Halloween and fireworks are upon us already – where is this year skipping off to in such a hurry, dear Reader? We’ve had weeks of watching the village next door preparing for the annual Bonfire and fireworks’ night, wood piling up and strange straw-stuffed people cropping up all over the place. Primrose and I are always caught unawares by the extremely creepy looking ‘guys’ which pop up round the village this time of year. One in particular terrified the life out of me in the dark the other night, causing me to slam on the brakes and utter some rather unrepeatable words. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Pick, Preserve and Pickle
Cooking full circle
Time for a spot of cooking! It seems ages since I last shared a recipe over here so when The Happy Foodie asked me to take a little culinary challenge, well I simply couldn’t resist, dear Reader!
As anyone who knows me well knows, new cookbooks are pure heaven to me. I simply can’t resist flicking through tantalising recipes, thinking of occasions that I might try one out – some of them are even to be found on the bedside table for just before bed reading! So when I came across Rosie Ramsden’s new cookbook, The Recipe Wheel, I was intrigued to find something rather more exciting than a collection of delicious treats to cook and serve up.
The concept is simple but innovative at the same time. There are series of mind maps – one basic recipe at the centre of the wheel which can be adapted to suit any occasion, mood or variety of ingredients: Cooking for Friends, something for a Night In, creating a dish to Impress, hassle-free No Frills recipes and even ideas for what to do with those Leftovers. The core of one recipe ‘mind map’ could be Roast Chicken and then with Rosie’s creative recipe wheel, this basic recipe is translated into a Chicken and Mango curry for a Night In or a delicious dish to Impress like Chicken salad with Blood Orange. No hard and fast rules which allows the cook to mix and match ingredients and be creative with a dish. Sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? Perhaps one of the best things about the recipe wheel is that it gives great ideas for leftovers too.
Inspired by Rosie’s recipe wheel idea, I wondered if I could have a go at creating my own wheel using an ingredient at the centre of the wheel rather than a dish. Take the humble courgette – there always seems to be one or two lingering at the bottom of the vegetable drawer in our fridge and I’m always trying to think of new ways to jazz up the way I use it. You know that this Margot loves all things foodie, dear Reader! The garden is certainly showing signs of there being tons of them in our little veg patch before long and so Rosie’s recipe wheel revelation couldn’t have come sooner! With a little bit of thought and to kick off Margot’s new Kitchen blog post page where I’ll be featuring recipes of all sorts, I created my own wheel with a little illustrative help from Primrose (aged 5, she draws courgettes and everything else so much better than I do):
All of my recipes are courgette based, some using a little to add background flavour, some where it is the star of the show and some fancier than others but, just like Rosie’s fab recipe wheel idea, each dish suits a particular mood or occasion. Jerry certainly hasn’t complained about my 5 new ways with courgettes and he’s a self-certified carnivore.
Friends: Courgette and feta fritters with lemon and mint dipping sauce
Night in: Almost Ratatouille (my very own take on that fab Provençal number)
Impress: Courgette, sorrel and pea risotto served with zucchini fritti and basil oil
Leftovers: Arancini with roasted tomato sauce
Bitten by the bug, I’ve been thinking of recipe wheel ideas ever since and have already tried quite a few dishes from The Recipe Wheel. It’s amazing that no one has thought to put together a recipe book like this before. No more endless thumbing to the index to work out recipes using up the ingredients in the fridge, no more wondering about how you can elevate a recipe you’ve been churning out for years – Rosie’s done that all for you! She’s certainly given me lots of new ideas.
I’ll leave you with one of my favourites from this week – Get Creative: Smoked salmon bruschetta with sweet courgette relish. A perfect dinner party starter that allows you to spend your time with a chilled glass of rosé rather than slaving over the stove when your guests arrive.
Sweet courgette relish (makes enough for a dinner party starter for 4)
1/2 courgette, grated
1 spring onion, chopped finely
1 1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp runny honey
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or apple balsamic vinegar
black pepper and salt
a good handful of fresh dill
Couldn’t be easier….. Into a mixing bowl, grate the courgette and add the finely chopped spring onion. To this, add mustard, cider vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper. Using a little whisk, whisk the wet ingredients into the courgette and spring onion and taste. Now add a handful of chopped fresh dill and leave for 1 hour in the fridge in a jam jar for the flavours to infuse.
Bruschetta part: Make some rough croutons using French bread sliced on the diagonal, drizzle over some olive oil and bake in a hot oven (180 degrees centigrade/350F/gas mark 4) until golden. Leave to cool.
To 2 heaped tbsp of crème fraiche, add 1 tsp of horseradish, a squeeze of lemon and a tiny pinch of salt – mix well. Using a teaspoon, place a small amount of the flavoured creme fraiche onto your toasted croutons, add a piece of smoked salmon to finish. Garnish with more fresh dill and serve with the sweet courgette relish on the side.
Now all you need is someone to pour you a drink – summery heaven! Long may this glorious sunshine last!
Two weeks to go!
Can you believe it?! We only have two weeks left in the Big Smoke. The countdown is ticking away and I have, so far, lived up to my ‘Last minute Lavinia’ nature or what my dear Mamma lovingly refers to as my ‘ostrich syndrome’. Nothing packed and very little sorting completed. Might have to do something about that pretty sharpish as can’t bear the thought of the removal men packing up my knicker drawer! To my list of achievements (and procrastinations regarding the move) this week I can add the following: talking about sorting through all our clutter (very important to waste time thinking about decluttering before getting on with it) and somehow managing to dye a significant portion of Primrose’s hair green. A lesson for us all, dear Reader: do NOT use a CD/DVD green indelible marker to name a sunhat in haste. Apparently not so permanent if the hat gets wet…
You will be pleased to hear though, dear Reader, that I have managed to somehow brave our hellish furnace of an attic and take some offending items to the charity shop. Unwanted wedding gifts from eight years ago which have moved house twice, a glass chess set from Venice that both Jerry and I have always hated, two Moroccan tea tables…(one can be justified, two is just too much Morocco)! After much debate about whether or not we should keep a car seat for our grandchildren, I realised that I was surprisingly sad about how quickly time has flown by and perhaps that could explain my fondness for avoiding the inevitable! Of late it seems that Jerry, the girls and I have been saying so many goodbyes….
Sod’s law too, that after 6 years of living in SW London, I discover a rather lovely new friend just as we are about to leave the Big Smoke. I only wish I had met her years ago but maybe then I might never have decided to leave London at all. Her website Life After London is such a fount of knowledge for all those moving and she has helped so many in their quest for the good life, it seems only fitting that I should be added to her list of ‘jobs well done’! I only hope that I do live up to her fabulous remarks about me and manage to fit nicely into the new life waiting for us all. I do hope that she and her rather delicious children will come and visit us very soon to make sure we are doing it right. I have promised not to give her any more jam in the meantime! When Margot met Bee.
With all these lavish farewells I seem to be bidding, there is nothing like the playful chiding of a dear old friend to bring one back down to earth, with a quip of “You’re only moving to Hampshire. It isn’t the moon!” Minty was, of course, entirely correct, dear Reader!! It seems as if the gods agreed with her too and felt the need to put things back into perspective for me as this morning whilst walking Monty in a slightly bleary eyed state and carrying Poppy in the backpack, I stumbled down a rabbit hole. No Alice jokes please, dear Reader….. Thankfully it was fairly early and there were not many dog walkers about to see my comedy fall, watch me hobble to the car with dearest Primrose acting as human crutch as she gave me her ‘expert’ medical opinion of “It will probably go black and fall off”. Reassuring. My ankle is now an old lady’s ‘cankle’ and I have taken Primrose’s treatment advice: “I think that you need a good long sit down and a drink, Mummy!” Gin, deep heat and a seat in the sunshine with my new ‘countryside kitchen’ book, courtesy of some very lovely old school chums – not strictly Dr Primrose’s orders but surely, these things are open to interpretation, dear Reader?! I shall never get round to doing any of the packing at this rate…..
Preserving in jim jams
Well, dear Reader, it would seem that I have been burning the candle at both ends somewhat of late and I have been riddled with summer flu. Ridiculous! How can one possibly catch flu in the summer? Feeling utterly useless and wishing I could pull the duvet over my head, I coordinated last minute moving jobs from the sofa and put myself to bed with a whisky (purely medicinal of course). That was until the cavalry arrived (in the form of my dear Mamma) or so I thought….. On second glance, I realised that instead of chicken soup and chocolate, she was armed with a jam pan and a copy of one of my childhood culinary favourites, The Good Housekeeping Step by Step Cook book. Even now, I am still strangely fascinated by this glossy tome which
features none other than a recipe for ghoulish sounding Duck in Aspic amongst all kinds of 1970s dinner party disaster menus. The purpose of the cook book’s outing: to make a jam maker of me. My mother is known for her pots of jam littering the larder and her staunch belief that jam can last years and years! Many a breakfast has been spent opening jars to reveal green and blue hues of mould and dear Papa is always threatening to throw out the ‘collection’. I seriously think that there could even be a jar in the pantry from my teenage days……definitely not as palatable as a vintage Margaux!
So, dear Reader, I found myself standing in my kitchen in my jim jams with Poppy in hers too, thinking about how I was going to deal with 3lbs of strawberries and my Mamma’s overexcited enthusiasm for turning me into a preserving queen.
Here’s our version of Margot’s Strawberry and Lavender jam
1kg strawberries (leave them whole – freshly picked fruit is better for this, if you can get it or grow it)
600g preserving sugar
350g caster sugar
2 lavender flower heads
Heat the jam pan and add all the strawberries and sugar and stir together. Leaving the strawberries whole gives a more ‘conserve’ style of jam which can be used for cakes, scones and of course, hot buttered toast. The strawberries being a soft fruit will break up a bit anyway as you stir them. Wait until all the sugar has dissolved until you add the lemon juice (lemon juice gives a helping hand as strawberries are notoriously low in pectin so I am told). Stir frequently to stop anything catching on the bottom and simmer gently for approximately 7 minutes. Then allow mixture to come to the boil. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes. Test for setting point by dropping some jam onto a cold spoon. Wait for it to cool and then push the jam with your finger – if it crinkles, it has reached setting point. Wash jars and then place them in a hot oven to sterilise before pouring in the jam (stirring through any scum that may have formed on the top). Add the lavender flowers at the very end, stirring through the pot to make sure they are evenly spread. The lavender is there for fragrance and delicate flavour – try not to be too heavy handed with it though as otherwise you will end up with jammy pot pourri! Seal the jars – jar can be kept for up to 12 months. Refrigerate once opened.
What could be more summery than luscious rosy ripe strawberry jam slathered on a buttery scones piled high with cream and extra strawberries?!! Certainly a diet fail but the perfect accompaniment to watching Wimbledon and the best antidote to a spot of summer flu I can assure you.
With some leftover rhubarb, we even had a go at some experimental ‘Jarmalade’ – yes, you guessed it, a jam/marmalade hybrid with rhubarb and orange. Dear Reader, to be honest I think that Mamma and I got a bit carried away with the preserving at this point as we were thinking up all sorts of combinations. Thank goodness Jerry arrived home just in time before I managed to populate the whole kitchen with pots of jam. His first thought was that the removal men would be boxing up at least one whole box of jam…….oh my, dear Reader, it would appear that I may have inherited that jam hoarding gene after all! Perhaps I could endear myself to neighbours in our new village with gifts of jam……?!