Writing At The Kitchen Table

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Dough, a Beer....
2006-12-10 21:52:02
I decided this week that I didn't feel like staying up past my bedtime waiting for bread to come out of the oven. I waited until Freya went to the basement for some ingredients and made my move on the kitchen. My incursion was much better executed than the Roman invasion of the Teutoburg Forest and far more dangerous. Knowing only seconds stood between success and failure, I chose to make the easiest bread in the world, Beer Bread.As is the case with all my cooking experience, there's a funny story attached to my introduction to beer bread. I was living in Denver at the time and preparing to celebrate my 25th birthday. I decided to throw a big party and thought it best to get a keg for the event. I'm very picky about beer and this applies to beer in barrels as well as bottles, so I spent big on a full keg of Heineken. I made up my own invitations, cleaned the house, and made up a big vat of gumbo (I should probably write a post about this, one of our all-time favourite foods...ev...
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Partridge - A Game Bird
2006-12-10 21:52:02
I am not here to get embroiled in an anti-hunting argument. I spent much of my youth fighting the side of the animals. As a now grown-up ?food person?, I think it is important to experience as many different things as you can. With the benefit of experience and a slightly more logical view of the world than I had when I was fourteen, I think to be given a brace of game birds is a real gift rather than a dirty little secret. I grew up living next to a farm so I am used to hearing the familiar sounds of the fox hunters (which I am opposed to) and to the shots that accompany the short season of game hunting. Whilst I cannot see the pleasure in shooting any bird or animal, my justification for eating the cull of a shoot is this: the birds have lived an entirely free range life. Once they reach a sort of maturity (feathers still a bit rough looking but fully grown), partridges and pheasants are released from the comfort and security of their holding pens into the wild where they begin to...
More About: Game , Ridge , Part , Bird

BBM - Blogging By Mail Edition
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Stephanie at The Happy Sorceress Blog spot has devoted much of her time to arranging a seasonal swap. I received mine yesterday from Cass at Cass Loves Cooking from Singapore. Here is a photo of the great things that she sent me - a wonderful surprise for these horrible grey, damp winter days! She sent, amongst lots of other things, some cured salami-type sausages, noodles, dried mushrooms (which I'm really looking forward to using) and some sweets (that my husband snaffled straight away!) all wrapped up in Christmassy Tartan!Thanks to Cass and Stephanie and I look forward to participating in many more BBMs in the future!
More About: Mail , Blogging , Edit , Blogg

A Disastrous Meal
2006-12-10 21:52:02
I have been less than enamoured with much of the food that I?ve cooked this week, with the exception of the salt beef (although only time and tasting will tell). Sometimes you get weeks like that. You feel all discombobulated, out of sorts if you will and it will reflect in your cooking if you let it.I had a completely disastrous experience with a pair of aubergines and a recipe that I culled from www.uktvfood.co.uk website. Let me elaborate. Regular readers may recall that I had an aubergine in my fridge a couple of weeks back, which I turned into a delicious vegetarian chilli (recipe courtesy of the same, aforementioned UKTV site). This time, however, I was looking to make something a bit different, maybe involving pastry and cheese. I found a recipe, Sephardi Aubergine Pies. It seemed to fulfil my every requirement for a new dish: an interesting pastry (made with olive oil instead of butter/lard), stuffed with a yummy sounding filling (roast aubergine, feta and gruyere cheese mix...
More About: Astro , Meal

Unusual Ingredient of the Week - Agave Nectar
2006-12-10 21:52:02
As I mentioned in a previous post, this week?s Unusual Ingredient of the Week is Agave Nectar or Syrup as it is less romantically known over here.As someone who suffers from food intolerances, I am always trying out new ingredients that might make life a little bit more comfortable for myself without compromising the flavour. Obviously this is paramount to me as a food writer. And, if that ingredient comes from a natural source rather than a chemical one, then all the better.Agave Nectar comes from the sap produced in the heart of the Agave Plant. The plant is crushed and put through a process which extracts the syrup in its raw form. It is then filtered and heated to a level which breaks down the raw sugar into fructose. At this stage, the syrup can be further refined to produce a pale amber colour or bottled as is, in the dark, rich chestnut colour. There are also different genuses of the Agave plant, very much like honey, which infuse the syrup with floral or vanilla top notes.Li...

Two Soups
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Split Pea and Ham soup and Miso Soup seem worlds apart, not only in distance, but in texture, flavour and content. However, I found myself making both of these soups recently as part of a self-enforced "healthy eating regime".Let me elaborate. My husband?s penchant, when he is feeling healthy, is for plain boiled rice with soy sauce and miso soup in a teacup. Me, with my Irish tendencies, I prefer a more substantial soup, something a bit more rib-sticking. If it?s not Gumbo (only a soup in the very loosest sense of the word really) or Chowder then it must be Split Pea and Ham Soup.I could wax lyrical forever about soup. My husband loves to bake bread, I love make soup, so it works out serendipitously. Furthermore, soup is so easy to make.Miso Soup is possibly the world?s easiest soup (barring the ubiquitous cuppa-soup or any powder based soup that relies on boiling water from the kettle to rehydrate it): a spoonful of the paste into a pan of simmering water and that?s it: that?s you...
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?Acorns were good till bread was found.? Francis Bacon
2006-12-10 21:52:02
It has been suggested by my wife that I should write a weekly posting about bread. I didn?t exactly jump at the opportunity. It?s not that I don?t enjoy making bread because I really love it. And anybody who knows me understands that I love writing at least as much. The reason I?m not anxious to contribute a weekly post for this blog is that scheduling an hour in the kitchen once a week to make a loaf of bread is nearly impossible with Freya at the helm. You'll be lucky to see a Bread of the Month!What upsets me about the current arrangement is that I?ve always considered the kitchen to be my domain. I?ve been cooking since my first spectacular failure making a grilled cheese sandwich when I was six years old. My mom never did figure out where that pan went! Most kids who take up cooking are inspired by a culinary tradition passed down from the matriarch, but not me. My desire to cook came from summers at home with a father who had absolutely NO skill in the kitchen. My desire to c...
More About: Corn , Read , Fran , Good

An End of The Month Supper
2006-12-10 21:52:02
It doesn?t seem fair somehow. The higher your profile and the larger your bank account, the more free stuff you?re given. I mean, I bet Nigella Lawson or Delia Smith don?t have to pay £70.00 for a Kelly Bronze Turkey or a pig from Jimmy?s Farm. Sure, they might plug the odd organic shop here and there but I?m always advertising people?s wares on this here blog and what freebies do I get? Nowt so much as carpal tunnel syndrome, that?s what.Anyway, that?s my complaint for the day.Actually, it?s nudging the end of the month (although not quickly enough) and therefore payday, but until that glorious day when my Amazon account will open it?s cyber arms to greet me once more like the prodigal daughter, we are resigned to living on freezer burned fish and bits of cheese that resemble the Sahara Dessert.Contrary to popular belief, you can actually make a really rather good dish with a dried up piece of cheddar and some frozen cod. Throw in some peas and potatoes that are beginning to sprout...
More About: Supper , Suppe , Month , Mont

Unusual Ingredient of the Week - Fluff
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Yes Fluff. Not bellybutton fluff or fluffy Easter Chicks, but just Fluff. If you're American you will know exactly what I mean. If you're British, you will have been denied access to this most sickly sweet of all confections.Fluff is white and, well, fluffy. When you peer, bleary-eyed and more than a little unravelled, out of an aeroplane window after 7 hours in the sky, you see fluff. If only you could open the window, you could step right out onto it, hopping from one fluffy cloud to another, pausing only to grab a sticky handful of....Fluff.By now you are probably crazed with curiosity as to what Fluff actually is. Well, remember how when you were a kid, your mum would give you a teaspoon of Lyle's Golden Syrup if you had a sore throat or if you'd been whining for some chocolate? Golden Syrup is pure inverted sugar syrup. If you had a more health conscious mum, you might have had a teaspoon of honey instead. American kids have a far more exciting sickly sweet tooth-rot in a j...
More About: Week , Ingredient

Well Fed Network - New Article
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Click here to read my latest article for the Well -Fed Network . This time it's posted under the Paper Palate Site and if anyone should know about cookbooks, it's someone who is literally drowning beneath them, i.e. Me (or my tolerant husband!). Actually, the article is about my top five British writers so let me know if you disagree with any of them!
More About: Article , Work , Artic

A Surprisingly Good Cake
2006-12-10 21:52:02
I was browsing through one of my favourite series of cookbooks, the Wooden Spoon, written and compiled by Marilyn M Moore. Her books are not just a collection of recipes but a series of reminiscences from her upbringing in the Amish/Mennonite community. We Brits have a secret love for the Amish way of life and that people can still maintain those old-fashioned values and maybe benefit from a simpler way of life.Moores? love of her community is prevalent throughout her books and it is that sense of community that we seem to be losing. Local fairs and fetes almost seem to be a thing of a past, a relic from when people had the time to bake twenty cakes and dozens of cookies for huge family get-togethers.I am not suggesting that we all become superwomen (and supermen) and start to churn out cake after cake or become fully subscribed members of the local W.I. The point is that most of us have a family member or neighbour who might benefit from an unexpected treat, particularly at this ti...
More About: Cake , Sing , Good

The Store Cupboard
2006-12-10 21:52:02
I don't like to preach to initiated. If you live in England you will know what it's like to reach the end of the month and be poor. Without going into the politics of the situation, I think it's prudent to have a heaving store cupboard, packed with deli-style goodies that you purchase when you're feeling a bit more flush (the first 2 days of the new month) and that will serve you well when you're just about at the end of your culinary and financial tether.Of course, everybody has different tastes so what you tuck away in your cupboard, or plastic storage box, or drawer, whatever constitutes your pantry, behind the tinned tomatoes and flour, will all be down to you. Here is a rough list of ingredients that I have recently found indispensible in the kitchen, and I have, for the most part, listed the odd recipe here and there utilising these ingredients. I'm not suggesting that you should rush out and recklessly buy the first recherche item that you come across (I'm here to make...
More About: Board , Store , Stor

Book Cover of the Week
2006-12-10 21:52:02
My husband and I have had a few days off work to complete some jobs around the house, hence the slight lapse in regular postings on here. I have also been writing some articles for the Well Fed Network including one on an interesting new product, Wine Flour, which holds a lot of potential, not only for health benefits but also for flavouring breads and pasta. I am withholding judgement until the manufacturers decide to test the European market but rest assured it will probably be one of my Unusual Ingredients of the Month.So, a little belatedly I admit, here is my Book Cover of the Week , actually a magazine cover: Gourmet Magazine, November 1941 Thanksgiving Issue.I love Gourmet Magazines from this era. Henry Stahlhut, the artist who painted all of Gourmet's issues until his death in the mid 50s, obviously relished his task of replicating the food he and the writers for the magazine were expected to eat. Therefore, there have been some interesting cover choices: a whole calf's hea...
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Wine Flour Article
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Click here for my article of Wine Flour , published by Wine Sediments at the Well-Fed Network!Food (or rather Drink) for thought.
More About: Article , Artic

A Temporary Resolution and The World's Best Coq Au Vin
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Despite the short holiday that my husband and I just had off work and the not insubstantial amount of time spent cooking, I feel that I didn?t really produce anything that was worth writing about, other than the Key Lime Pie and the Coq Au Vin (and I?m not too modest to announce that the recipe I use for that most famous of all French dishes is superlative, albeit untraditional).I spent much time over the weekend cooking and I now have a freezer and cupboards stuffed with new ingredients, cuts of meat and snappily fresh vegetables but sometimes you just hit a slump. My last such lapse was on return from America when I was heavily jetlagged but since I regained those lost hours, I haven?t stopped cooking (or writing) since. My husband summed up this latest fug quite succinctly when he noted that his stomach had stretched from eating so much food and even when it?s empty it feels full. Aha! So, we?ve reached that point. We?re overfed like the 40lb Thanksgiving Turkey that my mother-in...
More About: World , Best , The World , Tempo , Solution

An Unusual Chocolate Cake
2006-12-10 21:52:02
And because chocolate doesn?t really count as the fattening, artery thickening food stuff that I discussed in my previous post, here is a recipe for a cake that I made at the weekend, that, whilst it wasn?t great the next day (egg white rich cakes can become dry if not mixed with a little flour or butter), it was high on novelty appeal (for me at least): Chocolat e Pumpernickel Torte.I was fortunate in that we had some Rye Bread left over (and the recipe states you can use Rye if you don?t have pure pumpernickel and it is still difficult to locate around these parts). I love Rye Bread. I used to abhor the taste of the Rye or Pumpernickel Bread but many of you British readers will remember that, at one point, you could only get a close approximation of Pumpernickel in a brick sized slab which resembled neutronium. These days though, you can get some deliciously light Rye Bread, flavoured with Caraway Seeds, which is wonderful toasted or as the ?jacket? for my favourite American sandwi...
More About: Cake , Cola , Late

Key Lime Pie
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Key Lime Pie is the perfect dessert following a rich, unctuous dish like Coq Au Vin. It is terribly simple and can be made well in advance of the meal, even the night before.The Key Lime Pie ? the official pie of Florida - first originated in, where else but the Florida Keys, where the Key Limes grow sporadically. True Key Limes have a more distinctively sour ?limey? taste than the ones we can buy in the supermarket.The plantations that grew the limes were destroyed back in the 1920s so the limes (which resemble small lemons with little green patches) are only found in the back gardens of a lucky few these days. The limes that were replaced in the plantations are, in fact Persian Limes and do not have that rare flavour ? more lime, than lime itself it is said.Condensed Milk was used in the pie filling instead of regular milk because of poor refrigeration back in the late 1800s, when the pie was first produced. The discovery of Condensed Milk must have been greeted with much enthusia...

Ravioli
2006-12-10 21:52:02
Last week was far from satisfactory, culinary wise, but I have many more dining cards up my sleeve. Last night, Friday, was spent in an outrageous flurry of kitchen activity that ranged from steeping fruit in alcohol (for the Christmas pudding being made today) to making our own ravioli. In between all of that, I managed to also make Lemon Possets with Almond and Orange Florentines.I'm not bragging. With the exception of the ravioli - always a fiddly task at the best of times - everything else was so easy that they barely deserve writing about. Which means that, of course, I will be writing about them!For now though, I am going to write about the ravioli. You may have read on previous posts that I was planning on making ravioli with a pumpkin and amaretti filling. I recently saw this recipe on a rerun of Rick Stein's Food Heroes and it seems that he is my current food hero. I enjoy his non-cheffy approach to food and his ability to make complex dishes seem attainable in the home k...
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