by goodshoeday, on July 23rd, 2010
At last the English fruit season has arrived. The gooseberries and strawberries are in full flow and the raspberries, cherries and currants (black, red and white) are all just starting to come into their prime. For all these fruits when the season starts and end is inevitably affected by the weather and where you are in the country, some have much longer natural seasons than others and making the best of each while you can is what its all about.
I like them fresh of course, or cooked in compotes, sauces and pies and some preserved to bring a little summer [...]
Continue reading Mostly berries, some cherries and currants
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by goodshoeday, on July 6th, 2010
I’ve been doing my regular post for Francoise Murat’s newsletter for a while now but recently I was asked to do a guest post for fellow blogger Jo, of Jo’s Kitchen, whilst she was away. So I thought why not its always fun to do a bit of writing elsewhere.
Here’s what I came up with for her….
With monotonous regularity someone somewhere will go on about how an education system founded in “the 3 Rs” is just what we need to get back to basics and raise standards. Its always worried me a little that these three R’s don’t all start [...]
Continue reading Threes P’s Risotto and guest posting
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by goodshoeday, on June 30th, 2010
Its very nearly the end of the the elderflowers for this year, in fact in some parts of the country I’m sure they are already gone gone gone. But in a few places there are still some good ones to be found so if you are quick you might be able to grab a few flower heads and make cordial, champagne or…guess what……yes flavoured vodka.
Somehow I seem to have gathered a reputation for all things flavoured voddy and a few people have asked for the method for doing an elderflower one. So here it is:
6-8 good size elderflower heads in [...]
Continue reading Elderflower rush
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by goodshoeday, on June 28th, 2010
I’ve been a bit remiss on contributing to the Fresh from the Oven challenges of late, I missed out on doing croissants and pizza, both things I really fancied trying. Well i did do the pizza but I forgot to blog in in time, oops!
So this month I got well ahead of myself and made the challenge almost week for the deadline instead of on the day!
The bread we baked was Turkish Pide and the challenge was hosted by Mrs Ergul.
I had a bit of fun with the US measurements getting muddled and almost using a whole stick of butter [...]
Continue reading Fresh from the oven: Turkish Pide
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by goodshoeday, on June 25th, 2010
It’s late spring (well it was when I wrote and it was published, we’ve now just edged into summer) and a time many of us associate with lamb, in fact, it’s common to think of lamb as a traditional dish for Easter. A moment to pause and think about this should make us wonder why? Easter can be as early as 22 March and as late as 25 April; and we mostly all know that spring is when lambs are born so how are these lambs old enough to be ready to eat by Easter? Well they aren’t. The lamb [...]
Continue reading Mutton dressed as lamb, why not go the whole hogget
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by goodshoeday, on May 29th, 2010
Its Eurovision time again. Tonight. In Oslo. Surely you are going to be watching? And you’ll need something to eat whilst the 25 contestants do their stuff followed by the age long voting process. So how to decide what Eurovision dish to have. Well you could rustle up a menu from the cuisine of the country you are supporting, you could just have something random and un-Eurovision related or you could try something from the cuisine of host country Norway.
Some of you might be saying ‘what Norwegian cuisine, isn’t it just herrings and meatballs?’ Apparently not according to Signe Johansen [...]
Continue reading Eating Norwegian for Eurovision, naturally
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by goodshoeday, on May 18th, 2010
I love asparagus. Really love it. I could eat it everyday for the duration of its short season and not get bored. In fact I would probably have it nearly the same way each time, nice and simple with good butter or oil. I might steam it, roast it or chargrill but I’d still dress it simply. I might have it with some cured ham or hard tangy cheese. But in the main I’d let the asparagus do all the talking.
And once the season was over that would be it. No more asparagus for a whole year. Because even more [...]
Continue reading Asparagus Rolls
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by goodshoeday, on May 13th, 2010
I’ve said on here before how much I love asparagus and I’m very certain I will be saying it again before the season is over. Earlier in the week I went really simple with steamed asparagus and slithers of Ticklemore cheese popped under the grill until the cheese was just melting. The salty goats cheese was great with the asparagus. I didn’t take pictures though because I was so busy eating it.
Today I went for Parma ham, steamed asparagus and fried guinea fowl eggs.
Oh yum.
I don’t think you need instructions to be able to copy this, of course feel free [...]
Continue reading Easy Lunch: Asparagus
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by goodshoeday, on May 10th, 2010
This article was first published in Francoise Murat & Associates newsletter in April 2010.
We’ve just had Easter eggs, egg-decorating competitions at school and the hens are laying well again. With year round supplies of eggs in the shops we forget they are seasonal. We forget that when we talk of eggs we mean hen’s eggs. Anyone who keeps a few hens knows that during the winter they hardly lay at all and it takes until spring for them to get back to producing an egg a day. Jane Grigson talks of eggs as a rarity in the winter months and preserving [...]
Continue reading Eggs-eptionally seasonal
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