Coming over all Cornish

Dartmouth Harbour

Last week we extended our weekend by a couple of days on either side and took a little road trip.



We meandered down through Dorset and Devon to St Ives in Cornwall, then back via the north Devon coast and a flying visit onto Exmoor. It was lovely to have some time to explore our own country, and made us remember that the UK is a lovely place and that its great to spend time just chilling out together.



To get into the spirit of the trip, the recipe I attempted this week was Hugh's curried trout pasty, from the River Cottage Fish Cook book. The pasties would make great picnic food, although they perhaps were not the perfect dinner - I couldn't come up with a very satisfactory accompaniment. Given that Dan sampled a real, home-cooked, Cornish Steak pasty while we were away I was glad to have attempted a lighter interpretation. I think I'd still be living off one of those 3 days later!


St Ives

One or two mini pieces of cookery inspiration from the trip:
Seville Orange Tart - an amazing dessert served up with creme fraiche at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. A little bit bitter and fresh. We had a really lovely, rather over-indulgent Sunday lunch there - this is Dan with his Lobster and Prawn Tourte, which was delicious too:


Leek and Walnut quiche - a surprisingly brilliant combination.
Also, fantastic cake from a bakery in Dorchester in Dorset - we sampled half a slice each of Rhubarb and Ginger loaf cake and Chocolate, Pear and Almond loaf cake in our beachside picnic that day. Yummy scrummy. Glad I don't live close to that bakery - I'd definitely end up over-eating every day!


Padstow

A year in review

Given that I've been cooking a new recipe (at least 1) every week for a year now it seems like the right moment to review the high and low points of the Recipe-of-the-Week challenge.

Gallettes and Goats Cheese were early successes which I've made frequently throughout the year.
Other more than one-hit wonders:
Eggs Benedict
Mint and Cannellini bean dip (Bethan's favourite)
Goats Cheese souffle
Yorkshire pudds
Spiced red cabbage with apple
Salt and pepper squid
Dauphinoise potatoes (Dan loves this way of doing potatoes)
Cuban quail egg-stuffed meatballs
Guacamole - I never thought I liked guacamole, but the homemade one is great

Fruit in main meals has been a revelation - Salmon and mango sauce stretched our European tastebuds a bit far, but a range of Thai-style salads using mango were delicious, parma ham and figs has become a firm favourite, and both Duck with Mango and Duck with Cherry sauce were gorgeous.

Good week night dinners that have become regulars:
Steamed chicken spirals
Stroganoff
Fish cooked in yoghurt
Cauliflower risotto
Roasted new potatoes
Tomato and pepper eggs

Surprisingly good combinations:
Rhubarb and strawberries
Yoghurt can be used in cooking loads of stuff. Particularly surprising since I don't like yoghurt really.

Failures:
Crumpets. Boringly time consuming and fiddly.
Venison stew - the most disgusting meal of the year
Lamb stew
Aromatic Madura chicken

Occasion cookery which I enjoyed:
Christmas cake
Peanut caramel popcorn
Jam and chutney
Lobster!

Things I found an excellent recipe for, even if I have made them previously:
Bread
Custard

Things to refine:
Parkin
Steamed toffee pudding
Hollandaise sauce (not having good success rate with this of late! It keeps splitting at the last stages.)
Salmon en croute (try again using puff pastry)

Things I should definitely make again soon:
Terbiyeli Kofte (Turkish Lamb meatballs in lemon sauce)
Middle Eastern spinach with almonds
Zanzibar chicken
Crackers
Shahi Murg
Jerk Chicken
Torta di Spinachi
Aubergine Parmigiana
Steamed couscous with Fish
Frozen Yoghurt
Asian noodle salad with Cashew butter
Mexican one pot courgettes

Favourite recipe books:
A runaway winner, despite being a late addition to the shelf has to be the Riverford Farm Cook Book. Its simply excellent for lovely ideas for vegetables.
Silvana Franco has a great range of low-fat recipes that you'd never guess were low-fat recipes if you weren't "in the know".
Jamie Oliver has some lovely recipes and good tips but I don't find that his recipe books are all that user-friendly. I can't place my finger on why not. Perhaps its that they're very visual and chatty which is lovely for the coffee table, but a bit annoyng if you want clear instructions.
Angela Hartnett is fantastic, but unless you want to gain several stone its probably best to keep her dishes as occasional treats.

Lessons learnt:
Most recipes don't need as much fat or oil as they say.
Quite often poaching, steaming, or baking will do just as well as frying.
Often recipe books play it safe on amounts of spices - the quantities should be increased a bit if you like food to have a bit more punch.
I enjoy eating vegetarian meals fairly regularly, and they can be as varied and satisfying as meat/fish based dishes.
Meringues are unbelievably simple.
Homemade pasta definitely needs a pasta rolling machine.
A good fruity olive oil is worth paying more for. But keep it for moments when you can actually taste it - salad dressings, dipping bread.
I'm rubbish at making cakes.

Dishes still on the list:
Beef Wellington
Onion Bhajis
Chocolate steamed pudding with custard (Chocolate duff)
Cranachan
Rice Pudding
Semifreddo
Gravlax
Pear Jam

Future Ideas:
Make more Middle-Eastern recipes. I adore the warm spices and aromatic flavours that are used in the cuisine.
Explore some Japanese cooking. I might have to do this at times I'm eating on my own if I'm seriously considering tofu. Dan would be horrified. I've managed to get him to eat both lentils and pulses, but fear this would be a step too far!
Cook some old-fashioned recipes from Mrs Beeton's old fashioned cook book.

Shopping list:
Pasta rolling machine
Bread mixing bowl that holds enough douch for 3 loaves.
Icecream machine (a bit over indulgent - How often would I really use it?!)

Build a pizza oven in the garden!

Sunshine = icecream

We had sunshine and blue sky in Oxford today, I also spotted snowdrops in my parents' garden...oh yeah! Spring is on its way.

So, the first icecream outing of the year. And my, what an outing it was!

Any of you who have never been should really get yourselves to Oxford quick-smart and try the icecream in G&D's. My venue of choice is the Little Clarendon Street branch:


But any of the 3 will do just fine.

Today I went completely over the top with a Dime Bar cookie and a MASSIVE scoop of creamy delicious dime bar crunch icecream. I savoured it a nibble at a time over the Culture section of the newspaper.

Who says comfort food doesn't work?! It did the trick for me.

Normal service (ie healthy eating) resumes again as of now, but it was sooooo worth overloading the calories on this particular occasion!

Must have a go at homemade icecream. Its so much better than anything I've ever found in the shops.

G&D's Website
and
wiki page

Christmas

There's something about the last week or so before Christmas which puts me in the mood for baking. I want the smell of cinnamon and ginger and citrus wafting through the house and snowy dustings of sugar and flour on the kitchen surfaces.



I made my Christmas cake a couple of weeks ago, to Nigel Slater's recipe, and this weekend I will need to put the marzipan on it in readiness for icing on Christmas eve. That will be my contribution to the family Christmas food as I know my parents never have time to make their own cake. I have to confess I've never made anything for the Christmas meal before - my job has always been to peel, stir, chop, and lay the table. This year I'm spending Christmas at Dan's parents' place, but I still wanted to do something helpful for the Greenaway family Christmas preparations. So the cake won't be there until Boxing Day, but who needs Christmas cake on Christmas Day anyway?! After all that other food the Christmas cake always ends up being a post-walk Boxing Day nibble.

I'm breaking with tradition and doing mulled white wine on Christmas Eve this year. I had it at the Christmas market in Lille last December and it was lovely, so I'm going to recreate it at home with a bottle of Riesling, apple juice, cinnamon sticks, orange peel and a sprinkle of other Christmas flavours. Yum scrum.


I like to make foodie Christmas presents where I can, although I do worry that despite the fact that plenty of thought and effort go into them alot of people might consider homemade items to be a 2nd class Christmas present. Nonetheless, I'm taking the risk and baking this weekend. Tubs of miniature shortbread biscuits for my new neighbours, dried pears and apricots dipped in milk and dark chocolate as semi-healthy festive nibbles, and a second attempt at fudge. Christmas is the only time of year when I fancy sweeties.


The fudge has disaster-potential written all over it. Last year I tried to make fudge and all I ended up with was a very burnt saucepan which took 2 days to clean. Its taken me a year, but I'm now good and ready to do battle wth the sugar syrup again. Lets hope I can succeed on the 2nd go, as I don't think I would have the determination to go for 3rd time lucky!
Wish me luck.....

UPDATE
The fudge worked! My neighbours said they finished it in one sitting because they liked it so much. They might just be flattering me, but its still nice of them to say so.

...and so to Italy

A late september trip to Italy meant that the recipe challenge was put on hold for a week, but I resolved to keep the spirit of the project alive by making an effort to try foods I had never had before...and what a place to do it! Italy in the early autumn sunshine - surely one of the loveliest places to be.



Some memorable meals included a smoked swordfish pizza with fresh buffalo mozzeralla and rocket, pear-filled pasta with a walnut sauce (delicious, although due to its slight sweetness you definitely wouldn't want more than a handful), black pasta stuffed with courgette and basil with squid and smoked bacon, hazlenut torta, and Dan's new favourite; vanilla semifreddo with peach compote. Gorgeous!



Less fancy favourites -
Paprika crisps! Why can't we get these over here? They're amazing!
Goats' cheese, ham and fresh crusty bread sitting on the top of a mountain pass in Switzerland.
Fresh apples from Merano. I have never seen so many orchards in one area.

Just a little postscript - we saw these quite a few times around Italy. I definitely want one! How cool?!