Or in other words, what I’ve been stuffing down in the kitchen without bothering to take photos. Bad blogger. I’ll distract you with a nice picture (Jason Rhoades at the Rubell Collection, Miami).
Rye and polenta muffins
These have caraway seeds in which do impart an aniseedy taste which Fabio didn’t much take to, as an aniseed hater. “Duurrr!” I hear you say, “Surely you knew caraway wouldn’t go down well?”. Yes, but in my defence I am cooking for someone who swears they don’t like mushrooms, but wolfs down thirds of chicken and mushroom pie, hates beetroot but relishes my smoked salmon and golden beet salad, and doesn’t like the gamey taste of lamb, apart from that tagine I do with dates which is gone in two seconds flat. Partners of ostensibly fussy eaters take note: a little subterfuge can only do them good. Anyway, we first ate these with soup, and I kinda liked these muffins. But warmed in the oven (straight from the freezer) first thing in the morning is where these come into their own, the crunchy polenta crust broken open for a melting lick of salty butter and damp, sweet, sticky honey… That I can get out of bed for.
River Cottage Veg Everyday
Is it socially acceptable to declare a bit of a long-standing pash for Hugh, now he’s lost a bit of chub and cut his hair? (I’ll have you know I was well into Gary Barlow, fifteen years before his recent hot-bod-ness. Ahead of the curve, me.) Leaving my dodgy taste in men aside, ahem, this is a great book. I’ve got recipes coming out of me ears, but there is still inspiration here for doable weeknight and lazy weekend meals, interesting raw combinations and fun mezze selections. As ever, the recipes are well written, they work, there are sensible variations and Hugh is just a lovely kitchen companion.
Tried so far:
Beet-top and ricotta tart - wonderful and dead posh looking. Fabio said we should put this on the menu for our “oh crap, the Euro’s collapsed and with it the whole financial system” cafe, opening in the near future I should think. The lettuce and spring onion tart was also gorge.
Kale and potato curry – a great and surprisingly tasty way to use up kale, which sneaks into my trolley when my freakily healthy subconscious gets the reins every now and again. Kale tastes like bin liner if you don’t boil the heck out of it for half-an-hour, so give it a lot longer than HFW suggests.
Bill Granger’s Coconut Bread
Everyone* raves about this, don’t they? It’s just a giant muffin in a loaf tin, folks. Quite nice toasted and buttered with honey (again from frozen slices), but I can’t say I’m mad about it cold. Meh.
*Meaning the world of food bloggers, obviously. Clearly we can’t be trusted (ref. cupcakes, whoopie pies, bacon jam crazes).
Dan Lepard’s Short and Sweet
Hurrah! It’s arrived, and even in e-book form. Not sure I quite approve of e-recipe books – I like all my floury stains, stuck together pages and scribbled notes. (Mum recently found a very grumpy note of mine on a Delia recipe I’d tried and failed at when I was 16. At 32, I’m still blaming the recipe writers, ‘cos obviously I’m infallible). Anyhoo, if you’ve been following Dan’s Guardian column there is quite a lot of overlap here, but even for those of you that obsessively Evernote everything, this is a super collection full of baking wisdom, useful standards and new ideas.
Tried so far:
Ginger macadamia cookies – not too sweet, not too gingery (for the purported ginger haters in the house, see my note on fussy eaters above). Perfect after-sport snack, if you would rather shoot yourself in the foot than eat an egg-white omelette.
Double cheese and chive loaf – tomato sarnie bliss awaits you here.
Coffee and ricotta marble cake – teatime perfection
Meringue topped chestnut tarts – and see below for another idea for chestnuts.
Budino di castagne, or chestnut pudding
You’ll apparently have lots of leftover vacpacked or pureed chestnuts after Christmas, if the colour supplements are to be believed: this is a light yet festive pud to use them up, extra nice drizzled with chocolate sauce. Practice your Italian on the original recipe (or bug me for a translation). Other ideas? There’s a chocolate and chestnut sandwich biscuit in Short and Sweet which looks promising, but I rather think I’ll be using my chestnut puree as a creamy filling to a dark chocolate layer cake in the near future.
