Chatiryworld

Food confessions meme

I've been tagged by Laura!

The Foodie Confessions Meme

IN THE KITCHEN

1. My trademark recipe: Pizza with halloumi cheese.  Probably shouldn't be called pizza at all, but I make a proper bread base and tomato sauce (as taught by my mum) and then add halloumi instead of mozarella.

2. Kitchen gadget or accessory I couldn't live without: The Magimix.

3. Biggest kitchen handicap: I'm crap at pancakes.

4. Dish/technique that I want to learn: Savoury preserves.  Especially tomato sauce like SouleMama does.

5. My top cooking tip: Don't keep tomatoes or strawberries in the fridge, they taste much better for it.

INSPIRATION

6. Favourite cuisine/food style: That's a really tough one, I love pizza and pasta so probably Italian, but not so fond of all the olive oil sloshed everywhere.

7. Favourite cook book: Another toughie, Leon by Allegra McEvedy has yet to fail.  Denis Cotter's books are pretty good too, not always quick though!

8. Favourite chef: Denis Cotter, Nigel Slater and Rachel Allen.  Sorry, can't reduce it.

9. Favourite food programme: River Cottage, there aren't many good cooking programmes on TV anymore.  I liked Rachel Allen's Bake as well.

10. Favourite food magazine: Although I think there are probably better food magazines, I haven't read them, so BBC's Good Food Magazine

11. Favourite local restaurant: Iglu

INTERNET FOR FOODIES

12. Favourite foodie website: The Kitchn

13. Favourite recipe search: BBC Food

14. Online recipe binder:Don't use them, but Mac Gourmet has revolutionised our cooking.

15. Favourite food blog: Orangette and Chocolate & Zucchini.

FAVOURITE RECIPES

16. Main course: I don't think I have a favourite but the vegetarian tagine recipe from Leon works brilliantly.

17. Quickie: Pasta with homemade tomato sauce

18. Soup/salad: Leon Superfood Salad

19. Baked treat or dessert: Chocolate and raspberry cake from the Chocolate and Zucchini book.

20. Self-invented (or adapted): Pizza with halloumi

Please feel free to do this meme too, but I'd especially like to see Jon's answers.  Or maybe i could just ask him, what with me being married to him and everything.  If anyone does put this on their blog please comment below because I'm nosy and would like to read it.  Or just answer in the comments if you haven't got a blog.

Taste Scotland

If you happen to be in the centre of Glasgow today you could do worse than go and grab yourself some free food at Tesco's Enjoy the Taste of Scotland event in George Square.  We were at the preview day on Friday and had a good time.  Here are my favourites:

Stockans oatcakes - best in the world
Blueberry and rosemary cupcakes at the Scotherbs stall.  They've added a few herbs to their range: purple basil, chervil and sorrel.
Really Garlicky Company, they've got some new dressings and relishes.  They also do the best garlic bread ever.
Rooster jacket potatoes - especially after a sugar rush from nibbles from other stalls
Tunnocks - yay! 
Graham's new range of ice cream. 
Simple Simon's Pies - I was never a huge pie fan but their vegetarian ones are the business.
Arran Fine Foods chutneys, never used to like chutney that much but I was obviously wrong.

I'm also looking forward to scrambling up some double yolk eggs.

The Strange Scottish Winery

Jon's dad came up for the weekend and we went on a couple of adventures.  The main one was up to Perthshire to visit Cairn o'Mohr, who describe themselves as the strange Scottish winery.  We decided we wanted to get some of their sparkling (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) wines for the wedding toast, with some extra of the non-alcoholic stuff for us non-drinkers to quaff.

It's a fun little place, full of bizarre carvings and brightly coloured signs, and the girl in the shop was really helpful.  I'd love to go back to do one of their tours.  I hadn't realised that they have a hall for hire, which would be a great place for a wedding.  We looked at it wistfully then realised it was nowhere near as convenient as our venues back in Edinburgh which have useful things like hotels and public transport within walking distance. 

Other adventures included the now Baxterified Kathellan Farm Park and Shop (no time for the farm park though), Gullane for cakes and North Berwick for a good lunch and a look at Our Wee Planet Festival.  A good weekend.

Leon gobi and broccoli pasta

Not at the same time of course, that would be disgusting.  This week I made yet another successful dish from the Leon cookbook : Leon gobi.  We had some leftover homemade naan breads in the freezer that, once defrosted, went very well with this curry.

Several recipes (including the one for Leon gobi) are available via this article in the Guardian.  I'd highly recommend trying their recipes, they always seem to work for us.  You can also find the recipe for the yummy sweet potato falafel I made a while back in the article.

We saved Laurie Colwin's recipe for velvely broccoli and feta pasta from The Kitchn a while back and last night I finally made it.  I used purple sprouting broccoli, and because there wasn't enough of this, I also used the chard that had come in this week's veg box.  This worked really well and made for a yummy pasta dish.  It's also quick to cook, making it ideal for a work night.  Pasta, feta and greens, what's not to like?

Fresh air

We went to the seaside again on Monday afternoon. 'Twas good.  We ate much better this time.  If you are in North Berwick and want a nice lunch, head away from the town centre and visit the Fly Half Bar and Grill at the Nether Abbey Hotel.  I had roast butternut squash ravioli with a red pepper coulis.  I'm pretty sure the ravioli was homemade.

I had to get up at stupid o'clock yesterday to go and work in Glasgow for the morning.  When I got home I discovered Jon on a big foodie session.  He'd got loads of goodies from the farmer's market and last night we feasted on asparagus, spinach and durrus cheese egg rolls with balsamic beetroot sauce and avocado salsa (another Denis Cotter special) followed by rhubarb sorbet.  Both absolutely delicious.

Tea for ten

Yesterday saw hen do number two, an afternoon tea party at The Roseleaf in Leith.  We squashed round a rickety old table piled high with mismatching vintage china, (Croila was in her element) cucumber sandwiches and cakes.  Some people opted for the alcoholic version, pot-tails, cocktails served in teapots that you drink from teacups, that's what you can see in the bottom left photo.  Even Iggle Piggle joined in the fun as nearly-two-year-old Alex attended his first hen party.

Thanks ladies (and boy!) for coming and making it a really enjoyable afternoon, just what I was hoping for and not a stripper or L plate in sight!

Eatings

Last Friday I made corn pancakes with leeks and purple sprouting broccoli with a rosemary cream from Denis Cotter's Cafe Paradiso Seasons .  I used low fat creme fraiche instead of cream and added rosemary rather than rosemary oil to this.  I think if I made it again I would do a tomato sauce instead of the cream, using passata to keep the smoothness.  Another winner from Mr Cotter though.

The other week I made korma-style dhal with sweet potato and cauliflower, a free recipe from Waitrose.  It was nice, but I'm not sure I'd make it again, the seasoning wasn't quite to my liking.  I also made naan bread to go with it.

Now I'm off to continue my transformation into Rachel Allen.

Inside and out

Croila, D and E came round for dinner on Saturday.  We had been due to go out to the Pentlands together but the weather wasn't brilliant, so we had a bit of a Nintendo night.  And lots of chat and putting the world to rights.  The first thing D spied was Jon's Nintendo DS and within minutes had Jon synching them together so they could place Mario Kart together.  Then we moved on to Mario Kart on the Wii and finally, after dinner, Guitar Hero. 

Jon made a delicious meal, as ever.  Bit of a Mexican theme with burritos and goodies from Lupe Pintos, including the wonderful tomato and nigella chutney from Mr Vikki.

Sunday was a better day and we went over to Lower Largo to see my dad, M and about 47 children and teenagers.  Slight exaggeration.  We had a good walk on the beach and saw my brothers. We ate well again, lots of homemade waffles.

Catching up

So last weekend was spent down at my mum's in Yorkshire.  I took the opportunity to have a little hen lunch with two of my sisters, two of my cousins and two of my friends at Browns in Leeds.  I was able to join in the cocktail fun with a mocktail, which pleased me, and we all ate delicious and filling food.  I had a vegetable tart and shared some chips with my sister Ellen.  We couldn't resist pudding and I went for chocolate ice cream that was served with a cookie.  I didn't finish it.  It was really lovely to sit back, relax, chat and eat some good food, so thank you for coming ladies.

On Sunday afternoon my mum drove Ellen, Martha and I to one of my favourite places, Saltaire.  I haven't been since I moved up here so it was great to get reacquainted with Salts Mill and see how much the shops in the main street had changed.  No more second hand bookshop, but plenty of vintage places.  We went to a craft and vintage fair at Victoria Hall, complete with cafe serving from pretty teasets (despite not drinking tea I do like a nice teaset).  The fair had some good stalls, and some not so good, and I was pleased to see that Hannah Nunn (whose lamp I blogged about a while back) had a stall, also selling tealight holders and vases by Karin Eriksson.  We had a little mooch in the shops in the mill before heading home.  If it hadn't been so cold I would have taken more photos of the village.  It's a planned industrial village in the same ilk as New Lanark, only less touristy (which is not to say that it isn't touristy, it just doesn't have the big attractions that New Lanark does). 

I had a great weekend but it was wonderful to see Jon again back in Edinburgh.  He'd spent the weekend in Brighton.

East Coast

We spent some time yesterday in Gullane, East Lothian, about an hour's bus ride from Edinburgh.  I'd been wanting to go for a while, as it involves the seaside and a Falko Konditormeister cafe (although we do now have one of them nearer to us) but it was only yesterday that we finally got round to it.  We were hoping to find out more about a potential wedding cake idea that we had but the meister himself was of course over in the Bruntsfield branch, a 15 minute walk from our flat...  Never mind, this branch was more relaxed and less crowded (yet still busy).  I was glad I had worn my Boden cardigan, seems to be the brand to wear in Gullane.

After filling up on cake we walked down to the beach, the wind blowing sand into our faces.  We spent a refreshing few minutes (it was cold!) down there before wandering back up to the main street picking out the houses we'd like to live in.  A quick drink in the Old Clubhouse before browsing in the charity shop and the deli before getting the bus back to the big city. 

It was nice.