Still on the veggie stuff (ish)

i was going to write this entry about a fishy dinner i had a couple of nights ago, but it went so horribly wrong that I'm not going to bore you with it!

See Pic below....I didn't really like it, the cheffy attempt with the minted pea puree was a bit of a waste and i didn't do a sauce so it was dry!

Must do better next time!

I've totally lost track of where i was in the alphabet, somewhere around H I think.

Got Profiteroles on the menu next week, expect a step by step guide on how to make choux pastry! It's not as scary as it looks or as everyone thinks it is!

Bank Holiday is a calling, what will be on the menu.........

Oooh, it's all Greek to me!

Funnily enough, G is for Greek!

It's National Vegetarian Week and tonight i cooked a recipe that I've been wanting to try for ages! I'm afraid i can't take the credit for this one, it's a Good Food website special and it looks fab!

Ingredients

A large bag of young leaf spinach

10 sun dried tomatoes
100g Feta Cheese

Finely sliced shallot

2 eggs

Half a role of filo pastry

Pre-heat the oven to 180 Degrees C

In a saucepan, wilt the spinach (I added some rocket and watercress as i had it lying around in the fridge) drain in a sieve and leave to cool. Then squeeze out all the water from the greens.

Chop up the feta, the sun-dried tomatoes, shallot and green bits and put the lot into a bowl.

Add the two eggs and mix the lot together.

Put the lot to one side.

Unroll the filo pastry Use 3 (or 5 in my case) and put them on the base of the cake tin, one by one. In between each layer of pastry drizzle some of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes.

Dollop the spinach, feta etc mixture on to the centre of the pastry base and then (if you're using a deep cake tin like me) put the base into the cake ring.

Add a couple more sheets of the filo pastry on the top to close the pie. If you want, drizzle a little more sun dried tomato oil.

Put into the oven for 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown.

Serve immediately.
I'm so impressed with how good it looks....

What veggie trial shall i do tomorrow!

xx

Rocketeer Picture

I should mention that the picture of the hot guy with the pestle and mortar is my gorgeous boyfriend, but, slightly more to the point on this occasion - the T-Shirt saying Rocketeer is the name of a FANTASTIC band...

look them up on ITunes!!

BBQ Season has arrived...

What a weekend!

A fancy dinner out on Friday night, BBQ Saturday night, BBQ Sunday lunch and Scrambled eggs on toast for dinner 20 minutes ago!

I didn't take any photos of Friday's Dinner as it was at my workplace and i didn't cook it.

A full day spent wondering around other people's houses hoping to buy one and ending up not, we felt we deserved a proper BBQ!

So, it was off to Sainsbury's to purchase some good grub!

The Menu:

Sticky Chicken Drumsticks

Stilton Beef Burgers

BBQ Baked potatoes

Mayonnaise (homemade)

Salad with my Sun blushed Tomatoes (see previous Blog)

My Housemate makes the best burgers in the whole world.

1 Onion

handful of Rocket

Medium sized wedge of Stilton

Minced Beef

2 Eggs

Put the beef, chunks of Stilton, onion and some seasoning into a bowl.

Then Add the eggs and scrunch the whole mixture together until it looks like one big burger. Break into burger size chunks and pat flat.

Set to one side and put on the BBQ when you're ready for them...

Not a great picture but we were so excited to eat them that i didn't get much of a chance to take photos!!!

Sticky Chicken Drumsticks

2 tbsp Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Runny Honey

1 tsp wholegrain Mustard

1 tsp tomato puree

Mix all the ingredients together. Slash the chicken drumsticks and smother them in the marinade. leave to quietly talk to each other and get to now each other (marinade).

More tomorrow.........

Must sleep!!

Keep Cooking

Bx

No Food No Fun

F is fo Frisee Endive

In other words - Salad!

There is a lot to be said for salad; my dictionary usually revolves around phrases like; rabbit food, green stuff and 'ooh let's have something healthy'.

Today I headed out for a lunch that was kindly being bought for me by a friend. We went to Cafe Rouge. I sat down all excited and looking forward to ordering a Croque Monsieur or Madame with Chips and some creamy cheesy mushrooms.

But, i decided to go for the Salade Paysanne and all it's lovely unhealthiness!!

All i need ot say is - it was so good!

More later.....

Not very healthy, but......

Pesto Stuffed Chicken with Mash.

Chicken Breast
2 tsp Pesto
2 tbsp Mascarpone
A few drops of Lemon Joice
Grindy Pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C
Cut a slit into the chicken breast, so it looks like there is a pocket to put the lovely stuffing into.
Wash your hands.... I know, I know, but raw chicken and all that!
Mix together the remaining ingredients and put a large dollop into the pocket.
Gently pull the pocket as closed as you can without breaking the skin.
Pop into an ovenproof dish and put into the oven for about 25 minutes

Serve with mashed potato and some wilted spinach.

E is for enjoyment

Don't worry, I'm not going to go all Sophie Dahl and work my way through the emotions one can cure / bring out through food!

But i am going to waffle about how much I'm enjoying writing this blog. I am pretty sure I'm the only person reading all my entries again and again but never mind - one day I'll work out Twitter so that others might read this... but until then I'm loving all this cooking.

Look at all my photos! I've made all these things and more in the last 10 days!

C is for Cauliflower

Sorry to jump around again, but i need to keep this topical


Apparently, the humble cauliflower has fallen out of favour with the British people. This is a tragedy for so many reasons.

Who, by about this point in the month is thinking - what can i make for dinner that is cheap?


Cauliflower cheese!!

This has to be one of the best comfort foods on the planet. AND it's so easy to make!

I'm not going to do a recipe - because I'm not making it tonight and to understand how yummy it is you need to see a picture!!

Bit of a random Blog entry but it has to be put in - cauliflower is great stuff - 'nuff said!

x

Sun-Blushed tomotoes

Look at these beauties!

Bare in mind this is only something to do if you really have nothing else to do! These took 4 1/2 hours at 50 ish degrees

10 almost wrinkly cherry tomatoes chopped in half
Sprinkle of thyme
sprinkle of sugar
A generous drizzle olive oil

Place thee tomatoes in an ovenproof dish
drizzle the Olive Oil over and around the tomatoes
sprinkle the sugar and thyme
Put in the over for about 4 and half hours.
About 3 hours in i popped crushed garlic clove into the dish.
Once cooled put into a sterile jar with some olive oil and the garlic.

Mine are in the fridge at the moment - no idea how long they will keep - I'll let you know when they're furry, but i doubt they'll last that long as they are beautifully succulent and sweet.

Bx

Monday Morning Food Blues

Another weekend of gluttony
Another week of dieting!

Of course starting off with a piece of heavily buttered white toast! It's going well!


This weekend I cooked up some more classics (none of which i took photos of annoyingly!!)


Friday night i made a slightly out of the ordinary Lasagna. It wasn't that odd but i discovered AFTER getting back from the gym and a dash round Sainsburys that the box full of lasagna sheets was actually only a box of 4 lasagna sheets!
The one thing I always cheat with is a white sauce for my Lasagna! I ALWAYS buy it. Life is just too short to make the bolognese mixture as well as the white sauce. I have also got so bored of only semi cooked pasta sheets in my lasagna that i spent about 15 minutes part cooking the pasta so it wouldn't break my teeth later on!

Easy Bolognese Sauce:

Lean mince beef
1 onion finely chopped
1 x shallot finely chopped (loads in my fridge at the mo, by no means an essential ingredient!)
2 LARGE glasses of red wine
1 carton chopped tomatoes
good squeeze of tomato puree
good sprinkle of Dried thyme
good sprinkle of Dried Oregano
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
half crumbled beef stock cube
drizzle of olive oil

put a large pan over the heat.
Add olive oil and once hot add the onions, fry until transparent
Add the garlic
After 2 minutes break up the mince and stir it into the pan.
Add the red wine and simmer for 2 or 3 minutes.
Add the chopped tomatoes
lid on (if you've got one) and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring every now and then to ensure it doesn't stick to the bottom
stir in the oregano, thyme, tomato puree and the stock cube and simmer until there isn't much liquid left surrounding the mince.
Season to taste.

It is so important with Bolognese that if you feel the mixture isn't tomatoey enough or rich enough you add more liquid and reduce it down some more. I frequently add more wine than i should but it gives the mix this gorgeous dark colour and you can just about taste the tannin of the grapes.

Recipe 1 from the weekend

Oooh i wish I'd taken photos!

Photos from Bar Boulud

Ok, so this is all rather amateurish but at least it's a start.

Giles Coren started small and now look at him - one of the most admired restaurant critics in the country. Yes, his first review was probably a damn sight better than mine, but at least (hopefully) I can't get much worse!!

Photos below....

Breifly Back to B - Bar Boulud

How cool, hip and trendy do i feel to have been to one of London's newest restaurant openings within it's 1st two weeks.

Time was of course when i would have been within the 1st week. But I'm getting old and crusty and don't wear my dangerously high heels all day everyday so people overlook me and think I'm middle-aged before my time. Rest assured, anyone reading this, I'm not prematurely middle-aged, i love going to new restaurants, oh yes and I have a GSOH.

So, after my evening at Dukes my colleague decided to take me out for lunch as I'd spent rather too much money the night before. we were going to go for the usual Spaghetti House or Cafe Rouge, but as we were toddling past The Mandarin Oriental we spotted the menu for the new and seriously highly rated Bar Boulud! Well, we tried to resist, and failed.

Since its opening I've read 3 reviews of this place and all three have been glowing. We wondered in and expected a table to be available, but no we were put at the bar as they were fully booked. Oddly, we hadn't even considered that we might not get a table at 12:45 on a Friday!

Everything about this restaurant is shinny and new. Sitting looking into the brightly lit kitchen i notice how quiet it is. None of the Gordon Ramsey, Marco Pierre White style swearing and yelling, but a quiet plethora of skilled artists at work under the watchful eye of Daniel Boulud's American sidekick.

Once our waiter had talked us through how to read the menu (which i must say i do find slightly annoying - i am a reasonably intelligent human being who was taught to read) we were furnished with bread and butter.

I had great fun guessing which plate on the pass was mine and which was my friend's (conversation was a little slow following the last night's few too many Miss Moneypenny's). My Halibut arrived looking so utterly beautiful that it was almost a tragedy to eat it! I took a photo but have lost it!! It tasted so fantastic i was reliably informed that this was Daniel Boulud's signature dish. Ooooh, it was so yummy!

My friend had the Yankee Burger. He said it was delicious with the one GREAT BIG exception that it was cold. Now, even though the beef was perfect a cold burger is not cool; no way! The chips were lovely!

How annoying - I've been trying to write this for 2 days and I've now forgotten what i had!

Photos soon.

x

C is for Martini. No, Dukes. Ah, Champagne!

Oh I'm confused!

So where did i leave it yesterday?

Ah, yes - the Bikini... So the ham and cheese panini isn't going to do much good for my figure. Neither is the bowl of cheesy baked beans I had at about midnight last night.

If you're looking for a blog entry full of culinary excellence - this isn't going to be my finest.

Did you know that Ian Flemming invented the famous Vesper Martini at Duke's Hotel in St James's Place?

They have this special tray that they make the Martini's on. Now, personally I don't actually like normal Martinis and i wasn't feeling strong enough to go for the Vesper, so i went for a Miss Moneypenny. This delightful concoction is vodka based (all the best cocktails are in my mind), Cointreau, fresh lime and passion fruit. Goodness me it was tasty! So tasty, in fact, that i had to have 3 followed by a nightcap of 2 glasses of Louis Roederer!

So the only culinary activity i indulged in was a scrummy bowl of Heinz (because it has to be) baked beans with melted butter and cheese.

More to come but I'm heading back to B

B is for, Oh too many things!

I thought i was going to struggle to think of a topic for B, but it turns out there are billions of blooming, brilliantly beautiful ideas. See what i did there!? Aren't i clever. Although it's slightly worrying that i had to use Word to come up with some more words beginning with B!

First I thought Beans - and i planned to make a supper encompassing as many different beans as possible. But I've since bean (See, I did it again!) sidetracked.

Bar Boulud is a new bar that has opened pretty much next door to my office - it's underneath the Knightsbridge Mandarin Oriental and is apparently really rather good - but I'm afraid that's going to have to come a bit later as another hugely important B has cropped up.

BIKINI

So, the countdown begins.

I have until 27th June to get myself body-beautiful for a trip to Egypt.

The gym will be seeing my sweaty little red face a little more frequently.

The bar will be seeing less of my beautifully smiling face.

And the vegetable isle of Sainsbury's will be seeing lots more of me!

So, get yourselves ready for healthy but yummy food.

Please don't panic. I won't only be eating lettuce.

In fact, I'm not a great fan of lettuce (who is...?).

Note to self - mustn't drink too much so i loose sight of my goal.

Actually, if i drink lots, then I'll see 2 goals, maybe that will spur me on?!

Now there's a thought...

Until later.....

Time to Begin...A is for Asparagus

If Alex James can waffle for an hour or two about the A-Z of Classical Music each week, I should be able to find some food to waffle about for a Blog entry or 26 or 52 or 104.

Oooh what is that, pungent smell. Ah, that's right. It's May, Asparagus Season.

It's a well-known theory that not everyone has the genes that produce the foul smelly weeeeeeeee. It has been proved recently that everyone has these genes but only a measly 22% of people have the genes to smell it... Lucky them!

Asparagus Officinalis - it's full name. They are native to Europe, Africa and Asia. In other words, these curious green vegetables ain't that picky as to their breeding ground.

We had some growing in our garden a couple years ago. But that's not that exciting.

Today i decided to go a bit asparagus crazy and had it for lunch and supper.

Lunch was a beautiful starter of 5 spears of asparagus with a soft boiled egg and some lovely bits of Parmesan....

I can't provide a recipe for this because a) it's pretty obvious from the picture below and b) because I ordered it off the menu at work!

Doesn't it look nice? So simple, yet just so yummy.

Supper (when i finally left work) was asparagus too.

I got this off the good food website and it was quite fun to make as it involved Flambe!

3 Chicken breasts

chicken stock (good quality or homemade if you can)

2 shallots finely chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp Brandy or Cognac

3 (generous) tsp Creme fraiche

little bit of chopped tarragon.

Seasoned plain flour

Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Coat the chicken in the flour and gently fry them until they are sealed all the way round.

Add the shallots gently fry until they are see-through.

Add the Brandy and CAREFULLY set alight. This is done, if you are cooking on a gas hob, by tilting the pan so that the fumes given off or any spitting coming from the pan hit the flame from the hob. It will light with quite some vigour but as long as you have your eyebrows out of the way you'll be fine.

At this point I moved my chicken into a casserole pot so i could make lots of sauce.

Once the flames are out add the stock and gently boil for 10 minutes. Add the asparagus and turn the heat right down and put the lid on, I found it easier to just steam the asparagus rather than boil as i didn't want them to take on too much of the chicken taste.

Once the asparagus are tender add the creme fraiche and stir through the tarragon.

I found that the sauce was too runny so i took some of the leftover flour and added a little water to make paste, put a couple of dollops into the sauce and it thickened beautifully.

Et Voila!

Oh, by the way - i served it with Basmati Rice.

Ok, so not the most beautiful plate of food, but it was pretty tasty and not too fattening (if you don't count the spoon or two of ice cream afterwards and the 2 glasses of white wine as a very appropriate accompaniment!

More tomorrow...

One of these days i won't finish typing this and thing how dull a read it must be!

x

twitterfeed test...

An Officer and a 'free range' Gentleman....

So, after I made the deadly boring Muffins, I had 2 egg yolks left. The last time i made mayonnaise I was at school and it curdled.

Ooooh it went so wrong.

Needless to say i have always stuck to Helman's ever since and turned my nose up at Mum's homemade mayonnaise...

Well, I have been converted. Mayonnaise is easy-peasy!

Ingredients

2 egg yolks

1tsp mustard powder

teeny bit of garlic (i used probably 1/4 of a clove thinly chopped)

1 tsp white wine vinegar

200 ml Oil (half light Olive Oil and half sunflower oil - mixed together)

Freshly Ground Pepper to taste

generous squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Put the egg yolks into a bowl and add the mustard powder and the garlic really mix these together. The take the oil and pour A Teaspoon's worth into the bowl. THOROUGHLY mix this is though and do the same for another teaspoon until you've done about 3 teaspoon's of oil.

The mixture will be really thick by now. Add the white wine vinegar to thin down the mixture. Now add the oil in a constant thin trickle while whisking all the time. Unless you've got a strong arm / wrist I recommend an electric whisk or beaters.

the mixture will now resemble thick mayonnaise. Add a generous squeeze of lemon juice to thin it down and take away some of the richness of the olive oil.

On Saturday i had this as an accompaniment to one of the world's most simple and sumptuous foods.

Asparagus.

simply pop the asparagus in the microwave with some water for 5 ish minutes, until they are quite soft.

Place them on a plate with the tips all pointing the same way. The the aforementioned mayonnaise and put a large dollop on top of the tips.

So so so simple.

But absolutely fantastic - I'm a complete Homemade mayo convert!

x

Do you know The Muffin Man?

For someone who thinks about food as much as me, I couldn't quite believe it when I realised I'd never actually made any muffins.

So, bored on a Saturday afternoon.... out came the muffin recipes.

Traditionally, apparently, muffins don't last longer than one day. The SuperMuffins I made last 'up to 3 days' in an airtight container.

It's all about the Bananas!

I got this recipe from the BBC goodfood website.

The only other tip / thought I had after making these was that more blueberries isn't necessaily better. There should be a maximum of 3 blueberries per muffin. otherwise it looses it's shape when you eat it.

I'm two days after making these bad boys and they are a little too moist for me to be 100% comfortable eating them.

I'll take them into work tomorrow - they'll go in a flash!

Right - after mayonnaise, I promise to force myself to write something interesting.

That is, unless someone other than myself is reading this and finding it gripping!

x

Isn't Twitter Marvellous...

So I joined Twitter last night.
I was up until 2am building my profile, finding friends and attaching this Blog to it in the vain hope that someone other than me will read it! I have also now got Twitter on my Blackberry. The problem now is that no-one i know is 'tweeting'.
So all that effort for not a lot at the moment!

How do i take the next step from twitter-loner to twitter-fiend?
Any help greatly appreciated!
x

The Great British Weekend!

First Post!!

Grammar / spelling / writing can only get better...

I wanted to start by talking about the weather. How terribly British.

Then I thought; no, I'll talk about why i want to write this blog. How terribly dull.

So, how does one start these things....

Who knows....

Food is what I do.
Food is who I am.

When i get bored - i think about food.

Let's set the scene; at the boyfriend's parents house. Le boyfriend is busying himself with his installing all the bells and whistles on his Mum's new IPhone / putting yet more amplification into his car / fixing his Dad's new wireless weather station so it takes a reading every 2 seconds and not every 8 seconds (because you're going to miss so much in those 6 seconds); and me? Well I'm quietly reading the paper, surfing the Internet to find ways to make myself super rich and generally contemplating the fact that I'm not really doing anything constructive.

Here comes the food bit.... In case you were wondering.

So, I decided to raid Le Boyfriend's mum's kitchen and cook. she had already started to make some Seville Orange Marmalade (not the season, but remember, she's a Mum, so she's orgsnised and bought some oranges and froze them months ago!) so i learnt how to make marmalade. Chopping the skins of the oranges isn't a quick job! Particularly if your boyfriend likes fine cut Marmalade. I only say that because i can't stand the stuff but am sick of buying it for him so i thought I'd give it a go!

It's actually not nearly as hard and complicated as I'd thought it was.

We used 5 Seville Oranges and 2 pink grapefruits.

A bag and a half of sugar and a litre and a half of water.

Don't try this at home because i can't for the life of me remember the ingredient details...

But APPARENTLY it tastes yummy - according to the boyfriend, but he has to say that!

Muffins tomorrow - once I've done muffins and Mayonnaise I'll start at A and work my way through what i see as the foundations of cooking!

Let's hope someone finds it interesting!!

xx