• Home
  • About
  • A Cyclist on the Celtic Fringe
  • Mostly Concerning Food
  • A Journey into Scotland
  • A-Z of England 2014
  • Day Tripping
  • The Greatest Game
  • Travels with Jolly

travels in my own country

~ idle thoughts

travels in my own country

Category Archives: Mostly Concerning Food

Emulating Auntie

26 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

carrot cake, halloumi cheese, Jaquest, poached eggs, Primrose Bakery, smoked salmon

First Published a while back (Dec 2016). I’ve been meaning to do another food blog ever since but have never got round to it.

I do, however, continue to take eating very seriously.

Enjoy!

Mostly Concerning Food

Bumper Christmas Edition (Without any Christmas Food)

I like looking at fancy food and love even more being taken to a decent restaurant or two to enjoy something complicated made with great precision and skill. I’m incredibly impressed when fellow bloggers are able to emulate these recipes and even come up with a few of their own. But I don’t often cook this way myself. This diary is essentially a record of how I try to emulate the good working-class cook of the 1920s and 30s. My cooking idols are my late mother and her three formidable sisters. They were brought up on a smallholding in North Staffordshire and all learnt their crafts around the scrubbed wooden table in the tiny kitchen. (The house is still there, has been extended to double the size but it still baffles how a family of seven could have lived there on the proceeds of a few acres and a handful of cows).

They went their own ways before the war but to visit an auntie was to be immediately at home. The gardens bloomed with the same cottage flowers in huge swathes of contrasting colours, the decor was basic but the ornaments were all highly polished. A sepia print or two of the Lakeland hill farmers my grandmother was descended from and a photograph of a fine house near Kendal where the younger sisters were taken in after the early death of my grandfather. My Auntie Marie used to say that my grandmother’s greatest achievement was keeping her girls out of service.

The kitchen was always the active heart of the house. Always a fresh smell of baking (they all prided themselves on having a slice of freshly baked cake for any unexpected visitor), a large pan of soup was often on the go and, when it came to mealtimes, the portions would do justice to a banquet. You were never stinted with one of this sisterhood. Roasts, stews, cold collation, salads, pickles, jams, jellies and marmalades; it mattered not a jot if you were with Bunt, Marie, Mac or Mum. Rarely fancy (a baked Alaska was talked about for months afterwards), occasionally original, always tasty, always plenteous and always homemade. I veer into dishes they’d never heard of in the old homestead but the central core of my cooking is a conscious attempt to keep this tradition alive. I don’t know how long this blog will survive but while it does it is, in large part, a record and celebration of what poorer people who liked their food were eating in times gone by.dsc_0077More and more of my time is spent on the computer. Working late into the night can be hungry work. A decent midnight feast helps. Cheese and crackers are an almost perfect combination but cheese and Christmas cake are even better. Should be Lancashire but you can’t always get good Lancashire cheese in supermarkets. Hawes Wensleydale is a close second. HereĀ I’ve had to put up with a strong cheddar.dsc_0079Ah, Jaquest. By far the best small food producer in this whole region. I’ve always sworn by kippers from Fortunes of Whitby but these match them for deep smokey flavour. (And they save a long trip to the coast). I’m still arguing with myself as to whether they are best grilled or poached. I don’t think there’s a lot in it taste-wise, or texture wise, but I think the bones come out easier if you’ve poached them.dsc_0081My mother taught me how to poach an egg. I’ve never come across anyone who can do it as well as either of us. We never had asparagus as children. It was far too expensive.dsc_0082Supermarket pastrami is very much the weak link here. Happiness is a baked potato, a sprinkle of salt, butter and a big pile of grated cheese. This is from Jaquest. Cave-aged cheddar bought in a proper sized piece. Jolly waited patiently under the table and was rewarded with the pastrami.dsc_0083A handful of rocket helps no end; taste, texture and visually.dsc_0084Apple pie fresh out of the oven.dsc_0085Shortly afterwards.dsc_0087Happiness has many forms.dsc_0088Fishcakes with a runny cheese sauce centre tempted me when in Lidl. Not bad. Not worth travelling for though.dsc_0089Good black pudding (Scottish…can’t remember the firm) with lightly pan-fried scallops on toast. My aunties didn’t often cook with scallops.dsc_0091I’ve acquired a hand peeler that cuts carrots into thing spaghetti type ribbons. Blooming wonderful in a stir-fry.dsc_0097Black pudding, fried eggs and brown bread and butter. Why don’t more hotels and B&Bs offer stuff like this instead of the inevitable “full English”. Less on the plate and tastier please Mr hotel keeper!dsc_0098My favourite easy meal. Toasted cheese and tomatoes. Brilliant for late night working.dsc_0100A handful of well-drained spinach adds enormously to a piece of poached smoked haddock.dsc_0101A simple long grain rice chicken risotto. Doesn’t need the chicken. Spinach, peas and peppers have enough flavour between them.dsc_0103A good sized fillet of line-caught wild Salmon on lightly cooked spinach and granary bread and butter. Just looking at that and remembering is going to require a pause and a trip to the kitchen. I don’t often get hungry writing these but I am hungry now. Given the choice, always choose the wild over farmed salmon. For so many reasons.dsc_0104I could, and have, described so many foods as happiness on a plate but the true holder of this title in England is shepherd’s pie.dsc_0106I married someone who put baked beans between the meat layer and the tatties. In this one I’ve stirred some spinach into the beef. It made a huge difference to flavour and made it much moister.dsc_0110Another of my attempts at scones. The current Mrs Johnson does them so much better than me. It’s a case, along with Yorkshire puddings, of some people being blessed by the cooking angels. These aren’t bad but not a patch on T’s.dsc_0112Spaghetti with aubergine in a tomato sauce. I’m a late convert to the aubergine. I blame writers of seventies cookbooks. We got ten years of bad advice and it put a lot of people off.dsc_0115Pan-fried goose breast with a plate full of the vegetables you’d get round my aunties. You’d probably get a good dollop of gooseberry jam as well.dsc_0116This was Sunday tea at our house. Most of it would have come from the garden in summer (just as it does now…the gardening genes have been passed on as well. Many of my own plants were taken as splits and cuttings from my mother’s garden).dsc_0117A good pork pie is a good pork pie. A bad pork pie isn’t worth eating.dsc_0119Poached eggs, poached smoked haddock. A perfect combination.dsc_0120Cold collation with Jaquest’s award-winning cured pork. It is only one of many prize-winning (and we’re talking national competition here) products from this wonderful shop. If you’re anywhere close to Bolsover call in. I’m not sure if they do mail order. They’ve got a website though. You should be able to find it. Not many shops called Jaquest in the Bolsover area!dsc_0123 dsc_0126Like many, I can truthfully quote Oscar Wilde and say that I can resist anything except temptation. In the run-up to Christmas, chocolate biscuits are cheap, plentiful and very good. In my childhood, we’d very rarely see them, and if we did we’d get one, maybe two. I confess to being a complete pig for anything that was rationed (in our family…I’m a little too young to remember wartime rationing) as a child.dsc_0127A pan full of spicy “Wagamama” type chicken noodle soup with peppers, chillis, bok choi, mushrooms and, in this instance, because I didn’t have any noodles, orzo. (pasta grains…looks like big rice)dsc_0130 dsc_0131A working lunch from the depths of the freezer. Sometimes I fancy what used to be called convenience food. Frozen Bird’s Eye fish portions with oven chips. 99% of our food as children was prepared in our kitchen. Sometimes we craved the stuff we saw advertised on the telly. Mum made it all herself because she could, because it tasted better, because she knew what was in it and, having 7 children and limited “housekeeping”, it was a lot cheaper.dsc_0134Take a chicken fillet, lay it on a layer of spinach on puff pastry. Fasten it into a pasty with a layer of fried mushrooms on top. Bake for about 40 minutes and serve with couscous, green beans and a great deal of pleasure. I suppose its a sort of chicken Wellington. Whatever it was, it was blooming lovely.dsc_0135There must have been a lot of those cheese sauce fish cakes. I was glad to see the back of them.dsc_0136We no longer have a fishmonger in the village but we do have a travelling fish van that parks up every Thursday morning. It’s quite a treat to see just how fast the lady can dress a crab. Ā£3.95 and done before your eyes. Fabulous.dsc_0138A simple beef stir-fry.dsc_0144If you buy Jaquest’s venison salami you are in for a treat of flavour. I can think of few foods that contain quite as much taste bud stimulation per gram as this. Truffles maybe. There is a skill to learning how to slice it. It’s worth mastering.dsc_0147It’s too flavoursome to have on its own. With some good cream cheese (anything except Philadelphia) on blinis is good. The smoked salmon is also Jaquest and is as good as you can get. The out of focus ‘thing’ at the back of the photograph is a lemon. Honest!dsc_0153De-boned roast shoulder of lamb.dsc_0154With mint sauce.dsc_0155Jaquest own dry cured unsmoked bacon with their smoked Halloumi cheese.dsc_0157Makes a serious bacon sandwich.dsc_0159 dsc_0160Pasta is great. A few vegetables, some cream, some spaghetti. Quality food in 20 minutes.dsc_0161More from Jaquest. These are simple potato fish cakes made with generous amounts of their hot smoked salmon. You’ll have to believe me (and I don’t often lie) just how good these are. I gave some to Steven and he agreed. And Steven never lies.dsc_0162 dsc_0163Cream of celeriac soup.dsc_0169That’s the full piece of cave-aged cheddar I got from Jaquest. If you ever wish you could find food that tastes as good as you remember it from the fifties and sixties I seriously recommend you pay them a visit. This is wonderful cheese. The cold meat was not bad either. That was from M&S.dsc_0180This was my attempt to try to make a proper Vesta curry using real ingredients. Anyone who remembers Vesta curries will realise that this is a contradiction in terms. The only spice I used was medium curry powder and the sauce is largely a packet of passata. It tasted rather nice. The rice is a variation on a Madhur Jaffrey recipe for Basmati rice and was wonderful.dsc_0181Poached eggs on toast are a full meal in themselves.Ā dsc_0182Chicken Kebabs on spiced Basmati rice.dsc_0184 dsc_0186Carrot cake mix. This is Ā a Primrose Bakery recipe and worth buying the book for this alone. You will not find a better carrot cake. I’ve made it several times now and it is simply a Wow! cake. (Enough over for 9 carrot cake buns!)dsc_0187I made a checkerboard cake for my birthday with white chocolate ganache between the layers and dark chocolate ganache to cover. A lot of work but worth it for when you slice it and a chess board appears.dsc_0192The completed carrot cake with icing made from cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and orange zest. There’s over a pound of carrots in this baby.dsc_0194 dsc_0195My birthday presents.dsc_0196Lots of orange zest needed for the two cakes means plenty of fresh orange juice.dsc_0198Pasta, vegetables, creme fraiche. Delicious and easy.dsc_0199 dsc_0207Practice Christmas dinner number one. A glutton’s (mine) portion of roast chicken.dsc_0210And yet more poached eggs to finish. This time with the spinach served on top.

dsc_0093

Happy Christmas From

Simon & Jolly

The Best Little Smokehouse in Derbyshire

30 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food, Uncategorized

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

bagels, Betty's, Harry Potter World, Jaquest, kedgeree, pancakes, smoked beef

Mainly Concerning Food

It has been a quiet month here in North East Derbyshire. Some visits by me to other English towns, some visits to us by family and friends, some reading, some cooking, some gardening, some gainful employment, some leisure time. One thing that has been completely absent has been rush. As I get older the word urgent has become an infrequent visitor to my thoughts. On some days it has been cold enough to light a fire and some days it hasn’t. But the fire is so nice to sit by that I light it anyway. It’s a family tradition. We come from folk who have known hard times but folk who kept the fire well stoked. Whatever season you visited a cousin, auntie, grandma in this family, you’d be offered cake and a seat in the chimney corner. We continue the tradition. Modern fires don’t use a lot of fuel and they give off a lot of heat. I’m looking forward to winter.dsc_0003This is a favourite. Unbeatable as a quick snack, a budget meal and a tasty treat; but also scores high on nutrition, sustainability and gastronomy. It’s the humble but very delicious sardines on toast. Can be made using a toaster but, like toasted cheese, is better using a grill. Toast the bread fully on one sideĀ and partially on the other. Butter (real butter please) and spread a couple of tinned sardines straight from the can. I prefer the ones in tomato sauce for this recipe. Sprinkle a few drops of tabasco sauce and return under the grill for a minute or two to finish. It’s one of those meals that don’t tempt until you’ve made it and then it is irresistible. What’s for tea? Sardines on toast. Can’t we have something better than that? Here you go. Any chance of some more?dsc_0005The East Midlands hasn’t yet developed a strong reputation as a food capital. Some supposed lesser counties have become associated with fine food shops and innovative restaurants.Ā Shropshire is now knownĀ for good eating as isĀ Cumbria. But we do have the same supermarkets (for better or worse) as the well-heeledĀ areas and we have a few gems of our own. Some brilliant farm shops and a local charcuterieĀ  and smoke house in Bolsover that trades under the name of Jaquest. This is a piece of smoked cod that is absolutely full of flavour. The firm is discretely sited and run by a modest man and wife team who pick up gold, silver and bronze medals for their products from food fairs around the country. This is as good as you’ll get anywhere in England and you’ll enjoy the experience of shopping with them. They are lovely people and to top things off, it’s superb value for money.dsc_0006Their bacon is a treat. Several different cures. I usually choose the standard cure which gives you a flavour and texture from the past. No un-foodlike slimy white oozings from these rashers as they cook. This is the real stuff. It has so little in common with the pre-packed productĀ that comes off the supermarket shelves (even the supposed dry cure) that it seems incredible that we give it the same name. The taste of bacon like this, cured by strictly traditional methods on a small scale by people who care about food, is what gave bacon its reputation. That rubbery, squirmy stuff inserted into a pappy bun, at all too many sandwich shops, isn’t bacon. It’s a horribly processed meat that we have learnt to tolerate. And we shouldn’t. This is like comparing a true stilton to Dairylea. Even the rind cooks perfectly and adds crunch and depth of flavour to the sandwich or the breakfast.dsc_0007Jaquest also do a smoked Holoumi cheese. A single slice added to the nearly made bacon sandwich and then melted under the grill before eating turns a treat into a feast.Ā dsc_0009There are as many different recipes for kedgeree as there are bogus recipes for Paella. It comes from the Raj and is obviously a dish prepared for people who are used to having servants and others to do for them. A real hotch-potch of ingredients. It all ends up in one dish but there is a lot of washing up with a kedgeree. I like Britain but its Imperial past isn’t an aspect that I feel any pride in. My recipe is the one I was brought up on. If any of my family made it to India it was as foot soldiers. Neither side of my family ever sat at the top table (on my mother’s side many were in service…my father’s side consists of miners, steel men and factory workers). My mothers favourite flavouring for fish and rice was parsley. I enjoy spicy kedgerees but given my druthers I’d always select this combination of Basmati rice, hard boiled eggs, poached smoked haddockĀ (Jaquest), lots of black pepper and handfuls of chopped parsley. Serve with brown bread and butter. One of the great legacies of British imperialism is the wonderful multi-culutural society that parts of the country have become. My life has been enormously enhanced by this multi-culturalism.dsc_0010 dsc_0012Never had a fig until I was married with children. Only once had a pomegranate. We were told to use a pin to pick out the seeds. It took far too long and we lost interest. If you cut them in half and gently beat the outside with the back of a large knife the seeds fall out very easily. Suddenly the pomegranate is available in large numbers and low prices in most supermarkets. Visually stunning, as fresh as a morning meadow and apparently very good for you. To use the current stock phrase; what’s not to like?dsc_0014 dsc_0016I love bagels. Here the unusual combination of good cream cheese, capers and thin slices of venison salami (Jaquest gold medal winner, judged best salami in Britain). The salami is far too flavoured to over-indulge. It needs complimentary ideas and this works perfectly. I enjoyed these and then had two more!dsc_0017This black pudding was delicious and I cannot remember who made it. It came from a supermarket and I deliberately kept the card container somewhere safe so I’d know to buy it again. I found a very safe place and hope to find it one day. Black pudding has become the both ends of the spectrum and nothing in the middle food. You’ll find it on the poshest menus and you’ll find it in working class greasy spoon cafĆ©s but you won’t often see it in the centre field.dsc_0020Smoked rib of beef. I forget the exact name of the cut. Smoked to order by Jaquest, this isn’t easy to come by. I was lucky. Very lucky, this is a superb product. I simply took the proprietors advice and roasted it very slowly for 10 hours. I love cooking that fills the house with good smells. This was exceptional.dsc_0023 dsc_0024 dsc_0027It produced several meals. At first the richest flavoured roast beef I can remember eating for a long time. Here served English style with new potatoes, carrots and kale. The gravy from the roasting pan was unbelievable. Fabulous on its own but once I added a little English mustard it sang to the four corners of my mouth.dsc_0028 dsc_0031I’m not a great multi-tasker. I do like the golden filigree on the bottom and edges of my friedĀ eggs but I have to confess that I rather over-did these fellows. It made no difference. I call this a Morland breakfast because this is what Nicholas Jenkins and Hugh Morland had on a memorable occasion in A Dance to the Music of Time (one of the truly great sequences of novels written in English). Every time I have this most simple of breakfasts I’m reminded of so many things from my own past as well as that fabulous book.dsc_0032Cold slices of smoked roast beef. Or roast smoked beef. Either way they made the most delicious sandwiches with some horseradish (T) and mustard (me).dsc_0033I have a slight regret that I stopped drinking beer at the same time as the craft beer movement really took off. The regrets are minor. I’m happy with the improvement in the British banger over the same period. I have mixed feelings about middle class people with no experience setting up companies with the words artisan and provender in the titles. But I’m happy to eat a good sausage wherever it comes from.dsc_0034The finest of many fine dishes to come from that Ā£21 piece of beef. The bones were stocked for a number of hours and the stock made into a beef broth. Lots of the cold cuts plus onions, carrots and kale all supplemented with classic soup mix ingredients like yellow split peas, red lentils and pearl barley. This could have been made my my mother, my grandmother or my great grandmother…and that is the sort of food I like the best.dsc_0035Another tasty breakfast and a morning with the newspapers.dsc_0036 dsc_0038As the only member of the family who likes seafood I suffer a feast or famine regime. Long periods of going without and then finding I have to eat enough for four or five. Mussels are sold in bags of about a kilogram in Britain. This moules mariniere meant I didn’t have to eat again that day.dsc_0039 dsc_0041Four oysters. Some pepper, some freshly squeezed lime. Another working class staple that has made its way up the food hierarchies.dsc_0042I began this post with tinned sardines and now add a few fresh sardines. I head and gut them and fry them for a minute of two on each side and serve with bread and butter. Every bit as delicious as the earlier dish and just as east to make. (Both attract the attention of two cats and a sheep dog. I’m afraid there wasn’t enough to go round.dsc_0043Perhaps I spoke too soon. Maybe this was the piĆ©ce de resistance of the smoked beef. There are many ways of attaining the depth of flavour that separates the really good chilli from the ordinary. With Ā this beef it didn’t matter. The depth of flavour was there. Quite simply this was the best chilli I’ve ever tasted. Far too good to serve in any other way.dsc_0046Remarkable how much a sprinkle of lime and a dollop of soured cream adds to the dish. Do you use the word dollop in Australia, New Zealand and America?dsc_0050No month is complete without a simple steak dinner. It’s what I dreamed of as a boy and now measure out my happiness with.dsc_0060A simple cake baked by T for a school baking festival. Wonderful balance between the flavours of the different elements.dsc_0074How I plan to spend the winter. I travel a lot less in the darker months. I mostly work from home these days and once I’ve lit a fire I rarely move more than a few yards. Books, food, dog walks and music. Travel can wait until the days start to lengthen again.dsc_0065Mind you. A family trip to York included breakfast at Bettys with David and Melissa Ā made a very special treat.dsc_0072And ice-cream in a York ice-cream parlour.dsc_0006I wasn’t part of the big family trip to Harry Potter World. Jolly and I stayed at home and read a travel book by the fire. Before they set off I put in my biggest ever stint at the pancake pans. 2 pounds of flour, a dozen eggs made two large mixing bowls of batter and two pans going non stop for over half an hour. All our children with their partners filled the dining room with good cheer. It felt very quiet when they’d gone.

 

Season of Missed Melons and Fruitfulness

06 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food, Uncategorized

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

Cheese on toast, fish finger sandwich, Hemingway, rack of lamb, spaghetti bolognaise, spaghetti carbonara

Mainly Concerning Food

It’s easy to forget how much I enjoy doing these, and seeing them. It never fails to delight me. They don’t getĀ a lot of thought during the month; the philosophy is simple. Try to find at least one point in the day toĀ sit down together andĀ enjoy nicely prepared food and conversation. So it’s make a meal, take a photograph, eatĀ the meal and forget it. I work mostly from home these days so the cookingĀ falls toĀ me.Ā Our lifestyle determines the food to some extent. Something that can be easily prepared and left to stand, sit or roast for half an hour while we walk the dog and talk about the day.

We lack sophistication. We were both brought up to expect the evening meal to be on the table at six. We stick with it out of habit I suppose, but also because it suits. I’ve never much cared for evening dining and the Spanish idea of eating towards midnight would be plain crazy in this house. How can you enjoy a meal when you’ve been asleep for the last two hours?

So I enter the kitchen sometime between 4 and 4.30 toĀ rattle the pans. Once it’s ready I take a photo, then forget about it until the blog appears.Ā I’m always surprised at just how many enjoyable meals we have had. I expect a simple menu and get a banquet. Life is far too important to manage without good food.

The cooking varies. I’m a better than average cook, if I may pay myself a compliment, and am capable of restaurant quality food on a good day. I’m also a fellow from a working class background who, though delighted to have had his tastebuds awakened by the many delights of the modern food world, can take enormous pleasure in the simple fare of my childhood. My cooking ideal is the sort of wholesome, tasty meals that were put on the table in the smallholding farmhouse kitchens that I am descended from. I love stews and roasts, have been brought up to liver and kidneys with steak as a very special occasion treat. I’m also more than happy with a tin of beans or a fish finger sandwich.dsc_0058There was a birthday last month. We gathered to celebrate T’s anniversary and a family gathering will often involve a trifle. It goes back to when the children were very small. Trifle was a special occasion treat for a while in the seventies. It’s gone out of fashion. People tried to fancy it up – often with the addition of alcohol – usually sherry – but this doesn’t help. Sponge, fruit, good custard and whipped cream are all delightful ingredients in themselves. They don’t need jazzing up. I’m not a fan of adding alcohol to food. There is a real skill in knowing which alcohol, how much and what blend. Most of us don’t have this skill. I don’t drink alcohol these days- no longerĀ like the taste – not sure that I ever did. I never much cared for sherry which is the drink that has ruined many an inoffensive trifle. By all means have a glass of sherry with your trifle. It’s like the English ‘artisan’ (translates as a middle class person who has decided they can set themselves up as a food producer) cheesemakers putting apricots and cranberries into the cheese. No!!! A hundred times no! Serve the cheese with anything you like but don’t incorporate it into the cheese. And don’t put alcohol into trifles. If you don’t like trifles without alcohol have a different pudding. (My blog; my prejudices!)dsc_0057This was intended to be a fancy checkerboard cake but I couldn’t find the icing bags needed to create the pattern so I thought I’d attempt my own record for the highest Victoria sponge. The photograph doesn’t have anything to allow you to gauge the scale but take it from me, that is a big plate it is standing on. It was T’s birthday and a fun cake seemed to be in order. I’ve also just had a new cooker installed and sponge cakes are an excellent way of getting a feel of cooking times (every cooker is different). The jam is my own home made plum jam. The cream is shop bought double cream whipped.dsc_0056Having been carried away by the delights of sour dough I have been a little negligent with yeast based bread. The day I made this loaf was hot and humid. The dough had been double proved and the loaves into the oven within 3 hours. The same process can take twice as long in the winter. In my new found love of sourdough I’d forgotten how nice this bread can taste. And it is perfect for sandwiches. Many restaurants and tearooms, including some very good ones, use sliced bread for sandwiches because it is impossible to cut fresh bread thin enough. (Paul Hollywood) Some leave the proper loaves until they are a day old. With well Ā baked home made bread you can cut the bread as thin or thick as you like as soon as it has cooled to room temperature.dsc_0055Uncle Bernard (sadly no longer with us) loved what he called comfort food. We all have our own definitions of comfort food. Fish pie is the epitome of it to me. It fills the kitchen with warm, safe, nostalgic smell, it evokes kind memories, is the sort of food you can eat on a tray in front of the telly in your dressing gown, and it’s so dashed tasty. This is as simple as fish pie gets. Cod fillets, parsley sauce and good mashed potato. I love frozen peas with many things but they fit the comfort food label perfectly. I felt a whole lot better after a portion (or two) and I wasn’t even ill before I began.dsc_0047We’ve had another wonderful late summer. The sun was a long time coming this year but it is in no rush to leave. We’ve had a lot of meals in the garden this September. I really enjoyed this bowl of chilli con carne made with three different sorts of beans and good cubes of beef cut from a piece of topside and stewed slowly. A few tortillas and a dollop or two of Turkish yoghurt; and lots of late season sun. Blooming marvellous!dsc_0029A plate of happiness. This was my platter for the rugby league challenge cup final. In previous years I’ve enjoyed hotdogs or burgers or a packet of crisps (chips) or a plate of chocolate biscuits to enjoy this essential part of Simon’s sporting calendar. Fruit, bread, cheese, cold meats and a cracking match between Warrington and Hull with the Humberside team sealing it with a breath-taking match-saving tackle in the last minute. Perfection!dsc_0027Figs were things we never saw as children. The occasional mention in Bible stories at school and a place in an oft-used figure of speech “don’t give a fig” meaning “don’t care” “not bothered”. I was a parent before I cut open my first fig and saw this delightful sight. As good to look at as to eat and a real treat to do either. Here served with a Yorkshire curd tart. The sweet tartness of the fig off setting the creamy stodge (not often used as a compliment but very much so in this case) of the tart.dsc_0026The bread is mine but everything else is from the deli counter. Do they do Scotch eggs in other parts of the world? Some people have passed unkind comments on the Scottish diet and perhaps this way of serving the humble egg says a great deal about Hibernian attitudes to food. Take a perfectly innocent egg and give it a thick jacket of sausage meat, roll this in breadcrumbs and deep fry it! If you make these yourself with good quality sausage meat they are wonderful. Occasionally you can buy a good one. More often than not they are a victory of hope over expectation.

I’m delighted to see that I’d bought some tongue for the cold meat plate. Tongue, along with seafood and offal is my preserve. No-one else in the family will eat it. Every generation seems to find something that their parents ate disgusting. I make no apologies for enjoying tongue, liver, kidneys and heart. Ethics says that if you are going to justify killing the beast for food then you should eat all of it. I do my best and think that cured tongue with English mustard on white bread is about as good a sandwich as you can get.dsc_0019Can’t remember whether this was breakfast of tea. The cups of coffee suggest it was the first meal of the day. Nice to see two coffee pots, a fresh pineapple and a jar of home made chutney in the background. I’m less impressed with the packet of pre-sliced cheese.dsc_0018Comfort food part two. Spaghetti Bolognese as taught to us by our (English) mums. This was the first dish we (as a nation) learned when pasta first became readily available (in blue sugar paper packages in the early 60s) We’ve adapted it slightly and serve it with good Parmesan cheese these days, but it is otherwise unchanged from the way mother served it to a hungry family of nine.dsc_0011I’ve featured quite a few cooked breakfasts in these blogs over the years.Ā You are actually far more likely to find this on the Johnson breakfast table. I love fruit however it comes, and can think of no better accompaniment than yoghurt.dsc_0010The simplest and perhaps the tastiest of the pasta dishes. Spaghetti Carbonara. Ten minutes well spent of anybody’s time. Beaten eggs added at the last minute and cooked in the residual heat of the pasta and sauce as it is stirred to thicken.dsc_0007These innocent looking little treats should come with a health warning. Any actor needing to bulk up for a part would manage it in a month on croissants. They look light and fluffy, are oh so easy to eat, and the weight just piles on. A treat is a treat though. They are far too good to cut out all together. Impossible to manage on just one!dsc_0006Home made vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries.dsc_0004A writer’s lunch. A whole Camembert, a small French loaf and a few grapes.dsc_0004In between jobs that have to be done I’m trying to find a couple of hours a day to practice the array of musical instruments I have surrounded myself with. In the foreground a fish finger sandwich. In the background, Worcestershire sauce, ukulele tutor, selection of picks and a harmonica.dsc_0009Home made scones with my own gooseberry and apricot jams. These scones are my effort. I usually leave it to the current Mrs J and she does a much better job.dsc_0013Not a vintage year for produce but we had plenty of broad beans, gooseberries, black and white currants, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers.dsc_0014Home grown tomatoes Ā (and chilli) on toast with bacon.dsc_0016My snack tray for the Australian Rugby League Grand final. Cronulla just beating Melbourne while I eat crisps, mini salamis and apples.dsc_0017No month is complete without steak. Yellow fat is almost always a sign of quality beef. This tasted superb.dsc_0019Good mushrooms on good toast. What more do you want?dsc_0020dsc_0022dsc_0023The greatest snack food of them all. Toasted cheese!dsc_0003When we were young and courting I made steak with corn cobs and baked potato for T on her birthday. The tradition was in need of revival. 35 years on it is still just about my favourite meal.dsc_0026Home made chicken soup.dsc_0027dsc_0032Rack of lamb.dsc_0035dsc_0036Ernest Hemingway’s favourite breakfast. Eggs sunny side up with fried potatoes.dsc_0037

Toasted cheese with home grown tomatoes and capers.

Breakfast Three Times a Day!

18 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food, Uncategorized

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Betty's, Heinz Baked Beans, Pasta, Yorkshire curd tart

Mostly Concerning Food

This is the first food blog since April. For new readers (and old) a quick outline of my approach to food blogging.

These are point and shoot photographs of meals enjoyed by the family Johnson. Nothing is prepared specially for the blog. Presentation is as it comes. The food is served and a couple of shots are taken just before eating. I choose the better of the two. I sometimes remember to dandy up the plate, wipe away a drip or a drop but it’s pretty slapdash. This is deliberate. There are plenty of first class food blogs around. I follow and enjoy a number of these. This one is neither foodie, nor meant to impress with complexity or cleverness. This is what we eat. We’re two fifty somethings both fully occupied with the world of work and a lot of interests besides food. We like to eat well but can’t afford too much time. The average meal takes less than half an hour and doesn’t cost a great deal. It’s a celebration of eating without being fancy or extravagant. I don’t do recipes. If it’s pasta and mussels in a cream sauce then the recipe doesn’t take a lot of working out. I use quite lot of fresh herbs and dip and delve into the spice box. Apart from that there are few secret ingredients. We try to have something different most nights though old favourites have a habit of cropping up. It’s an unusual month when I don’t treat myself to a cooked English breakfast or a decent steak.

The following meals were served between May and July when I had the camera handy.DSC_0057Linguine with mussels and green peppers. I forgot to add that we try to use our own grown ingredients. No we haven’t got a mussel bed but we do grow a lot of peppers. This was a while back and I can’t remember whether the sauce includes fresh cream or creme fraiche. I’m very tempted by it. May very well make it again in the next few days. I love all pasta dishes but seafood pasta dishes are a particular favourite.DSC_0063There we go. Mr Heinz originally marketed his tinned baked beans as a luxury item. These were intended for the sort of people who shopped in Harrods and Fortnum and Masons. I was shocked on finding out how much sugar he puts into them. These days I tend to go for the low sugar option. I can’t tell much difference in taste. W Somerset Maugham once wrote that ā€œTo eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.ā€ Ā It’s as much a damning statement of the fare on offer in the early twentieth century as it’s a celebration of this unbalanced, unhealthy, but oh so tasty, contribution to the world of food. I like a cooked breakfast but try to limit it to no more than once a week, often once a fortnight.DSC_0065Salmon roe caviar on little bits of toasted bread with a decent cream cheese. By decent cream cheese I mean anything that isn’t and doesn’t resemble Philadelphia. It’s a wonderful State but a poor imitation of what proper cream cheese can be. Should be filed with Dairylea and McDonalds. Acceptable but only in emergency and when very hungry. And even then…only just.DSC_0066Simple sourdough pizzas. Take a bit of sourdough. Work it into a pizza shape. Add some tomato sauce (your own preferably) and cheese. This cheese looks like cheddar. It’s ok for pizza so long as you eat it straight away. If you allow it to cool it goes a bit plasticky in texture. I like anchovies. They usually find their way onto my pizzas.DSC_0071Desert Island food number one. Good bread (in this case home made sourdough loaf) with a selection of cheeses and some tomatoes. A grating of black pepper is all that is needed. This is food of the gods. Enjoyed at its best with tea served in cups and saucers and made in a pot. I don’t drink wine, in fact I don’t drink any alcohol. Tea does it for me!Ā DSC_0077Desert Island Food part Two. Once again sourdough bread but this time with air dried Spanish ham and a strong soft French cheese. I cannot remember what type it was. I’d know it again if I saw it. Certainly if I tasted it.DSC_0081Roast beef and lettuce sandwich with a couple of dill pickles. Seem to remember that this was while I was watching a match in the European Football Championships. The bread is shop bought but it made a decent sandwich.DSC_0083Now there are only two of us at home I tend to cut the roasting joint in half and make a stew out of the remainder. Every country has its own dumplings recipes. A beef stew with dumplings is about as English as food gets. And about as tasty.DSC_0085Serve it with new potatoes and green beans. Happiness on a plate.DSC_0089Asparagus: the joy of an English spring. And a doping story that was quickly buried. Many were accused. They denied it. That’s alright then.DSC_0091Lunch the next day. NothingĀ heats up better than a stew. The dumplings lose something in texture but nothing in flavour. One of the delights of the modern world is the easy availability of asparagus. During my childhood this was kept for the extremely rich and forĀ landowners. If you’ve got the right soil and plenty of space it isn’t difficult to grow. I’m happy to leave it to the farmers.DSC_0092There are a lot of variations on the English breakfast. The best is the simple combination of bacon and eggs with good bread and butter. It has to be butter.DSC_0093DSC_0097Inside the box from Bettys is a Yorkshire curd tart. There aren’t many places to get these. Do not pass one without buying. It is a real pleasure to eat. My grandma used to make these and they were wonderful when still just warm from the oven. I’ve never tried to make one myself which seems something I ought to put right. I never go to York or Harrogate without visiting Bettys and I never leave Bettys without a curd tart; unlike Dr Spooner. Be careful what you order!

 

In the Spring an old man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of food

08 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food

≈ 42 Comments

Tags

HervƩ This, lidl, Molecular Gastronomy, roast lamb, sourdough, stir-fry, yoghurt

Mostly Concerning Food

We’ve had a couple of weeks of lazing about and doing things at our own pace. One of the real perks of a teacher’s job are the holidays. Let’s face it, they’re a big reason why I joined the profession in the first place. So I don’t see any reason why retirement from the classroom should stop me enjoying the fourteen weeks of getting up late, reading the papers, walking the dog and digging the gardenĀ that gave my academic year some balance. As the current Mrs JohnsonĀ celebrates another holiday I leave my plough shares where they stand in my non pedagogic furrows and I join her.

DSC_0001

It’s been an unusually early Easter. For those unaware of the discussions at the Whitby Synod of 664 AD, the date of Easter is fixed at the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Our current archbishop of Canterbury, a man with a small head that is full of vague fancies, thinks we should have a fixed date and this would suit Thomas Cook and Sons. For myself I like the movable feast. The one disadvantage is that an early Easter is often a cold one in these northern latitudes. This one has been particularly chilly.

Porridge has been the favourite breakfast but there are only so many dishes of hot oatmeal that you can photograph. No matter how warming the fare, a bowl of porridge looks like a bowl of porridge. No wonder the marketing people settled for a jolly eighteenth century fellow of Swarthmoor or a Highland hammer thrower. An occasional grapefruit has added zest to breakfast time and warded off scurvy for the 57th year in a row. Preparing a grapefruit is an absorbing and satisfying task. If done well it takes a little time but this is proper cheffing. The result are segments of morning freshness that slide easily onto the spoon. If done lazily, then the eating can be a tedious affair.DSC_0002

I’ve continued with the sourdough. Every now and then the starter beckons to me and I make up a loaf or two or a couple of pizzas. Still a way to go before I feel I’ve got it just the way I want it but everything so far has been very eatable and reasonable looking. Bread, cold meats, cheese, tomatoes and a cup of decent coffee. It’s what holidays were meant for.DSC_0003

Soup is another perfect accompaniment to good bread. This is a simple tin of chicken and pasta soup from Lidl. Unlike Heinz and Campbells it does actually look and smell like chicken soup made at home. It isn’t anything special but makes a tasty lunchĀ with the sourdough loaf.DSC_0004

My new favourite. And this is from a supposed budget supermarket. The yoghurt is wonderful and the jarred plums are as sweet and tasty as if I’d picked and stewed them myself. The difference is that I couldn’t have done it for the price. It’s part of a steady transition from winter eating to summer. Always nice to follow the seasons.

DSC_0005

Kippers are an all year round treat. Preserved fish used to be a huge part of the British diet. Entire populations used to follow the herring shoals around the coast. Not just the fishing boats and fishermen, but coopers, rope makers, smokers and entire armies of girls and women who gutted and cured the fish. I’m reasonably adept at preparing round fish (as opposed to flat fish) for the pan. It takes me under a minute to head, gut and de-fin a herring. In the same time a fish girl would have done half a dozen. These days the herring fleet has practically disappeared from our shores and there are only a handful of real smokehouses left. They’re worth looking for. The kippers, smokies and cured fish from them are a world away from the dyed product I have on my plate above. It was fine, a decent breakfast, but left me ultimately dis-satisfied and longing for the real thing.

DSC_0007

My first attempt at a sourdough pizza. Passata, Wensleydale and anchovies. The sourdough makes a difference. A good contrast between the crispness of the base near the edges and the doughiness nearer the centre. Very tasty.

DSC_0009

Sourdough loaf and rolls. There are a lot of skills involved in making sourdough bread that don’t concern the yeast baker. I’m delighted with taste and texture but intend to put some time in on presentation. You need an extremely sharp blade to score the loaves before baking. I’m talking razor blade sharp and I’m reluctant (with my record of clumsiness) to have such a blade hanging around the kitchen.

DSC_0011

My casual (point and press) method of photography doesn’t do justice to this steak sandwich. Here I’ve captured the benefits of three things if going for a delicious and easy to eat treat of a sandwich. First to ensure the Maillard reaction to create that crispy, almost flame grilled textureĀ on the outer. It’s done by high heat in the pan and leaving the steak long enough to cook the outer layers thoroughly and change their chemical composition. Second is to do what the French have always done better than the English, which is to leave it rare and third to let it rest for long enough for the juices to re-distribute throughout the meat. In England we used to talk about sealing in the juices. We were just plain wrong in this. Browning the outside does increase flavour, and range of flavours but it doesn’t seal anything in. Quite the opposite in fact. Conducted and radiant heat drive the juices out and evaporate them in equal measure. Far more juices are preserved in the centre of the steak and these will spread through the meat when resting giving the steak a tenderness to the teeth as well as pleasure to the tastebuds. (For further details see Molecular Gastronomy by HervĆ© This Chapter 48. It’s a book that gets almost as much use in my kitchen as the Goodhousekeeping Cookery Book I bought in the 1970s.)

DSC_0013

A quick beef stir-fry. Onions, slivers of carrot, savoy cabbage, bean sprouts and even some sweetcorn kernels served up with noodles and coated with a sweet and sour sauce. Chunks of left over roast beef added towards the end of cooking. Served with rice crackers and decent soy sauce. Very easy, very tasty.

DSC_0017

Another spring time breakfast, another generous bowl of yoghurt with bottledĀ plums and slices of orange and banana. It feels healthy as I eat it and it tastes wonderful.

DSC_0018

Some macaroni cheese served up with sausages and a baked potato. Perfect reward for a day spent cutting down a twenty five year old Leylandii hedge that had grown out of control.

DSC_0032

Easter means roast leg of lamb in many English homes. We have taken to enjoying vegetarian food for the big feast days, so the roast lamb was moved to a few days after. Generously studded with fresh rosemary from the garden and accompanied in the oven by songs on the ukulele. The Marmite jar has nothing to do with the meal. Must have been left over from breakfast time.

DSC_0036

Roast lamb with mint sauce (also fresh from the garden), new potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower with a cheese sauce…and gravy. A lot going on on this plate and I’m sure purists may say that there are too many conflicting flavours. All I can say is that it didn’t feel that way when I was eating it.

DSC_0040

When David is home we try to have a different breakfast every day. The traditional breakfast is always among the most popular. Here mushrooms and asparagus balance out the fat and salt of the bacon. The eggs are lightly fried. These are from Frances and Steven’s chickens and are far too nice to over cook.

DSC_0043

A big joint of beef goes a long way. Some roast, some sandwiches, some stir fried and some made into a beef curry. Recipe comes from Madhur Jaffrey. Pickle, chutney and raita are all shop bought. As are the poppadums. We have a couple of good restaurants where we have our Indian food cooked by people who know what they are doing but I do enjoy making a good curry every now and then. The house smells great for days as well.

DSC_0045

My third batch of sourdough. As you can see I’ve invested in a rising basket. Like the sharp blade, it makes a big difference.

DSC_0047

Another stir-fry. This one used a couple of rashers of bacon as the main feature, a bag of pre-prepared vegetables from the supermarket and some quickly boiled noodles. About 15 minutes from packaging to plate. I always make too much and always eat it anyway. I’m working hard on the house and in the garden. Calories get burnt up.

DSC_0049

We went a little daft over Christmas puddings after we bought a microwave oven in November. It is such an instant and tasty treat. Five minutes from packaging to dish and the cream comes straight from the fridge. It’s almost easier than opening a bag of crisps and a hundred times nicer. I used to make Christmas puddings but do so very rarely these days. A heck of a lot of work. They are much better than the bought ones but the bought ones are quite good enough.

DSC_0051

Thanks to investment in a range of rising baskets I have made my first ever baguette. It’s a sourdough loaf and was absolutely the best baguette I have ever had.

DSC_0053

The results of the sourdough baking so far have been fabulous. And I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface. Thank you once again to Foodbod, Master of Something Yet and e-Tinkerbell (fantastic bloggers all) for inspiration and ideas.

Bon appƩtit.

Simon

Sweet and Sourdough

05 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

blinis, Cumberland Sausage, pancakes, simnel cake, sourdough

Mostly Concerning Food

Thanks to fellow blogger Master of Something I’m Yet to Discover (wonderful title) I have finally been inspired enough to have a go at making sourdough bread. She in turn had been inspired by a serious food blogger called Foodbod. I recommend both blogs heartily and will add links at the end. I won’t go into great detail. My days as a recipe writer are long gone and there are so many places Ā to get a better recipe than I could make up. I actually followed two as well as getting inspiration from the above.
DSC_0002I set two starters off at the same time. One was just flour (wholemeal) and water and the other was white bread flour and also had a grated (organic) apple in it. One was kept in a sealed Kilner jar and the other in a bowl with cling film over it. Both were doing fine until the particular bowl I’d used was required for something else. I continued feeding the one with the apple in and it was soon reproducing itself in a manner that would interest a writer of science fiction. Every day or so you are supposed to discard half and add new flour and water. It’s rather like having a pet. Not as good as a dog or a cat but a darned sight better than a stick insect or a Tamagotchi.

After the second feed I decided to simply add double the flours and water and keep the discarded half in a second jar. A decision that was fully vindicated when Master of Something said that it made wonderful pancakes…and it does!DSC_0005

Meanwhile back in the world of true homely eating. This (see photograph) was always one of my favourites. Both sausages and bacon are thought of as breakfast items: at least in England. Both are in fact much nicer served with potatoes and vegetables as a main meal. Even the traditional (over the top) “Full English” is improved if served with a portion of chips as a proper dinner.

The Cumberland sausage is a wonderful thing. The late jazz trumpeter and all round comic genius, Humphrey Lyttleton made tracking down the perfect Cumberland sausage a life long hobby. I thought I’d cracked it in as obvious a place as Marks and Spencer. For two years their Cumberland sausage was without peer in lands away from the Lakes. But alas, the photo before you shows what happens when you tamper with a winning recipe. Someone must have been reading a book and confused the words “generous grinding of” with “far too much of” in the context of adding pepper. I bow to no-one in my love of piquancy but pepper is a condiment, a spice. It’s there to enhance the flavour not smother it. These sausages were not the treat they should have been. I’d caution against them but as I’m not exactly the Frank Rich of the food world I don’t think Marks and Spencer need worry too much. Does anyone know where I can get a really good Cumberland sausage?DSC_0068

I’ve had a spate of eating steak. Tesco has recently been selling first rate sirloin steaks. I don’t normally have much time for Tesco. Despite (or because of) the presence of a massive store practically on my doorstep I very rarely go in. But a good steak is a good steak. An ideal treat for one and a perfect evening meal for two. Not much cooking…I simply follow the advice of HervĆ© This and Harold McGee.DSC_0112DSC_0074

While I was in Tesco I noticed oysters at 50p each. For a mere Ā£3 I turned breakfast into a treat for one. Nobody else likes oysters. I got an oyster shucking kit for Christmas.Ā Finally I can break into the shells without risking severe injury. I’m proud of it in an ironic way. It goes well with the fish knives and forks we inherited except that the kit is actually useful. It makes shucking oysters simple. I’m also very fond of it because it was a present from my daughter, and she’s wonderful.

DSC_0113

I may never have made any fancy breads before but I’m fond of eating them. My favourite meals are often simply bread cheese and tomatoes. It’s perfect as a picnic on a beach or for an instant lunch or even a reliable meal at a hotel where the catering isn’t up to scratch. I’d far rather have good bread and cheese in my room than a bad roast dinner in the restaurant. One of the big advantages of having supermarkets in every town is that you can invariably get good bread and cheese. Here is some rather nice cured ham. Yes I know it is fatty. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that the flavour is in the fat. (I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave earlier.. the one about This and McGee).DSC_0001

One of the discussions we have, when the whole family gets together, is whether the large English pancake or the smaller American pancake is the better. Personally I prefer the former but this could be because it was what I was brought up with. Like pronouncing scone to rhyme with gone,Ā it is simply the way I learnt it first. I love American pancakes but would walk past them if a little further down the line someone was cooking them like my mother used to… two or even three pans going at once trying to keep up with the hungry appetites of seven children.Ā DSC_0003

Sourdough batter is perfect for the smaller trans-Atlantic cousins. I repeat my gratitude to Master of Something Yet for the idea. I improvised the recipe…well I simply added 2 eggs and a cup or two of skimmed milk to the sourdough starter I was about to discard. Beat it merrily and left it to stand. For how long? Until my wife and daughter got back from Sheffield. They are essentially blinis when made this way but with a sprinkling of sugar and a squeeze of lemon they were fabulous; simply fabulous. Even my mother would have loved these. Next time I’ll try them with maple syrup and the time after that…cream cheese and caviar!

It’s Mothering Sunday tomorrow. Must use the proper name. My mother in law would have been annoyed if I’d called it Mothers’ Day no matter where I placed the apostrophe. Simnel cake is the traditional treat for Mothering Sunday. It’s become associated with Easter but that is just plain wrong. As wrong as chocolate eggs for Whitsun or Christmas cake for bonfire night. Recipes will often include a series of marzipan eggs on the top. Ignore these. They are wrong too. The tradition of Simnel cake to celebrate mothers goes back a lot further than greetings cards, a trip to the florist and taking her out to a carvery once a year.DSC_0014

It’s basically fruit cake with a layer of marzipan halfway down. It cooks with the cake leaving a sweet almondy vein of enhanced flavour in the middle. A real treat and an ancient recipe.DSC_0016

Which brings us to my first attempts at sourdough bread.

I followed the recipe which told me to knead it for ten minutes which produced a wonderful, silky-smooth dough. I proved it once in a bowl for 5 hours and later for twenty hours. This was the part I had to improvise…because I wasn’t sure what the recipe meant. I was given a choice between making a proving basket or laying the dough on a floured cloth and placing it in a clean plastic bag. I loved the fact that it insisted on a clean bag. I’d been very keen to use a dirty one before reading this.Ā DSC_0002

DSC_0005

The apparent black bread in the background might be another example of the blue or gold dress that caused an internet stir last year. I can assure you the bread was white when I photographed it!

I’ve baked bread often and know it is not overly forgiving stuff. Once it has risen it doesn’t like to be messed about with. I’d appreciate any advice readers may have on how to get dough onto a cloth and in and out of a plastic bag without messing the dough about. I just about managed it. I’m pretty sure the professionals do it differently though. 40 minutes in the oven, and a hot oven at that, produced a couple of fine loaves. Good crisp crusts on the outside, wonderfully chewy on the inside. Quite simply first class bread. Delicious with butter and even better with some well flavoured Cheddar.DSC_0008

I mustn’t forget to add my thanks to another blogger who suggested using sourdough as a pizza base (She’s Italian). My gratitude to you all.

 

Bon appƩtit. Simon

Sticking To The Sourdough

https://foodbod.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/pumpkin-seeds-rye-berries-oats-and-spelt-sourdough/

Starting Sourdough Starter

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food, Uncategorized

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Paul Hollywood, sourdough, sourdough starter

Mostly Concerning Food

I’ve never made sourdough before but I’ve certainly enjoyed eating it. These pictures show the starter just after I’d fed in the second extra portion of flour and water and again 20 hours later. I’m quite excited. It seems just about ready to have a go at making my first loaf. The only problem is that I am out of bread flour and it is snowing heavily outside. I really don’t feel like leaving the fireside,Ā andĀ getting cold and wet,Ā just to goĀ to the shops. The forecast is good. Maybe I’ll do some baking this evening. And yes that is Paul Hollywood’s recipe book in the background.

DSC_0002

The recipe said to discard half but I’m from the north of England. We don’t do much discarding. I started a second starter with a view to giving it away.

DSC_0005

20 hours later. The red lines show how much the starter has grown in a small amount of time.

 

 

And I was Rich Indeed

27 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food, Uncategorized

≈ 24 Comments

Mostly Concerning Food

If something is essential, then I believe that it should beĀ made special. The wow should beĀ in the ordinary. Sleeping, eating and breathing should all be elevated and celebrated. Beds should beĀ frighteningly comfortable. Sleep nothing short of a nightly treat. As a trumpeter, I’ve always valued the joy of a good lungful of air. As a reformed smoker I enjoy it still more. If Joseph Priestley is going to spend his life discovering oxygen and its qualities then I am going to savour it and live a little richer. Food is simply one of the true gateways between this world and a much better one.

I’m not a gourmet. I do like to try things out and I have come to like things I would once have regarded as being “a bit posh” but I feel uncomfortable among truly refined diners or when the Ā food is over-fussy. I do like an oyster or a lobster but am equally content with a plate of sausage and potatoes or a good pie. I was brought up near Scrabster where lobsters were ten a shilling and crabs were given away.Ā Oysters, even in London, were the food of the poor and added to meat pies as bulk to save on the meat bill. I’ve remained classless for most of my life. My qualifications and mode of income preclude me from being able to claim true brotherhood with my agrarian and proletarian roots (though that is where my heart lies). I’ve never been comfortable with middle class smugness or aspiration. These days I work for myself and spend as many hours with chisel or saw as I do with pen or computer. I have as much as I want to have and can thereby call myself rich indeed. I can be any class I want to be or none at all and I reflect this in my diet. One thing I insist upon is honesty whether it be in friendship, faith or food. Good ingredients well prepared and well cooked. Taste, texture and colour. And I’d prefer it if it did me good. If it doesn’t and its tasty, I’ll eat it anyway and compensate with an apple or an orange.

We keep the wow in the ordinary and spend the Johnson pound on a more comfortable mattress, a nicer garden and more exciting bag of groceries rather than on the cruise or the fancy car. It wouldn’t be to everyone’s tastes but it makes me happy. Very happy.

DSC_0016How to make a sausage sandwich. Take a third of a baguette. Open it up and load with meaty sausages. Smear with English mustard and squirt with ketchup. Ideal drink: a mug of tea.

DSC_0018Couscous with peppers and duck. Ridiculously easy to make delicious meals with. If you gave a good chef some couscous and a few other ingredients on Ready Steady Cook they’d wonder what to do with the other 15 minutes.

DSC_0021In the foreground cauliflower cheese. In the background a really tasty, malty, seedy loaf from Lidl. Another way of reaching the culinary heights via the primrose path of dalliance.

DSC_0020The good, the bad and the Tall T. Untypical of my snacking food while watching westerns but nonetheless enjoyable …well, for the first five minutes… then the flavours seemed to change from those you’d expect to create in the kitchen to those you’d expect to create in the science lab. If you haven’t seen the film I recommend it.

DSC_0023This is more like it. Slices of baguette lightly toasted in the oven and served with Orkney crab patƩ. A squeeze of lemon juice does make quite a difference.

DSC_0025A bowl of porridge with Demerara sugar melting on top. (Not the same but very similar to a photo I put up a few weeks ago). I may well print this photograph and frame it and make it my entry for the Turner Prize. Entitled “Simple Happiness”.

DSC_0027Supermarket of current choice, Lidl, has much tastier and a better range of cured meats than any of its competitors. OK I didn’t try Fortnum and Mason’s or the Harrods’ food hall but they aren’t often seen as direct competition to Lidl in Darnall. It might be a loyalty thing but very few people seem to use both.

DSC_0028Savoury snacks from their bakery. That’s goats cheese on the left. Can’t remember what flavoured the twist but I can remember looking to see if I’d bought another. Very moreish.

(British modern adjective:so pleasant to eat that one wants more.
“a moreish aubergine dip”) Cambridge English Dictionary and an example of oxymoron.
DSC_0029I’m not sure but I think the chilli came out of a can. Not great on its own but not bad with rocket, grated Red Leicester cheese and soured cream in a tortilla. Eaten while watching The Good the Bad and the Ugly. A film worth making good food for.

DSC_0033They sell yoghurt by the pailful in Lidl and almost every customer (it serves a truly multi-ethnic customer base and is the happiest shop I know) buys a bucket of it. I’ve taken to doing the same. Next to porridge, yoghurt and fruit (in this case sour black cherries from a jar) is my favourite breakfast.

DSC_0035Croissants used to be my favourite breakfast but I found that one croissant was something of a gateway drug and soon I was gorging on three or four and finding (unusually for me) my stomach ballooning. I even used to load them with butter and jam. My hat! These bad boys are full of butter as it is. How on earth do the French remain so slim and elegant? If I was French I’d resemble Alec Baldwin.

DSC_0039So here is a photograph of some typical English health food. A venison pie with chips.

DSC_0041A second way of making a sausage sandwich. Toast pitta breads and open them up. Bung in a couple of sausages and garnish with Gruyere cheese. Eaten while watching 3:10 to Yuma.

DSC_0043Home baked wholemeal bread.

DSC_0045With cock’a’leekie soup with cream stirred in. Very nice.

DSC_0044And with cream drizzled. Much nicer.

DSC_0049A Monday roast dinner. One free range chicken spatchcocked and served Tudor style. It was never intended to all be eaten in one sitting. The birds actually made two other main meals. It was a very easy way to serve and added a little element of feasting. No bones were thrown over shoulder amid Brian Blessed impressions while eating this meal. (Even though a dog waited patiently just in case).

DSC_0053One of the other meals was this chicken risotto. Risotto is my current favourite meal. If heaven exists they will serve risotto.

DSC_0055Another of those special treat meals I make for myself when I’ve been working on the house or garden. Lamb chops with new potatoes, mange tout and mint sauce.

DSC_0056Seafood pasta. Tagliatelle with mussels, cockles, prawns and baby squid and creme fraiche.

DSC_0067I got the recipe for these off a fellow blogger who has an amazing site full of fabulous recipes for vegans. These are kale crisps. Lightly oiled kale leaves are roasted in a oven for 10 minutes each side Ā and then sprinkled with sea salt. Very moreish!

Hope she doesn’t mind me adding a link.

 

http://alittlesage.com

Bon appƩtit!

 

 

If It’s Good Enough For The Birds…

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Cake-a-Doodle-Doo, chicken soup, crayfish, Exeter, lardy cake, lidl, venison, Waitrose

Mostly Concerning Food

I’ve noticed the birds in the cherry tree, where I hang my feeders, have taken a strong interest in the fat balls this month. They get largely ignored (except by the squirrels) in the warmer seasons but at the moment they need replacing every few days. They know instinctively when they need to change their diet. Soon it will be nesting time and all the feeders will empty daily as they build themselves up for the eternal circle. For the moment, keeping warm is their top priority and they are eating a lot of fat and a lot of fruit. I’m doing the same and for pretty much the same reasons. One, it keeps out the cold and two, I’m programmed to do it. My parents, grandparents and great grand parents did the same. It’s in the blood.

DSC_0065Chicken and vegetable soup to fight off the January colds. I’m touching wood while I type but feel bold enough to say that I haven’t had a bad cold since I gave up smoking over six years ago.. They used to hang around from October to March. I can’t say that it is any more than coincidence. I’ve made a lot of other changes in my life during that time. One thing that doesn’t change is my love of a home-made soup. It’s like bread in that it is simple, wholesome, and as much fun to make as it is to eat. I prefer to keep it brothy rather than blend it. Sometimes it improves it to blend it, mostly, it seems to me, to be making it into baby food. I like to be able to enjoy the different elements. Not that there are too many here; onions, leeks, carrots and chicken stock with any meat that had been left on the carcass after it had already served as main course for two meals.

DSC_0066These are my secret treats. (Not so secret now as T reads these blogs). Bacon, fried eggs and fried potatoes with a mug of black coffee. This is a Hemingway style writer’s breakfast. I face it without Papa’s hangover and talent. The tray cloth suggests that I had minor aspirations to grandeur that morning. The plastic sauce bottles help to keep me grounded.

DSC_0068This used to be a real treat as a boy and a starter in restaurants that had heard of three course meals but didn’t really want to offer the customer too much in the way of clever cooking. Inexplicably people chose to have it. Some restaurants still try to get away with it, cutting it thin and fanning it out. Now that melons are available for under a pound all the year round it is the equivalent of being offered an apple. Very nice but not at Ā£25 a head.

DSC_0069I try to finish whatever work I am doing by 4 o’clock and have a meal ready on the table for when T gets home. I’m currently going through bit of a chop phase. All of this plateful is nice. The Bramley apple sauce is but five minutes effort and adds so much. Freshness is all. The best part of the meal isn’t actually the chops but the baked potatoes with real butter.

DSC_0071The last of the chops pan fried with a couple of sausages (hence the black flecks on the chop) re-heated baked tatties and a greedy helping of grated cheddar cheese. My lunch the following day.

DSC_0074As you can see giving up cigarettesĀ has not left me vice-free. I like my food tasty and I tend to enjoy a generous portion. In my defence (does pleasure need a defence?) my working day does consist of plenty of strenuous labour at the moment. And I don’t eat much for the rest of the day.

DSC_0077This is one of a dozen (at least) meals that I would call my favourite. Some crackers, some good Stilton cheese and some pears. Heaven on a plate.

DSC_0083Hotel room. Not sure why the shaving brush and bowl are there but there is limited space in a hotel room. We share a Danish pastry and an almond croissant. On their own they are nice. With a decent apple, they are even better.

DSC_0112One of my great regrets on leaving Exeter 20 years ago was that we were leaving behind a wonderful parade of shops on Magdalen Road. Some of the best have gone and been replaced by cafes run by people who are about as qualified to run cafes as I am to exhibit at the Tate. The best greengrocer in the West of England has closed since I was last there and that is a nail in the coffin as regards it being a world class shopping street. Happily the bakery is not only still there but hasn’t followed the trends into sourdough and wholesome or fancy. (I like sourdough and fancy, my gripe is against a particular type of cafe and bakery). They bake good bread and sell the same choice of cakes and puddings that they did in the eighties (and probably the fifties). Here we have a plum and almond cake and a lardy cake. Lardy cake was a fantastic treat as a boy and now has almost disappeared. This bakery has stuck by its guns and will outlast all of the fashion following rivals. I like my poetry written by poets, my food grown by farmers and my bread (when I don’t bake it myself) baked by a baker.

DSC_0114Not a traditional way of eating lardy cake. Ayrshire cheese, pears and figs. I don’t care, this was delicious.

IMG_0396These Buxton fish and chips were just about as good as they appear: more filling and thrilling. No complaints but no rush to go back for more.

IMG_0411But here is a fish meal that would tempt me back. Made by David and Melissa and the highlight of our visit to the South West. Baked smoked salmon with potatoes and a really delicious combination of vegetables flavoured with honey, balsamic and other ingredients. Very special indeed.

IMG_0418I’m not against well-meaning middle class people with the ability to bake from opening their own cafe. Amongst the many dreary efforts in Exeter are one or two that are superb. One goes under the cheerful but corny name of Cake-a-Doodle-Doo! It is on the Palace Gate end of Cathedral Green and is everything you want in a cafe. A limited choice of first class cakes and simple but tasty meals. (Too much choice is a great mistake in small cafes). All freshly made and served in a cheerful and tasteful atmosphere by the people who baked them. I was halfway through my coffee and walnut cake before I remembered that T had a camera on her phone. Also on view are the remains of a rich chocolate (gluten free) cake and the bottom third of a slice of Victoria sponge. Imagine you are able to sample the wares on the final day of the Great British Bake Off and you won’t be far out. Oh, and they served proper tea as well not a bag seeping in an aluminium pot.

DSC_0117Another meal that is a contender for my very favourite. Good bread, butter, cheese, ham, tomatoes and nothing else. Scientists have recently concluded that vanilla yoghurt is the food of happiness. I can only presume they forgot to test this plateful.

DSC_0120A bought Christmas pudding. One of many I’ve eaten this year. This one is made to look fancy byĀ being topped with lots of glacĆ© cherries and whole almonds. The almonds are ok but glacĆ© cherries are no longer anyone’s idea of a treat. Just give me more plum pudding and don’t stint.

DSC_0010I’m not the biggest fan of supermarkets. I can’t see the little bits of good they may have done, in widening tastes and making foods available, has even come close to cancelling out the huge harm that they are responsible for. But they are here now and they aren’t going to go away. (Though I’m proud of the efforts of British people, in protesting about the market leaders showing that all they really care about is profit and dividends, and giving them a bloody nose). Tesco and Sainsbury’s have pretty much lost my trade until they show that service (to both supplier and customer) comes before the balance sheet.Ā Waitrose bribes me (successfully) with free tea and coffee to go with a decent range of treats in their cafe as well as a free newspaper, but if their shelves didn’t hold better food than their bigger rivals I don’t think I’d bother. I’m still with the new guys. Not simply because they are cheap but because they have more exciting products. My current favourite is Lidl. The one I go to is in a run down part of Sheffield and my fellow shoppers are the displaced from the UK and all over Europe and beyond. It is the friendliest shop I know. It never fails to give me something I’d be prepared to travel a long way for if it wasn’t on my doorstep. Here are some delicious crayfish tails. I’m the only one in our house who likes shell fish. It allows for feastly portions. I made up a little creamy dressing to complete these sandwiches. I must have been a good person in a previous life.

DSC_0012Lidl alsoĀ provided a trayĀ of venisonĀ for the price of a pint of Guinness in a London pub. I know which I’d prefer. They were packaged as if they were steaks but on cooking they fell into these lumps. It said haunch of venison on the box but was more like hunks of venison inside. Still very tasty but not quite the Robin of Sherwood feast I had in mind.

DSC_0013Everything goes well with new potatoes and peas. No fruit and very little fat (venison is an extremely lean meat) to finish the post.

Bon appƩtit!

Great Chieftain O’ the Pudding-Race

25 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by simon682 in Mostly Concerning Food, Uncategorized

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

asparagus, Burns Night, coffee and walnut cake, haggis, lidl, porridge, Risotto, stew and dumplings

Mostly Concerning Food

I’m seasonal in my tastes. It isn’t just that I associate stews and oatmeal with cold weather, I actually find myself yearning for them. As a concerned and, I would like to think, caring member of the race, I increase the proportion of vegetarian dishes every year. On top of that, as a meat eater I believe in the maxim that all of the animal should be used. Lions and tigers and other carnivorous huntersĀ prize the organs on the prey above all else. Animals like the cheetah, who are likely to be driven away from the kill by stronger predators, are quick to feed on liver, kidney and heart. There is a school of thought that says if we think ourselves entitled to eat meat than we must be prepared to consume the whole beast. In China they say that the only part of a duck not eaten is the quack. In Britain it was a philosophy championed by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall in the 80s. He’s made a good living out of it but I think he is reasonably sincere.

It’s ironic that offal,Ā traditionally aĀ meat that the poor could afford, is now on the menus of expensive restaurants and rarely in corner cafes. Ā So much of what was once the daily lot of the rural poor is now gracing the eating houses of the rich. This post’s offerings include quite a few of these. Porridge, risotto, dumplings, tortillas, pasta, liver, potatoes were all everyday staples for my ancestors (no-one in my family made the big house in any thing other than a serving capacity until the second half of the twentieth century). Today they are served up more often by parents with university degrees and pension plans (guilty of both) than by those on tax credits. There is a move towards trying to turn the clocks back on this but unfortunately it is being done in such a patronising way by affluent chefs that it is likely to fail.

My love of peasant food is in celebration of two things; a warm sense of family continuity, of communion with my forebears, and the fact that the food is superb. You can make a delicious, filling and warming pan of risotto in half an hour using an onion, a stock cube, some arborio rice and a pint or so of hot water. By adding a pepper and/or some celery or an off cut of chorizo you have a meal fit for a special occasion. Especially if served with a generous grating of parmesan cheese.

Cheese itself was found (and often made) in the poorest homes. In his superb history of Italian food ‘Delizia‘, John Dickie observed that the poor farmers were selling their delicious home made cheeses and home grown pears to the rich so they could afford a scrap or two of meat from the rich man’s larder. If only they had realised that cheese and pears was one of the greatest of all food combinations then the entire history of Europe might have been different.

Here is my take on winter foods that might have graced an English smallholding, a Scottish croft or our kinfolk from further afield. I didn’t set out to do this. It was only when I downloaded the photographs that I recognised a pattern. I’ve always been seasonal in foods. This is what we eat in the winter.

DSC_0034

This risotto is made from arborio rice. The colour is fromĀ chunks of chorizo giving off its oil and spices. There’s a good gating of parmesan stirred into this one at the end of the cooking and another generous grating about to be added. A growing debate in our house is to whether or not it is better fresh from the pan or re-heated the following day. It’s different both ways but I couldn’t say which I prefer other than the one I am currently eating. According to Dickie many of our favourite Italian dishes were essentially vegetarian for the simple reason that the people eating them couldn’t afford meat. A little meat was seen as a treat to pep the dinners into something very special. The same thing works today. You don’t need very much in any Italian dish.

DSC_0041Wraps, tortillas and other flatbreads are now so popular in England that it is difficult to remember that they are a recent addition. You simply couldn’t get them in the sixties. In the seventies and eighties you needed a specialist food store. By the nineties supermarkets stocked them in most stores. Today there are racks and racks of them. Another new itemĀ are the bags of ready prepared salad. This is a tuna wrap. The tortilla takes a minute in a dry frying pan. A handful of leaves, a forkful of tinned tuna, a few slices of tomato and spring onion and a squirt of mayonnaise. Roll cut and serve. Tuna never was the food of poor farmers but was a staple during my younger days in bedsits and draughty, shared houses.

DSC_0039A rib-eye steak, flash griddled and sliced into strips, piled on top of salad leaves. Tomatoes and English mustard were added before the upper crust. This was my treat. There was no reason for the treat other than I fancied it. If my ancestors could have afforded to give themselves a good steak dinner I’m sure they would have. I’m certain they wouldn’t be-grudge me.

DSC_0031The sausages are from an independent farmer. The bread is a multi grain loaf from Lidl. Lidl is about the best of our supermarkets for quality and range of bread. This sausage sandwich looks good, tasted good and by golly I’m sure it did me good.

DSC_0024Slices of fresh baguette and Orkney crab patĆ© with some grapes and some walnuts. All supplied by Lidl. It is a budget supermarket but it turns up trumps for tasty treats. This terrine might not be as good as you’d make for yourself but you’d need pretty advanced taste buds to tell the difference.

DSC_0026My favourite Sunday tea. Soft boiled eggs, good bread, real butter and mugs of tea. All that is needed now is a traditional Sunday cake.

DSC_0030Coffee and walnut cake. Walnuts are plentiful and cheap these days. It would be a pity not to take advantage.

DSC_0040Another Lidle treat. These are little ramekins filled with scallops and prawns in a white sauce. I wouldn’t serve them to guests but for a mid-morning snack when working in the office they are perfect.

DSC_0027 DSC_0018Most of the sauce is hidden in this photograph. It’s made of onions, peppers, celery and mushrooms all sweated down. Add a big dollop of creme fraiche, season and serve with spaghetti and parmesan. Impossible not to have a second helping.

DSC_0017Ah liver. Lots of iron in it they say. In fact it is highly rated by nutritionists. This is my preferred method of cooking. Simply flash fry it in a hot pan and serve on toast with mushrooms and sprinkle with Henderson’s Relish and Tabasco.

DSC_0013The tortilla is made by mashing some left over new potatoes with a fork together with some cooked green cabbage. Beat in an egg and fry lightly for five minutes each side. The mixed grill is completed with flash fried liver, rashers of bacon and good sausages.

DSC_0008The very best part of a bowl of porridge is watching the demerara sugar melt on top, I prefer this to a creme brƻlƩe. The perfect winter breakfast. This particular bowl was made in a microwave.

cplAYzagl9zn6rW1C79mWig7dl7Y1+VAll that remains of a once thriving weekly market in our village is a visiting fish van. It loads up on the fish docks at Grimsby every day and has a weekly routine. Thursday is our day. The haddock was caught off the Faroes, the smoked haddock is cured in Grimsby. The eggs come form the chicken who live in Frances’ and Steven’s back garden. The parsley is from my window sill and the potatoes are from Aldi. A contender, along with rice pudding, for the title of the greatest known comfort food. Perfect at any time of year but even better in the winter.

cplAZAcmiu+xOfQUH2STX2fY3xKvSiCStew and dumplings is the most farmhouse of English farmhouse dishes.. The browning on the sides of the pan isĀ the result of 10 hours cooking in a 100 degree oven. The dumplings get added in the last 20 minutes when the oven temperature is turned up. They rise into the lightest and most perfect accompaniment for slowly cooked meat. (In this case stewing steak and lambs kidneys cooked with carrots, onions and leeks.)

cplASyoeni9yasuYJm3K1Eg5j4RgzVlYou have to have green vegetables with stew.

DSC_0035The final slice. Photograph taken within 24 hours of the cake coming out of the oven. A true sign of a happy home is a cake under a dome. Ours is a very happy home.cplAYSfbIrc4J2aodB9LaamHkjGp0y_I felt I deserved more than one treat this week. Is there a more tempting sight to a meat eater than a plate of steak and chips? Asparagus is another vegetable that used to cost a king’s ransom and was only available in exclusive stores. Today it is cheap, plentiful and every bit as tasty as it was when it was considered a rich man’s delicacy.

DSC_0009To finish with, the ultimate poor person’s treat that has found itself shooting up market. Here is haggis (Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race). I have never been to a Burns’ Supper.Ā I don’t drink whisky (in fact I don’t drink anything stronger than tea) and I don’t like bagpipes. I do like the poet though and have chosen to celebrate his birthdayĀ with a breakfast of haggis, beans and egg with toast. Haggis is made with every part of the beast that didn’t make the laird’s table. It is an almost perfect example of something special made from the cheapest ingredients.

Here’s to your honest, sonsie face.

 

Happy Burns Night. Eat well!

← Older posts

Recent Posts

  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013

Scotland 1987

Burns' Memorial
Burns’ Memorial
Glenfinnan
Glenfinnan
Rannoch Summit
Rannoch Summit
Erskine Bridge
Erskine Bridge
Rannoch Moor
Rannoch Moor
Glencoe
Glencoe
Glenfinnan Viaduct
Glenfinnan Viaduct
Lion & the Lamb
Lion & the Lamb
Coniston Water
Coniston Water
West Highland Way
West Highland Way
The King's House, Rannoch Moor
The King’s House, Rannoch Moor
Rannoch Moor
Rannoch Moor
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond
Way out west
Way out west
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond
Sunset from Ayr
Sunset from Ayr
Burns' Cottage
Burns’ Cottage
Ben More
Ben More
Ulverston
Ulverston
Dalton
Dalton
Near Crianlarich
Near Crianlarich
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond
Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Loch Tulla
Loch Tulla
Rhinns Of Kells
Rhinns Of Kells
Coniston
Coniston
Ayr
Ayr
Near Crianlarich
Near Crianlarich
Way out west
Way out west
The Clyde
The Clyde
Ben Nevis
Ben Nevis
Glencoe
Glencoe
Brig o' Doon
Brig o’ Doon
Pennington
Pennington
Glencoe
Glencoe
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond

Categories

  • A Cyclist on the Celtic Fringe
  • A Jaunt into The West Country
  • A Journey into Scotland
  • A-Z of England 2014
  • Day Tripping
  • Mostly Concerning Food
  • Music and Theatre
  • Pictures and Poems
  • Reading Matters
  • Travelling Companions
  • Travels with Jolly
  • Uncategorized
  • Western Approaches

Categories

  • A Cyclist on the Celtic Fringe
  • A Jaunt into The West Country
  • A Journey into Scotland
  • A-Z of England 2014
  • Day Tripping
  • Mostly Concerning Food
  • Music and Theatre
  • Pictures and Poems
  • Reading Matters
  • Travelling Companions
  • Travels with Jolly
  • Uncategorized
  • Western Approaches

Award Free Blog

Aberystwyth Alan Ladd Aldi asparagus Ballinasloe Barrow in Furness Betty's Bicycle bicycle tour Bill Bryson Birr Bonnie Prince Charlie Caithness Cardigan Carlisle Charles Lapworth Chesterfield Chris Bonnington claire trevor Cumberland Sausage Cumbria Cycle tour of England cycle tour of ireland Cycle tour of Scotland Cycle tour of Wales Cycling Derbyshire Dumfries Eli Wallach England Glencoe Halfords Ireland James Coburn James Hutton james stewart John Ford john wayne kedgeree Kilkenny Kris Kristofferson Lake District lidl Mark Wallington National Cycle Network New Ross Newtown Newtownstewart Northern Ireland Offaly Oscar Wilde pancakes Risotto Robert Burns Roscommon Scotland Scrambled eggs Shakespeare Shrewsbury Slieve Bloom Mountains Sligo Sperrin Mountains Staffordshire stagecoach Sutherland tagliatelle The Magnificent Seven Thomas Hardy Thurso ulverston vegetarian Waitrose Wales Wexford Yorkshire

Award Free Blog

Aberystwyth Alan Ladd Aldi asparagus Ballinasloe Barrow in Furness Betty's Bicycle bicycle tour Bill Bryson Birr Bonnie Prince Charlie Caithness Cardigan Carlisle Charles Lapworth Chesterfield Chris Bonnington claire trevor Cumberland Sausage Cumbria Cycle tour of England cycle tour of ireland Cycle tour of Scotland Cycle tour of Wales Cycling Derbyshire Dumfries Eli Wallach England Glencoe Halfords Ireland James Coburn James Hutton james stewart John Ford john wayne kedgeree Kilkenny Kris Kristofferson Lake District lidl Mark Wallington National Cycle Network New Ross Newtown Newtownstewart Northern Ireland Offaly Oscar Wilde pancakes Risotto Robert Burns Roscommon Scotland Scrambled eggs Shakespeare Shrewsbury Slieve Bloom Mountains Sligo Sperrin Mountains Staffordshire stagecoach Sutherland tagliatelle The Magnificent Seven Thomas Hardy Thurso ulverston vegetarian Waitrose Wales Wexford Yorkshire

Categories

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel