Gremolata - to reduce into grains
"you can't have a fancy food blog without a recipe that has something topped with gremolata." Culinary Lore Or reduce into a few words, and even fewer recipes. It's curious is it not, how some foodstuffs, which are so vital to a particular cuisine, have so little to say about them? Gremolata is fundamental to Italian cooking - particularly in Milan from where it seems to have originated. Well nobody knows really. Suffice to say that one writer - Danny Palumbo on The Take
1 day ago
A rambling change of plan
"The cream of enjoyment in this life is always impromptu. The chance walk; the unexpected visit; the unpremeditated journey; the unsought conversation or acquaintance." Fanny Fern Today I was facing the eternal problem - the dual one of what to cook for dinner, and what to do with a problem ingredient or, indeed, ingredients. Nothing new there. The starting point was romanesco, the end point after an enjoyable ramble around the net which encompassed life, the universe and
Aug 30
Beer cheese soup
"two ingredients that don’t immediately scream soup to much of the world" Felicity Cloake Beer and cheese however, are perfectly common and indeed a winning combination. Well I imagine to the experts you have to have the right cheese with the right beer, but to those with no savvy palate like me, most beers and most cheeses are a perfect match. And in Winconsin - famous for its beer, and for its cheese - it's apparently the dairy king of America - they have used their prim
Aug 29
Coffee and walnut - a cake to die for?
"No wonder the infallible Nigel Slater has chosen it as his last meal on earth." Felicity Cloake I'm trying to remember whether I have ever eaten a coffee and walnut cake. Surely I have somewhere. It's so quintessentially English. And this version from Karen Burns-Booth on the Great British Chefs website, may well be the quintessential version of Coffee and walnut cake loaded with buttercream and very home-made looking. As Nigel says: "there is a fragility to a well-made
Aug 27
Mushrooms
“All Fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once.” Terry Pratchett In a completely uninspired moment I thought to open Photos, close my eyes, scroll the library upwards and click on a photo. Then I would open my eyes and write something - foodie associated - with whatever I found. Which is this, stunningly beautiful mushroom photographed recently somewhere near here. A study in beige and brown was my first thought - but how to elaborate? If I had the words I could r
Aug 25
A recipe, Coles and Curtis Stone - this and that
The recipe in question is from Curtis Stone, in the current Coles Magazine - Lemon-garlic fettucine with crisp chickpeas. I started out today thinking I would do a whole post on crisp chickpeas as they seem to be turning up everywhere I look these days, so when they turned up in the Coles Magazine in this very tempting recipe, from a professional chef, such as Curtis Stone - well he does have at least one Michelin star - I'm not sure how many - I thought I might look closely
Aug 23
Abundance - a challenge
abundunce - "the situation in which there is more than enough of something" or "the quality of having what you want in life" Cambridge English Dictionary Yesterday we lunched with our friends with the superabundant garden. We over indulged in the most delicious food and wine, which has led to me feeling marginally poorly - mild alcohol poisoning to be blunt. On top of the wonderful food - the best lamb shank tagine I have ever tasted, and some orangey poached pears, not to
Aug 20
Hummus - a problem of overcatering
"Many of us enjoy hummus as a dip but struggle to figure out what to do with it before it spoils" Tasting Table That's me. Last night it was our turn to host the monthly neighbourly get together - last night an estimated group of 14 which ended up as 11 I think. It's not a meal, but sort of is - at the same time. Anyway, as usual, not wanting to disappoint the neighbours - or more importantly my husband - we had too much food. Cold meats and cheese? No problem - they ju
Aug 13
Two quotes and a phone call
"A person buying ordinary products in a supermarket is in touch with his deepest emotions" John Kenneth Galbraith I've had that quote from John Kenneth Galbraith in my Ideas list for a long time. I wasn't quite sure what Galbraith meant, and I suspect, being an economist, that he wasn't really thinking the same things as have come to my attention today, from the phone call from a friend. There is so much to say about supermarket labels, and I know I have said lots of them
Aug 6
Asparagus and strawberries - weird or a natural?
"What do we think? Internet garbage or some truth here? Culver O'Neill/Facebook Culver O'Neill was actually talking about companion planting, but yes indeed - is the whole idea of cooking asparagus and strawberries together just internet - or perhaps these days we should say AI - garbage or is it a weird but mind-blowingly delicious combination? I only glanced at the gardeners, but even their opinion was divided. I'm not entirely sure where I got this idea from - all I had
Jul 25
Leftover lettuce salad omelette - so many ways
"Done and dusted. Out of this world." Foodie China 888/YouTube This picture comes from the end of one of the most captivating cooking videos I have seen on YouTube. In roughly 25 seconds you are shown - complete with instructions to use either your right hand or your left hand -how to make this Rolled lettuce omelette. The pictures are very clear, the voiceover is male - he calls himself Foodie China 888 and has a slight Chinese accent I think. Halfway through, a kitsch
Jul 24
Herbs
"Herbs bypass our thinking, analytical minds and go straight to our hungry souls." Nikky Duffy Herbs have a special place in my heart - not just because they are virtually the only plants that I seem to be able to grow - something which Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall highlights in his introduction to this, my first recipe book for today: "Herbs can be the plants that make you into a gardener, even a very small-scale one, and the ingredients that turn you into a creative cook.
Jul 23
Then and now - 10 years of rambling
I don't know about being loved for ten years - in the blogging sense that is - but I suppose this is a red letter day and I should be jumping for joy or something. Maybe a glass of champagne - but no it's mid-week, so a non-wine day. Well it's a subject for a post isn't it? On this day 10 years ago I opened my fridge door to see what to cook for dinner and sat down to write my very first post - Inside my fridge and every year since I have probably said much the same things a
Jul 15
The price of lamb
This is actually a lucky dip post, and I shall have stuff to say about the chosen book and the chosen recipe - which you have now guessed features lamb - specifically lamb cutlets such as these. Now this photo, found on Google Images, with the caption 'Thanks for the bargain Coles' - it was ironic - is actually old, because the lamb cutlets in this photograph were selling at $45.00 per kg. Now they are selling at $51.00. Ordinary housewives, surely cannot afford that. I h
Jul 14
Yes there is such a thing as grape pie - but ...
"Rarely do grapes make it to the cooker, the majority being eaten straight from the vine." Nigel Slater" It was just a throway line at the end of yesterday's post - are there grape pies? - but then today I thought I should find out if there are. And yes there are. Well there seems to be just the one really - Concord grape pie - the Dish 'n' the Kitchen shown here, which is a speciality of the west of New York state centred around the town of Naples. At first I thought Con
Jul 6
First to clear out - a no-brainer
"Just as a turkey is not just for Christmas – why should a curry simply sleep on a bed of rice?" Saptarshi Ray/The Guardian Inspired by my post about all the jars, packets, tins, etc that lurk somewhere in my kitchen I decided to make a start with this opened jar of tikka masala paste. Its first use was in a leftovers stir-fry last night - leftover stir-fry as the base, leftover chicken and leftover slaw. In some ways a real Nigel fry up. I decided there would only be a t
Jul 2
I don't like turnips
"They are often considered to be rather a boring low-class vegetable - at the very least one that can taste strong and coarse" Beverley Sutherland Smith We never really had turnips on their own when we were children but they did appear in stews. I was not a fan - not the extreme of hatred, but I would avoid them if I could. Interestingly I hated their close cousin swedes much more. Today I still don't go for turnips - considering them somewhat tasteless and not worth the
Jun 24
"The unexpected joy of making lemon peel preserves" Wix AI
For a while, when AI was new for Wix there would always be a suggestion or two for a post title - gleaned from past posts I guess. The above is one of them and it's so AI in it's phrasing, don't you think? I guess I use words like 'joy', 'comfort' and 'fusion' often, and so they appear in these rather quaint potential post titles. 'Unexpected' seems to be a favourite Wix word too. Do I use that one a lot? I don't think so. Wix no longer does this, although if I want ins
Jun 23
Titbits
titbits - " a small piece of interesting information, or a small dish of pleasant-tasting food" Cambridge English Dictionary I'm a bit late in the day with this so it's a this and that kind of post. With today's title titbits - sometimes spelt with a hyphen - tit-bits and by the Americans as tidbits. Which you might think is just because of pronunciation, but apparently has something to do with a long-ago root word of 'tyd.' But I won't go there today. When I looked up ti
Jun 18
Cauliflower cheese soup
"It has something of the Welsh rarebit about it." Nigel Slater Often I have a vague idea of what to do for dinner, and then I either go with what is to hand, or search around my cookbooks and the net to find the answer. Today I thought I should probably use the last bit of cauliflower that I have in my fridge before it goes off completely - small brown spots are already appearing. And when vegetables are getting to that stage, then soup is the answer. There is some leftov
Jun 16