And then the bunnies were gone…

So I got home last night and started setting up the lounge for the rabbits to come inside – we decided that they needed a bit more handling as they’re still not that tame and really won’t come to us when we call. Anyway, so I set all this up, opened the back door to get them out of the hutch to find…the hutch door wide open and NO RABBITS!!! To say I panicked would be a MASSIVE understatement, I spent a full ten minutes sat by the door crying and wondering how on earth I was going to tell Mr B that I had lost the rabbits. I remember shutting the cage latch but there it was wide open – what had I done!?!

I then tried to calm down and find a torch, maybe, just maybe they were still in the garden I thought? Couldn’t find a torch…ok then my phone light it is, out I went stomping round the garden in the dark to try and desperately find them before Mr B came home. What seemed like hours later I located the mishievious little so and sos behind the shed. Oh the relief!!! They were having a whale of a time to be fair, not even slightly fazed by the big bad world – led me on a merry chase getting them back in the hutch though! I managed however to get them back in, even though I think it was clearly a two person job Mr B wasn’t back for ages so I knuckled down and got the job done! More than a little proud of myself – Helga was a sweetie though, I put a ramp up to the hutch and she jumped straight back in, Betty was another story….grrrrr…but it’s over now!

And then the bunnies were gone...

Betty looking oh so angelic on the sofa - that is thread everywhere

Helga pretending my foot's not there

Quite exhausted by now I couldn’t muster the energy to even tell Mr B about it prooperly let alone cook dinner so he kindly bought home fish and chips and we collapsed on the sofa. But not before bringing Betty and Helga inside for their first roam across the sofa – awwwwwww!!!

P.S. Look what the lovely Mr B made me for breakfast this morning – thank you lovely!

Banana and Blueberry pancakes

Black and Blue – Borough Market, London

So I actually went here the weekend before last but it’s taken me this long to get the photos off of my phone! My apologies for the poor quality but drunkeness + camera phone isn’t the best combination.

Anyway, whilst out with Mr B’s work mates on a bit of a jolly around Borough we went to a number of pubs including The Globe, The Southwark Tavern (complete with cells downstairs!), Katezenjammers and The Rake.

I LOVED Borough Market but sadly spent too much time drinking and not enough looking at all the food – I did see the biggest array of mushrooms ever though – got to go back! So, to soak up all the booze, we went to Black & Blue- I was slightly nervous as this had been my choice and I hate it when you select somewhere that really lets you down and therefore everyone else. It didn’t though, thankfully, it was really rather lovely actually. A brief wait whilst our table was prepared but other than that fantastic food, great service and a quite classy looking interior.Now Black & Blue is a steak restaurant – probably not the best place to go if you’re a veggie as it’s pretty much steak, steak or steak! There were some really nice cuts available and I pondered over the Rib Eye as it’s my favourite but in the end Mr B and I shared the ‘Cote de Boeuf’ as, being the bargain hunter I am, I noticed that we could get a large steak to share and it would give us more meat for less money than getting individual ones, canny I know

The steak we shared...

The steak was A-MAZE-ING, we had it rare and it was beautifully pink, tender and soooo tasty, even the fat was delicious. Mr B did gnaw on the bone, I think I might have encouraged this uncouth behaviour but it was funny! We got three massive bowls of salad for our table of 10 – great mustardy dressing with lettuce, parmesan and walnuts plus a big bowl of chips each. For the £15 a head that we ended up paying I was more than happy – probably the best steak I’ve ever eaten. Definitely one to visit!

The only downside was the wine list which was really quite expensive, though the wines looked to be good quality, I like a glass of red with my steak but the house wine was something like £8.50 a glass which is a bit steep in my mind. But saying that London’s steep!

My beautiful plate of food

Anyway, one to visit I think if you’re ever in the area and fancy a sit down rather than perching somewhere in the market trying to eat some delicious delicacy or other…actually, that sounds quite good…

Glazed apple custard tart with ginger lemon ice cream

A random apple...

You guessed it…I was too sozzled/too busy wolfing this down to take a picture – once again! It did however taste amazing! A large amount of praise should go to Mr B for this one as I was in more of a supervisory role

We had a fair bit of ice cream left over after this and it is actually a bit much on it’s own as it is so intense but it went beautifully with the apple tart so I’d recommend having it in place of cream with any fruit based pudding rather than on it’s own. I think it would be great with plum crumble or something similar.

So the apple tart recipe came from the lovely Raymond Blanc – well, his mother he reckons. The only alteration we made to his recipe was to include white rum rather than calvados, simply because we didn’t have any and I wouldn’t know what to do with a whole bottle of it! The rum worked well to be fair so not the worst replacement. The only thing I would say is that it can’t be served warm due to the custard so don’t make the mistake I did and warm it through before serving, it falls apart! You need to cool it for the hour he recommends. This is why I should follow recipes more faithfully!

The ice cream recipe came off of the blog of an ex-Master Chef contestant, Michelle Peters-Jones, we just substituted the ‘half and half’ for double cream as I have no idea what that is! This might be why it’s so rich and I’d suggest maybe doing half and half of double and single cream if you’re making it…that’s probably what half and half is anyway! Her way of extracting ginger juice does give you an amazingly intense ginger flavour so, though a bit labour intensive, it’s well worth it.

I served everyone a slice of the tart with a quinelle (my effort at one anyway…no idea how to spell it either) on top and a drizzle of the syrup from my jar of stem ginger – delicious!

 

Twice cooked pork belly, fondant potato and apple & onion veloute

Had a superb weekend, with a great day out drinking on Saturday in London’s Borough Market area and then a lovely lazy Sunday catching up on X Factor and Strictly and eating a humongous portion of lasagne!

But to continue the recipes from the secret supper club the weekend before last, here we have the main course…

Cut pieces of pork ready for frying

I got the recipe for the pork belly from Almost Bourdain, it’s fairly time consuming as you have to cure the pork, oven bake it and then pan fry but it’s worth it for the end product – lovely soft pork with a crunchy top. I did measure the pork with a ruler before cutting into cubes to ensure that they were all the same size but there’s probably no need to be as particular as me! It’s a good one for preparing ahead though as I did it all the day before and then just pan fried them when were ready.

I served this with Gordon Ramsey’s fondant potatoes and apple and onion veloute and also some carrots which I cut into batons, boiled for 5 minutes and then pan fried in a little butter when we were ready to eat.

I went for things which could all be prepared ahead of time and then just finished up before serving, it did make for a less stressful time when it came to pulling it all together, though I had had a little too much wine by that point and felt a little frenzied!

I also reduced the stock used to cook the pork in and made a gravy or, as Gordon would put it, a jus But everything was quite moist anyway and not much of it went so you could save yourself that trouble!

The veloute was GREAT and I’d suggest it with chicken as well – we had it with some roast chicken a couple of days later and it was great, nice sweetness to cut through the chicken skin fattiness.

Rubbish picture of the finished dish!

Books, books, books – can’t stop reading!

I’m not quite sure why but I’ve been on a reading frenzy for the last few days and have read 3 books since Sunday evening. Admittedly they weren’t huge books but they were all so good that I just absorbed them at a ridiculous pace!

If any of you do enjoy reading and have a reasonably eclectic taste then these might be the book for you. I enjoyed all of them so much, I’d recommend them all to anyone!

Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion was the first I read and probably the one I enjoyed the most. I picked it up during a Waterstones trip because it was recommended by the one and only Audrey Niffenegger, author of one of my favourite books, The Time Traveller’s Wife (though her second one was more than a little disappointing!). So her thoughts:

‘Warm Bodies’ is a strange and unexpected treat. R is the thinking woman’s zombie – though somewhat grey-skinned and monosyllabic, he could be the perfect boyfriend, if he could manage to refrain from eating you. This is a wonderful book, elegantly written, touching and fun, as delightful as a mouthful of fresh brains
AUDREY NIFFENEGGER, author of ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’

Who wouldn’t pick up a book that says it’s a zombie romance and it also reviewed by Simon Pegg and Stephenie Meyer?!

Anyway, it was a really great book with lots of humour and I in fact read it in one evening as R was such a charming protagonist that I couldn’t wait to find out what else he had to say and what happened to him. Though sadly there was that post good book come down when you need more but it’s all gone…a bit like eating a bag of Maltesers and finding that you’ve eaten the last one without realising it and properly cherishing it for what it is! Just me then?

The Graveyard Book

So in search of something else to capture my imagination I moved onto the second book, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I LOVE Neil Gaiman and have read everything…well maybe everything…he’s written since I first read American Gods and loved it. One of the best Christmas presents I’ve ever received

I was initially attracted by the illustrations (by Dave McKean) which are very Gothic and intriguing, plus the fact that it was a short read and potentially one that I could entice Mr B into as he’s still not read any Gaiman

The book centers around Nobody Owens, a charming little boy who grows up in the most unlikely of surroundings – the graveyard. I won’t say any more as I don’t want to ruin the book for others but it is a great read and well worth the time.

A Spoonful of Jam

The next book is one my Mum bought my for Christmas about 2 years ago, I had asked for it but never quite felt like reading it till now. I loved Michelle Margorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom when I was younger and had heard that Spoonful of Jam was even better. It was, I loved it. Elsie was such an engaging narrator and the period it’s set in – just post-war – was so interesting and far removed from today’s world that it really felt like stepping back in time. I just kept thinking that only a month ago I’d been reading American Psycho and thinking about the excesses of our time and then this book was talking about people not even having enough fabric for their wedding dresses and having lunches of bread, dripping if they were lucky!

The book follows Elsie during her summer holidays and sees her grow from bespectacled scaredy cat into a young lady who’s going places. A very uplifting book to read and I even cried at one point – not unusual with me and  a book I know but still, it plucks the heart strings – read it!

Sadly, after 3 such good books I think I might be disappointed with the next one…what’s it going to be though?

Polenta crusted mackerel with chilli cucumber salsa

Polenta crusted mackerel with chilli cucumber salsa

Rubbish picture of the mackerel I know – I was hungry and just wanted to eat it, what can I say?!? I’d only ever had peppered smoked mackerel before this but loved it, it’s such a different flavour, a lot less ‘fishy’ than I thought it would be.

I initially borrowed this recipe from Simon Rimmer of Something for the Weekend but it’s been altered a fair amount since then!

Polenta crusted mackerel with chilli cucumber salsa
Serves 6

2 tsp rock salt
1 red chilli, chopped
1 cucumber, peeled, cut in half lengthways, deseeded and finely diced
2 limes, juice and zest
100g / 3.5 oz polenta
2 eggs
6 mackerel fillets
3-4 tbsps vegetable oil
25ml white rum
Handful of coriander leaves

1. Cut each of the mackerel fillets in three, make small scores horizontally across the skin of each – three per piece. This prevents them curling up when frying. Season to taste.
2. Put the salt and chilli into a pestle and grind until as powder like as possible.
3. Put the diced cucumber into a bowl, add the lime juice, zest and 1 tsp of the chilli and salt mixture
4. Mix to combine and leave to marinate for 5 minutes.
Put the polenta on a plate and whisk the eggs, season generously and put into another flat dish.
5. Dip the mackerel pieces into the egg first and then into the polenta, ensure that they are all covered fully.
6. Heat a frying pan with the vegetable oil and when the oil thins add the mackerel. These take about 2 minutes on each side to cook but it depends on the size of fillet you get so be careful not to over cook. They’re cooked when the flesh is opaque.
7. Add the rum to the cucumber mixture and combine.
8. Make three piles of the cucumber mixture on each plate and place a mackerel piece on top of each pile.
9. Drizzle over the juices left from the cucumber and sprinkle the remaining chilli and salt mixture over. Top with a few coriander leaves each and you’re ready to serve!

Pan-fried butternut squash & pear ravioli with sage butter & bacon dust

With all the excitement on Saturday I completely forgot to take a picture of this course so you have a lovely image of a wine glass with some chocolate loving lovely lady behind it!

This is a great recipe to prepare ahead of time to prevent too much stress when cooking, although it’s reasonably labour intensive initially – particularly if you’re not experienced at making pasta (thank you Mr B!).

Pan-fried butternut squash & pear ravioli with sage butter & bacon dust
Serves 6

1lb fresh pasta
1/2 butternut squash
1 large pear – peeled and very finely chopped
1 tsp finely chopped red chilli (I leave the seeds in but up to you!)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
4 tbsps salted butter
3 rashers of bacon (streaky is best I think)
handful of sage leaves

1. Scoop all the seeds out of the squash, drizzle olive oil in a baking tray. Lay the squash in the tray, skin side up.
2. Roast for 35-45 minutes until a fork goes into the flesh easily.
3. Cool slightly and then scoop all the flesh out.
4. Heat a frying pan and dry fry the squash for about 10 minutes to take out any remaining moisture – if too moist it tends to burst the ravioli and we don’t want that!
5. Place in a bowl with the pear, chilli and cheese – mix well – this is your filling.
6. Roll out the pasta into two equal sized sheets using a pasta machine and roll to the thinest setting, lay them both on a well floured surface.
7. Place small teaspoons of the filling at 4 cm intervals across the first pasta sheet, I managed to do three rows down and 6 across. Once this has been done, lay the other sheet across the top and squeeze the two layes together. It’s VERY important to make sure that all of the air is out of each ravioli, pat around each mound of filling to ensure that it’s tightly packed.
8. Cut out the ravioli – I used egg cups to cut mine out but you could use cutters, about 4 cm cutters would work. Of course this would be much easier with one of those ravioli cutting thingamigigs but I don’t have one and it’s nice for things to look ‘artisan’
9. Once they’re all cut out flour a plate/baking tray and lay them out on there until ready to use. These will keep in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
10. Fry/grill the bacon until as crispy as possible, leave to drain on kitchen paper until cool.
11. Put the bacon in a food processor and whizz to dust. I then spread this out on a baking tray and put it back under the grill for two minutes, allowed to chill and then whizzed in the processor again until slightly finer. Allow to cool and reserve for later.
12. When ready to eat, boil a large pan of salted water and add the ravioli. These should take about 3 minutes, when they rise to the surface they’re done.
13. Whilst they are cooking add the butter to a frying pan, when it’s melted add the sage leaves and fry for 1 minute until the leaves are nicely coated in the butter.
14. Drain the pasta and add it to the pan with the butter and sage, toss to coat and fry for 1 minute.
15. Serve 3 per person, drizzle over the butter and sage and sprinkle with bacon dust.

Bread shots with various fillings

Bread shots with various fillings

 

Now I have to admit that Mr B was the genius behind these, they came from a book I bought him a while back called Dough by Richard Bertinet, but we changed it a little by making them a lot smaller than he suggests and I made up my own fillings.

Bread Shots

Preheat the oven to it’s highest temperature. Make up a batch of white bread dough, this will make enough dough balls for 6-8 people as pre-dinner nibbles with drinks.

Once the dough has risen, divide into equal sized balls slightly smaller than ping pongs, they will increase in size slightly when you cook them so try to make them on the smaller rather than larger size.

Flour your hands and a baking tray, put one of the dough balls into the palm of your hand and make a well in the centre using your thumb. Spoon a small amount of filling into the well, ensuring that it fits into the hole and doesn’t leak out over the top.

Place on the baking tray and put in the oven, turn it down to 200ºC and bake for 8-10 minutes until golden. If you’d like them crispy, spray the inside of the oven with water before putting them in the oven and then halfway through cooking.

Serve whilst still warm with a really cold sparkling wine…or champagne if you’re feeling flush!

Toppings:

Sun dried tomato and basil - Put 6 sun dried tomatoes and a handful of basil in a small food processor and whizz to a paste, add 2 tbsps olive oil and season generously.
Peppadew and red pepper – Put 8 peppadews, 1 garlic clove and one roasted red pepper in a small food processor and whizz to a paste, season generously.
Olive tapenade – Put 18 black/green olives in a small food processor, whizz to a paste. Add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp lemon juice, season generously with pepper.

 

Super, supper busy and tired!

The table and menu

I have been rubbish, I admit it, but with it being so miserable outside and being so busy with my (fake) secret supper club I’ve not had time for blogging – sorry! I really fancy starting one but think I like the idea more than the reality so decided to do it for my M&D, brother and his girlfriend. A good time was had by all! I do now have A LOT to say about my dinner party though…my five course dinner party which took me and Mr B two days to prepare for. In fact I’ve only just got back the will to cook or even think about food! And to celebrate we’re having a mid-week roast – not Jamie style but me style – with roast chicken thighs, skin on roast potatoes, braised red cabbage with fried onions, mashed carrot and swede and some leftover apple and onion veloute…I am HUNGRY!

Anyway, the meal seemed to go down really well and I may even do it again…not sure if I’m ready to do one for strangers yet but I might find some other willing friends or family who are happy to be experimented on and pay £20 for the pleasure! We also had wines to match each course which went down very well

The table

The menu was as follows:

Bread shots with olive tapenade, sun dried tomato pesto & red pepper

Pan-fried butternut squash & pear ravioli, sage butter & bacon dust

Polenta-crusted mackerel & chilli cucumber salsa

Twice-cooked pork belly, fondant potato, apple & onion veloute and browned carrots

Glazed custard apple tart, ginger & honey ice cream and stem ginger syrup

A selection of English cheese & homemade chutneys

Except for the squash ravioli all are recipes borrowed from a variety of sources and cobbled together, they all worked quite well to be honest and I thought it worth sharing them with you in case you might fancy an experiment or two…

Chutneys coming out of my ears!

So I had some extra pears, beetroot, oranges, apples and onions and thought I would make some lovely chutneys to wolf down myself in accompaniment to my cheese obsession and also to give as extra little presents this Christmas.

Firstly, the recipes lie! I didn’t get anywhere near the quantities they say you’ll get from them but they still all look lovely and I’m looking forward to trying them in about a month or so, so here goes…

Beetroot and orange chutney

Beetroot & Orange Chutney
Makes 3 small jars

1 1/2 kg beetroot, boiled, peeled and diced finely (wear gloves!)
3 onions, finely chopped
3 eating apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
zest and juice of 3 oranges
2 tbsps black mustard seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground cloves
500 ml red wine vinegar
500g golden caster sugar

1. Put the spices into a pestle and mortar and grind until fine.
2. Place all the ingredients into a large saucepan – heavy bottom is best – and bring to a gentle simmer.
3. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring regularly until the chutney is thick. Allow to cool slightly so you don’t burn yourself!
4. Put chutney into your clean jars whilst still warm and seal.
5. This is best apparently after about a month but will keep for up to six whilst still sealed.

 

Pear and raisin spiced chutney

Pear & Raisin Spiced Chutney
Makes 2 small jars

1 kg apples, peeled, cored and finely diced
450g pears, peeled, cored and finely diced
225g onions, finely chopped
2 handfuls raisins
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
60g root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped (I left the seeds in but remove them if you’re not into heat)
2 tbps mustard seeds
400g light brown sugar
500ml white wine vinegar
2 tsp salt

1. Put all the ingredients in a large heavy bottomed saucepan and heat to a simmer.
2. Leave simmering for 40-50 minutes, stirring regularly.
3. Leave to cool for 10 minutes and then spoon into prepared jars, sealing whilst still hot.
4. These will also keep for up to six months but consume within one week of opening.

And there you have it, two chutneys for Christmas. Can’t wait to open them to eat with all my ham and cheese and leftover chicken sandwiches over the Chirstmas holidays!