tarts | Ramblingrose

Welcome to my blog/journal/whatever

This is the real guts of this website. The old website and its archived posts is still available at its old url. Newcomers might like to dip into it every now and then.

Welcome to you all. Amazingly I still don't seem to be running out of ideas on what to write - well occasionally - but I have my writer's block strategies to turn to - see the text on the right. Check this page for the latest posts and if something interests you just click on it. It's easy to leave a comment and I love to read them. And now you can subscribe to the blog and get emailed notifications of new posts. And sorry I just don't understand Facebook.

"We are not here for long. So let's at least make ourselves something good to eat."

Nigel Slater

"I was born hungry, not a cook."

Julia Child

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well"

Virginia Woolf

Writer's block

Every now and then I can't think of a suitable topic and so I have devised a few strategies to get around this.

Lucky dip

The first strategy I devised is to go to one of my three cook book bookshelves, close my eyes and pick a book. Close my eyes again and pick a page. It's really quite an enlightening method of getting over writer's block.

'A word from'

My second strategy is to devote a post to the thoughts of one of my favourite cooks. Hopefully it will introduce them to you

Or

I shall choose a picture I have come across and extemporise on that.

A second kind of lucky dip

I have been thinking about first recipes in cook books - so I shall choose a book not quite randomly and then look at the first recipe for inspiration.

Comments I love reading your comments. Just add a name - any name - it needn't be yours, add an email, ditto, type in your comment and hit the Comment button. Done. Wix sends me an email to tell me what you said, so I can respond if needed. Mostly I just read and enjoy. If you would like to subscribe to this blog and get notifications of new posts then click here. It's free - just a way of knowing what I wrote about today.

enjoy

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Reflections on a small piece of quiche

"When we eat, we travel." Mina Holland This was my lunch today. A small piece of leftover quiche, so being otherwise clueless - partly because I have not been writing of late - otherwise occupied - and partly because it's an interesting exercise to do every now and then I decided to consider in a more analytical way than usual what my lunchtime quiche. As you know by now I make quiche a lot. It usually begins with some kind of leftover which might well offend the purists,

3 days ago

No pastry? Try potatoes, rice ...

"Very Easy and very cheesy" Erin Jeanne McDowell/Food 52 Today's Happy Foodie newsletter featured a whole lot of quiche recipes, which was sort of coincidental because of yesterday's galette. So I checked them out - there were ten of them and two of them were unusual in the sense that their pastry enclosure was - well I guess you would say - 'not normal'. I was intrigued and started rambling the net to find other ways of making a case for your quiche - or your tart. Now I

May 23

Friday pastry fun

"There is never enough crust." Nigel Slater Somehow or other it is now almost a tradition that Friday is for pastry - usually a quiche. It is also true that by Friday I am using up leftovers, or even leftovers of leftovers. Like today. Pastry and leftovers offer an infinity of possibilities, and a fun challenge. Behold today's challenge. What absolutely has to be used is the tiny bit of leftover vegetable toad-in-the-hole in the front. Actually the vegetables only cons

May 22

Variety

Variety - "a number of different types of things, especially ones in the same general category." Dictionary.com "Variety is the spice of life" It's late in the day so, in spite of the fact that a blog entitled Variety might actually be a quite an interesting idea, today I'm just doing a bits and pieces kind of post. A variety of things - recipes, information, disvcoveries ... But isn't it interesting how many proverbs and sayings are food related? The above rather gloriou

May 19

A smörgåsbord

"away from its homeland, smorgasbord is, all too often, an excuse for offering everybody a little of everything - or, for that matter, anything." Dale Brown/The Cooking of Scandinavia I chose that title as a suitable heading for an oddments piece, but got a bit diverted on what a smörgåsbord actually is - I almost turned it into a post about all to itself, but have now decided to revert to the odds and ends concept - or as Dale Brown puts it - "a little of everything - or, f

Mar 18

Linzer torte - Italian, Austrian, Jewish?

"I didn’t have great hopes for this Linzer torte – it just seemed too simple to be really delicious." Alix Clark/SBS And I have to say when I turned to my lucky dip page - this is a lucky dip recipe - I felt a bit the same. When I think about it I don't think I have ever tasted a genuine Linzer torte. Did my mother ever make such a thing I wonder because I do remember something with a lattice top and maybe jam in the middle? If I did I doubt that my mother, or maybe even m

Jan 20

A recipe years in the making

"pushing the boundaries of Italian cuisine, to highlight the power food, drink and travel has on memory" Rob Hobart/Peroni Nastro Azzurro I started out today researching piña colada inspired desserts - it was a topic in my Ideas list. Somehow or other during those rambles around a couple of Google pages, I came across this Cherry and strawberry crostata with black sesame praline a dish that Ixta Belfrage had presented in her Substack newsletter, telling us that it was a re

Dec 4, 2025

Beetroot mezze - well small things?

"For me, a mezze dish has to be completely self-contained - fully flavoured and ready to go without needing anything else to make sense." Yotam Ottolenghi Ok - this is not really a small thing. It's Beetroot and red onion tarte tatin by Elena Silcock on the BBC Good Food website and I'm in the process of making it - or something like it now. Why? Well it's our last local book group meeting tonight, for which we all bring a plate. I'm hosting, and my particular challeng

Dec 3, 2025

A kataifi template or two

"a bit like shredded wheat, only 10 times tastier" Yotam Ottolenghi Today's Guardian Feast newsletter featured this Kataifi pie with feta. tomatoes and warm oregano honey from Alice Zaslavsky. I was a bit taken by it, thinking that this might be the next thing I will make for a vegetarian. I mean it looks wonderful, has all the trendy things like the drizzled honey thing, pistachios and feta and all things I like inside - tomatoes, cheese, onions. And no chilli. But se

Nov 28, 2025

Some party time recipes

I've spent the morning, no - most of yesterday afternoon as well, making marmalade from a gift of home-grown mandarins, from friends, and a whole lot of lemons that I had in the fridge - 12 assorted jars seen here being the result. It's very satisfying when you get to this point, although there's always the worry it won't set, although this time I think I marginally worry about the opposite - too set. Anyway it's left me feeling lazy, so I thought I would just provide a few

Nov 17, 2025

Tomato and corn pies (and tarts)

"The problem more often than not is a basic one: tomatoes are very wet and tart crusts need to stay fairly dry" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen I needed something that wasn't going to take long because I had already used up half of the day on reading a book group book and trying to speak Italian in my Italian class. Very depressing. So I decided I would pick a recipe - and then just ramble - and this was it - Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen's Tomato and corn pie I'm not exactl

Nov 11, 2025

Homity pie

" quiche mistranslated by a rugged, carb-addicted farmhand. " Jimi Famerewa/The Guardian In this week's Guardian Feast Newsletter, appeared this - to my potato freak eyes - a glorious concoction. It turns out it was Marmite and leek homity pie from a guy called Jimi Famurewa who had been messing with (the marmite) a supposedly much-loved British pie of potatoes, leeks and cheese. But I had never heard of it, so my interest was piqued - maybe that was just a marketing plo

Nov 8, 2025