Easy slaw

It’s taken me a long time to be a fan of coleslaw. Scarred by childhood memories of gloopy overly vinegary stuff from tubs and at the other extreme overly wholesome versions with yoghurt and stale nuts,I’ve always approached the dish with caution. But my husband is a big fan and so I thought ‘how hard can it be’to make a good version…so I tried.

At first I refused to add any extra vinegar,the recipes got a modest thumbs up but the comments ‘too thick’. Then in summer last year there was a twitter conversation about making [...]

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Talking turkey

turkey displaying plummage

It’s pretty much the hottest day of the year and I’m about to eat a full Christmas dinner in deepest Berkshire. Just what is going on. Especially as I’m not turkey’s number one fan. It’s okay but to date its not had a guaranteed place on my christmas table….

When I was a kid we always had roast turkey for Christmas dinner and it was good,but it never seemed as nice as the excitement it generated amongst everyone else. For me it was never quite a tasty and juicy as roast chicken. Maybe the plethora of trimmings overshadowed [...]

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Warming stew:Lentejas

P1000454

Its pouring with rain today in London making the autumn evening dark even sooner…whats needed is a warming stew.

I’ve made this one a few times but the first time I did was back in early 2010 when the lovely people at Orce Serrano Hams sent me some of their chorizo and morcilla to try. This dish adapted from the Moro cookbook seemed the perfect way to try them out.

It’s pretty easy and quite and of course you can use chorizo and black pudding sourced in the UK but the Orce morcilla was something truly special,well worth [...]

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Lamb-chetta

Rolled and tied lamb with extra herbs tucked under string

Last weekend I was casting around for what to do with some lamb breast and neck I had defrosted and the weather seemed to good for hearty stews. I asked the hive mind that is twitter and carried on flipping though cook books for inspiration. At roughly the same time as I was eyeing up a porchetta recipes Chris from La Hogue Farm shop suggested a herby stuffing and wrapping the breast round the neck.

And so I set out to make lamb-chetta.

I didn’t want too dense a stuffing so I decided to simply use lots of fresh herbs.

[...]

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Fennel harvest (and fennel crackers)

Fennel flower and ladybird

We’ve a huge fennel plant growing in our garden….we didn’t plant it I think it self seeded from next door. Anyway we kind of ignored it but now its time to tidy the garden so I decided to harvest the seeds before we up rooted it and find a few uses for them.

A bit of googling told me that they aren’t really seeds they are teeny fruits,and that instead of taking nice photos of ladybirds clambering over the yellow flowers earlier in the year I should have been harvesting the pollen as this is the most sought [...]

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Super easy super tasty ice cream

Ice cream served with nectarine

Spurred on by various people posting inspiring midsummer treats (like Scandilicious talking about sweet sweet prawns here) I decided to have a sneaky bowl of some lovely ice cream I’d made last week for lunch (obviously I made lots just in case I needed a sneaky snack or two).

With sliced ripe nectarine and a sploosh of cream over it.

Its just about the easiest ice cream you can make no faffing with custards,no making of syrups. Just follow there basic instructions and you’ll have lovely ice cream too.

Ingredients:

equal volumes of double cream and greek yoghurt [...]

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Soups and Stocks

Roasted root vegetable soup with cheese

Although spring definitely feels like it might be on the way some days are still pretty cold and so a warming soup is just what’s needed,here’s some thoughts on soup I wrote for Francoise Murat &Associates newsletter in January. I think I might just have soup for lunch tomorrow.

January is a funny month. For some people it feels slow and difficult,winter is most definitely with us,its cold and its dark,summer seems such a long way off whichever way you look at it. For others it’s a chance to think afresh of a new year [...]

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ideas…

Dan Lepard english wild garlic chocolate spring british mayo egg toast tomato salmon lemon potatoes lamb soup/stew suffolk quick blogging beef pork sandwiches cheese pickles #livelocal lunch curry roast chicken vodka asparagus chutney bread homemade seasonal challenge breakfast pasta garden summer competition chicken mushroom stock twitter herbs leftovers
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