Spring Is In The Air
Spring is one of my favourite times of year. Since becoming more interested in food, we’ve been eating seasonally and locally. We make a real effort to only eat British and, as far as possible, to buy local produce. This can be limiting; winter is tough as the choice of produce is much less but overall it’s worth it. As the weather starts to warm up, all of a sudden there’s lots more choice and you can eat things that you haven’t had for what seems like ages.
After the excitement of last night’s Jersey Royals, can you imagine how excited we were to find the first British asparagus in Marks and Spencer this evening? Both Stephen and I are big fans and ate loads last year during its short time in season. To make the most of the flavour, we simply steamed it then served it with parmesan cheese, black pepper and rock salt as a starter.
It was soooo good, crunchy and peppery and really green tasting. And I think it tasted better because it had been so long since we last had any.
G
Ice Cream
Probably my favourite ice cream comes from Marine Ices in Chalk Farm. I first found it on a late night excursion with my best friend who told me how she used to have her birthday parties there when she was small, the best part about it being the ice-cream birthday cake that they served.
Stephen and I have been there a few times, they serve really good pizza and pasta in the main restaurant or you can go just for ice-cream. It looks as if it hasn’t changed since they first opened in the fifties, the ice-cream (as many flavours as you can think of) comes served in little metal dishes with long spoons.
We don’t go there so often now because we’ve moved and it’s no longer as local as it was so imagine my delight when we found takeaway ice-cream in a small Italian deli. near our flat. We bought coffee flavour. Now we just need some of those little dishes for the authentic Marine Ices experience.
G
Jersey Royals
Tonight, we used up the leftover pork that we roasted yesterday. We had some leftover cauliflower cheese and salad that Stephen made a brilliant honey and mustard dressing to go with (honey, Dijon, olive oil, cider vinegar and salt) and the first Jersey Royals of the season.
I’m not a huge fan of new potatoes but I love these. We served them with butter, salt and parsely. They were really good.
G
Lettuce
Stephen and I have a small courtyard garden, we haven’t had any outside space at all before so this is quite exciting for us. As we like to cook, it made sense to plant some vegetables and herbs.
We’ve got a small trough with thyme, sage and rosemary; some pots with mint and lavender and a trough of mixed lettuce. This is our first lettuce shoot!
We also have some radishes, cress and broad beans to go out and later in the year we intend to do rocket, basil, runner beans and tomatoes.
G
Roast Pork
We bought a deboned leg of free range pork from our butcher yesterday, planning to have it for lunch today. Today we rubbed the skin with salt and roasted it high, then lower. Two and a half hours later, it was done and it was really good. Served with sage and onion stuff made by Kerri with sage from our garden, sauteed leeks, roasted spiced buternut, cauliflower cheese and of course roasted potatoes and parsnips. And gravy. Lots to do, but it was all worth it.
F
Elizabeth David
I’ve long been envious of people who just happen to find old and interesting cookery books in charity shops. I often find myself browsing the shelves only to be confronted with the Sainsbury’s Microwave Cook Book from 1982 or the Marks and Spencer All Time Favourite Slow Cooker Recipes. Today however, I struck lucky and came across these two paperbacks for 49p each in my local Oxfam. I knew they were good, but this was confirmed when I was stalked around the store by someone who clearly coveted them.
They make for interesting, if complex, reading. I’m yet to cook anything from them though.
G
Scallops and Paella
Tonight’s starter was scallops with chorizo. We fried the chorizo off first, then the scallop roe and finally the scallops themselves. Served as above. Yum 🙂
To continue the fishy theme, we then made a seafood paella with prawns, mussels and clams:
It was very tasty, and there was rice, you just can’t see it in the picture 🙂
Cheese Muffins
In my “things to cook soon” file, I’ve had Nigella’s Welsh Rarebit Muffin recipe for ages but never gotten around to making it. Speaking to someone I know this week, she mentioned that she’d had mixed results with the recipe and suggested I try this instead, Cheese and Pancetta Muffins from UKTV Food.
We left out the pancetta in an attempt to be healthy but added in some worcester sauce and made these for breakfast this morning. They were good, but would have been even better with the pancetta I think.
G
Steak with Butternut and Caramelised Onions
We decided that steak with salad would be fairly healthy for a Friday night. We had a couple of sirlion steaks and roasted some butternut pieces and mushrooms to go with them. We also cooked down a red onion until it was quite gooey and caramelised with just a few “intentional” black bits. And there was salad too.
Thai Green Curry with Chicken
We had been planning to make Thai green curry for a few days, and when the day came, we found ourselves in Chinatown buying ingredients. We had a jar of green curry paste from the shop, but after my purchase of a long-coveted “real” mortar and pestle from New Loon Moon in Chinatown, I was determined to make it myself. Almost coincidentally, we had all the required ingredients at home. So I started grinding, mashing and bashing and 15 minutes or so later, we had some semblance of green curry paste although the lemongrass had made it rather fibrous and not too paste-like.
We cooked the curry with chicken, later adding pea aubergines, baby corn and mange tout. It was really good. At least twenty times better than it would have been using the curry paste from a jar. And we have some left over, so we can make some again soon without too much hassle.
