Liv has the occasionaly craving for beans on toast.
I hate tinned baked beans. It's not the beans themselves, I actually like beans. I like tomato sauce too but I'm pretty sure that the sauce tinned Baked Beans come in has never even ever seen a tomato. How many tomatoes have you seen that are bright orange? Tomatoes are red so what the shite has been done to the sauce to turn it orange? Also, answer me this if you can: what on
earth is the special property of this sauce that means that as soon as you serve it, it instantly goes cold and stodgy and
looks precisely like vomit. That's not hyperbole, it looks like vomit; and because you first "eat with your eyes", things that look like vomit taste like puke.
But relationships are about compromise.
Inspired by our recent trip to Tuscany, I've made a recipe for "Tuscan Beans on Toast" that satisfies Liv's cravings and my snobbish approach to food. Benefits over standard beans on toast:
1) It's better for you.
2) It doesn't look like vomit
3) It doesn't taste like puke
4) It actually tastes really nice
5) The tomato sauce is
red- Finely dice an onion and a celery stick and saute in 2 tsp Olive Oil until soft.
- Whizz a tin of good quality skined tomatoes in a food processor until smooth.
- Stir in the sauted onion and celery and pulse a couple of times. Season the sauce and add the tiniest amount of cayene pepper.
- Stir in the beans. I used Canellini beans to continue the Tuscan theme, but any beans will do.
- Heat in a pan over the hob.
- Serve over toast and drizzle of olive oil on top.
Giddyup.
Labels: food
Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:35 PM
Bye bye Beanies! Hello
Abel & Cole! I'm sick to death of every week getting a couple of carrots, a couple of courgettes, a lettuce, an onion, a couple of potatoes and cauliflower. Every fucking week. Well enough Beanies, enough. Abel & Cole now deliver in Sheffield, and they have more variety, allow you to block certain items (no more sprouts!) and deliver a wide range of other foodie items too. You account is managed online, where you can get a heads up of what to expect in the next box, and you are billed automatically (seriously Beanies, why can't you take my payment automatically, you useless hippies).
The downside is it's not cheap, but then Beanies wasn't exactly value for money either.
So, I'm giving it a go, I'll let you know how I get on.
Labels: food
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 9:23 PM
I like to make my own pizza and pasta. When you look at recipes for either, they usually recommend that you use type 00 flour.
"Fine," I exclaim at the recipe (not out loud - I'm not a mental)
"but where exactly am I supposed to buy type 00 flour? None of the supermarkets sell it, not even bloody Waitrose."Well it just so happens that I found a great Italian deli today, bursting with authentic Italian produce. In fact the place was so authentic that they struggled to understand me.
"Hello, shop keep," I didn't really say this, but let's pretend I did, as it emphasises the cultural divide between me and the aged nonna that served me -
"do you sell flour?""Uh?"
"Flour, do you sell flour? Like, pasta flour?"
"Go to the bottom of the shop..."
"right..."
"...and when you get there, ask the man who is down there."
"Right-o, thanks awfully!" I didn't say.
Well to cut a long story short, I asked the man at the bottom of the shop, and now have 2Kilos of type 00 flour, which this weekend I shall use to make
tagliettelle and if time allows, pizza.
The only long term draw back of all this is that this Italian Deli was in bloody Maidenhead, just round the corner from my company's head office, so if the stuff is really that much better, I can't exactly nip down there to pick up some more. But at least I can try it, and if I like it, make the effort to buy it online.
By the way, I just found out that making fresh pasta is bloody easy and not expensive. Basically, per person, you just mash together 1 egg and 100g flour into a dough, and then roll it out, and that's basically it. Maybe I'll do a proper post on pasta making before long.
Ciao for now.
Labels: food, pasta, pizza
Friday, May 11, 2007 9:00 PM
If you're in Covent Garden, and fancy something nice to eat and drink, I recommend you give Lowlander on Drury Lane a go. The food is your typical pub fayre done well - dishes like
Moulles Frites for example. The drink is what this place is really about. They specialize in Dutch & Belgian beer, and have a bewildering menu to choose from; wheaty beer, hoppy beer, fruity beer, monkey beer (or "Trapist" beer as some people wrongly call it). With all this choice, it was cool to see that certain beers were available in 1/3 pint taster glasses to allow you to sample a broader range without getting completely shit-faced. Some of the beers are seriously strong, so I would imagine that if you went there drinking for the evening, a hangover is pretty much guaranteed. For a few mid afternoon ales though, it's great.
Labels: beer, drink, food, london
Monday, March 12, 2007 3:08 PM
I like risotto, a fact that should be completely bloody obvious to anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis. I'm fussy about risotto, and it annoys me when I'm served bad risotto in a restaurant, because it is a bloody simple dish to prepare; all that's needed is care and attention. I guess to some extent choosing risotto in a restaurant is a good way of judging their food. If the risotto is poor, then it is a good indication that they don't care about what they serve up, and so aren't worth the bother in future.
I once joked about opening a risotto restaurant in Sheffield. I even mentally devised a three course risotto menu - e.g. risotto cakes for a starter, risotto for the main course, and then a chocolate desert risotto for pudding. It would be genius.
The same month I came up with the idea, I read about a new risotto bar in London called
Ooze. Thus the decision about where to eat on my short break to London last week was made for me.
Ooze is on Goodge Street, just off Tottenham Court Road. The interior is rather unassuming, with no soft furninshings in sight. For the main course there are basically 12 different types of risotto to choose from; four fish, four veg, and four meat (there's also salad if you don't fancy risotto). According to the website, all the dishes come from the same basic risotto, and the modifying ingredients added towards the end of cooking. Not the best way to prepare risotto, but perfectly understandable. Risotto does take time, and there's a lot of competition in London, so they need to keep costs down. As it turns out, this method seems to work out OK. Though my own choice of Porcini and Cherry Tomato could have been improved by adding the mushrooms at the start (and perhaps a bit more salt) for most dishes this wouldn't matter and that was certainly the case with Liv's Butternut Squash and Hazelnut risotto which was delicious. I'd never have thought of putting hazelnut in risotto, but it really works.
They also say that the dishes can be adjusted to taste; you can have more or less butter and more or less Parmesan (more of both please!). They got the richness pretty much right. I make my risotto really rich, but the truth is most people would struggle to finish it and would prefer something lighter, which is just how Ooze make theirs.
Food aside, the service was really excellent. Friendly without being casual, attentive without being overbearing, and best of all they seemed to be genuinely happy to be serving you a dish they cared about. I was chatting to who I assume was the restaurant manager just before leaving and she had taken an interest in what had brought us there. "Trust me" she said, "if you like risotto, don't open a risotto restaurant. You'll be sick of the stuff." That's that idea out of the window then!
Labels: food, london, risotto
Wednesday, March 07, 2007 11:15 AM
I thought I'd add an update to yesterday's post where I talked about Bouillabaisse. Ever since coming back from Marseille, I've been thinking through a recipe for Bouillabaisse, and as it happens I was flicking through Dawn's "Good Food" magazine earlier and there was a Gordon Ramsay recipe.
That has prompted me to make the following corrections - where I said crostini was used, this was incorrect. I actually knew yesterday that it wasn't crostini, it was sort of croutons made from french bread, but I didn't know the word and saying croutons would probably give the wrong idea, and crostini seemed to be the closest. Ramsay referred to them simply as "
croûte" (meaning "crust"). The sauce is apparantly
Rouille, not aoli. Again, I kind of knew that it probably wasn't aoli, as it it was why would we also have to rub garlic into the croûte, but I was too lazy too look up what the actual sauce was yesterday.
So there you go. You know, I should start calling this a Food Blog instead of Photo blog. When was the last time I posted a photo. On the other hand, I could just call it a "blog". You know, don't put myself in a box.
Labels: bouillabaisse, food, marseille
Thursday, March 01, 2007 2:26 PM
This time last week, I'd never been to a restaurant with a Michelin star. Now I've been to two. First there was
Une Table Au Sud in Marseille on Friday night. The occassion was a small family holiday to mark my parents' 60th birthdays. The food was really nice, I had a Milkshake de Bouillabaisse (Fish Milkshake!), followed by Sea Bass, and then Chestnut and Black Truffle ice cream (plus various canapes and sweets). It was great!
Then last night I went with Liv to
The Old Vicarage for her birthday. The food here was another league above Une Table Au Sud. If the restaurant was in France, it would probably have been awarded two Michelin stars, not one. The food is seasonal, mostly local (they grow their own veg on site for example) and tastes amazing. Canapes, followed by Poached fish in brocolli sauce with a beetroot foam for 1st course, Brill with langoustine and truffle mash for the 2nd course, Whitby Cod with caviar, mussels, polenta and a champagne sauce for the 3rd course, and then passion fruit souffle, banana sorbet and lemon creme brulle for dessert. And all that was just my meal! Liv's was equally fabulous. If you live in Sheffield, you should really try and go. The food was great, the service was impeccible and the vicarage building was really nice. I never thought I'd be a fan of formal fine dining, but it was a really great evening.
It hasn't just Michelin starred restaurants; my brother and I also took my parents to
Le Miramar in Marseille, apparantly one of the best places to try the dish native to the city:
Bouillabaisse. This is basically a fish stew, yet a really indulgent one. The fish is cooked in a rich saffron infused broth, which is then served as soup for the starter. This comes with crostini which you rub garlic into. You then spread onto it a bright yellow Aoli based sauce before dropping into the soup. After that, the fish is served in more of the broth. I lost track of how much fish there was in there, but I was absolutely stuffed and couldn't finish the dessert.
My foodie travels aren't over yet. On London this weekend I'll be trying out
Ooze - Britains first risotto bar. Now obviously the risotto won't be as good as mine, that goes without saying! But I can't wait none the less.
Food is brilliant! Je t'aime le food, innit!
Labels: food
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 3:42 PM
I've decided to post an
update to a recipe I came up with almost exactly one year ago. You may recall a couple of months ago I said I was stopping my
organic box delivery from Beanies. Well, I changed my mind; in the end I decided to just reduce the amount I had delivered, and that is working out really well. They did however send me another cauliflower last week, but thanks to all the experimenting with the stuff last year and all the cooking practise I've had over the last twelve months, I'm quite happy to find one on my door step these days.
Here's the refined recipe (quite a few servings from this):
Ingredients:
2 tbsp Olive Oil
25g butter
2 banana shallots
150ml white wine
1 Cauliflower
2 pints vegetable stock (preferably home made, or bought fresh)
600g butter beans (one and a half cans)
200ml double cream
MethodThinly chop the shallots.
Heat the olive oil in a large pot on a medium heat.
Add the butter.
When the butter has fizzed its last, add the shallots.
Constantly stir the shallots until very soft, 4-5 minutes.
Add the wine, and reduce.
Add the cauliflower, and stir to coat well with the existing ingredients.
Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the butter beans and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.
Transfer to food processor and blend until very smooth.
Transfer back to pot over medium heat and stir in the cream, then season to taste.
Serve with chunky croutons.
For the croutons:
Ingredients2 slices of thick bread - I used the crusts of Warburtons Seeded Batch.
t tbsp olive oil
1 knob of butter
1 tsp thinly chopped thyme
Method
Heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
Cut the bread up in thick chunks.
Heat the oil in a sauté pan over a medium heat.
Add the butter.
Add the bread, reduce to a low heat and coat the chunks in the oil/butter.
Sprinkle on the thyme and fry gently for 3-4 minutes.
Transfer to a baking tray and bake until crisp throughout. I can't remember how long this took, probably around 15 minutes. You could just fry them of course, but I figured that baking them meant I didn't have to tend the frying pan for ages. You could even be all healthy and not fry at all, and just bake, but I've never tried that method.
Labels: coutons, food, organic, soup
Monday, February 12, 2007 10:13 PM
It was Rach's 30th this weekend, and she thought that she was going to have a quiet romantic weekend with Nick in Pitlochry, whereas in fact he'd secretly arranged for all us mates in Sheffield to go up too. It was great fun; I thought Rach was going to pass out when she saw us all stood there. Rach has already described the weekend in full
here, so I'll not re-hash what she's already said (except to say yes, we really did have breakfast with Ronnie Corbett, and yes, we really did go to the National Poultry Show).
After leaving Linlithgow we caught the train into Edinburgh and had a really relaxed day. After a quick visit to Waterstones, we sat in a café for a couple of hours drinking coffee and reading the paper, then went for a fantastic lunch at the
Mussel Inn, then went and sat in the Café Royal pub for a couple of hours and read our magazines, and then chilled out on the train home. It was great and about as relaxed a day as possible.
Labels: chickens, food, holiday, linlithgow, pitlochry, scotland
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 1:40 PM
I promised a while back that when the festive season was over, I'd write a post about my experiences with making canapés. Well, the festive season is over and so here's a post about my experiences with making canapés. Bang on queue. Well done me.
The first thing you should know about preparing canapés is that it is hard work. You need to set aside a whole day basically. Some are easier than others to prepare. If I were to do these again, I'd not make the Smoked Salmon Roulade (it is quite tricky) and the Quails Eggs or Cucumber Rolls (more trouble than they're worth in my opinion). The miniature pizza I'd make again, but without the semi dried tomato, I'd probably just get some sun dried tomatoes that had been soaked in olive oil and cut into small pieces. I'd also use a simpler pizza dough recipe than Heston Blumenthal's (not that his is that complicated). The cheese & paprika twigs are time consuming, but they seemed to go down very well with everyone that tried them, so may be worth the effort if time allowed.
There's a photo of the canapés I made for Tim's party
here. I didn't think to take a picture of the ones I made for Christmas Day I'm afraid.
So without any more of a do, here are the recipes I used:
Smoked Salmon RouladeIngredients1 bunch large watercress
225g soft cheese with garlic and herbs
2 tsp lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
225g smoked salmon
InstructionsFinely chop the watercress, discarding any course stalks. Whisk into the soft cheese with the lemon juice and black pepper.
Cut out a large piece of greaseproof paper .
Lay on the top the smoked salmon, overlapping each piece to form a large rectangle. Cut in half width-ways.
Spread the soft cheese mixture over both rectangles then carefully roll each into a large sausage.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Cut each roll into 5mm slices and serve asap.
Smoked Salmon on blinisIngredientsCocktail blinis
Smoked Salmon (sustainably harvested smoked salmon of course)
Cream Cheese with garlic and herbs (I used the leftovers from the smoked salmon roulade above which has lemon juice pepper and watercress mixed in).
InstructionsPrepare soft cheese mixture. Spread on crostini (or blini) and put a piece of smoked salmon on top. Put a tiny dab of the soft cheese on top of the smoked salmon and place on that a small bit of dill.
Variations: I've specified blini here as they're don't take any time to prepare and hold up well to being left out all evening better than some other bases do, but you could used crostini or toast too, I guess.
Salmon and Cream Cheese on toasted brioche
Ingredients
All Butter Brioche loaf
100g cream cheese
juice and zest of half a lemon
2 tbsp fresh dill
180g canned salmon (drained)
InstructionsToast slices of brioche and cut each slice into small squares. Leave to cool.
Mix the cream cheese, lemon and dill, then flake the salmon into it. Mix together.
Top each brioche slice with the salmon mixture.
Variations: Some I topped with a little bit of fresh dill, others with a small bit of lemon, some with "caviar" (and by caviar, I mean reconstituted herring which looks like caviar) and I think also some with a little bit of smoked salmon. Doesn't have to be brioche, could be crostini or something.
Curried Prawns on NanIngredients1 tbsp oil
1 clove garlic - crushed
2 tsp mild curry powder
4 spring onions - finely chopped
450g cooked & peeled prawns - roughly chopped
4 tsp mango chutney
4 tsp natural yoghurt
salt & pepper
2 large nan breads
InstructionsHeat the oil in a frying pan and cook the onions, curry powder and garlic for 1 minute.
Add the prawns and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
Take off the heat and stir in the chutney and yoghurt.
Season and set aside.
Heat the nan as per packet instructions.
Cut into small squares and top with a little prawn mixture.
Cheese and Paprika Twigs: Ingredients2 sheets of ready rolled puff pastry
60g finely grated parmesan
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp paprika
1 egg - lightly beaten
60g grated red Leicester cheese
InstructionsHeat oven to 200c
Unroll pastry on a lightly floured surface
Scatter with the parmesan, cayenne, paprika and a little salt.
Fold in half so that the cheese is sandwiched together and roll until thin
Slice into long fingers, twist each finger, and place on baking sheet.
Brush with the egg, then sprinkle with the Leicester.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until puffed and golden.
Miniature PizzaIngredientsPizza dough - any recipe would do, I just happened to use the one from Heston Blumenthal's Perfection book.
PizzaMaking.com is a good source of recipes.
Sun Dried Tomato Pesto: Place 1 garlic clove, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 50g sun dried tomatoes (reconstituted), 25g fresh basil leaves, 25g pine nuts, 90ml extra virgin olive oil into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Stir on 2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese.
Semi Dried Tomatoes - Get a load of good quality cherry tomatoes.
Peel, cut in half and de-seed. Toss in olive oil. Place each half on baking tray lined with foil. Place a thin slice of garlic, and a small piece of fresh basil on each tomato. Sprinkle with fresh thyme. Place in oven at 110 degrees for 1-2 hours. Keep an eye on them as you don't want them to burn. Take out of oven when done and remove the garlic and basil and any thyme leaves.
Fresh Basil
Buffalo mozzarella
InstructionsHeat the oven up as high as it will go. Minimum of 250c, but higher would be better if possible.
Flatten out the dough and cut into small pieces.
Place a small amount of the pesto on each piece of dough.
Top with a small piece of mozzarella, a semi dried tomato half.
Place in oven for a few minutes, or until done.
Top each cooked miniature pizza with a small piece of fresh basil.
Cucumber RollsIngredientsCucumber
Roasted Bell Pepper
Feta Cheese
InstructionsFinely slice cucumber using a mandolin and cut into small strips.
Wrap cucumber slice around a cube of feta and a piece of pepper, and hold together with a cocktail stick.
Quails EggsIngredientsRoasted Bell Pepper (I used left overs from Cucumber Rolls recipe)
Semi dried tomatoes (I used left overs from Miniature Pizza recipe)
Cucumber slices
Quails Eggs
InstructionsCut eggs in half. Sandwich a piece of pepper, tomato and cucumber between each half, and hold together with a cocktail stick.
Labels: canapés, cooking, food
Wednesday, January 03, 2007 10:16 PM
I can just see through the haze of my hangover enough to share with you my recipe for a Morning After Smoothie:
1 frozen banana
Juice of 1 or two oranges
A solid glug of milk
1 tablespoon natural yoghurt
1 raw egg
Tastes great and it puts your body on the road to recovery.
Labels: drink, food, hangover, smoothie
Monday, January 01, 2007 10:33 AM
My oh my oh my. Christmas is a busy time of year, ain't it? Fun and indulgent, yes, but also a little tiring on the body and mind. Happily, Christmas this year has provided me with a window to try out a brief flirtation with another brief foody obsession:
Canapés. I've said I'll help Emma and Liv make canapés for their
soirée on Wednesday, I've told my Aunt Pam that I'll make canapés (and quiche) for Christmas in Soham, and I've told Tim I'll make him canapés for the New Year's Eve party he's been told he's having. So be aware of the fact that in a couple of weeks time, when the dust has settled, when the presents have been unwrapped, when the fireworks have lit up the sky ushering in the new year: I will make a post about how to make the perfect canapés. Or, if it all goes disastrously wrong, the mistakes to avoid when preparing canapés.
Speaking of food, I have decided to stop getting an organic veg box delivery from Beanies. There's a few reasons for this:
1) There's a lot of food I just won't countenance that they just keep on delivering. Brussel Sprouts for one. I mean, what the fuck? Seriously. I've tried a number of recipes for cooking sprouts - glazing with honey, skewering with rosemary then flash frying in balsamic vinegar - and yet, they're still Brussel fucking Sprouts and they still just make me think
come on, this is the twenty first century, surely we are a bit beyond sprouts by now?!.
They also deliver a cabbage every week without fail, which although edible is really tremendously boring, especially when you have to single handedly consume a whole one every week. I suppose also the number of avacado they deliver is a little overwhelming. And apples. Christ. Apples. I like the taste, but I can't stand eating apples, and I can't stand the sound of other people eating apples. I'm not sure if the other people in my office have noticed this, but whenever somebody starts to eat an apple, I have to plug my earphones in and put my iPod on full volume. To me, listening to someone eating an apple is like listening to somene dragging their nails down a blackboard. Yes, I know it's my problem, and it makes me a bit weird, but there you go. It's a thing I have, it's something for me to deal with, and I'd like to encourage everyone to eat apples. They do after all, if consumed on a daily basis, keep the doctor away.
2) It has been a good experiment being forced to eat only certain foods for the last year, but it is stopping me from making a lot of the food I would like to try. There's a lot of foody projects I'd like to turn my hand to, but if all I've got to work with is a cabbage, some sprouts, some celery and an onion or two, there's few recipes that are going to light the fire of inspiration inside me. Sure, a tiny part of me will miss "Ready Steady Cook Wednesday" where I scratch my head and figure out not only what the hell that weird looking root vegetable is, but what in the name of Brian Cant's Barnacles I'm supposed to do with it, but ultimatley I'd like more of a say over what I shove down my gullet.
3) I have a great green grocers down the road, and I miss my Saturday morning stroll there. I miss standing there surrounded by a wide variety of colourful fruit and veg, thinking
I'll have some of this. And this. And I don't know what this is, but I'm having it because I think I might like it.
So. There you go. Veg box experiment over. If you don't live alone, it is probably a bit worthwhile. But if you do live alone and eat out at least once a week, then you will never ever get to decide for yourself what to cook for yourself. And I find that a bit stifling.
Labels: christmas, cooking, food
Sunday, December 17, 2006 7:40 PM
