Nosh of love

Food as frenemy Food as healer

2010-03-25T19:10:00.001Z

Image from microsoft clip art

Hi long time no see lovely foodie people. As you can see Ive not been here for a very long time. Its been very difficult to talk food, as my relationship to the stuff I scoff had to drastically change. November last year I was rushed into hospital , covered in some strange and unexplainable burning and scary looking rash, on top of which I hadn't been able to eat properly for weeks on end, (months even), well I had but my body wasnt very happy with any of it & had rapidly lost weight. I was extremely unwell. I wont go all serious and uncomfortable on you here, after all this is a lighthearted and fun space to talk about food, but lets say the weeks following that Hospital day were not very pretty. I was diagnosed with various auto immune illnesses.

It seems strange to talk about food and this particular illness on this food blog , (thats been an account of mine & he the mans many luxurious & rich heavy feastings), but our relationship between how we feel in our bodies and what we feed it are very connected & now I have learnt this the hard way. I wont go too distasteful on you and have you squirming at your screens, but I will discuss with you what its meant to me.

Being told (even for a few months , I remember pregnancy very well, ahh the need for a runny egg) , you cant eat most of the food groups you've existed on since the dawn of your time is challenging, painful & for me, downright shocking : I was sent home with 3 pages of foods to remove , albeit may be temporarily for say 6months to a year. Yes I have to go to that neurotic place first before I get to the, right what do I have to do to get through this stage. I had to stop dairy, wheat, meat , crucifers, aliums, cabbages & much more, I also had a feeling sugar was doing my body in to.

I had an addiction to sugar that had known no bounds; alcohol , sweets, sugar in teas, cakes , icing, candy floss, anything and everything to fix that sweet monster call . I do however prefer dark chocolate over milk, but one too many confectionery dairy milk bars have passed my lips the last 20+ years! Every morning started with a packet cereal & milk, tea with milk , sauces with cream, cream cheese on even more processed white wheat crackers.Yes pasta & bread had been a non stop staple for me also, eating everything and anything doughy & wheaty I could lay my hands on ; rye, 50/50, sourdough, pitas , challah, wholewheat granary's,naan & on & on. My saving grace, or so I thought ,was reducing my white over processed intake & changing much of it to 50/50 mix. Little did I know the havoc I was wreaking on my guts all these years! I think I may have fooled myself into thinking I was healthy & balanced, as I had eaten salads every day, the thing was that they always sat next to salamis, cured meats, sauces and dressings, all again laden with sugar, preservatives & other nasties. Well nasties for me & my body anyway!

The portion above was written about 5weeks ago,(to the day) & since December last year Ive been researching , seeking , reading and experimenting a better way with my munchies. Unfortunately Ive had a secondary diagnoses in the last few days, (although I had a hunch it was coming months ago) & lets say, it has far wider concerns, it now makes my body think that Im still unwell, even though the previous condition is nearly stable. It needs a much more multi leveled approach than just eats. As this space is for foodyism , I think I will save those thoughts and ideas on my blog Gifted Hand - my more esoteric space for things Reiki & metaphysical flavoured. I haven't been there for 10 months now , lets say it was having a long needed rest & recuperation like me!

Whats that saying once you learn new ways, you cant go back to how you were? I followed a well know USA web site for my condition(s) Heathers help for IBS to start with & to help my endeavour, which in its essence has some great ideas & some amazingly detailed supportive information; it suggests starting all meals with soluble fibre. So I then found myself starting a meal with rice every day or gluten free crackers or some such. It suggests buying or making your own artisan breads to ensure the ingredients are kept safe. I then found that may be rice wasn't quite right for me , as I continued to not feel so comfortable. There are however reams and reams of good recipes , (theres an unbelievable amount of them there), but for my confused little head it got over complicated, mix that in with trying to sub some of the US ingredients, remove my no no foods & I found myself struggling . I think I was hoping for a one stop shop or book or site , but it wasnt to be. I think Ive realised the best thing is to bring together lots of different types of food ways; one that suits some of my old cravings, albeit in a replacement of ingredients way & many that show me theres another way.

Its a steep learning curve and made more challenging , as he the mans pretty much wants to continue eating the same way he always has or so he thinks! Im also not yet completely 100% well versed on how to do raw & clean & remove some of the offenders from my diet. Im probably around 50% clued up , but thats not yet enough , as I will start to miss essential nutrient parts of my diet to keep my bodies needs up, like blood sugars (mine often drop to 3.8) & aiding gut function, working in my Glycemic load. I'm also not yet quite ready to give up animal proteins like chicken & fish, Im a carnivore & I dont think I can stop eating it. Red meat is another story, Im really not yet sure what Im going to do! I did have a cheeky steak at Gaucho a few weeks back, I'm not going to pretend I'm something Im not , I think Ive said it before! I need to find a better source of red meat that's cleaner and I know more of its provenance. I dont really fancy added hormones though thanks , mine are messed up already!! For now it will be a treat rather than a main player. I must also add , that I think there are some added benefits to eating cooked food also , it does mean that certain other vitamins and minerals are released that aren't as prominent when foods are raw. I also have the layer of having to add a few more lbs on my frame! I will find a balance that suits me somehow.

Im not here to change the world , not yet anyway, its more that right now I need to support my body to heal, repair, reverse and continue feeling good. Food for me needs to be my medicine, as a friend said to me a few months ago , when I couldn't face eating another plate of steamed rice with nothing added. If anyone takes an interest and wants to try what Im making great. If not , no problem, my path is for my needs right now and hopefully my 2 girls , as the cupcake (might have to rename her?), will show much interest in what Im making & wanting to try it all.

Im hoping Ill be fairly adept at making things and satisfying & satiating appetite. Its a bit like alcoholics anon , I will have to remove all links to my old addictions, Ive cleared out every cupboard and warned the troops that there may not be the same things at home anymore, (well a little , Im not quite that radical, yet)!! Somehow I have to find recipes that replace it , so that I dont have complete and utter deprivation , thats when I know It will be the slippery slope into the arms of sweet & doughy monster! I think I will have to list all the things I LOVED to eat and then make them in a clean cleansing way, a bit like before and after!

I feel it could be quite fun to change things up in my kitchen & expand on my knowledge of a wider food world, my body will thank me for it also. I will have to find a way of getting the energy going to do it all though, as Im challenged by the current symptoms of my illness , but a drip feed of change is better for anyone looking to shift years of any life patterns. It will be a gently does it, not my previous past life of all or nothing.

Today Ive been scouring sites and researching in a big way, theres an enormous wealth of information & sometimes its mind boggling to hone in on whats accessible and quite easy to adopt. I think I may have to organise another trip back to New York next year just to go visit this exciting looking restaurant Pure food and wine , by founder of web site Oneluckyduck.com & book writer Sarma Melngailis . I like her way & it rolls with my aesthetic with foods. I have no idea how I missed it last year! Also today I found Selene of blog Veganlicious, (especially like the idea of the raw cinnamon pancakes),this looks really interesting and many of her recipes look quite easily doable, breakfast is one of my biggest challenges , as Im trying to stay away from mostly all the normal boxed products & oatmeal porridge with various non dairy, non soy, non rice milks , (Im on the hunt for that too, Kara coconut milk's my latest & Jury's still out on that), can become very dull every single day, even with different fruits on top. I can see that eventually I will have charts up to help me with the variations every day. Yes, I like my charts , my head doesn't work quite in the same way it used to before getting my lovely syndrome! I will work around it!

So what about my piccy at the top of my blog? Does it reflect what Im doing? I may have to change it soon to give me a new symbol & help aid my efforts. I still like a bowl or two of chicken soup , but knedlach , well I may have to find a way to make them using GF substitutes, hmmm not sure theres GF matzo , will have to look into that one. May be I need to start knocking at the door of the kosher Brands in the Uk & demand GF versions of it all & removal of all the nasties, (HVP- Hydrolysed veg protein will be my 1st, really not good for my system right now), hmmmm , now theres a project!

Im still eating

2009-08-09T11:44:00.000+01:00

Not sure where this picture is from! If I find the source , I will post it.

I know Ive been away from here for some time. Id like to let you know that I'm still cooking and eating. For some reason Ive actually been doing a lot more , he the mans I think is quite worn out with all our entertaining!!! But there is something nice about cooking for others to enjoy and be sustained. I just havent had the head space to write about it all though, theres just been too many layers of life to sit and type in the evenings on both my blogs.

I am writing gradually about our anniversary trip in April to New York City, so watch this space for my post on our eating experiences there . Ive also been practising my Thai cooking abilities after an evening with David Thompson of Nahm. We watched & listened to this very dry, witty and knowledgeable man from Australia cook up a Thai feast of 5 courses for us in the kitchens at Divertimenti a few weeks back.

Today we're having friends for tea and on the hob is some homemade tom sauce, in the oven is he the man famous banana bread and behind me he is now whipping up eggs for pavlova. A very odd concoction of smells!!

Back in June we went to Taste Of London , this years theme being Thailand. It seems Thai food has featured much this year for us. We had friends over at the beginning of the year and made our own Thai meal , which turned out great , but now after watching authentic Thai food cooked, (by a Thai food hero, no less!!) , it seems we had a way to go in knowing how to make it much more authentic and true to a real Thai taste.

We sampled all sorts of culinary wonderousness at Taste ; my favourite being the most amazing rich, sweet unctuousness of a lamb chop from Kai in Mayfair. I will say no more as I want to save it for another more detailed posting. For now I have to get my house ready for another 4 adults and 3 other children to be welcomed.

Happy Noshing to you

New York eaty me uppy!

2009-05-19T18:40:00.000+01:00

Ive had a few friends enquiring about blogging my NYC trip with he the mans , so I thought Id do my best and finally finish it, (well part one anyway) , seeing as it was back in April! Its been sitting in my edits section for some time now! We , will I, planned long and hard for our eatery itinerary and even sparked off some very lengthy heated debates on Chowhound , (a very useful foodie forum), about several places in NY.

Most people ask you what you've bought when you go to NYC , but they know with he the mans and I , its all about the food!! So here over the next few paragraphs is a sort of restaurant diary of our 4 days of ~~gluttony~~ , wonderful feasting!

Our first night was spent at the very stylish , star spotting Mercer Kitchen. I had hankered after a very classical NY evening by returning to Keens Steak house , but my Brother & Sister in Law happened to be in NY at the same time staying at The Mercer Hotel & being only round the corner from our Hotel 60 Thompson, we thought it nice to meet up there. Its like bees to honey for the stylish set this place, but it could do with a little bit of a polish on the service front; some food came out cold and the wait for a a new dish was decidely long! The saving grace was the lovely flavours and a few free drinks thrown in.

We didn't go for all out decadent blow out meal here thought, as quite frankly after a whole day of travelling you just want something either light or homely, well I do anyway!

I know Carpaccio is a bit passe now , but this I couldn't miss, as it combined my faves in fish ; raw & citrus . I love a bit of Ceviche Sea bass Carpaccio!!!

After said day, I really wanted some major comforting familiar food and for me a Friday night is all about a Roast chicken meal! So Roast Chicken in butter with mash it was . For those of the Kosher hearted think away now! ( I don't know why , but I have no picture, but how different can a roast chicken breast look!). I have to say, the fact it was roasted with butter made for the most moist flavourful chicken I had ever eaten out. I never ever normally eat chicken out for the very reason of it being bland and tasteless. This was far from it.

Now I know I talk a lot about healthy eating and being mindful over edibles, but sometimes when in Rome , well when in USA , I just have to start the day with a BIG American Breakfast! So Big Daddy's at Union Square it was 1st thing Saturday morning. Nothing exceptional and not even really a traditional NYC experience , but it was fun , in a sort of old fashioned Disney themed diner sort of way!

We had planned to do it the civilised and stylish way and partake of room service breakfast on our balcony , but sadly we were rained out of our Penthouse suite, (surprisingly given as an upgrade for us on the 1st night of this 10th Wedding Anniversary trip).

Just take a look at this beautiful space.

After this we wandered over to the Union Square farmers market. Walking away from Big Daddy's and on to Union Sq , we stumbled upon a piece of our past, namely City Crab, (visited on our 1st trip together over 12 yrs previously), on the very same corner. Ive written in more depth about all the serendipitous events around this trip on my other blog Gifted Hand if you would like to know the crazy number of synchronistic happenings that took place in our packed 4days! Most particular on this day was the juxtaposition of City Crab, Wholefoods market and the Union Sq farmers market that struck me, having such a rich interest in all things foodie and our past and present all combining.

Its not so much the uniqueness of places like Unions Square Farmers market , as we have Borough market, which is equally bustling and vibrant. This was more about enjoying submerging ourselves in New York food culture & a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.

These ramps seemed very abundant that day, if we' had a kitchen to cook them in we would have bought some.

I loved the way the greens were displayed here ,rough wood trays , but it worked so well.

This stand of macro herbs and shoots was very popular a hive of activity and so beautiful too.

It was at the end of the meander that we saw across the road the famed Wholefoods market and would you believe I have not ever set foot in a whole foods market , this coming from a so called foodie! Everything is layed out so perfectly, almost to perfect, but it is a feast for the eyes. All those wet dripping bright shiny vegetables and lettuces, makes you want to buy the lot!

Ok thats part 1 put out there. Watch this space for the next installment were I natter on about more food and more restaurants, like this lot;

A continuation of our Saturday scoffing with Lunch at Bistro Les Amis, Dinner at Eleven Madison Park, Sunday Breakfast at The Grey Dog, another lunch at a dodgy TGI Friday type place off Time sq with not so great buffalo wings ( so not memorable , we cant even remember what it was!), dinner at Kittichai in 60 Thompson, Monday Breakfast at Southstreet Seaport (nothing fab, just the place next to Abercrombie), and finally Lunch at restaurant Landmarc in the Time Warner Center.

The marvels of tomatoes and other yummies!

2009-05-08T14:13:00.001+01:00

We well and truly christened our new kitchen the other night with a 4 course feast for some friends. For 2 weeks he the mans and I sat with our cherished books compiling our 4 course menu. I fell in love with a dish from our French Laundry book and just had to try it. The rest was from Gordon Ramsey's 3 star Chef.

When a very good client of mine bought me the book French Laundry, (client is subsequently now a very good friend), looking through its hallowed pages, I never thought Id ever be able to make anything from it. But 2 yrs on and many a meal been made and experimented with, he the mans and I felt brave enough to give it a go. We have never previously made these dishes until the day of the dinner party! Mad I know, but we managed to pull it off to our complete surprise. Although it didn't come easily , the kitchen was a mass of equipment and non stop processes on every surface. It was true organised chaos! We tried our best to stay calm and in control all day preparing, mixing and sieving to our hearts contents! The girls loved seeing this commotion in the kitchen and little cupcake was especially proud of her contribution to the mixing!

Now I know many people would say we weren't being very creative as we didn't come up with something ourselves, but I feel we were really stretched technically and having mastered - will ok may be not quite mastered !! , but having tried , we're are now in a place to start combining our own things, eventually!

Our very own gourmet tasting menu was as follows :

Scallop with sweetcorn puree and truffles - Gordon Ramsay 3 star Chef page 134 Image page 20

Vine ripe tomato sorbet with tomato tartare and chive oil , served with garlic tuiles - French Laundry page 55-56

Navarine of lamb with buttered vegetables with celeriac puree (we substituted with salsify) & Thyme jus - Gordon Ramsay 3 star Chef page 190

Lemon meringue with marinated strawberries - Gordon Ramsay 3 star Chef page 216 Image page 100

Now with the corn puree I really wasn't sold. I thought sweet, creamy & corny = well ick! But Oh my gawwsh , he the mans has become my puree super hero. It came out so moreish and savoury sweet , I couldn't stop eating it the rest of the weekend!

Now onto the Intermezzo or Amuse Bouche. First you start with some tomato's and wow they were some tomato's! They tasted how tomato's you imagine should taste. He the mans made some time the day before at Borough Market to get them, as that seems to be the best place for real produce. There's then roughly 30+ processes that go into the tomato sorbet dish!

These

then become this

Then I had to boil and re boil this 3 times, that's orange zest by the way

Then I made one of these

The recipe asked for the use of a Tamis - basically a very wide and extremely fine sieve- to finely sieve the tomato puree. The Tamis retails for around £87 , now I know equipment is important , but at this stage of our cooking lives , I'm not quite in need of such a luxury - YET!!! I did however find this cheaper substitute on Amazon , but alas it wasn't available in time and doesn't seem to be available at all now! So I came up with the next best thing ,very fine muslin tied really tight across a bowl!

So it didn't move when I was pushing the tomato puree through twice , I laid it into another bowl.

This was my invention to allow the puree chive and oil mix to drip through to create the fine chive oil for plating up with the tomato's.

He the mans was amazed I managed to do these tuiles , as was I. It involved spreading a fine paste into circles onto greaseproof paper and baking to create crisp savoury nmm nmmmess !!!

and finally its all plated!!! Quick wheres my wine before the next bit!

I'll have to apologise for this image , we just started eating when I remembered I hadn't taken a shot of it. Again there were reams and reams of processes , but he the mans just pottered around the place bringing it all together! He makes it look so easy! I was too busy with my part of the meal to manage to get shots of his work in progress!

and finally dessert. This was a shared effort , again with some more tuiles , this time with pepper, sugar and sesame seeds. We got in a tizz with the meringue as it really wasn't working. Having tried it several times we had to give in due to time. The flavours were right just not the texture. Meringue is such a fine art and this creation called for a soft chewy slab of it, instead we had a crunchy , chewy, foamy, blob of lemony sweet and sour stuff! The sorbet however came out wonderfully, all zingy sweet smooth.

Ive just asked he the mans if he'd do it all again , he said yes , but not for a while!!!

A quick word on Agave Nectar or the evils of sugar!

2009-05-05T18:39:00.000+01:00

Image from Allposters.com

I must admit Im a bit of sugar fiend and even though I know its not great for me or anyone in high quantities I still like the sweet stuff; sugar in tea, honey in cooking, sweeties, ice cream and so much more! Although strangely as I age, Im finding many confectioneries far to sweet for my palate! I thought with Agave Nectar Id found the product of my dreams , sweet and healthy! What an Oxymoron that's turned out to be!

A paper has been published recently, and you can read it here , the crux of which is ; STAY AWAY FROM AGAVE. Its evils are being compared to the likes of High Fructose corn syrup! The worrying part is the chemical secreted in a reaction to the extraction and heating of the centre of the agave heart. Ive recently found this Volcanic Nectar version , but I still want to look into how different this product is from the others on the market. It sure does make some amazing claims in comparison to other Agave products.

I believe totally in moderation and my diet is testament to the myriad of foods from healthy, raw to gourmet and all the way through to fried junk (Ok so I have a bad thang for bufallo wings shhhhhhhh!!!). So to this end I think I will still use a slug of Agave here & there, but will make sure I try and find other substitutions for sweetness in cooking. I tried a whole papaya in a one pot dish and it did wonders. I just find adding that little sweetness can make some of the flavours really intensify. So if anyone has tried anything natural for sweetening , let me know.

3 months since the 1st wall came down

2009-04-25T17:14:00.000+01:00

and all is great in Kitchen Nosh of Love! When I get round to it ,I will post some snazzy pictures! After 2-3 months of upheaval , dirt and constant people, we are now straight, gleaming and sparkling and ready for some major cooking action. I christened my new hob with a chicken soup fest last week , making nearly 10litres of the homely golden stuff! Im so abnormally excited by the sight of it all potted in the freezer, I can see me turning into a very annoying Nigella type! Its a real pleasure to cook in and finally be able to do some lovely home cooking, as we have lovely new equipment and amazing Anolon Meyer saucepans and pans. They DO make a huge difference in comparison to all my supermarket and cheapo shop bought, (Tescos!), ones Ive had for years, (yes I know, how shameful for a foodie)!!! Its been a great investment if we're to do some intense cooking this summer.

Writing about food on here when all we existed on was takeaways and simple fare didn't seem that interesting to report on, but now were all a flutter planning our very first dinner party in months next weekend ! Were seeking inspiration from the 3 star Chef recipe book from Gordon Ramsey & Thomas Keller of French Laundry, (which makes me think of the amazing Carol Blymire who has cooked her way through the whole book & blogged about it and I must see what her outcome was with what I fancy doing!), I wont say here what as one of our guests reads this and we want it to stay secret for now! How Im going to top Melon soup with basil oil, I dont know! I will report on it all after!

We're also going to great lengths to make our 10 yr wedding anniversary trip to New York in May an unforgettable foodie experience! At the moment we are so overwhelmed with choice we've only booked one night out of the 3! This being the very elegant and modern progressive food restaurant Eleven Madison Park , I will be sure to report back when we return, that's if he the mans doest get all humphy about me photographing everything in sight! Like London we can choose any style , atmosphere and type of food and Im so boggled with it all we've gone into inertia stage for now! I am however using the ever informative Chowhound (Manhattan Board), for real serious talk on where to go and have some experts pointing me in the right directions.

Yesterday I made my rich and dark warm spice beef hot pot and my little cupcake declared it the best thing I had ever made! Praise indeed from my extremely fussy eater! Its the recipe I first started this blog with , so its befitting of a new start in my new space! Its so amazing what a change of environment can do. Although it uses Agave nectar and Ive recently read some worrying news on that too good to be true ingredient. I will follow up with more on that very soon.

Tonight for the 1st time in weeks and weeks we are dining out together and trying a little restaurant in Islington called Sabor and from the menu it looks extremely promising.He the mans can have his favoured caipirinhas and I can hopefully be in ceviche heaven if its on the menu! Im actually getting fed up with eating the same style of food out, (modern British, Italian, French Brasserie...) and to have some new flavours from Brazil & Latin America will be a great change. It might even inspire some new menu ideas of our own.

The Kitchen that was!

2009-03-04T14:07:00.000Z

This will be my new office in a few weeks, currently the store room come kitchen!

This is were it all used to be housed, well that and 12 other cabinets!!

If you read my Reiki life blog Gifted hand , you may have realised I have no kitchen right now, so cooking and eating great food has been a challenge. As from yesterday we are down to only a microwave! Its so cold right now its hard to exist only on salads and sandwiches. We've been trying our hardest not to eat continuous takeaways, as in my mind I'm thinking 6weeks of that ain't so good for you! Think Super Size Me!

Preparing food in cramped conditions being the challenge it is we thought the next best thing was lots of cheese platters, cold meats and quince. I tried Manchego this week and found it to be quite moreish , it has a particularly tangy, scrape roof off mouth pungent taste which I love in cheese and was even better had with a lovely bit of sweet grainy quince or in Spain Cano's Membrillo.

I was talking with a close relative today about diabetes, as Id had a message in my development class this week from someone, that a family member was possible enjoying the good stuff a little too much and it was affecting their sugar levels, (and yep I was able to corroborate who that was today) ! Ive been reading, through a contact on twitter known as RawHealer , from links on her feed, that there's much interest right now in the raw diet being great for diabetics and reducing the need for medication . I know my relative is on medication right now and I suppose would rather not be,but as yet is not yet sold on the raw diet idea. We started talking about the kitchen and preparation in this dirt bowl of a home! We got into how I'm really interested in eating more raw foods myself and making it a regular part of my weekly diet. Despite her reluctance to go the whole hog, (a bit like myself), was willing, if prepared for her, (and I'm loathe to push anything on anyone unsolicited, more a gentle nudging influence!) , to sample a great raw foods meal, when my kitchen is done of course!

So on that tip I was inspired today, having planned a duvet day sans kiddlies, to make a salad in the style of the raw movement (Not fully fledged as I just am not ready to not eat meat, I like it too much). Id already bought these ingredients this week in preparation but hadn't yet thought what to do :

Turnip
box of seeded pomegranate
1/2 bag pea shoots
1/2 avocado
1/2 papaya
1 pre cooked chicken breast (yes I know I cheated a tad and it sorta isnt the raw foods point. I also kinda cancel the healthy as many supermarkets cook in sugar, but hey just look at were I'm doing this above! You also can’t put a good carnivore down!)
juice of a lime
soft lettuce

It wasn't the most elegantly prepared dish, but it was delicious and fresh: In a large bowl, shred the soft lettuce, add the pea shoots, grate the turnip straight into the bowl, spoon in scoops of avocado , do the same with the papaya, tear up the cooked chicken, throw in half the pomegranate. Pour over a drizzle of olive oil, squeeze all the lime, a dash of agave and a few turns of some sea salt and ready to scoff!

If I'd had more time , I would have looked into a more flavoursome dressing , but this turned out to compliment the combination of ingredients quite well as a quick solution.

I'm really looking forward to doing some more research into the raw textures and flavours I can mix up together , chopping away in my new kitchen for everyone. Ive been waiting for our re -build to be done to find some more books on the subject, (I do have a thang about Chad sarno food though) and add to our ever growing collection. This shall make for a good start to our new environment at home and welcome in the spring.

So any rawists out there, what could have dressed my salad today to give it a more intense layered flavour, I'd love to know your ideas!?

Land of plenty or Big it up USA style!

2009-02-08T12:48:00.000Z

Well I returned a few weeks back from the capital of big food and now I cant seem to eat any of the usual things Ive been satisfied with. I will share with you some of the things we ate and things we made in our 14 days jaunt around the East coast of Florida. The main crazy unforeseen mania - and one I should really keep quieter for all my obsessions with healthier fair- was for Buffalo wings! My little cup cake even grew a great fancy for them, even at their spiciest!

The thing most notable is the portion sizes ; Id forgotten how big they were, & big = good in USA!! With one of the largest obesity problems in the world, (& interestingly the West coast faring better than the East), I'm glad there's some headway for a new culture driven towards more healthy eating & away from serving big, greasy and overloaded, bring on the raw is all I can say! Due to such an inbred relationship to fast food in American culture, its like steering a large ship on a new baring! In the end all we could order from menus was some starters to share with extra sides of vegetables and salads, as we just couldn't stomach seeing that much food in front of us. Granted as we were with the girls most of the time, we frequented the more touristy old USA type haunts, so we were bound to come upon the more traditional, old school food ways!

Take The Cheesecake Factory for example, walking through I noticed people tucking into creamy cheesy salads served in dishes that would feed at least 5-6 people, but the upside was that they had a section on the menu for weight management with calories listed, so that's alrighty then!

Now after all that can you believe, I for some reason was compelled to order one of their famous cheesecake slices (well I did have to, didn't I?) and oh my gawsh I had two mouthfuls and that was it, I was done in . I'm hoping they expect you to share something that's the size of an air brick or do some of you guys really eat the whole lot!?

I wouldn't say this was a trip planned around fine dining , well not with 2 mini me's in tow. I wasn't prepared to munch in lovely romantic candlelit surroundings with my 2, err not so quiet ones! We did however get one evening to ourselves and had a booking at China Grill in Miami. The meal started with such promise, with a beautiful and delicate sushi amous bouche type dish . The the portions , even though it was stated at the beginning would be smaller as it was the"tasting menu" , (not the eat everything menu!) , got bigger and bigger, more clunky and heavy, until quite frankly we just didn't really want to eat any more. By the 6th dish and accompaniments, we just felt bloated! Which was a shame as the flavours were good and the combinations really packed a punch in your mouth. We just felt some delicacy and pairing down would have gone a long way to increase enjoyment of the meal rather than the pile it high & sell it not so cheap!

Dim sum in a savoury sour quite moreish sauce

lobster pancakes -stir fried with wild mushrooms, red chili, scallions & coconut milk

Halfway through I needed to cleanse my palet , of course with a strawberry lychee daiquiri! It was at this point we got served a variation on a Cesar & oriental salads , atop a rectangular plate in 3 huge mounds!

Large shrimp with black ink pasta & smoky cream sauce.

Famous Teriyaki steak

From a distance this looked like a frozen box of some berry fruit - that would have been really wow- , but it was actually a large Brandy snap , full of chopped bananas & cream ! Nice as it was , I wouldn't say it really sold me on their patisserie abilities! Hehehe Im difficult to please with food aren't I!!

In Key Biscayne , we tried Peruvian El Gran Inka ,a wonderfully different flavour experience to the normal American menu. We started with a beautifully tasting (although not as nice on the eye), ceviche , but even then the corn was larged up here too (I believe its a speciality in Peru)!! The rest of our meal was a combo of spiced grilled fishes and sweet potato dishes. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to photograph the rest , but it was all very well put together.

On our way into Duck key , we stopped at the Hungry tarpon for a quick snack and tried the Key's famous Conch chowder,a spicy tomatoey thick gloop full of bits of , well conch! It was like stepping back into old time USA, a bit grungy, with staff a bit niceish/snarky and food a sorta sloppy Joe style. Quite tasty though it was!

Whilst in our Villa on Duck key we made some time to go to Publix & got ourselves some great ingredients. He the mans as you know is rather partial to a Rib eye , so we got a lovely nice juicy one, & yes BIG one , to share that is!

Back in Miami we did make a rather special purchase of Demi Glace beef from William Sonoma and used this, (along with Rose wine as this was all we had, for De glazing the cooking pan) , to make an unctuous brown jus to pour all over it! To serve with it, inspired by a similar salad eaten at Toms Harbour Hawks Cay , I dry roasted some chopped pecans in sugared Cinnamon to add a spicy crunchy to my watermelon side salad.

We still managed to sniff out some really good sushi & went to Kaiyo in Islomarada. The flavours although not traditional , were very much enjoyed . We had a feast of fruity spare ribs , sashimi platter, miso soup, crispy dim sum & a lovely simple citrus salad. I also had to have my favourite Ikura , I cant have my sushi without it!

In the hotel in Duck Key we also enjoyed a kind of Latin tapas at Alma of soup, plantain chips & fish cakes and somewhere on he the mans Blackberry are our photographs from that night. When I eventually get round to working out how to download them, I will show them on here & tell you more of what I thought of that meal.

Our last meal was a lovely end to our trip , shared with our girls, sat on a veranda at the Butterfly cafe at the Hotel Tranquility Bay . My gals and I had a lovely sweet and savoury Cuban Grilled Pork Chop, served with pineapple & plaintain crema.

I finished off with a chocolate fondant creation as a little indulgence for the last night. It was rich velvety and very sweet and like with all these desserts I order I can never finish them , most friends think that's strange, I call it sensible!

Overall we had a good experience , gained some new thoughts on food i.e that I don't need to eat that much to be satisfied and also got some new ideas on how to combine flavours & textures to create a more layered taste .

I don't think I noticed this as an issue with food as a child when I was lucky enough to see Florida back in the 80's or even as a teen , it was much more a novelty seeing food in such abundance compared to the UK, but now most of the modern world pretty much is the same , yet USA still is up there on food as fanfare and size being the main point.

Ive always been fascinated with American culture and being fanatical about food, it makes for a lot of good combined mulling over: Do you think there's less value in food if it isn't abundant on your plate? Is it always expected ?Would it not feel right if it wasn't served this way? Even many of the servers agreed with us on portions and advised us to not over order, so why the perpetuation of largess? Its a huge dichotomy in total loggerheads with the medical problems of over eating : On the one hand you go out , have served to you enormous plates of food, (its very tempting and very easy to do). You then go home and see umpteen diet adverts , work out systems, pills and equipment to buy , that removes it all!

I never knew I had these passionate feelings about it all , till this holiday and it just blew us away, so Ive gone on a bit of a soapbox here!

Anyone reading this Id love to know your thoughts?

Oh and don't get me wrong , I still had a lot of fun eating out ! Ive been to all sorts of places with my relationship to food and I'm sort of swinging just in the middle of the pendulum right now. Its just that sometimes, we got surprised and almost disappointed faces when half the plate went back! "Did you not enjoy it?"

Some Hamisha nosh

2008-11-30T10:35:00.000Z

Image from Global rhythm , book ; New Wave Kosher: Jewish Food From Near And Far

There seemed to be a hamisha, (cozy & familiar in Yiddish) , theme to last week. On Friday I had a lovely afternoon with our group of little girls at a friends house as they were preparing an old Jewish dish from Tunisia called Pikayla for their Friday night meal . "Pikayla" being my only spelling of it so far, as no one will spell it out , I feel , for fear of finding out its many wonderful secrets! It combines burnt spinach , beans and lamb in one pot. I think they may have preferred me being blindfold and led to another room , and the lid of the pot being tightly secured but I just love finding out new and different ways to cook. It really makes food seem exciting and on a cold dark winter night , to eat something different , as its so easy just to buy the same and make the same week in and week out , makes life , well just a lot more varied!

It seems several families, (only 15 I was told), have this spinach dish but are loathe to share it with anyone!! I had it once at a friends house as part of a wonderful middle eastern kosher buffet and her sister in law gave me part of the recipe but not all of it- oh the secretiveness of it all- so to this day (until fri) , I didn't have a clue how to make it , or what it was called. For several years after this party I also had a scribbled and incomplete version of Tbit recipe, but could never find the real recipe as again no one would spell it for me. Ive had it written down as Tbeet, for some years and didn't get anywhere with it on google or anyone else! Ive also never attempted to make either of them , for fear of getting it horribly wrong , especially as they may have omitted some secret part!

Many of these one pot dishes whether created in Libya , Tunisia, Israel or Iraq were created in a similar vein to Choulent , as it could be left in a low oven all night from Thursday to serve Friday night as part of the sabbath meal.

Last week I went to Sami's in Brent street , (the review linked here being the very few I found), for a mums night out. I was hoping for a yummy comforting Kosher meal, and I don't like to be down on restaurants , but disappointingly not all of it worked. The small salad starters were quite good and served on lovely small square plates and the portions plenty. Their Tabouleh was quite savoury and moreish , but it seemed to be made with cous cous rather than the bulgarwheat its more familiar for. My friend and I shared a Tbit (and I finally learnt of the correct Iraqi spelling) and a Shwarma , but both were like eating flavoured cardboard and even then it wasn't the flavours associated with either!!! Red Chinese five spice just doesn't belong on a shwarma , NOT EVER!!!! I also miss the Tahini sauce and harissa that just makes shwarma pop when served with all the salad trimmings and the very best is Sollys for that! The Tbit I'm led to believe after partaking several years ago should be a slow cooked warming spicy dish of chicken mixed with rice , all moreish and moist and deeply flavoured. There was a distinct lack of that with this as it consisted of three tomatoey dry chicken legs served separately from the flavoured rice. The nicest warming and cosy dish was chosen by another of our group , that being Memouleh - basically meaning stuffed - and we all wanted to try it, poor women!!! It consisted of meat packed with rice , wrapped in 2 pillow shaped cabbage packages and served smothered with a tomato spice sauce, heaven for me!! It just looked like you could go to sleep on it! The combination of soft cabbage and savoury rice meat filling worked really well with its differing textures and is what a wet winter night is all about. The sauce had enough spice for flavour but wasn't overpowering. It was definitely for the books and I will go to great pains now to find a good recipe. Apart from that I think that may be it would have been safer to stick to lots of grilled meats , which is their speciality.

However on the plus side were the girls who served us , as they stayed as patient as they could be with nearly 30 loud Jewish mums!!!

On my travels around I'm finding some really great dishes , but many are kept under wraps or just passed down between the generations , never to be seen outside that particular family. Ive been told I'm not allowed to experiment with the Pikayla until my friends have made it for me , and I will hold them to that, but until then I cant help but do some research and find its history, in fact I'm itching to right now. I believe that wonderful recipes and foods need to be shared and enjoyed. There is nothing more enriching and restorative than these kinds of foods. They are deep in memories of family and togetherness, its more than food , its a whole heartfelt sensory experience. To me they embody the very meaning of Hamisha : even if you haven't tasted them before, they feel recognizable!

I read in the Jewish Chronicle last week that a women Carol Savage has started the very web site , My dish, that would be a good place to find some of these hidden gems. It provides a space to share and publish recipes online. Apart from that it might take some chutzpah to make several surreptitious calls to various restaurants around to garner these recipes. Or just find a way of making best friends with some of the waiters on the night!

Happy food hunting

Let me know if anyone finds some of the recipes above!

Hi, yes still eating, cooking and making a mess of the kitchen

2008-11-25T21:07:00.000Z

It seems this blog has turned into a "oncermonther", around the 25-29th mark I come on here and suddenly realise 4-5 weeks have gone by and I haven't shown any food porn!

Well I just have to change that this week somehow, have a look at my camera and come back to this space.

In the meantime have a look at this for a little Italian feasty we did a few weeks back

The "burning" question !

2008-11-02T22:34:00.000Z

I often look up the nutritional content of foods , mainly to see what the Vitamin levels are. Did you realise that Papaya has double the vitamin c content of an orange ? What I also found interesting in my searches was the nutritional information on a food types Inflammation rating (IF) documented by Monica Reinagel at Inflammation factor. It appears it is responsible for our many ills.

As if I don't worry enough about eating my raw fruits and veg, I now have this to get me oesophagus in a twist about as I may be eating the WRONG fruits and veg!! I realised I eat quite a lot of high sugar fruits ,grapes, strawberries, plums and more , but checking them on the chart , they have fairly medium IF ratings, phew , not so bad then , but not the best!

So what should I be eating more of then?

Well it seems from this list , as the IF rating is in the positives , I need to be eating more crucifers ,raw carrots , cantaloupe, errr jalapeno peppers (yer I was surprised about that one too and need to have another look into it!) and of course spinach, (which I LOVE in salads) oh and I can continue to eat me beloved strawberries too!

I will be looking at her book The Inflammation-Free Diet Plan for more ideas and how it will work in my lifestyle in the new year. Hehehe , he the mans will have a fit , as every year Im onto some other guru, (it was Gillian McKeith 2yrs back and the year before this Superfoods by Steven Pratt) or a food plan to try and kick boost me a way from noshing on crisps and ice cream!

Has anyone tried this diet plan, have they found it beneficial , or are you a newbie on the IF rating like me?

Nope dont dig the partridge!

2008-10-25T16:23:00.000+01:00

The minute I cut into the skin and saw the teeny ball bearing which was the shot that deceased this mini bird , that was it , I had to stop eating. I really was not enjoying the nutmeg cabbage either. I did have a picture of the offending article, (he the mans I apologise for my criticising), but it just looked nasteeeee and it seems to have disapeared also , strange? Is he hiding evidence may be! Its so strange how a taste can conjure up a feeling of such dislike in the mouth and nasal passage! It had such promise in the packaging , this teeny interesting little thing, so full of tasty hope , but it was not meant to be! Anyone want the one I have left in the freezer?

I reckon he the mans is allowed a small percentage of experimental disasters, I certainly have in my time; watery cauliflower cheese , sunken cakes , over alcoholised stews, over cooked rock hard ~~mini wall tiles~~ biscuits and more!

My success in August , was a lovely breast of duck in sichuan spices. I was very reluctant to cook it as its not an easy dish to do , as you have to be patient and render the fat of really slowly by cooking on a low light skin side down and I was determined to make sure it was medium rare too , so quite a tall order I gave myself!!! He the mans was due home late and I just had to try. After a lot of shouting and panicking to no one in particular, it came together. You would think I was creating some intricate gourmet dish with the way I was flapping around! It was in fact very simple in the end! I wilted some pak choy and then after I then de glazed the frying pan with soy sauce , rice wine and a little sugar poured this over the dish.

Another dish Id forgotten about , but was very savoury and flavoursome , was a Bruschetta dish created by he the mans with fresh grilled sardines on toasted Bruschetta bread , served with a wonderful tomato compote made with a mixture of mini santini tomato's, capers , onions , balsamic vinegar , parsley , lemon, garlic & seasoning all shallow fried together with olive oil.

Tonight's meal is another experimentation, whilst it doesn't sound to good , it smells amazing. He the mans has coated lamb chops with ciabatta breadcrumbs , mixed herbs and garlic salt. There is also a whole butternut squash being roasted in Cinnamon, honey & olive oil and seasoning. It should in all intents and purposes be good to eat, who knows , Ill find out in 5 minutes and let you know!!!!!!

A teeny catch up

2008-09-28T17:45:00.000+01:00

Its been a few weeks since Ive been on and September so far has been really quiet on the food front having had my eldest start reception. Food lately has been a means to an end I'm afraid. Also having lovely end of summer bugs has also put a stop to much culinary want!!!!

Im pooped by the evening, which is one of my main blog writing times apart from Sundays , but its kids party season right now , so Im hardly in to write! I think the effects of the long summer holidays came after, a bit like when you get ill as soon as a plane takes off for holidays!

The last lovely meal out was our anniversary meal at Clos Maggiore , but there is however some random photos of bits and pieces that he the mans has been making here and there.

At the beginning of Sept , we spent a few days with our friends in Yorkshire, my gal pal of the lovely blog Mee Crafty.

We had a lovely afternoon in our hotel grounds , The Solberge Hall, drinking coffee and eating cake and the kids enjoyed running around the walled kitchen gardens. They had some great courgette specimens on show!

I had a need for a major choc fix and ordered this little pretty creation , although it looked good, it was a bit sickly sweet after a few mouthfuls!!!

He the mans at the end of August had a thing about potted shrimp and loads of little pots of butter kept on turning up in the fridge! I'm not hugely enamoured with them though. I don't know what it is , possibly all that melted re-congealed butter may be and I think Ive decided Im really not a fan of nutmeg !!!! I know Im not really selling them am I.

Tonight is he the mans first foray into the cooking of partridge roasted with a Parma ham wrap and served with sauted cabbage with garlic butter and nutmeg . I will report back on my findings soon!!! So far I'm not so sure on the smell around here and there seems to be no sign of a gravy, to me that's tantamount to food suicide, (I just dont enjoy dry meat )! Instead of game chips hes done a game fried bread to lay it all on. I cant say I'm excited! I shouldn't be so ungrateful , but sometimes the experiments don't work!

J'adore Clos Maggiore

2008-09-02T20:39:00.000+01:00

ohhhh what a lovely weekend we had for our anniversary a couple of weekends back. A wonderfully smart evening at Clos Maggiore followed by a night at One Aldwych In Covent Garden. I was allowed to leave the nest much earlier than he the mans and headed up to Covent Garden on the overground and underground, (which I like as I get to read for a solid 40minutes with no interruptions), for a wander around mid afternoon. It was bliss: sun , shopping and no kiddlies hands!! Don't get me wrong I love my girlie's and missed them , but Im with them morning , noon and night , sometimes with no adult contact for days except the shopkeeper up the road! This has been one long long long summer break , at nearly 8 weeks!!! There is however nothing like freedom!!!

I felt very glamorous in my new dress for the evening and quite relaxed and calm after my afternoon alone , as I checked in to the hotel around 3:30 and had some time to read a magazine laying on the bed and watched some TV, (can you believe it was supernanny, see even without them I'm still thinking of them!). He the mans then joined me for a drink up the road at The Waldorf in the Homage bar at a little table on the street noshing some little snacks & people watching all the giggly girly groups leaving the theatre after an early showing of Dirty Dancing ! . We then headed back for a swim in our own hotels indoor pool and a sit in the sauna , ahhhhhhhhhhh heavenly!

I have to say that Clos was one of the most elegant and romantic restaurants I have ever eaten in. Ive never felt the need to return anywere Ive eaten before , but this place has to be tried again for sure. It has a wonderful cosy , quirky and stylish atmosphere , with its cut hedge walls and arches, (I kid you not) . Its back conservatory were we sat is filled with blossom trees and makes you feel like your sitting in a little wonderland!

Image care of sqauremeal

We unfortunately had to wait nearly half an hour for our table , which was a little bit of shame , but the upside was being offered a lovely glass of pink champagne on the house and my favourite; some tapenade with bread sticks, all served in these lovely little teeny copper pans! All partaken in a lovely little dark and cosy sitting area at the front of the restaurant. The staff were very apologetic and kept on making sure we were OK and that we didn't have long to wait.

Eventually we were shown to a lovely table as requested at the back in the conservatory. We chose the lavish six course Tasting menu as it seemed to have a lovely selection and we thought well, it is for a special occasion . Its also a great way to try a variety of the restaurant dishes in miniature!

Id never had pigeon before but as the 1st starter it was melt in the mouth and a wonderful combination, all sweet , savoury and salty. The teeny fried egg was a cute touch and matched the quirkiness of the place perfectly!

The second starter of scallops was also very delicious and savoury , with a ridiculously healthy fluo green watercress puree.

He the mans wasn't so keen on the taste and texture of the lobster dish as small squares of black , green and white pasta sat in the bisque base which had a slightly smokey flavour to it. I would have liked some more bisque in mine , sans the pasta, as it was so velvety and moreish! The nice touch is that it is poured into your bowl at the table from one of those little copper pans.

At this point he the mans was getting a bit touchy about me snapping away and not just enjoying , so alas I have no picture of the duck dish. It was however very delicious. The duck was perfectly cooked , the deep dark unctuous sauce not to sweet and the treacle marinated skin a lovely touch . I loved the little grapefruit cake on the side , he the mans detests the stuff so I had a little extra! It helped balance the sweetness of the meat and sauce with its sour acidic taste. This is one of my favourite types of evening dishes.

I also have no picture of the cheese plate , but we had a small taste of about three -four soft and hard cheeses from around europe including ; a hard cheese comte from France, a soft cheese
Robiola Pineta from Italy and Isle of Mull Cheddar , all with a lovely small block of quince jelly which Id love to find to have at home. This was served with the most enormous basket of lovely whole wheat , seedy and black and brown biscuits and breads, but we were so so full by then , only the cheese could be eaten!!

Unfortunately , due to the late dinner start we had to rush the dessert of mini opera cake and espresso ice cream , which was a shame as it was gorgeous, melt in the mouth and decadent. Guess what I had on mine?????

Yep I finally got my birthday plate with candle !!!

This is what he the mans one looked like before being devoured.

The Happy Birthday was a bit of an oversight by the restaurant , as it was our anniversary , nevertheless we thought it quite funny due to the boxwood birthday omission and didn't say anything, as the staff there were so attentive, thoughtful and efficient . We were literally running out of the restaurant at this point , to a shocked maitre de face , I think he thought we were upset with the meal ! My sister and her mans were also in central London for the evening for their anniversary dinner at Apsley , a gorgeous modern Italian restaurant at The Lanesborough ( I see another contender for a review )and had planned to meet us for drinks at our Hotel at 11ish. It was now heading for 11:45 , and a bit like Cinders the night was nearly over.

We finished the night off with drinks , (mine was a watermelon and lychee virgin cocktail which was very fresh and aromatic ) and nibbles in the lounge at One Aldwych.

The next morning , we didn't fancy breakfast at the hotel , as it seemed all a bit to formal and serious , so we made the most of being alone and drove over to Clerkenwell , initially the idea was too try a brunch at The Zetter hotel, but when we got there we just didn't fancy the rather overpriced and fussy menu and noticed everyone walking to The Modern Pantry behind the hotel .

What a lovely surprise find ; cool relaxing decor of grey panelled walls , white and copper elements , friendly staff and a very well priced comforting menu (empty Zetter take note!). A winner all round and a very civilised end to a wonderful weekend reading newspapers and reminiscing about pre kiddy life!

It HAS to be done again next year , sighhhhhhhhhh!

Boxwood cafe Birthday

2008-08-29T13:05:00.001+01:00

Ive been wanting to come here since I visited taste Of London 3 yrs ago and had tried to get that famed melon soup recipe off of Stuart Gillies!

After all that I didn't even have it for my starter!!!!!! If Id had the tasting menu , I would have got to have it alongside my chosen starter and nosing at the tables aside from us , it looked like a good idea to have such variety.

Image care of Berkley Hotel Website, see link below

Its attached to the Wonderful Berkley Hotel , which has the famed Blue Bar inside its classic , quirky yet contemporary decor and on the opposite side of Boxwood is also the famed Petrus , head chef Marcus Wareing.

I thought the atmosphere quite low key and relaxed with soft jazz music playing , despite this muted atmosphere , it seemed like every chic Hen do had decided to come for the evening (reems and reems of all female tables). It isn't what I would say is a funky happening place , but it was still quite lovely. We unfortunately weren't in our loveliest of moods , having dealt with a meltdown from Cupcake an hour before at home! More of that on Gifted Hand!

At an opened door we were greeted by a Maitre de , (he the mans pointed out that he felt all of Gordon Ramsey's Maitre de's look like someone from the Mafia, think Godfather!!), in what seemed like a very green interior .The main theme is dark woods and dark mint green leather with silver walled tiles. Some of the lighting looks tired and battered and above some of them were ripped! I don't think we had the best table in the house and really should have said something, no matter the food was still very good!

He the mans started with a Foie gras pate, he found he couldn't finish it due its rich sweetness , so I did him the favour of cleaning the little pot out! It was a nice taste change to my Salmon Ceviche , which I was a little disappointed with, as this is one of my favourite dishes if done properly. A true South American Ceviche is teeny cubes of raw fish marinated in citrus's and sometimes spices, which gives the dish a piquancy I love and may be I'm being philistine to want these strong flavours with such good qaulity salmon , but there you go! Although beautifully served , I found the large slices a bit bland and the shredded crab a bit tasteless. It was all very very fresh though.

For my main I just had to have Lobster, I don't have it out very often due to the cost v the quality as in many places its been so rubbery and measly, but on my birthday he the mans said to go for it! It was most probably the best Lobster Id ever had ; soft , sweet , flaky and melt in the mouth. The only thing , although I love it ,was that I stank of garlic for the next 3 days, as it was smothered in it with herbs!!!

He the mans had a lovely Halibut on a buttery sauce with new potatos , but I didnt even try it , as by this time , I think I was all fished out!!

For dessert although quite cheesy , we had a Valrhona chocolate fondue with fresh marshmallows, Biscotti and strawberries. I was channeling the 10yr old in me , as the table next to us had been served with a Birthday plate version of his fondue for the husband and I didnt get any such a thing , (he the mans take note for next year!!!).

Id say It was a lovely meal but I wouldn't rush back there as it didn't set the world alight. I found the menu to be mainly good classic dishes, but may be I'm in the mood these days for something a bit crazy and different, like L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon (as I'm so spoilt at home with he the mans own great food, so its all his fault for raising the bar!!!!). It was however very fresh , beautifully served , amazingly cooked and the service was efficient , may be a little too efficient !

Goujons , kebabs and taking a wordy break

2008-08-09T11:54:00.001+01:00

Ive had to take a break from doing both blogs in tandem and this one took the back seat for a couple of weeks. I have continued to take photos and make notes of what I wanted to write about, but I didn't quite realise what an undertaking it would be to actually do. He the mans is also getting rather fed up with hearing the tap tap tap of the keys every night! I also needed to get some relaxation away from the pc screen and of course catch up on my sky+ recordings!!!

I may have to set one evening a week to post on here and stick to it ,somehow!!!

A couple of weeks back he the mans made an old fave for me and my littluns fish goujons. We normally have it with salsa Verde , but this time he made a traditional tar tare sauce (well a cheats one!). His special ingredients for the batter being panko breadcrumbs and ciabatta breadcrumbs. It gives them an amazing crunch and the leftovers were heated up in the oven the next day for my girls and they love them.

You will need

sunflower oil for frying
2 fillets cod/haddock
panko breadcrumbs (or try Atari Ya supermarkets)
ciabatta breadcrumbs (sometimes sold in Waitrose - although not seen them on Ocado)
1 whipped egg
check seasoning , some ready made breadcrumbs are seasoned already
Cut fish into long small pieces , coat in egg , roll in the breadcrumbs and fry until golden.

Tar tare sauce :
Mayonnaise
Capers
lemon juice
cournichons
chop all ingredients finely and mix with the mayo.

Onto the Salmon kebabs for the girls, cupcake loved them , however pickle wasnt so keen , but its always worth another try!

You will need
2 fillets of salmon cubed
yellow pepper
baby corn

I did these in a chinese marinade with light and dark soy sauce, mirin, agave syrup and sesame oil and a little groundnut oil for frying. Make up the kebabs 1st and sit them in a wide shallow dish with the marinade for a couple of hours. Then griddle until done. I served them with an uncle bens special fried rice. I would normally do fresh , but this is a great time saver when I only have a little time at home before their dinner

The Stables at The Grove

2008-07-20T20:37:00.001+01:00

On Saturday night we went to the restaurant called The Stables at The Grove. This is one of three restaurants at the Grove, the others being fine dining at Collette's and a luxurious buffet called the Glasshouse (not to be confused with the Michellan star Restaurant of the same name in Kew). Mostly all the hotel is contemporary and quirky, the Stables has a different feel. A little like your sitting in the dining room of a home in the Hampton's : All stone flagging , exposed beams, clapperboard and herbs in pots. Much more laid back and relaxed than the other 2 restaurants , yet still quite smart.

I love this hotel and always enjoy a meal here. Its tucked away in the forests of Hertfordshire near Watford and you wouldn't even know it exists far from its entrance gates on the A41. It was once a large old country home to the Earl of Clarendon , now a well thought through contemporary funky haven. I love its unusual and eclectic mix of antique, quirky Avant garde and modern classic furniture and artefact's. I was lucky to work with the main designer Mary Fox Linton a few years ago. They design the most sumptuous furniture, taking classic styles and making them very much of now.

Onto the food. Unfortunately despite being a fresh and nicely constructed menu , I was a little let down by my meal. Its saving grace was he the mans sea trout and a dessert of Chocolate torte with a surface like a mirror of brown glass!

We both started with a crab salad, which whilst a nice fresh and crunchy start , felt as if it could do with a bit more of a dressing . This was followed by Seabass on an artichoke palm with salsa verde. It had all the elements that I love , but combined it didn't seem to gel together and wasn't very satisfying. The artichoke tasted pickled and was quite hard and dry in places. There was an interesting cold shredded fennel salad on top , whilst a lovely element alone, with a slightly vinegary citrus taste, only jarred all the flavours even more.

He the mans dish was however much more warming on the mouth , with a decadent base of bright green salty and crunchy samphire sitting in a velvety butter sauce, topped with a melt in the mouth sea trout.

The accompanying wine was a perfect salve to my disappointment and very well chosen by the waiter. A lovely pineapple, fruity Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

He the mans dessert was cheese cake with strawberries. I have to own up here to not liking cheese cake, yes I know , how could I , such a philistine ! Its just that I can only eat cheese flavours as, well....... cheese !! The uneaten frozen strawberry yogurt on the side of his plate was another story and disappeared off there very quickly.

I allowed him to share some of my torte, (us foodie women can be rather possessive about our food) , as it was sooo rich and intense there was no way I was going to finish it all. Its texture was like the most soft and creamy fudge ever tasted , sublime! And as for the hazelnut ice cream , a perfect balance to the rich chocolate , especialy with the candied crunchy hazelnuts! A great dessert, albeit in a smaller dose!

See its quite good when you like different bits , there's no arguments. It all works out!!

I would give The Stables another try , as it has a lovely atmosphere and the staff seem quite friendly and attentive. I just think I may a bit more cautious about my choices.

The dinner that was

2008-07-14T19:20:00.000+01:00

I will firstly let it be known that I was silly and didn't photograph much at all of our lovely lovely evening. It felt a bit too immodest to stand in my kitchen (my dining table is in the middle surrounded by guests) , and snap away at my own creations in a sort of "Oh aren't I just sooo wonderful", icky self absorbed way! Suffice to say the table looked lovely with our new glasses and there was a simple black and white theme going on. All quite low key though and relaxed , but yet smart. Well as smart as you can be sitting in the middle of a kitchen that needs ripping out!!!!!!!

You could say we had a Ramsey comes Rhodes inspired night and to help with our presentation I made some notes for us to both refer to ! Its a big thing for us cooking for a new audience , so everything had to be thought through.

Here's the menu :

Starter made by moi :

Chilled melon and basil soup - care of Stuart Gillies at Boxwood Cafe (Gordon Ramsey Holdings)

I was very lucky this worked well the 2nd time ,as lets face it , you cant always re create things as well as the 1st time. We had a mini disaster when opening the melons to find they were green ones and not what we had ordered and he the mans had to go searching quite late in the day for ripe orange cantaloupes , not an easy task but he did well. Its always quite good for the foodie ego to experience a humbling mini disaster!!! I was a bit nervous about serving this , as chilled liquids can be a somewhat acquired taste , but everyone finished every drop. My dinner guest L went as far to say that if M&S sold it fresh in a tub , shed go and buy it!!! Such a lovely compliment and makes all the effort very well worth it.

Main made by he the mans mainly from Gordon Ramsey's Secrets book :

Fillet with gratin of wild mushrooms - page 73

Braised baby gem lettuce - page 126

Butter fondant potatoes - page 151 of Gary Rhodes at the table

Sadly I have no picture of the finished plate , well apart from the one you can just make out in my previous posts pictures at the bottom from the book, but it went down very well and every plate was clean!!! I was really surprised at the lettuce dish , as soggy lettuce I didn't fancy much and urged he the mans to think of something else , but he ignored me , as you can see!(well you cant actually , but you get my drift). My other dinner guest K said it was reminiscent of bok choi and she was right , it is a savoury, soft and crunchy side dish. The potatoes were a good change to roast potatoes , but much much more naughtier being cooked in butter, I must admit I try not to eat as many as I used to when eating meat also.

The steak was wonderful (I think I can say that, it being he the mans creation and not mine?) . There is nothing more comforting than steak with a creamy sauce , but whats lovely about this is a sauce that sits perfectly right on the top of the steak so that every cut you make comes with a substantial topping. We were also blessed on the night that it didn't all slide off! Oh and despite it coming out quite rare , it was still eaten , even though several said they don't normally eat steak that way.

Id' just like to say here that I'm rather proud and in admiration of he the mans ability to put together a lovely combination of dishes and flavours. A little round of applause to him.

Anyway enough of all that , his head will swell to much, back to the menu!

Dessert was a joint effort and we made a lucky old favourite of pears accompanied by some new serving ideas :

Vanilla poached pears care of Delicious magazine September issue 2004 (page 76 for anyone who collects it). They may do back issues , Im not sure how far back though.

Served with dark chocolate sorbet - page 114 of Chocolate by Linda Collister

Watermelon and raspberry sorbet - page 96 of Ice cream and Frozen desserts by Peggy Fallon ,

Topped with Caramelized Melba toast - page 211 of Gary Rhodes at the table.

The pears always do well and are a nice fresh finish to a solid main dish. Its a mix of syrup, sweet Riesling , lemon and fresh vanilla in a wonderful fragrant combo. Unfortunately my chocolate sorbet became a grainy mushy mess, despite everyone thinking it was a mousse , I knew it was wrong and was quite disappointed and very typically said so, (I'm not good at lying but they would have been none the wiser had I kept shtum!). It becomes a very strange acidic sandy like mooosh rather than an icy melt in the mouth chocolate zing if the chocolate doesn't melt properly. Its actually a very hard sorbet to make, only 1/4 has ever worked, but I'm determined this summer to get it right and record how!

The watermelon sorbet is great (it reminds me of watermelon juice served in Thailand) and the addition of the raspberry vodka makes it all the more decadent and grown up , although may be not as healthy as pure watermelon, which is meant to great for the body in the summer. Little cupcake is very upset that I wont let her have any. I keep saying it has very grown up drink in it but shes not convinced!!!

I told my guests of my error to take more pictures and they said the best picture would be the table after its all gone , so here it is :

A sign of a good meal

Today we will mostly be ......................

2008-07-12T08:41:00.000+01:00

Cooking cooking and cooking, (Oh and a bit of shopping this morning for wine glasses , as we haven't bought any since our wedding 9yrs ago and they've all gradually smashed).

We have some friends for dinner this evening and chef at large is busying away next to me in preparation. I wont post much about it here till tomorrow as our friends know of my blog and we don't want to spoil the surprise and give away the menu!

So last night we made this

this

and something else for desert with this

and this morning he the mans is doing things with this

a sneaky at the recipe

Later today I will be making the melon soup again for the starter and hoping its as nice as our tester version couple of weeks ago!!

Watch this space for the final outcome!! (dh needs some courage also , hes nervous!!)

One of a few local great places

2008-07-09T16:01:00.000+01:00

Its shame there aren't more,but the restaurant we went to on Saturday , Sargasso Sea, has a good following and has lasted where others have not , I recall a crab place round the corner thats now a chinese! I think its been going over 8 yrs which is some feat in any area and shows what great lengths the owners go to to make sure its a well rounded experience.

Its great if you want seafood , or just a lovely piece of fresh fish. The latest refurbishment of this mini contemporary restaurant, (all padded cream and plum suedette walls and Wenge type woods), makes it feel like your in the West end and not Palmer's green. I don't know what it is but going out locally never feels like a proper night out , but here it does . I think what makes it an evening is that you can wait for people in a smart little bar area at the front with tables and bar stalls and even sit outside with the road unseen at the front on a small terrace with umbrellas that reminds me of holidays in the med. There's something nice about an aperitif before partaking in a meal , its all very civilised!

We all opted for fresh fish, 2 of our party being kosher. It just didn't feel right somehow eating some huge crustacean, even though they don't mind and I'm the liberal sort of Jew ,it just sometimes feels a bit funny it in front of others who are more strict.

I started with a melt in the mouth tuna carpaccio , which wasn't on the menu , but on the online one and the chef kindly agreed to make it for me with the additional guacamole. The others chose an amazing Pernod marinated Alaskan black cod, which was really savoury and sweet with a fruit salsa, a great combination but not easy to replicate at home I imagine.

We all then went for versions of grilled Terbot and Dover sole in various sauces : meuniere or fennel and cucumber salsa. All very beautifully cooked and tasty.

It was a last minute thing later in the week to go and I'm surprised we got a table for Saturday night for four people , although it was for 9:15 . I am always a bit apprehensive about some of the local places and went thinking this will be an OK ish evening, but I'm glad we went . It worked out lovely , ( I got a chance to dress up and out of my mum clothes) and we had a very enjoyable evening with charming surroundings , (we had a private little room like area to ourselves), friendly thoughtful staff and great food .It also makes such a refreshing change to have good service after my experience a few weeks back too. I recommend it to all who come this way.

Alas I have no pictures for this and the website while clever doesn't show you what it really looks like.

Oh and he the mans also made a great Stifado (a rich , meaty and spicey sweet greek stew) and parsley & lemon potato's at the weekend and I need to post the recipe, as it was the scrummiest . Although hes not been home to tell me were he got his recipe from , so it will be on here soon!

Oh how times have changed

2008-07-01T17:53:00.000+01:00

He the mans walked over to the sofa the other night holding a rather full tumbler , suspectfully looking like his new drink of favour ; a vodka sour, (this time it was just still lemonade he says), stating " doesn't the drinking vessel you drink out of change your enjoyment of the drink". Despite agreeing with him, I couldn't help wondering were did this version of he the mans come from!! This from the guy who when walking into John Lewis many many years ago to discuss wedding lists , said, "cutlery is just cutlery" !!!! On our holiday recently ,( be aware there should be a ponceyometer inserted here at level 10), I'm sure the barman blanched at he the mans insistence many nights that his sour be served in a rocks glass and not a Martini one.

He's rather partial to vodka sours lately and numerous other soury lemon liquids and even has a worrying penchant for apple cocktails too, ( I just hope his pinky finger is down at the time the glass is in hand!). Hes bought ALL the ingredients for appletinis , banana daiquiris , Caipirinha and his fave vodka sour. In fact his whole eating and drinking habits have taken a 360degree turnaround over the last 10yrs. As have mine and I don't know who has been fuelling who or were it started. Thinking back though I remember many a day spent wrecking my mums kitchen in the preparation of some concoction or another and making sure I had the right bits and pieces to do it all . I also remember as a child in my late papas house , having to have a certain spoon for my cereal and soups and god help him if it wasn't found!! eeeeeeeek in fact a certain little cupcake is frighteningly similar in that respect! So my thing with all things culinary started as a teenager in my own mums kitchen , which seems to be the way it goes for most.

So progress to now and our foodie passions also seem to include making sure that , (ponceyometer level 10 warning) , things are, cooked , served and eaten with the right dish, bowl, pot , pan and cutlery! One friend who's mentioned often on my blogs was bombarded with my Tagine passion for a whole afternoon a couple of years ago!

My latest search is the perfect dessert and ice cream dishes, some of these were quite classic , but didnt quite hit the mark ! Then there's these retro beauties from Alessi , seen at Panik for £20 each! I'm drooling at the orange one!

Then these at £53 at MBS wholesale for 10 that look very restaurant styleee, which I quite like too!

Although again , like the lack of dessert restaurants , I struggled to find many retailers with any great offer for this product type. The old buyer instinct in me always has to come out at these shopping hunts and I'm almost ready there with a product line idea for some buying team somewhere! I always want to make every experience better!

Don't get me wrong I'll slum it with the best of them and in those moments when sometimes all you want is a food pill and be done I'll eat with my fingers , out of paper , polystyrene (god forbid) or anything coming my way . Just at home in our own space we like to have fun and strive to do it with style. The only thing is that no one wants us back to there's after a dinner party here , as we tend to go on mission like the next Masterchef!!!! and now Ive said that all our future meals will probably be dire and we'll be eating humble pie not Heston's!!! and yes may some of it is posturing , but also , we just enjoy the process of it all and the enjoyment others have in eating what we serve and how we serve it.

OK so there's a little about our changes in passions of kitchen product, (the non food variety) , here's a little on the food side. Take tonight's dinner , the ubiquitous cheese platter. There was a time when only commercial plastic packaged cheddar and Philadelphia would be had and a look at my parents after dinner cheeses had me sneering at the smell (as you do until your "our age")! Tomato's would make me squirm and mushrooms , the texture alone used to send shivers down me. Now I believe at this stage he the mans would have only drunk beer, probably for fear of not appearing manly and only had cheddar in a toasty! Now hes standing here picking at the cheese platter and asking me if I want a Banana Daiquiri and if we should buy some Gavi de Gavi wine for the weekend!

Now we can be scoffing the lot and and poncing it at Neals Yard Dairy like any foodie worth their salt . Tonight's platter had : Talegio , Pecorino Toscano, keen's cheddar & Pie dAnlgoys.

Just dont go asking there for a "cheddar like Cathedral City" , he the mans made that mistake in the early noughties in the once famed but now closed Bluebird Food hall in Kings Road. To the reply of " we dont do pasteurised cheese like that here sir" in a tone created to inflate you like a pin to a balloon! Bless him , all he wanted really was a strong but sweet flavour and that at the time this was his best way to describe it! Now to that shop person Id give them one of these for being insulting in the name of food . One has to laugh at these things, food should be a joy and a giggle. There is nothing worse than staff who are snootier than you are!!

What is it that makes that change : is it maturity , influence , taste buds , or just popular culture and life ? Can you remember not wanting to eat certain things years ago and now crave them? Are you fussy about utensils and will only have tea in bone china? Or do others mistakenly see it as pickyness rather than an educated enjoyment?

I say enjoy it all anyway and while your at it pass me that Chablis Cru in a Crystal glass please and that sea bass wild not farmed and that Gruyere reserve in paper not cellophane!!!

ponceyometer 20 I think and who cares !!!!!

Dinner party experiments and secrets, oh and steak dinner too!!!

2008-06-28T19:38:00.000+01:00

Tonight we thought we'd practise the starter for our dinner party in a few weeks and that's the Chilled melon soup. I feel its one of the hardest to achieve for the dinner, as its all about the depth and balance of flavours.

Stuart Gillies Head chef at Boxwood Cafe said that secret to this dish is a good rich stock , as this is the basis for this soups depth. We've cheated a bit, as we just don't have the time or the kitchen to do a 12hr stock that can be reduced and reduced all day. So we've bought an unusual rich vegetable stock called Vecon and doctored it with bashed lemon grass and torn basil. If Delia Smith endorses using bought ready made components then so can we!!!! He the mans feels there is no shame in doing this , because were not professionals and were not trying to achieve Michelin stars here , just nice well made food.

I'm writing this as we make it and the smell of the stock right now is amazing , really fragrant and reminiscent of Thailand.

If you want to try this , the quantities are not exact as were just getting a feel right now.

We've bought :

2 Cantaloupe melons , (orange flesh)
bag of fresh basil
a stalk of lemon grass
Creme fraiche
3 tspns Vecon vegetable stock - found in Holland and Barrats. They're really good for obscure and unusual ingredients.
100-200mls sunflower oil or a very very generous slug

Take a litre of water and add 3 tsp of the stock, add in a handful of basil leaves torn, and the lemon grass stick bashed

Start to boil and reduce down , this will help infuse all the herbs. It took about 10-15 mins and reduced by half. Remove from hob and decant into a jug to pop in the freezer to start the chilling process.

Whilst this is happening scoop out the flesh of the melon

Take the rest of the basil and the sunflower oil and blend together to create a runny paste. This will be used to garnish the top of the soup.

We've now blended the melon and realised that Stuart Giles probably sieves it , so were giving that a try right now! It removes all the fibrous parts and makes a much smoother liquid.

After about 20 mins remove the stock mix from the freezer and add 2 ladles of it to the melon mix, taste as you go along to make sure you get a good balance of the 2 flavours ; sweet and savoury. Add in 2 tbls of the creme fraiche and blend well with a hand whisk , to combine and froth. You should have a pale peach liquid in front of you, ours is a bit dark ,due to the colour of the stock, as its a very dark brown. I think if we were to make the stock ourselves , (if we can face it that is), we could control the colour a bit more with the ingredients we use. I may be on the hunt for another well made pre cooked version , possibly Joubere's, although it doesn't have the intensity of flavour that the Vecon one has.

Pour into the jug and return to the freezer for another 10-15 minutes to further chill.

After this time , ladle into a bowl , pour in the centre a small dollop of the basil puree and serve.

The Boxwood version serves it with some small bite size pieces of Iberico ham in the bottom before pouring it in to increase the savouriness and compensate for the melons sweetness. All adding to a better finish on the taste.

This is a deconstructed version of the classic Parma ham and melon dish.

For our own dinner tonight , were having griddled rib eye steak served with salsa Verde and sweet potato chips. One of my favourite meals , nothing quite like a lovely juicy savoury steak!! Probably not the normal combination here, but we wanted something a bit healthier than normal chips and well salsa Verde is my all time fave with anything really!!

Our Salsa Verde is made with 2 bags of parsley, 4 anchovies , juice of a lemon , 4 glugs of olive oil , tbls capers, 2 cloves of garlic, all whizzed in our little bowl blender.

The sweet potato's are just cut up with skin on , olive oil is heated in a dish in the oven as this helps the crisping process , as does sea salt on the potato's. I then add some spices. They take well to savoury and sweet seasonings like Cinnamon, garlic salt , all season and then roasted in the oven until going crispy and chewy! I also like dipping them into an M&S sour cream dip!!!!

Sometimes its just really nice to be in pj's , have fun making some nice food together and just be in our own space , with a bit of this thrown in to add to the action/relaxed juxtaposition chill vibe!!!

Wellllllllllllllll the finished article is really yum if I say so myself. I'm not normally immodest , but its delish and I'm really chuffed with our efforts tonight!!!! He the mans says its too sweet , so Ive just finished his bowl!!! Looks like our starters decided, (as long ads we can repeat it), now we have to sort the main dish and dessert. Have to keep that secret as a little bird might be watching and may spoil it for our guests!

For anyone reading my Reiki life blog , they will be familiar with the hearts that come to me everywhere . Check out the heart that turned up in the middle of that bowl!!!!! Can you believe it , how wonderful to even be in my food.

Its been a busy day and evening , signing out now to enjoy a after dinner Mojito , just served to me by he the mans!!! He the mans has just made himself his new found Caipirinha cocktail!

Enjoy x

Saturday night desserts, are they dangerous?

2008-06-24T17:43:00.000+01:00

I forgot to mention that instead of going to Just desserts after Taste of London , we decided to go to Brookmans. A new bar and restaurant in the centre of Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire , a small but very lovely affluent little area just outside North London.

It used to be a little traditional British affair of a hotel with 6 rooms ,called "The Brookmans Park Hotel" .

At only 6 rooms it must have been quite small and stuffy hotel, but as a contemporary light glass ,black chandelier and stone filled restaurant the space works really well. The real downside is and I'm showing my old age , the loud thumping banging music in the bar!!!!!

Despite this and a rather put out bar girl , the usual I- don't know -what -to- do- as -you've -asked for- something-we-don't-normally-do attitude, found so often in this country, we had some really lovely desserts and drinks; Creme Brulee, although a little stingy on the caramel topping, Cheese plate , with a lovely combination that was very tasty, fresh ice cream scoops of chocolate & passion fruit sorbets , all served very stylishly , although predictably with the ubiquitous raspberry coulee and chocolate twill and a 4th one of a wine glass full of trifle!

We phoned especially, earlier in the day, to make sure we could have just desserts, excuse the pun, and drinks, but when we asked about ordering them all hell broke loose! Once she recovered from her desserts in the bar fright, normal service resumed sort of!

A little more passion from staff about what they are serving also wouldn't go a miss in these new glossy places. They all look stunning and the menus certainly are appealing , but when the "front of house" , don't know what they are serving and don't really care, its a real shame for the whole concept. I asked what the ice cream flavours were when ordering and got a distinct shrug and a "I don't know" combined with whatever face! It seems such a let down , its like shiny exterior , but dodgy structure. It wont last unless its strengthened and fortified from the inside. I'm still deciding on whether to let the management know of our little altercation!! You kind of want these places to work , but only if they are nice to customers hey!!!

and why this big no no on being able to order only desserts in restaurants or bars of restaurants? I remember being summarily turned away by the Maitre De from The Rock Garden , despite there being empty tables, at 10:00 one Saturday night in Covent Garden, because I dare ask If we could have some desserts! Surely its hugely incremental for most, especially in this financial climate? Or is it that no one wants to eat desserts for fear of ruining diets on Saturday night in the UK ? Or is is it very unusual or not cool for school enough for UK younglins? Are we so programmed now into healthy food choices due to the likes of Jaimie Oliver et al , I'm not knocking him here by the way, I admire what he does immensely, that dessert only places are taboo? I don't think so , what with all the cocktails being knocked back around us!!!

So I feel there is something greatly lacking in this country and that is somewhere to go out and have desserts, after a meal at home. Being of Jewish descent , everything centres around food , everything ,even drinking and sitting noshing with drinks in a nice loungy surrounding sounds quite appealing doesn't it? Apart from central London Hotels, Ive been stumped on finding places to go do this very thing! Well apart from the odd bright quick ice cream parlour and may be Haagen daz in Leicester Sqaure?

New York has them in droves ,as written about here in a NYC publication. Desserts and pastry chefs are BIG business there. Up to the middle of 2007 there was about 6 of these dessert only places ,and I know several more have been opening . As the chocolate market is one of the main sectors of growth in the food industry , it seems fitting that they are the new stars. The 1st was ChikaLicious in 2003 , and seems to be fairing well and another, which was the 1st more progressive of this style, is a famed place called Room 4 dessert, were its all gorgeous stylish sweet creations on a plate and cocktails, how amazing is that? I was very disappointed to not get there on my trip to NYC last year , as we just had so much to cram into 4 nights. Alas it has now permanently closed ,which makes it even worse that we didn't visit before its doors shut. However the founder of Room 4 Dessert , Will Goldfarb opened another place in collaboration with a famous chocolatier Michel Cluizel at the end of last year. I haven't yet read much about it and may yet get to try his creations , if we ever get back to NYC in the near future that is! He seems to be the talk of the town and even has a virtual restaurant in the online community called Second life , see this intriguing blog here for more wacky details of our changing world!!!

Image of Sugar Mama , Will Goldfarbs Second life online dessertary ! care of Sasy Scarborough at Ramblings.

Well anyway that's across the Atlantic, for now I'm in London , so I'm yet to continue my hunt for dessert places in here, anyone care to point me in the right direction?

Tell me I'm wrong here , Im used to being humbled , but I may have a long wait as the UK are always about 6-8 yrs behind America in terms of lifestyle progressions, so may be by 2016 , we may see a Room 4 dessert in a Soho address as yet.

Soooo come on Heston , get a move on !!!!

Lebanese styleee chicken livers

2008-06-24T09:52:00.001+01:00

After our lovely Lebanese meal in Cyprus , we thought wed try and cobble together a version of the dish we had there. Its was a caramelised, savoury and fragrant yummyness and we think we've nearly got it. We served it with a simple salad of beets, rocket, and cucumber , all dressed with a slug of olive oil , garlic salt & lemon juice.

Here's a rough idea of the recipe , its been merged from several different recipes we've found :

Half a tub of chicken livers

Finely chopped shallots

Olive Oil

tsp ground all spice

tsp ground coriander

tsp ground cumin

2-3 crushed garlic cloves

Juice of a lemon

1/2 glass red or white wine

American long grain rice serve boiled

Fry the shallots in the oil , keep the heat low and do this slow so as not to crisp or brown them. You want them soft and opaque.

Add the livers

and start to brown

add in all the spices and cook through until you can smell all the aromas warming and they are cooked through. You want a nice crust to form on the livers.

add the garlic , lemon and season.

add in the wine and start to reduce down , so as to cook off the alcohol . You want it to caramelise again and get a little stickier.

Serve

good stuff !!!!

Taste of London = Ive eaten to much!!

2008-06-23T19:49:00.000+01:00

Mr Rhodes !
Master chef winner 2008 James Nathan @ Le Gavroche

Angela Hartnett originally heading up the Connaught, now awaiting the launch of York and Albany. A name close to my heart, so I had to be photographed with her and let her know about my little cupcake . I don't look so good in this piccy though!!

The day started off quite excitingly with me having some star struck moments. I don't normally do the autograph , photo with stars kind of thing, but to me foodie chef worship seems a bit different, dontya think?

We literally ate from 12 pm all the way through to 4pm NON STOP ! There wasn't a moment without a spoon in my mouth , well all except my awestruck chef moments! If you haven't been , there is no money exchanged , you buy a currency called crowns £1 = 2 crowns. Each restaurant then offers 3 chosen dishes and they can range from 6 crowns up to 10. I think this year many dishes definitely cost more crowns. Each stand is a mini showcase of its restaurant and many of the head chefs are there to talk with you.

We started off at Rhodes 24 with a braised beef and caramelised onion gravy. There were many versions of this kind of dish in several places, despite this it was a wonderful dish. There is nothing like a dark rich sauce and meat that falls apart when a knife goes into it. A classic lobster creamed soup followed, from Le Gavroche, which was sooo delicious I wanted another.In the bottom was the softest most flaky lobster bits to have a final seafood hit! One of the most amazing looking soups was a Beetroot velvety acrylic paint colour gazpacho from Aiden Byrne. On the top was one of my favourites , guacamole , but this was a sorbet version. Deeeeeeeeelish.

Le cercle salmon & lemon pulp

After this it was a blur of let down, great and amazing selections. A disappointing overcooked scallop was partaken from Sumosan, with a sauce too sweet and watery to enjoy, a sparky dish of salmon and lemon pulp @ le cercle, (a highly stylised offering there overall!), a bland prawns in apple balsamic dressing @ Aubaine , although their moist french bread with fig jam saved them and a notable scrummy moreish and refreshing chilled melon soup with basil oil from Boxwood cafe. This year Headchef Stuart Giles finally told me the recipe secrets for a good substantial savoury sweet version rather than , in his words a "fruit soup"! In 2006 he was rather more evasive about it when asked! Some friends may now be the guinea pigs for our experiments with this in a few weeks, so I may post our results soon, watch this space.

A dessert highlight was a chocolate layered creation from L' Atelier De Joel Robuchon.

It was true heaven in a cup!!! We tended to go around sharing most things , but with this he the mans said, "get your own, I'm having this all"!!!!! Although I don't recommend beetroot soup to follow , unless you want to be ill and leave green. You eat things a weird way round at these shows!

I am very lucky to have been able to eat in several of the restaurants showcasing , mainly the far eastern and Indian ones for some reason.I feel this show must have really helped the restaurant industry bringing a notched up buzz to London, British chefs and food in general. Its exciting times food wise. It was also interesting to see some different restaurants there that I hadn't seen before. We have a new list of places to try in the next few months. Our philosophy on this is we would rather not eat out in local chain restaurants, stay in more cooking or instead, so as not to be ridiculously extravagant, go somewhere special every few months.

Its quite an immense sized show and I find it hard to really enjoy it all in the 4hr allotted time slots. I always find at the end that I would have liked another hour to wander around all the food stalls in the middle rather than just the restaurant pavilions.

Having Taste of china area was a good addition, but using 10crowns for 2 slices of duck and pancakes seemed a bit of waste considering you can have it anywhere and especially when there was restaurants like La Gavroche offering lobster bisque for the same. I did however buy a beautiful glass tea pot and minin double walled glass tea cup and a new tea to try made from Chrysanthemums, which is great for me as its for a calming, great for a pre bed time hot drink and has no caffeine in.

I also had a free consultation on the state of my body and emotions with the ancient Chinese practise of reading your pulse and viewing your tongue. I was informed I need more chi energy , due to exhausting my liver and kidneys from thinking and stressing too much, according to the practitioner and of course there was a tonic on hand for this very affliction. Id say hes pretty spot on with the emotions and the organs. To this end I have bought one bottle to try as I'm not yet sure what my opinions are on ingesting unusual herb decoctions to salve ones mind and body ! I'm also not sure if they are classified a food product rather than a medicine? I will report back soon, especially if I go purple or something odder!

anyway , get thee to the show next year , you taste buds wont forgive you otherwise!!

A nosh day out today

2008-06-21T07:35:00.000+01:00

Later this morning myself and he the mans are off to Taste Of London at Regents Park, this is the 3rd year we've gone. We leave the kiddlies at home for this one , as its a long day and well sometimes its nice to be a grown up , have some time with he the mans enjoying his favourite past time and not have that palaver of buggies, nappies and toilet runs for the day! Although cupcake is excited as Grandma is coming with a lovely surprise yummy lunch for them (and no doubt some norty nosh also). Grandma is a very good cook , I suppose he the mans had to get his skills from somewhere hey!

Taste of London video 2007

I was hoping for a nice warm sunny day , but have awoken to a wet deck in the garden, so its thrown my attire planned for the day (summer dress and open sandals) , as last year the whole of Regents Park was a huge mud slick and we ended up soaked to the bone for the day!!! Me thinks the wellies might have to come out, which is a shame.

Never mind hey with all the glorious food to come , its a real gluttons fest! What I will say though , is as its the 3rd year I hope the restauranteurs have made some changes ,otherwise its going to get pretty repetitive ,as last year there were some of the same dishes available as the 1st year. He the mans has informed me that this year there is to be a Taste of China there today , so that will be a good change of direction.

The highlight for me is always Benares, as I love strong unusual flavours, especially Indian and Moroccan and Atul Kochars Tandori Pasliyan lamb chops marinated in fennel & papaya, amongst other things, is amazing. We've tried it at home , but its just not the same without a tandoor hey! I'm thinking of purchasing this book of his to try some other recipes at home.

After a long hard day eating , we thought it would be nice , rather than eating a whole meal out again , to go somewhere that's like an old fashioned ice cream parlour/lounge. So we're out tonight with my littlest sister to a place called Just desserts. I will follow up with a few words tomorrow if I can about what we think. The web site doesnt show much as weve been told its being built right now.

I'm quite looking forward to today , well except for my waistline , as I havent been eating like this for months ,what with all that holiday food and now this weekend!!!

Hotel food V home food !

2008-06-20T18:35:00.000+01:00

Id like to say our Cyprus trip was a gourmet fest , but alas it was a bit hotel homogeneous and well just OK on the whole , with a few gems thrown in. I'm thinking it may be down to eating far to much buffet breakfasts and room service club sandwiches!

Due to the Euro everything cost at least 20% more than eating in London, it could also be due to the Hotel we stayed in though from what Ive heard. We tried various ways to keep everything better value , one by eating out the hotel more and also when in the hotel, sharing mains and ordering extras.

We also only had 2 meze's the whole holiday and I forgot to take pictures ,shame really as the one in the hotel at Vieux Village was quite lovely, but with 2 little busy girls in tow , I didn't get much of a chance to click! Oh and there was a 3rd that was Lebanese called Mandaloun which was quite tasty and has inspired some future experimentation this week with chicken livers and spices , but also consisted of lamb balls (I'm not as adventurous as Id like to be, say no more!!!!!!!!!!!!!). We had an amazing fish meal , again at one of the Hotels restaurants called Enalia,

with the most amazing spicy sweet Thai prawn coconut soup Ive ever eaten. We joked and said we needed to phone the bank manager to pay for one portion of fresh whole grilled fish , at £60 for one red snapper !!!!! I managed to get my fave sushi Ikura though at the Hotels Japanese restaurant Kojima!

Kojima at night

The pickle just would not eat properly away though and existed on cereal , bread and chips only and would refuse point blank anything better. I despaired for 10 days and had to look away! Its strange as cupcake was the same 3yrs ago in Cyprus also, so I wonder if its quite common for kids away from home? To this end we've been cooking non stop the last 48hr on our return, so that the girls would be able to eat some good home food.

Bread, bread and more bread

I was overjoyed this evening at her hearty scoffing of vegetables in my just made chicken soup. Two huge pots we made , no less!!! I think I may have linked to the traditional recipe somewhere in my previous posts. Ive just finished a HUGE bowl myself for dinner yum yum yum.

We also made our famed traditional Italian meat ragu yesterday. I cannot take any credit for its recipe , but Delia can here !!! Although I tend not to use the pancetta , or the pork or the liver and sub them for celery , carrots and if possible veal mince. In fact its almost doctored beyond the original! I also add in about 4 slugs of Agave syrup to balance the tomato acidity.

All I know is all my family both in this house and my parents, namely my little sister and her friends come flocking when they know its on offer! It has a deep unctuousness that makes you dip the spoon in the pot over and over , naughty naughty!!

Holidays

2008-06-07T11:39:00.000+01:00

Im off in a few hours for my holiday with my girls .

Hope to report back in 2 weeks with lots of great foody pictures.

It will be meze , meze and more meze , which is one of my favourite ways to eat ; bits and peices.

see you soon

wellll the chench has come out !!!

2008-06-01T20:02:00.000+01:00

Tonight is garlic night, as our friends couldn't make it for dinner, (hey guys hope we can show
off see you soon), we thought we'd make our nice dinner anyway!!

So on tonight's menu is :

Braised Garlic chicken pg 130 (a la Ken Hom Hot Wok) , We've had this book since before we were engaged (and it looks as old as we do) and many a meal has been made from its pages! This is Chench at its finest! For those unaware ,"Chench" is a phrase coined one funny night, by a friend, meaning Chinese influenced by French style !

Its a great dish and so savoury and moreish , you want to just keep eating the sauce and mushiness that it creates , it has to be sucked off the bones too! In Japan they call that extra special savouriness, unami and this has it in droves. It combines 2lbs of chicken breasts with 15 cloves of garlic and lots of lovely Chinese flavourings ! Tonight he the mans added some more in the shape of 2 whole fresh just picked garlic bulbs, stalks and all , which made the dish much sweeter than normal.

Its not the prettiest dish , but that doesn't matter when its enjoyable to eat hey! He the mans served alongside it, a sort of potato pie experiment thing , that tasted quite nice and consisted of sliced potato , packed tight and baked in a stock with herbs in the oven. He wasn't happy with its outcome , so alas I have no images.

Dessert was followed by :

Homemade Green Apple sorbet , which to me is just gorge , as I LOVE stewed apples and this all pureed and frozen is amazing!!

Taken from book ~ Ice cream & Frozen desserts by Peggy Fallon pg 82

or

Homemade Dark chocolate Gelato , which is rich dark and very naughty !!

Taken from book ~ Italian Ice Cream by Carla Bardi Pg 18

cabbage borscht with no tomato juice ?????

2008-05-28T17:34:00.000+01:00

OK need to back track on the borscht. The mama love has just told me a bit more about my late great nanas recipe and its a Polish cabbage borscht shes after with NO tomato juice , some may know it as sweet and sour cabbage soup?

So there you go , my muddled mama brain got it all the wrong way round , may be why I couldnt find it hey!

Ill do some digging again and see what I get !!!!

This weekend we were mainly........................

2008-05-28T17:12:00.001+01:00

doing this

Then this 24hrs later

then this another 12hrs later

Carrot stick anyone ?

I scream for ice cream

2008-05-19T23:53:00.000+01:00

Our 1st proper ice cream machine arrived on Tuesday , we had one of those pre freeze ones before , but it just never worked for us. So we've been wanting a real one for years. and thought what the heck, lets get one. After much deliberation on various websites and reviews and a chance find of it in a local discount shopping centre with a further great discount,(it working out cheaper than Amazon), we went for the Cuisinart Ice 50.

Its a whopper of a thing and its sitting right next to this laptop. Its shouting out for us to re do this kitchen of ours , as we keep buying all sorts of gadgets that we have no room for!

He the mans decided to take it for a test run on Wednesday night , after it sat still for 24hrs and make a milk chocolate Gelato, I'm not a fan myself preferring a much more intense flavour, but my cupcake has asked for it again this evening. For the faint hearted it is not ,as this used a whole huge bar of Valrhona milk choc and gawd knows how much cream , I daren't ask.

My favourite would be a luscious dark chocolate sorbet, that has a touch of cacao liqueur in , see how the alchy gets another look in ,I do like my old lady liqueurs! Ive made a few times for dinner parties and its been a winner as its so unusual . I have half a watermelon in the fridge which is dying to be crushed and frozen and apart from that ,I'm all ears in ideas. I'm fancying an apple sorbet may be?

Watch this space for some more ice cream alchemy ! Or some ice cream yuckness, I might try the avocado one they made on The Apprentice a few week ago!

For the love of chocolate!

2008-05-19T16:36:00.000+01:00

I found this on another sweet food blog (its great to get new ideas for meals every day), called 3 sides of crazy , and had to put the widget for it here , Im a sucker for gimmicky quizy stuff and I just love a bit of dark chocolate. The thing is I love sqaures and rectangles and each one has a different meaning, does that make me crazy?! Whats your fave?

What Your Taste in Chocolate Says About You

You are sophisticated, modern, and high class.

Your taste is refined, but you are not picky.

You are often the first to try something new.

You are energetic and quick to act.

You are open minded, and you easily adopt new social causes.

While your heart is in the right place, you often can't follow through with your dreams.

You love being by yourself and thinking. Developing your own theories and ideas is fun.

You feel lost when you're forced to be social. Being with other people can be lonely for you.

The Chocolate Oracle

A mini sychronistic moment with Borscht!!

2008-05-18T22:30:00.000+01:00

Some of you may have read my bit about wanting to find my mum her late Nana's Borscht recipe that had no raisins in it. Lo and behold through clicking this evening into Barbara's blog , (a lovely blog for home ideas and lifestyle), for a catch up on posts, at Candy Hearts and paper flowers and a her last post today, I found a link to The kitchen , which has wonderful food ideas and inspiration and there right on the list of soups is a recipe by Nina C for borscht with NO RAISINS. I will have to pass it by my mum and see what she thinks.

Thank you Barbara and Nina !

Last night at Awana

2008-05-18T16:56:00.000+01:00

Image care of London Eating web site, somewhere we use as a rough gage of shall we, shan't we go there.

We love a good nosh in central London and like to try somewhere new in the centre with good food and service every few months. As we couldn't get a table in Crazy Bear ,or Chicago rib shack , ( major nostalgia) , we opted for Awana instead with some friends. I quite liked the atmosphere ; low ceilings , dark chocolate fabric walls and warm oaky woods. Although some feel its a bit stark and paired down for Malaysian tastes, having been to Kaula Lumpor , I think Malaysians seem to favour this minimal feel.

The hostess seemed a little impatiently huffed at He the mans going to the bathroom at the point of taking us to the table. We were walked through the whole restaurant and taken to a table nearest the kitchen door and complained , within minutes we were moved to one right in the thick of things and we all calmed down!

The service was quite attentive and helpful , as the menu is enormous and we needed some guided navigation. On completing the order we felt a little like we had been up-sold , (as our friend phrased), more dishes to us than was required.

Anyway enough interior design , onto the food. Firstly us girls had our cocktails , "martini style " : their famed blooming hibiscus and a framboise ninja , which were gone in minutes if not seconds! For appetisers we started with a sharing plate called ; campuran pinggan ; lamb satay, which was melt in the mouth, spring rolls, very crispy, scallops in a garlicky spicy bread crumb, a flavour I just wanted to keep eating & spicy battered chicken wings. On top of all this in a little teeny bowl , which I was so wishing there was more of , was theeee most moreish salad of pomelo and green mango. I so want this recipe with my addiction to salads . As that was only for 2 people , we added to it another satay of chicken and roti canai (flat bread) with red curry sauce to dip , I could have eaten ladle fulls of this stuff.

For the mains we all ordered a dish we liked, making sure we could all share them, but due to mister over seller , we also had a 5th dish of lobster salad! So we had rendang daging , an all time fave made at home, which is also called village curry. A rather plain but beautifully cooked slice duck breast with a blow your head off pepper dipping sauce called itik panggang , an amazing rack of lamb in spices and flavours called kambing bakar rek, steamed ginger half a lobster, which was a bit disappointing and tasteless and the Malaysian take on prawn cocktail, which was meant to be lobster salad, but was definitely a crayfish cocktail . The side dishes were a chili baked vegetable mix , and a sambal spiced morning glory.

For desserts , we had a combination of fruit salads , he the mans chocolate mousse trio ( he has a choc mousse obession) and sorbets of Lychee, lemon grass and chili ,which definitely tasted savoury to me and the most amazing one made from the fruit Kalamansi, a totally new fruit to me, its sort of sweet and sour and very refreshing, one I definitely want to use to make my own sorbet having bought our new ice cream maker today, (more on that in another post!). It was all beautifully served on wooden blocks and glass rectangular dishes.

Overall it was a lovely meal , not outstanding considering the cost of the meal, but we enjoyed it none the less. I think we would go there again ,but there are many other Far Eastern restaurants I would rather try.

Another salmon thingy !!!

2008-05-16T22:07:00.000+01:00

To be creative with the girls meals is becoming a challenge. I tend to make pasta with salmon using smoke salmon and mixing it with cream, garlic, stock , lemon juice and chopped artichokes , the ones that come in anti past jars , but I'm fed up with the flavour of this , so I was on the hunt with a new combination. I came up with this concoction and it went down very well , with both me and the girls. In the fridge I had some ready cooked lemon and herb poached salmon, sour cream , olives with pimentos , chives , lemons and other bits and pieces.

I blended a huge handful of the olives in a small hand blender pot , with 2 tbls of sour cream , 1 of mayo, chives, lemon juice and various seasonings. I then added this to cooked spaghetti in a saucepan with the flaked salmon, mixed well and served.

It sounds a bit bluergh ,but it was actually very tasty.

Rissoles oh rissoles

2008-05-16T20:29:00.000+01:00

For some reason my foods this week seem to be centering around my love of old traditional Jewish faves. Today I made a time honoured meal of rissoles and salad for a friend and her little boy. I served them with my new dressing find , yes another dressing, and they went down very well. My little cupcake said they were yummy , so that's praise indeed. A friend of mine adds grated and squeezed out potato to hers to make them go further. You can also add spring onions , soy sauce and any other finely chopped veg you fancy.

Its a bit of a messy job and I always tend to end up with loads and loads of bowls and plates to wash up after, (I can never work out why!) , but when kids sit scoffing them , it all seems so much more worth it.

You will need ;

2 tins of pink wild Alaskan salmon (remove bones etc)

one egg whipped lightly

3 tbls matzo meal , this is a gauge , every mix may need more or less

large grated onion with liquid squeezed out

garlic salt

small tin of sweetcorn

mash up the salmon

add all the ingredients together and mix to get a well formed texture , neither to wet or dry

shape into a patty , sort of like a mini hamburger

(these reminded me of makka pakka from in the night garden , pickles all time fave programme right now!)

back to food

set on a plate of matzo meal , sometimes refrigerating at this point helps to keep there shape in frying

fill a wide frying pan with olive or vegetable oil

heat to sizzling point

add in the rissoles and fry to dark golden brown

lay on kitchen paper

serve with a salad of diced mango, avocado , shredded beets, shredded white cabbage, chopped mini plum tomato's, lambs lettuce & cucumber diced Pour over lashings ( when I say lash , Im talking drown!), of my new found organic salad dressing made with olive paste ,soya sauce , herbs and wine vinegar.

Ok so Im not so Kosher

2008-05-14T11:32:00.000+01:00

but I love traditional Jewish food and my favourite places are the likes of Katz diner in New York. If your ever there , you really MUST go its an institution. Try and ignore the dirt, its all part of the New york deli experience. There really is nothing like a tennis ball kneidlach,(matzo meal dumpling), pickles and 3inches of chop liver on rye. Its one of my all time nosh and comfort foods for me and he the mans!

The best of its kind here however is Delisserie in Temple fortune, portions are enormous, so its a tip to share some of the plates with a few extras. It has a deco vibe and a bright comfortable decor and its always very very noisy, oh their pear juice is amazing stuff. Much better than the original restaurant in the same location, Madisons Deli. That always lacked something , there wasn't nearly enough depth to its offerings.

Back to Jewish food, another main staple in this house is the ubiquitous chicken soup, its basically the recipe for a chicken stock, but its a very traditional Jewish dish and we eat it with the chicken shredded, all the veg and egg noodles (lockshen) . This is a good run down of the recipe from ibiblio an online database of all sorts of info, (which I often push onto to my non Jewish friends if they're stuck for dinner ideas!). When I make it , its an event in this kitchen and a mess extravaganza! I tend to make about 10litres of the stuff , as Its such a faff for me! We then eat a good portion of one pot and portion out and freeze the rest for instant nourishment.

My girls love it and the biggest often eats two bowls for her dinner. Its the sort of soup that makes you do a deep relieved sigh inside. It has been famed numerous times for being called Jewish Penicillin and here's some papers I found online discussing the scientific basis for this. Ignore all the science jargon , just go with the content! (well unless your a doctor that is!).

The other thing I love, which we haven't made for years, is Cholent, It came from the days were bakeries would take your pot of ingredients very early on a Friday in readiness for sabbath, give you a ticket and you would collect it later. It was also often used for the celebration of weddings & Barmitzvah's.

Its a slow cook recipe of meat, butter beans ,barley, (although we both hate soggy barley I must say), stock , and various seasonings. There's probably a myriad recipes out there, I must get my mums recipe and post it here, although Im not sure ill be making it now till October , as it really is a dish for the winter. I also have no pictures to show you and to be honest it looks like a really revolting thing in photography, but believe me, if you love meat and beans , your onto a winner! We all love it in our family ,my sisters boyfriend however detest it, I think its the amount of beans! I will warn you , have a toilet near the next day!

The other famed dish and one my mums after is an amazing borscht my late great Polish grandmother made. Its a sweet and sour beetroot and cabbage soup, hers didn't include raisins and we've been trying to locate it for years!

If anyone knows what it is , let me know!

Chatsworth chocolate torte & chench !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-05-11T20:33:00.000+01:00

About 3 1/2 years ago , we made our way to Chatsworth House on the way back from a wedding the night before. Its worth a visit and has the most beautiful furniture and artefact's. Lashings of my favourite Chinoiserie everywhere, but anyway , Im going way off topic.

Back to the torte!

After wandering the rooms (with a 13mth old strapped to my front, no buggies allowed), we needed some sustenance and had a lovely lunch in the grounds restaurant the Carriage House, (although then it was in the area now called The Cavendish rooms), which was quite unexpected, as sometimes the homes in England dont always have the best restaurants. I remember having a huge and delicious lasagne accompanied by lovely beany and leafy, fresh and well dressed salads of various kinds.

The piece de resistance however was the most amazing moist and moorish chocolate torte. After scoffing the lot bewteen us ; Mr hubby, myself and little cupcake, I was compelled to get the recipe from them, and the staff kindly wrote it all out for us. The only downside was the mass catering quantities of 8 HUGE TORTE'S ,(8lbs plain chocolate, 2PTS OF GLUCOSE, you get the picture!), and not one small one, so to this date , we have never ever been able to work out the ratios and the recipe below is probably our 10th stab at making it in the combination we can work out . This time we also also used it as chocolate experiment with a block of that Venezuelan black cacao from William Harcourt Cooze. This one was nervously served last night to our friends !!!

More about chench later , 1st the all important recipe!!!

10 digestives crushed into a fine-ish texture (you can leave some to add to the top of the torte after)

125g unsalted butter

90g Venezuelan black 100% pure cacao , Carenero Superior, single bean (grated)

40g Green and blacks milk chocolate

4-5 tbs glucose powder (for anyone wondering why this and not sugar, it just absorbs straight into the mix and has no need for special dissolving).

280g whipped double cream (stiff peaks)

splash of rum or creme de cacao

1 shallow cake tin about 25cm dia

Add the butter to the digestives and mix , pour into the cake in and press down firm with the back of spoon creating a smooth and even base

whip the cream

melt the grated choc in a bowl over a pan on medium heat

break up the milk chocolate and add into the melted cacao (It has a lower melting point)

add the alcohol to the chocolate off the heat

add the glucose

taste for sweetness (you may wish to add more)

it may seize up at this point so add some cream in slowly to loosen

continue to add in the whipped cream

pour onto biscuit base

set in fridge for 2-3 hrs
To serve leave out for 20 mins

We also served Mr hubby's famed pavlova. Recipe to follow soon!

Serving something with the torte that was sweet & sour really helped to break up the richness of the chocolate.

Ok about the chench briefly , basically Mr hubby was asked about his favourite recipes last night , one being a Ken Hom chicken dish that uses 20-30 garlic cloves with various Chinese ingredients. Its a wonderful recipe and we make it regularly . We often feel it almost channels something french about it. So our friends thought that may be we should start a new fusion of french and Chinese cooking naming it Chench! Frionese came up at one point , but the chench stuck!!! (see now ive said it, its one of those , you had to be there moments!!!!).

I would love to know if any one comes up with improvements on the recipe if they try it?

Salmon & grapefruit salad

2008-05-10T09:36:00.000+01:00

A friend and her little daughter were due at me for lunch yesterday and I had a mad frantic dash around M&S in the morning with littlest pickle. I saw they had some new poached salmons , so Ive cheated a bit as I had 2 hrs to ; shop , prepare another lunch for 2 hungry kids expected home, do some blogging , do washing and all this on 5hrs sleep! If your a purest and like to do things from scratch, you could easily poach 2 fillets in wine, herbs and seasonings.

I never used to eat salmon so much as I do now and every which way I can ; smoked , raw, as rissoles, baked in the oven, made into pate. Another way is when its part of another citrusy fave ceviche (oh my gosh food raptures!). My fave is a whole packet of smoked salmon with loads and loads of lemon juice , almost drowning in it, yes I know what a philistine! I must eat way way over the amount for a women a week, 2 servings I think it is?

OK so this dish doesn't set the world on fire with its culinary wonder, but my friend and I polished off that bowl with gusto !!! The citrus of the grapefruit really helps balance the oiliness of the fish and it makes a perfect combination.

Shopping list

2 salmon fillets poached in Pinot Grigio , torn or cut into bite size pieces

2 bags of a selection of various baby leaves ; baby lollo rosso, wild rocket , baby lambada , lams lettuce, pea shoots, sorrel and any other crunchy varieties of leaves.

half a cucumber diced

half a pepper diced

a whole avocado peeled and diced

a whole pink grapefruit pith removed with knife, segmented and chopped

Dressing: (one of my concoctions!) :

4 tblsps sour cream

1- tblsp mayonnaise (Hellman's will do)

2 tsp cream cheese

some chopped chives

tsp of very finely chopped onions (osso is lovely for this)

juice of one lime

juice of half a lemon

one little squeeze of agave (cant resist & it balances the sourness)

season to taste

Lay in a large bowl all the lettuces

On top add all the chopped & diced ingredients

Layer on the salmon

pour over the dressing

munch and crunch

Enjoy

I heart one pot cooking

2008-05-08T18:40:00.000+01:00

In my family Im famed for my dressings and strange sauce mixtures. I don't want to say I have an innate ability with flavours , because frankly sometimes some things I make are dubious on the palette and Mr hubby does one of his sneering grunts!

This isn't a sauce or a dressing , but a slow cooked one pot meaty thing that I , my hubby and the girls LOVE. In fact one pot cooking is something I love to do especially in my very lovely and special croc pot I bought from Divertimenti. This particular dinner was very successful , my hubby doesn't often get to eat my food , due to my honesty in the 1st post and was actually looking forward to coming home the 2nd night for it. I still have one small portion of it left in the freezer for the littlest pickles dinner shortly. I just only hope if I make it again I can recreate its unctuousness's as I don't measure out I just sort of sense what to throw together!

I must give credit here for getting inspiration for this meal from a friends smell wafting from her oven a few weeks back. Its sort of a merging and improvement of one of my recipes , (which was good , but not great) and a cobbling together of hers!

So here's your shopping list for my aromatic lamb pot:

2 -3 tablespoons of olive or rapeseed oil.

one large onion chopped

5-6 carrots peeled and chopped into 2 inch chunks

a bag of Anya potatoes ( these are of the lovely small long pinky,waxy variety)

3 packs of lamb neck (cut into bite size pieces). I use this as its very good value and when cooked for hours just falls to bits, lushhhhhhh.

2 large jars of passata (any good supermarket brand will do) or equally you can make a really good thick tomato sauce from scratch. Mr H does a lovely one which we normally make about 5litres of for the freezer in batches.

Lots of Cinnamon , both powder and sticks

ground all spice

a few pinches of cumin

a few grates of nutmeg

a large glass of red wine

a pint of beef stock

and last but not least 2-3 tablespoons of my fave new find Agave Nectar . (wonderful stuff , now madly using it instead of sugar EVERYWHERE I CAN!)

Ok get ready for some cooking multi tasking for speed

Start by browning the lamb neck in one pan by shallow frying, and the onions in another. Heat the oil in both before starting and shallow fry the onions with the spices , so that the aromas start to float around you. Once slightly browned remove to another dish. Add in the carrots, you may want to add a little more olive or rapeseed oil then to caramelise these add the agave for a few short minutes. Add the wine to this pan to de-glaze (and de-alcholize the wine). Then add the tomatoes and the stock to bring it to the boil and start it off.

Get your biggest and widest casserole, terracotta is the best as it helps in the cooking, add all the ingredients into it and put in the oven at 150 degrees centigrade for about 3hrs. After the 1st 2 hrs add in the Anya potatoes, chopped in half if they come out very long!

Serve alone in a lovely huge round white bowl

let me know how yours turns out if you make it.

nosh nosh and more nosh

2008-05-08T16:55:00.000+01:00

Well its been seeming more apparent as weeks have gone on whislt joining the blog world, that I cant escape my love of food. I'm very lucky that I love it and he the man in the house will cook it. Believe me , I can cook , but my head and my kitchen don't like it when I do!! Ask one friend who was subjected to the courgette fritter debacle via MSN web cam one afternoon!!!

I set an over zealous intention on my other blog to be perusing over my whole lifestyle and the things that affect it spiritually,but everyday life and many posts seems to head in the direction of food and my joy of it. I realised that may be I need somewhere else to twitter on about our meal plans in this house, (many friends think that concept hilarious) ,the numerous magazines my husband subscribes to, shows he drags me, the little pickle and the cupcake around, programmes he watches (and I do to) , ingredients he buys and whats coming to fill my cupboards & fridge. May be he should be writing this with me hey!

Come join me in a natter about food and all things noshy.