Chatiryworld

Recent baking

Cardamom cake made into buns, recipe from Rachel Allen's Favourite Food at Home .  I love cardamom, it's got a gently spicy taste and scent.  In case you were wondering (or not), the cases and flags are from a Dutch shop called Hema, I got the flags in their Brussels branch last year and the cases were a gift from our friends in Brussels.  Hema gets raved about on design blogs, it's a funny place, to me it felt a bit like Poundstretcher but with less junk and some really pretty stationery and home things.

Next up, some amazing brownies from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Guardian column.  They were delicious, I added some chopped up dark chocolate, as suggested, but I'm not sure this was needed, certainly tasted nice but may have just tipped the scales too far in the direction of rich.  But would you want anything else from brownies?

Finally, salted caramel shortbread from Cakes (River Cottage Handbook).  The combination of salt, caramel and dark chocolate is amazing!  However, it didn't hold together very well (maybe the chocolate needs more butter?) so was almost impossible to cut so it stayed together, nevermind neatly.  I chopped it all up, put it in a bowl and Aberdour Mess was born.  My dad and family came round this afternoon and I presented the bowl, plates, spoons and kitchen towel and told them to tuck in however they wanted.  It was declared A Success.  I also made jammy dodgers from the same book but they weren't very photogenic.

I'm still getting to grips with the oven in the new house.  The brownies took a bit longer than the recipe said, the shortbread and jammy dodgers probably needed less time.  Successful baking is often about knowing your oven, so hopefully I'll improve as the months go by.  Certainly means I need to experiment a lot, which is no bad thing when it comes to baking.

Swapsies

I made this marble cake from Dan Lepard's Exceptional Cakes book.  I gave it to Rachel (sale on!) and in return she made me...

I've had a grey cover from Muji for years, this is much brighter and has been helping keep me cosy all week.  Thank you!

Black Isle birthday

The other week we decided to book a night at our favourite pub, The Anderson in Fortrose, for Jon's birthday.  Going up to the Black Isle in February might seem like a bit of a risky plan when it comes to the weather, but once again, the sun came out and shone for us on holiday (with a few drops of rain for dramatic light). 

We got to Inverness (which, although I had a soft spot for it, increasingly feels like going back to 1993) at lunchtime, had a quick bite to eat in an organic cafe, and then took the bus over to Rosemarkie, Fortrose's sister village.  Many years ago I went to the lovely Groam House Museum with my dad, but this being the off-season, it was closed.  So we followed the coastline back to Fortrose, walking along the beach and round Chanonry Point.  We didn't see any dolphins but I wondered if there was some kind of activity happening as quite a few photographers were arriving as we wandered along to Fortrose.

We were warmly welcomed back at the Anderson and found ourselves upgraded to a four-poster room.  After taking advantage of the lovely bath to ease our aches and pains we settled down to a delicious dinner.  I had baked aubergine with spinach, pine nuts and smoked cheese from Mull and then we shared a slice of Belgian chocolate cake, which arrived with a candle in it, nice!  Jon tried one of the many Belgian beers and then some whisky whilst I did some knitting.  We both wished it was our local.

Our cheap train tickets meant we weren't leaving Inverness until about 5pm, so we decided to do a bit more exploring.  Off we headed to Cromarty, famous for the shipping forecast and being a former home of Kal (no blue plaques in evidence).  When I was a child and heard it on the forecast I thought it was a big, exciting town.  It's not, it's a lovely, pretty and peaceful village which reminds me a little of Stromness.  We spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around and vowing to return again.

It was one of those restorative short breaks that came at just the right time, and it felt like we had been away for a lot longer than a night.  Fresh air, good food, sunshine after months of darkness and plenty of pretty houses.

Breakfast, thanks to Facebook

Unfortunately everyday breakfast doesn't come freshly prepared by someone else and enjoyed on a terrace looking out over the sea to St Michael's Mount, but this photo (from our honeymoon) is much nicer than a photo of a bowl of Sainsbury's Malted Wheats.  Every so often I have what I call a breakfast cereal crisis.  It's not really a crisis, I'm being over-dramatic, but basically I go off whatever cereal I've been happily eating for the past few months (or, in the case of the current crisis, years) and have to find a new one.  Sometimes I've found one straight away, other times I've had to try a few until I find The One.  Recently I've been really struggling to eat my own brand versions of Shreddies.  Own brand rice krispies haven't been doing it either.  I half watched the River Cottage breakfast programme the other night and that gave me some ideas.  But I wanted more, I needed a kick up the bum to try some new stuff. 

So I asked Facebook and got loads of ideas, so many that I've decided to share them with everyone.  If a lot of them seem obvious, it's not because I hadn't heard of having that for breakfast, I just need a little bit of encouragement to try things.  Here's what my friends and family are eating for breakfast:

• Nature Valley granola bar and coffee
• Chocolate weetabix with apple and flapjack yoghurt
• Granola, yoghurt and chopped fruit
• Hash browns and two eggs
• Try Nigella's granola recipe
• Pancakes
• Sauteed wild mushrooms
• Porridge
• Fruit with yoghurt or cottage cheese
• Add dried fruit and nuts to your oatmeal along with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves
• Porridge and syrup
• Cinnamon and raisin bagels
• Normal bagels and poached/scrambled eggs
• Toasted bagel or toast with mashed banana
• Cooked mushrooms mixed with Philadelphia and chives on top of toast or toasted bagel
• Crumpets with maple syrup and bacon
• Berries, Greek yoghurt and honey
• Grapefruit
• Grapenuts
• Toast and vegemite
• Yoghurts
• Eggs in all varieties
• Birtcher muesli (?) -  soak raw oats overnight in rice milk and add grated apple in the morning along with nuts and seeds, can also be made with apple juice but not dairy milk as that goes funny
• Porridge with mixed berries
• Noodles or pasta (that's from my 17 year old cousin, I love noodles and pasta but maybe not for breakfast)

I think the main message from all these yummy suggestions is that if you make a little bit of effort (and some of these came from working mums of under 5s so if they can do it...) you can have something more interesting than a bowl of cereal.  I had a look at the River Cottage breakfast recipes online and decided that yesterday I would try the porridge recipe.  I have had phases of eating porridge before, I do like it, but I haven't made a nice bowl of it for ages (I've made horrible bowls of it though), so out came the trusty spurtle made by Hugh.  I followed the recipe, it took a few minutes and I made a nice bowl of porridge.  Win!  I'll certainly be doing that again.  This morning I not only had to get up earlier to make sure I definitely would be at work before 9, I also had to wash my hair.  Not really much time to make porridge, so I had an Alpro soya yoghurt with pear and banana puree and granola that I bought yesterday (I plan to try the Nigella recipe though).  Delicious, although I might need something else along side it next time.

I don't think I'm quite up for cooking mushrooms at 7am yet, but I may get some bagels to freeze (or can I convince my husband to try Nagl's Bagels again?) and try some of the suggested toppings.  Any more ideas (vegetarian please!)?

78 Derngate

Did you know that Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed a house in England?  Normally associated with Scotland, and in particular Glasgow, he is also behind 78 Derngate in Northampton.  Having long been a fan of Mackintosh (since the age of 9 when an exhibition of his work arrived at the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney leading me to spend a lot of time gazing at the architectural models of his buildings wishing I could play with them), this was another little pilgrimage I could easily go on from Jon's mum's house.

It's a small house, one-two rooms per floor.  You can take a guided tour but we chose to wander round ourselves.  There's plenty of written information if you decide to do this.  We started off in the kitchen, as advised, and worked our way up.  Many of the original items are still in situ but there has also been some refurbishment and replacement.  You can't take photos indoors but there's an excellent virtual tour on the website.

78 Derngate has a similar feel to the Mackintosh house at the Hunterian in Glasgow, very much a lived in, used home.  Something you don't feel as much at House for An Art Lover and Hill House, they are the big Mackintosh show pieces, or at least that's how I view them.

The 78 Derngate visitor attraction (for want of a better phrase) extends into the next door houses, and include further exhibition space and a fabulous cafe, the Dining Room.  Here's Jon's cream tea and his mum's Victoria sponge.  I had an amazing brownie.  Even if you're not a fan of Mackintosh, if you're ever in Northampton head there for cake!

Nosh at Illegal Jacks

We ate at Illegal Jack's on Lothian Road last night, thanks to our friend Craig who has been encouraging local bloggers and Tweeters (Twits?) to go along and sample their wares for free in return for, er, blogging and tweeting about it.

First up, I learned that to assume can indeed make an ass out of (yo)u and me.  Illegal Jack's opened up several months ago in an area that's got plenty of chain restaurants and pubs.  I assumed it was just another chain pub (their name sounds more pubbish) with mediocre food that I wouldn't bother going in.  But when we were offered the chance to try it out, I looked on their website and discovered that I had been totally wrong.

It turns out that Illegal Jack's is not a chain and all their 'food is prepared freshly for each day's service'.  They make it easier for themselves by not actually offering a huge choice of food.  That's not a bad thing (pubs trying to cover every style of international cuisine should take note of this), it's better to do less but do it better.  Most of the food is based around tortillas, well, you can read for yourself the choices here.  You choose your style of tortilla, your filling, beans and any extras.  It's made up for you there and then.  It's fast food, but better than most.  Like a fast food outlet, you order at the counter and most of the time you take it to your table yourself and clear it away afterwards.

I went for the burrito with sauteed vegetables, pinto beans and mild salsa.  I had a similar thing at Whole Foods in London last December and it was tasty.  This one was ok.  I perhaps hadn't considered that my idea of sauteed vegetables involves a lot more sautee-ing than others would, the onions were not cooked enough for my liking.  I wish I'd gone for a stronger salsa too.  Once I'd wrestled the onions away the rest of it was grand and filled me up nicely.

I would like to go back though, and try the vegetarian chilli, I liked that you could get it with simple boiled rice if you were trying to keep things healthy.  I'd also like to try it with the fajitas, Jon had them but with a meat option.  I really like what Illegal Jack's are trying to do, there aren't many places in the city where you can get good fast food with health(ierish) options, or at least not in the evenings as well.  Henderson's shop is my usual go-to place for good cheap food either on the go or not taking too much time if you sit down, but Illegal Jack's now gives another option in a different part of the city centre. 

Dessert is simple too, your choice of a small tub of Mackie's ice cream.  We were too full but I liked that it was there and there weren't loads of over the top desserts to give you a heart attack.  Under 12s eat for half price and considering the food doesn't cost that much anyway that's a great deal and must surely be better for kids than the usual high street fast food outlets.

I think we need more places like Illegal Jack's, doing healthier fast food without the frills.  It reminded me of a place in Paris I went to about 10 years ago where you could buy a paper cone of pasta and your choice of sauce to take away, or the vegetarian burger bar that I went to a couple of times in Nottingham (Jack's isn't vegetarian but does have several veggie options). 

Try it out.  It's not fine dining but it's a good stop before the cinema (we went on to see Inception at the Cameo) or theatre.  If you work nearby you can get a takeout at lunchtime.  It's a bit pricier than a sandwich but it'll keep you going.

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This post is supposed to be about the lovely picnic we had with our friends last Sunday, using the new picnic blanket I made from Amanda Blake Soule's Handmade Home .  But it was rainy and windy so we ate it indoors, played hide and seek and started work on another project from Handmade Home.

Hopefully summer will return soon.

The Anderson: A Nagl type of pub

We spent a night in Fortrose on the Black Isle on our way back from Skye this year (I'll write up more about the holiday soon).  A nice enough little village, by the sea and with a farm shop.  We mentioned it to Neil, of Best Bed and Breakfast Ever Tigh an Dochais fame, and he told us to go to the Anderson for food when we were there.  I was pleased to get a recommendation as I'd read about a couple of places in Fortrose that sounded nice enough, veggie food that didn't have a 50% cheese content etc, but they didn't really have the wow factor.  That's ok though, you don't expect wow factor in small villages.  You do get it in places though, like the Victoria Inn, Harbour Restaurant, Creelers and Falko.  But you don't expect it.

Not long after arriving in Fortrose we wandered along to the Anderson to book a table for that evening.  We discovered there and then that the Anderson does indeed have the wow factor, or at least the Nagl style of wow factor.  In fact it had so much wow factor that we nearly went along early just to enjoy being there.

We ate in the cosy bar, although there is a lovely dining room but it felt a bit more 'occasiony' for us that evening.  I had a delicious spanokopita, the vegetarian food here is really good and different from your normal pub fare.  The owners, Jim (former beer magazine publisher, he knows his stuff) and Anne Anderson, are American.  Anne arrived in Scotland with no preconceptions of what pub grub should be like, so came up with a really amazing menu that regularly changes.  Good veggie food for me, great local meat and fish for Jon.  My beer and whisky loving (quality not quantity) husband loved that the largest selection of Belgian beer in Scotland was awaiting him - along with the best of Scottish and international numbers.  There were also over 200 whiskies, and Jim helped him pick one when he came round to chat to all the diners.  What about non-drinking me?  Most soft drinks in pubs are just meh.  Coke and lemonade through the scoosher?  Fruit juice that's about 75% sugar?  I usually end up with a sparkling mineral water which I like, but, hmm, meh.  Not here though!  A page of deliciously different non-alcohol drinks from a variety of producers.  I went for a raspberry drink by Bouvrage, a Scottish company often at the farmers market.

So, we've got a lovely cosy pub run by friendly people with fantastic food and drink for both of us.  It can't get any better, can it?  Well, yes it can - it has a knitting night!  Sadly not the night we were there, but it meets on a Monday.

The only bad thing was that may main course was so filling I couldn't manage a pudding. And that's not so bad, is it?

Nagglemas

Jon has declared his birthday, 25th February, to be Nagglemas.  Here he is blowing his candles out on the traditional Nagglemas cake, more commonly known as the chocolate cake in Cupcakes From the Primrose Bakery.  It's another rich, sweet and enormous special, too much for us two really, I'll maybe be less ambitious next year!  The Kitchen Aid and Magimix joined forces to make creating it a dream though.

We went for lunch at The Kitchin again, which was amazing, although this time a little too rich for me.  Still delicious, from my pre-starter pumpkin soup through a couple of different vegetable concoctions to the blood orange and rhubarb tiramisu.  I'm not really a fan of tiramisu but I kind of trust The Kitchin to challenge my preconceptions of what a dish should taste like, and this was gorgeous.

In the evening we walked through the rain to go and see Ponyo again, this time subtitled (so much better) at the Cameo, there was a real sense of everyone in the cinema coming out just feeling really happy.  Whilst the children there may have been young enough to be singing the theme tune out loud, I bet most of the adults were singing it in their heads.

Yesterday we went through to Glasgow to eat cake (lemon and chocolate from the Green and Black's cookbook , yum!) and hang out at Jon's sister's flat.  We went through earlier to catch Micmacs, but the weather conspired against us and flooding meant we arrived too late.  We'll see it tomorrow instead.

Kitchen goodies

I'm not sure how long I've been lusting after a KitchenAid mixer, I remember wanting one when I lived in Leeds but then I also remember hanging around the kitchen department in Coles/John Lewis in Sheffield before then, so let's call it ten years.  But yesterday morning, thanks to a combination of gifts of Amazon vouchers, dull survey vouchers, Amazon Associates payments and a belated wedding gift, we got a shiny red one:

It's so lovely!  And shiny!  And most importantly, has so far made beating sugar and butter together an absolute dream.  I was the first one to use it and I made a marble loaf from Dan Lepard's Exceptional Cakes :

I'm really looking forward to seeing what else we can do with it, we've already got our eyes on some of the attachments, but they will require some more saving.  I'm keen to see how pizza dough done in the KitchenAid compares to that done in the Magimix, I've got that down to a fine art now.

Another lovely thing for the kitchen we received recently was this Heal's tea towel from my sister Martha, I have a fascination with doll's houses (and I used to love doing christmas shopping in Heal's in Manchester) so this really appealed to me:

Tea and cake in Yorkshire

We went to visit my mum and Hugh in Ilkley.  We had tea and cake in Betty's.  Jon had the ultimate marzipan fruit, it's ok, it's mainly cake under there, not just a block of marzipan!

And also at Salts Diner.  Well, I had a milkshake, but this is what Jon had.  It was lovely to have a wee break and see my family.  It's also nice to have a 3 day working week.

Speculoos - by request

Well, by request of two Facebook friends.  I don't know how authentic this recipe is but when we received these cut biscuit cutters from our Belgian friends I had to make something Belgian with them, and as one of them is Flemish and I found a recipe for speculoos, everything worked out. 

The recipe is from the brilliant Festivals, Family and Food by Diana Carey and Judy Large.  Although not a children's book I've had it since I was eight and there are over twenty years worth of cooking stains in it.

Speculaas/Speculoos biscuits

1/2 lb flour

4-6oz butter or margarine (I used 5oz of unsalted butter)

6oz dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon of baking powder (I've only just realised that I forgot this, doesn't seem to have done them any harm)

2 good teaspoons mixed spice

2 good teaspoons cinnamon

1 dessertspoon of milk (I added a bit more as the dough wasn't coming together very well, maybe using 6oz of butter would help this.  I know improvising is a big no-no in baking, but I felt confident that this would work and it did.)

Grated rind of lemon

Touch of salt

Heat the oven to 350F (180C, Gas Mark 4.  This recipe was all in imperial measurements which really threw me.)

Mix butter with sugar, salt and lemon rind finely grated.  Add flour mixed with spices and baking powder.  Add milk and mix to a stiff dough (I decided to use the Magimix when I saw this, it makes stiff doughs very well).

Roll out dough to a variety of thicknesses, the biscuits can be anything from 1/4" downwards and cut out shapes.  One can decorate with flaked almonds but be careful not to burn them whilst cooking!

Enjoy!  Oh, I cooked them for 15 minutes.

Festive and seasonal

Here's our christmas dinner: vegetarian haggis, braised red cabbage, parsnip and carrot mash and roast Shetland blacks.  All made by Jon, although I did cut the onion for the haggis, but then also cut my finger so the scar from my last cut is going to be a wee bit extended.  But at least I didn't need to go to hospital this time.

Jon's mum wasn't able to come up and join us due to illness and the weather but we entertained his sister and we'll have a second dinner later this week.  There's also a beach bonfire party at my dad's that I'm looking forward to, but it would be nice to be able to see my mum and family at this time of year too.  So many parents, so many miles...

The snow has finally started to melt but here's some snowmen in our local park:

Yuletide

I made this yule log from Nigella's Christmas book today.  Gosh it's sickly! (Jon says that's a bit harsh but I don't think the cake heard me.)   Would using even darker chocolate have made a difference - I used Green & Blacks 70% stuff. The swiss roll bit wasn't particularly traumatic, I followed the instructions and it worked really well.  Not sure I'll make this again though, but will look out for a different recipe maybe.  I like to have a chocolate cake at this time of year as I don't like fruit cake.

Hope you're having a lovely time over the holidays, festive and seasonal greetings to you all!

Monday, December 21st 2009

Here's a really sweet idea from not martha, a gingerbread house that perches on the side of your coffee/tea/hot chocolate.