Being foolish

This week I meandered out to the Pick Your Own farm again during my lunch break. This time I picked enough strawberries to have some to gobble straight away and a load to make jam. I made strawberry and mint jam using leaves from the chocolate mint in my garden. (I'd never heard of choclate mint, but came across it on a plant stall at a craft show: It has a richer flavour than normal garden mint - much more pudding-y.)

Gooseberries were also ready for picking at the farm.



When I was a child we had a gooseberry bush in the garden. They were my mum's favourite, but I never liked them. It could have been a reaction to getting prickled fingers when picking them I suppose but ever since I have assumed that I don't like gooseberries. Since they were ripe for picking I thought I would challenge myself to try one.

Revelatory moment: they're really nice!

I made Dan eat one when I got home: He was very dubious about the idea as he swore they were the kind of sharp fruit that could only be eaten stewed with lots of sugar. The look on his face when he realised how nice these ones were was priceless.

So, preconceptions squashed...what to do with 350g of gooseberries?

Last week I made a Rhubarb, Strawberry and Orange Flower Water Fool based on the recipe in Silvana Franco's Hi-Lo Cook Book. Dan and I both enjoyed it as a light, refreshing pudding, so I decided to try something similar with my gooseberries. I decided to go for a classic flavour combination of gooseberries and elderflowers, so I stewed 200g of gooseberries in 2 tablespoons of the elderflower cordial I made a couple of weeks ago, and used this to make a Gooseberry Fool.

The following recipe is mainly based on the Silvano Franco Rhubarb Fool recipe, but also takes elements from various other recipes that I found in the Riverford Cook Book, on BBC Good Food, and in Tamasin Day Lewis's Kitchen Bible.


Gooseberry and Elderflower Fool (for 2)

200g gooseberries
2 tablespoons elderflower cordial

60g double cream
60g thick yoghurt

Icing sugar to taste

Top and tail the gooseberries and place them in a pan with the elderflower cordial. Heat over a low-medium heat until the gooseberries soften (probably about 10-15 minutes in total). Set aside to cool.
Mix together the double cream and yoghurt with a whisk. Spoon alternate layers of yogurt-cream mixture and stewed gooseberries into a tall glass (sprinkle the gooseberry layers with a little icing sugar if you prefer your desserts on the sweet-side). Put in the fridge to chill over night.



Such an easy dessert, and not that bad for you really. It feels creamy and indulgent enough to be a treat whilst not being a heart-attack in a glass! It could handle a little more elderflower flavour if you like the taste of elderflowers, as the gooseberries are very dominant in the proportions above.

PS Its entirely irrelevant, but gooseberries really remind me of Chinese lanterns. I love that.

Hi-Lo

This week I have mainly been cooking from Silvana Franco's Hi-Lo Cook book. Well, you know, it is that 'got to lose the Christmas weight' time of year!



This recipe book is actually one of my favourites - it has a carefully chosen range of low fat and healthy recipes. I think that's something that is lacking in most recipe books - they seem to assume people only use their recipe books once in a while when they are happy to splurge on the oil and butter consumption. What about the every day stuff? - we don't all want uninspiring diet recipe books when we feel like going on a health drive for a bit! I want a book that gives me a range of dishes - some super healthy, some super indulgent, some that hit the middle ground.

Anyway, rant over, because Silvana Franco's Hi Lo Cook Book does fill the niche beautifully, and its one I come back to over and over again. I first came across it through making one of her recipes that I found on the BBC website. Then I came across a couple of others from the same book online, and they were great too. The book doesn't seem to be in print as far as I can tell, but I found it on ebay easily.

So back to the cooking...I made the Spanish Orange Creme Caramels for a girls lunch (with orange and passionfruit juice rather than plain orange), which were delicate and refreshing but with enough sweetness to feel a bit indulgent. Find the recipe on the BBC here.
Saturday's lunch was the lemon, rice and courgette soup. The soup was nice and light but still warming. A good recipe for winter or spring.
I also had a sunday breakfast of banana soda bread, warm from the oven, with honey.

So January lightening-up is on track, without much sense of deprivation thanks to these lovely treats.

banana soda bread

Branching out and looking for interesting, easy breakfast recipes I came across a banana soda bread recipe. It looked pretty simple to make, even pre-coffee, and I loved the idea of a warm banan=y bread with runny honey and a good cup of coffee for breakfast.

Just to help my fuzzy head out, I weighed the flour the night before - 50g each of white and wholemeal flour - added 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 15g (about 2 1/2 teaspoons) of caster sugar and mixed it all together.

Th next morning I set the oven to heat up to 220C. Mashed 1 banana to a pulp, then mixed that and 125g yoghurt into the flour. (You could also add a splash of milk if the mixture is still a bit dry.) Kneed the mixture until it makes a smooth but sticky dough. Form into 3 round loaves and place on a greased baking tray.

Bake for approx 15 minutes.

Serve warm with honey.



I enjoyed these. Very banana-y.Definitely one to serve warm though - I don't imagine they would work cold. Soda bread has a quite cake-y, crumbley texture so I'm not sure how well they would toast. Tastey warm from the oven, and even my sunday morning sleepiness didn't make the recipe unintelligible so they must be easy!

Eggs eggs eggs

Guess what I've been cooking this week?.....

Yep. Eggs indeed.

Having acheived the roaring success that was Eggs Benedict (with a little help from Mr Oliver) it this week seemed like it was time to go beyond the omelette/fried/scrambled egg options once more.

So after a trawl through the recipe shelf two interesting options presented themselves. Although both billed themselves as breakfast dishes I thought they would do very well for week-night dinners.

And so, we have had Rick Stein's pithily titled Mildly spiced potato curry with cumin, black mustard seeds and coriander, topped with a poached egg, which was what it said really. A pretty good, quick, mild curry. I added a couple of handfuls of spinach (got to get in those 5-a-day somehow!) and I think it would be better with chopped boiled egg rather than poached.
And also Silvana Franco's Saucy Eggs and tomatoes.

Both were pretty good options for Veggie dinners, but I did prefer the Tomato Eggs.

And see - it even looked like the picture in the book!


Here's the method for the tomato eggs (for 1 as a dinner)

Take 1/2 can tomatoes and put in a heavy saucepan or deep frying pan
Add 1 clove of garlic (finely chopped)
Also add about 100ml boiling water, salt and papper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Heat through stirring frequently until the tomatoes start to break down a bit.
Then add about 3/4 of a red bell pepper, cut into strips.
Allow to heat through on a gentle heat for about 15 mins, or until the peppers start to soften (the recipe directs you to grill the peppers then peel off the skin - I couldn't be bothered).
Make to hollows in the sauce mixture and break in the eggs. Leave on the medium heat until the eggs are cooked. I had the oven on anyway, so just finished off the eggs for 5 mins at 180C which sped things up a little.
Serve with bread or toast.

I love.....Risotto

A few weeks ago I made Jamie O's cauliflower risotto (twice in a week).
This week I made Silvana Franco's red onion and cannellini bean risotto. Find the recipe here.

Both were very satisfying dinners.
Creamy, vegetarian (I like to eat vegetarian once a week if I can), flavoursome, filling, and non-fattening. Also, they were both recipes that I didn't have particularly high expectations of but which turned out to be surprisingly lovely.

So now I'm having a love affair with risotto and am on the hunt for more flavour combinations to try.

I know its basically just a vehicle for using up odds and sods in the vegetable drawer and the fridge. But its a wonderful one!

coming over all biblical

This weekend I have been mainly baking loaves and fishes. Ironic for a dyed-in-the-wool athiest!

Friday night we ate Greek Roast Cod. I came across the recipe on the BBC website. Its here.



This is the 2nd recipe I've made from Silvana Franco - the 1st was lemony meatballs with pasta. Both recipes are from her Hi-Low Cookbook, and after this one I figured that two really tasty dinners was enough evidence for me... The recipe book is on the way via ebay.

Saturday was a French trout recipe - whole roast trout with sorrel sauce. I had to adapt a little; there was no sorrel to be found anywhere in the shops near me so I substituted spinach, and I used yoghurt instead of creme fraiche. I got the trout at the Banbury farmer's market, and it was a lovely subtle flavour and superbly fresh.

Trout with Sorrel sauce

2 whole trout - cleaned, gutted, heads removed (always sounds gruesome to type that!)

200g baby spinach or sorrel leaves
1/4 onion or 3 shallots - finely chopped
10g butter
100g plain yoghurt
75ml dry white wine
A shake of nutmeg
salt, pepper

Put oven on to heat to 180C.
Melt the butter over a low heat and gently fry the shallots or onions until soft.
Add the spinach or sorrel leaves and a small splash of water. Cover and allow to cook gently for 3 or 4 minutes, until the leaves have wilted.
Add 1/2 the yoghurt, salt and pepper, and a shake of nutmeg, and allow to cook for a minute or so more before taking off the heat and allowing to cool slightly.
Stuff the trout with the sorrel mixture (don't worry if you don't use it all - keep it for making the sauce later), then place the fish in a roasting tin, pour over the wine and cover with foil.
Bake in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes depending on the size of your fish.
5 minutes before the end of the cooking time pour the juices from the roasting tin into a small saucepan. Return the fish to the oven.
Add the remaining yoghurt to the saucepan, and any of the sorrel mix that you may have left. Place over a fairly high heat and allow to reduce to about 1/2 the volume.
Serve the trout with the sauce from the saucepan poured round it.
It goes well with boiled potatoes or mash, and leafy green veg or salad.

Now then I realise I haven't addressed the loaves bit.

A few weeks back I watched a Raymond Blanc cookery programme in which he made bread. I also watched a programme on BBC4 about craft bakers, and it got me thinking about bread-making again.

I have made bread fairly regularly in the past, but I haven't hit upon a recipe/method that I think is really my ultimate process. All of my attempts have been quite nice, but not write-home about it delicious.

Until this weekend that is.
I tried out the Raymond Blanc method (find it here) and it was just GORGEOUS. Even Dan liked it, and he's never particularly liked the bread I've made in the past.



I made it by hand in 2 batches of 2 loaves - I mean, really; who has an oven large enough for 4 loaves in their home kitchen? Or a food mixer big enough for over a kilo of bread dough?! But lack of reality for us home cooks aside, the bread tasted really good.
I will have a try at baking the bread in tins in future so that its easier to use for sandwiches.

And then lastly; pizza from my little old Carluccio recipe book (I had a little yeast left over). I didn't eat any of it, but Dan tells me it was lovely. Praise indeed!

This seems to sum up our weekend eating (Dan's sunday lunch) rather well, even if it is a somewhat unorthodox mixture!:



The sushi is from the deli a couple of villages away - turns out moving to deepest-darkest rural Oxfordshire doesn't mean you have to abandon all interest in foods from round the world after all. Hurrah for that!

PS This was week 30. Wonder how long I'll keep feeling inclined to be an enquiring cook? I think its a habit now...I can't imagine going back to a routine of similar dinners all the time.