SheShopsLocal

Queen of Puddings

2012-02-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

On Friday morning I achieved my ideal and found myself shopping for the weekend in Nailsworth, one of the advantages of this is being able to peruse the country market and feeling like I’m organised and ready for the weekend before it starts. I started in Williams where they ask me “what recipe are you cooking this weekend then?” I confessed that it wasn't an ED recipe, instead I was cooking from my brother in laws recipe from his and Tom’s new book. It then dawned on me that actually everything on the shopping list was ingredients for recipes from their book.

Friday night started with a fish stew with accompanying super garlicky aioli. Fish stew made from red mullet, mussels and prawns from Williams. Saturday night we had a houseful, so sliders all round. Henry’s homemade slider burgers on Tom’s ultimate burger baps, with lush salads followed by Henry’s Queen of Puddings. And a Queen of a pudding it was, with bright pink Yorkshire Rhubarb from Bramleys. By Sunday we were down to eleven mouths for dinner and it was the turn of the slow cooked pulled pork. Marinaded in ale and paprika and cooked for hours till seriously tender. We served this with oodles of seasonal veg and some paprika spiced gravy. Then a rather unseasonal pavlova using up the last of the foraged blackberries and elderberries from the freezer. We worked up appetites with brisk walks and muddy bike rides and warmed ourselves with, woodfire and pots and pots of tea. It’s been a great weekend, no one went hungry.

I’m hoping a year of Elizabeth David hasn’t left me too recipe book dependent. It’s certainly given me an overwhelming curiosity to try out new ones, even if they have been written by my family.

Donuts, ED style

2012-02-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

Two Elizabeth David recipes have snuck onto the menu this week. A delicious ox kidney casserole, that I didn't dare give to the kids. The cooking this week has been a lot about the childrenand what they like to eat, it got me thinking about how to get kids eating and to engage with food. I believe the answer is so simple: involve them. I think this means eating together and letting them help with cooking, then they learn that food is something to be celebrated. This week with the kids I have made fish fingers, some skinned plaice from Williams egged and breaded, so simple but so much nicer than the Captains version. We made a very extravagant chocolate cake which was a good lesson in the value of ingredients. The kids have made for themselves pizza, fruit salad and smoothies. My eldest daughter particularly loves to make food for friends, and will take great pride in making her "smoothie surprise" when her friends are over.

Today we made doughnuts together, the boy has developed a nasty habit for them, particularly caramel ones. Today we used an Elizabeth David recipe much to their groans. We made the sweet dough and left it to rise. During this time we cleaned up the old doughnut jammer Tom remembers using as a child and filled it with the last of the summers homemade strawberry jam. After we had deep fried the buns, rolled them in sugar, squirted in the jam we scoffed them without licking our lips.

At last my boy has declared we've made an Elizabeth David recipe he'd love to make again.

Elizabeth David Birthday special

2012-02-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

I decided this week to reclaim Elizabeth David from my in laws. She had only been there a week and I was already missing her, the problem was I needed to cook a celebratory meal for my Pa's birthday and I didn't know where else to turn.

The menu was inspired by what was available locally, the butchers had a good looking duck and the mussels in Williams looked too good to miss. Therefore we started with brochette mussels. Pre cooked mussels threaded onto a kebab stick with bacon, rolled in flour, then egg, then rye breadcrumbs and pan fried in oil. These were served with a bearnaise sauce with spinach in. To follow I roasted the duck with stock added to stop him drying out, this was served a la Elizabeth with braised celery and parsnip purée. I wasn't convinced the pudding was going to be a winner and would let the meal down. When I spotted apricots in Bramley's I knew I had a couple of recipes left, there was a choice of apricots with a kind of eggy bread or apricots on croutons. I chose the latter and buttered some finally sliced shepherds loaf and placed them in a roasting tray. On these I put the halved apricots and filled their cavity with sugar and roasted the lot in the oven. The result was surprisingly tasty not too dry and great with a big dollop of yoghurt. The dollop of yoghurt made a nice change to "a knob of butter" which seems to be dominating our lives at the moment.

happy new year

2012-02-05T10:08:00.001-08:00

On New Year’s day I cooked my Elizabeth David finale. I’m keeping my options open as to whether this is the absolute end, it’s just the last recipes require some serious attention and detail; calfs head viniagrette, boned duck or coffee infused ice cream. The finale was her “Boeuf Bourguignon”, said in a silly french accent. It was mighty fine and definitely the epitome of what a years worth of cooking Elizabeth David has been about. Great meat marinated in fine wine, cooked over two days for flavour and tenderness, served with parsnip puree, seasonal greens, a large glass of red wine and a great dollop of fiery dijon mustard.

This leads me to ask, what’s next? Normality seems appealing but I’m not really sure what that is. A return to the supermarket certainly isn’t on the horizon, I was reminded of this after being away for a couple of weeks, landing back in Nailsworth felt like home, greeted with smiling familiar faces and people wanting to chat.

As for what’s on the menu, we have been somewhat distracted by the new tv series, Fabulous Baker Brothers. What with trying out pies and experimenting with recipes for the book, it’s all been very pastry based. “We” made the most amazing Beef Wellington this weekend, beef fillet covered with sauteed mushrooms then wrapped in savoy cabbage and the finest puff. Hopefully with all this pie action I’ll get some help completing one more Elizabeth recipe; a giant sausage roll, an oversized sausage wrapped in brioche dough. Not the food of New Year’s resolutions.

Christmas is coming

2012-02-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

Glad tidings we bring to you and your King, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.....

How was your Christmas? I don't like to think that it's already in the past tense, all that effort and expectation has got to be worth a season of goodwill not just a day. But how do you achieve that when Boxing Day sales start at 5am and lure you in for all you didn't get from Father Christmas.

From what I've heard and observed, loads of you enjoyed a local Christmas. With such amazing food available from your local town or your Christmas eve Stroud farmers market

it was easier than ever to enjoy the tastiest Christmas yet.

We had some great local highs this year with presents. Tom loved his handmade leather case, the kids were thrilled with all theirs and I was given a fab selection of local gifts- vouchers for a local massage, lush clothes bought locally and a beautiful make up bag bought at Prema's Christmas fayre.

As for our Christmas dinner, we were in France and I can tell you their weeny turkey wasn't a patch on my 9kilo one I cooked at the beginning of December, their sprouts weren't up to much either.

Very ironically I did find myself in a French supermarket on Christmas eve. Father Christmas needed the obligatory walnuts, (later regretted in airport customs, as the kids stamped on them to get at the nuts) clementines and an ice cream. French towns seem to have the same predicament as our local towns with domineering supermarkets presiding over the demise of independents and the high street.

For High Street sake, make it your new years resolution to shop locally and keep your independents thriving.

...now bring out that figgy pudding.

soup

2011-12-14T13:36:00.001-08:00

Why does Christmas always seem such a mega task?

I write this feeling overwhelmed by what needs to be achieved this week before the children break up for school. Obviously all the pressure is put on by myself trying to make it all lovely, local, special and social. Last weeks main feat was to get through the Turkey. There was turkey leftovers, turkey curry, turkey pasta, turkey in the freezer, turkey in the dog and of course turkey soup. My lot in life at the moment is to make soup. I have started to make soup for our shops and have also been involved in organizing soup lunches at school. As a consequence my hands resemble celeriacs but I can now knock out a mean soup. Making a stock from the turkey carcasse made a far superior soup to one made with water or a vegetable stock. I just sweated some onions in butter and salt then added leeks and a good selection of winter veg: swede, parsnips, potatoes, carrots and covered with the stock and cooked until tender. The soup was smooth and sublime. I also used some of the stock to make a broth. Frying off some onions, leeks and chestnut mushrooms then covering with stock some torn turkey and tarragon, this was stuff to nourish the soul. That’s the next achievement for this season- to avoid getting ill, there’s worse ways to do this then filling ourselves with broth and clementines.

Now to ice the Christmas Cake...

Christmas come early

2011-12-11T13:10:00.001-08:00

I have celebrated my one year anniversary of shopping locally with a lush family breakfast at Star-anise. I continue to take it very seriously and have not been to a supermarket in a year. This Christmas I continue to find gems locally, there is nothing more exciting than finding a perfect present for someone you love in your favourite local independent. This season a couple of fantastic pop up shops have appeared in Stroud, Nothing but Navy and the Weaving Shed. In Nailsworth there is the newly opened Sharland and Lewis for all your present needs.

Today I have been practicing what I preach and cooked a nine kilo turkey. This beast will most certainly feed us for the week if not until Christmas. The Elizabeth David turkey recipe had been hanging over me since the new year, and it was definitely worth waiting for. I made her chestnut, apple and pork stuffing and filled him up with this and sausagemeat. I then smeared him with butter and cooked him in a moderate oven for four and a half hours. We weren’t quite ready for a full on Christmas dinner so we had him with braised celery and roasted beetroot, steamed sprout tops and roast potatoes. For pudding we tested out a bakery Christmas pud, and my it was good with homemade brandy butter. Christmas tip of the week,* heat your brandy and light in the saucepan before pouring over your pudding for the biggest flames you have ever seen- Elizabeth David would be proud.

*Disclaimer - ceiling touchup paint may be required. I or SNJ can not be held responsible for fire or burning in any way.

Christmas is coming

2011-12-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth David is taking a back seat, the boy is working in London and I in school girl fashion have left all the tricky recipes requiring moral support to the end. I can't see myself boning a duck at that twilight hour between 5 and 6 with four hungry tired children running wild. Persuading my children after athletics one night that they really would like a dinner of oxtail stew or ox kidney isn't going to happen.

This means I will just have to seize opportunities as and when. We had a jolly nice egg breakfast yesterday, baked with grated carrot and bechamel sauce. Last weekend was my mother in laws birthday so I scored some points by cooking up an ED feast. Scallops with garlic and parsley served with a winter salad. A peasant stew, filled with pork, beef, rabbit and chocolate accompanied by good crusty bread and home grown kale made for a hearty autumnal main. Then a pudding of lemon ice cream and baked figs. All finished with some jolly nice cheese and homemade membrillo.

I am keeping myself busy without Elizabeth David by Christmas shopping. I have managed already to get myself pretty sorted using great independent shops. The girls wrote their Christmas lists yesterday and Father Christmas will successfully be able to tick off the list locally, there's lip gloss, hair bands and an electric toothbrush for the eldest, felt tip pens and all the Barbie princesses for the middle and for the youngest sylvanian families and a lollipop.

Trout Triumph

2011-12-03T13:16:00.001-08:00

Back on the ED wagon
Tonight I cooked a couple of trout bought from the long established David Felce and daughters in Stroud market. For old times sake I cooked each to a different Elizabeth David recipe, one in a court bouillon cooked for only five minutes then topped with breadcrumbs fried in butter. The second recipe was cooked similar to an a la greque. Water and olive oil were boiled up together with the addition of thyme some crushed juniper and thyme. The trout was cooked in this fast for one minute then slower for three, thats it. perfect. I served this with celeriac dauphinoise, purple sprouting and horseradish.
It marked a very welcome return to ED.
Hopefully this will be continue tomorrow when I cook my 9 kilo turkey!

Remaining ED

2011-11-12T09:27:00.001-08:00

This is work in progress and is my remaining recipes from French Provincial Cooking. Like a defiant teenager I have left all the tricky recipes to the end-nice one!
Stock for sauces
Tresor de cuisine
Orange sauce
Sauce Bercy
Beurre blanc nantais
Sauce catalane
Horseradish and cream sauce
Marinade pour les gibiers
Salad of chickpeas
Celery with anchovy sauce
Mussel salad
Oeufs durs en tapenade
Tomatoes aux Oeufs durs et a la mayonnaise
Eggs in tarragon flavoured jelly
Pain grille aux anchovies
Le saussoun
Sweet sour cherries
3 x salad nicoise
Salad au Chaplin
Salade de pissenlits
Salad of artichoke hearts and lettuce
Bouillon pour
Game consommé
La soupe au lard
Cream of turnip soup
Lentil and sorrel soup
Marseillais fish soup
Nimois fish soup
Mussel soup
Oeufs mollets a la crecy
Hard boiled eggs with onion and cream sauce
Oeufs sur le plat, au miroir
Oeufs sur le play
Oeufs sur le plat Bercy
Oeufs Frits
Oeufs Frits au Beurre noir
Les Oeufs poches
Poached eggs with mussel stock
Poached eggs with meat sauce
Omelette aux truffles
Petites fondues a la bourguigonne
Semolina and potato gnocchi
Truffled pate of duck
Potted rabbit and pork
Galantine of pork with parsley and garlic
Sausage baked in brioche dough
Poached sausage with horseradish sauce
Cured knuckle of pork
Beet root baked in their skins
Cepes a la bordelaise
Dried haricot beans red wine
Lentils with parsley butter
Glazed turnips
Onions stewed in wine
Roast onions
Tinned petits pois
Sweet peppers stewed with tomato
Tomatoes stuffed with breadcrumbs and parsley
Fish
Fried smelts
Red gurney with cheese sauce
Grilled herrings with mustard sauce
Soft roes in jacket potatoes
Mackerel with egg butter and herb sauce
Fish mayonnaise
Whiting with red wine sauce
Turbot with cream and herb sauce
La bourride de Charles befit
Cream of salt cod
Salt cod in red wine sauce
Eel baked with leeks and black olives
Fresh water crayfish in court bouillon
Sweet sour carp in the Jewish fashion
Burgundian fish stew
Trout in court bouillon
Fried scallops with garlic and parsley
Mussels on skewers
Mussels with onion and tomato
Moules a la provencale
Lobster mayonnaise
Langouste comme chez nenette
Crawfish or rock lobster with cream and white wine sauce
Grilled Dublin bay prawns
Snails
Stuffed snails
Tinned snails with parsley and garlic butter
Frogs legs
Beef
Boeuf a la bourguigonne
Boeuf a la mode
Oxtail stewed with white grapes
Grilled oxtail
Ox kidney stewed in wine and mushrooms

93, and that's not it, to quote the third child "what the earth"!
Sent from my iPhone

I couldn't carry a box

2011-11-10T10:08:00.001-08:00

I always loved receiving my Riverford box, arriving home to a box packed full of shiny fresh fruit and vegetables never failed to delight. As you know a year ago with a tear in my eye I cancelled this in favor of shopping locally. I was reminded of this on Saturday as I carried my loaded box of fruit and veg to the car, this box too was beautiful full of shiny fruit and veg. Of course it is always all in the packaging and I am the first to fall for something wrapped in tissue with a bow round it packed in a paper bag. But I realised this week, that carrying your shopping in an open box gleaming up at you is as good. This is as satisfying for me at Horsley Community shop when I grab one of their used cardboard boxes and fill it with groceries, be it cereal, washing up liquid, milk or butter. This week they are starting to stock Duchy Farm’s organic veg so my box will be all the more bountiful.

I have been busy with Elizabeth David this week trying to crack through those last recipes. A couple of beef stews, lamb fillet and a pepper omelette. Butter has been the ultimate ingredient this week, transforming some ordinary carrots to something extraordinary with a splash of cream and some salmon steaks cooked in butter then bubbled in white wine were sublime.

I heard a saying this week that taste is not in the cooking but in the shopping. This I have to agree with, taking pride in my beautiful, locally sourced box of shopping, and what it’ll cooks up is invariably more tasty.

Food waste

2011-10-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.feeding5k.org/food-waste-facts.php

and

As we sat down for Sunday roast kindly cooked for us, I felt overwhelmed by comfort and joy. Next I try to work out when we last had a roast dinner and why did it seem novel and not the norm. I cannot think of a better way to end the week or a more perfect way to start the week. Fill your family up with hearty warmth then fill your fridge with leftovers for a busy week ahead.

It strikes me that a traditional Sunday roast is not cheering enough homes in these austerity times. This is exactly how we should be feeding our families to save money. A leftover joint should be dinner on Monday too, I have been known to make it to Thursday on Sunday leftovers. Not just by buying an oversized joint but by making stock and being thrifty.

At these times reducing food waste should be everyones priority, yet people seem to lack the knowledge of basic house keeping. Best before dates have played havoc with our eating habits with people throwing away food just because it’s passed it date. In our house we only don't eat it if it's blue and have all become expert milk sniffers, and that now gets made into soda bread. I heard a radio 1 DJ concerning herself that she ate an out of date avocado, when did we become so detached from the food we eat that we worry we can poison ourselves with an avocado.

In order to change what we spend on food, and how much we waste we need to look at how we shop and cook. A friend has managed to dramatically cut her food bill by buying her fruit and veg from the local greengrocers Bramleys not the supermarket, and there’s no packaging or best before dates on that. To learn more about food and cooking make it your job to cook a Sunday roast and eat it until there isn't a scrap left.

and

p.s, buy good quality bread with as few ingredients in as possible, it will last longer, especially sourdoughs or overnight doughs

Feed your family for £60 for a week

2011-10-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

Here is an outline for a weeks menu inspired by Sainsbury's but to be used at the almighty Horsley Community shop. Feeding a family of four on the finest local and sometimes organic food for less than £60. Eventually I will write a shopping list and recipes or detailed explanations and recommendations for extras too.

Sunday,

Breakfast; American Pancakes and honey

Lunch; Mushrooms on wholemeal toast

Dinner; Roast chicken, with potatoes, carrots and cabbage

Monday

Breakfast; Tomatoes on wholemeal toast

Lunch; Ham Omlette

Dinner; Hot chicken salad

Tuesday

Breakfast; Porridge

Lunch; Beans on sherston toast

Dinner; Pea risotto

Wednesday

Breakfast; Bacon sandwich on sherston

Lunch; Pea and lettuce soup with 3 seed wholemeal

Dinner; Fish pie

Thursday

Breakfast; Porridge

Lunch; Ham and mustard sherston sandwich

Dinner; Mushroom and chickpea curry with rice

Friday

Breakfast; 3 seed Toast and honey

Lunch; Egg fried rice

Dinner; Horsley sausage with mash, cabbage and mustard

Saturday

Breakfast; Boiled egg and 3 seed soldiers

Lunch; Hummus sandwich

Dinner; Spaghetti Carbonara

Example recipe,

Chickpea and Mushroom curry

Ingredients.

1 onion

3 cloves of garlic

1 tbsp curry powder

200g mushrooms

1 tin of chickpeas

1 tin of coconut milk

Half a bag of spinach (chard or kale as good)

Fry your sliced onion in olive oil, add the chopped garlic, when softening add the curry powder. Next add the sliced mushrooms, drained chickpeas and coconut milk. Simmer gently for 25 minutes. Finally add your torn washed greens and cook till they are tender. Season.

Rice.

I can only cook basmati rice one way, it always works, this is how.

Heat a splash of olive oil in a pan, add the whole pack of basmati rice (there is egg fried rice for lunch tomorrow). Stir the rice till the grains are all coated in olive oil. Add twice the volume of water to rice. Bring to the boil, stir, then put a lid on and leave for about 8 minutes. When all the water has absorbed turn off the heat and cover with a clean tea towel and the lid and leave until needed, it is fine for up to an hour.

Serve the rice with the curry remembering to keep back half the rice for tomorrows lunch.

Optional extras* serve with coriander, mango chutney, soy sauce or chilli sauce

*All optional extras take you over your weekly allowance.

Quinces

2011-10-09T12:33:00.001-07:00

It's not been a bumper year at Quince Tree Cottage year, this is probably the first year I have anticipated their arrival and had a list of recipes lined up. I of course was hoping to finishing Elizabeth David's, French Provincial cooking as the last quince fell, this hasn't happened. I could blame it on my shortfall of quinces, but the reality is I was being over ambitious. Julia took a year and I think I will too.

I have a bounce in my step for Elizabeth again, now I only have one hare recipe left I think I can do it. Every recipe continues to be a success, but I still have to bone a duck and a chicken and cook a partridge in a cabbage, what?!!

Her quince recipes were great, a delicious quince marmalade and a divine quince paste. I have made quince paste before to cut up into sweet sized portions. Her recipe cooked the quinces rubbed of their downy skins whole in the oven until they were soft enough to be put through the food mill, then reheated with sugar and cooked in a low oven. I can't work out how the recipe differs from membrillo, whether the paste is just smoother and typically cooked for longer. I will have to wait for next years fruit to find out unless anyone has any quinces going spare.

Welcome home

2011-10-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

The husband had been away "Do"ing his thing in Wales. He was welcomed home by a good fish supper, Elizabeth David of course. Red mullet cooked in vine leaves, picked from the garden and globe artichokes (down in price in Bramleys). The fish was good and really took on the flavour of the leaves and was served with melted butter. The globe artichokes were good served with a vinaigrette. I like cooking them whole, I don't get the benefit of cutting out the choke and just cooking up the heart. I love the crescendo of chewing the leaves as they get tenderer until you reach the nectar in the middle. The chips were courtesy of Hobbs House Bistro.

Apprentice

2011-09-27T14:09:00.001-07:00

Homegrown tomatoes

2011-09-27T14:08:00.001-07:00

Last summer I had a moment of optimism when I thought I could grow my own vegetables. We inherited a garden full of fruit trees and raspberries and blackberries, having watched and tasted friends homegrown produce I decided this was the way forward. Last year I was helped by Riverford Organics and cheated by just planting their seedlings. This year I decided to take it more seriously and have grown lots from seed. My intention was to grow for my Elizabeth David project. I think I can safely say I failed on every count. Two packets of courgette seeds were defeated by slugs, the sorrel and spinach just wouldn't oblige, a mere two miniature but tasty beetroot were consumed this week, the broad beans got rust and the peas were eaten before they made it into the kitchen. There was also the one and only globe artichoke that tasted good cooked in a combination of oil and water with a squeeze of lemon.
Despite these failures I have produced enough greens to not have to buy any for weeks. A few French beans but the runner beans, chard and kale have been prolific. The tomatoes have required a lot of attention but hopefully this Indian summer is looking like we could be heading towards a bumper crop.
My conclusion of this year is that you reap what you sow, I have been unable to put much effort in, I am always too busy cooking but I see that it's a steep learning curve and hope that my fingers with time will turn green.

Horsley produce show

2011-09-27T14:07:00.001-07:00

I can now tell you that the prize winning was all with the kids, they did us proud, I let the side down, my baking skills particularly. My cooking apples did get a noble 2nd.

Horsley church fete

The Horsley church fete is such a momentous annual occasion in our lives that lots of great memories are formed around it. There is nothing like the first fete in your new village to suss out just where you have moved, walking apprehensively through lines of bargain hunters, past the silver band and under the bunting; as young newlyweds we quickly realised we had struck the jackpot. With the finest cream teas for miles around and some bric a brac Cath Kidston would break her right arm for, we knew we had landed. In the years following there is the memory of parading our first newborn in the then obligatory land rover buggy to the coos and woos of the villagers. Now there is the endless cry for just one more £1 Mummy, for another failed attempt at the tombola.

As years go by the fete has been tweaked and improved, for us it’s become a lot moreabout the children, but reassuringly the essentials remain the same, the cream tea is still delicious and the strong bent for locally produced food has grown and grown and grown. The famous and formidable Horsley sausage in a Hobbs House jumbo finger roll will give you a tasty hot dog fill whilst keeping food miles to a minimum. The Horsley Orchard project sells preserves and work hard pressing apples: you are encouraged to bring along your apples and good wind falls, have a turn in the deck chair slicing and pressing, and for your effort you’ll be rewarded with your own prize bottle of Horsley apple juice to take home. Then there’s the cake stall with an ambitious and enviable selection of great home baking, each plate as diverse as its baker, hinting at Horsley’s breadth of influence and rich diversity (well, for Gloucestershire anyway). If it’s cake you’re after, guess the weight of a fruit cake to win it is a treasured classic, or buy a raffle ticket to be in with a chance of winning a Hobbs House Bakery Matildaesque chocolate cake. For the first year the mighty and heritage-rich Winstones ice cream will be trundling their van from over the common to scoop their finest frozen fayre for us all. If you fancy something stronger, in a glass and pint sized, then there’s beer from the award winning Stroud Brewery.

This year is the first year of the Horsley Produce show, with adult categories such as best jam, roses in a vase, best loaf and the longest runner bean. The children have their own categories including the finest pizza and the biggest sunflower. Judged by Hobbs House Bakery and a revered local farmer, the competition is sure to be tough. Watch out though, it will be my victoria sponge and marmalade winning (fighting talk/competitive spirit), but I am not convinced the redcurrant jelly has got the edge.

What is great about this fete is how it encompasses all of the community, young and old, from the football team to the landowners, all there running there own stalls, from the balloon race to see whose gets the furthest (last year’s winner reached France) to an impromptu ride in a vintage motorbike and sidecar which proved more of a hit around the field than the ponies. All to the accompaniment of Clog dancers and the Nailsworth Silver Band.

Of course, this is Horsley, so the Rosettes will be recycled, the compere will be eccentric, sporting a panama, and loud enough to make electronic amplification unnecessary. I am convinced you will feel you have struck gold with a quintessential summer fete. This rural idyll and yesteryear scene, a bonkers Archers, Hobbit-Shires, and Enid Blyton hybrid is actually very progressive and contemporary. There is a deep rooted heart for sustainability and community, being lived out in a way that is open, welcoming, hard working and wants to have fun. The program and attractions and passion for all things local gives structure to this much anticipated yearly event, but it’s the people we love and the times we’ll share there. Held on September 17th as the combines stop and the bails are away, it is the perfect celebratory end to a hopefully balmy English Summer.

September supper

2011-09-27T13:28:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure I can make it to the end of Elizabeth David. I got some hare out of the freezer but just couldn't face cooking it. It was meant to be hare with beetroot, I had even pulled up my only beetroot to use. The puny golf balls of beetroot didn't encourage me to remove the hares membrane and start cooking. The problem with French Provincial Cooking is whenever I count up the recipes I seem to always only be just over half way through. Classically I have left the worst and most challenging recipes to last. My initial plan was to finish as the last quince ripened. My girls picked the first lot this afternoon, it's not a bountiful year so I will try to make the ED quince recipes this week.

This photo was therefore our dinner a perfect September Supper. Globe artichoke cooked a la greque a la ED. The chanterelle mushrooms were cooked to one of her recipes. Washed well and randomly chopped, fried in butter, seasoned, parsley added then some left over meat juices, amazing on shepherds loaf. The tomatoes are from Horsley and some of Mary Holbrook's cheese, what more would you want.

Better put the hare in the fridge.

Plums

2011-09-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

We were given this wonderful book when we gave our September born daughter the middle name Plum. This tale tells of a Dad who decides as the plums start to fall to make plum jam. He makes plum jam until he has filled all the jars, vases and a teapot. The plum consumption then begins with jam sandwiches, pancakes, roly polies to glue for tiling the bathroom floor, until it's all used up just as the plum tree is full of ripe fruit again. A beautiful story and one I can relate to. This year is a good year for plums, we have a reliable small cooking plum tree but also discovered a smaller cherry plum sweet to eat tree.
This year's great plums are apparently not good enough for the supermarkets, who continue to buy from abroad http://www.farming.co.uk/articles/view/4902. Fools.
Our plums are good enough for us and this is what I have been doing with them.
After much searching I found the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe I remembered,
Plum jampote, with hot and sour dipping sauce by-product. (I love a by-product)
For every kilo of plums you need 500g of sugar, put these in a saucepan and top up to half full with water. Bring to the boil, simmer for 20 minutes then pour off and sieve most of the syrup into a new pan.
To this syrup add 2 garlic cloves chopped, 1 hot chilli, 100ml of soy sauce, 100ml of rice or cider vinegar. Boil this rapidly for 10 minutes then bottle up.
When the other plum mixture is cool enough to handle pick out the stones - I loved the feel of oozing sticky jam in my fingers. Then boil the mixture occasionally stirring for 5 minutes, pot up for a loose jam and keep in the fridge.
I have also been roasting plums a la Elizabeth David. Running a knife down their natural line and piling them in a pyramid(?) in an earthenware dish, sprinkling generously with sugar and sticking in a split vanilla pod. These have been roasted in the oven until tender but still holding their shape. These are delicious with yoghurt and made a nifty trifle with a dodgy sponge cake the 8 year old had made.
The plum finale is cooking tonight from Elizabeth David, Plums in Brandy or in my case the alternative she recommends, Plums in vodka. The process is tedious, there had been a lot of boiling and reboiling of the fruit with sugar. The result is hopefully a boozy plum compote.
All this talk of Plums is making me hungry to go out and buy some other fine English varieties.
To be continued.....

Rockness onions

2011-09-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

First day at school

2011-09-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

The third child started school this week, she claims she is bored and has already adopted the attitude of her 10 year old brother.

It has taken until my third child for me to realise that I can sew name labels in successfully with a sewing machine and white socks are useless, grey is the new white.

Note to self - always grow sweet peas

2011-08-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

I have been picking sweet peas since June, in June with the hope of long summer evenings and hot days ahead, now as the evenings draw in, sweet peas present warmth and comfort. They have offered their colour and sweet scent at birthdays, anniversaries and a funeral this year.

Plant in abundance next year.

Recovery plan

2011-08-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

As the fresh term approaches, another child starts school and the trees already start to change colour I am filled with optimism of some order being restored. The last academic year flew by with no ticks off of last September's list. This year of course will be different as the third child starts school and I need to start to think about life on the other side.

Things to definitely achieve:
Complete Elizabeth David
Learn to make fail proof jam
Sort out the garden, prune trees, master vegetables and grow beautiful flowers.
Write a weeks menu for under £50 for Horsley community shop

Things I should achieve
Use up all my garden fruit
Make membrillo for Hobbs House Butchery
Make other produce for Hobbs House e.g, soups and chutneys.
Get kitchen EHO certified.
Start up provision of weekly cooked school lunches for Horsley School.
Sell my Cynthia and Betty children's vintage clothes online

Things I could achieve;
Beekeeping- I have the suit

Rockness enterprise

2011-08-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

As I buy a string of onions and shallots from a neighbour the children sell toys and books to passers by.

If I had a phone I would post a picture

2011-08-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

My i phone has not recovered from being put in a white wash, and yes it was a white one. The girls and I in an attempt to maintain our holiday carbs have just made scones. No ordinary scones, butterfly, christmas trees, hearts and teddy bear scones. All now washed down with some disappointing homemade strawberry jam and black tea (no milk).
Please see next blog for recovery plan....

No photo available

2011-08-09T03:18:00.001-07:00

Perfect camping dinner,
No photo available, a good sign as the photo was an after thought after it was all ate with gusto. Sausages cooked ED style - boiled then fried to brown. New potatoes cooked to a smash with lashings of butter and some new season runner beans thrown in for one pot wonder. On the side baked beans souped up with onions, cider, and some chilli chutney. All making wet welsh camping ok.

Rack of, rack off

2011-08-09T03:05:00.000-07:00

I am still beavering away at ED, there is a lot to report but I've allowed myself to complicate the process. Convincing myself I don't have time, time, but it only takes seconds, but I didn't take a photo I declare. Well this is a fine example of a recent dish, rack of something, I have repeated this recipe with rack of roadkill and rack of lamb, rack of lamb was preferable the roadkill was intense.

Picnic time

2011-08-09T02:58:00.000-07:00

Fish Saturday

2011-07-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning I managed to get daughter 2 to ballet for 9am. Afterwards as the rain hammered we embraced Stroud Farmer's market. I love the organic fruit and veg in Shambles Market. I miss my Riverford box and this comes close. Also in the Shambles Market is a great fish stall, David Felce and daughters. With Elizabeth David in hand I chose lemon sole fillets for dinner, whilst standing in the pouring rain I thought it was the day to tick off a fish soup recipe too so I bought some prawns and cod.
When we got home wet through it was time for breakfast, another ED tick, eggs mollet with tinned sardines. No sooner had we finished breakfast than it was time to cook lunch. A Nimois soup. A broth was made from some carrots, tomatoes a stick of celery, the cod, the prawn shells and a stick of fennel. These were all boiled up together. A paste was made from breadcrumbs and prawns, crushed together in a pestle and mortar. The sieved broth was then added to this gradually, with a finish of cream transforming into a deletable soup.
Then for dinner the sole in a cream and onion sauce, (delicious despite burning the shallots), with home grown kale.
As we sat down to watch the second part of Ghandi I felt disappointed I hadn't achieved more on Saturday, but the food was great and Ghandi even better.

Friday night bliss

2011-07-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

It's a friday night and it's been raining cats and dogs all day. The husband is still not home from work, children to bed, husband still not home from work. Husband appears, dusted with flour: he's been baking.
Dinner time. We open wine, red a 2004 bottle of bordeaux, "were we meant to keep that?", "drink it", worth it. What's for dinner? Veal escalopes (18 more veal recipes to go). Escalopes de veau cauchoise, in little more than five minutes I produced the nicest dinner I had eaten all week. The escalopes were seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon juice. A peeled apple was diced. 1oz of butter was melted in a pan the escalopes were fried on each side, the diced apple was added, a heated glass of brandy( calvados or whisky is apparently better) was ignited and added and finally 1/4 pint of cream all cooked for a couple more minutes. I braved the rain to pick our first lot of kale, steamed on the side, friday night bliss.

Not my birthday

2011-06-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

This is the year of the 60th. In previous years we have been very wedding focused and since having children it has been all about weddings, to the point that our eldest daughter is being a bridesmaid for the fifth time this year. The succession of 60th birthdays is not due to our age but our parents and their contemporaries. This week was the turn of my father-in-law. After a very successful party of pork, elderflower cocktails and great music, I followed with a subdued dinner for 10 on his actual birthday. It is usually my privilege to cook this summer dinner ideally eaten outside.

This year the weather let us down and as I prepared the food I thought Elizabeth was going to too. I had a topside joint of veal (I have 19 more veal recipes to complete), left soaking in a brine of lemons, onions, white wine vinegar, salt and salt petre for four days. This was then boiled slowly to produce the tenderest of meat. Veal is a delicious tasty tender light meat, a hit with the kids. I then used the strained broth to make a beetroot consomme by reboiling it with raw beetroot in.

We started the proceedings with homemade elderflower champagne, this lot didn't fizz over like the last bottle: disappointing. I then found the perfect accompaniment better than some salted peanuts, fresh home grown podded broad beans raw just sprinkled with sea salt. Our starter was the beetroot consomme served with small bits of diced beetroot in and a dribble of cream. I then served the veal with a cucumber salad, minus the nasturtiums I searched Nailsworth for and new potatoes. In true french style we had a garden green salad and cheese. All of this was served with the perfect loaf, a shepherds loaf. For pudding I triumphed with the Elizabeth Classic St Emillion de Chocolat and apricot ice cream.

The evaluation of the meal concluded in a pretty good michelin starred meal straight from the 1970’s.

Before the three 60th birthday parties in July I have my birthday, to start the celebrations I have just shared half a suckling pig with friends. I can therefore tell you that next weeks article will be telling you mainly what to do with another half of a suckling pig, the veal chapter will have to go on hold for another week.

Real bread at Glastonbury

2011-06-25T15:05:00.003-07:00

Changing my mind about my virtual Glastonbury, Janelle Monae followed by Chemical Brothers.

Cracking on

2011-06-25T15:05:00.001-07:00

I have knocked out a lot of Elizabeth David's recipes this weeks, and when I haven't I have found myself cooking much more instinctively with great results. Tonight for supper we had Williams mackerel fillets. Tossed in flour fried in olive oil. I served this with an ED tomato sauce that I had already made which the kids loved. Frying a chopped onion in butter with salt until softened and yellow, adding to this 6 skinned chopped tomatoes (never any deseeding thanks Elizabeth), a chopped garlic clove, torn celery leaves and some dried basil. Simmered until soft then passed easily through a mouli. With this we had pan roasted new potatoes just sauteed in butter with the lid on, on the hob. I also cooked the last endive recipe with my expensive endives. Slow cooked in butter in the oven.

Last night I cooked one of the recipes I was really looking forward to, steak with bone marrow. I was so determined to cook this I made us have a barbecue in the rain(the recipe sated cooking on charcoal). The bone was simmered gently in water for 20 minutes then the marrow was mixed with shallot and parsley. The steak sat in olive oil and was well seasoned whilst the barbecue hotted up. The steak was cooked on one side then flipped and the bone marrow mix was smeared over the top. We had this with barbecued flat breads and garden chard fried with peppers and a splash of red wine. I was thoroughly enjoying the steak but not particularly finding the bone marrow flavour until Tom suggested maybe he had just been cooking on coal and all the food tasted funny. Unfortunately he was probably right, obviously I ate mine anyway.

Meringues

2011-06-25T14:28:00.001-07:00

Whilst not at Glastonbury, I have been cooking. I came to make some meringues for tomorrow- the eating of the pig. I normally make Ottolenghi's recipe but I have lent my book to the mother in law. My first problem was the quantities I had a load of egg whites in the freezer in a measuring jug that I just kept adding too, this meant I needed to weigh them and work with the sugar proportions. Unfortunately I didn't know the proportions so a mad google bought me to this blog that had the recipe for me, http://hardakerandpope.blogspot.com/. Not only did these girls provide me with my recipe but a beautiful blog, also living locally and some covetable wall paper.

Back to the Meringues, to make good meringues not as good of course as Sasha's at Hobbs House Bakery this is my secret recipe not hers. Get some egg whites(always freeze surplus), weigh them, weigh twice as much sugar. Put your sugar in a baking tray on greaseproof and heat until just colouring at the edges. Meanwhile whisk your egg whites until stiff, then add the heated sugar gradually and whisk until practically cold (10 minutes). Dollop onto the same lined tray used for the sugar. Cook in an oven, either consistently in a low oven or start off in a hot oven until browning then transfer to a low oven. Then cook for a long time until the bottom is tappable.

A Saturday not spent at Glastonbury

2011-06-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Last night whilst watching U2 at Glastonbury I figured whilst I would love to see U2 at a festival (hopefully without too many U2 fans), the rain may have got the better of me. I can all too clearly see the predicament of wet, tired, grizzly children not lasting another minute in the rain, not even for us to watch U2, " you who". Then today watching non stop Glastonbury - amazing job BBC- do we ever need to go again? I was remaining neutral until they start to announce "later Paulo Nuttini, Friendly Fires followed by Elbow", and the sun is shining. As a grey cloud hangs over Horsley, Glastonbury is suddenly so appealing. We even allowed ourselves a game of who would you see, studying the line up in detail, we are left with a Saturday night gap, no to Coldplay, nah to Chemical Brothers, early night? We did go before in 2005 when it rained to Glastonbury/biblical proportions, I was converted, Tom who did more carrying of what was then just two children still needs convincing. This week Tom delivered to Glastonbury a whole lot of bakery products and is now quietly sitting on the fence over a return visit. I more proactively will be taking the children to Camp Bestival in July and taking a view as to whether festivals are our future?

Porked out

2011-06-21T06:07:00.000-07:00

After largely assisting with the consumption of 7 hands of pork and it's crackling at the weekend I am feeling a little porked out. The combination of Elizabeth and our new Hobbs House Butchery has massively upped our meat consumption, this morning I was imaging having some weeks off meat- once we had ate the forthcoming weekends suckling pig. But no chance flicking through the book I realise I have 19 veal recipes alone to complete. Classically I am guilty of leaving all the nasty complicated recipes to last, yes I still have to bone a duck, cook a calf's head and revisit the game waiting in the freezer.
Does anyone fancy dinner?

A birthday lunch and vague instructions

2011-06-21T05:26:00.001-07:00

It was a friends 40th birthday so I cooked her lunch. A Galantine of Pork and ED's crudites. The galantine appears to be a lighter version to rillettes sitting in stock rather than fat. The pork was boiled with vegetables herbs, bones, rind and a trotter. Elizabeth then tells you to chop the pork "not too small", but how small is not too small, for me it meant generous dice, but in eating the galantine I suspect this is too large. You then add some of the rind and strained stock to this and leave it to set. I still can't decide whether I like these fatty pork composites. Elizabeth then gives a recipe for a jelly made with the remaining stock, which I am currently eating for lunch and now have slimed on the keyboard. The stock was warmed with whisked egg white as the eggwhites gathered grime and sat on the top of the simmering liquid I worked out that they clarify the stock-Thankyou Elizabeth for telling me! This was then strained through a warm rinsed cloth to make a jelly. Tasty as it is I am not entirely sure of it's purpose, answers on a postcard please?

As for the crudites, it was great to work my way through her suggestions. Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers seasoned and dressed. Young broad beans picked from the garden, raw with salt. Carrots grated with shallot, sugar, lemon and oil, celeriac remoulade and radishes. I also made an egg mayonnaise, thrilled with the mayonnaise I produced in my kitchen aid, with 6 minute boiled eggs on top and a sprinkling of parsley.

For pudding I made ED's Melon aux fraises des bois, I hollowed out the melon diced the fruit mixed with garden alpine strawberries and raspberries, kirsh and sugar stuffed back into the melon, yum. A friend made Nigella's lemon polenta cake which was amazing despite the fact the children had gauged handfuls out of it first.

Marble cake

2011-06-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

I have been making marble cake from Peyton and Byrne's recipe book. In googling the recipe I was surprised to find my blog as the fourth result, and thought I should probably add the recipe. I always used to make the Baker and Spice recipe but this one has the edge
So here it is the official one, http://www.hellomagazine.com/cuisine/recipes/201104185283/cake/chocolate/recipe/
and here is my minimum washing up quick method,
125g unsalted butter(or omit the salt and use salted)
170g sr flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
200g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1tsp vanilla essence
150g plain yoghurt
40g cocoa powder
60ml boiling water
I used my kitchen aid to cream together the butter and sugar, I then added the eggs alternately with the flour, bicarb and salt. Then mixing in the yoghurt and vanilla. In the bowl you have been weighing the ingredients in mix the cocoa with the boiling water. Then add half the cake batter to the cocoa mix (Not as the 10 yr old son did and added it all to create a light chocolate cake that didn't win the yummiest cake competition). Grease and line a loaf tin and dollop alternate spoons of the mixes. Finally zig zag a line through the mix with a pointed knife to create the ultimate marble effect. Cook in the oven (180c or bottom right of a four door aga) for 40 minutes. The proper recipe has a white chocolate icing but ours have always got eaten before I have iced it.

You can't kill a bechamel sauce

2011-06-14T09:17:00.000-07:00

Even the greatest attempt to lump a bechamel sauce seems to be reversed by a good whisk. This evenings attempt at an all in one method with flour not cornflour was salvaged. I added all the ingredients ignited the hob, was distracted by something I needed to google and retuned to boiling milk but a harsh whisk makes a sauce that I am sure will suffice for a kids macaroni cheese.
Elizabeth recommends making a roux with the butter and flour adding warmed milk cooking then cooking again in a bain marie.
She is yet to convince me that my method of a lump of butter, a bit of cornflour and a slosh of milk is any worse off.

The Little People Company

2011-05-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

This week a retail giant said, “There will be no more high streets in smaller towns. Everybody is dropping small, expensive, inefficient shops” As Mary Portas hits the headlines as Cameron’s sidekick, this quote presents a pernicious argument against our high street. Is this what we want for our local towns? In this debate issues of car parking, price and convenience ring out against uniqueness, community and service. If you live in the Stroud valleys, fortunately you still have a choice, we have fantastic high streets on our door steps, but if you don’t use them not only will you lose them but you lose your voice to have an opinion too.

I have been exclusively using our local high streets since November and I can repeat, not only is it easy but it’s jolly nice too. There is nothing nicer than buying something recommended by a knowledgeable assistant. At the heart of shopping locally is great customer service and it is our job as shopkeepers to uphold this.

The other strong advantage our local towns have over those that have died is being “foodie towns”. I think that if a town has food in it -butchers, bakers and a greengrocers, they are poised to survive. Nailsworth and Stroud have these and Cirencester and Tetbury do too. Not to mention great markets, I believe if people can buy their groceries regularly in a town’s independents then the other shops can survive too.

This all comes in the same week that one of my favourite shops in Nailsworth that I have been closely involved with closed down. This just reminds me how essential it is to use them but also what hard work it is to run a shop. There is a popular but wrong misconception that its an easy life having a shop where you can shut up at five and just walk away. Truth is, there has never been a more challenging time to be in retail.

I implore you, with a smile for the shopkeeper and an open purse to use your high street and play your part in seeing them thrive.

The third child

2011-05-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

I have been telling friends recently about the joy of having a third child. Our third child often feels like a reward for the first two. She is so full of life and energy she brings us constant amusement and challenges. She arrived four and half years ago, the tiniest, mellowist thumb sucker. Now she keeps us all on our toes, I think I will use this post to update you on our daily adventures;

Today she picked the only allium in the garden.

A pink witch; The picture above was the consequence of her wanting to give away my Mother's Day present. She had sewn a beautiful flag at playgroup but she was insistent that she wanted to give it to her cousin. To comfort my disappointment she offered to draw me a picture instead- a pink witch.

Whilst picnicking on a bench last week Josephine asked whether somebody had died on it because"sometimes people do die on benches".

It is this child in asking about where babies come from, and being told of the Mummy and Daddy's special hug, responds "next time you and Daddy make a baby I would really like to watch".
I promised to update you on the life of the third child, we have made it to July with her running circles around me. I have been met with comments that "sometimes they are just ready for school", is it that I suspect she is just naughty. I was very aware of not wishing away her pre school year and we have had a lovely time, but now school will do us both good, it just leaves me fearful for the teacher.
Her playgroup report claims she is well behaved and congratulates her on not only knowing the playgroup rules but sharing them with other children!
Last week it was the school fete so after having far more than the other children's allocated £5, she returns begging for another 70p for the bouncy castle, her persuasion works. She returns grinning cheek to cheek proclaiming she tricked me and got a tattoo instead, and low and behold she had- a pirates ship on her arm.

1986 Marjorie and Sam High St CS outside shop

2011-05-26T14:44:00.001-07:00

1986 Marjorie and Sam High St CS outside shop, a photo by HOBBS HOUSE bakery on Flickr.

Finding myself in new pastures, last Saturday I did all my food shopping in Chipping Sodbury, home of Hobbs House bakery. I can happily confirm that it is totally possible to shop locally at independents in Sodbury too. I managed to buy all I needed for an epic weekend of family feasting in one pretty circuit. Obviously I started in the Bakery with bread, there we also sell cream and milk and an obligatory coffee to drink whilst shopping. Next stop was the Hobbs House butchery, where my eagerly anticipated, well hung rib of beef was waiting for me. I also bought all the ingredients to make a pate (a more normal person could just buy their pate from Henry & Jolly Alan), some cheese, butter, eggs and a slider from outside. On Saturday’s a grill is set up outside where we bought our sliders, a perfectly pink burger in one of Hobbs Houses new ultimate burger baps.
We then purchased some birthday presents from the gift shop on the corner where there is a lovely selection of reasonably priced delights. Then we headed down to Ian’s for his fine selection of fruit and veg. It took my intrepid four year old daughter to find his ‘out the back room’, amazing, stacked high of all the dry goods you could possibly need - in our case hundreds and thousands and dishwasher salt. The service in Ian’s is great, cheery and helpful, they wouldn’t even let me carry my box of goodies to the car outside.
The only thing left on the shopping list was anchovies. Just as I was thinking Sodbury was going to fail me I whizzed to Hamptons where they were thrilled to offer me two types of anchovies. Wherever my lively gaggle stopped to buy, the service was really enjoyable and the quality inspires me to write, cook and share, all at very good value. AND there were plenty of shops that I didn’t get to try.
My plea to you is, don’t just use your local High Streets, before you lose them, encourage your friends and families to use and enjoy them too.

Smoked oatmeal

2011-05-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

We received a very exciting looking package in the post the other day, heavy but roundish, bulky and compact. In the package were some smoked oats from St Monan's in Scotland, sent from friends. This was my kind of package. In looking through the new Peyton and Byrne cookbook that I am loving I quickly set to making chocolate digestives. The combination of smoked oats, a large pinch of salt and dark chocolate was unique and too much for the children, but more for us. Their preference was for the great Peyton and Byrne marble cake.
The next test for the smoked oats was for Marefield Pie. A Wells' family recipe probably only ever to be made by Wells', but I will give you the recipe anyway. This recipe was originally taken from a pinhead oatmeal packet by my Grandfather in law, and named after where he was living at the time (Marefield).
Bacon
Tomatoes, fresh or tinned
Pinhead oatmeal
Parsley
Fry the bacon, add the tomatoes to a simmer, add the oatmeal, cook until tender then add a significant amount of roughly chopped parsley. Serve with scrambled or poached eggs on Hobbs House bread for breakfast.

Dresses

2011-05-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

I seem to of have an obsession with dresses. In years gone by I have spent hours surfing the net looking at dresses I can't afford. Often in search of something specific I can't afford, be it a wedding dress for my sister or a dress for me to wear to a wedding postnatally that I wouldn't possibly fit into. Searching the likes of Net-a-porter, Matches or Browns I mastered the technique of either looking at the awe inspiring most expensive to start, "purely for inspiration". Then reversing to cheapest first, a hard button to hit and swallow. Anyway with these credit crunch times and shopping locally I had diverted my passion, maybe to Elizabeth David.
Since April 29th, I have mainly been obsessing about dresses again, oh yes those of Kate Middleton but this week Michelle Obama v's Sam Cam. I think Michelle wins hand down, partly because Sam Cam's royal wedding Burberry efforts just didn't do it for me. So in between watching clips of grounded limo's and awkward high fives and barbecues I have mainly been perving over the dresses.

Summer supper- why's it not hot

2011-05-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

Long live the rib of beef.

We continue to eat the rib of beef. The rib of beef that cost me a fortune on Saturday but sat resplendent on Sunday for the ultimate Sunday Lunch to celebrate my dear Granny's 88th birthday.

On Wednesday we are still eating it with one more night to go. Tonight I thought I must get back onto Elizabeth. The roast beef is so beautifully pink that I can't bear to reheat it so we are eating it cold, hence the cries from the children, "why's it not hot?" Tonight I made some salads to accompany. An ED potato salad, new potatoes cooked on the underdone side, then peeled, sliced, seasoned and dressed with olive oil, a splash of white wine vinegar and some snipped chives from the garden. The potatoes were delicious, probably because of the lumps of sea salt, even more yummy on a bit of baguette - why do double carbs taste so good? I also made ED's version of salsa verde, Sauce Ravigote. I used my hand held chopper whizzer thing to cut the herbs (watercress, parsley, garden chives and tarragon), capers and a gherkin mixed with olive oil "a thread of lemon" and a splash of vinegar. I added the optional dijon too, this is pretty much as I would make a salsa verde, this is not as my four year old would who was in charge of the whizzer- the result was pureed Sauce Ravigote.

I am now officially back on with Elizabeth David and looking forward to the changing seasons and the different recipes.

Terrine de campagne

2011-05-23T04:14:00.001-07:00

Another attempt at terrine. Good, good, good but a little overcooked. This is Elizabeth David's recipe for pork and liver pate. I bought minced pork and veal from Henry's butcher along with a pigs liver and some flare fat too. The meats and seasonings were all mixed together (I chopped the liver rather than mincing it), some brandy and wine was added too. I left this all to stand whilst we ate dinner and then cooked it in a bain marie whilst watching the King's Speech. Being possibly the last people to watch it we were rather engrossed and forgot about the pate. The result was a tasty, good looking slightly over cooked terrine. None the less this is probably my best so far, the seasoning is right and it looks a lot less anaemic than previous attempts.

The Hungry Caterpillar and Eurovision

2011-05-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

This column for the Stroud News and Journal was written whilst watching the Eurovision, spot the songline;

This week I have unintentionally had a week off cooking Elizabeth David, this means I will be popular with the kids. But for us this didn’t mean a low calorie week with appetites similar to that of The Hungry Caterpillar we haven’t starved. In writing this column I realize we have almost exclusively eaten veal, of course not the controversial white meat but rose veal an ethical by-product of the dairy industry.

My culinary week usually starts on a Sunday with a joint of meat that must have leftovers to get us started at the beginning of the week. Last Sunday it was the turn of Elizabeth David’s Epaule de Veau Boulangere. Rose veal pot roasted on potatoes made for tender meat and succulent potatoes. On Monday night the kids had veal stir fry; veal with peppers and noodles and a chinese five spice sauce. On Tuesday night the truffle omelette was put on hold due to an impromptu dinner cooked by the butcher brother in law. Fortunately he has maintained his chef skills and stayed with the theme and cooked us veal meatballs with pasta and a chilli tomato sauce and some homegrown chard. On Wednesday I made the truffle omelette for lunch - overrated, I think I need to experience some different truffles to discover their true beauty. For dinner it was veal stroganoff and rice. On Thursday we took the kids to the Bistro. Tired of their groans about us leaving them with the baby sitter when we indulge our habit of a weekly visit, we all headed down and, oh heck we had breaded Rose Veal and Triple fried chips. In amongst some splendid seasonal starters and scrumptious chocolate truffles. On Friday it was Little Chef Friday, we were out for a friends birthday and the kids cooked for themselves unaided - frankfurters in baguette and homemade smoothies! On Saturday we ate a beautiful butterfly -we didn’t it was a skate wing- similar (here ends the Hungry Caterpillar comparison).

This week I fed us on just leftovers and everything else was from Horsley Community Shop. On Saturday I needed a picnic and food for the weekend in a rush, this was achieved in just two shops in Nailsworth(Williams and the bakery), with helpful advise it was quick, delicious and good value.

Asparagus

2011-05-04T15:32:00.001-07:00

Local and seasonal are serious buzz words in the food industry at the moment. As fuel prices rise, it makes sense to source locally and of course eat what is in season. For me, this is epitomized by asparagus; it’s got to be English, and despite its short season, producers race to achieve the earliest crop. As we drove through Somerset on the Easter weekend, my heart raced at the asparagus signs at the side of the road, there is no better way to eat it than straight from the field.

Back in Nailsworth on Tuesday, the highlight of my week was as I went to pay for my one humble packet of asparagus at the local greengrocers and I found seven for the same price in the bargain box. So this week we have mainly been eating asparagus. To prepare it I edge my knife along the bottom until you can cut off the woody end through a tender stem. This year I have resorted to boiling it, after years of grilling, I learnt from the chef at the bistro that a thirty second boil before grilling or barbecuing gives a much tastier stalk. I have also followed Elizabeth David’s recipe of boiling in bunches standing upright in the pan for less than ten minutes.

We have enjoyed asparagus with a dippy egg, asparagus in a salad and of course there has to be english asparagus in the Royal Wedding picnic. According to Elizabeth David there is no better way to serve it than with a hollandaise or mayonnaise. I have now perfected my hollandaise in any quantity. By whisking an egg yolk with some salt and a splash of white wine vinegar, over a bain marie I then whisk in knobs of unsalted butter, (about 2oz per egg yolk), and stir until thickened. As for mayonnaise, I only seem to be able to make this with a minimum of 3 egg yolks, again whisked with salt, I then add up to half a pint of olive oil drop by drop stirring by hand. When it’s like a thick jelly I add a little lemon juice then a tablespoon of boiling water, if it’s to last.

I urge you all to go out and find some local asparagus, and even if you just smear it in butter, never will English food taste any better.

Roast chicken and baked beans

2011-05-04T15:28:00.002-07:00

Last night for an impromptu dinner for four I served Roast chicken and tarragon and haricot beans with onion and tomatoes. The chicken I am sure I have already done but hadn't ticked off in the book. It was stuffed with butter loaded with tarragon and roasted smeared in olive oil and turned during cooking. A flaming ladle of brandy was poured over the cooked chicken before popping it back in the oven for five more minutes to mellow the brandy. To the juices I added a little cream and a splosh of madeira. Really yummy but I wish I had drained the fat off first- I must get better at removing fat. I decided at lunchtime to cook haricot beans rather than new potatoes. This meant that I hadn't soaked the beans but I remembered in an earlier ED recipe that she said to bring the beans to the boil then leave them to soak in that water. I left them until I needed to cook them(two hours max), I then boiled them in fresh water with an onion studded with a clove, a celery stick and a bouquet garni. ED recommends seasoning the beans just for the last ten minutes of cooking. The beans were then drained and the onion reserved. This onion was fried in butter with two skinned tomatoes for a couple of minutes. The beans were then added and some of the chicken juices. We served this with hot wild white bread and wye valley asparagus. absolutely delicious although I think our guests believed they were baked beans!

Wild White

2011-05-04T15:28:00.001-07:00

E71W8195, a photo by HOBBS HOUSE bakery on Flickr.

Humble jam tart

2011-05-02T04:43:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I realised it was time I got my head back into Elizabeth David. I am about half way through now, not bad in four months. A busy week had meant that Elizabeth had been overlooked. I managed to complete all the lobster recipes with the lobster we brought home from Scotland. Then this week was somewhat busy with Easter and our daughter's 9th birthday- she did not want Elizabeth David for her birthday dinner. Lasagne was her choice but I did sneak in a cucumber salad and cooked asaparagus a la ED.

Last night the in-laws came for dinner they bought the meat and I did the rest. A good opportunity for some ED action, carrots, potatoes and shallots cooked together. the carrots and new potatoes were boiled to two thirds cooked then fried in butter with shallots and a final sprinkling of parsley. I revisited her onion sauce which is delicious and just tastes of an Elizabeth David classic.

For pudding I made her Bourdaines -apples baked in pastry. Eating apples were peeled and cored. I then made her pate sablee(pastry). This was divided up for the apples. Rolled into an individual square the apple was placed on top and the core filled with quince jelly. The apple was wrapped in the pastry and baked in the oven for an hour, unfortunately the jelly seemed to escape so it wasn't as juicy as I hoped. The by product was probably more successful, I used the leftover pastry to make jam tarts filled with quince jelly, yum.
Pate sablee recipe,
6oz butter
12oz plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
5 teaspoons of sugar
Mix together, (I used my kitchen aid) until like sand then bind together with a few tablesppons of cold water.

Pot au feu

2011-04-22T14:30:00.001-07:00

I bring you Pot au Feu, the tremendous French Peasant dish which is exactly what we should all be cooking in frugal times. This dish, call it a stew or a soup or both continues my ongoing theme of “how to feed your family for a week”. For the meat I used beef flank, oxtail, bone marrow, ox liver, knuckle of veal and chicken giblets. For the vegetables, carrots, leeks, grilled tomatoes, a little celery, parsnip turnip and an onion studded with cloves. What you are left with is a consomme, cooked meat and stewed vegetables.

In true Elizabeth David style there were no details on how to serve it. After transporting it to Scotland we set about deconstructing it and deciding what bits to eat. The kids had the flank with consomme and carrots served with pasta. Tom and I eagerly dug into the different bovine bits, savoring them all like children in a sweet shop. The next night the vegetables and the oxtail became a more conventional stew, which was a pasta sauce for the kids the next night. The consomme was amazing from a flask on the beach and a divine espresso cup of a starter for friends. I was never convinced I fancied the broth but one sip and the flavour totally won us over,we were hooked.

The flank had the most meat on, so this made delicious beef sandwiches with dijon mustard on shepherds loaf- the 2 kilo spelt sourdough loaf, bought from home that “fed the family for a week”. The last meal we got from the pot was a beef salad, basically the cooked beef cut small, mixed with a salsa verde, perfectly simple and so, so good.

In reading up on Pot au Feu I now realize we missed a trick, the bone marrow should have been served on toast with the consomme. The bone marrow was the only disappointing bit and just tasted fatty on it’s own and no match for the famous St John’s roasted bone marrow we adore.

I will be making this again, not only for the bone marrow but for the joy of cooking a meal of the cheapest cuts of meat that can nourish us all week long.

Lobster

2011-04-22T14:20:00.001-07:00

It's with a tear in our eyes that our week in Pittenweem ends. We came on a mission, not only a much needed holiday, a catch up with friends but to cook lobster. 8 lobsters later I will be leaving Fife with some more ticks in the book and a very full belly. We have been staying in a fisherman's cottage and have loved watching the day boats coming in. Pittenweem has a working harbour and was where Raymond Blanc visited recently to find the very best lobsters. Whilst here I have cooked ED's two recipes for homard a l'americane and boiled up another 4 to take home for the rest of the recipes. The two recipes vary slightly, both require you to kill the lobster and cut it into pieces. I have just discovered I am scarred of lobsters and have a tendency to squeal like a girl when they move in my hand, our 4 year old daughter is fearless and has been racing them across the floor.

In the first recipe you saute the lobster in butter then add the sauce, the second you make the sauce and add the lobster pieces to it. I will give you the recipe for the second, well my slight variation of it.

Melt a lot of butter in a pan, add an equal amount of grated carrots and shallots(a cupful of each). To this add 1/2 a bottle of dry white wine(chablis), a bouquet of parsley, 5 cloves of garlic, 2 skinned diced tomatoes, olive oil, 3 tablespoons each of cream and meat juice, a good seasoning of pepper, a pinch of saffron and curry powder. This was the simmered for forty minutes. For this one we(Tom) just killed and halved the lobsters and these were added to the sauce and cooked for about 30 minutes -I love seeing the colour transformation from black to the deepest pink. Tom (my now uber capable helper- lobster killer) was sent to the fisherman's pub with a mug to get a double shot of cognac. He returned triumphant for me to heat it, light it in a ladle and pour flaming over the lobsters. I then removed the lobsters to a serving dish (ED recommends a timbale), I then mixed in the greenish bits (liver?) and some parsley into the sauce and poured it over the lobster. We served ours with rice which was quite nice to soak up the juices but not completely necessary.

Today we have boiled up the remaining 4 lobsters. I added to some heavily salted water a halved red pepper, 2 leeks and a glass of madeira. When this was boiling we put in the live lobsters(2 at a time), head first tuned onto their back. I did manage two after a brief melt down over the one full of roe (motherly instincts flowing, or too much Nemo), suddenly moving in my hand prompting me to drop it and squeal to the taunting chants of my children.

The lobsters were then left to cool in the broth and Tom kindly removed all the meat. This will travel home with us to make homard a la charentaise(sounds like a thermidor recipe) and homard courchamps which is in soy and mustard. If there is any meat left ED has a few fish in mayo recipes I could tick off with the lobster.

As for the broth I was just pleased with myself as I whizzed it up and added some cooked crab(we also cooked 6 crabs), and a splash of cream to it to make a delicious crab soup.

If you can't envisage the lobster picture enough the boys have made a film, here it is,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k1uWgPcTUk

Climb a mountain

2011-04-22T04:08:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday we decided to climb a mountain. Before departure I advised the kids to dress up warm, so independently they all appeared waring all their clothes they had with them for a weeks holiday. JP was probably the record holder with 6 tops and 2 pairs of tights and a dress. As we loaded our michelin men into the car with the crab sandwiches we headed from east to west to Argyll and Bute. Of course in true Herbert style there was a bakery enroute that needed visiting. We dropped in at Mhor in Callender for a fine illy coffee and a bright pink lamington. An inspirational family run bakery with lovely packaging, macaroni pies and a fine bouncy sourdough.

Then we headed through the scenery of 'real Scotland' in search of a mountain suitable for a family to climb. A car sick stop later- just remove the top two layers(four to go), we were hungry for our lunch. We stopped by Loch Lommond with our crab sandwiches and planned a route. From here there were various marked routes up. So we headed up Cobbler or was it Arthur, with the boy enthusiastic to carry his back pack the whole way. The girls bought up the rear removing a layer every 50metres intermittently with filling their pockets with crystals. As we walked through the forest there was debates to stop but we made it above the tree line conquered Herbert Eagle ledge and ate the last of the birthday fridge cake.

The walk down was a cinch then a mad dash to the original Loch Fyne oyster restaurant before last orders made an oh so perfect day.

Some lessons learnt;

You don't need six layers to climb a mountain on a sunny day.

You do need more than 2 bottles of water between 6

Wear shorts not tights to brown legs

Take a bag to carry stripped off layers

Take more apples

Sunny day

2011-04-21T01:44:00.000-07:00

Generally I feel pretty fortunate to live the life I do, somedays this is especially highlighted. At the moment with the sun shining extraordinaire as the season changes this is somewhat exaggerated. There was the day when me and my girls cycled down to Nailsworh for a Saturday morning shop, legs out, hair blowing in the wind when you can't want to be anywhere else. Last week the hound and I strolled down our lane to get some wild garlic to take home and knock up some pesto to top a soup, bliss.
Actually I'll give you a recipe to make quickly before the season turns,
A handful of wild garlic leaves
Lightly fried pine nuts, a handful
Glug of olive oil
Grated pecorino
Seasoning
Whizz together, I used my hand held blender
Back to the point, one of my highlighted beautiful living on the top of the world days, was the day I had Silvana de Soissons for lunch.
She writes for the Foodie Bugle and here it is http://thefoodiebugle.com/article/cooks/anna-herbert-she-shops-locally
This was a perfect kind of a day for me, a racing around kind of a day, but one of food, shopping and walking. The two big children were dropped at school and me and the smalls dropped the car at the garage. A quick last minute shop in Nailsworth for lunch, Wild White from the bakery, cream from Williams, collect some ordered books from the bookshop, then a quick walk home up the hill home to prepare for lunch. The next child was delivered to school and after some dodgy directions on my part Silvano arrived. As the smallest slept we enjoyed a scrummy lunch of nettle soup, rillettes and salad nicoise. This was followed by a flat but divine chocolate and almond cake and coffee. As Silvano left I raced along our sunny lane to fetch the big kids and reflected on why this was exactly the kind of life I want to lead.

Birthday dinner

2011-04-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

The husband has got another year older today, so what better opportunity than to have a day of constant eating.
We started with tea and Easter biscuits in bed. For breakfast I was thinking I would just knock up a half hearted scrambled eggs and bacon, then I remembered I could do better than out. Eggs Benedict is always the dream and the breakfast I yearn to go out for, and mostly disappointed by-last time they had the cheek of serving it with a cheese sauce. We had Henry's delicious home cured bacon with a reasonable attempt at a poached egg with hollandaise on shepherds loaf, good enough. Then for the birthday cake, ok it was only 10am, but why not it was his birthday. The scales batteries had run out so me and the eldest daughter knocked up a fridge cake, loaded with marshmallows, dried apricot and honey. Then for a visit to the great Pittenweem oatcake producers Adamsons. An amazing place selling fine handmade oatcakes from their bakery just on a Monday. The next food stop was at a chocolate shop, Tom needed a coffee and why not have a birthday waffle with the finest raspberry jam too.
Next I managed to persuade the family to head out for a long walk, not even having an ice cream on the way. We did have the oatcakes with some gorwydd caerphilly cheese and chutney. The really highlight was Tom's delicious perfect birthday present of a pack of Tunnock's tea cakes, consumed on a beach as we neared the final destination- a beautiful beach with a pub selling fine local ale and homemade scotch eggs-inevitable.
The next via was a farm shop 'for food lovers', where I got some accompaniments for dinner.
We then arrived home to find hanging and clicking in our kitchen 2 lobsters and 6 crabs. The dinner menu was, consommé from the pot au feu, lobster and local asparagus. The lobster recipe from Elzabeth David involved chopping a live lobster-husband steps in with pig knife,and sautéed with shallots, butter, tomato and wine. Of course with the final addition of butter and some tasty internal lobster bit, divine.
Now for the crap tv and salted caramels, bliss.

edible new nephew

2011-04-14T16:05:00.001-07:00

This new nephew is delicious, weighing in at 9lb 11 he is totally scrumptious. This nephew bought to us three sleepless nights of anticipation and a visit to the Coop for rations- clearly this was worst for his parents. A long labour demanded a supermarket sweep for some essentials, my first break of independent shopping since November.

This also called for some cooking, celebration cookies, a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe from his family cookbook and some restorative chicken soup.

6oz of ox liver

2011-04-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

^ Good job I have got a forgiving butcher as a brother in law. " How much of the ox liver did you want?" he asks. "The whole one? " Just 6oz of the 7kg beast please.

I am now trying to tackle more of the meat chapter which seems to be a lot of the remaining recipes. The next recipe on the list is Pot au feu. This contains a vast selection of meat that I hope will feed us for a week, I'll let you know how it goes and watch out for the special on ox liver at the Hobbs House Butchery, Chipping Sodbury.

Mushroom soup recipe

2011-04-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

I am now so familiar with ED* French Provincial Cooking that I know when I see mushrooms on offer in my local greengrocers that I have a mushroom soup recipe with bread in left to cook. The said mushrooms were chestnut (my current favourite) at half price which meant I bought double the amount I needed, oops. I decided to triple the recipe as ED's soup recipes often make a small amount, for me soup is something that keeps in the fridge for lunch for a week until you are thoroughly bored of it.
This seems unlikely with this recipe as not only do I obsess about mushrooms but love mushroom soup. And of course in true ED style the recipe was a resounding success. My love affair is continuing to grow as all her recipes including the ones with stingy instructions and vague amounts turn out fantastically. The only crosses in the book for me are ones where the effort out weighs the flavour.
2lb 4oz mushrooms, rinsed, patted dry and chopped small
3oz butter
garlic
parsley
nutmeg or mace
2 slices of bread
3 pints of stock(I used up the last of the goose, chicken or beef could be used)
4oz cream
Soak the slices of bread in a little stock.
Melt the butter , fry the mushrooms, when the juices run add the crushed garlic, chopped parsley, add a little salt, pepper and mace or nutmeg.
Stew for several minutes, enjoy the smell.
Squeeze some of the moisture out of the bread, add to the mushrooms, add the stock. Cook for fiftee minutes until tender. Blend to a puree, reheat add the cream and some more parsley.
Bon appetit.

*ED=Elizabeth David

A local purchase

2011-04-05T04:29:00.001-07:00

I was in need of a watering can to water all the new seedlings without having to get out the hose. So, I headed down the hill and of course was thrilled with my purchase. A galvanised watering can from Nailsworth ironmongers worthy of Labour and Wait in London.

You can do it too

2011-04-05T04:28:00.002-07:00

Here is the boy with his first sourdough made with his own starter. He tells me he made his starter on January 24th from flour and water, within a week it was bubbling out the jar. So this is his first attempt, he made it on a Saturday night and left it to rise then it was moulded into a basket and left to rise overnight. Baked first thing on Sunday morning, an unbeatable Mothers Day prize.

a roast goose on a friday night

2011-04-05T04:28:00.000-07:00

If you read this regularly you’ll see I am running on a theme. If you were impressed with what I could do with a chicken you are about to find out what I did with a goose. I also will be giving you another dinner party menu.

For dinner this week we had some dear friends that bought with them a list of intolerances, good job I embrace a culinary challenge. What I did do was cook a three course balanced dinner (perhaps a touch wintry for spring) without using any substitute allergy ingredients and of course it was all Elizabeth David. To start we had an onion soup, followed by a roast goose then pears in red wine.

It did feel a little excessive to cook a goose on a friday night but it did mean a another tick in the French Provincial cooking book. First of all the legs were removed from the bird to confit. The legless bird was then roasted and served with goose fat roast potatoes, watercress and hard boiled eggs a la Elizabeth. I panicked there was no sauce but the flavours and textures worked so well and it was so juicy it didn’t matter. The next goose dinner was inspired by our son who had been asking about chinese food. I made a goose and vegetable stir fry with a chinese sauce of five spice, honey, rice wine, soy and lime.

I used the carcasse to make a stock. This stock became a nettle soup and also featured in the rather alarming, goose giblet stew. Sometimes Elizabeth is a bit stingy on her instructions and with the giblet stew there was some guessing. It was a stew of the goose giblets, onion, carrots, tomatoes and I added some merguez sausage and haricot beans. I decided to use my common sense and remove the giblets and what was left was a tasty enough stew.

Next I had my first attempt at rillettes, these are a slow cooked combination of pork and goose cooked in their fat. This is a way of preserving meat and is great served on toast or with a salad. I also confit the goose legs, another great way to preserve meat, these will become a cassoulet. What I love about preserving meat in these ways is that you can have a long lasting back up meal waiting in the fridge. This is particularly useful when you’ve got four increasingly hungry children that are hectic enough that just popping to the shops isn’t always an option.

Elizabeth David Bouillabaise

2011-04-01T14:54:00.001-07:00

Last weekend it was my Mum’s 60th birthday so we all headed down to Cornwall to see my sister. We decided the best way to celebrate was to cook her a feast. I persuaded my sister that it had to be Elizabeth David so we dissed Elizabeth’s advice and cooked a bouillabaisse outside of the Mediterranean. We managed to bemuse the Newlyn fishmonger with her list of suggested fishes, the only one they had was a John Dory, but we chose a selection of five fishes and some big prawns. After a blissfully sunny spring afternoon on the beach it was home to cook. We made an onion and cream tart as a starter with green salad, then the bouillabaisse. Elizabeth advises just slicing the scaled and gutted fish, but we decided this would be to bony and fiddly for us English. The fishmonger filleted the fish and I made a stock from the bones and off cuts. A base for the soup was made from onions, tomatoes, garlic, fennel sprigs, saffron and a good glug of olive oil. To this we added the fish then the stock and boiled for ten minutes. “It is upon this fast boiling that success depends.” The soup was then served over an oven dried piece of Wild White bread. I couldn’t believe how simple and quick this was and can’t wait to revisit with a Nailsworth version. We served our soup with an aioli which I hope didn’t bastardize the delicate flavours.

For pudding we cooked from Skye Gyngell’s book. She is my current day favourite chef of Petersham Nurseries fame. From her we made a blood orange and rosemary jelly with a chocolate tart. We finished off this feast with some very fine Cornish cheeses.

Not only do I love cooking for people but planning a well balanced meal. It always has to have vegetables or a salad, to contain complementary or similar flavours and leave diners feeling full but not roll out the door stuffed. And of course it goes without saying it has to be seasonal and unless in Cornwall sourced from our great local independents of Nailsworth. Bon Appetite!

I made up a cake recipe

2011-03-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

Rhubarb and blood orange cake
I am always rather dependent on recipes, or just a quick google. Today I made a rhubarb cake and it worked, it wasn't actually rocket science and was just based around the 2oz to an egg rule.
8oz butter unsalted
8oz sugar(could of used less)
4eggs
4oz polenta
5oz Sr flour
1tsp baking
Zest of a blood orange
Rhubarb
Rhubarb jam
Basically I made the sponge in the usual way, creaming together the butter and sugar, adding the eggs with spoons of the dry ingredients and zest until all combined. I then put this in three sandwich tins, less in the third which I topped with sliced rhubarb. I then baked them at about 170c for 25 mins. I filled the layers with some rhubarb jam I made earlier in the week(that hasn't set as well as I hoped) then put the rhubarb topped sponge on the top. I made a quick icing with the juice of half a blood orange and sieved icing sugar which I poured over the top and enhanced the pinkness.

Sauce

2011-03-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, the husband was on a cake field trip around London-it's a hard life, and I was on playgroup duty then 6 children after school duty. I was just thinking I wanted to be looked after, someone to cook for me, that kind of thing. Then this morning the husband didn't hurry off to work, so after I dropped the children off I came home to find breakfast waiting for me. Chestnut mushrooms with poached eggs, there was one problem, no sauce-not even a bottle of ketchup to be found. He says to me "how easy is it to make a hollandaise". I say urghhh, then I grab a Elizabeth David and find that I can just knock up a hollandaise using, 1 egg yolk, 2oz butter, a splash of vinegar and cold water and lemon juice. I got a saucepan going with some boiling water, in a pudding basin beat the egg yolk with a splash of vinegar(I only had red) over the saucepan, then using a whisk I added the butter cube by cube, then a squeeze of lemon juice and salt. This made a perfect bright yellow(thanks to the neighbours chicken) hollandaise to top our breakfast.
It continues to amaze me how a wee egg yolk can take in some melted butter and become a thick divine sauce. I made another ED aioli at the weekend and three egg yolks could hold nearly 500ml of my sisters finest olive oil to her horror.
Elizabeth David is clearly teaching me how to make a mean sauce and I am enjoying learning when to use a sauce. The husband always needs a sauce with his meal so increasing my repertoire beyond ketchup and mango chutney is prooving helpful!

Roast chicken and other recipes

2011-03-21T12:27:00.003-07:00

I can’t think of a more perfect way to end a weekend and prepare for the week ahead than cooking a good old fashioned roast dinner. Last Sunday I had no-one to cook for, just the kids and me- there was a chicken in waiting for this eventuality. There are still a good few Elizabeth David whole chicken recipes for me to complete; for this bird I chose a simple one, stuffed with a tarragon butter, the skin rubbed with olive oil. The main difference was cooking it on a grill pan on its side and turning during cooking. Of course it was delicious, crisp and moist, but the kids and I only managed a leg and a breast, so we were left with a whole lot of chicken.

This was a special bird, free range and originating from Madgetts Farm, not a £30 one as seen in this week’s papers. But what was really good about this bird was that it fed my family for a whole week. In comparison to my love for roasted chicken, I loathe leftover fridge cold chicken so I have to find appealing ways to use it up. As usual the carcass became a stock, first boiled up, then left overnight in the simmering oven with whatever is in the cupboard (bay leaf, peppercorns, carrot, celery, onion, leek). On Monday I needed an antidote to ED so we relished a chicken curry. On Tuesday some of the less identifiable parts of the chicken went into potato sausages- or to quote the children ”fish cakes without the fish”! These were made from mashed potato with added stock, beaten egg, diced chicken and parsley, rolled to sausages in flour and lightly fried. On Wednesday we digressed to cottage pie for the two year old’s birthday. Then on Thursday and Friday there was chicken soup. An Italian recipe I once learnt, you make a bechamel sauce to which you add chicken stock with chopped chicken. This makes a fantastic imitator of tinned cream of chicken soup, but this stuff feeds you like nothing else, it nourishes the soul.

Devoured by the whole family on Sunday, and still forthcoming with delectables for the rest of the week: I heartily encourage you to raise a toast to our most traditional Sunday roast.

Elizabeth David for kids

2011-03-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

Victory, I have just cooked an ED dinner that the kids have scoffed. For dinner tonight we had potato sausages with endives and bacon and tomato sauce.
The potato sausages were made with mashed potato, shallots, leftover chicken, chicken stock, two eggs, parsley and flour.("fishcakes without fish")
Two shallots and a little parsley were fried in butter, 2 tablespoons of stock were added with 4 tablespoons of cooked chicken, then a teaspoon of flour, then season and remove from the heat. Stir in 2 eggs then mashed potato made from 4 potatoes. Then leave overnight(ideally according to ED), next take a spoon of the mixture and roll in flour to a chipolata shape. Fry in beef dripping or butter.
We had ours with endives and bacon. Endives is a new exciting discovery for us. Just as I was boring a little of the vegetables winter has to offer along came endives. Tonight they were sliced, stewed in butter with bacon added.
I also made a tomato sauce. I haven't used a tin of tomatoes in months. Why use a tin when you can by fresh for a little more money but make a completely different fresh tasting sauce. Tonight's was made from chopped tomatoes, the first sprigs of garden oregano, onion, and carrot all fried in a little olive oil then stewed until sievable- divine.
There we go, a perfectly balanced completely Elizabeth David supper ate by all.

Dinner for friends

2011-03-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

It had been a few weeks since we last had friends for dinner. So an impromptu dinner for friends on friday was welcomed. I love cooking for friends, trying to balance a meal and getting the house looking presentable.
Menu,
Leftover terrine with toast, lettuce, capers and chutney.
Salmon and sauce nivernaise served with new potatoes and leeks.
Blood orange and rosemary jelly and raspberry ice cream.
I managed to buy a middle piece of salmon from Williams today, so I wrapped this in oiled foil and cooked in my lower oven for over an hour. The new potatoes were cooked in a covered saucepan in melted butter and regularly shaken until browned and tender. The leeks were also stewed in butter. Of course the sauce was amazing, White wine was boiled with shallots, parsley and black pepper until reduced by half. This was strained then put in a basin and placed over a saucepan of boiling water. Beaten egg yolks were then added to the wine and stirred until thick. Elizabeth always says to not let the water boil underneath but I think you need this heat for sauces to thicken. Finally some parsley butter was added gradually.
For pudding jelly and ice cream. The jelly was actually a Skye Gyngell recipe, Blood orange juice and sugar was infused with rosemary then gelatine leaves added. The raspberry ice cream was Elizabeth's and was a custard mixed with raspberry puree. I don't have an ice cream maker so just stirred it regularly as it froze. Both were just set and frozen in time. A nicely balanced dinner, perfect.

Chicken soup, three ways

2011-03-07T12:04:00.000-08:00

My sister in law was ill last week and I remembered how I often make chicken soup for people after they have babies, and that a good dose should restore. First we bought a chicken from her husband(Henry the butcher), then I set about making the first of three soups out of the one chicken.
Chicken Broth Recipe,
1 chicken
bay
peppercorns
parsley
onion
celery heart
leek
carrots
pearl barley
Place the chicken in a large saucepan cover with water add a halved onion, 12 peppercorns, 2 bay leaves and parsley stalks.( I also added a generous heart of celery to fit in with an Elizabeth David recipe).
Leave this to simmer for an hour until the chicken is cooked. Strain about half the stock into another saucepan and add chopped leek, carrot, celery and pearl barley. Take some chicken from the cooked bird and add to the soup. When the vegetables are tender add the chopped parsley. Give to a friend.
2nd soup; Elizabeth David's Mousseline de Celeris.
This is a variation on her recipe.
Take some strained chicken stock, heat. For each half a pint you need one egg yolk. Beat the yolks well with a drop of lemon juice. Add a little hot stock to this, beat, and then add this to the rest of the stock, stirring all the time until slightly thickened. Season, this a makes a moorish light soup.
3rd soup; Cream of chicken soup.
Make a bechamel sauce, today I used Delia's all in one -putting butter, flour and milk into the pan and stirring whilst heating until thickened. Add some strained chicken stock to the bechamel gradually stirring, then add some small pieces of cooked chicken. Season with white peeper and salt. This soup resembles tinned chicken soup, but far tastier and a great comfort food.
I am still left with cooked chicken that we will use tomorrow to stuff pancakes.

Pork

2011-03-07T03:47:00.001-08:00

As the government announces we should be eating less red meat, I have been hitting the pork section of Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking. I have had my second attempt at a terrine, this time a terrine de pork et de gibier (pork and game pate). This was made from minced pork and veal, pheasant, pork fat, white wine and a seasoning including juniper berries and garlic. I crushed the seasonings to a paste in a pestle and mortar and added this to the rest of the ingredients. This was then cooked in loaf tins in a bain marie. The result was impressive but not a resounding success. It was a little under seasoned but a hard thing to master unless you like eating raw meat and the chef of the family advised me it was overcooked. This just gives me room for improvement on the next recipe, one more terrine and two gallantines to go.

I followed this up with some great pork chops cooked with shallots and cider, accompanied by Horsley grown jerusalem artichokes with tomatoes.

We have also used up the last of the Christmas ham in some of Elizabeth’s recipes, she often adds cooked ham as the pork addition in casseroles, so Wild Duck with peppers and ham. I also cooked her ham in cream and cheese sauce, for which mysteriously you finish off the sauce in a bain marie -I’m not convinced what benefit this brings.

For Little Chef Friday the children got homemade Frankfurters from their Uncle’s Butchery in Chipping Sodbury. Not the potent pink colour of the artificial ones, but deep in flavour. We had a proud parenting moment as they made their own rolls for them.

As you can see we are not abiding to the 70 gram daily recommendation of meat. What I do think though is if you buy good quality meat, with providence, it’s got to be better. If you can’t afford good meat then just buy less: enjoy one really good 70g steak rather than a 250g(8oz) one.

A confession

2011-03-03T02:53:00.000-08:00

There is something I haven't been telling you. In contrast to the cream and cheese, I have been training for Bath Half Marathon which is on Sunday. Of course my reason to train is to adopt the figure of a super model, the reality is I weigh exactly the same and I am still only just 5'2! Over the last month my running friend and I have been running further in a an attempt to succeed. Despite initial resistance I always love it once I am out, there is no better place to be than pounding the hills of the five valleys. It makes you much more sensitive to the weather and the changing season. I am no athlete and running doesn't come naturally to me, which means there is normally an adventure to be had. This means running round fields in circles looking for a way out, negotiating barbed wire fences and running through sticky deep mud. The aim is often to get out on top with the elements, on one run we watched the beautiful chase across the brow of the hill of our dogs and a deer. The deer, the lurcher then the collie, the deer won.
My worst run was the ten mile that ended up nearing fourteen. It was a little ambitious to think we could run to Stroud over the top, Minchinhampton, Gatcombe(lovely footpath) and Avening-avoiding a flooded road by running along the wall, dogs too.
As Sunday approaches survival is overcoming a desired time.

What's been cooking

2011-02-25T14:50:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday we had friends for dinner, an excuse for some cooking. As a starter we finished up the iman bayeldi, it was only with this last batch of aubergine finery that I realised you were meant to pour off the excess oil. I also braised some fennel a la greque. To follow was the last of the pheasant dishes, pheasant with calvados and cream, this was served with fried apples and braised celery. The pheasants were cooked en cocotte, a great way to cook them quickly in a creuset on the hob in butter. I then used the leftover pheasant to add to a second attempt at a pate, terrine de porc et de gibier. A terrine made from veal, pork, fat and pheasant, I smashed the seasonings in a pestle and mortar to a intense looking paste of juniper, garlic, pepper and salt.
This week I also made Elizabeth's pears in cream; a nice alternative to my classic poached pears, mashed potato surrounded by meat juices and cream of spinach. Mashed potato loaded with milk and butter surrounded by pork gravy was obviously a winner, the spinach was divine but I need to learn not to sieve in a hurry.
After the frustrations of the spinach we headed to the Horsley pantomime for some seriously light relief and some great Hobbs House references.

Eating out

2011-02-25T14:50:00.000-08:00

Espresso braised brisket
We love eating out, regular readers will know this tends to be at our own Hobbs House Bistro. The thing about eating out though, credit crunch and all is I now want my monies worth. This doesn't mean it needs to be cheap but it either needs to be a darned sight better than I can cook or be exceptionally good value. The Bistro falls in to both categories, good value with inspirational cooking I could almost attain at home. Tonight we ate at the Thali Cafe in Bristol with a Christmas voucher, with the kids and an Uncle in tow a mere £60 for us all for tasty wholesome fayre. What I no longer want to do is pay £60 for something dull, that's a big price for convenience.
So I am sure you can imagine my excitement over our lovely lunch with the Trethowans (http://www.trethowansdairy.co.uk/) at The Ethicurian (http://www.walledgarden.co.uk/cafe1.html). A great simple menu, seasonal home grown, few choices; our own Petersham Nurseries. To start with we shared a delicious salad of goats cheese, beetroot and horseradish, served on a slate, perfect, beautiful. To follow we both had brisket that had been braised in espresso, a black melt in the mouth experience, to quote my Granny "a nice bit of beef". Not only was the beef delicious but it was served with great mash and seasonal vegetables on the side. And yes these veg(parsnips and chard) were on the side, in the same dish, where they ought to be, please can we do away with side dishes, I never ever want my food to be overcompensated with an accompanying dish of wet dreary vegetables. Got it. So thank you to The Ethicurian not only did they get the veg right but the kids macaroni cheese and sausages and mash, and our yummy little yoghurt pannacotta with pedro sherry soaked raisins. I would recommend to one and all that you get yourselves there quickly, they are on the telly tomorrow too, http://tinyurl.com/64v8nee.

Cooking for money

2011-02-25T14:30:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I got paid a small amount of money for making lunch; a first. Tom was filming, so my job was to make the crew of 10 a mobile lunch. Of course I turned to Elizabeth David for inspiration, a soupe au pistou and pork rolls. The soup was a green minestrone, (onion, leeks, green beans, courgette, potatoes, haricot beans, spaghetti, celery leaves) with a garnish of smashed garlic and basil stirred through at the last minute.
The pork was marinaded to taste like wild boar (in wine and vegetables), although not for the recommended four days. It was then cooked in the strained marinade and a stock made from the skin for three hours. At this point it was perfectly sliceable and we served it in a ciabatta roll with salad and homemade chutney.
Afterwards another marmalade cake, all went down very well with some delicious Sherston Apple Juice.

Coq au vin

2011-02-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

Milo, cock and dog

I love the sound of cockerels in the morning, it transports me to foreign holidays, smells, spices and warmth. Our neighbours had a cockerel for a while, and I loved to wake to a natural alarm clock; my middle daughter’s first words were ‘looda loo’, as she watched him from the window.

Anyway, this is a food column not a nature one, so I bet you can guess where this is going.

A friend had some cockerels going spare, so the boys were sent down, knife in hand, to collect the birds. They plucked and decapitated them and bought them home to gut. I think it’s great for kids to see where food comes from, and was seriously impressed with my son’s gutting skills. After a science lesson on the insides, the birds were jointed and the cooking began.

Of course, these birds were heading for a coq au vin, but not just any coq au vin: an Elizabeth David coq au vin. The giblets were made into a little stock with an onion and herbs. A bottle of red wine was bought to the boil with thyme, bay and some crushed garlic. This was then simmered and the chicken stock added, once it was reduced you added the mushrooms. Leaving the mushrooms in the wine made them delectable. Some bacon was then fried off and the jointed cock browned in the same pan, and the parboiled whole baby onions were added. The pièce de résistance was adding the brandy, which I heated, then set fire to it in a ladle and poured the flames over the meat. I watched this triumphantly as the flames encompassed and died down before the strained sauce was added. This was then cooked for forty minutes before adding the mushrooms. What Elizabeth is teaching me is to cook meat for less time; historically I would have cooked this until the meat fell off the bone, but I don’t think this way gains anything in flavour. Elizabeth also recommends serving this with fried bread, obviously I am already a big fan of serving food simply with bread but not normally fried. Clearly this needed to be served with green vegetables too.

And what better way to end the story than with an impromptu feast with our families.

How I shop locally

2011-02-21T03:43:00.001-08:00

In an effort to be organized and feel less like a ditsy headless chicken I have done all my shopping for the weekend on Friday. For any cynics or questioners here is how I shop locally. I started in the Horsley Community shop for all my basics, this is where I buy loo roll, toothpaste, cereal, and dairy(including a brie the two smallest and I demolished at lunch). I also bought sugar and vanilla pods in bulk this week which is a more economical way. The family butcher in Chipping Sodbury has met with all my meat needs, chicken breasts and a pork fest of ham, bacon, a leg of pork and frankfurters. Then to Nailsworth and Bramleys for a box load of delicious looking fruit, vegetables, primroses and daffodils and even a few bargains from the overs box. In true Friday spirit it’s fish tonight, some lovely looking black bream and some soup for lunch and other delicacies from Williams. This week in Nailsworth I also managed some perfect birthday presents, a toy for the Godson and a nightie for the expectant Sister-in-Law. The garage willingly replaced the brake light for the car. The Yellow Lighted bookshop also provided me with great advice on what book to buy my 9 year old son to keep up the momentum with his reading, he has just completed all the Mr Gum books thanks to their original recommendation and now actually wants to read- A heartfelt Thank you.

We also headed to the local library to make the most of their bargain one night film hire.

So what else is on the menu this weekend? For the first time I am cooking for Tom and others when he’s working on Sunday. Of course I have turned to Elizabeth David for inspiration, a soupe au pistou, a green minestrone with a garnish of garlic and basil and hot pork rolls will be on the menu. I will follow this with some home baked cakes, probably my new choice marmalade and maybe a ginger cake too. I am going to squeeze in an imam bayeldi, my favourite aubergine dish too, you never know when you might need it.

As you can see we are far from starving on this local lark, you could do it too.

Little chef friday

2011-02-18T14:28:00.000-08:00

Yippee it's Friday, yippee it's Little Chef Friday.
Tonight they had a friend around so I got a little more involved. They independently made chicken nuggets, I made little roasties and cooked them brocolli. The chicken nuggets are so easy that they make them,
Free range chicken breasts (we used 4)
Breadcrumbs
Beaten eggs(we used 2)
Flatten the chicken breasts, slice them into strips, chunks, or squares.
Have ready your beaten eggs and breadcrumbs in individual flat bowls.
Dip the chicken into the egg then the breadcrumbs to cover.
Heat olive oil in a frying pan(enough to give a golden coating to the breadcrumbs), fry on both sides until brown, I then popped them in the oven on a roasting tin as I worked my way through the batches and also to ensure they were cooked through completely.
For pudding I made them chocolate fondue and fruit. This was more successful than my last attempt, this time I made a ganache. I heated some cream to boiling point and then added broken up chocolate and whisked until smooth, They then dipped the assortment of fruit in.
=Happy children

Hissy fit

2011-02-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

It was just a cream sauce I know, but when you have made a perfect roux, bought it lovingly up to the boil, stirring all the time until you add two egg yolks at the end-and the husband is those vital minutes late and all you're left with is a curdled mess. The husband did salvage the situation by giving a good beating to the sauce in the Kitchen Aid. It was still not as glossy and smooth as it was in it's earlier stage. I served this with ED turnips and ham, red kale and pasta for the kids. Quite a nice dinner.
I made Nigella Lawson's Coca Cola cake today for the expectant Sister in Law who's birthday it was. A delicious cake that should be made with a warning, do not feed to children, unless you like your children bouncing of the walls until bedtime.
I managed to get the same Sister in Law an amazing birthday present. After trawling the internet for a suitable nursing nightie I found a perfect nursing negligee in Knickerbockers in Nailsworth by an amazing maternity company called Hot Milk.
Next up is our Niece who is turning 5 at the weekend. I got the perfect fabric in Stroud so now it is time to hit the sewing machine.

Night of love

2011-02-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

Oysters Mornay,
Venison cutlets, cream of jerusalem artichokes and red kale,
Heart shaped cheese
Headache
Film, I am Love
I have rarely bought oysters so was surprised 6 from Williams were a mere £3.50. These were opened washed and popped in the the oven topped with cream, shallots, parsley and gruyere. Inevitably completely delicious. I acquired venison cutlets, beautiful in a rack, thanks to the family butcher. Unfortunately the recipe I had in mind was for a different cut, neck. So last night I took off two chops each and pan fried them. I then made ED windy(not so romantic) jerusalem artichokes in cream, very similar to a Jamie Oliver recipe I have previously followed, so tasty I had some for breakfast(strange). Then just a heart shaped cheese from Williams.

To complete our night of romance we watched an amazing film, I am Love starring Tilda Swinton with a nasty murder/accident to finish on.
Tonight I made the venison stew that should of been made with the neck using the cutlets. Elizabeth occasionally uses cooked ham in her recipes where we would use bacon, I quite like this but this recipe definitely felt like I wasn't cooking it accurately. Anyway the end result was edible and simply tasty served with her Pomme de terre l'ardennaise. Grated potato stewed not fried in butter with crushed juniper berries, the kids particularly loved the potato.

Help

2011-02-13T06:42:00.000-08:00

Would anyone like to write this for me, feeling a little despondent, hardly surprising when you look out the window to the pouring rain. I think it hits harder after yesterday was so beautiful, we did just walk the dog and found the first shoots of wild garlic, spring is on its way. To cope with the downpour and the husband working on a Sunday I have just booked us into Tangled in 3D what better thing to do in the rain with 4 children?!
On Thursday night we avoided the temptation of Hobbs House Bistro and I cooked for the in-laws. Salsify and aubergine beignets to start, brixham sand sole with mussels cooked in cider followed by vanilla souffle and roasted rhubarb. I even impressed myself with this, the fish was amazing cooked similarly to the previous sole dishes. By cooking the sole with cider on onions covered for 15 minutes, then adding parsley butter and the already cooked mussels for a hot 5 minutes made for sublime melt in the mouth fish.
The souffle worked, with vanilla seeds popping in your mouth as good as any whizzing candy.
This week I stupidly opted out of little chef friday as the kids cooked an amazing beef curry. The butchers in Nailsworth sold them some special ends of fillet and they made an amazing balti style sauce that they served with rice and raita. We had salty salt cod(obviously), nice but the spicy break from Elizabeth David did appeal.
What shopping in Nailsworth late on Friday night with the kids made me realise-despite the absolute chaos , was as shopkeepers all you need to do is make us feel special. In Nailsworth we are so fortunate to be served by people that know us usually by name and make us feel like we are getting something really special and that nothing is too much trouble. I continue to be able to find all I need locally.

Elizabeth David does vegetarian

2011-02-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

I am not sure whether ED did vegetarian I suspect she didn't but we managed to make a meat free feast using two recipes. Braised celery(which I have cooked before) and mushrooms cooked in oil served with rice. A dinner, a nice dinner, one that the children ate apart from the overtired small. The celery is cooked in oil and butter then stock added at the end, the mushrooms were marinaded in oil for an hour to reduce sticking when you fry them in more oil after 5 minutes parsley and garlic was added.
Yesterday after my success of three recipes in my late night wisdom I decided to make a soup and a coffee cake. The soup was good, leek, tomato and potato, "a simple soup where each individual flavour comes through"-too right Elizabeth. Then a disastrous cake, just when I thought I had got better at actually following recipes I used a far too big tin. It didn't look that big, how big is a 1 1/2 pint tin, small is the answer. The cake was also rather confusing, no butter? Pardon? What I ended up with is more of a swiss roll sponge with no coffee in and rather too flat. You are supposed to layer the cake by slicing it lengthways, I managed to slice mine in half and then chopped it in half again to make four smaller layers. I then made a coffee cream, the only coffee aspect of the cake. This was a delicious pale ice with a delicate coffee flavouring, made like a butter icing with the edition of an egg yolk and espresso.

Back on it-three recipes in one meal

2011-02-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

We are back, and in an attempt to avoid the mountain of washing, unpacking or dirty house I am back cooking. Where better to start today than over a www.hobbshousebakery.co.uk scrambled eggs and bacon and a date with my Elizabeth David book. For dinner tonight we had saddled hare cooked in cream with chestnut puree, savoy cabbage and potatoes l'aligot. I used a saddle of hare left from the stew I cooked. The saddle is the long skinny bit, not the rib cage. It was cooked in cream, shallots and a dash of red wine vinegar. Cooked slowly and covered then remove the cover for a final blast, then remove the sauce and warm through in a pan. Elizabeth's detail and concern over the sauce splitting in the oven is fantastic but she reassures when you warm it through it comes good. When the sauce has boiled you add a spoon of Redcurrant jelly(quince in my case), this was absolutely delicious. I then completed my last chestnut recipe, I definitely won't promise to never buy a vacuum pack again. I am not sure I have got any better at roasted chestnuts than when I started out. I roasted them, boiled them, pureed them and warmed them though with butter. She recommends them with the hare, I liked them with the cabbage. Then for the potato, A potato puree is made then heated in cream and butter, then you add a disproportionate amount of cheese and serve.
The hare was surprisingly nice really tender, I still don't love the smell of it cooking although it's not as bad as rabbit. The potatoes were good, you couldn't particuarly taste the cheese and they ere quite stodgy. Elizabeth advises that they aren't very light so recommends serving them as a first course with fried bread, that sounds pretty stodgy to me.

a long blog

2011-02-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

Last weeks menu,

Friday

Lunch Quiche Lorraine

Little Chef friday, Sushi and chocolate fondue with fruit

Dinner, Salsify Beignets, Roast Woodcock, Spinach

Chocolate Mousse and La Tarte aux Pommes normande

Saturday

Scrambled eggs

Game pate leftover Quiche Lorraine

Hare stewed in red wine with Braised Celery and Pommes de Terre dauphine

Leftover mousse and Apple Tart

Sunday

Roast Chicken a la Anna with token ED Turnip dish and Vichy carrots

Rhubarb Pavlova, sorry ED

Chicken salad with Hollandaise

Monday

Papperdelle with leftover hare and celery and Courgettes fines Herbes

Tuesday

Colin Sauce Remoulade with Etuvede Celeri-rave

Wednesday

Faisan en Papillotes with Poireaux a la nicoise

Pineapple with kirsch

Great, twenty recipes in a week that puts me on target.

How were they all, pretty good, amazing, delicious to my worst ED attempt so far.

In order we will start with Quiche Lorraine a delicious little tart. A thrill to make she says to use an eight inch tin, I only had a cake tin with removable base this size but thats what we used and I loved the flat high sides. The best bit of the recipe, not just the cream and egg yolks was that it all fitted, the pastry and filling were the perfect amount to fill the tin. No Nigella style pastry recipe where you are left with enough to make another tart.

It was great to see the kids make successful sushi and even better that we bought everything in local independents. We were debating whether to head to Morrisons for the outer seaweed leaves when we found them in Green Spirit, result.

The Salsify Beignets were good, you par boiled the salsify and then dipped them in a batter that included whisked egg white. These were border line bland but we dipped them in Crab Apple, Sloe and Chilli jam that I had made.

As for the Woodcock, Williams Kitchen came up trumps in getting these for me, apparently a bad year as they fled further south to warmer climes. I was a little alarmed when I collected them to see they still had their feathered heads attached. Tom enjoyed some blowtorch action burning off the feathers and I quite enjoyed fingering inside of them in search of a gizzard. I’m still not sure it was the gizzard I removed. So I tucked their long beak under the wing smothered them in butter then roasted then for less than twenty minutes. We did cross reference to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Meat Book. Elizabeth has a tendency to give loose instructions which when cooking my first Woodcock, Hugh had the detail we needed. When cooked you scrape out the entails and serve them on toast, a delicacy some say. We did lightly fry these off a la Hugh with the bacon that had roasted on top of the birds. The birds are placed on top of the toast and I served mine to brave friends, they were enjoyed, the entails were bitter, Tom thought them amazing. We didn’t crack open the heads and eat the brains, we hope the friends will come back for dinner again.

For pudding I made a classic Chocolate Mousse, separated eggs and the juice of a Seville orange, delicious, intensely chocolately . The Apple Tart was simple, a pastry just pressed in to the tin topped with buttery apples.

I also snuck in Nigel Slater’s marmalade cake, a really great recipe that I will be making again, a good way of using up some of my new season marmalade.

Next there was my first Pate, probably simpler than I expected but I made a classic Anna mistake of not reading to the bottom therefore the pork overwhelmed the duck. I lightly roasted a mallard then removed the meat mixed it with pork mince and fat and then baked it topped with bacon in a bain marie.

No sooner had Friday nights guests left and Tom and I were jointing a hare and reserving the blood and liver. This was then marinaded in wine and onions.

For the actual stew the blood was added at the end. I probably could have cooked this longer, I regularly use my simmering oven for cooking stews slowly but I was following ED and cooked it faster. The Braised Celery was amazing:The nicest celery he had ever tasted. It was stewed in butter and olive oil until tender then a little stock added.

I nearly forgot the amazing fattening potatoes. Oh yes, glorified mash with added cheese, flour and eggs then deep fried in walnut sized balls in olive oil, of course they were lush.

On Sunday we had friends for the third day running, I needed to cook for four more children so twelve of us in total at lunchtime. I roasted the chicken smeared in butter with a lemon in it and made potatoes like dauphinois but with stock not cream- a great way to cook potatoes in advance or to ignore them in the oven for a couple of ovens. For vegetables we had Navets a la bordelaise, Vichy carrots and overcooked brocolli. The turnips were lightly boiled then fried in olive oil with breadcrumbs and parsley added.

A joint effort of a Pavlova with roasted rhubarb was a true success.

Sunday leftover Supper consisted off a chicken salad, Fee’s hard boiled bantam eggs and a hollandaise sauce. Why does hollandaise have to be so deicious and contain a pack of butter.

Leftover Monday, the hare stew and celery was perfect with paperdelle. A token courgette dish was made, salted courgettes, boiled then fried in butter and herbs added. The kids and the husband spotted that these were Elizabeth David’s, I suspect it was the butter that gave it away. Why is that butter and salt can turn a wet vegetable into something so delectable.

On Tuesday after a night off of entertaining we had the parents. I couldn’t face the Pike In Williams Foodhall, despite being a rarity, caught locally, offers accepted. We had hake steaks simply roasted. The celeriac we had with them was amazing, cut into fine strips and fried with the obligatory butter and parsley. Then I made my first remoulade, wow. You add a raw egg yolk to two hard boiled ones then like the aioli whisk it all up together with olive oil added cautiously. When combined I added tarragon and capers which I found myself automatically cutting the capers(I must be getting the hang of this). We also had spinach which I am simply loving, Bramleys did have it in some great bunches, washed well, then boiled in their washing waters. Drained really well then sauteed off in a little butter.

I just remembered there was a soup, that makes 21 recipes. A potato and watercress one that required being passed through a mouli then a sieve. It was good but not legendary, it wasn’t at all starchy which I sometimes find with potato soups. You did add a little flour, would this help that?

Then there was Wednesday, a finale before some days off cooking, I thought I would make Mr Tom a special dinner after a long day. An even longer day than I anticipated so some seriously overcooked results. It was pheasant on the menu, but mine was twice as big as the recipe, so I overcompensated with the timings. You lightly roasted the pheasant then carved it in half, mine was still bloody at this stage. You then made a papilotte(heart) out of greaseproof and baked them again with buttery juices and bacon. I just massively overcooked them so they were well dry. I served them with whole leeks browned in a frying pan topped with skinned tomatoes. I no longer use tins of tomatoes thanks to Elizabeth. This was one of my sure supermarket items, but why did I rely on them so heavily when they fail to resemble the real thing that aren’t that much more expensive.

For pudding we had Pineapple in Kirsch, “a light popular french pudding”, nice but could of done with a bit more sugar.

So there we go that’s it, a mammoth task done. I promise to not leave it so long ever ever again. Did anyone really make it here, is there a rule of blogs I don’t know regarding number of words?

You will be glad to know I am now recovering in a hotel in Cornwall(blog to follow) where Tom is teaching a Breadmaking course, and yes I can’t cook here or wash up. Bliss.

Dear Blog,

2011-02-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog, I know it's been a long time, maybe a whole week. The problem is I been busy cooking, eating, cooking, entertaining, cooking, you know how it is. Now what that leaves me with is a formidable blog, 20 recipes to write about, well over 10, all good and worth shouting about. So soon they will be here, hopefully before we go away to stay in a hotel where Tom is teaching a course. A hotel? So that means I don't need to take bedding, towels, the dog,food, not even rice cakes or a tin of flapjack. Really, just us, our swimming costumes and a token pair of high heels, wow I think I might like it......

Faisan au riz basquais

2011-01-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

I had an amazing morning in the almighty Nailsworth today, one of those very rare moments where I fitted loads in before having to collect a child. We started with a run along the cycle path, exercise and air for dog, babe and I, tick. Followed by a good food shop where I got everything I needed and more for tonight's dinner. A boiling sausage and jarred peppers from http://www.williamsfoodhall.co.uk/, William will also try to get me Woodcock, apparently difficult this year due to the cold. Plovers and thrush is still prooving difficult! Blood oranges for more marmalade and sweet peppers from Bramleys. I then had my haircut in C2 and still had time for a coffee and post exercise cake in Hobbs before child collection. Dinner was amazing I was looking forward to this recipe and new it would be a winner with the family. Elizabeth suggested a guinea fowl as a good alternative to pheasant. The fowl was browned with onions then pot roasted with bacon and the boiling, bouquet garni in water. I made a sauce of sweet peppers and skinned tomatoes( I love it that she never makes you seed tomatoes) and paprika. This was all served on rice with some of the stock stirred through. I have to confess I cooked the rice my foolproof way not Elizabeth's that involved a double saucepan. It was then a thrill to serve as suggested all on one plate and bring triumphantly to the table with her green salad.

I haven't told you yet about the cauliflower soup I made yesterday. You boiled the cauliflower to sieving point. Obviously I didn't get this right and had to reboil it in bouillion, it was then sieved and a cup of milk and water added. A lot of butter was then melted in and four egg yolks stirred and heated through. I have never added egg yolks to a soup before but have seen it in eastern recipes. I probably slightly

over heated it as it was slightly curdled. It was still delicious and is titled Cream of Cauliflower soup despite no cream.

One lonely recipe and marmalade

2011-01-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

Today I have only made one recipe, courgette and tomatoes. I finally saw the point of salting courgettes: verdict still out on aubergines, I salted them left them to rest in a colander for less time than it said, but when I shook them in a tea towel, there was water to be absorbed. The simple lonely recipe today then involved frying the dry courgettes in olive oil, adding a crushed garlic clove and chopped skinned tomatoes. So uncomplicated and delicious, we had ours with leftover lamb from last night, and the kids had theirs with pasta. Why do they always eat pasta with such gusto and guaranteed empty plates? Also on the go we have this years marmalade. I normally use Riverford's sevilles and recipes but this year I got them from the farmers market and I am trying out a River Cottage recipe from their Preserves book. I don't know why preparing marmalade is such bliss. the smell and chopping of the oranges fills me with sweet homely cheer. The only downside is how can a recipe say it takes 15 minutes to set and mine is still going on a fast boil over an hour later. I used to put this down to my aga but now I am on gas. The method I am using is whole oranges, pith and all but no pips and caster sugar. The River Cottage book also has a recipe for blood orange marmalade and one with demerara sugar I will be trying, thats if I don't tire having stayed up all night waiting for setting point.

roast salt marsh lamb finery

2011-01-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

How can anyone write a food blog after watching come dine with me? What part of that would you want to learn from or replicate.
I don't think I have told you about the Pissaladiere I made this week. This was my appeasement with the kids, an attempt to fool them that I had cooked them a pizza. They are groaning more about Elizabeth David. I think they just like to groan. The so called pizza was made from a buttery dough with an egg in. Topped with onions, tomato, anchovies and olives. The children enjoyed it but not as much as a pizza.
Unfortunately, fortunately we were out Friday and Saturday that made little space for Elizabeth. So on Friday a fried egg cooked under a lid, topped with brown(not quite burnt) butter and heated white wine vinegar, yum. Then Saturday, another omelette, not just another omelette but one to be boasted by the husband, a black pudding one. You fry off the black pudding, then fry off some shallots and parsley added these to the eggs. Then made an omelette in "the usual way" with half the eggs, then another and sandwiched these together with the black pudding as the filling, totally simple and a very tasty breakfast. Today I made eggs cocotte with cream (flying through the egg, cheese dish section) in a hurry which made rather raw egg cocotte.
The Elizabeth David finale was tonight. Salt marsh lamb bought from Cullimores at Stroud Farmers market, grown in Slimbridge, was roasted in "the usual way", I wasn't entirely convinced what Elizabeths way was so I used mine. Seasoned, a couple of garlic cloves poked in, olive oil drizzled and a splash of stock in the tin, nice. I served this with lovingly sieved onion sauce, sweet and sour red cabbage, vichy carrots and her roast potatoes. Her potatoes cooked in an oven are boiled whole in their skins to a little underdone(or overdone by me today), peeled and cubed. Then seasoned and cooked in melted goose fat in an earthenware shallow dish. A jolly nice dinner, Henry the chef was relieved the lamb wasn't from his new butchery but I thought it nice.

Four Elizabeth David recipes in one day

2011-01-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

Last night I soaked chickpeas, in water with flour and salt. This morning you added bicarb to the water and rinsed the peas, you boil the gloopy water then add the chickpeas. Simmer until there is no water and they stick to the bottom of the pan, then put the chickpeas in 6 pints of boiling water until tender. The chickpeas were yummy but I maybe didn't rinse them well enough as some were still gooey with flour. I then removed half the chick peas for a salad as instructed and tossed them in olive oil and used the rest to make a Chick Pea Soup. "this makes an interesting soup, although I suppose that the curious flavour of chickpeas would not be to everybody's taste. " It was a sieving soup(Madonna arms here I come)yummy and the youngest girls, the dog and I all enjoyed it.
I then had a proud moment as I made aioli by hand. Her recipe was made in the pestle and mortar, I love serving things in the mortar, so authentic! You crushed the garlic, I added salt at this point to aid the crush, then I just used one egg yolk and 1/3 pint of olive oil, greek I'm afraid Elizabeth. It made for a beautiful green gloss.
For dinner we had the green gloss, chickpeas, salad and Filet d'agneau au four. The lamb fillet was roasted in a medium oven on top of bones with a few ladles of game stock. I left this in the oven during piano lessons and a quick meeting at the bakery to return to a piece of meat that looked like it needed to brown a bit so just as it was on it's way to the top oven I read Elizabeths instructions, 'remove the bones pour off the juice into a saucepan and leave the meat to brown", genius, how did she know. What with the juices and all it was a jolly nice dinner, the kids even liked it.

Children and food

2011-01-20T02:40:00.000-08:00

Wet soup, slimy mussel and sourdough cake.

2011-01-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

Must learn to follow recipes, still is my temptation to bypass ingredients, reduce amounts or not measure.
Yesterday in a mad rush when I should have been tidying the pig sty I decided to make Creme Flamande, cream of onion and potato soup. I don't know why me and the smallest didn't just have a cheese sandwich. Mistake number 1, double the recipe, then realise don't have double the ingredients. Its a simple soup really boil potatoes, leek, onion, parsley(I forgot) in water (I added too much, didn't measure), Boil until "sievable", fry another onion(not a manky one) in butter add to sieved soup with hot cream. Probably add some more parsley somewhere and serve. Mine was very thin, too much water or not enough determination with the sieve? But still was pretty edible with Hobbs House baguette smothered in butter.
Today I attempted my first Elizabeth David mussels recipe, Moules a la Normande. A yummy dish of mussels cooked on shallots, celery leaves, parsley and white wine. Cook the mussels then remove, pass juices threw a muslin cloth, I even did this, impressed? Reduce the liquid by half add boiled cream and butter for luck. Elizabeth advised removing the empty shell of each mussel, with all best intentions I started this then threaked that the mussels were overcooked and therefore best serve instantly. Fortunately Henry the chef and Jessica were here for dinner and as we were left with slimy cold unopened mussels he informed me they weren't cooked not overcooked. I know, d'oh you idiot, but apparently they solidify the longer you cook them not melt. A very good lesson learnt and saved. They were returned to the pan all eaten and the delectable juices were all mopped up with ciabatta.
Another experiment, can you make a classic victoria sponge with sourdough? Yes... well kind of. I made a classic victoria sponge today 6,6,6,3, but rather than adding self raising flour and baking powder I added 3 tbsp of sourdough. This made for a dense but moist cake, topped with lemon glace icing it was pretty good. Sorry Elizabeth but the next test is Chelsea Buns with sourdough.

A jolly nice meal at Hobbs House Bistro

2011-01-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

A bias review of Hobbs House Bistro.
We filled the bistro on Saturday night to celebrate my Dad's 60th. There was 24 of us of different ages and a veritable smorgasbord of eating habits. The menu was fantastic, something for everyone, nearly all of us had three courses.
Baskets of great bread welcomed us to the table with Ant's superb tapenade, perfect washed down with prosecco. I had a half pint of prawns, beautiful, with just the right amount of homemade mayonnaise. Next I had a pork chop with honey gremolata and squash. The pork chop had been cooked as a rack in the wood fired oven, so was incomparably tasty and moist, the gremolata was amazing, a perfect balance of herbs and honey that didn't cloy. Served with a squash cake and pak choi. For pudding, chocolate fondant gooey in the middle with orange caramel, need I say more.
The whole evening was faultless, we pre ordered the food, Annie quickly worked out who was who and everyone was delivered their food promptly and without error.
If I was you I would go now and take advantage of the free course we are offering. I have seen this weeks menu and I am not sure I can resist a visit for the cornish fish stew and ash baked bread. The problem with weekly visits to the Bistro is one less night for Elizabeth.
http://www.hobbshousebakery.co.uk/about_us/our_bistro/

the nicest one I have ever had

2011-01-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

We have had a full on weekend of celebration, my Pa's 60th and four children's birthday parties. I thought I was neglecting ED but managed to knock out 5 recipes today, that and expanding and perfecting my omelette range. I have now made her mushroom one, ham one, cheese and fine herbs. The cheese has been the favourite so far. She instructs you to heat your pan, then melt your butter at full heat until it is about to change in colour. Then add your eggs and finely grated parmesan already very lightly beaten(just combined) with two forks. Top with gruyere cubes then cook for a few minutes till just set, no popping it in the oven to finish, fold into three.

Yesterday I used up the leftover partridge in a suggested salad of watercress and hard boiled eggs. Elizabeth says to hard boil eggs for 7 to 10 minutes from cold, these were very runny, I think I prefer Gordon's method of 6 minutes when added to boiling water. I think the salad would of benefitted from more texture roasted seeds or pomegranate molasses would have been delicious.

Today for a family lunch Faisan a la Choucroute. I hadn't cooked choucroute before and Elizabeth was a bit assumptive that I knew what I was doing, I have cooked a red cabbage similarly slowly but this was white cabbage. An onion was fried in goose fat, then I added washed cut white cabbage with juniper berries, then added stock and wine. I added the grated potato too early which meant you probably couldn't tell it was there. This was the simmered in my simmering oven for over an hour, kirsch was then sloshed in before serving. We served this with Pheasant en cocotte, mashed potato(husband redeemed "the nicest one I have ever had") and carrots vichy(not fishy). For pud we had chocolate souffle, potential beginners luck produced a beautiful upstanding moist dish enjoyed by us all.

My Mum produced the classic line today "where is this recipe from?", but she's learning. Its funny flicking through the weekends papers and not looking out for recipes. This week presents the game challenge I am anxiously working my way through this so to complete it by the end of the season. I have already pot roasted two pheasant and stewed four partridge. The list in full stands at 3 more partridges, 3 more pheasant, 1 woodcock, plovers, teal, thrush and 5 hares one with blood. Already I don’t like the smell of game cooking and the kids and I have tired a little of the flavour. I don’t think I can bear to tell the children I need to stuff another cabbage, and this time with a partridge.

Mummy, I heard you swear

2011-01-13T12:03:00.000-08:00

It was all going well, simple, Stewed Partridges, fry off some bacon in butter add the partridges breast down. Add brandy set fire to it:sharp decline down hill, I couldn't light the brandy, it said to pour it in then set fire, this didn't work, I remember setting fire to brandy in a ladle before then pouring over, this may of worked better. I then added wine and a bouquet garni and popped in a medium oven for 40 minutes. Easy, simple. Until in my wisdom I thought I would reattempt the boiling of a whole celeriac. I got my Ma to buy me a celeriac and forgot to advice her to get a small one, so the beast would not cook to a sievable consistency. Once again the potatoes remained Pommes Puree. Some advice for you do not attempt to sieve a hard celeriac or hand whisk potatoes with a toddler whinging clinging to your left leg.
The partridges were then removed from their juices, the juices reduced and butter added. All served with overdone old cabbage . The kids weren't convinced about the partridge, "yuck", the baby loved it, particularly the bones, and feeding it to the dog,"sit". I simultaneously cooked Potage Crecy(carrot soup), grated carrot(?!), a shallot, potato and chicken stock. I will now attempt to sieve this.
We have lots of partridge left and no one to eat it and 3 more partridge recipes to go.

Just steak

2011-01-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

Well not just steak, not only Elizabeth David's Entrecote Grille, but Henry's steak. The first steak from the Hobbs House butchery in Chipping Sodbury. Henry and Jess joined us for dinner to celebrate.
So the steak beautifully cut to just over 1/2 inch thick was seasoned with just pepper, coated with oil and cooked on my hot plate for 4 minutes a side, perfection. ED said to grill but my all singing all dancing oven doesn't have a grill! But the hotplate worked a treat. The steak was served with leftover ratatouille. Definitely feeling the threat of the more challenging recipes. Partridge stew tomorrow,.. take four old birds....Need to confirm that Tom is here for dinner tomorrow, not sure I can cope serving that one up to the kids on my own!

Tarragon and shallots

2011-01-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

Things I have learnt, shallots and tarragon taste really nice. I have probably only used shallots before whole in stews and would normally just use an onion, but in delicate dishes the shallot wins hands down. Tarragon too is a herb I'm not sure I have ever used but its pungent aniseed flavour adds wonders to simple dishes. Will definitely be adding to my herb garden this year.
Lesson learnt, do not try to bribe husband. Attempted bribe, if you walk the dog I will make you an omelette for breakfast. Quickly apparent husband not going to walk the dog, so I thought I'll make him "omelette fine herbs" anyway. Once again I am proud to show off my newly found omelette making skills, lightly beaten with tarragon and parsley added folded in three. His comments are, "oh unusual do you separate the eggs to make this" followed by "I need ketchup", and not even my homemade, but Heinz.
For dinner I made ratatouille nicoise and scallops in white wine. He then asks "does she recommend putting these together, fair point but Williams had sold out of mullet. The ratatouille involved cutting things small, another cookery shortcut I don't usually take. I even salted the aubergines, does it make a difference???
The ratatouille was 4 onions, 3 aubergines, 3 courgettes, 3 peppers, 4 skinned tomatoes, garlic and basil, simple, yummy. Looking forward to eating the leftovers with steak tomorrow, I suspect that will be an improvement on the scallops. The scallops were delicious, cut up(what?), sauteed with shallots and bacon then the pan deglazed with white wine and parsley. Really good, but both dishes were good enough in their own right to not be eaten together.

She's a goody that David.

2011-01-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I have cooked;
Eggs cocotte served with leftover chorizo stew.....as good as The Providores turkish egg
Boiled sausages with a hot potato salad...easy way to cook sausages, kids suspicious of whiteness
Bacon and eggs with leftover hot potato salad and sausages...bacon too thick to be a real success
Shin of beef stew with potato dauphinoise and glazed carrots....legendary, mastered vichy carrots
Apple and chestnut stuffing.... for the freezer for a turkey at a later date
Ham omelette with spinach....wow,

Jerusalem Artichokes cooked in stock with leftover Beef stew....impressed husband
Chestnuts in Kirsch.......mastered the art of shelling chestnuts,
Everything has worked, delicious, simple. I haven't even used much butter.

You wash up, I'll write my blog.

2011-01-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

Been busy busy, eating cooking, cooking eating. Last night I made a chocolate cake, this reminded me of my aversion to cooking recipes that involve separating eggs. I do have a daft contraceptive like object to separate eggs, but can't bear the extra washing up. Last night my fear was overcome, the chocolate cake was simple, delicious. You melted the chocolate in the oven then added this to a tiny amount of flour, soft butter, sugar and the egg yolks. Then fold into the stiffened egg whites. It made a tiny little moist cake, I cooked it in a lardy tin then topped it with the same as the chocolate and chestnut cake. I did under bake the cake so it did look like a bundt as the middle collapsed and the icing flowed through.
Today I shelled all the chestnuts, not as simple and easy as she makes out. Today I roasted them but it's quite an art to shell them when they are still hot but not overcooked and crumbly. We ate the Chestnut soup today, really nice, so when I have made all the chestnut recipes I hope to have some left for another batch of soup.
I shopped today in Nailsworth, great fish from Williams and a fantastic selection of game if there is anything Henry can't get for me. I also did my basics shop in Horsley Community shop, such a delight.
Tonight was little chef friday so the children cooked themselves chicken nuggets, leaving Tom and I to have a fishy feast. To start we had devilled chestnuts, the ones I managed to shell whole, boiled to tender then fried in olive oil, cayenne and salt. I then cooked my two dover sole. Tom skinned them, I must learn this, although Williams will always do this, and I cooked them as two different recipes. The first was in wine and shallots and absolutely divine melt in the mouth. We then had an interlude where we polished off the stuffed cabbage, must eat our veg, followed by the second sole. This was cooked in a fishy stock and then topped with a parsley butter with lemon, this was also well tasty but not as melt in the mouth, tougher but not tough. So does wine soften and add that melt.
Tomorrow I need to attempt an egg recipe, 51 to go, we are at the Bistro so do the kids and babysitter get leftovers or there very own Elizabeth David recipe?

40 weeks

2011-01-06T13:12:00.001-08:00

Can I cook this in 40 weeks;
30 sauces
35 hor d'oeuvres/salads
29 soups
51 egg, cheese or hot hor d'oeuvres
24 other pork dishes
85 vegetable dishes
64 fish
81 meat dishes
44 puddings
11 a week, easy, may have to reduce how many times we eat at the Hobbs House Bistro, so to up the cooking opportunities.
Today I cooked Saucisses a la Navarraise. Probably the simplest recipe yet, a staple with no sieving. Chorizos, peppers and a splash of liebfraumilch(what to do with the rest?) served with crostini baguette and brocolli(targeting the 5 a day). Very delicious, although the boy prefers spicier chorizo and they all ate but didn't scoff. I think I'll just make a quick chocolate cake if I am going to hit 11, has anyone ever melted chocolate in the oven? Here goes...

Stuffed cabbage, "I hate it"

2011-01-05T13:42:00.001-08:00

Fortunately I foresaw the cries of "I hate it" from the objectionable children and had made them chicken pasta to accompany their stuffed cabbage. Tom and I were pleasantly surprised and made a large indent into it. I was quite excited by stuffing it, and pleased with how it worked. You blanched the whole cabbage in boiling water and I underestimated how large my white cabbage was, so it was a little undercooked in the middle. Then you peeled back the leaves and cut out the middle and filled it with seasoned bacon and chestnuts. I then folded back in the leaves and tied it up with string. You then add a clear stock(chicken stock?), and simmer in the oven for five hours. It filled the house with cooking smells with cabbagy undertones which we hoped cleared in time for the Mummers play dress rehearsal we hosted here tonight.

I also made a chestnut soup today. Elizabeth had very sensible advice today, you made a vegetable stock to cook the chestnuts in. She then advised that you make the leftover stock vegetables into a soup too, so today I have made two soups. Tomorrow I am attempting the recipe that will go down a treat with us all, I just have to decide how to use up the rest of the cabbage.