This morning started in Dartmouth with a wander round the shops discussing how to shop, what to look for, seasonal produce and other things as we went. We visited Moby Nick’s Fish Shop, Cutmores Butchers, Jilly Farm Shop, The Smith Street Deli, Somerfield, Julian Graves and the good Intent (for ice cream). Returning to Kingswear with our goods we planned the day over squash and brownies before starting work. (more…)
We spent the afternoon making pasta sauces, lasagne, salads, chocolate chip cookies and rhubarb fool. Just waiting for the lasagne to cook so time to get everyones thoughts on the day:
Harry: I walked through the door not knowing what to expect and when Charles and i made the carrott and corriander soup and chibatta bread i never believed it would taste good until i tried it. The first day was more useful than i believed the whole course would be before the start. It was a great start to the weekend and i’m looking forward to day 2 and picking up more useful tips. (more…)
Our first morning was spent making bread and soup. Soup is an essential; it can be made from just about anything and is capable of infinite variety. Not only that but it is satisfying, warming, homely and delicious (if made right of course).
The bread dough was made and put aside to prove first. Then knives were sharpened, warnings given and evryone got to do plenty of chopping practice. David was surprised, nay astonished because no one cut themselves, and he usually does. (more…)
“Survival Cooking” is our three day workshop for teenagers keen to get a head start with the cooking thing as seen on lots of telly. This morning we’re joined by Harry, Tom, Lucy, Eleanor, Charles and Hattie and we’ll aim to keep a regularly updated blog (2 or 3 times a day) with pics of what we’ve cooked and perhaps a little cooking action.
To start here’s the whole group ready to begin. From left to right: Eleanor, Lucy, hattie, Charles, Tom and Harry
Way back in February we took advantage of our membership of Taste of the West and took a stand in the regional food corner of Borough Market. For those who don’t know it, Borough Market is a foodie’s paradise in South London where you’ll find the finest produce every weekend. Sellers come in from far and wide, including Devon, and the range of stuff to see, taste and buy is amazing. The market is frequented by discerning shoppers and lots of tourists and is always very, very busy. Admittedly, to afford some of the stuff there you need your own hedge fund, but lots of people are very happy to pay for good quality so it all works; and the atmosphere is fabulous. Anyone interested in food should go. (more…)
Once again I am guilty of gross neglect of our blog and have been getting regular nags and nudges from several quarters re. the complete lack of updates since March. It’s been busy Ok!? There’s been a lot going on. So I’m going to add a few posts now in quick succession and not necessarily in any chronological order.
I know that in my last post I was writing about Indian Food, and I know that we run Mediterranean Classes, Tapas Classes and Pasta Making at the cooking school, and I know I make Stollen and foccaccia bread to sell; BUT …. having said all that, I am a great fan of all things British.
I love hot cross buns, sticky toffee pudding, faggots, black pudding, fry ups, sausages and my desert island dish would have to be roast rib of beef with yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and gravy. So when I read last week that many of our native dishes are threatened with extinction because of neglect and being overun by invasive species from abroad I was immediately spurred into action to create a national treasure.
I suppose many people are put off making steak and kidney pudding, or any other steamed pudding, because the idea of something steaming for 4 or 5 hours immediately seems fussy and complicated, but it really is a very simple dish. Suet crust pastry really is the easiest pastry ever to make, there’s no need to cook the meats before they go into the pudding, and apart from checking that your pan isn’t boiling dry the steaming is pretty much a case of putting the pudding in a saucepan and forgetting about it for 4 hours. And the result is so worth waiting for:
Click here for the recipe
Because this pudding had no added liquid I served ot with Boulanger Potatoes - which sounds all foreign again but I’m not sure if we have a name for sliced potatoes baked with stock - any way the juiciness works well with the pud.
The assembled throng loved it and it really was simple, so give it a go and keep the flag flying.
That may sound like the title of a limited release British Film from the 1970’s but it isn’t. So if you like that sort of thing continue your quest elsewhere. It actually refers to me wondering what to do with a bag of beetroot that arrived in our Riverford Farm Veggie Box this week.
Normally the beetroot decision is easy. Steam, cool, peel, slice, season, sweeten, pickle, wait 20 minutes, enjoy with sausages. However, it is January and the humble sausage is currently persona non grata at Fir Mount pending my being able to do up my jeans. Obviously if you have come for B & B you may gorge on bangers at will, but I must be stoic.
Anyway, back to the beetroot. Wondering what other exciting ways with roots I might try I consulted an old favourite, Madhur Jaffrey. For some reason we have two versions of her fabulous ‘Indian Cookery’ which was first published in 1982 to accompany her BBC TV series in which introduced us all to Indian Cooking at Home.
Our copies have been well used over the years and are usually consulted whenever Indian Food is on the menu. In this case I went for Shorvedur Chukander or Beetroot with Onions. This is a very simple dish of beetroot wedges simmered with onions, garlic, chili, cumin and tomatoes to make a nice thick stew.
Served with basmati rice and spring greens with peas (Bund Gobi aur Matar) this made a great supper; delicious, colourful, nutritious, not a bit of saturated fat in sight and full of superfood beetroot . Now where did I put those jeans?
We’ll be exploring a lot more interesting things to do with the vegetables you find in your weekly delivery during a series of Seasonal Vegetable Cooking Workshops which we’ll be running in association with Jane and Martin Emmett at Riverford Home Delivery Torbay. There will be one for each season and we’ll look at less well known vegetables as well as new ways with familiar ones. The workshops will be suitable for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Learn More
It may just be a coincidence, but only since our wall fell down just before New Year have I seen Goldcrests visit our garden. It may just be that there are lots more of them due to milder winters and they are finding new territories. Anyway, that’s by the by as this morning I found this tiny thing just outside the front door looking rather dazed and confused; perhaps having flown into the window. (more…)
It’s that time of year when we plan ahead and think how we can achieve ambitions and goals; yes, the time to make your New Year resolutions is here. This year, I’d really like you to think about where you get two of our most basic foods from – chicken meat and eggs.
Eggs. A basic ingredient and a building block in so many recipes as well as an integral part of our Great British breakfast. I have long been convinced about using free-range eggs and now we absolutely won’t use anything else. From a cooking point-of-view there really is no contest between a free-range egg and a battery-produced one – the colour is a much brighter yellow, the taste is significantly different and using them in a recipe makes a big difference to the result. More importantly from a welfare point-of-view, battery hens do not have a happy life. Despite 86% of the population saying they do not agree with battery farming, there are still 20 million battery hens in the UK. They enter a cage at 18 weeks with 4-5 other hens and each has no more room than an A4 piece of paper. They stay in this cage til they are 52 weeks old producing cheap eggs for us and the food processing industry. Despite this intensive farming they only produce 15 more eggs per year than a free-range hen. (more…)
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