and to be honest I suspect he accepted the invitation largely due to FOMO. I wasn’t particularly convinced we would be getting any fresh fish at all. But, doubter that I am, he proved me wrong and returned with two big, silvery, glistening Kahawai (along with some rather cute little gunard – more about them in another post).
The downside to this little story that the Kahahwai were completely whole. Not skinned, not gutted, and looking up at me from the kitchen sink. Thank god for Youtube, and several messy, sweary hours later, we had some neat little Kahawai fillets at our disposal. By this time I was a bit sick of looking at fish, so it was over to the husband, aka Kahawai catcher extraordinaire, to smoke them.
It seems that for as many people who get sniffy about Kahawai, there are as many who sing Kahawai’s praises, especially as either smoked or curried. I adapted this recipe from our beloved National Radio to smoke the fillets, and gosh, they were gorgeous. Lush, flaky and flavoursome, and most definitely fine all by themselves. I do love a dip, and so used one of my precious fillets to make this simple pâté. It’s lovely with some toasted tortilla or flatbread and goes very well with a nice dry cider. I reckon you could substitute another type of smoked fish too, but I have to ask, why would you?
Smoked Kahawai fillets:
For four fillets:
5 T honey
2 T maple syrup
2 T brown sugar
Flaky sea salt
Marinate the fillets overnight in the above mixture.
Cook for half an hour or until skin flakes away with a fork. We did ours on our Weber barbeque using a smoking box and manuka wood chips .
Smoked Kahawai pâté:
1 fillet smoked Kahawai, flaked into chunks.
150g tub of sour cream
2 T mayonnaise
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Place all ingredients in a bowl. Use a stick blender or masher to combine until smooth, or to your taste (some people swear by a chunkier consistency, I like mine a little smoother).
Serve with toasted tortilla or flatbread.
Happy 2017 everyone! I think we can all agree that the year we have just ushered out was rather bruising, whether you’re talking politically, artistically, or for many of us, personally. So, what we really need to ring in the New Year is not cucumber sticks, …