ONE YEAR OLD

On Sunday this blog turned one and, if I'm honest, I didn't start it with much thought of what it would be like to write a blog, or to have people read it, but it's been fun so far and I've encountered some lovely people out there in food blog land so thanks to you all. This monumental (well, to me) day coincided nicely with a meal I had been planning where pudding, or more precisely a galette des roix, was to be the star of the show. I know this is a dish to celebrate epiphany and 13th January is not exactly epiphany but then I am not exactly religious so no need to get hung up on dates.

With a pudding planned involving a huge quantity of eggs, butter, sugar, and puff pastry I decided that light(ish) savoury courses were necessary so Nigella's pea and roast garlic soup with a dollop of creme fraiche to start.

PEA AND ROAST GARLIC SOUP
from 'Real Food' by Nigel Slater
serves 2 (I doubled it for 4)

a head of garlic
2 teaspoons olive oil
200g frozen peas
25g butter
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
200ml vegetable or chicken stock, heated
150ml double cream, or to taste (I never use the cream but this time I added a dollop of creme fraiche to each bowl)

Lop the top off the head of garlic; you want to see the tops of the cloves just revealed in cross section. Cut out a square of foil, large enough to make a baggy parcel around the garlic. Sit the garlic in the middle of it and drizzle with the olive oil. Make a loose parcel around the garlic, sealing the edges of the foil. Put in an oven preheated to 200°C/Gas 6 for about an hour, until soft.
Cook the peas in boiling salted water as usual. Drain and tip into a food processor, squeeze in the soft cooked cloves of garlic, add the butter and Parmesan and half of the stock. Process to a creamy puree. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and add the remaining stock. Check the flavour and add cream to taste. Heat gently, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.




Pleasantly warmed through by the soup I followed this with fondue filled butternut squash served with green salad. On a Saturday afternoon bookshop browse I picked up Annie Bell's 'In My Kitchen' and was immediately drawn to this squash recipe and so, obviously, had to buy the book. I tend to fall back on favourites when I am feeding vegetarians so any appealing new recipe is great. This is delicious, easy, and can be prepared in advance. I'm a big fan of not having much left to do when people arrive so this ticks all my boxes.




Then the main event. This came courtesy of the very well connected Dorie Greenspan. I had a much easier looking Nigella recipe in 'Feast' but decided that if I was making a galette des rois I might as well make it properly so I made the almond cream, worked my non-existent arm muscles making the pastry cream, rolled out the pastry and filled it with the mix, constructed the galette, scored a pattern on the top, cut out a steam hole, and then I realised that I had completely forgotten to insert the feve so it had to be delicately pushed through the steam hole, not ideal.

I was nervous about making this. I am used to baking but this felt like more than a small step towards patisserie, very scary, but Dorie's recipe was simple to follow and has given me a boost of confidence to try some of the more complicated looking recipes from her lovely books. The galette was well risen, buttery and the inside delicious. Four of us polished it off with no difficulty and I was crowned Queen.

SHEPHERD'S PIE

One of my baby step resolutions is to stop remembering really simple recipes to try and then promptly putting them to the back of my mind. Believe it or not this is my first shepherd's pie. They were a staple of my Mum's cooking and my heart would sink whenever one appeared on the table. Don't ask me why but I had an irrational hatred of all food involving mince. Anyway, time passes and I grew up and came to realise that mince is actually a good thing and I made bolognese, and lasagna, and I said yum but somehow shepherd's pie and cottage pie stayed on my mental to do list

So, the weekend came and flicking through Tamasin's Kitchen Bible I found the shepherd's pie recipe and decided to finally make the leap. I reduced quantites of the mince to 500g but left everything else the same which resulted in slightly too much liquid in the pie and a volcanic eruption as it bubbled up around the edges of the potato but aside from that, and the equally volcanic temperature when we first took a bite, it was delicious and, sorry Mum, way better than the shepherd's pies I remember (although that is probably just my inner fussy child speaking).

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I know I am a little late with my New Year greeting but the first was not pretty. It took all my befuddled energy to make a bacon roll and then I curled up in a ball until finally plucking up the courage to order some Chinese food. Yesterday, also a public holiday in Scotland, was better. It was a cold and grey day but we still managed a long walk. So, here I am, on the third, settling back into normality and the only thing distracting me is the occasional snow shower which I wish would carry on just a bit longer and settle so that I can feel the crunch of snow under my feet.

Back to 2008 and as we all know, try as we might to avoid them, somehow those pesky ideas for resolutions still creep into your head and sow seeds of possible changes for the year ahead. I am going with baby step resolutions this year, eating more varied breakfasts (less reliance on cereal/muesli with skimmed milk) being one example, but I'll keep these to myself just now and I'll let you know when I cross any food related goals off my list.

I hope you all have a very happy and healthy 2008 x

CHRISTMAS BUBBLE AND SQUEAK

This year, for the first time, there were just two of us for Christmas. We had a luxuriously lazy brunch of smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, and bucks fizz. We went for a walk in the enjoyable calm of Christmas Day at a time when everyone else must have been sitting down to lunch and then we went home and cooked. I had planned to cook enough to guarantee leftovers and succeeded admirably in this aim (maybe a little too admirably but cold Christmas food is never bad). My main motivation in cooking enough veg to feed a small army, or at the very least a large family, was to make the Christmas bubble and squeak from 'Feast' which I had made and adored last year.

Nigella gives a recipe of sorts but you really just need to bung all of your leftover vegetables (I used roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, and brussels sprouts) into a food processor with a spring onion or two for freshness, whizz it all up, and then add enough beaten egg to just bind the mixture; it should still be fairly solid so start with one egg and add another if this isn't enough. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and then add the mixture, cook slowly on the hob then finish the top under a medium grill. Mine took about 10 minutes on the hob and another 5 under the grill but obviously this depends on the relative size of your bubble and squeak. When it's cooked, slide the bubble and squeak out onto a plate and slice. Eat it with your cold roast meat or just on its own with a sprinkling of sea salt and some mayonnaise or chilli sauce for dipping.

NO COOKING TODAY

I am going straight out after work today, wearing one of my favourite new sweater dresses (so rare to find something stylish that you can kid yourself is also practical), to an opening at Analogue to enjoy Russell and Julie's hospitality. I will be attempting to eat something before I get stuck into a few beers, maybe a falafel wrap from Meditteranean Gate, maybe a juicy Wannaburger cheeseburger, who knows, these are just two of my favourite easy Edinburgh options.

FEELING THE FEAR

I don't know about you but when I try a new recipe I am always a little nervous. There are times when I know that, even if it isn't amazing, it is unlikely to be a disaster but there are also times when I am just plain scared. If a recipe is very different to anything I have made before then the fear sets in and if it is a new bread recipe then that fear is multiplied, just count the ways it can all go wrong. I have spent the requisite hours on a bread recipe only for it to be inedible; the disappointment is magnified by all those wasted hours spent waiting for dough to rise, and the time spent scraping dried on dough off the counter is too frustrating to remember.

So, tonight I decided to try two new recipes which summed up my fears perfectly. I didn't even think about it going wrong until I got home and realised that this is dinner and that if it didn't work two hungry people would be searching the cupboards for a quick fix.

I had the flatbread recipe stored away in the recipe file that lives in the back of my brain for a while and had thought that it would accompany a basic salad with some grilled goat's cheese but then I saw the recipe for wilted spinach salad with warm feta dressing on Epicurious and decided that, yes, this would be dinner tonight.

It was a good meal but I will say this. That salad is hearty. I normally look at salads and think we'll eat more of it than the recipe says, the only time I don't is for Nigella portions. So when this recipe said serves four I thought 'well it will be dinner for two with maybe a bit extra'. No, it is big, but maybe I should have realised this all along, after all a dressing made with a whole packet of feta was never going to be anything other than rich (and delicious). It's a meal, not a side, and not a starter, unless you are very hungry or serving very small portions.

And the bread, well it says to add more flour if the dough is sticky. My dough was sticky to the point that I couldn't touch it without it adhering to my hands in a completely unbudgeable way. I must have added at least another cup of flour to get it right, so plan to have extra flour and just see what your dough does. Mine came right in the end so I have to hope yours will as well.



I'll refer you here for the salad recipe as I made it exactly but I amended the flatbread recipe a tiny bit.


CARAMELISED ONION AND THYME FLATBREAD
adapted from donna hay magazine, August/September 2007

Dough:
2 tsp of active dry yeast
1 tsp of caster sugar
1 1/3 cup of lukewarm milk
2 1/2 cups of plain flour (plus extra for dusting and extra just in case your dough is as sticky as mine)
1 tsp of table salt
1 tbsp of olive oil

Topping:
2 medium onions, sliced
a small pile of thyme leaves
sea salt
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil

Put the yeast, sugar, and milk into a bowl and mix to combine. Set aside in a warm place for five minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (355 F). Place the flour, salt, oil, and yeast into a bowl and mix until a smooth dough forms. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for five minutes or until smooth and elastic, add extra flour to the dough if it is sticky. Return the dough to the bowl and cover it with a tea towel. Set the bowl aside in a warm place for about 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

While the dough is resting add the butter and oil to a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onions and most of the thyme and leave to cook over a low heat until the onions are soft and caramelised.

When the dough is ready put it onto a lightly greased baking tray and press it out to about 1cm thick. Top with the onions, the remaining thyme and a little sea salt. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden.

FIFE AND CHIPS

So, a few glasses of post-work wine on Friday turned into having Chinese food delivered to the house before falling asleep on the sofa. Saturday was lunch at Spoon (I am smacking myself on the wrist for forgetting to take any pictures but will one of these days and, in the meantime, if you are looking for a great Edinburgh cafe just get yourself to Blackfriars Street), followed by a visit to Analogue, a few quiet drinks, and then home to munch on toasted pita with dips and some baked feta while watching High School Musical (it was on, and it seemed just right for our slightly frazzled state, and we had never seen it, and I'll stop making excuses now and say that yes we did actually enjoy it).

But, finally, today dawned bright and cold and we set off to have lunch in the famed Anstruther Fish Bar. A quiet drive along the Fife coastal road, great haddock and chips with mushy peas (they deserve the reputation), and a wander around the harbour made for exactly the type of Sunday we all needed.





On the way home we stopped off for a quick walk in Crail and a quick fireside drink in Elie. The East Neuk of Fife really is a beautiful part of the Country.