30th September 2011

After the terrible hospital visit last week I hope that I wont be struck again this week. I doubt the doctors trying to treat my mystery stomach pain will be as sympathetic once they know what I’ve been scoffing!

30th September 2011

It’s past lunchtime, it’s Friday, the sun’s out. I think it’s time for a G&T with my new cucumber and lemon mint gin…

To make:
-Sterilise bottle/jar.
-Shred cucumbers (I use a peeler) and pick herbs, place in bottle with a squeeze of lemon juice. Fill bottle with gin (use a basic but good gin, the expensive ones are already infused with lots of flavours)
-Place in a cool place so that the cucumbers don’t perish too quickly and strain out the solids after about 2-3 days. Any longer than this and the cucumbers will start to go off and make the gin taste grassy.

29th September 2011

Making sloe gin or fruit liqueur? Don’t throw away the strained fruit afterwards.
It makes a lovely, boozy topping for ice cream or pancakes. You could even puree it to make a grown-up coulis.

-Photo is berries from fruits-of-the forest gin with rice pudding. The berries are less tart than sloes so I added some lemon juice to up their fruitiness. Very luxurious.

29th September 2011

It’s that sloe gin time of year again.
(With some fruits of the forest gin, too, since we’re in the berry mood)

29th September 2011

There’s something funny lurking by the kitchen sink…

Piggy tails specially ordered from the Windsor Farm Shop for Fergus Henderson’s Crispy Pigs Tails recipe. Not so appetising in this state!

The first stage of piggy prep and looking better already.

Herbs, veg, garlic, wine and lemon zest all added and ready to go for a three-hour bathe in the oven…

***

Crispy Pigs Tails, the finished dish! But the question is, were they offaly good?

Well, they were nice. I hadn’t expected nice. I had expected unbelievably good or just awful (after 3 hours of simmering, they were very flabby and looked like they’d be the latter!)
I ate them with a little red wine vinegar (as suggested) and a herb and cucumber salad. They were tasty but not full of flavour, the crispness came from the breadcrumbs not the skin. I wonder if this is how Henderson makes them or whether mine turned out differently. I haven’t seen them on the St.John menu so we may never know.
For the amount of time and care it took to make them this wont be a recipe I’ll be making again. However, I am very pleased that I’ve tried it, even just for the novelty factor!

Recipe from ‘Nose to Tail Eating: A kind of British cooking’ by Fergus Henderson of St. John Restaurant.

27th September 2011

BBC The Great British Bake Off, please don’t leave me next week. There will be a big empty hole in my life. I know there are plenty more fish in the sea but Masterchef doesn’t go so well with tea and cake and Chopped gets me all stressed out. Can you just eke it out a little bit longer? Please?

27th September 2011

Having leftover birthday cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner is doing nothing for my figure.
(Not helped much by the fact I’m the only one eating it, Mum’s still shrinking dramatically on the Dukan diet. Will write about that in due course)

26th September 2011

Must book a table at the Clink prison-based restaurant:
http://www.theclinkcharity.com/

25th September 2011

Burnt butter brazils.
After buying Hope & Greenwood’s ‘Life is Sweet’ I’ve decided to get more use out of my sugar thermometer. Flicking through the pages, I saw many recipes that I know my grandpa would love so I’ve decided to make him a bag every month or so. 
So far I’ve made these nuts and a 4 Seville oranges worth of candied peel. Despite following the recipe to the letter the candied peel was a complete disaster as they refused to dry out and crystallise. The brazils were only slightly better, the oil from the nuts meant that the sugar slid off during dipping and needed to be drizzled instead.
BOOK VERDICT: Perhaps if the author spent more time testing the recipes than writing amusing asides this would be a much better cookbook!

26th September 2011

Well, didn’t I get spoilt rotten for my 26th!?

My very kitchen-centric birthday goodies included…
-Rococo chocolate tempering classes
-Cook’s blowtorch
-Simon Hopkinson’s ‘The Good Cook’
-‘The Vintage Tea Party Book’ by Angel Adoree
-The Ottolenghi cookbook
-‘How to make your own drinks’ by Susy Atkins
I’ll keep you posted on what creations these presents have inspired!