Saturday 11th of May 2013

I love avocados.  Popping a couple in my shopping basket and bringing them home, to be tucked away in a brown paper bag on the kitchen counter until they are perfectly ripe has become something of a weekly ritual.  Sliced into salads,  quickly mashed to spread on a tortilla for a fast quesadilla or just eaten, greedily,  with a splash of vinaigrette,  I've yet to find a way to eat them that I've not liked. Jeffrey Steingarten informs me, in The Man Who Ate Everything, (a corker of a book, by the way, and highly recommended) that "Brazilians eat avocados for dessert,  mashed up with sugar". Haven't tried it yet, but maybe one of these days I will...

Last night, for supper, I grilled a stack of lamb leg steaks and made a couple of different salads to go with.  In the interests of gilding the lily,  I also toasted some pitta and knocked up a batch of this gorgeous avocado houmous.  Smooth and mildly nutty-tasting, this knocks guacamole out of the park as far as I'm concerned, and is A.Mazing with lamb.  It also has the huge advantage of staying perfectly green for days,  rather than mere minutes,  so can be handily stashed in the 'fridge for hungry moments (or, quite frankly, for those standing-by-the-open-'fridge-with-a-spoon moments!).  Cooking the already-cooked, tinned chickpeas for a few more minutes makes for a desirably smooth houmous, plus you can fish out as many of the papery skins as possible (they seem to detach easily when cooked) for an even better texture.

Avocado Houmous

410g can chickpeas,  drained and rinsed well
2 ripe avocados,  flesh scooped out and roughly chunked up
1 dsp tahini
1/2 - 1 tsp salt
juice of a lemon
avocado oil, as needed (and see below)

Put the drained,  rinsed chickpeas into a saucepan and cover with water.   Bring to the boil and cook for 3 minutes,  or until very soft.  Scoop out as many of the skins as you can or want to.   Drain and allow them to steam dry for a few minutes.  Put everything, bar the oil (and you can use a different mild oil if you want, I just always use avocado oil here) into the processor and whizz to a smooth and creamy looking paste.  Drizzle in oil to achieve the texture that you want,  I prefer my houmous to be on the softer side, rather than standing up in stiff peaks.  Serve immediately, or seal in a tub in the 'fridge for later.

Cath xx

Friday 26th of April 2013

 Well, Happy Friday everyone!  After a gruelling week, I was (well, to be frank, we all were) ready for something wonderful.  Duck is something that I crave as a special treat, spoiling supper; that fatty richness, that crisp skin, it gets me every time... Roasting duck legs over potatoes provides, for me, the best of both worlds; the soft, creamy potatoes with a crisp and  flavoursome carapace of crunch, along with the rich, meaty flesh of the legs provides the perfect Friday night supper. A vibrant dish of mixed green veggies sits perfectly alongside...

Be sure to prick the skin covering the fatty deposits on the duck legs prior to roasting;I use a large safety pin kept for the purpose, but a darning needle or fine skewer would do just as well.  Sit the duck legs, skin side down in a tray, on top of your parboiled potatoes for the first twenty minutes of the forty-five that the dish will need in total.  This will allow the gorgeous duck fat to ooze and seep out of the legs to flavour your roasties.  Keep basting the meat and potatoes and it will surely become its own reward...

For a truly fabulous accompaniment to the duck and potatoes, try this brilliant green vegetable medley, that I have shamelessly pinched from my Mum; the best cook I know, and the undisputed maker of the world's best roast potatoes and gooseberry mousse.  Love you, Mummy!

Cook handfuls of fine green beans, broccoli florets, chopped asparagus, sugar snap peas and (frozen) soybeans until each is tender.  Serve combined in a large dish.  I, personally, like to swish over some cold-pressed rapeseed oil just before serving and add a smattering of Maldon salt, for crunch and savour.  This medley makes for a fabulous lunch the following day if you eschew any leftover cooked broccoli (add it to the soup box) and crumble over some feta and, perhaps, a few toasted walnuts.  Nommy weekend treats!

Cath xx

Sunday 21st of April 2013

The weekend has been very half-and-half here.  Yesterday (unlike today, grr!) the weather was glorious and we spent all morning and a large chunk of the afternoon in the garden.  I eschewed the chicken pie that I'd planned to make for lunch and instead served up a huge bowl of chicken salad with bacon, avocado, green beans and new potatoes.  Scattered with tarragon and dressed with my all-purpose honey mustard dressing, it was a hit with everyone present and much lighter eating than pie would have been on a warm day.



Of course, the abandonment of my pie plans did mean that there was a sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry now languishing, without purpose, in the 'fridge.  With leek and potato soup on the cards for lunch today, I decided to knock up some Blue Cheese and Hazelnut Palmiers to go with it

My Latest Leek and Potato Soup

lump of butter

6-8 thin slices of pancetta, chopped

6 thin leeks, halved and sliced

2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped

1.2 litres chicken stock

2 bay leaves

white pepper

Melt butter in a large pan, fry the pancetta for a few minutes to let the fat begin to run, then turn the prepared leeks in the juices until well coated. Add the potatoes, mixing in well, then pour in the stock, add the bay leaves and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, until the vegetables are really soft. Remove the bay leaves and purée. I use my BAMIX with the 'C' blade, but use what you like.  Season with white pepper only (the pancetta is, I feel, quite salty enough).

Now for the accompaniment.  Palmiers are dead easy to make with a ready-rolled sheet of puff pastry and the folding is straightforward.  I've taken loads of pictures to show you what I mean, because I think it would be very difficult to explain clearly with words alone.  I hope you give them a go, you can change the fillings easily to suit yourself, my boys are rather keen on pesto palmiers with extra pine nuts and parmesan.  Just remeber you need something 'spready' and one or two 'scattery' things and you're away...

Blue Cheese & Hazelnut Palmiers

150g Danish Blue cheese, at room temperature

25g unsalted butter, really soft

handful of hazelnuts, two-thirds chopped roughly, one-third finely

Mix the crumbled cheese and the butter together, mashing and stirring to form some semblance of a paste.  Using three-quarters of the cheese mix, dot teaspoons of this across the whole sheet of pastry, spreading it out as best you can , then scatter over the roughly chopped nuts.  Fold the long edges of pastry into the centre.

Now spread the remaining cheese over the uppermost surface and sprinkle with the finely chopped nuts. Fold the entire sheet in half (I use my silicone pastry mat to help), then wrap it up and chill it for at least an hour to firm up.

When it's had a good rest, cut the log, with a very sharp knife, into half-centimetre slices.  Put these, well-spaced and as shown, onto a lined baking sheet (parchment is absolutely fine and dandy if you don't have silicone mats) and bake for 25-30 minutes at 180ºc until golden, crisp and toasty.

Remove the palmiers to a cooling rack as quickly as you can.  

These are good either warm or cold; they are fabulous to go with drinks before dinner and keep for a few days in a tin (or they would, if my lot weren't so flaming greedy..!).  You can also prepare the logs, slice them and freeze the slices to cook from frozen. Just allow a little extra cooking time.

Cath xx

Friday 19th of April 2013

This was one of those dishes that came to me out of nowhere,  just an inkling of a thought scribbled in my little 'Field Notes' notebook one afternoon. 

Marrow is a vegetable that, I think, either gets ignored in favour of the more glamorous 'Mediterranean' vegetables, or is ruined by being alternately stuffed with underseasoned mince or drowned in 'white sauce'.  As with so many vegetables. I think that the way to bring out its true flavour is to chop it up and roast it (in this case, anointed with a tiny amount of oil  and cooked for about half an hour at 190ºc).  I decided,  today,  to go with my jotted-down instinct and added, halfway through the cooking time,  some sliced 'cooking' chorizo.  Finished just before serving with a scattered handful of roughly chopped basil and some toasted pine nuts,  it went beautifully with our roast chicken and will,  I suspect,  become a regular standby.  Happy Friday, everyone!

Cath xx

Wednesday 10th of April 2013

Okay, so we had good ol' roast chicken for supper (again), but owing to my increasing aversion to potatoes-with-what-feels-like-absolutely-everything, I needed to cook something that came up to scratch in the hearty, satisfying stakes without being an obvious, 'I just don't want to make potatoes' thing.  Now, I appreciate that a celeriac is not something that, ahem, normal people necessarily have just knocking about in their vegetable basket, but I did - still on a bit of a Francophile tip, I was planning to make celeriac rémoulade later this week but, hey, them's the breaks... Celeriac & Mushroom Gratin it was!

In actual fact, as far as side dishes for roast chicken go, this one is a definite keeper.  I peeled the celeriac, halved and then sliced it.  I popped the pieces in a pan of cold water along with a couple of chopped shallots and brought it all to the boil.  Once drained, I layered the celeriac and shallot in a roasting pan with some sliced mushrooms, scattering a bit of chopped tarragon (mmmm...) between the layers.  Poured over a 284ml carton of whipping cream (though double would also be fine, that's just what I had to hand), ground over some (white) pepper and covered it with a handful of grated parmesan.  That was it; ready for 45 minutes in the oven at 180ºc (which was, helpfully, the second half of the chicken's cooking time).  I allowed the gratin to rest for 10 minutes alongside the chicken after taking them out of the oven; I always think that baked dishes like this benefit from being served on the warm side, rather than searingly hot, they seem to taste more of themselves, somehow.

Cath xx

Sunday 17th of March 2013

I find it hard to believe that I've never posted a recipe for good old macaroni cheese but, probably assuming that it isn't beyond the reach of anyone over the age of about 10, I just appear not to have bothered.  In any case, that is what we had for lunch today, accompanied by a very simple tomato salad.  I cannot urge you enough to consider mint as well as basil, in your tomato salad, these two herbs in combination, along with a smattering of flaky sea salt, make for a truly superlative salad (even if the tomatoes you have are slightly less than desirable perfection...)

Macaroni Cheese (just in case...)

250g macaroni
40g butter
30g flour
2 tsp mustard powder
500ml milk
100g grated strong cheddar
50g grated parmesan

Cook the macaroni in plenty of salted, boiling water.  Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large-ish saucepan and stir in the flour and mustard powder to make a roux.  Pour in the milk, still stirring, and bring the sauce to the boil.  Turn the heat down and simmer the sauce until it thickens.  Remove from the heat and stir in the grated cheddar.  Drain the pasta and tip it into an ovenproof dish.  Pour over the cheese sauce and mix thoroughly to coat the pasta completely.  Top with the grated parmesan and bake at 190ºc for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is crisp and golden.  I like it to be slightly scorched in places, too... Leave the dish, out of the oven, to rest for five minutes.  This will improve the flavour, as it won't be napalm-hot when served.

Cath xx

Friday 15th of March 2013

Happy Red Nose Day, everyone.  This recipe for gingerbread men has served me very well over the years and today proved popular at the children's school's 'Bake-Off' for Comic Relief.  These little guys have occupied a lot of brain-space, if not time, over the last few days, so I was actually quite glad to see the gingery little backs of them... They do taste good, though.

300g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
100g soft-ish butter, diced
150g light muscovado sugar
4 tbsp agave nectar (or honey, or golden syrup)
1 large egg
currants and icing, to decorate

Mix the flour, bicarb, and spices together and rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar, then mix the  beaten egg with the agave nectar and mix to a workable dough.  Leave to rest briefly, then roll out to half-a-centimetre thick.  Cut out whatever shapes you like, re-rolling the scraps.  Decorate, as you see fit, with currants.  Place on a greased baking sheet and bake at 180°c for 15 minutes or until the biscuits are a pale golden brown.  Cool on a rack, waiting until the biscuits are completely cold before you even think about icing them.

Tonight, just because it's Friday, we had steak with onion rings, salad and garlic mushrooms (prepared as for my Barbecued Garlic Mushrooms and cooked in a hot oven for 15 minutes).  I opened a bottle of good red and sank into the pleasure of the weekend...

Cath xx

Wednesday 13th of March 2013

Owing to a marathon baking session inspired by the children's school's 'red nose day' request, which saw us making 40 (!) gingerbread men to ice, with red noses,. tomorrow, tonight's dinner needed to be a quick, and relatively effortless production tonight. A bag of chicken thighs sitting in the 'fridge, plus a couple of lemons and some soy sauce from the storecupboard easily made this Soy-and-Lemon Glazed Baked Chicken, then all I had to think about was the side dishes.

8 chicken thighs (though I think you could use up to 12 with this amount of glaze)
juice of 2 lemons
120ml soy sauce

Put the chicken pieces in an ovenproof dish.  Pour over the lemon juice and soy sauce.  Bake at 180°c for 45 minutes, basting often.  Lift out of the liquid to serve.

I served this with steamed broccoli and some steamed new potatoes, which I had tossed in melted (salted) butter that I mixed with lots of very finely chopped herbs; I vary these according to what I have on the kitchen windowsill, but tonight it was lots of parsley , chopped with a smaller amount each of fresh basil, mint, dill and thyme.  This is my favourite way to eat potatoes at the moment...

Cath xx

Saturday 2nd of March 2013

The weekend started well when we woke up to sunshine and a beautiful blue sky. After bacon butties and coffee (yum), we got on with our latest project,  which has been laying new flooring in our bathroom (rock 'n' roll, eh?!).

We stopped for a lunch of bruschette with pesto and tomatoes, topped with parmesan. I scattered some lightly toasted pine nuts over them and served them on a pile of pea shoots, my boys' latest food craze...

The afternoon saw me take my JD for a walk along the pebbly beach in our village.  I feel very lucky to have the beach so close, anyway, but as we passed sun-dappled clusters of daffodils in the lane that leads to the beach, clear blue sky overhead, we realised that Spring may just have sprung (at last).

Supper tonight was a simple affair;  grilled lamb chops, boiled potatoes (an eleventh-hour request from Husband), a dish of bulghar wheat salad and a bowl of mixed leaves.

I soak the bulghar wheat for the salad, rather than cooking it.  I do this by putting it in a large bowl and covering it with water.  When it has absorbed all the water, taste a grain and repeat the process if it hasn't softened enough for your liking.  Drain the bulghar when you like the texture.   I do this in a muslin, squeezing out as much water as possible,  but you can easily use a fine sieve. Fork through chunks of (both peeled and deseeded) cucumber and tomatoes, finely chopped spring onions, pomegranate seeds and masses of herbs. I usually use parsley and mint, though today I only had parsley,  so I used that and added a good squidge of squeezy mint sauce (one of my favourite 'secret ingredient' kitchen helpers).  I also chucked in some more, scissored-up, pea shoots tonight

This salad also makes a lovely, sunny-day lunch (do I dare to hope in the garden?) if you also fork through some crumbled feta or some leftover roast lamb, if you are lucky enough to have some.  I particularly love roast lamb (hot or cold) lately, and am always thinking of things I need (want) to do with it.  This is how my mind works...

Cath xx

Friday Night Fakeaway: Homemade Cheeseburgers

I've written before that I can't go very long without getting major cheeseburger cravings.   Having instituted the concept of the 'Friday Night Fakeaway' at home recently; feeding our cravings for curries, burgers, pizza, fried chicken and the like, without flaking out too much on our 'homemade is best' principles or busting out on our food budget.  It's proved so popular that, quite often, the menu for the following week's 'Fakeaway' is discussed and decided while, or occasionally even before, we eat this week's! I used to make beef burgers exactly as below, but using salt and pepper for seasoning, until I read Nigella Lawson's Feast and was wholly won over to the Zuni Café method she writes about in that book.

Beef Burgers

700g lean 'steak' mince
3/4 tsp caster sugar
3/4 tsp salt



Split rolls, sliced cheese and Special Burger Sauce (and see below), to serve



Put the meat in a large bowl, sprinkle it with the salt and sugar, squidging it all together with your hands. Form the meat into six burger patties.  Place them on a tray lined with greaseproof paper. Cover with clingfilm and chill them in the 'fridge until just before you need them, but do give them a chance to return to room temperature before cooking them. Brush them lightly with oil (I, almost exclusively, use British rapeseed oil in cooking now, but I just use the ordinary stuff here and save the cold-pressed for 'best') before cooking them under a medium-hot grill.  You could also fry them in a dry non-stick pan, barbecue them (though maybe not in this dismal weather) or even bake them in the oven. Keep an eye on them, though - you want them only just cooked through, still juicy and possibly, even, still slightly pink in the middles.


We like to eat our burgers in split rolls (cut-sides lightly toasted, please) with slices of Monterey Jack cheese and dollops of Special Burger Sauce, the recipe for which is taken from The Takeaway Secret by Kenny McGovern; a lovely book and an absolute must for any 'Fakeaway' aficionado.  The brand recommendations given in this recipe are Mr McGovern's; I have to say, I agree with him.


Special Burger Sauce
(American Fast-Food Style)


4 tbsp mayonnaise (recommended brand: Hellman's)
2 tsp yellow mustard (recommended brand: French's)
2 tsp tomato ketchup (recommended brand: Heinz)
1 tbsp finely chopped gherkin


In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, yellow mustard and ketchup.  Add the chopped gherkin and mix well.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before use.


I also cook some Real Oven Chips to go with burgers; while I have never been especially enamoured of chips, the same cannot be said of the rest of the household who LOVE them.  I would possibly be ousted from the pedestal I happily occupy if I ceased my provision of bowls of chips!

Happy Friday, everyone! Cath xx

Fast and Furious Dinner Rolls

I love freshly baked bread with supper, it somehow seems to make a fairly basic meal of soup or pasta feel like so much more of a 'dinner event'.  Rolls are always a great option for me, easily portion-controlled and saveable for the next day (if 'saveable' is indeed a real word, which I somehow doubt).  For the longest time, I've been making the Quick Mixer Rolls that I've written about before but in recent months I've moved on to these babies; a slightly smaller batch of dough and easily adapted to suit different meals perfectly.  Sometimes we have these as very basic round rolls, but these 'knots' are extremely easy and very popular.  I have had some, limited, success cutting the dough thinly and plaiting the strands, but it was way too much like actual effort for my liking.  The knots are ridiculously simple and give the false impression of hours spent tending dough.  It's our little secret, dear reader...

.I generally just brush the unbaked rolls with melted butter before they go in the oven (as below), but there are numerous ways to tart them up to better match your meal.  One of our favourites is cheese, herb and garlic rolls to go with tomato-based pasta dishes.  Simply sprinkle the butter-brushed rolls with a mixture of garlic salt, mixed dried herbs and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  You can also scatter over either, or a mixture of, poppy seeds and sesame seeds, or make a naughty 'weekend breakfast' version by mixing a tsp of cinnamon with 2 tsp of sugar and sprinkling this over.  Gorgeous with freshly brewed hot coffee!

Fast & Furious Dinner Rolls

I must confess that the thing that makes these fastest is that I do the kneading in the KitchenAid.  They work well in the processor too, or even by hand, they just won't be quite as immediate.  More like 'national  speed limit rolls' rather than '100mph instant ban rolls', I suppose!

300g strong white bread flour
100g granary flour (or use all white)
1 tbsp easy-blend dried yeast
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
300-350ml warm water
melted butter, for brushing

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add as much water as you need to form a softish dough.  Knead for 3 minutes in a mixer or by hand until smooth, silky and springy.  Set aside in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.  Cut into eight, roll each piece into a thin sausage shape and tie loosely in a knot.  Place on floured baking sheets and cover.  Leave to rise for 30 minutes, brush with melted butter (adding any flavourings you like, and see above) and bake at 180°c for 15-20 minutes until the bottom of the rolls sound hollow when tapped and the crust is nicely burnished brown.

Cath xx

Slow Spuds

I haven't got a recipe for you today, but I do bear news of a bit of a fab discovery.  Did you know, if you have a slow-cooker, you can use it to bake potatoes?  Well, you can.  Granted, they come out more like jacket spuds that have been cooked in the microwave than the (still infinitely superior, to my mind) crisp-skinned and fluffy version baked in the oven BUT... this has changed my life.  With this 'in hand', as it were, I can come home knowing that supper will be on the table in less than 10 minutes; very handy when life takes over, as it so often does, especially when there are the children's social lives to manage, not to mention all the other commitments one rashly takes on.

First thing in the morning, prick your potatoes, pop them in the slow-cooker and stick the lid on - no water necessary - then, and this is the part I really like, you are free!  Go back to bed, go to work, go off out for the day and leave them to it.  They need about 10 hours on MEDIUM, or a little less on HIGH and, when it comes to suppertime, your potatoes will be ready; needing only the customary knob of butter and whatever filling(s) you and your fellow diners currently favour.  That'll be cheese for all of us, then; with baked beans added for the boys - big and small - of the household and a heap of coleslaw for me (and a spot for my little James as well, who never likes to feel that he might possibly be missing out on anything, bless him!

Cath xx

Quick & Mix

I love homemade bread, don't you?  Still a little warm, dunked in soup or topped with lashings of butter and, just maybe, some cheese?  I crave good bread and this recipe means that I can satisfy that need easily, pretty much whenever I feel like it.  You really do need a mixer or processor to really appreciate the speed, but you can take the 'scenic route' with a bowl, wooden spoon and your hands and just take a little longer about it.  You can use a full 750g of white flour for your dough if you like, but I prefer some wholemeal in there too; it somehow makes the bread taste even more homemade!

Easy Mixer Rolls

500g strong white flour
250g strong wholemeal flour2 tsp salt
7g sachet easy-blend dried yeast
450ml warm water
a little milk
seeds, to top, if liked

Rub the butter into the flour, then stir in the salt and then the yeast.  Mix in the water, then knead until the dough is soft and smooth.  Cover the bowl and leave to rise for 30 minutes.  Divde the dough into 12, roll each into a ball and place side-by-side, slighly spaced apart, in a roasting tin.  Brush with milk and sprinkle with seeds, if you like (I usually use poppy, sesame and sunflower seeds separately, see picture; sometimes I mix some mustard seeds in with the poppy seeds too).  Bake at 200°c for 15 minutes, remove to  rack and cool slightly before serving.

You can also use this dough to bake a loaf (in a 2lb tin or formed into a round on a baking sheet) at the same temperature for 35 minutes.  My other favourite thing to do with this quick dough is my Fake Foccacia.  For this, you need to pat the dough into the bottom of an 8"/20cm sandwich tin and, withe your fingers, poke indentations all over the surface.  Dabble the loaf with olive oil (garlic-infused, if you have it) and sprinkle with freshy chopped rosemary or thyme.  Bake for 30 minutes and cool slightly in the tin before removing it to a rack to finish cooling.

Cath xx

Old Favourites

With a lovely weekend like this one has been and the children content to play for hours in the sunshine,I've done very little but sit in the garden, listening to the radio, leafing through magazines and, as the evening draws closer, drinking those stubby little bottles of French lager that just say 'summer' to me.  Last night, we barbecued some quickly home-made burgers with some sausages and revisited our old faithful barbecue side dishes of barbecued garlic mushrooms and brown rice salad.  The smell from the grill was fantastic, and sitting in the garden, just chatting, is a really terrific way to spend a warm Saturday evening (even if it did have to be cut short, all too abruptly, by the children rushing indoors for their weekly Doctor Who fix).

Tonight, I'm continuing the weekend's classic favourites theme by serving up my cheeky, cheaty pasta bake with a simple lettuce salad and no fuss whatsoever.  Then back into the garden...

Cath xx 

Simply Sinful

These cheesy scones go really well with LOADS of different meals, or stand alone as a super snack,.  They are easy enough to make, provided you don't get too bothered by the (very tasty but, OK, admittedly unhealthy) butter and cheese factor.  Tonight they sat beside a mixed bean chilli that I put in the slow-cooker this morning, but we also eat them with soups, stews, and breakfasts.  They are extremely good cold too, so don't fret about having any left over (as if!).

Cheesy Scones

If you fancy, you can add 100g sweetcorn kernels to the scone mix before stirring in the milk.  This is particularly nice to add texture if you want to eat them with something like scrambled eggs and bacon.

350g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp mustard powder
2 tsp mixed dried herbs
4 tsp baking powder
200g butter, diced
200ml milk + 1 tsp
175g grated Cheddar cheese

Put the flour, salt, mustard and baking powder into a bowl.  Rub in 150g butter, then stir in the milk and mix to make a soft dough.  Roll out to about 1cm thick and cut rounds with a 5cm cutter.  Re-roll and keep cutting to use up all the dough.  Placethe scone rounds in a greased roasting tin.  Melt the remaining butter, the cheese and 1 tsp milk together in a pan and pour this over the scones, getting a little mixture over each piece.  Bake at 200c for 15 minutes until golden and crisp on the top.  Remove them from the tin CAREFULLY, with the aid of a spatula and/or palette knife.  Serve while still warm and pull the scones apart at the table.  It doesn't take much...

Cath xx

French Connection

Hope all the mummies out there had a lovely, lovely day.  I took my boys to the park for a bench-bound picnic lunch and a 2-hour climbing-frame fest earlier, so I feel I've earned my lovely new bubblegum-pink handbag and my rainbow-coloured necklace...they know me so well, somehow!

Dinner tonight was pretty lazy Sunday roast, a roast chicken, supplemented by steamed potatoes (although, to my mind, a loaf of good bread is just as good, if not better!) and one of our favourite sides, known to us as French Peas.  Loosely based on Petits Pois a la Française, this is another of those dishes that keeps on giving; I've already earmarked the leftovers for tomorrow's lunch...

French Peas

100g butter, preferably unsalted
1 tsp vegetable oil
200g bacon, chopped
1 onion, finely diced or 2 thin leeks, halved and thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 little gem lettuce, sliced
200ml chicken stock
900g petits pois
1 tbsp crème fraîche 

Melt half the butter with the oil in a large pan.  Fry the bacon until nicely tinged with gold, then add the garlic clove with the onion and fry the onion or leeks intil soft but not coloured.  Add the lettuce and cook until wilted, then stir in everything else.  Cook at a low simmer for 5 minutes or so, then cut the remaining butter into cubes, add it and cook until the butter is melted and the sauce is thickened and glossy.  Fish out the garlic clove (and snaffle it, cook's treat!).  Tip into a warmed bowl and serve.

Cath xx

Puy-hey!

Another slow-cooker meal tonight, but not so much of the same old, same old stew/casserole/something in sauce ilk.  In fact, this can even be dressed up a bit and served for quite a fancy meal.  I adore plain old lentils and use them often in cooking to bulk out stews and provide a different texture to meat sauces.  The children wee both weaned on them and they are an essential part of my cawl.  Lentilles de Puy, however are a different matter and deserve a starring role in whatever meal you make with them.  This recipe does make rather more savoury lentils than you really need to go with the fish, but as they are trulyt fabulous for lunch the next day with some goat's cheese or salty feta crumbled over, this is, emphatically, not a problem.  The lentils tend to come boxed in 500g quantities and, in any case, 'little-bits-in-packets' hanging around the cupboards is a pet hate of mine!

It does need you to attend to it very briefly, to pop the fish in, about an hour before you want to eat but, if you prefer to eat the moment you get in, you could put some pork or chicken steaks on top of the lentils in the morning instead.  I don't think that slow-cookers manage onions particularly well, so always prefer to start this off myself if I can.  I cooked the onion last night and left it, covered, in the kitchen so that it was ready for this morning. If I have any of my slow-cooked onions in the freezer, I defrost it overnight and use that instead, just mincing the garlic and chopping the parsley straight into the cooker.

Slow-Cooker Salmon with Puy Lentils

30g butter
1 onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
fresh parsley, chopped
500g puy lentils
500ml vegetable stock
50ml dry vermouth (or white wine)
1 tsp cornflour mixed with 1 tbsp water
3 or 4 salmon fillets

Melt the butter and soften the onion with the garlic.  Stir in the parsley.  You can do this the night before (and see above), or do it in the morning if you have time and prefer to.  Put the onion et al into the slow-cooker, then tip in the lentils, the stock, the vermouth and the slaked cornflour.  Cook on LOW for as long as you need to (i.e. all day).  An hour or so before you want to eat, pour in an extra 100ml of boiling water and lay the salmon fillets, skin-side-up, on top of the lentils.  Continue to cook on LOW until the film is opaque and hot throughout (check with the tip of a knife).

Divine.  I think this is a fabulous way to cook fish, and the lentils provide both the vegetables and the carbs, so ther's very little to think about; no potatoes, no bread, no salad.  Some lemon to squeeze over, both the fish and the lentils, is good, and I always like a blob of natural yoghurt with salmon...

Cath xx

Side Orders

Finding things to go with easy suppers can sometimes be more of a problem than grilling some chops or roasting a chicken.  Putting on some rice or bunging some potatoes in the oven to bake is simple enough, but what about the vegetables?  Imaginative, tasty ideas are always useful and I thought, today, I'd share another of my favourite side dishes with you.  These courgettes are really easy, and really tasty.  The 'secret ingredient' is balsamic glaze which you can get in Sainsbury's and, I believe, in Tesco.  As an added bonus these are delicious cold for lunch the next day, with some shaved parmesan over the top and some nice bread to mop up the juices.  Lovely as part of a mixed antipasti first course as well, if you can bear to cook them the day before and let them cool.

Roasted Balsamic Courgettes


4 tbsp olive oil
1 head of garlic, separated into peeled cloves
3 courgettes
balsamic glaze (and see above)
parsley, roughly chopped

Pour the olive oil into a roasting pan and add the halved garlic cloves.  Pop the tin into a 180°c oven  for 5 minutes while you prepare the courgettes.  Halve them lengthways, then chop into 2cm chunks.  Tip these into the roasting tin and toss well to coat them in the garlicky oil.  Roast for 20 minutes, then squeeze over a good souse of the balsamic glaze.  Toss again and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.  Throw over a mass of chopped parsley to serve. Good hot, great warm - and gorgeous cold too.  Result!

Easy as Pie

Let's face it, sometimes it just has to be pie.  However, at the moment I'm suffering from a nasty cold and don't feel much like elaborate, constructional cooking so tonight I opted for an easy route to pie pleasure.  Ready-rolled puff pastry is yet another of those ingredients that the modern home cook can give thanks for and for a quick assembly job like this, it's the perfect kitchen helper.  Something of a wellington, but much less of a fancy, formal meal... more of a pixie boot, really!
 
Easy Mushroom 'Pixie Pie'

2 sheets ready-rolled puff pastry
4 portobello mushrooms
150g soft cheese with garlic & herbs (I used Boursin)
1 egg, beaten with a splash of water and a pinch of salt

Cut the sheets of puff pastry in half widthways, and place a mushroom on each piece.  Spread the soft cheese over the mushroom 'gills', then brush the edges of the pastry with the egg wash and fold the corners into the centre to cover the filling.  Place on a baking sheet, then brush with more egg wash.  Cook at 180ºc for 40 minutes or so, until crisp and golden.

At Christopher's insistent request, I also served some small baked potatoes (though I personally feel that potatoes and pastry is de trop.  This garlic-and-lemon spinach is all I wanted...


Garlic-and-Lemon Spinach

So easy, and so fast.  I adore spinach any old how, but this is my absolute favourite way to cook it!

1 tbsp olive oil

5 cloves garlic, or to taste, chopped
200g leaf spinach, rinsed and just shaken dry
juice of 1/2 a lemon
black pepper

Heat the oil in a large pan and add the chopped garlic.  When it is soft and fragrant, add the spinach, turning quickly in the garlicky oil, throw over the lemon juice and then clamp on the lid.  Let the spinach wilt, then give it a good grinding of black pepper and serve warm.

Cath xx

Call this cold? Well, yes, actually!

The cold weather has really brought us round to stews and casseroles again.  Milder winters in recent years have meant less of a marked change in our diet from one season to the next but this year I am really feeling wintry and more in need of hearty, rib-sticking dishes to warm my chilled marrow right through.  Originally, when planning supper for tonight, I thought of Goulash, but the lack of beef available in my freezer, and the need to use up a surfeit of pork, meant that this has ended up more like the equally appealing Pörkölt. 

For the accompaniment, first I thought rice, then I thought noodles (for which read tagliatelle), then I wondered about couscous.  Then it came to me, as obvious as it should have been all along... DUMPLINGS!!!  Called knedlíky when dishes not dissimilar to this are made  in Czechoslovakia, my dumplings immediately felt 'right' with this dish.  We all love dumplings anyway, so nI wonder what was wrong with me not to think of them straightaway.  No matter, this was especially lovely with a glass of robust Shiraz.

Slightly Slavic Pork Stew

Incidentally, the dumpling 'recipe' can be used to bulk up any stews or casseroles - and add any herbs or spices you feel would enhance your meal.  I prefer them plain and unfettered with a highly-flavoured stew like this one.



25g butter and a little cooking oil
1 large onion, halved and sliced
700g lean boneless pork, cut into cubes
2 tbsp smoked paprika (I use La Chinata, which seems quite widely available)

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
100g mushrooms, cut into chunks
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato purée

For the dumplings:


150g self-raising flour
50g suet
salt and pepper
milk or water to bind to a loose dough

Heat the fat and fry the onion until soft.  Add the pork and brown it a little, then mix in the vegetable chunks.  Pour in the tomatoes and half a can of water with the tomato purée, and cook at 160° for 1 hour 15 minutes, then, if you like, mix the ingredients for the dumplings together, form into half-a-dozen small balls with wetted hands and add them to the pan, cooking the uncovered stew at 180°c for a further quarter of an hour.

Cath xx