Author Archive
Roast Pork and Crackling
For our last day before some healthy eating begins, we decided on roast pork. Kerri poured boiling water over the skin before roasting it and then rubbed it liberally with salt, resulting in sublimely crisp crackling that didn’t even need to go back into the oven after the pork was done. The meat itself was […]
Read More..>>Chicken Tikka Wraps
We have cooked a few dishes from Anjum Anand’s Indian Food Made Easy lately, and tried another one this evening. I’ve taken to calling it Indian Food Made Irritating because of the pseudo-Nigellaness of her presentation style on her television programme. However, we have had a fair amount of success with the recipes in the […]
Read More..>>Smoked Haddock, Saffron Mussels and Mashed Potato
Last night on Masterchef, the “invention test” involved creating a plate of food from ingredients which included smoked haddock, potatoes and leeks. As usual, some of the contestants did a good job and had an opportunity to change their life and some didn’t. And as usual we started thinking of what we’d made with the […]
Read More..>>Christmas Pudding Ice Cream Revisited
When doing some clearing out of our rather small freezer compartment, we found the leftovers of the Christmas pudding ice cream that we had made for our pre-Christmas dinner. We left it out for a bit to soften and then had some. It was still good and it struck me again just how much it […]
Read More..>>New Year’s Eve 2008
We decided to spend the evening at home with some friends last night and agreed in advance on some quick and easy food that we could all contribute to. By the time they had arrived, our best laid plans had gone completely awry and we ended up with a banquet rather than a buffet. Not […]
Read More..>>Roasted Cobnut Salad
When staying in Kent with Kerri’s mum over Christmas, we picked up some cobnuts at a market in Canterbury. I’m sure that most people reading this know what cobnuts are, but for those that don’t, they are a type of hazelnut that has traditionally been grown in Kent over the past few centuries. Last year […]
Read More..>>Christmas Dinner!
For Christmas dinner, we had a family dinner with Kerri’s mum and her brother and his family, who kindly allowed us to take over their kitchen to cook it. We had turkey of course, as is obvious from the picture below. When we collected the turkey from the butcher (a free range bronze turkey from […]
Read More..>>Vacherin
For Christmas Eve, we had some nibbles, including a rather delicious Vacherin Mont d’Or. For those of you who don’t know (and can’t be bothered to click the link :-)), Vacherin is a seasonal French (or Swiss) cheese that, when ripe, has a deliciously gooey centre and a smooth, creamy, but rich and complex taste. […]
Read More..>>Goose Pie
Having half a goose left after our pre-Christmas dinner yesterday, we embarked on a goose pie project. Kerri had seen Jamie cooking a turkey and leek pie, which served as partial inspiration. We only had one leek though, so we added an onion. And we didn’t have creme fraiche, so we used chicken stock. And […]
Read More..>>Pre-Christmas Dinner – Roast Goose
It’s become something of a tradition (if twice counts as a tradition – a tradition in the making maybe) for me and Kerri to have a pre-Christmas dinner with my sister and her husband shortly before we disappear off elsewhere for Christmas itself. Last year we had roast salmon with salsa verde; this year we […]
Read More..>>