Rock Cakes

Project!

2009-06-21T20:58:00.003+01:00

I've been reading several blogs for while now about people growing their own with a lot of envy. We are growing tomatoes, salad leaves and chillies in window boxes but its not quite enough. So when Hugh launched the Landshare website, I was hoping that we could get a piece of land.

Through the website we got in touch with Ann who had been given a plot at the Springburn allotments. The land and the task at hand was a bit much for her on her own. So on Saturday Andrew and I met up with Ann and Ben(someone else from landshare). This is what the land was like before we started, just long grass:

With just over an hours work we managed to make a mark on the grass and have left some plastic down to kill off the grass. So this is what it looks like now:

I have to say that when wandering around the allotments there seems to be a lot of empty/neglected plots. We have written several times to see if we could get our own which would be the best. So we will wait and see if we hear back. I will keep you posted.

Souvenirs from Northumberland

2009-05-10T15:19:00.005+01:00

We had decided to go away for last weeks long weekend. We had planned two different weekends depending on what the weather was doing in Scotland. Our west coast plan was to go to Mull and our east coast plan was Arbroath. However, when we looked at the weather neither seemed appealing. So we decided to skip over the border to Wooler in Northumberland.

On the Friday we arrived at the campsite, pitched the tent the headed to the pub for a pie and a pint. On the Saturday we went to Kyloe out of the woods for a days climbing in the sunshine. We then went for a nice coastal drive and stopped off for fish and chips.

Sunday was spent the morning wandering around Berwick and then in the afternoon we went to Lindisfarne. Whilst there we purchased some Mead. I have to say I was very disappointed with the Lindisfarne mead shop. It was full of chutneys and preserves that had their name on but when you looked closely at the label they were produced in Scotland and some of the liqueurs were produced in France. I don't have a problem with the shop selling produce that they haven't made but they should be more upfront about where it is from!

Before we left on Monday we stopped off at the local butcher and bought a fantastic piece of beef for a roast dinner when we got back. I have to say that Wooler really impressed us both, there were a lot of local shops and we only spotted two national companies. We drove back via Craster to first of all buy some Craster Kippers. We also wanted to have lunch at the Jolly Fisherman Pub. The pub was heaving and we were lucky to get a table. We had a round of crab sandwiches, kipper pate and Melba toast and chips. The kipper pate was fantastic and I think I will be making it with some of the kippers we bought. The chips were also great, cooked in dripping, yum yum yum. After Craster we stopped off at Chain Bridge Honey Farm. Andrew loves his honey so we thought that we should pick up some supplies. We bought some honey comb and a jar of honey. There were loads of honey based products like lip balms and candles.

As I said we went back and I made a roast dinner. As you can see we had the beef very rare, just as we like it. The meat was lovely and I am sure that we will back to Northumberland very soon. But until then we have the mead, honey and kippers to remind us of a great weekend.

Pot Roasted Pheasant with Butterbeans and Chorizo

2009-03-01T15:46:00.005Z

One of things we look forward to after Christmas is the beginning of the Six Nations Rugby, which starts in February. This usually means that our Saturdays are spent in front of the TV watching 2 or 3 matches. On these days I like to make a meal that doesn't require much prep or attention, things like stews and toad in hole. This means that I don't miss much of the action.

We had a pheasant in the freezer and I had remembered seeing a Hugh F-W recipe that I wanted to try. Its on the Guardian website here.

Its dead easy and goes in the oven for two hours which left me free to watch the England/Ireland game. Not that it was worth it in the end!

It tasted great and although we had it with a couple of jacket potatoes and carrots, it could be served with some bread instead. I used a tin of butterbeans instead soaking dried butterbean which worked fine.

. . . And we're back!

2009-02-28T15:21:00.004Z

I noticed the other day that I hadn't blogged for 4 months. The main reason for this is our PhDs. The blog had become a big distraction, a nice one but a still a distraction. Plus I started a new job and needed to concentrate on a different challenge.

Andrew had his viva (oral examination) on the 5th of November and passed. I was due to have my viva on this date as well, but the internal examiners pulled out. So I had to wait until the 30th of January for my viva, which I passed. The last few weeks have been spent making the corrections and getting it hard bound. On Friday I handed it in, which means that our PhD ordeal is over and I can start blogging again.

The graduations aren't till June, so I don't feel we can call ourselves Dr until then. But believe me that when we do that our names on our bank cards will be changed.

I saw this comic strip and can relate to this. It has been a struggle to get it finished but now I see our theses in their hard bound glory it does feel good.

Breadmaking

2008-11-23T20:48:00.005Z

I love my bread books (Dough and Crust) and Andrew's favourite carb is bread, so they come in handy.

I made some Fougasse. These are pretty looking breads and dead easy to make. All you have to do is make a batch of white dough and divide into four pieces. You then flatten a piece of dough and make some slits opening them to form holes. These are baked @ 230 degree C for 10-12 min until golden brown.

Andrew thinks my Fougasse look like the Scream mask, which I suppose they do.

I am not sure they are supposed too but at least they taste good.

I have also made some rye flour breads. I made some olive breads to go with some pasta. They were dead simple to make, all you do is flatten the dough and spread some olive paste and fold the dough.

The last different bread I made was a cider bread. I made this to have with cheese and pickles. Again these breads were easy to make. Though quite involved (4-6hrs for the ferment, 1 and half hrs for resting, proving of 1 and half hrs and 45 minutes baking).

This was another rye bread and went very nice with the selection of cheese from the deli and homemade chutneys (rhubarb and raisin chutney and green tomato chutney).

Pumpkin Ravioli

2008-11-20T21:25:00.004Z

I think I have mastered making pasta dough. We use 100 g of pasta flour and 1 egg for one person. So I thought I would have a go at making my own ravioli.

The filling was pumpkin (450g) which I roasted for about 25-30 mins at 200 degree C. I then mashed this and added two crushed amaretti biscuits, grated parmesan and some breadcrumbs.

I rolled the pasta out to the thinnest setting. Andrew's mum had given a me a ravioli maker which I used. I don't think that I floured the tray enough as the first batch stuck a bit.

The pasta was cooked for four minutes and served with a sage butter. Butter was melted in frying pan until foaming, sage leaves were added and cooked for a few seconds. This was finished with a squeeze of lemon juice and this was poured over the pasta. We had some steamed chard with the pasta.

All in all I think that my first ravioli making experience went well and I am sure like making the dough, I will get better at it with practice. I am entering this recipe into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights which is being hosted by Nilmandra of Soy and Pepper. Make sure you check out the round up.

Sometimes things just don't go right

2008-10-29T22:28:00.005Z

Sometimes I try a recipe and it doesn't turn out how I thought it would. Most of the time its something I did or didn't but sometimes it just happens.

Last night I made Delia's pasta with pepper relish. But the chilli I added was very very hot. The dish was fine but would have been a better with a milder chilli. I only used one instead of the two I was supposed to. I have to say I love the recipe and knew that I was going to make it as soon as I saw the two peppers in last weeks box. Its dead simple.

Pasta with pepper relish

450g peppers, sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 dessertspoon olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 medium sized chillies
4 medium sized tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 tbsp sun-dried tomato paste

Dry roast the cumin seeds for a minute then add the oil, peppers, chilli and garlic. Turn the heat down to low and cover. Cook for 40 mins until peppers are soft, stir occasionally.

Add the tomatoes and tomato paste, season and cook for 5 mins until the moisture has reduced.

Stir pasta into sauce and serve.

I'm entering into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights. Which is being hosted by Melissa at The Cooking Diva. Make sure you have a look at the round up.

Roast pork and crab apple jelly

2008-10-27T22:16:00.006Z

With the weather being atrocious this weekend we needed a roast dinner. We decided to have pork which we got from Puddledub at the Farmers Market. We had it with roast potatoes, mashed swede, carrots, cabbage and Yorkshire puddings. I have to say that the Yorkshire puddings rose really well. This is thanks to Andrew's mum giving me a great and easy to remember 2 cups of eggs, 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of milk. With this meal we had a lovely perry from Oliver's

With the Pork we had crab apple jelly as an apple sauce substitute. How we came about the crab apples is due to Andrew. He had gone to university to submit his thesis and noticed that the trees around the university were laden with crab apples. When he came back and he put his bag down it made a suspicious rustling. He had picked about 5 kilos of crab apples. We used the recipe found in the River Cottage Preserves Book. It was so easy to make and gave a jelly with a fantastic colour.

Crab apple jelly

2 kg Crab apples
2 Cinnamon sticks
3 Cloves
Granulated sugar

Chop apples and simmer them and spices with 1.2 litres of water until soft

Strain in jelly bag overnight

Measure the juice and heat. When the juice is about to come to the boil, add sugar (450 g for every 600 ml of juice).

Boil rapidly for 10 mins until setting point is reached.

Pot in warm sterilised jars and seal.

Weekend breakfasts

2008-10-27T21:43:00.004Z

Last week Andrew and I decided that we would make more of an effort with our breakfasts on the weekend. So on Saturday we had kippers for breakfast. We had never had kippers and the thought of fish for breakfast was a bit weird. Saying that I do like smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. We bought the kippers at the Organic Food Festival a few weeks ago from Inverawe. We just grilled it with some butter and served it with a dash of lemon squeezed over and some wholemeal toast. I really enjoyed the kippers and they will definitely be returning for another breakfast.

On Sunday we had a bit of a classic, boiled egg and soldiers. We have a family tradition on my side of the family its something called extra yolk, its the butter on the right. I have to state right now that Andrew does not part take in the extra yolk, he just doesn't get it. All you do is when you have nearly finished your yolk you add the extra yolk. Its a way of extending the yolk. I don't think it will catch on. Andrew is evidence of that, but hey I love it!

So what did we do with all that fruit? Part 4 - Blackcurrant wine

2008-10-26T15:42:00.005Z

Well now, where to begin. Serena has been on at me to write this post for ages and I have finally run out of excuses. Its not that I haven't wanted to write it - I just haven't found the time. Well my blogging laziness is another story. Way back in August we pick a whole load of fruit, from which we've made jams, jellies, vinegar and liqueurs. What Serena hasn't mentioned in her previous post was my little side project.

As I think I mentioned before, I'm very interested in drinks and have wanted to have a go at home brewing (both wine and beers) for a while. In our flat we didn't really have the space to store a load of demijohns and fermenting buckets. As soon as we moved in early August I was off down the local brew shop hatching plans like a for future concoctions.

Seeing as it was still summer, I decided to start by making some country wines instead of beers. The first was a blackcurrant wine. This used about 1.5 kg of the blackcurrants that we picked. The fruit was roughly crushed in a bucket with a potato masher, over which 4.5L of boiling water (into which 1.75 kg of sugar had been dissolved) was poured. When this had cooled to room temperature a tsp of pectic enzyme was added followed by wine yeast the next day. The must was left for 5 days before being strained into a demijohn.

It being the first time that I've done this, I was a little unsure at which point to rack the wine. After a lot of uncertainty I racked the wine after 1.5/2 months. Maybe I could have left it longer but I figured racking too much couldn't be too bad.

We have also been out picking as much fruit from the hedgerows this summer/autumn as we could. I think Serena is going to post about that soon so I will say no more, except that I also have a blackberry and elderberry wine on the go. This time I merged the recipes from three different books as I couldn't find an individual one that I liked the look of. I used 1kg of blackberries, 1kg elderberries and 1.5 kg of sugar dissolved in 4.5 L of boiling water. This wine is the most amazing purple colour. Really hope that they both turn out ok......

Beef ragu and homemade pasta

2008-10-05T22:40:00.012+01:00

When Andrew's parents visited for the weekend they brought some goodies with them, these included a pasta machine. I have told Andrew that I really wanted a pasta machine but he has never been very convinced that I would use it that much. So as a compromise we borrowed Andrew's parents one.

Last weekend seemed to really signal the beginning of autumnal eating which means the start of stews and toad in the hole! For Sundays dinner I decided to make my version of a ragu. I knew somewhere in my vast collection of books I had a recipe for a ragu and pasta but I couldn't find it. So I had an idea of what I wanted it have in it. It was a bit of a cross of beef bourginon with some of the ingredients I would use to make spag bol.

Olive oil

500g of stewing beef, cubed

3-4 tbsps of seasoned flour

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic crushed

1 swede, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

250g of pumpkin chopped

Tomato paste

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1/2 bottle of red wine

Handful of olives

Preheat oven to 150 degree c.Toss the beef in the seasoned flour. Heat the olive oil in a large casserole dish and brown the beef in batches.

Fry the onion until soft. Add the garlic, swede and carrots stir for a couple of minutes. Then add the tomato paste and cook for 2 more minutes. Return the meat to the pan. Add the olives.

Add the red wine, scraping the bottom of the pan to make sure that the crusty bits a incorporated. Then add the tin of tomatoes. If this doesn't cover the meat and veg top up with water.

Put in the oven and cook for 1 hour then stir in the pumpkin. Then cook for another 1-1 and a half hours until meat is tender and sauce has reduced.

Serve with pasta.

Whilst the ragu was cooking, I made my pasta. I used Jamie's 100g and 1 large egg per person recipe.

I think my pasta making will be a bit like bread making at first it took me while to get to grips with but now I can knock up the dough in five minutes. As this is my first attempt it took a while.

Once it had combined into a dough I kneaded it for a few minutes before starting the rolling!

This part was quite tricky but I think that's because I tried to roll too much of the dough at once. This meant we had long pieces of pasta which made it hard to handle. Also the dough likes to stick to itself so you really need to dust it with quite a bit of flour.

We did get the hang of it at the end it was great to see the sheets of pasta gradually getting thinner and thinner. I wanted to make pappardelle, so we rolled up the pasta and cut it into wide strips.I have to say that it was great to make are own pasta. I know that I will get better at it with time. I think that I rolled the pasta a bit too thin as well. But I will know better next time.

The ragu/stew was great the meat was tender and the liquid had reduced to make a wonderful sauce. I'm entering this recipe into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights roundup which this week is hosted by Ruth at Once Upon A Feast. Make sure you check out the roundup.

So what did we do with all that fruit? Part 3 - raspberry vinegar

2008-10-05T19:27:00.007+01:00

Once I had made the raspberry jam and vodka, I had a few hundred grams leftover. I remember seeing in my River Cottage Preserves Book a recipe for raspberry vinegar. I have seen these in delis but are they are quite expensive. So we gave it a go. For the first part soak the raspberries (slightly crushed) in cider vinegar for 4-5 days. For every 1 kg of raspberries you use 600 ml of vinegar.

I then deviated from this recipe, as I had been told by Andrew's when they made their raspberry vinegar it was very sweet. I then followed Maguerite Patten's recipe which uses less sugar. To 600 ml of juice you add 225 g of sugar. This is dissolved by heating and then tipped into a sterilised bottle.

So far we have only used it to dress green salads as part of our meals. It does make a great alternative to the usual balsamic or wine vinegars. But I am currently searching for some specific recipes.

So what did we do with all that fruit? Part 2 Fruit flavoured vodkas

2008-10-05T12:41:00.004+01:00

In August we picked a whole lot of berries from a PYO. The main reason for this was that I wanted to make some jams. But we picked ALOT of fruit. So we had lots leftover for other uses. So we made some flavoured vodkas. We have made strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant vodkas. The recipes for the raspberry and strawberry vodka were based on recipes from the Cottage Smallholder Blog. For the blackcurrant vodka I used 500g of blackcurrants, 250g sugar and 1 litre of vodka. These were started in August and I think I might strain the fruit in November, so they would have 3 months of steeping.

Its quite funny to think that as part of my PhD I have been extracting fruits (mainly apples) for analysis and at home I am using that same principles at home!

We have made both raspberry and blackcurrant vodka before. The blackcurrant was our favourite before we made the rhubarb vodka, which is now my favourite. The raspberry was a little bitter but I think this was because we added lemon peel which still had some pith attached. Strawberry is new for us.

We had a few people over to the flat for a celebration of the theses being submitted and I have to say that the rhubarb vodka was well received. We will definitely be making more next year.

A Tale of Two Theses

2008-09-24T20:49:00.004+01:00

We are back!!!!

After an intensive month of thesis writing, we have finally submitted the theses.

It meant that I had to neglect the blog but now we are waiting for our viva dates. Just in case you were interested it has taken us just under four years to do the scientific work and write up our theses. Andrew's is bigger (around 250 pages) mine is about 150 pages. Hopefully I will be able to catch up on what we have been up to whilst we have been writing.

Pumpkin risotto and biscuits

2008-08-26T20:11:00.004+01:00

After the pumpkin pasta, I was thinking of what else to make with it. So I decided to make a risotto. I roasted the pumpkin whilst I was making the risotto. The pumpkin was then stirred in at the end with the cheese and lemon. I saw a recipe for a risotto served with a pesto, I like the idea so I stole it! The basil plants are doing well enough that I can use them to make pesto. Still not bored of the pumpkin!

Pumpkin risotto

1 Small onion, chopped
200 g risotto rice
1 Wine glass of vermouth
Vegetable stock (approx 500 ml)
1 Lemon
Pecorino Cheese, 2tbsps
Enough pumpkin for 2, chopped

Roast the pumpkin @ 180 degrees C for 30 mins.

Meanwhile, soften the onion in a little olive oil in a saucepan. Add the rice and cook for a couple of mins. Then add the vermouth. Once this has been absorbed add the veg stock one ladle at a time. Once the stock has been absorbed, add another ladle until the rice is cooked. Stir in the lemon juice, cheese and pumpkin. Serve with the pesto.

Basil Pesto

1 Large handful of basil
1 Large handful of pinenuts
2 Cloves of garlic
Lemon juice
Olive oil

Blitz in a food processor, using the olive oil and lemon juice to taste.

For a few weeks Andrew has been making gingerbread biscuits. So I decided to give Andrew a break and make some biscuits. I saw this recipe when I was having a read through some of Stonehead's older posts. These biscuits were dead easy to make and were very hard to resist when they came out the oven. This photo doesn't do them justice.

So what did we do with all that fruit? Part 1 - Jams and Jelly

2008-08-23T22:19:00.004+01:00

As I said in an earlier post we had been to a PYO and returned with loads of fruit. With my birthday money I bought a jam pan and was waiting for the soft fruit season to put it to good use. I have learnt that jams are quite easy to make, contrary to what some manufacturers would have you believe. We have been finding it great fun too. I think its the geeky scientists in us that like to watch it set. We understand the science, yet it still seems like magic. How sad?!

We staggered the jam making over two days. We started with the raspberry jam as they were likely to go mouldy first.

We then entered new territory, jelly making. Redcurrant jelly is great to stir into gravy. The first thing to do is extract the juice which means simmering the redcurrants in water. You then strain the juice overnight using a jelly bag. You can buy jelly bag stands but we used Andrew's mum chair technique with the help of some climbing gear.

After the juice is strained, you just have to boil it with sugar until it reaches the setting point. We made another batch of strawberry jam. The last jam we made was blackcurrant. There were loads of blackcurrants on the bushes at the PYO and we were the only ones picking them!

This jam turned out to be the best value jam to make. It produced 6.5 lb. The ingredients for 1lb cost just 73p.

In total we made:

7 jars of blackcurrant jam (6.5lb)
4 jars of strawberry jam (4lb)
6 jars of raspberry jam (6lb)
1lb of redcurrant jelly

We used recipes from the River Cottage Handbook and Women's Institute.

So what have we been up to?

2008-08-21T22:29:00.005+01:00

Last week Andrew was on holiday from work, we spent most of the week writing our theses. However, we did take a couple of days off from the laptops. We spent one day at Craigie's picking fruit for various projects.

It took us quite a while! We picked 3 kg of blackcurrants, 2 kg of strawberries, 1.5 kg of raspberries and 1 kg of redcurrants.

I'll tell you what we did with these in the next post. Too tired to continue and need a break from my laptop screen!

A ray of sunshine

2008-08-21T21:32:00.006+01:00

Andrew and I are deep into the thesis writing. This means I was in the flat for two and a half days before I ventured outside. Very depressing. The weather has been awful this week, which has made my time spent indoors more bearable. When my veg box arrived it had a suprise vegetable, a pumpkin.

I know that a lot people in the UK don't eat pumpkins, just carve them for halloween. But I love them. When it arrived, I knew what we were going to have for dinner, pasta with roasted pumpkin. We first had this dish when we were staying at Andrew's parents house in Ireland. Thankfully, this is our last year of our PhDs and we will definitely be make a trip there next year.

Pumpkin, caramelised onion and feta pasta:

1 Onion, cut into thin wedges
Pumpkin, peeled and diced
Olives
Feta
Pasta
1 Lemon, zested and halved
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Dried chilli flakes

Put the diced pumpkin into a roasting dish. Coat with olive oil, salt, pepper and some dried chilli flakes. Place the lemon in a corner of the dish and cook at 200 degrees C for 30 mins until soft.

Meanwhile cook the onion in saucepan with some oil, on a low heat until caramelised (about 30 mins)

Stir the pasta and lemon zest into the onions. Then add the pumpkin, olives and feta. Squeeze in the lemon juice.

I am entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights which is hosted by Kitchenetta at Got No Milk. Make sure you have a look at this weeks roundup.

This week in the veg box we got:

Pumpkin
Courgettes
Beetroot
Kohl Rabi
Lettuce
Carrots
Onions
Potatoes

Mackerel and beetroot salad

2008-08-19T09:43:00.007+01:00

This is my first post for a while. We are finally settled into the flat, though I keep opening the wrong cupboard for things! We have also been very busy in the kitchen, all will be explained in future posts.

Yesterday I was in the familiar situation of sitting in front of my laptop working on my thesis. Bored of MS Word, I was trying to work out what to have for dinner. I wanted to use up the beetroot we had. Then I remembered we had some smoked mackerel and dinner was sorted. I roasted the beetroot in a foil parcel with balsamic vinegar and olive oil until soft (about an hour). I dressed some lettuce, alfalfa sprouts and cucumber with some olive oil. I pre-boiled some new potatoes and sauteed them. I made a horseradish and yogurt dressing (1 tsp of horseradish sauce, 3 tbsp of yogurt). It was a good salad. It made me feel summery, even if the weather outside was anything but summery!

This week in the box we got:

Beetroots
Lettuce
Courgettes
Broad beans
Turnips
Cabbage
Potatoes
Onions
Carrots

First pasta in the new flat

2008-08-07T21:30:00.004+01:00

Most of the boxes are emptied, kitchen arrangment is almost sorted out. Living in a top floor flat is always an advantage but moving the heavy boxes up 3 flights of stairs is hard work. We realised how much stuff we have accummulated. The new flat is great, the kitchen is much bigger than the old one. Two days without the internet was a little annoying and my google reader was bursting once it had been connected. The flat has loads of window sills, I am already pondering what to grow. The Veg Box delivery guy found us OK on Wednesday. This week we had:

Broad beans
Kohl Rabi
Courgette
Tomatoes
Cabbage
Lettuce
Onion
Carrots
Potatoes

When Andrew and I were undergrads we used to make a sausage pasta dish. Being poor students this was literally pasta, tomato sauce and some grilled sausages stirred in. I remember seeing on Jamie @ Home a posh version of this. I substituted the peas for broad beans and courgettes.

Prepare a tomato pasta sauce.

Boil the beans for a couple of mins. Remove their skins and put to the side.

Add some olive oil into a frying pan and heat. Split the skins of the sausages. Squeeze the meat out into small meatballs directly into the fying pan. Fry until golden brown then add some sliced courgette to the pan and cook until soft.

Add the broad beans to the frying pan with the pasta and sauce. Toss to coat and serve.

It was lovely and the little meatballs were great. This dish was quick to make too.

I am entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights. This week is hosted by Michelle at the Greedy Gourmet. Make sure you check out the round up.

Meme, 6 random facts about me

2008-08-02T22:02:00.005+01:00

I have been tagged by Fiona at The Cottage Smallholder to share 6 random things about myself.

Tag Rules:

Link to the person who tagged you. Post the rules on the blog. Write six random things about yourself. Tag six people at the end of your post. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

6 random facts about me:

I have unbelievable memory when it comes to song lyrics, even if I haven't heard the song for a while. When studying it can be very annoying that I can't remember a simple scientific fact but can remember the words for many many songs.
I can pretty much sleep anywhere and through anything.
TV influenced many of my early aspirations for possible careers. When I was watching Silent Witness I wanted to be a pathologist, Kavanagh QC made think that maybe I could be a barrister and wildlife programmes made me think that maybe I was destined to be David Attenborough's assistant.
Like Fiona, I have tiny feet. I wear size 3 shoes. These are inherited from my mum. It makes buying climbing shoes very hard work.
I am grateful to Serena Williams, now people can spell my name correctly.
Once we have moved today, I will have lived at 7 address in 8 years!

I am tagging:

A mountain of chutney

2008-08-02T21:35:00.004+01:00

An unspeakable thing happened a few weeks ago, we ran out of chutney. I made one and a half batches of our favourite spicy apple and walnut chutney. I thought that would be more than enough to see use through. Although I did give some way. Ever since we have had to buy jars from the deli. I recently made some rhubarb chutney but you have to wait 6-8 weeks for them to mature. When we were at the farmers market last week I noticed that the tomato stand had some green tomatoes for chutney making. Unfortunately I hadn't thought about before I left for the market so I didn't know how much I needed. So I went for 2 kilos! When got back I consulted with my WI preserve book and found out that I only needed 1.3 kilo for 6 lbs of chutney, oops!

The recipe was easy to follow, you salt the tomatoes, apples and onions and leave overnight. Unfortunately by the time we got round to making it on Thursday some of the tomatoes had started to redden!

My preserving pan is definitely being well used at the moment. As you can see from the photo this made A LOT of chutney. I think I might be able to give a few jars away too.

This chutney also needs to mature for 6-8 weeks. I really need to calculate the cost of making the chutney. I was shocked when I bought a jar of plum chutney for £3.50. I have no doubt that if we worked out how much it cost to make the equivalent amount of the green tomato chutney it would be much cheaper.

The box arrived on Wednesday. This week we got:

Courgettes
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions

Banana chocolate chip muffins

2008-08-01T08:14:00.004+01:00

When I saw the photo for this month's sweet and simple bakes I was so happy. I love muffins. But when I saw the what was in the muffins the excitement slowly disappeared. Why? Because, they contained bananas. I am reliably informed by my mum that I loved bananas when I was younger. I have a feeling that overdosed on them as a child and now I don't like them.

But since retrying and liking broad and runner beans. I thought I should give them a go. All this week I have been writing a scientific paper and last night was not going well. I needed a break. The muffins were a perfect break. Muffins never take too long to make.

The recipe was great as it used mashed bananas where you would usually use milk. The presence of chocolate chips reassured me that if I didn't like the banana taste at least it would be broken by the taste of the chocolate.

Andrew and I made the mixture within 5 mins. The recipe actually made more than 12 muffins it was supposed to. I actually made 18. Enough to give to work colleagues without Andrew and I missing out.

Yet again the recipe was easy to follow and these were super quick to make. I think these could be a regular. Probably changing the chocolate chips for dried fruit, like cranberries.

The taste of the bananas was fine. Maybe this is the first step in me regaining my taste for bananas? Who knows! Check out the roundup on Sweet and Simple Bakes.

Green veg cannelloni

2008-07-31T23:03:00.004+01:00

One of my favourite pasta dishes is spinach and ricotta cannelloni. On Monday we still had a lot of green vegetables leftover from our box. So I decided to substitute the spinach for the other veg we had. We used cannelloni tubes but these could easily be substituted with fresh lasagne sheets, which you could roll with the filling to make tubes.

Green veg cannelloni
(Serves 2 greedy people or four with some bread and salad)

Broad beans
1 Courgette, grated
Broccoli
Ricotta cheese, 250g
Pecorino cheese, 3 tbsps
Cannelloni tubes
Tomato pasta sauce (we made our own, but you could use shop bought)
Cheddar cheese

For the filling: boil the broccoli for 5 mins and beans for about 3 mins. Remove the beans from their skins. In a boil mash up the broccoli. To the broccoli add the beans, courgette, ricotta, pecorino cheese, salt and pepper.

Fill the tubes with the mixture.

Put a tablespoon or so of the tomato sauce on the base of a oven proof dish, they place the tubes in the dish. Cover the tubes with the rest of the sauce. Top with the cheddar cheese.

Bake at gas mark 6 for 20-30 mins, until cheese is golden and tubes are soft.

This dish made a great alternative to the spinach and ricotta classic and helped us use up the green veg left. The change also meant that we packed roughly 4 portions of veg into one meal (counting the tomatoes in the sauce, which do count by the way).

I am entering this into this week Presto Pasta Nights which this week is held by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast, make sure you check out the round up.

A new book and jam making

2008-07-30T09:45:00.005+01:00

Andrew and I both have book collections, Andrew's is full of climbing guides and mine is full cookery books. As you can see from the photo my cookery books fill more than 2 shelves. Whereas Andrew's books only take up one. My collection has had a recent addition: River Cottage Handbook no. 2 - Preserves. Its a really great book and goes beyond jams and chutneys, though of course it does cover these too. When we had our first glances through the book there were a lot of 'oh I want to make that' or 'that looks great'.

Examples of recipes that are on the hitlist are:

Cider apple butter
Spiced pickled pears
St Clement's squash
Souper mix ( which is a puree of veg to be used in the place of stock cubes)
Blackberry and apple leather

The recipes are easy to follow and there are a lot of suggestions for variations. Like all the River Cottage books its easy to read and very inspiring. I would definitely recommend this book.

After we got this book we really want to try it and decided to make a classic, strawberry jam. We went to Craigie's Farm for PYO. This also meant I got to use my jam pan which has not really been used. The recipe takes some of the strawberries and mashes them with some of the sugar, then you add the rest of the strawberries.

We can't wait to move to our new flat as the jam making in our small kitchen was really hot.

We managed to fill five jars with our first jam of the season. I have only ever made jam once before at school, which was quite a while ago. So this is a new first for our household.

Now we have tested one of the recipes from the book, we want to try some more. I have two other preserve books and although they won't be made redundant by the new arrival. I will definitely consult the River Cottage book first, before the others. I am sure it won't be long before we are driving back to Craigie's to pick some more fruit destined for jars.

God bless Nigel!

2008-07-27T22:01:00.005+01:00

We are not very religious people but we do worship somethings/people. For example we both worship Jonny Wilkinson, especially his right foot. I regularly give thanks for the existence of Le Creuset. Todays post is about someone that is also high revered, Nigel Slater. I love the way he writes about food. I am currently enjoying his Eating for England book. This Saturday we went to the Farmers Market and bought some lamb loin chops, with a recipe of Nigel's in mind. This recipe is from his Kitchen Diaries book. The orginial recipe contains aubergine but Nigel doesn't like people to follow his recipes to the letter. So we adapted it to the veg we had from our box.

1 onion, sliced thickly
4 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
6 tomatoes, halved
6 small potatoes, halved lengthwise
1 turnip, chopped into large chunks
1 courgette, chopped into large sticks
4 lamb double loin chops
Olive oil

Into a large roasting tin put the onion, turnip, garlic cloves , tomatoes and potatoes. Add about a tablespoon or so of olive oil, toss the veg so they are covered and season. If we had some thyme or rosemary I would have put this in too. Put this into a oven gas mark 6 for 30 mins.

After 30 mins, add the courgette and then top with the lamb chops. Turn the oven up gas mark 7 and cook for another 30 mins.

We love this recipe, its a roast dinner without all the washing up. Thank you Nigel!

Yoghurt making

2008-07-26T18:45:00.001+01:00

Andrew and I are really keen to try and be less reliant on the supermarkets as we can. So we have been doing little things. Ever since reading it on the beansprouts blog, we wanted make yoghurt. So we gave it a go. It was so easy. You can use a flask but we bought a yoghurt maker, for ease. It holds a litre beaker, which makes it much easier to clean. We bought a litre of milk to the boil and allowed it to cool down.

We then stirred in a few dessert spoons of yoghurt (this has to be live yoghurt) and poured it into the beaker.

We fill the yoghurt maker with lukewarm water. The beaker is then put into the yoghurt maker.

I told Andrew that it would take 8-10 hours, but he wanted to watch it work.

The first time I made it, I made Greek yoghurt. Which means you need to strain the yoghurt.

We have yoghurt with our lunches, so this is a lot cheaper than shop bought. It also removes one more thing off our shopping list. We normally make a fruit compote to have with the yoghurt. It is now part of our weekly rituals, as well as making bread and muesli. It's great to have the yoghurt in fridge ready for meals. We have started to use it as a substitute for creme fraiche in sauces.

Broccoli Pesto

2008-07-24T22:02:00.004+01:00

I went to Paperinos for dinner last night with some work collegues. I had a bowl of pasta but it was awful, greasy and not at all nice. So tonight I thought I would have a decent bowl of pasta. After the success of the cabbage pesto, I thought that I would try another green veg based pesto. So when broccoli was in our veg box this week I thought I would give it ago.

The first thing I noticed was it wasn't as dark green as the cabbage pesto, a much lighter green. The pesto was very light almost like mousse. The best thing about making pesto that it is so quick. I have a little handblender which has a small processor attachment, which is great for making pastes. I think next time I would like try using almonds instead of pinenuts. I always see so many different pestos, some using rocket, others using lime.

Broccoli pesto:
Boil the broccoli for 4 mins, drain and rinse with cool water to stop it cooking any further. Into my blender, I put the broccoli and a couple of handfuls of toasted pinenuts, 1 tbsp grated pecorino, zest of 1 lemon, lemon juice (to taste) and olive oil. I then blitzed until it was smoothish! This was stirred into cooked pasta, with some chopped tomatoes and olives. It was topped with a few toasted pinenuts and more pecorino.

I'm entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights which this week is being held by Katie @ Thyme for Cooking . Make sure you have a look at her blog on Friday when the roundup should be up!

This week in the box we got:

Broccoli
Cabbage
Broad beans
Courgettes
Lettuce
Turnips
Potatoes
Onions
Carrots

Like that but not that.

2008-07-18T11:37:00.006+01:00

A lot of the food I cook comes from reading recipes on the web and changing them in some way. Even more after we got the veg box, as we don't always have what the recipe states. It reminds me of a Mitchell and Webb sketch:

This is something that Andrew and I quote a lot. When we get the veg box, we get a newsletter which comes with recipe. This week's recipe was a courgette and broad bean pasta dish. So on Wednesday I decided to make this dish using gnocchi. We have a lot of potatoes, so gnocchi is a good way to use them up. For the sauce I fried onion and garlic until soft. I then added a sliced courgette again cooked it until soft. Some chopped tomatoes, olives and cooked broad beans. I then stirred in the gnocchi and put it an ovenproof dish. This was topped with mozzarella and pecorino and grilled until browned.

Today whilst I was looking for something to do with marrow. I came across a forum when someone said that they used marrow instead of aubergine in moussaka. So I started to look around for vegetarian moussaka recipes. What I made wasn't an authentic moussaka, nothing like it but it tasted great.

I fried an finely diced onion and crushed garlic in some olive oil. Once they were soft I added some chopped garlic and carrot. After 5 mins I added a tin of chopped tomatoes and a tinful of water, a pinch of sugar, dried crush chillies. A few handfuls of red lentils were added and this was simmered for 20 mins, until the lentils were cooked. I then added a tin of green lentils. I put a layer of sliced marrow (which were steamed for a couple of mins) in a greased ovenproof dish. Then I put a half of the lentil mixture, then another layer of the marrow, then lentil again. This was topped with sliced potato (which was also cooked). The potato was covered with a white sauce. This was finished with mozzarella and cheddar. Not at all authentic, but it tasted really great.

This week in the box we got:

Marrow
Courgette
Broad beans
Tomatoes
Red Kale
Cabbage
Celery
Potatoes
Onion
Carrots

Take one packet of mince . . .

2008-07-17T20:59:00.005+01:00

Whilst going through the freezer I noticed that we had a packet of pork mince. So I started to thinking about what I could do with it. I decided to try and make it last two dinners.

The first dish was little pork and apricot patties served with tumeric rice. All I did was fry half an onion and some garlic until soft. I left this cool for a bit and then added it to 250g of pork mince. I then chopped some dried apricots (about 6) added it to the pork. I then stirred and then shaped them into four little patties which were grilled. For the tumeric rice, I just added a small amount of tumeric to the water. This was served with some yoghurt which was flavoured with some lemon juice. Yum yum.

For the second night I decided to make some meatballs. These were flavoured with lemon zest and had some finely diced onion and chopped parsley added. Again I used 250 g of pork mince. These were baked in the oven for 25 mins at gas mark 6. In another roasting tin I added some paris brown and button mushrooms, sliced courgette and thinly sliced garlic. I added some olive oil and roasted them in the oven for 10-15 min. To make a sauce I put the roasting tin with the mushrooms in on the hob and added some marsala (about 3tbsp). I allowed this simmer for a minute before adding a couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt. The meatballs were added to this sauce. This was served with spaghetti which was dressed with some olive oil, lemon juice and parsley.

I am entering the pasta recipe into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights. Which this week is being hosted by Ruth @ Once Upon a Feast. Check out the round up which will be on her website on Friday.

A quick update

2008-07-15T21:14:00.007+01:00

In May, we started our little window garden. Unfortunately our theses have been slowly taking over our lives, so the plants have been a bit neglected. Our window box full of herbs have bitten the dust, as has our tigerella tomato plant (sorry Lynn!)

Our window box with the three tomato plants are doing OK. We did think that we had bought bush tomato plants, but they are not. They are huge! The other day as I was daydreaming whilst writing my thesis, I notice that we actually had some tomatoes on our plants!!! Very exciting. We are moving in a few weeks time, I am not sure how we are going to move them. It could be challenging.

The cut and come again salad box is doing really well too. Its right by the dining table so we just rip off a couple of leaves for dinner.

In the autumn I made some spicy apple and walnut chutney which is running out. So to keep us going I made some rhubarb and raisin chutney. I got the recipe from my Women's Institute preserves book.

And finally for this rapid roundup. In this weeks box:

Broccoli
Broad beans
Kohl rabi
Courgettes
Spinach
Cabbage
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes

I broke the rules . .

2008-07-09T21:42:00.004+01:00

I have a silly rule, I think it comes from my Mum. We never have the same carbohydrate for dinner twice in a row. But this week I broke the rules. Andrew is away working this week, so I have spent most of my time writing up. And cooking is just the excuse I need to leave my thesis for long periods of time, so I have been cooking quick and easy things to resist temptation. Which means for the last two days pasta! In my defence they were at least different shaped pasta.

On Monday, another person in the lab passed their viva. We had a nice spread of food and champagne to celebrate. There were loads of leftover olives, so we all took some home.

On Tuesday I made a tapenade (olives, capers and olive oil) and then stir this into pasta put it into an ovenproof dish. I then added some tomatoes, topped with grated pecorino and pine nuts. I cooked it on gas mark 6 for 20 mins, until the cheese had melted.

Today I had spaghetti. Again with olives, there were quite a lot. I still have some left. So whilst the pasta was cooking. I heated some olive oil in a frying added some sliced garlic, then add some chopped tomatoes, capers, olives, pinch of dried chilli flakes, couple of spoonfuls of the pasta cooking water and a splash of red wine vinegar. When the pasta is cooked and to the sauce. I topped this with grated pecorino and griddled courgettes.

I am entering this pasta dish into this week's Presto Pasta Nights roundup, which this week is hosted by Gay at A Scientist in the Kitchen. The roundup should be up on Friday.

If at first you don't suceed . . .

2008-07-08T16:53:00.004+01:00

When I was at the Farmers Market I saw some smoked mussels. Andrew loves smoked fish, so I bought them. I did have an idea of what I wanted to do with them. The idea was to a tomatoey rice/paella thing. Not exactly clear, I know. But I knew what I wanted to make.

The first time I tried this I used long grain rice and did it on the hob. It was OK, but not how I wanted it. So this time I took inspiration from Bill Granger's Baked Risotto. It turned out much better, just as I had imagined. The Smoked mussels were great too.

Baked paella risotto

olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
180 g risotto rice
chorizo, chopped
1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
375 ml vegetable stock
A couple of handfuls of frozen sweetcorn
1 courgette, sliced
Smoked mussels

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6

In a casserole dish cook the chorizo in some olive oil until it releases its fat and starts to colour. Add the onion until it softens but doesn't colour. Add the rice and stir for a minute.

Add the stock and tomatoes and bring up to the boil, stir in the sweetcorn and courgette. Cover and put in the oven for 20-30 mins until rice is cooked. Stir in the smoked mussels and serve. We had some creme fraiche on the top.

Eating our greens

2008-07-02T22:29:00.004+01:00

The veg box arrived this week bursting with greens, this week:

Courgettes
Broad beans
Broccoli
Spring cabbage
Kohl Rabi
Tomatoes
Onions
Potatoes
Carrots

I seem to cook pasta on the day of the box arrival. I am not sure why but again we had pasta today. Once I saw the courgettes, beans and broccoli. I wanted to make a creamy lemon pasta with these veg.

So I blanched the beans in boiling water for a few minutes, for the last minute I added the broccoli. I fried a sliced garlic clove on a medium heat for a few seconds before adding one sliced courgette. After a couple of mins I added the broccoli and cooked for a minute. I then added the beans, lemon zest and lemon juice. I added some of the pasta cooking water, creme fraiche and pecorino cheese. I then stirred in the pasta. This topped with a bit more pecorino and toasted pine nuts. The lemon worked really well with the green veg and the pine nuts added a nice crunch.

We are starting to get a lot of tomatoes in our box now. So I expect that next weeks pasta dish will have a tomato based sauce.

Again this will be entered into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights will be hosted by Ruth @ Once Upon A Feast. The round up will be posted on Ruth's blog on Thursday.

The Weekend

2008-07-02T22:24:00.000+01:00

On Saturday I went to the Farmers Market. I bought some salmon with a specific dish in mind. With the pak choi in the veg box, I wanted to make a Bill Granger recipe. The recipe was taken from Simply Bill, its glazed salmon. Its a simple dish which is served with brown rice and steamed pak choi.

When I went to the Farmers Market I also bought some lamb neck fillet. I had intended to use this to make kebabs, but the weather on Sunday was a bit grim. So I fancied something warming. Andrew had wanted to have Lancashire hotpot for a while. So I decided to use the neck fillet in a hotpot. I have never been to Lancashire, so I have never taste the authentic dish. I am not sure how this measures against it.

I thinly sliced a kohl rabi (leftover from the veg box) and potatoes and covered the bottom of the casserole dish with it.

I then lightly fried an onion in vegetable oil. Once soft I put this on top of the potatoes.

The meat was cut into medium chunks and coated in seasoned flour. This was fried in oil and bit of butter until brown and then put into the casserole dish, I also tucked in some large chunks of carrots. I added some (about 1 tbsp) Worcestershire sauce.

This was then covered with more thinly sliced potato. Vegetable stock was poured over, just enough to cover the top of the potatoes. This was then covered and put in the oven for 20 mins at gas mark 6, then turn down the oven to gas mark 1 and cook for 1 hour. The lid was then removed and the oven was turned up to gas mark 6 and it was cooked for a final 20 mins to brown the top.

We had this with some pickled cabbage. This was bought from a deli and we both really liked this, So I will definitely make some.

This was delicious and I expect that we will make many more this winter.

Sweet Nothings

2008-07-02T20:27:00.000+01:00

When we went down to Andrew's parents I acquired a new recipe, for teabread. I have been told by Andrew that this is a Broadway speciality. Apparently if I am ever to get Broadway behind my name I have to learn to make this and also pavlova, another Broadway speciality. So one down, one to go.

Teabread

6 oz Currants
6 oz Sultanas
8 oz Dark brown Sugar
1/2 pint Hot black tea
10 oz Self raising flour
1 beaten egg

Put the sugar, currants and sultanas in a bowl, pour on the hot tea, stir well. Cover and leave overnight.

Grease and line a loaf tin. Heat oven to gas mark 2.

Stir in the flour and egg into the fruit and sugar mixture.

Mix thoroughly, put in the tin and bake for an hour and 45 mins.

Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Last week, I also made a carrot cake for a lab meeting. My supervisor had been given some very special chocolates from a swanky meeting he went to in London. He took them to the meeting but nobody touched them but my carrot cake went down a storm. I will definitely be making it again. I used a recipe from BBC Good Food. If you make it be warned that the recipe seemed to make too much icing, I would half it.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-07-01T08:00:00.001+01:00

My mouth started drooling as soon as I saw this month's recipe for Sweet and Simple Bakes. Andrew has a bit of an issue at the moment. He is getting more and more patriotic. He has now taken to calling pain au chocolate, chocolate bread. As he doesn't see why we should have to use the French words for things that can be translated into English. I think his PhD has effected his brain too. So when I told him that this months challenge was cookies, he pulled a face and said that we should call them biscuits!!! You would think that there were bigger issues in the world, but I think this is important to him! I do agree that we seem to put some cuisines on a peddlestool, especially French cuisine. As good as it is, we do have food to be proud of in Britain. Anyway I digress back to the cookies, oops I mean biscuits.

I owed my friend after she read 2 of my chapters, in fact I owed her big time. So I thought I could pay her back with the cookies.

After saying that I don't like white chocolate I decided to add dark and white chocolate. So I suppose these were triple chocolate, instead of double. I used chopped chocolate rather than chocolate chips.

I made them quite big. They were lovely and chewy. They seemed to go down well. I think that I have paid off my debt.

I asked Andrew to let me take a photo so I could show someone enjoying these lovely cookies but he couldn't stop laughing. You can't get the models these days . . .

Check out the round up which will be posted on the sweet and simple bakes website and the recipe can be found here

Pak Choi

2008-06-28T19:35:00.004+01:00

My best and worst day of the week is Wednesday. Its a low because I will spend all day working on my evil thesis but equally I get my vegetable box. This Wednesday I spent a lot of the day on Excel, which is very tedious. But then my ray of light arrived. This week in the box we got:

Cabbage
Pak Choi
Courgettes
Kohl rabi
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Carrots
Onions
Potatoes

As soon as I saw the pak choi I wanted to make a stir-fry. The pak choi was huge, I have only ever seen the smaller ones before. So I got a veal steak to put on the top of a noodle based stir-fry. I know it seems extravagant to use a veal steak but we had some in the freezer from the Farmers Market. I remember that we had it because the day before the people who we buy the veal from appeared on the F Word.

Ingredients:

1 Onion, chopped
2 Garlic cloves, sliced
1 Red chilli, finely chopped
Mushrooms, sliced
Pak choi, roughly chopped
Courgette, halved and sliced
Fine rice noodles
1 Veal steak
2 Tbsp Oyster sauce
1 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 Tbsp Fish sauce

Cook the noodles as instructed on pack. Griddle steak as you like and leave to rest whilst you cook the stir-fry.

Fry the onion for a couple of minutes and then add the chilli and garlic for about half a minute. Then add the mushrooms and courgette and fry for a minute or two before adding the pak choi, oyster sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce, cook for 2 mins. Stir in the noodles, serve with steak on top.

Cabbage Pesto

2008-06-26T22:28:00.005+01:00

I have been wanting to make pesto for ages, but with amount of Basil needed for a traditional pesto made it quite pricey. The last time we were visiting Andrew's folks we were given 3 basil seedlings. As you can see for the photo they are doing well but not well enough to make pesto from.

I have seen loads of recipes for pesto made with rocket, spinach and watercress. So with spring cabbage in our box this week I decided to give a cabbage pesto a go.

I suppose pesto is a bit like Thai Green Curry paste everyone has there own recipe with different ratios of ingredients. SoI gave it a go. I used 2 tbsp of pecorino cheese, a handful of pine kernels, 1 garlic cloves, lemon zest, juice of half a lemon, cabbage leaves which had been cooked for 4 mins in boiling water and olive oil to loosen.

Andrew had gone climbing so I prepared everything beforehand. Its the scientist in me!

So when Andrew came back, I fried a courgette. I then added the tomatoes until they had soften slightly. The pesto was added, as was a pinch of chilli flakes. Finally cooked penne and a handful of black olives was added.

I didn't tell Andrew what the pesto was made with and he thought that it was made from parsley, so the cabbage taste obviously wasn't over-powering. I did put a lot of cheese in it though.

For the third week in row I will be entering this into this weeks Presto Pasta Night which this week is hosted by Hillary of Chew On That. Have a look at the round, which should on Hillary's site on Friday.

Ketchup

2008-06-24T22:55:00.006+01:00

When I went to the Farmer's Market, the weekend before last, I bought 2 kilos of soup tomatoes to make tomato ketchup with. They had been sat in our kitchen for a week before I had to chance to make the ketchup.

I decided to use Jamie Oliver's recipe from Jamie at Home. The first stage is to cook the aromatics in olive oil, these included fennel, red onions, coriander seeds, 1 red chilli, 4 cloves and ginger.

I then added the 2 kilos of tomatoes, which I had chopped, to the pan.

I also added some water. This was brought to the boil and left to simmer until it had reduced by half.

I then pureed this with my stick blender and passed it through a sieve twice. Red wine vinegar and sugar was added and it was then reduced it until it looked like ketchup. This was then poured into sterilised jars.

We will let it mellow for a while and then we will be eating our own ketchup. Andrew wants to try and make Hugh's ketchup. So he might be making some rival ketchup. Watch this space . . .

Broad Beans

2008-06-19T19:42:00.005+01:00

After the runner beans in last weeks box, this week we had broad beans. I wanted to put them with some pasta, so I started hunting around my book collection. I came across a recipe for broad bean and ricotta pasta in Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. I only made a couple of changes.

I podded the beans and boiled them until they were cooked about 8 mins. I then skinned the beans. I then gently fried some sliced garlic cloves, without browning, in some olive oil. After a minute, I added the beans and a handful of spinach. Then I added 25o g of ricotta and the juice of a lemon. The cooked pasta was added to this mixture.

Then pasta was dished with a drizzle of olive oil and some grated pecorino.

I am entering this into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights, which this week is hosted by Ruth @ Once Up A Feast. Make sure you have a look at the round up.

With the decent weather we have been having the veg box is getting a bit more exciting:

Purple Kohl Rabi
Spring Cabbage
Spinach
Broad Beans
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes

Meme

2008-06-17T20:49:00.004+01:00

Jules from Domestic Goddess in Training has tagged me for a meme, here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs.

So here are my facts:

After my GCSE's I did a year of catering college before I decided that I wanted to do something a bit more academic and went off to do A-levels.
I would love to own a smallholding.
When I am not working, climbing or cooking , I love to go the cinema. Picking a favourite film is very hard for me, so I'll leave that for another meme.
I have appeared on BBC News 24 and some national papers talking about my PhD work.
By the time I finish my PhD I will have spent 22 years in education, you would have thought that I learnt something by now!

I tag

Thanks to Jules for thinking of me.

Homemade Ricotta

2008-06-15T21:17:00.005+01:00

I am willing to give anything a go and when I was reading the River Cottage Year book, I saw a recipe for ricotta style cheese. When I was in my local branch of Peckhams I noticed that they sold rennet. So I decided to give it a go.

All you do is bring 2 litres of milk to body temperature, stir in a pinch of salt and 4 teaspoons of rennet. Leave for 15 mins.

The milk will then have separate into curds and whey. I then spooned the curds into a cloth bag which is meant for jelly making (muslin will do) and hang for 2 hrs.

It didn't really take much effort to make at all. I used it in a spinach and ricotta cannelloni, which we had on Friday night.

The rest we had this evening with gnocchi in a tomato sauce. It was really good fun to make and easy. I would love to be able to extend to making other cheese but our limited time and space becomes an issue. I am sure that one day we will be making all our own cheeses.

Pancetta and Bean Pasta

2008-06-12T21:34:00.002+01:00

As a kid I never like any kinds of beans. Luckily things have changed and I have really started to enjoy them. I still don't like Heinz baked beans, but I don't think think thats the beans fault. With some runner beans and pancetta in the fridge, I decided to use them in pasta.

Whilst the fusilli was cooking. I fried two sliced garlic cloves and runner beans in olive oil for a couple of minutes. I then seasoned this and added a splash of vermouth and some of the water from the pasta pan. I then added a couple of spoonfuls of creme fraiche and grated in some pecorino cheese. Meanwhile in a dry frying pan, I cooked the pancetta until golden and crispy. I then drained and stirred the pasta into the sauce. I served this with some more grated pecorino and topped with the pancetta. I am sorry there aren't any exact amounts but I am not sure how much I used. If you were using chunks of pancetta rather than slices, I would have fry them in the same pan as the garlic and beans but before they were added.

I am entering this into this weeks roundup of Presto Pasta Nights. This week its hosted by Kevin at Closet Cooking. I love his recipes and can relate as our kitchen is also small. Which can make things challenging! Have a look on his blog for the round up for this week.

The First Beans

2008-06-12T21:06:00.003+01:00

We got some runner beans in the veg box this week. I instantly thought of a Jamie recipe with cod. So we had this on Wednesday for dinner. The runner beans were finely sliced and blanched for a couple of minutes. They were then placed on a tray tossed in olive oil and season. I then placed two cod fillets on top with pine nuts, a lemon sliced in half and 4 slices of pancetta. It was then covered with tin foil and put in an oven at gas mark 7. The foil was taken off after 5 mins and cooked for a further 10 mins. Delicious.

This week in the veg box we got:

Runner Beans
Lettuce
Spinach
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Beetroot
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions

If you can't beat them, join them!

2008-06-09T22:18:00.004+01:00

After reading the weekly curry posts from Jules and this post from stonehead at the weekend. We decided to have Rogan Josh for dinner on Sunday. I really love curry and the fact it is so loved in Britain. Whenever we have a new person in the lab I'm always directing them to my favourite Indian restaurant as well as my favourite Scottish restaurants. As you can see from the photo this was washed down with a pint of Black Sheep. Some people seem to have the perception that curry is a difficult thing to make but its dead easy!

Rogan Josh (Serves 4-6)

1 Kg beef or lamb, we use stewing beef
2 onions (chopped)
125g plain yogurt
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tbsp ground coriander
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp ground cardamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp tumeric
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp grated ginger
400g can of chopped tomatoes
1 tsp garam marsala
Almonds
Fresh coriander

Fry onions in some vegetable oil until soft.
Stir in yoghurt, garlic, ginger and spices.
Add tomatoes, season and simmer for a few minutes.
Add meat.
Cover and cook for 1-1 and a 1/2 hr.
Take the lid off and reduce sauce.
Toast almonds.
When the sauce is thick enough, add the garam marsala and coriander.
Serve and top with almonds.

Bravo tatties

2008-06-06T23:27:00.005+01:00

I have only been to Spain once, a quick trip to Barcelona. When I was there I had some wonderful food including octopus. The one thing I didn't have is patatas bravas. So I am not sure what the authenic article tastes like but this is my version.

I fried some chorizo which I got from the farmers market (puddledub). After it was brown I added some potatoes and sliced onions. Once these were browned, I added a chopped green chilli and some paprika as the chorizo didn't seem to have as much as Spanish versions. I then added a can of tomatoes and also a can of water and simmered until the potatoes were cooked and the sauce was thickened.

We ate this with a green salad. I know that in Spain that this would be a tapas but it made a great meal.

Actually quite nice!

2008-06-06T21:17:00.004+01:00

I remember the first time I had gnocchi, it was in Carluccio's Caffe at Bluewater Shopping Centre. I know that not everyone likes gnocchi. But I love it, light and fluffy potato dumplings. They are so simple to make too.

Potato Gnocchi (Serves 2)

400g potatoes
100g flour
1 egg yolk

Boil the potatoes for 8-10 mins until soft. Drain and put them back in the pan on the heat to drive off as much water as possible. Mash the potatoes, then add the egg yolk and flour. Mix, until it comes together. Then knead on a well floured surface. Take a handful of the mix and roll into a sausage. Then cut into 2 inch pieces and place on a well floured tray. Repeat with the rest. Press a fork into the gnocchi. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Cook the gnocchi in batches, they are ready when the float to the surface. Drain onto kitchen roll.

This week in the box we got some spring greens. I thought about making a pesto with it but I chose to do this instead.

I chopped an onion and lightly fried it in olive oil. I then added the spring greens which were finely sliced, after a couple of minutes I added some vermouth and let it reduce a little. At this point I would have added some creme fraiche but I didn't have any, so I substitute it with some yoghurt. Then stirred in some pecorino.

I put the gnocchi in an ovenproof dish and put the spring green mixture over the top and finally some mozzarella. This was then grilled until golden.

Andrew was a bit worried cause there wasn't a sauce as such but apparently it was actually quite nice!

In the box this week:

Spring greens
Lettuce
Rocket
Celery
Tomatoes
Carrots
Onions
Potatoes
Rhubarb

Refuelling

2008-06-04T22:52:00.003+01:00

One of the great things about doing a Munro apart from being outside, is the feeling that you have earned a good meal. The best thing to have after a walk is a steak pie and a pint. I didn't have time to do that by the time we got home. So we settled for pizza and a beer.

This was followed by rhubarb crumble and custard.

In a ovenproof dish, I mixed rhubarb and caster sugar together, 100g of sugar to 450g of fruit. Then to make the topping rub 75g of butter into 175g of flour when it looks like breadcrumbs add 50g of sugar and put on top the fruit and bake for 45-60 mins at gas mark 4. Perfect after a day in the hills

Escape to the Country

2008-06-02T22:57:00.004+01:00

When we first arrived in Scotland we did quite a bit of hillwalking. We started to tick off some Munros (these are mountains over 3,000 ft in Scotland and there 284 of them!). When Andrew came back to Scotland from Nottingham, he was really into climbing and that started to take up some of our weekends and others were taken up with PhDs.

This weekend the weather was supposed to be good so we thought we would take this opportunity to do a bit climbing and camping. So we headed to Glen Lednock. One of the best things about living in Scotland is that we can be in the highlands after driving only an hour and half from Glasgow. If you tried to do that from London, I expect you would have barely left the city!

Glen Lednock seemed like the perfect spot as there was a Munro and also some rock climbing there.

So we got there on Saturday afternoon and Andrew climbed whilst I found a sunny spot. I am sure that Andrew will blog about it soon on our climbing blog.

In the evening we had a BBQ and set up the tent, we didn't have time to prepare anything ourselves. If we do it again I am sure that we will. I did cook some bananas on the BBQ. I split them down the middle and filled it with some dark chocolate. I then wrapped them with tin foil and put them on th BBQ. We had a lovely spot with great views. There was also a pleasant breeze which kept the highland midge away.

On Sunday, we got up early and had breakfast and most importantly a cup of tea . . .

We then headed towards Ben Chonzie, its quite a small Munro at 913m, but we hadn't done one in quite a while so we needed it to be an easy one. It was still sunny and warm. As you can see from the picture below it was so hot that we were wearing shorts!

When we got back the car, we tucked into the cranberry and white chocolate flapjacks and headed home.

Not much cooking I'm afraid, but it felt so good to get out of city. When the weather is that good, you do wonder why you would think about going anywhere else.

Cranberry and White Chocolate Flapjacks

2008-06-01T09:00:00.000+01:00

On Thursday night I made cranberry and white chocolate flapjacks as part of the Sweet and Simple Bakes Event.

I attempted to make some flapjacks a couple of weeks ago but I tried to mix to recipes together and also cooked it a little too long. It resembled granola rather than flapjacks.

I have to say that these flapjacks were dead easy to make. Even if I did end up going to bed a bit later, as I waited for them to cool enough to put the white chocolate on top. Why do I always do these things at the last minute? I used Green and Black's white chocolate. I was a bit upset when they were taken over by Cadbury's but they are still a readily available organic chocolate. I am not a great fan of white chocolate. I much prefer the more bitter 70% chocolate. I find white chocolate a bit too sweet for my palate. I have to say that I am much more of a starter person than a dessert person.

I took the flapjacks into work for a tasting and I have to say they went down very well. Andrew looked a bit upset when I started to pack them up to take to work.

I look forward to next month's recipe and I am sure so are my work colleagues.

Asparagus risotto

2008-05-30T23:17:00.008+01:00

After picking our own asparagus last weekend and watching the first episode of River Cottage Spring. I now had a taste for it. So for dinner tonight we had Nigel Slater's asparagus and lemon risotto from The Kitchen Diaries book. Its very simple just add asparagus (which have been prepared and chopped into bite sized pieces) after adding the first couple of ladles of stock. When the rice is cooked, stir in some parmesan and the juice and rind of a lemon.

As the asparagus season is so short you really need to make the most of it. I am sure that I will post more asparagus recipes before the season is over.

Dhal Wars

2008-05-30T22:29:00.004+01:00

This week in Veg Box we got:

Lettuce
Tomatoes
Celery
Spring greens
Spinach
Rhubarb
Carrots
Onion
Potatoes

Andrew suggested that we had lentil dhal. I prefer to make mine with red lentils whereas Andrew prefers to use brown lentils. So here is my recipe, I am sure that Andrew will put his recipe on later.

200 g red lentils
1 onion, finely sliced
1 red chilli, finely sliced
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, sliced
1/2 tsp tumeric
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 handful of spinach
1 lemon

Put lentils, onion, red chilli, ginger, spices and tomatoes into a saucepan. Top with water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 mins or until lentils are soft. Then add the spinach and lemon juice, stir. Make sure the spinach has wilted and serve.

Andrew prefers the brown lentils as they keep their shape better. My dhal has a much softer texture.

We had it topped with yoghurt, served with rice and Andrew's flatbread.

A New Experience

2008-05-30T19:55:00.006+01:00

Last weekend we went to back to see Andrew's family in Oxfordshire. Going to Andrew's is always great, I always come home with a new recipe from Andrew's mum (Lynn). Who is the only person I know with more cookery books than me. On Saturday we went asparagus picking. This was a new experience for Andrew and I.

We picked just enough for Sunday lunch, which was roast lamb. The asparagus was griddled, it was lovely. This was my first asparagus of the season. Which is very unlike me. Usually as soon as British asparagus is in the greengrocers, its in my basket and shortly afterwards on my plate.

We left with lots of goodies, a tigerella tomato plant, some basil, blackberry jelly and some of Andrew's dad's (Adrian) blackberry vodka. Another flavoured vodka to add to the collection. We are looking forward to the soft fruit season, so we can make even more.

Here's Amy (Andrew's sister), Lynn (Andrew's mum) and I enjoying our time in the asparagus fields.

Once again, we had a great time in Thame and it went too quickly!

Yet more brain food!!!

2008-05-22T20:49:00.004+01:00

OK, I may now be taking the fish is good for your brain too far. But we had hot smoked salmon pasta from Waitrose.com.

Hopefully my efforts to eat more fish will be seen in more words being added to my thesis files!!! The things you do to finish a PhD!

Happy Birthday Em!

2008-05-22T17:40:00.004+01:00

Today is my sister's birthday. For part of her birthday present I made her some skittle vodka. I remembered her telling me about it ages ago and wanted to make some for her birthday. It was so easy, I added 4 packets of skittles (minus the green ones, they make it go a funny colour) to 500 ml of vodka.

The skittles dissolve in the vodka in a couple of days. Then all you do is filter it. I'll let you know what she thinks.

Whilst researching how to go about making this vodka I came across this website by some students at Warwick Uni, who clearly have too much time on their hands!

Brain food pt 2 . . .

2008-05-22T17:03:00.005+01:00

The thesis is slowing turning my brain to mush. So I am stepping up my campaign to save my brain. I have been having tinned tuna as part of my lunch this week. On Monday we had kedgeree. When I first knew Andrew, he told me that he didn't like fish. Well, he does now. He loves smoked fish the best, I use smoked haddock in my kedgree. I always put something green in my kedgree depending on what we have it can be kale, spinach or peas.

First of all you need to poach the haddock in water and milk, 300ml of each. Put the fish into a pan with the liquid bring to a simmer and then turn off and leave to cool. When the fish is cool enough to touch, flake it and put it aside. I then cooked an onion (sliced) in a pan with some oil until soft, then add the rice (175 g) for a couple mins. Then add 2 tsp of curry powder. Some peas were then added and 400 ml of the poaching liquid and cover. Let this cook on a low heat for 10-15 mins until the rice is cooked. I served the rice with the haddock on top, with a soft boiled egg and lemon.

The battle to save my brain against the evil thesis continues . . .

This week in the veg box (just a small one this week) we got:

Little gem lettuce
White cabbage
Rhubarb
Spinach
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions

A new delicacy for the BBQ.

2008-05-22T16:40:00.004+01:00

On Sunday we went to our friends Emilie and Tom for our first barbecue of the year. I had made some burgers (Jamie's botham burgers), potato and pasta salad and also a chocolate tart. Emilie had made some chicken kebabs, Angelique made a lovely bean salad and brought some sweetcorn.

The men of course congregated around the BBQ, why do they do that? However, Emilie, Angelique and I had made most of the food, so I supposed they should have contributed some how.

Here is Tom cooking the sweetcorn.

We were stuffed having munched our way through burgers, sausages, kebabs, sweetcorn, salads. However, when Patrick and Stephanie arrived we managed to make room for something special. Patrick had bought two Camemberts. We were all intrigued. So here is what he did, he placed the Camembert in the coals and left it for 10-15 mins. We then spooned the oozy cheese onto bread. I have had baked camembert and it was pretty much the same. Yum yum. The next time you have a BBQ, try it.

Here I am getting ready to dig in. Angelique is trying to hide behind the tree, unsuccessfully.

I love cheese and will always make room for it, even if I feel uncomfortable at the end of it. We had a great day and even the Glasgow weather played along.

By the skin of my teeth . . .

2008-05-21T14:22:00.006+01:00

I have been meaning to do my submission of Pixie's Putting Up event for ages but the thesis keeps getting in the way! So anyway here it is, onion and chilli marmalade. A while ago I made Jamie's pepper and chilli chutney from Jamie at Home which was wonderful. So I decided to make an onion marmalade with a bit a kick.

(Based on a Rachel Allen recipe)

Ingredients:

25 g butter
675 g onions
150 g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
100 ml balsamic vinegar
250 ml red wine
6 red chillis

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add onions, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir, then cover and cook for 30 mins over a gentle heat stirring from time to time to prevent it sticking.

Char the chillies ( I do this on my gas hob). Then put them in a bowl and cover them with clingfilm. Scrap off most of the charred skin. Remove the seeds and slice the chillies.

Remove lid, add vinegar, wine and chillies and cook uncovered for 30 mins. Stirring every now and then. Pour into sterilised jars and cover while hot.

I used the marmalade for a fancy cheese on toast for lunch after a frustrating morning of thesis writing.

I just spread the onion marmalade on the toast and then covered with cheese and grilled. Yum yum.

I would say that there was probably just a tad too much chilli for me. Next time I will put just four in. My mum would love it. Maybe she might get the other jar. I am sure that she will thank Pixie for that. For my birthday, in March, I got a lovely chutney pan and I look forward to using it for the next event.

A Tale of Two Restaurants

2008-05-19T21:30:00.004+01:00

I love eating out. Trying new things and food that is beautifully cooked.

Last Tuesday was Andrew's birthday, so we went out for a meal. We went to The Sisters Restaurant at Kelvingrove. We had a lovely meal. I had scallops to start, chicken for main and melting chocolate pot for dessert. The Scallops were a bit of a treat and the chicken was moist whilst the skin was crispy, yum yum. I have a bit of a soft spot for this restaurant and always recommend it to people who enquire for a good restaurant. Of course, our meal was quite pricey. Hoever, we could have had the pre-theatre menu but chose not to.

On Friday we went out with some friends from work. During the day I was trying to work out where we should go. We don't go to the city centre very often, so our knowledge is quite limited. So we asked around, but no-one could help us. So I consulted a few web resources, the first being the list. I looked on their hit-list and saw a restaurant that looked good, Ad Lib. The selling point was their gourmet burgers. We thought that would be great for an after the pub meal. I thought I should make sure so went on 5pm and it seemed to have some good reviews. So I booked a table. When we arrived at the restaurant we were greeted with the news that one of the chefs had walked out, so there would be a bit of a wait. Fair enough. However, when I booked the table they took down my mobile number and could have called me to let me know. So I pointed this out and asked if we could have some snacks to keep us going. They gave us some nachos, good customer service.

Then the food arrived. . . .

They were not Gourmet burgers. First of all they were tiny. I wouldn't have been bothered but they were much smaller than the buns. Hmmm, not good. The chips tasted of cardboard. Salad was probably from a packet and so was probably everything else. It just was disappointing. I hate that feeling, it could have been so good. I didn't want a Michelin star dinner, just a decent burger. Which isn't that hard, surely?

You don't have to pay a fortune to have good food, we have been to several good restaurants where the food is good and affordable. For example Henderson's and Wannaburger in Edinburgh, Mother India and Ichiban in Glasgow. With pre-theatre meals places like Two Fat Ladies and The Sisters are made more affordable.

Overall it just made me sad that meal was bad, especially as the night had been so good. And although I did consult with the my friends before making the decision, I feel partly responsible. So next time, I will try and find a word of mouth recommendation. Which I usually do. If not we will be heading to The Sisters again. Which means I will be eating out less.

OK, rant over. For now away . . . . .

Frittata for the climbers

2008-05-17T21:11:00.004+01:00

It's amazing how bored I get in front of laptop these days. This week I have doing data analysis, which is as boring as it sounds. On Wednesday I wanted something different for lunch so I made some different salads. I made Jamie's pasta salad, potato salad and a carrot salad. I had it with some tinned tuna and some bread. Of course making the salads did allow to spend sometime away from the laptop, which was a happy coincidence.

The Veg Box arrived this week:

Baby Cauliflowers
Spinach
Leeks
Lettuce
Parsely
Rhubarb
Carrots
Onions
Potatoes

The presence of spinach was a happy one, as I was going to Dumberton with Andrew and Stuart. I remembered a recent post from cottage smallholder for frittata. I thought it would be good crag food. We had a great evening in the sun and they actually managed to climb something too. The frittata was great way to finish the evening. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the frittata but this one of the boys enjoying the frittata will have to do.

Are our fingers looking green to you?

2008-05-15T22:17:00.005+01:00

On Sunday we started are first adventures in growing something for our plate. Its no secret that my google reader is full of cooking blogs. But its also full of people who grow their own produce, from Stonehead with his fields of wonderful produce to people like My Tiny Plot and Fresh as a Daisy who make the most of their smaller plots. The idea is that I read these blogs and learn lots of tips for the day we get our own little plot. I know what people are going to say we should get an allotment but we will be getting our PhD's soon, hopefully. And we don't know where we will be next.

So on Sunday we planted some tomatoes plants and herbs in some window boxes.

We also did a window box with some cut and come again salad leaves, including rocket. Have to say it brightens up the flat.

I have to say I was quite (I think Andrew will say that was a bit of an understatement) excited when I saw that the salad seeds had started to germinate. This could addictive, however we only have a finite number of window sills!!!!! This could be a limiting factor.

Thanks to Stonehead and Thumper

2008-05-11T22:37:00.001+01:00

Well this weekend has to go down in history - Serena relinquished her vice like grip on the kitchen and I cooked dinner on both Saturday and Sunday night! After an afternoon rock climbing at the local crag at Dumbarton we returned home and I made Jamie Olivers sweet cherry tomato and sausage bake. I've made this several times now and it lovely, just the sort of cooking that I enjoy - one pot simple cooking with loads of favour. We got the both red and yellow tomatoes from the Partick farmers market as well as a large circular veal sausage. This was British veal produced in a very ethical way.
Just as we were leaving the farmers market we stopped to look at a venison stall. To our joy we found that the bloke was also selling rabbit. We have been looking for a source rabbit for ages. We both first tried rabbit in a recent trip to France and loved it, but haven't seen it on sale anywhere over here. So we headed home with a portioned up rabbit trying to think what to do with it? Serena, being the blog reading fiend that she is remember that there was a recipe on Musing of a Stonehead. So after a day pottering around (I'm sure Serena will post about this later) I made an unprecedented second night return to the kitchen.
Both of us were constantly drooling over the pan the rabbit was cooking. It smelt and looked fantastic.
Thinking the bunny might have been a bit long in the tooth as the meat was difficult to get off the bone, but then I guess that's a risk to take with wild game. Still the taste was great. I think rabbit will be hopping into our bag again. Thankyou Mr Stonehead.

Pasta, rice or potatoes . . .

2008-05-11T21:55:00.004+01:00

This is the usual thoughts that go through my mind when thinking about dinner. However, I had been browsing through one of my favourite vegetarian books, The Cranks Bible. There was a recipe that jumped out at me which was puy lentils with roasted veg. I always forget lentils! There are two versions of this recipe, a winter and summer one. On Wednesday, I made the winter one with swede, carrots and beetroot. The Puy lentils are cooked with lemon, onion and herbs, with spinach stirred in at the end to just wilt it. It was a great recipe. Easy and perfect for a summer day.

For dessert we had some rhubarb compote with yoghurt, yum.

I also made a potato and spinach frittata for lunch the next day which was also great.

The Veg Box arrived and this week we got:

Spinach
Spring cabbage
Beetroot
Cauliflower
Purple sprouting broccoli
Rhubarb
Carrots
Potatoes
Onions

Summer finally arrives

2008-05-07T21:30:00.004+01:00

On Bank Holiday Monday we got out of the city and went and spend some time outside. So we went for a walk up Ben A'an. It was so hot and there were some great views on the top. Before we left I got some bacon out of the freezer in preparation for purple sprouting broccoli pasta. However, on the way back we passed Gartartan Farm Shop. So we went and bought some beef, more specifically steak.

I only had one recipe in mind. It was Jamie's again, seared carpaccio of beef with roasted beets, creamed horseradish, watercress and Parmesan. It meant that I could use some of beetroots from the veg box.

This salad is great and means I can use my Le Creuset griddle pan, which makes me happy. We had it with ciabatta that I made the other day. It may not have been what was planned but it was wonderful.

Even more bread!

2008-05-07T18:24:00.003+01:00

On Saturday night I made yet another ferment for bread. This time I was making some for when we have cheese. So I decided to make pain de campagne, as it was described in my bread book as sourdough's little brother.

Sunday afternoon was spent making the actual bread after making the dough, I left it to rise for an hour and a half. I then reshaped it and left it for another hour. It was then divided into 4 to make Serena and Andrew sized breads.

Before they were baked, I cut round the top. I really like making bread but I need to stop as the freezer is getting full. Maybe I should change a profession and become a baker.

Thanks to Jamie and Hugh

2008-05-06T18:57:00.003+01:00

I have to say that I love Jamie Oliver, I have most of his books. There is actually one missing from my collection which I am sure with be remedied at some point. When we went to the Farmer's Market I bought some lamb neck fillet, which was only destined for one recipe: Jamie's grilled lamb kofta kebabs from Jamie at Home. I have made this quite a few times now and its lovely. So thats what was for dinner on Sunday.

There was a difference this time as I also made my own tortilla breads for the kebabs. I used a recipe from Hugh's River Cottage Year. He says its basically a pizza base recipe. I left it to rise for an hour before dividing the dough into 8. I then rolled them into what should have been round flatbreads but they were a bit mis-shapen or rustic. All you do is cook them in a dry frying pan for 2-3 mins the first side, popping any air bubbles and for 1 min the other side.

The kebabs are served with salad, onion which has been seasoned and slighty "pickled" in lemon juice. It was served with homemade chips and washed down with a nice red. Thank you Hugh and Jamie.

A nice healthy lunch!

2008-05-06T18:38:00.005+01:00

On Saturday I went to the lab to do some work in the morning. For lunch we had Nigella's Hot Mushroom Sandwich, which is actually found in Nigel Slater's Real Food. When we first discovered this recipe we ate it quite a lot. Which is probably not a good thing as it isn't the healthiest meal, oh well. I remember when I worked for Sainsbury's during my summer break from University and some of the friendlier customers used to ask me what I was studying. So I told them that I was doing a degree in nutrition and they would reply "well don't look to closely at whats in our trolley". Little did they know that as nutrition student I knew what was healthy and what wasn't but that didn't mean that I always ate the good stuff. Everything in moderation if you ask me.

Anyway, all you do for the sandwich is make a garlic and parsley butter, put it on top of the mushrooms and cook in an oven until they are soft. We then put a generous coating of Dijon mustard on the bottom of a soft roll, then put the mushroom on top, squeeze on some lemon. Finally you mop up the buttery mushroom juices with the top of the roll. Delicious.

For dinner Andrew cooked Hugh-FW's leek rarebit, which was very yummy as well.

Ciabatta

2008-05-01T17:50:00.003+01:00

It's always nice to have some bread with a meal. So as well as my soda bread rolls I also make ciabatta. I have used this recipe a couple of times. On Tuesday I made the ferment, a mix of flour, yeast and water that would need to be left covered for 17-24 hours.

Wednesday night I finished making my ciabattas. Next I had to make the dough which consists of flour, yeast, salt, olive oil, water and the ferment.

This is dough after it has proved for 1 and a half hours:

Then after it has proved I shaped it. I decided to make two loaves that are big enough for me and Andrew to share. I also made some rolls which should be enough for 1 person. After shaping I left them to rest on floured tea towels for 30 mins.

I part-baked them and then wrapped them up ready for the freezer. This means I can cook them from frozen, which takes about 15 mins.

The rolls look huge, but I am sure that Andrew won't mind. Andrew loves bread it's his favourite carb. Personally I couldn't choose but Andrew loves his bread.

I have to say its very rewarding making your own bread. The recipe I used comes from one of my favourite books: Dough by Richard Bertinet. The recipes tend to make a lot of bread but its handy if you don't have time to make bread everyday. I am sure that I will have many more posts of bread that I have made from this book.

Home Alone!

2008-04-30T21:56:00.005+01:00

We had a long weekend at home with Andrew's family in Oxfordshire. Whilst we were there we tried some of Andrew's dad's wide variety of flavoured vodkas, from grapefruit, lemon, black cherry and rhubarb. We got some good tips and cocktail recipes, so watch this space.

Andrew went to Fort William for some site work on Tuesday for a couple of days, so I am home alone!

Last week before we left for England, I managed to give my supervisor chapter 1, so now I have moved on to chapter 2. Woo hoo!

The veg box arrived today with the driver running to my door to escape from the rain. When I was down south it was 22 degrees. I was thinking that I will have to stop making soup for lunch. The weather has changed again, so I think we will be OK on the soup for a little longer.

In the box this week:

Purple sprouting broccoli
Leeks
Salad leaves
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes
Beetroot
Swedes

I made some leek and potato soup and soda bread rolls for lunch. Here is picture of my table on a Wednesday lunchtime, this is actually tidy for me. Hmmm, maybe I wasn't working hard enough today. . .

Pickling vinegar

2008-04-21T22:16:00.004+01:00

At Christmas Andrew's mum gave us a huge jar of pickle onions to take back with us. This jar has lasted us well and is still going, but I know that I should get a head start on making some more. I copied the recipe down from Andrew's Mum's book. So tonight I start the first step in making my first batch of pickle onions.

First of all here is the recipe:

24 black peppercorns
24 cloves
2 tbsp mustard seeds
2 tbsp allspice (I used berries not ground)
2 2tbsp dried chillies (I used flaked)

You put all the spices in a glass bowl and add two pints of vinegar. You then put the bowl over a saucepan which has some water in. Cover the bowl with a plate. Then bring the water to boil, take off the heat and let it steep for 2 hours.

Then strain out the spices and bottle the vinegar. You can add the spices to cold vinegar and steep for 6 weeks but our supply is running out!!!

I now need to go and buy some onions/shallots before the next stage, watch this space . . .

Finishing the lemon and lime vodka

2008-04-21T22:00:00.003+01:00

Last week I finished the lemon and lime vodka to add to our growing collection. First of all I filtered it using a big funnel and a coffee filter. This takes a while so we usually do it over an evening topping it up and leaving to filter overnight. Then on Wednesday I made some sugar syrup. I did this by dissolving 1 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water. This made over 1 cup of sugar syrup. I added a cup first but it needed more so I added the rest. It still has a lot of its alcohol taste, which usually goes when you make liquers with soft fruits like raspberries.

We will store one small bottle in freezer ready for consuming. Its OK not the best we've made, which by the way was the blackcurrant vodka we made last summer. Looking forward to summer when we should be making some blackcurrant vodka and raspberry vodka. The rhubarb vodka still has 3 weeks of shaking before we filter it!

Waste not want not

2008-04-20T22:06:00.004+01:00

After a Saturday morning and early afternoon in the lab, I had a bit of a lazy afternoon. Now Andrew has a full time, he can only spent evenings and weekends writing his thesis. So thats what he did on Saturday.

For dinner we had chicken curry from Nigel Slater's Real Cooking. I love this dish so much. One of the things that makes this dish is that you take the chicken thighs out of the sauce after they are cooked and put them into the oven to give a crispy skin. I love chicken skin so much, it's the first thing I have taste of after a chicken has come out of the oven after a good roasting. As Nigel says its not authenic but who cares when it tastes so good. Andrew prepared some flatbreads to go with the curry, which was also accompanied by a beer for a hard days work. Oh, and some mango chutney from the Jam Kitchen @ Craigie's Farm. Its the best I have tasted! There was loads of sauce left over from the curry so we kept it for dinner on Sunday.

Today we made our way to Loch Lomond so Andrew could do some climbing. I held the rope as the climbs at Ardvorlich were too hard for me. It was so nice to be outdoors after being in the lab all week.

When we got back and I prepared a vegetable curry by boiling potatoes, carrots and swede. Then I fried them with some mushroms and then added the sauce and left it simmer for a while. If possible the sauce tasted better today and it meant that the sauce wasn't wasted.

Brain food

2008-04-16T20:34:00.003+01:00

After a day sat in front of the laptop scratching my head and not getting very far, I decided that I needed some brain food. So I went hunting in the freezer and found some trout fillets. So I decided to cook them in parcels. I also made some potato boulangerie to go with it. Basically I peeled some potatoes and finely sliced them. I finely sliced an onion too. I put some of the onion at the bottom of a greased small casserole dish then half of the potatoes. I then put some more onion and some finely chopped garlic, seasoned with pepper. I then finished with more potatoes. I poured over 250 ml of vegetable stock. Seasoned with pepper and dotted some butter over the top. This was covered and put in the oven @ gas mark 5 for 60 mins.

I then made the parcels. Chopped a leek and divided it between two sheets of tin foil. I placed the trout fillets on top, then some lemon slices on top of the trout. I also placed some butter on top of the lemon and seasoned. I then folded over the tin foil and sealed two sides. Then poured in some vermouth and sealed it up. After the potatoes had been in for 60 mins, I put the trout in for 20 mins and took the lid off the casserole dish to brown the potatoes.

I can't really say that I feel any brainer, but fingers-crossed that I will feel the effects of the fish oils soon!

The Veg Box arrived, this week we have:

Purple sprouting broccoli
Beetroot
Cauliflower
Leeks
Swede
Celeriac
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions

My brain has started to think about what to with the veg, thats not good it should be thinking about my PhD!!!!

Pizza

2008-04-16T09:53:00.005+01:00

Andrew usually makes the pizzas, apparently he's better at it than me! So after reading We Are Never Full's post about pizza, I had a craving for a decent pizza. Let's face the pizza's you usually get in a restaurant are over-priced and not that great!

We had some fennel salami and olives in the fridge so it seemed like a good topping. Andrew made the bases and sauce whilst I was still at work.

The pizza was great and we have another one for lunch. Yum, yum and it makes a change from soup and a roll.

Andrew used to make pizzas a lot when we at uni, so he is much better at it than me.

I started to filter the lemon and lime vodka last night. So all I have to do is add a sugar syrup. I'll put photos up later and let you know how it tastes!

A wee tipple before bedtime

2008-04-15T20:59:00.007+01:00

If anyone starts reading this blog regularly I'm sure they will start to realise that I really like drinks. I don't have a problem, I just really like the feeling of sitting down with you mates and sharing a nice drink and chat. It does have to be alcoholic - there is after all nothing like a good cup of tea...

Anyway, I've gone slightly off track. At the farmers market at the weekend we finally found some British rhubarb on sale (we couldn't believe when our local grocer seemed only to stocked rhubarb from Holland! I thought that Britain had the rhubarb triangle?). We bought the rhubarb to make some liquor, so last night I start the process off. I used a recipe from a book I bought last year called The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible. This is a great book showing how to make all sorts of home brews - I really want to have a go at making cider, but not having an apple tree or the room for a press makes it something for the future. Luckily liquor require little or no space and equipment.

So I chopped up around four stalks of rhubarb and mixed it with a equal volume of sugar and slightly more vodka. This is going to left to steep for about 4 weeks, being shaken everyday. It will then be filtered and left to mature for another 4 weeks. So I'll let you know in June what its like.

Don't worry its not really blue - thats just the bottle!! Its really a pleasant pink colour.

Roast Beef

2008-04-14T21:48:00.006+01:00

During the day we went to try and find somewhere for Andrew to climb and for me to hold his rope. But the place we had in mind, we couldn't find the rock face. Sounds stupid, I know, but it's harder than you would think. Especially in a place with loads of rocky outcrops. We went to a place near Aberfoyle, it was a lovely day and I really enjoyable drive.

When we got back I started to prepare the roast dinner. I had been craving one for ages. So I roasted the topside that I got from the Farmers Market. We had all the trimmings, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes and parsnips. For veg, we had cauliflower (well I did, Andrew didn't!), red cabbage braised with apple and carrots. We didn't have lunch that day so this was two meals in one. So we ate 12 roast potatoes and 11 Yorkshire puddings. I know that I could have frozen the Yorkshires but we were hungry!!!!

I know that the French called us "les rosbifs" but I don't see how that can be used as a put down. I love roast dinners, especially beef. It reminds me of being a kid but also growing up and learning how to make the components of the meal. If I was told that I had to choose my last meal, it would be a roast dinner hands down. Not that I don't appreciate other countries dishes. I just prefer a good roast dinner.

Farmers Market at last!

2008-04-12T21:18:00.005+01:00

I've been counting down the days till this weeks Farmers Market. We haven't be able to go the market for about a month. The meat drawer of our freezer has been getting low and need of re-stocking. I had a massive list but I had to restrain myself. We got to the market nice and early as you can see from the photo.
The first stall I went to was Puddledub Pork, I bought some bacon, bacon bits, pancetta, chorizo sausages and their dubliner sausages. I bought chicken thighs from Gartmorn Farm, I think these are destined for a curry. I bought some lamb neck fillets to make Jamie Oliver's kebabs. Braising steak and topside for roast tomorrow! Smoked haddock, toulouse veal sausage, arran blue and finally rhubarb which will be used to make rhubarb vodka. Here I am at the front of the queue paying for my rhubarb:

After the Farmers Market, I went over to the lab to try and get some more work done. When I do lab work at the weekend I seem to get so much more done. So I managed to prepare enough samples for the next week.

We had a chilled out afternoon. Then pasta with pancetta, leek and mushroom with creme fraiche for dinner. This recipe was taken from Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food Book. Something simple, before a nice Sunday roast dinner tomorrow.

Keep on swimming . . .

2008-04-09T21:08:00.004+01:00

Yet again, I sat in front of my laptop trying to get on with my thesis. At the moment I feel like Dory from Finding Nemo. Keep on swimming, keep on swimming. I have to finish this thesis in 6 months otherwise I don't get, sounds simple!

Anyway, the veg box arrived. This week we had:

Celeriac
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes
Parsnips
Cauliflower (don't tell Andrew!)
Spring cabbage
Leeks

Tonight we had a risotto, I haven't had one for ages. So I raided the freezer and found some chicken. So we had a risotto with leek, chicken, sweetcorn and cabbage.

I also pickled some beetroots which was left over from the box. I got the recipe from yet another blog, Fresh as a daisy. I made 3 jars, I will try and leave them to mature for about a week. Not sure that I can wait that long but I will try.

Some fishy looking pasta!

2008-04-08T21:48:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I made the first soup of the week. After reading a recipe for parsnip soup on Musings from a Stonehead's blog. I was inspired to make my own. It was pretty much the same recipe, except I added 1 tsp of mild curry powder after the garlic was soft and let it cook out for a minute before adding the potato and parsnip. I left out the bacon, only because the freezer is low on meat at the moment so we don't have any!
I had the soup for lunch today, it was superb. Today I had a really busy lab day. I only had one tea break! It seemed to working well when I left at 7pm, so fingers-crossed. When I got home, Andrew was dishing up, perfect timing. As you can guess from this blog, Andrew rarely gets in the kitchen. Not because he can't cook far from but because I like cooking so much. Dinner tonight was tuna balls with pasta and homemade ciabatta from the freezer. It was really good. I was so tired from the lab that it was good to eat straight away.

After dinner I decided to make some seeded soda rolls to go with our soups at lunchtimes. I usually make these in batches, normally when one of the food shops in byres road has buttermilk. I made 20 rolls, which should last us a couple of weeks. Right, I need to go to bed. Lab work is tiring.

Preparing for the week ahead

2008-04-06T20:37:00.007+01:00

We had a day outside yesterday, trying some climbing at a new venue though we didn't get much done there. So today we got some chores done. I went into the lab in the morning to run some more samples and check the instrument was behaving itself. I came back and Andrew had cleaned the flat. Then we had cheese and pickles for lunch.

Andrew wanted to make my blog look a bit prettier, so I thought I should make some rock cakes. These are one of Andrew's favourite cakes, so he didn't mind either. As you can see from the picture that he even likes the cake batter! It is one of the joys of making cakes. I think you will agree that blog does look much nicer now, All due to Andrew's hard work!

I also made some savoury muffins for Andrew's lunch. They were sweetcorn, ham and cheese muffins. Andrew is on site at the beginning of the week, so th should make a good lunch.

200g self-raising flour
50g cheddar, grated
ham sliced, couldn't say how much about 50g.
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp olive oil
150ml yoghurt
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
198g can sweetcorn, drained

Heat the oven to 190oC/gas mark 5. Grease a muffin/bun tin.
Mix flour, ham and cheese in one bowl. Mix the other ingredients in another bowl with 4 tbsp of water.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix to combine.
Spoon into the muffin tin and bake for approx. 20 mins until golden.
Cool on a rack.

Tonight's dinner was a Moroccan inspire stew with lemon cous cous. This months beansprouts challenge is to eat one vegetarian meal a week. So this is a nice warming recipe to try.

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
Veg ( I used 2 carrot, 1 small swede and 4 smallish potatoes), chopped
2tsp ground cumin, 1tsp turmeric and paprika, 1/2 tsp ginger and allspice
1 tin of chopped toms
150ml of veg stock
1 tin of chickpeas
a handful of apricots
2 tsp harissa paste

Gently fry the onion and garlic until soft. Then add the veg and fry for 5 mins.
Add the spices and cook for a minute.
Then add tomatoes, stock, chickpeas and apricots. Cook until veg are soft.
Just before serving, stir in the harissa paste.
Serve with cous cous.

OK, I have an addiction . . .

2008-04-05T18:48:00.005+01:00

Its not too bad, but I feel I should acknowledge it. So here it goes . . .My name is Serena and I am addicted to blogs.

It doesn't take over my life. But I do like to read them, a lot! My lab work usually requires an instrument to run the samples that I have prepared this means that I spend a lot of time in front of a computer analysing the data. So to break the monotony, I check google reader to see if anyone has written something new. I have 3 different folders, climbing blogs to see what local climbers have been up to. What I call self-sufficient blogs like Beansprouts, Musings from a Stonehead and The accidental smallholder. These blogs contain useful tips which I hope to use when I realise my dream of having a smallholding. These blogs are a bit life envy really. But I am sure that my dream will happen, though I am far from it right now! The last folder contains my food blogs, this includes blogs from The Guardian and Good Food but also from individuals like We Are Never Full and Domestic Goddess in Training.

It is this last blog which I found a recipe I had to try. Irish Mocha Cupcakes, as soon as I saw these I had to make them. The recipe did not disappoint. I made them on Thursday evening and I had with tea in the afternoon on Friday with the girls at work. They had 2 each so they must have liked them! I didn't pipe the icing, so they don't look as fancy as the originals. I added walnuts on the top.

See my addiction isn't that bad, it ends with cakes for everyone!

In the need of something comforting

2008-04-03T22:36:00.007+01:00

The weather in Glasgow on Tuesday was awful. The normal for Glasgow really, wet and windy. As I was looking out of the window in the office at Uni, I decided I needed something comforting. So whilst on the way home, I bought some honey and mustard ham from Kember and Jones. Andrew was home before me so he started making some potato wedges. Yep, we had ham, egg and chips (well wedges). This dish reminds of the leftovers at Christmas. But it was just what was needed after a busy day.

I also started a batch of lime and lemon vodka, used this recipe from guntheranderson.com. It just uses the zest of 2 limes and 2 lemons, so I need to think of something to use the juice of the fruit. It should only take two weeks. We will taste it after 2 weeks and decide whether it will need some more time. Everytime I am in the kitchen I give it a good shake.

Wednesdays battle with thesis went much better this week. I started the 2nd chapter, as I needed to run a couple more samples before the 1st chapter is finished. In our veg box this week:

Cauliflower
Spring Cabbage
Celeriac
Swede
Parsnips
Potatoes
Onions
Carrots

I made soup from the vegbox recipes website for the rest of the week. Dinner was a ham and pea frittata after the boys getting back from climbing.

An easy weekend!

2008-03-30T22:29:00.017+01:00

We have spent the last few weekends away from home or with people visiting us. So this weekend we decided to take it easy.

Andrew did some work on his thesis and I made some quick visits to the lab, just a couple of hours. Basically to check that the machines were working and to do a small amount of lab work. On Saturday I came back via Kember and Jones with some bread for a cheesey lunch. Normally we would have this kind of lunch with an nice English cider for example Westons or Dunkertons but we wanted to do some work afterwards. The cheeses were Cornish Yarg, Shropshire Blue, Arran Blue and Somerset Brie. With this lunch we had some fennel salami and hazelnut saucisson, also some homemade spicy apple and walnut chutney and Andrew's mum's spicy pickled onions. Yum, yum, yum. I may have a cheese addiction!

We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out, looking through our theses (or whatever the plural of thesis is!) and watching Britain winning lots of gold medals in the cycling. For dinner that night we had a beef stew made with Guinness, containing carrots, celery, parsnip and swede. We washed it down with Arran Sunset Ale.

Today I popped into the lab to check that everything was ticking over. Andrew continued to work on his thesis. I am wondering what we will do when we finish our PhD's they have been such a big part of our lives. I am sure that we will find something to fill the gap.I made lunch for the next couple of days, a vegetable broth containing swede, carrot, parsnip, cabbage and pearl barley. All I did was slowly fry the veg for 5 mins then added vegetable stock and pearl barley cooked for one and a half hour, adding the cabbage ten minutes from the end.

Dinner tonight was inspired by a blog I read regularly The Cottage Smallholder. Andrew and I try only eat meat that has not been subject to intense farming. We get the majority of ours from Farmers Markets. This means that we can't afford to eat meat everyday. I personally don't think that this its a bad thing. So I made Delia's (before she went to the dark side) vegetarian shepherd's pie. We didn't have the correct beans so we used a tin of pinto beans and also yellow split beans. It was still delicious. This was accompanied with an onion gravy and purple sprouting broccoli. The onion gravy comes from one of my favourite food writers and possibly one of my favourite cookery books. Its from Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. I love this book some much, when I got it for Christmas I read it cover to cover. Nigel writes so beautifully about food. Its a great book!

By the way we will be creating a separate blog for our climbing exploits, so this blog will be purely about our food.

Not quite there!

2008-03-26T16:59:00.003Z

It was going so well until my laptop decided that it done enough on my thesis for one day. So it prceeded to stall and so I had to restart and all the joy that goes along with working on computers. I had finished all the wordy bits and just had to complete two figures, typical!!! The veg box arrived, this week its:

Purple sprouting broccoli
Cabbage
Beetroot
Swede
Parsnips
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes

I know that Andrew will be pleased to see no cauliflower and also that we got some more PSB as promised to do a pasta dish with blue cheese and PSB. Bellfields must have read my mind cause there was a recipe for such a dish in the newsletter. I think I might steal a few things from it.

Something Porky

2008-03-25T21:52:00.005Z

With a couple of my favourite blogs, Musings from a stonehead and The accidental smallholder recently posting pig and pork related posts. Also with the recent news stories about the plight of pig farmers, I decided to have a look for something porky for dinner in the freezer. I had two pork chops which I had got from Puddledub Pork at the Farmers Market. I vaguely remember a recipe in my cutting folders for pork with red cabbage. Which would use some of the red cabbage from last weeks box. The recipe is from good food magazine.

I also made a batch of Hugh F-W's four root vegetable soup to give me the energy to work on my thesis tomorrow. The aim is to finish the current chapter and move onto the next, fingers-crossed. . .

Oh dear, cauliflower!!

2008-03-20T22:28:00.006Z

So the Wednesday writing ritual continues. The box from Bellfield arrived again. This week we have:

Red cabbage
Purple sprouting broccoli
Swede
Cauliflower
Carrots
Onions
Parsnips
Potatoes

I love cauliflower but Andrew isn't so keen. So it becomes a job for me to think of ways to disguise the cauliflower. I usually favour some kind of vegetable curry. I would love to have cauliflower cheese but that wouldn't disguise it enough!

So today I decide to made some buckwheat crepes stuffed with PBS and cauliflower baked with a tomato sauce and a cheese sauce.

For Christmas my parents bought me a Le Creuset crepe pan. So far me and Andrew have only used it for making American-style pancakes. So I decided to see if I could do the pan proud.

I won't copy out the recipe. It's from one of my favourite vegetarian cookbooks, Cranks Bible. As you see from the photo they turned out OK.

I made a bechamel sauce then added some Isle of Mull cheddar, which I bought from Kember and Jones on my way home. I love this deli, the produce is so good. Though I have to resist the wonderful cakes that they make. I also made a simple tomato sauce. I then boiled the PBS and cauliflower for 4 minutes. I added half of the cheese sauce to the veg. I put half of the tomato sauce on the bottom of a ovenproof dish. Then put some of veg stuffing into a pancake and rolled them up. I placed them in the dish, then put the remaining tomato sauce on top. Then I put the rest of cheese sauce and finally topped with more cheese. Then baked until the cheese has melted and gone golden.

Andrew did enjoy it though he could still taste the cauliflower. I know that I could just contact Bellfield and tell them not to put cauliflower. But, I like cauliflower and I like challenge!!! We are going to Nottingham this weekend for some climbing . . . hopefully.

The first chapter is the hardest, is it?

2008-03-13T21:29:00.005Z

Yesterday I continued to work on the same chapter of my thesis that I have been working on for quite a while. Its quite annoying that I haven't managed to finish it yet but hopefully I will finish it next week. So I can start a new one!

The box arrived, this week we got:

leeks
spring cabbage
purple sprouting broccoli
parsnips
potatoes
onions
carrots
swede
cauliflower

To break up the chipping away at my first chapter, I made leek and potato soup for tomorrows lunch.

I met up with Andrew in Glasgow centre. We went to Two Fat Ladies for dinner, which was lovely. Its definitely one of my favourite restaurants in Glasgow. I always look forward to dessert as I know I will have the sticky toffee pudding, which never disappoints. We then went to see Dara O'Briain, who was very very funny. Even if he did mention the Scotland V England rugby score :(

Today I was in the lab for the morning and some of the afternoon. After seeing the lovely purple sprouting broccoli in the veg box, I decided to use it for dinner. So getting some inspiration from the newsletter with my box, I decided to incorporate it into pasta. So dinner tonight we had creamy tagliatelle with leeks, bacon and purple sprouting broccoli (PSB).

So I fried the bacon in a frying pan until crispy and brown. I then added one sliced leek. When the leek was soft I added some vermouth, some gruyere cheese and the leftover double cream from the soup I made yesterday. Meanwhile I cooked the pasta according to the instructions, adding the PBS for the last couple of minutes so it was just cooked. I put a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking water in the frying pan to loosen the sauce. Then drained the pasta and PSB, then added to the frying pan. I made sure the pasta was coated with sauce, and topped with some more gruyere and toasted pine nuts, yum yum.

I also made a bacon, cheese and pea frittata for Andrew's lunch as he is doing a lot of site work and apparently soup isn't compatible with site work!

A Busy Few Days

2008-03-10T22:28:00.006Z

My parents and my sister were coming to visiting this weekend. So for my mothers day present I decided to make Jamie Oliver's Pepper and Chilli Chutney from Jamie at home. My mum text me to tell she thought that it looked yummy and she would make it. But I know my mum and so I decided to make it. Its not that she can't cook, far from it. She just isn't into it! Luckily it made 2 and half jars, so I'll let you know what its like.

On Friday evening we went to see Jason Byrne, so I made a pizza dough for calzones for lunch tomorrow. By the way, Jason Byrne was hilarious. If you are not too sensitive to swearing, I would definitely check him out.

Saturday we had calzone stuffed with olives, salami and mozzarella. I made the dough from my favourite book, Dough. The bread is amazing. I have made some ciabatta from this book. I love it and I got the second book, crust. Unfortunately we didn't take a photo. I am sure I'll make them again so I'll put one on then.

Today, I made a root vegetable lasagne for dinner. I don't think that Andrew was convinced when I told him what was for dinner, but he liked the end product.

Root Vegetable Lasagne:

olive oil
1 onion (chopped)
2 sticks of celery (chopped)
2 carrots (chopped)
2 parsnips (chopped)
1 swede (chopped)
1 head of spring cabbage (sliced)
3 garlic cloves (crushed)
splash of vermouth
1 carton passata
dried thyme
dried oregano
sugar
dried chilli
lasagne sheets
creme fraiche
parmesan
cheddar

I heated the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Then I added the onion, celery, carrot, parsnips, swede put on the lid and let sweat for 10 min. Then added garlic, vermouth, passatta, season and add a pinch of thyme, oregano, sugar and dried chilli. This was cooked for 15 min until the sauce has reduced. Then add the cabbage just for a few seconds. I then layer this filling with the lasagne sheets, finishing with lasagne. I then topped with the creme fraiche and cheese. I like a lot of cheese!!! Then I baked for 20 min at gas mark 6.

I also made some brown bread rolls from the book of the moment, Dough. We tend to have soup and roll for lunch, both home-made. Though Andrew has opted to have a piece of the lasagne for lunch rather than soup. So here are a couple of pics of them to end this very long post!

Not such a successful day

2008-03-05T20:30:00.003Z

My weekly routine of working from home on my thesis whilst waiting for the veg box has been working well until now. I had to go into the lab to start my instruments running. Then I came back to the flat, unfortunately I spent most of today doing work on other things! Which is quite annoying. I had a goal of having 2 chapters handed to my supervisor by the end of month. I don't think this is going to happen. So I have decided to work from home again tomorrow and try to make some progress on the current chapter.

The box arrived. This weeks contained:

celery
onions
parsnips
potatoes
carrots
swede
kale
spring cabbage
leeks

I made bubble and squeak, as I got a jealous look from Andrew when he saw picture from last week.

I am really enjoying the regular delivery of vegetables. The only problem I have is the peelings. Andrew and I recycle everything that we can and take our own bags to the shops. But we have nowhere to put our peelings, of which there are lot! If we had a garden then of course they would go on a compost but we don't. I think that this may need some investigating. . .

Nice work if you can get it

2008-03-03T19:36:00.005Z

The veg box has been used to good effect this week. Our friend Stuart came round on Wednesday for dinner. So Andrew cooked a pan fried sausage dish which has a mustard and apple sauce. I roasted beetroot, parsnips, carrots and potatoes in goose fat (which was acquired from Christmas dinner).

Andrew went off to Nice for a work thing on Thursday, I am sure that he will blog about this at some point. So left alone with the veg box, I decided to take advantage. So I made bubble and squeak with the first decent poached egg I've manage to do:

As you can see I could wait to eat and then remembered that it might be a good to take a picture, mainly to make Andrew jealous!

I spent the weekend in the lab. I would love to finish the majority of my lab work by the end of April as this would give me 5 months to write the thesis. Hence the lack of fun at the weekend. When I got back home on Sunday I made a soup for lunch this week. I got the recipe from veg box recipes, I decided to make the winter minestrone soup.

I thought that I should celebrate Andrew's return to Scotland, so I prepared the traditional meal of haggis, neeps (swede) and tatties. The haggis was vegetarian and very good too.

Thesis Writing and Veg Box Delivery

2008-02-27T12:38:00.002Z

We have been in Scotland for over 3 years. Andrew doing a PhD in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry in Edinburgh and I've been in Glasgow doing a PhD in Nutrition and Food Science. Last August, Andrew and I moved in together in Glasgow. Before that we had been spending our weekends in both cities. We have always enjoyed going to Edinburgh and Partick Farmers Markets. For a while now we have been buying the bulk of our veg from Bellfields Organics. The only problem with this was that the Partick Farmers Market is fortnightly. So we decided to get a weekly box from Bellfields. Last week was the first week.

Andrew got a job as an environmental consultant in January and has written the majority of his thesis. I am in my fourth year of my PhD and have till the end of September to finish my thesis. So I decided to work on my thesis at home on Wednesdays and be there for the delivery of the box.

So I am sat at the computer eating leek and potato soup with soda bread roll made last night. I have made some good progress with my chapter this morning. So I am enjoying my lunch break and thinking about what to cook with the veg that arrived this morning:

Spring cabbage
Beetroot
Parsnips
Onions
Carrots
Swede
Celeriac
Potatoes

Unfortunately, I should get back to my battle with Word . . .