New Year's Eve

So here it is - tonight's dinner. So it looks quite pleasant, but nothing to get excited about. It is, however a landmark meal. This, my dear readers is the last of the turkey, in a pie. I bought the smallest turkey crown I could find and that along with an equally small gammon that I roasted has seen us through the entire post Christmas period.
One of the joys of being on holiday for the last two weeks has been the fact that we could take lunch rather than grabbing it.
Many of those lunches have been built around cold cuts. This added to a chicken liver pate and the great joy that is cold, sliced stuffing has provided a wonderful middle of the day break from whatever we were doing.
My brother, "The Stockbroker" was here for lunch twice during the last week or so and I didn't have the heart to feed him with the same stuff twice so I looked to provide something different on his second visit.
With a collection of root vegetables which were not used on the day and a little inspiration from my new Abel and Cole calendar I came up with the recipe below.
Indian Root Cakes
Root vegetables ( I used a small swede, two parsnips, a little bit of celeriac and two carrots)
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
1tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1tsp ground ginger
1 egg
1 slug of milk
2 or 3 mugs of breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper
Flour
Oil for cooking

Peel and boil the root vegetables until they are all mashable. While these are boiling, finely chop the onion and fry it in a little oil until it is just starting to colour. Add the garlic and all the dried spices and cook for a couple of minutes. Allow this to cool. Take the roots off the heat, drain and allow to steam off in a colander for a good half hour. Mash the roots and add the onion and spice mix. Season and pop in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Make an egg wash of the egg and milk and make the vegetable mix into tennis ball sized balls and flatten into disks so the resemble an old fashioned fishcake. Coat these in the flour and the the egg; follow this with the breadcrumbs. These can now be fried in a little more oil than you would normally use (it needs to come half way up the sides of the cakes). The key here is to make sure that the oil is hot enough to fry the coating to a seal fast. pop a little bit of bread in first to give you an idea of how hot it is. Fry the cakes until they are golden brown and crispy, then pop in the oven to enable you to fry the others.

I served these with some griddled broccoli with chilli and garlic (a recipe I adapted from the wonderful Ottolenghi cook book) Blanched broccoli was mixed with a little oil and then griddles on a cast iron griddle. This was added to some garlic and sliced chilli which had been fried off to release its flavours. A dash of soy sauce added a little salt. A lunch which deserves to be sat down and sat up to.

Happy new year!

So Christmas is nearly here...

So its nearly here, the day that we've all been building up to for such a long time - I have but one thing to say to anyone who will listen - Please, please don't waste so much food this Christmas. If there is such a thing as a sin (and I'm no theologian) then the truely obscene amount of wasted food at this time of year is a sin. Lets take eggs we should be treating them like little pieces of gold! Just think about how hard you would have to work to grow and rear all your food this Christmas and be thankful! It is, however, the season to be joyful - and I'm just glad that 2011 is drawing to a close. For me and mine 2012 had better be a good one! Whatever you are doing, I hope you are with those that you love and love you back. It is a feast time and I hope your feast is up to muster.

Its not that difficult...

Listening to the radio earlier today and they were taking about food security and the threat that this brings to the UK. The truth is so simple that it is almost embarrassing that they wheeled out a professor to explain it. So here goes my explanation.
There is a growing middle class. I don't mean a few more people buying a second car in the UK, I am talking about billions of new consumers in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). These new middle class consumers want a "Western" style diet, high in meat and very expensive, both environmentally and financially. This creates the problem. Meat is very expensive to produce in terms of agricultural effort so there is a limited amount of meat available globally. This meat, as with all global commodities, will flow towards the money. For the first time in its history, China is importing pork.
So what does this mean? Here's the simple bit, we should eat less meat, demand higher quality meat and eat local - hold on a second isn't this what the slow food movement, the organic movement, the free range movement and any person with any common sense has been saying for ages?

Get stuffed!

Please tell me you've bought your chestnuts. You'll need them to make your stuffing which you are going to make this week and then freeze. You'll also need to keep some back to go with your sprouts on the big day.
First and foremost, a quick word about stuffing a bird to roast and the word is "DON'T." When you roast your festive bird just pop a half lemon, a half orange and an onion in the cavity with a handful of sage and roast the stuffing separately. So here's how to make your stuffing.
I am not going to give you my usual list of ingredients and method, it is far to personal a thing to be put down in exact details.
Take some sausage meat (I tend to dismantle my favourite sausage, discarding the skin), the meat should make up about half of the stuffing. mix in some breadcrumbs (about half as much by volume as the meat), an egg, the chestnuts (all blitzed up onto crumbs), the grated zest of an orange, lemon or lime, herbs - finely chopped (sage is a favourite, but anything with some punch), salt and pepper. Mix all this up with your hands (yes I mean it). Now, take a tiny piece, about the size of a £2 coin and fry it off in a pan. Taste this and adjust the seasoning as you like. Pop it into a shallow, oven proof dish, ridge the top with a fork and pop it in the freezer. Bring this out on the eve of the big day and allow to defrost in the fridge overnight. This will need cooking for 45-60 minutes in the oven. Serve slices with the meat.
Part of the joy of Christmas is the Boxing Day feast of cold cuts (I may actually enjoy this more than the meal itself), cold stuffing, if made well, is a thing of great beauty so making too much is no sin.
The beautiful wife and I have just got back from visiting my mother. She had purchased a superb piece of topside of beef which I roasted on Saturday night and served with Yorkshire puddings and veg. However, my mother, whose vocabulary is a little bit old fashioned burst into the kitchen and announced that she hadn't had a joint for ages! Having calmed ourselves after laughing ourselves silly, the Beautiful Wife and I explained that in today's world she needed to clarify that she meant a joint of meat.

...and the goose is getting fat....

Last year I started to write about how to organise the perfect Christmas without all the cheffy rubbish and was planning a gloriously simple Christmas feast for the Beautiful wife and I. Alas my Christmas fell apart and I was unable to finish blogging up to the big day. This year's Christmas will be a very quiet one and hopefully, one without any unpleasant issues.
My Father lost his battle with Leukemia early in November so there will not be wild celebrations this year. He was a truly great man in all the small but very important ways. He was, however, the hardest man on earth to feed. This was a man who "hated" ginger in anything yet his favourite tipple was Whisky and dry ginger! He hated fish, but loved salmon or prawns. He detested garlic but would steal a slice of garlic bread before it left the kitchen. We all miss him very much.
As I sit here on this chilly Sunday evening our little house is filled with the warm winter smell of braising red cabbage. Get this done now as it freezes perfectly well and its another job you don't have to do on the day. The cabbages came in the veg box we get from Abel and Cole - one of them came last week and was the size of a football. Four or five batches of cabbage will soon be in my freezer! (Recipe below)
Now I began to talk about this last year but is stands repeating - On the way home from work tomorrow you need (and I do mean "NEED") to buy your chestnuts - you will not feel at all full of Christmas cheer when on the eve of the big day you are charging round every shop and supermarket trying to find some.
The other thing I must nag about is ordering your meat. It doesn't really matter how many you are feeding on the 25th but it is important to make sure you have the meat you want. On this note why not try something different this year: A rib of beef perhaps, a roast goose might be nice (fine roasties here) or a loin of pork, maybe a leg of lamb, you could even go completely of script and poach a salmon! If you are having turkey please, please make sure it is Free Range and preferably raised to very high welfare and feed standards too. Yes, yes I know times are hard but this is a once a year meal - shouldn't we head towards 2012 with good intentions and actions.

Braised Red Cabbage
1 medium sized red cabbage, shredded
1 large white onion, sliced
1 large apple (Bramley ideal, but any really) peeled, cored and chopped
Glug of Cider vinegar
Wine glass of Dry cider
Butter
Salt and pepper
Melt a large knob of butter in a large casserole on the hob and add the onions and apple. As the apple is softening, add the cabbage and stir to give a fine coat of butter on everything. Pour in the vinegar and the cider and stir some more. Place the lid on and pop the dish into a pre-heated, medium oven for about 45 minutes. Take out the casserole carefully and give the cabbage a really good stir. Add more cider if needed; it doesn't need a swimming pool in the bottom but neither should it be dry. Pop it back in the oven for another 45 minutes. Remove and season to taste. Serve immediately or allow to cool and freeze in bags, portioned according to your family size. This dish happily re-heats in the oven or in the microwave, simply add a little butter to give a gloss before serving. If you want to be a bit or adventurous add some cloves or a stick of cinnamon during cooking.

Welcome back

It has been a long time since I have written in this blog. This is partly because I returned to work as a chef over the summer and since October my time has been taken up starting at a new school and the sad passing of my father. Rest assured that I will be writting much more in the future now that my life is, hopefully, returning to some kind of normality.

Catch up

My tiny garden is keeping me busy with watering at the moment. We have had Strawberries and then Raspberries over our cereal of a morning for a few weeks. (My late raspberries have yet to flower!). Last week we emptied one of the spud bags and had a couple of day's worth of Pink Fir Apple Potatoes.
Most of my bizarre and varied Tomatoes are either in flower or have set fruit and the Courgette plant I was given will provide a meal later this week. In the hot box the assorted Chillies are flowering and seem to be loving the sweaty heat and the garlic (which I planted in October) is ready to be dug and dried.
The Beautiful Wife and I both like to see birds in the garden, and to this end we have various feeders to encourage them. The strange consequence of these feeders is that we have found ourselves grown some seriously agricultural crops. The ability of a family of sparrows to flick seed all over the garden is quite remarkable. So far we have grown (without planting) oats, barley, wheat, sunflowers and oil seed rape. I can't bear to cut down these impostors as the have such statuesque elegance.
On the subject of grains I am now using the Richard Bertinet methods of making bread and they seem to be working. More of this in a later posting.
And... on the subject of later postings, many years ago I promised an old colleague (the Recovering Vegetarian) that I would write at length about sausages this too will happen soon too.

Simon’s Favourite Fudge aka Millionaire's Short Bread

This is a family recipe, though I’m not going to suggest it is unique. My great Aunt was a governess and tutor and used to make it for her charges. She passed the recipe on to my grandmother and she used to make if for my brother and I when we visited the north to see her and granddad. This accounts for our family’s name of “Simon’s Favourite Fudge: Simon is older than me but when he was just speaking we would arrive in Stockton and he would apparently ask if any had been made, but he would ask with the limited vocabulary of a 3 year old. Fudge is easier to say than Caramel chocolate shortcake! Later my mother made this in industrial quantities for my brother and me to take back to boarding school with us.
The original recipe uses margarine (it is only for the children, after all) and a “thin coating of chocolate” (it's expensive, you know).

Millionaire’s Shortbread

Base
4oz Butter
2oz Sugar
4oz Self Raising Flour
Mix all in a bowl to form sticky dough; spread this dough out using your fingers into a high sided Swiss roll tin and bake at gas mark 4 until its golden brown. Allow to cool before adding caramel.

Caramel
4oz Butter
1sm tin Condensed Milk
1tblsp Golden syrup
3oz Sugar
Place all the ingredients in a pan and place on a medium heat. Bring all the ingredients together and very gently boil, stirring all the time, until it’s a golden brown. Pour over the base and allow to cool and set.

Chocolate
6-8oz Dark chocolate
2oz White chocolate
Melt both of the chocolates in separate bowls and pour the dark chocolate over the caramel. Take the white chocolate and, using a fork flick it over the top of the dark chocolate and allow to set. Cut up before everything is set hard.

Its strange that when, when in life, you think you've just got the measure of doing something well another person comes along and shows you a way to get much better results from your actions. A few weeks ago I raved about the making of bread and how much I enjoyed it. Well, when the village all came together for a garden party to celebrate the wedding of Kate and Wills we all brought a dish for the buffet. On the table was some beautiful bread: Crisp rustic crust, full of flavour and oh so much better than you could buy in a shop.

We enquired as to who the producer of this bread was and as it happens we know the gentleman concerned (henceforth, known as the Bread Machine) very well.

The beautiful wife arranged for us all to get together and bake bread -I learned so much.

My dough is now much wetter, I always make a starter of flour, sugar, water and yeast which I leave for a few hours. I've even started using real yeast (you can actually buy this on Amazon!)
In short My bread making has gone from strength to strength - I even made Croissants the other day and now the beautiful wife won't hear of having any "shop bought" breakfast snacks!

A man, a woman and their veg.box.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that the aim for this year was to mix a sense of frugality with food ethics and good eating. Paradoxically, this challenge is being helped by a regular delivery of an organic fruit and vegetable box. I buy our veggie box from Abel and Cole who are probably the most famous provider of boxes in the UK.
The reason I stay with them goes back a few years: We had a box from them on a fortnightly basis when we lived in the inner city and we were very happy with it. However, it began to be stolen and we had to cancel. Not only were the sales people perfectly understanding, they also re-funded the stolen boxes. It was no surprise to learn, when we looked into getting a box again, that they had won awards for the quality of their customer service.
We get a weekly fruit and veg box for 2/3 people and it costs us less than £18 including delivery. Seen as a simple figure, this seems like a lot to pay for just vegetables but that would be far to simple a look at the issue. Since we have got this box we have eaten at lot less meat and we're both eating more fruit (usually chopped over cereal). Owing to the fact that this wonderful produce has been delivered to our door we feel sinful if we don't use it all, this means that two less meals in most weeks have meat as their star ingredient.
Abel and Cole also include leaflets and little books about the farmers who supply them and there's always a humorous card with recipes.
We don't plan our box - we simply take what we're given. I don't even check online as to what's in the box this week, I prefer to be surprised when I open it on getting back from work. The joy of not picking and choosing is that I have been "forced" to use fruit and vegetables that I would not ever buy (even if they were available). Jerusalem artichokes, Sharon fruit, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Spring greens (oh how I love spring greens now) and Beetroot never look so good in the supermarket.
My dear readers I can't encourage you enough to become part of a box scheme - it is not an overstatement to say it has changed the way I cook and eat.

Pasta proof!

Here's a photo taken by the Beautiful Wife of my latest ravioli making splurge. They were stuffed with roasted Butternut Squash mashed up with a single amoretti biscuit. I served then with noisette butter.

The joys of making your own Pasta

Pasta, like bread, is shrouded in many layers of myth and fantasy. The truth is, it is very easy to make and wonderful when you do. However, this is not a quick and simple process - its one for a long lazy Sunday afternoon.
When you first consider making your own pasta your thoughts will turn to pasta making machines. My experience is that there is no point in buying a cheap pasta roller, you willl use it a few times, the gearing will go and it will be next to useless. I made this mistake and eventually purchased an Imperia machine and I have never looked back.
Unlike most items on this blog, making your own pasta will not save you money. Dried pasta of ordinarry quality is available for very little in the supermarket (though high quality dried pasta is a thing of great beauty).
So, it costs a lot to do and its going to take a great deal of your weekend - so why do it? Once you have tasted the sliky smooth little pillows of your own ravioli you will be forever enchanted, I promise.
I always use a "oo" Italian flour and my recipe is below. I tend to make mine into ravioli. The beautiful wife has a particular love of Butternut Squash ravioli in a beurre noisette sauce.

Pasta
3 eggs
300gms "oo" flour
Pinch of salt
Glug of good olive oil

Sift the flour onto a work surface and make a well in the centre. Break the eggs into the middle of the flour and slowly, with a fork, draw the flour into the egg. I find using a gentle, angled, stirrring motion works well here. When it is just starting to come together, get your hands in there and mix it untill it fully holds together. Now kneed the dough until it is smooth and pliable. Wrap the dough in cling film and allow it to rest for 20 minutes outside the fridge.
Squeeze the dough into a tongue shape and feed it into your pasta machine which should be set to its widest setting. Fold in half and send through again. Do this a further 4 times before reducing the gap and running it through without folding. Lower the size everytime you pass the pasta though and finally you will be left with a great long strip of lasagne. You can cut this into shapes, use it as Lasange, use the slicing gadget on your machine to make Tagliatelle or even make nice little Ravioli.

I recently purchased a Ravioli plate (also ny Imperia) and now make twelve little cushions of loveliness in a batch. Photos to follow!

One a penny, two a penny....

These are the Hot Cross Buns I made. I mentioned them in my last blog - get baking people!

Give us this day...

It has been a long time since I wrote and for that I apologise - life has been so very hectic during the last month.
One of the things which I have most enjoyed over the last 5 months is making my own bread. I must encourage everybody to do the same. I too put up all the usual excuses - "I don't have the time" "it works out very expensive" "will it be any good?" and so on. However, once you begin to make your own and play around with a few basic recipes I promise you it becomes addictive (in a good way, of course).
In terms of the time it takes: You have to be around for an hour and a half or so, but only 15 minutes of that is actually spent doing anything. This is perfect for a weekend afternoon or even an evening during the week.
A 1.5 Kilo bag of good strong bread flour will cost less than £2 (this will make 3 medium sized loaves) add to that 80p for other ingredients and your homemade loaf comes in at about 70p. If you can buy an organic, artisan loaf for that little - please tell me where!
The quality of your loaf is up to you - if you are prepared to spend a little time working out what best works for you then the quality will often be better than what is available to buy.
It is also nice to know exactly what went into your daily bread.
Well that's the technical stuff, so what about the emotional stuff? Bread is culturally vital (and I use the word "vital" in its true sense). It is the "Staff of life", most food cultures in the world have a basic starch (potato, maize, rice, pasta) but nearly all of them also have a bread. It is a basic human desire to make and eat bread with family and friends. As for the making of bread I simply ask if there is a more soothing, tactile, life affirming action than the kneading of an organic, GM free loaf?
I have been so excited by the making of bread that for the Easter period I even made Hot Cross Buns. Why do supermarkets insist on selling these all year round? They are supposed to be a seasonal treat - If you fancy them in August then get rid of the cross and call them "Tea cakes" (minor rant over).
If you want to buy a book with simple and "work every time" recipes then you wont go far wrong with the Breads and Bakes book in the series produced under "The best kept Secrets of the Women's Institute", it is written by Carrie O'Regan and Jill Brand. Incidentally the WI book on Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Midge Thomas is also very good indeed.
And so to my basic White Bread recipe. This one only needs a single rise and does not require knocking back.

White Bread
1lb Strong White Bread Flour
10floz Hand warm water
1oz Butter
1tsp (heaped) Easy blend (or Quick) yeast (I use Doves farm)
1tsp Salt

Sift the flour into a bowl. add the yeast, butter and salt. Rub the butter in as you would a pastry. Add two thirds of the watter and mix in with a knife. Slowly add the rest of the water and get your hands in there! When the dough has come together, pop it on a floured surface and kneed for 10 full minutes. Your dough should feel springy and soft. Shape your dough into a ball or put it in a suitable oiled loaf tin with oiled cling film over it (a tea towel will also do this job) and allow it to rise in a quiet warm spot till it has doubled in size. This is the magic bit and should take about 40 minutes. Dust the top with flour. Pop it in to a hot oven for about 35 minutes until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Allow it to cool on a wire rack.

Once you have done this loaf, the world is your mollusc. Try different flours, adding seeds, bran, olives, onions, sun dried tomatoes, nuts.......

Spring is here (we hope!)

My garden (which is the size of a postage stamp) has gone bonkers in the last few days. My tomatoes have surfaced as have my chillies, The raspberries have leaves and the gooseberry has flowers. At the weekend I planted potatoes in bags made by the Beautiful Wife (The variety is pink fir apple). We planted some in September for Christmas eating. It appeared that they had died in the pre Christmas frosts but when I finally emptied the bags in January there were enough little spuds for three or four meals and they were delicious. I have been watching "Lambing Live" on BBC all this week. This should be compulsory viewing for all people who wish to eat meat. The care, attention and kindness shown to the animals on a well run farm is a perfect demonstration of what I tend to rave about on here. I'm not sure about the Organic certification or the Paper ethics of the featured farm but it is plain to anyone watching that the animals in that glorious location are well managed and cared for. Even more than this, there is Kate Humble for the men and Adam Hensen for the ladies.

What??

I made a decision when I started to write this blog that I would only put positive comments. However, I have been driven to break this rule. Oh Marco what have you done? Its true I'm afraid MPW is now advertising Bernard Matthews products. I feel like the whole world has been turned upside down. I haven't felt something was this wrong since Clive Woodward was working with football players. Come on people, there's more to food than just making money.

Fish Pie Request

One of my new colleagues has decided to cook Fish Pie this evening. There are a million recipes for this dish and when it comes to comfort food this is right up there with Toad in the Hole. Fish and potato is a magnificent combination - just think about a well made Fishcake or Fish and chips for that matter!
Fish Pie is one of those dishes (like Spaghetti Bolognaise and Beouf Bouginogne) where everyone believes that they have the definitive version - the truth, of course, is that there is no definitive version only your version. So, for what its worth, here's mine:

Fish Pie

Small lump of white fish (Cod, Haddock, Pollock, Coley - whatever really).
Small lump of salmon.
A handful of prawns (North Atlantic and sustainable please - cooked or uncooked is fine, make sure they are defrosted).
Half a dozen large florets of Broccoli.
Couple of glasses of White Wine (or Cider).
Couple glasses of double cream.
Salt and Pepper
Two or three large floury potatoes
Little bit-o-butter

Peel and boil the potatoes. For the last 5 minutes of the potato boiling, steam the broccoli above the potato pan and then refresh under fast flowing water. When the potatoes are soft and tender mash them with the butter. Place aside both the broccoli and the mash. (Incidentally I use a whisk to do my mash - it seems to add a little volume and smoothness). Heat a pan with a glass of water and the white wine. When boiling add the white fish and salmon to poach (the time will depend on how chunky your fish is). When both fish are just becoming opaque take them out and allow them cool aside. Reduce the liquid in the pan until it is about half the volume then add the cream and gently boil to make a medium thick sauce.
Flake the fish, break up the broccoli into small florets and mix together in the bowl you plan to serve it all in with the prawns.
Pour in the seasoned sauce and smear the spuds over the top. Prettify the top if you must or even add a little cheese. Pop into the oven and bake till crisp and brown on top and bubbling underneath. Serve in bowls with a glass of the white wine you used earlier.

Slow, slow, quick quick, slow

I was unwell in January and had previously been given, as a present, a butchery course at Ginger Pig in Marylebone. I went, despite not feeling great, and was so very glad that I did. The evening was a pork butchery course in 4 or so hours. We had the opportunity, as a group to dis-assemble a half pig and then we each boned and tied our own Spare Rib Joint for taking home and roasting.
Predictably the pork was of the highest quality and the instruction from two Master Butchers. The evening finished with us tucking into a cooked joint of pork served with dauphinoise potatoes (followed by bread and butter pudding). We all went home with a huge lump of pig and a little more knowledge - it really was a super evening.
The way we prepared the meat was to take the skin off and score it cover the meat in sliced garlic and ground fennel seeds. The joint was then rolled with the skin back on and tied (using special butchers knots - I could tell you how but then I'd have to kill you) ready for roasting.FYI the piece of meat I brought home was 2.8 kilos and kept us in food for almost a week.
Yesterday I did a similar thing with a little piece of belly pork and it was wonderful. The Beautiful Wife summed it up when she said "It just makes the pork seem more porky". So here's the slow roast recipe.

Ginger Pig Pork

A piece of belly pork (no bones, skin taken off and reserved)
Ground fennel seeds
Finely sliced garlic
Salt and pepper

Cover one side of the pork with fennel and garlic, season well and poll with the flavourings on the inside. Place more of the fennel and garlic on the underside of the skin and wrap it round the roll of pork. Tie the joint and roast until the juices run clear (this will take slightly longer than you would think). Allow to rest before serving either as a Sunday roast or with dauphinoise potatoes.

This evening we had the closest I get to fast food. We had pasta pesto. The pasta was Benedetto Cavalieri from the very tip of the heal of Italy. I often buy this at Umberto's in Thame for people who insist that all dried pastas are the same. It really shows that pasta is not just a bland starch but has a flavour of its own and can have a texture which is quite delicious. The sauce was Umberto's fresh Pesto. Once you start eating real fresh pesto you will be spoiled forever - you will walk past the jars in the supermarket with a slightly snooty air about you.

Tuesday Toad.

It is the day for comfort food - throughout my working life, and even at school and university I've always had a problem with Tuesdays. I think it is because its a long way to the next weekend and it doesn't feel like a start (and I love stating something new - even a week). For me, one of the greatest of British comfort foods is Toad in the Hole. Opinion is divided as to what should be in the perfect toad and there is considerable evidence that this dish was origionaly made with lamb cutlets and not sausages but I love a good sausage and mine is always of the porky variety.


Now listen people and listen good - This is a classic, and with all classics, less is more! Don't mess with near perfection.

Toad in the Hole. (Serves 2)

6 good (and I do mean good - I use Newitts Gloucestershires) Butcher's Sausages. Plain Flour. Milk. 1 egg. Salt and pepper

Sieve about 6oz of flour into a bowl and add enough milk to make it the consistancy of single cream add the egg and beat in - DO NOT OVER WHISK - its not a merangue!

Gently fry the sausages, just to seal them then pop them in a high sided roasting tin with a little nugget of lard, dripping, or oil with a high burn point. Pop them in a hot oven and let them sizzle for about 5 minutes. The fat in the tin needs to be really hot, almost smoking. Pull out the tin and pour in the batter so that the edges sizzle and bubble a little. Then its back in the oven and enjoy the magic of a rising Yorkshire pudding. Serve when it is crispy on top and has a bit of fluff underneath. Make sure there is somthing green and squeeky to go with it (We had Spring Greens from the veg box) and lashings of onion gravy.

Fat Tuesday

Pancake day, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras they all mean the same day but they all mean very different things. Pancake day: The day we looked forward to as there was always the challenge as to who could eat the most pancakes. Shrove Tuesday the beginning of the build up to Easter and the start of fasting for Lent. Mardi Gras: One hell of a party!
So here's an idea: If you wish to give up something for Lent give up something which is either bad for you, bad for the environment, or ethically suspect. You might want to give up any products from intensive animal rearing (yes, yes I know it will cost more but just eat less of it or buy less expensive cuts). Perhaps you could give up any fruit or veg which is out of season and, hence, probably air freighted round the world - you really don't need asparagus in March. Another idea is to give up throwing out leftovers - let's be honest you don't want to be friends with anyone who doesn't like bubble and squeak and yesterday's curry or chilli will be better reheated today.
Whatever you think today should be I hope you have enjoyed pancakes (with lemon and sugar not golden syrup) and that you feel as uncomfortably full as I do right now.
Just for the record, the Beautiful Wife and I both managed four and a half large pancakes each.

I went for breakfast at the Church today. Now, before you jump to the conclusion that the beautiful Victorian church in the village has been turned into a French Bistro, I must inform you that this is a monthly breakfast service where the village comes together and chats over a bacon sandwich and a coffee. This got me to thinking about the power of breaking bread together. Eating is such a basic thing, a simple necessity of life yet when people come together to eat the nourishment is so much more than the simple filling of bellies.
The slightly strange Mr Cameron talks about his Big Society where everyone takes control of their own community without assistance from any form of government. He has missed the point - its all about the Small society with people taking care of each other without it needing to be noticed as "voluntary work" or "doing something for the community".
The village in which I live has a host of children at present and we are planning a garden party for the royal wedding later this year. Now what sort of food will that need, I wonder?

"Please, Sir I want some more."

So what do I want more of and why?
Last night the wonderful Kate Humble finished her series on spices with her reports on Saffron and Vanilla. In the last two weeks we have brilliant hours with discussions on the production and history of Cloves, Pepper, Cinnamon and Nutmeg. The programmes have been a foody's dream. Kate is quite brilliant, like everyone's favourite older cousin. Her joy at seeing a Vanilla orchid, out of season, was infectious and her ability to enjoy the company of anyone she meets makes for superb viewing. Its programmes like this that make the licence fee worth paying. It's not often that I find myself taking notes in front of the telly.
This week's veggie box arrived today and contained Jerusalem Artichokes (which I love) and Chinese Leaf which I have no idea how to use in the winter.
So my plea to the BBC is that they make more of this series - I need to know about Cumin, Cardamon, Allspice, Ginger, Turmeric, Mustard....

I'm back and its the hungry gap.

First I must apologise for not having posted in a while. The truth is that I've been unwell and have had to concentrate on getting well though this has meant a great deal of cooking! I hope that leaving you all in the lurch 9 days before Christmas wasn't too much of a let down. I have also decided that my blog will focus on frugal cooking for a while - just to make this really difficult I do not intend to drop my ethical position on food production.
Right now we are in the middle of the "Hungry Gap" the period when home grown food is sparse and this presents an interesting set of problems to the food-mile conscious cook. Let's not panic and charge out to buy asparagus form South America and mange tout from Kenya. Let's revel in what we have: wonderful sweet roots asking for cumin and chilli, beautifully rich brasicas begging for bacon and butter, and leeks crying out for a cheese sauce.
I'd love to claim the recipe on the following link was mine but it came in a little booklet with my veg box this week - it was wonderful and, as with many curries, even better heated up a day later. I served it with cous cous.
www.abelandcole.co.uk/recipes/swede#recipe10
The other side of this time of year is thinking about what will grow in my "postage stamp" garden. This week I planted chilli plants in my hot box. The varieties are: Apache, Cheyene, Jalepeno, De Cayenne, Joe's Long (25-30cm long chillies!) and a "Hot stuff mix." On the basis that I'm still using last summer's dried chillies we should be full of heat through next winter.
I shall write again soon.