I am incensed. A regular customer leaves his paper with us everyday. I picked this up yesterday, and had a flick through to see what was happening in this freezing world of ours. Now, I expected a diet article. I expected the condescending tone, the guilt and the patronising twaddle that seem to be the main feature of these things. The "Didn't we all eat so much", and the "carb is so evil" things that are spouted by journalists that either have a diet of fags and coke- not the drink- or so many fad diets in 12 months that internally their systems are a nightmare that don't know how to hold on to fat, vitamins or protein. What I didn't expect was the terrible "diet plan" claiming to be healthy eating that was published.
Those that know me, are aware I'm not a sylph, I am probably about 6 sylphs put together. This is not pleasing to me, but I am aware of it, thanks and don't need telling. I am also a great believer in using proper food- grown locally, used fresh, bred with care and understanding, and not having been processed to within an inch of recognition.
In the currant climate could the diet makers or journalists not create eating plans, diets or whatever they choose to call them, ones that are based around proper food? Actual meat, from butchers, supermarkets if you insist, but over the counter rather than in polystyrene? Real vegetables, not frozen, not coloured, not sprayed? Could they not look at seasons, so our farmers get a look in, and seasonal food is cheaper. It's nice to have colourful things, some people like to have strawberries in December, but they are expensive, and as they don't taste as good as they could then that makes it worse. They may taste sweet, but they don't taste of strawberries. Fruit should smell. Tomatoes should smell. Apples should have such a complex scent that it leaves you thinking for hours exactly how to describe it.
Why would you write a diet thing that involves making fruit smoothies from expensive out of season fruit? Why would you write one that involves "cheese strings"? Why does the world need strings of cheese? Does that sound appetizing to anyone??
I think after a lovely Christmas meal- the best Turkey from Anderson's and all the trimmings one should not feel guilt. Feel thankful for the food, for living in a country where we can enjoy it but don't feel guilty. As for resolutions, how about supporting the local guys, eat fresh veg, and cook one thing a week that you've never cooked before. Look for seasonal, local and be a bit different. It's easy and cheaper, honestly.
Here's to a brave New Year. I hope that 2009 will be a happy and interesting year of change, of good will and of good health.
Wednesday 31 December 2008
Saturday 27 December 2008
Ingrediants you don't like!
Hope all had a good Christmas, and celebrated in what ever way you wanted.
It is always strange for us to close for a day, but it is lovely to be back, and we are planning a few detox type soups, and specials after the over indulgences of the last week. To start this off we are putting a North African spiced soup on the board. It is vegan, made with chickpeas, tomatoes and lemon amongst other things. Beautifully warming on these cold days, and very good for you, while tasting scrummy. Jodie has voted it one of her favorites.
After having dinner cooked for me by my cousins husband- does that make him a cousin-in-law?- and having a chat with him I thought I may put in a word about ingredients that you don't like.
Now, he made a Thai green curry, and lovely it was too. He doesn't eat fish- a childhood hatred- so he didn't put any Nam Pla (fish sauce) in his curry. A lot of Thai dishes call for this, and it does add a really good base flavour. If used in small amounts it will add a lot to a dish, and will turn it from "that's nice" to "wow". It is a seasoning more than anything, and enhances flavours, rather than overpowering them.
Another really good base is anchovies. Particularly in risottos. Add a couple- just a couple chopped up in to the onions of a risotto as you sweat them off. This is a genius idea, taught to me in Italy by a blacksmiths wife who didn't speak a word of English. It was an interesting day.
You won't taste the anchovies in the risotto, but if they are not there you will notice the dish is not finished. This happens with lots of things, and unless you are allergic to an ingredient, and the recipe calls for a small amount of something, be brave and give it a go, it may turn out to be the ingredient that has alluded you for ages.
Happy new year to all, here's wishing for a peaceful, cheerful and prosperous 2009.
It is always strange for us to close for a day, but it is lovely to be back, and we are planning a few detox type soups, and specials after the over indulgences of the last week. To start this off we are putting a North African spiced soup on the board. It is vegan, made with chickpeas, tomatoes and lemon amongst other things. Beautifully warming on these cold days, and very good for you, while tasting scrummy. Jodie has voted it one of her favorites.
After having dinner cooked for me by my cousins husband- does that make him a cousin-in-law?- and having a chat with him I thought I may put in a word about ingredients that you don't like.
Now, he made a Thai green curry, and lovely it was too. He doesn't eat fish- a childhood hatred- so he didn't put any Nam Pla (fish sauce) in his curry. A lot of Thai dishes call for this, and it does add a really good base flavour. If used in small amounts it will add a lot to a dish, and will turn it from "that's nice" to "wow". It is a seasoning more than anything, and enhances flavours, rather than overpowering them.
Another really good base is anchovies. Particularly in risottos. Add a couple- just a couple chopped up in to the onions of a risotto as you sweat them off. This is a genius idea, taught to me in Italy by a blacksmiths wife who didn't speak a word of English. It was an interesting day.
You won't taste the anchovies in the risotto, but if they are not there you will notice the dish is not finished. This happens with lots of things, and unless you are allergic to an ingredient, and the recipe calls for a small amount of something, be brave and give it a go, it may turn out to be the ingredient that has alluded you for ages.
Happy new year to all, here's wishing for a peaceful, cheerful and prosperous 2009.
Saturday 13 December 2008
Hangover cures
Thank you for your kind, and sometimes irreverent, comments. I did have a lovely time at Ely Cathedral carol service. Very Christmassy, and such an amazing building. If you have never been there, go.
The service was in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. Very good organisation, they are trying to raise money to get a ward in Addenbrookes, as at the moment if you are a teenager with cancer below 16 you are put in a ward with very young children, or if you are 16+ you are put with adults, who often are a lot older. Teenagers at the best of times feel isolated, and want to be in their own groups, because nobody understands them, and for those with cancer it must be terrifying and even more isolating. Look out for the TCT.
So....... have we been to lots of Christmas parties? Don't give me that migraine nonsense, Mr Cracknell. I know.
Nigel Slater (Lovely man) says a cold cooked sausage and a raw carrot are both good. He's right, but then I think he's right about a lot of things. Raw carrots are good- the crunch gets your jaw working, the sweetness helps your blood sugar and it does give a little energy boost.
Cold sausages, especially from Andersons in St Neots are great whatever time and reason you have them.
Scrambled eggs are a small miracle. Simple ingredients, a beautiful texture and rich taste that is palatable however you feel.
A few things that I insist upon with scrambled eggs. You need butter. Not margarine. You need proper bread. You need a cooker, not a microwave- we are looking for creamy not fluffy. Proper eggs. From proper chickens, the sort with feathers, that know what the sun and the sky look like.
Make some decent coffee, or tea, or if you're feeling that rough a tomato juice, virgin or otherwise, and then you can begin. Swig your drink.
Break 3 eggs in a bowl. Add a little black pepper- freshly ground. Add a small glug of milk, or double cream if you're feeling extravagant. (Swig). Break the eggs and stir gently. It shouldn't be all one colour, leave it with gloopy bits and bits of deep yellow.
Place a small pan on the stove and add about an ounce of butter. Just cut a centimetre off the end of a block. Put two slices of bread, your choice of colour, in the toaster.(swig)
When your butter is melted, pour in the eggs, turn the heat down to medium. Stir gently. keep stirring until the mixture is just amalgamated. It should look too wet. Add another splash, carefully, of milk/cream to the pan. The residual heat will finish cooking the eggs. Butter your toast, and then tip the eggs on top. Make more coffee and enjoy your breakfast.
The easy way of doing this, is to take a gentle walk to the cafe, and buy coffee, eat breakfast, watch other people hurl themselves across the lake on windsurfs and the like, and then you don't have to wash up!
You can add smoked salmon, fresh coriander or even cumin seeds to this scrambled egg. All good. The strangest way I've ever seen it eaten is in a sandwich- it was ...interesting, thank you Little Charlotte.
Smoothy type things are good for hangovers too. The most "zingy" I have found is Carrot, ginger and apple. It's amazing. Virgin Marys are good too. As is gazpacho soup, but I'm guessing not everyone has that in their fridge!
Fruit is good, hungover or not. Mangoes are one of those things that you can kind of feel working as soon as you eat it! In Guyana, amongst other places, they eat green mango with chilli and pepper. It's really refreshing, and can get really hot, but good. Pineapple with salt is also a good wake-up boost food.
Well, I've made myself hungry now, so I am off to make scrambled egg on toast.
Enjoy your parties, and I hope your hangovers aren't too bad.
The service was in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. Very good organisation, they are trying to raise money to get a ward in Addenbrookes, as at the moment if you are a teenager with cancer below 16 you are put in a ward with very young children, or if you are 16+ you are put with adults, who often are a lot older. Teenagers at the best of times feel isolated, and want to be in their own groups, because nobody understands them, and for those with cancer it must be terrifying and even more isolating. Look out for the TCT.
So....... have we been to lots of Christmas parties? Don't give me that migraine nonsense, Mr Cracknell. I know.
Nigel Slater (Lovely man) says a cold cooked sausage and a raw carrot are both good. He's right, but then I think he's right about a lot of things. Raw carrots are good- the crunch gets your jaw working, the sweetness helps your blood sugar and it does give a little energy boost.
Cold sausages, especially from Andersons in St Neots are great whatever time and reason you have them.
Scrambled eggs are a small miracle. Simple ingredients, a beautiful texture and rich taste that is palatable however you feel.
A few things that I insist upon with scrambled eggs. You need butter. Not margarine. You need proper bread. You need a cooker, not a microwave- we are looking for creamy not fluffy. Proper eggs. From proper chickens, the sort with feathers, that know what the sun and the sky look like.
Make some decent coffee, or tea, or if you're feeling that rough a tomato juice, virgin or otherwise, and then you can begin. Swig your drink.
Break 3 eggs in a bowl. Add a little black pepper- freshly ground. Add a small glug of milk, or double cream if you're feeling extravagant. (Swig). Break the eggs and stir gently. It shouldn't be all one colour, leave it with gloopy bits and bits of deep yellow.
Place a small pan on the stove and add about an ounce of butter. Just cut a centimetre off the end of a block. Put two slices of bread, your choice of colour, in the toaster.(swig)
When your butter is melted, pour in the eggs, turn the heat down to medium. Stir gently. keep stirring until the mixture is just amalgamated. It should look too wet. Add another splash, carefully, of milk/cream to the pan. The residual heat will finish cooking the eggs. Butter your toast, and then tip the eggs on top. Make more coffee and enjoy your breakfast.
The easy way of doing this, is to take a gentle walk to the cafe, and buy coffee, eat breakfast, watch other people hurl themselves across the lake on windsurfs and the like, and then you don't have to wash up!
You can add smoked salmon, fresh coriander or even cumin seeds to this scrambled egg. All good. The strangest way I've ever seen it eaten is in a sandwich- it was ...interesting, thank you Little Charlotte.
Smoothy type things are good for hangovers too. The most "zingy" I have found is Carrot, ginger and apple. It's amazing. Virgin Marys are good too. As is gazpacho soup, but I'm guessing not everyone has that in their fridge!
Fruit is good, hungover or not. Mangoes are one of those things that you can kind of feel working as soon as you eat it! In Guyana, amongst other places, they eat green mango with chilli and pepper. It's really refreshing, and can get really hot, but good. Pineapple with salt is also a good wake-up boost food.
Well, I've made myself hungry now, so I am off to make scrambled egg on toast.
Enjoy your parties, and I hope your hangovers aren't too bad.
Monday 8 December 2008
Beetroot Soup
Having spent a day taking 90 year old Grandmother Christmas shopping, I am more than happy to tell about Beetroot Soup, without the jingly bells and the children, not laughing all the way, but screaming in a quite unnecessary manner!
OK, firstly you need to know that soup is easy- no measurements we really need to worry about, you can taste it all the way through and it is actually healthy and tastes good.
Apart from a pan and a knife you will need a food processor or blender. We use a stick blender- they would be available from John Lewis, Lakeland Plastics etc. You may also need a sieve.
Ingredients. Approx
2 Carrots
2 Onions
3 sticks celery
1 leek
10 raw small beetroot 5 big beetroot
2 pints vegetable stock
2 potatoes
third of a block of butter or a couple of tablespoons of oil
big handful of flour.
Peel carrots, onions, and chop. Chop celery and leek- making sure dirt is all washed off. You're blending the soup, so as long as all the bits are roughly similar sizes it doesn't matter if they are a bit bulky.
In a large pan, melt the butter, or heat the oil, and when it is hot, add the chopped veg. While that is cooking- keep an eye, stir occasionally, the veg should start to turn brownish- top and tail the beetroot, and peel it. This may turn your hands a weird brown colour, but it will only last an evening. Add the beetroot to the veg in the pan. Stir. The veg should be starting to soften. The onions will be translucent. Everything will be pink. Throw in a handful of flour. This will help thicken and sop up any spare butter/oil. Stir so everything is coated and it all likes like a nuclear accident. Dulux will be proud.
Add your stock and stir. Do not panic if it has caught on the bottom. Just stir it. Any catches will add to the depth of colour and taste.
Peel the potatoes, chop them and throw them in to the pot after the soup has boiled. It should have deepened in colour.
Taste it. It will be stocky, and quite light. Don't change it yet. This is no where near the finished thing.Turn the heat to a good rolling boil. Cook for a good half hour- longer if you want.If it starts to reduce too quickly add more water- no more stock- and turn the heat down a little. Taste it.
If the beetroot is cooked, test with a fork, then blitz it with the blender. Taste it again.
This is where you need to think. Add a bit of salt. Taste it again. Just a touch of salt will make an amazing difference, add black pepper, then sieve a little bit and taste that. Sieving will lighten, sometimes intensify and sometimes loose the flavours. Try it. If it's too thick add cream, or milk to thin it- back to nuclear soup, if it is too thin, put it back on the boil, mix 2oz flour with 2oz butter and whisk it into the soup. Whisk until your wrist hurts and all the lumps have gone. Boil and it will be shiny and thick.
That's soup. Easy isn't it? With the veg you can add garlic, caraway seeds, cumin seeds or even orange peel, add the juice with the stock. Play with the tastes. You'll learn the different tastes, before and after salt, before and after sieving.
Most of our soups start the same as this, and then we just play with the main ingredients.
Hope you have a lovely time making this- any problems give me a shout.
OK, firstly you need to know that soup is easy- no measurements we really need to worry about, you can taste it all the way through and it is actually healthy and tastes good.
Apart from a pan and a knife you will need a food processor or blender. We use a stick blender- they would be available from John Lewis, Lakeland Plastics etc. You may also need a sieve.
Ingredients. Approx
2 Carrots
2 Onions
3 sticks celery
1 leek
10 raw small beetroot 5 big beetroot
2 pints vegetable stock
2 potatoes
third of a block of butter or a couple of tablespoons of oil
big handful of flour.
Peel carrots, onions, and chop. Chop celery and leek- making sure dirt is all washed off. You're blending the soup, so as long as all the bits are roughly similar sizes it doesn't matter if they are a bit bulky.
In a large pan, melt the butter, or heat the oil, and when it is hot, add the chopped veg. While that is cooking- keep an eye, stir occasionally, the veg should start to turn brownish- top and tail the beetroot, and peel it. This may turn your hands a weird brown colour, but it will only last an evening. Add the beetroot to the veg in the pan. Stir. The veg should be starting to soften. The onions will be translucent. Everything will be pink. Throw in a handful of flour. This will help thicken and sop up any spare butter/oil. Stir so everything is coated and it all likes like a nuclear accident. Dulux will be proud.
Add your stock and stir. Do not panic if it has caught on the bottom. Just stir it. Any catches will add to the depth of colour and taste.
Peel the potatoes, chop them and throw them in to the pot after the soup has boiled. It should have deepened in colour.
Taste it. It will be stocky, and quite light. Don't change it yet. This is no where near the finished thing.Turn the heat to a good rolling boil. Cook for a good half hour- longer if you want.If it starts to reduce too quickly add more water- no more stock- and turn the heat down a little. Taste it.
If the beetroot is cooked, test with a fork, then blitz it with the blender. Taste it again.
This is where you need to think. Add a bit of salt. Taste it again. Just a touch of salt will make an amazing difference, add black pepper, then sieve a little bit and taste that. Sieving will lighten, sometimes intensify and sometimes loose the flavours. Try it. If it's too thick add cream, or milk to thin it- back to nuclear soup, if it is too thin, put it back on the boil, mix 2oz flour with 2oz butter and whisk it into the soup. Whisk until your wrist hurts and all the lumps have gone. Boil and it will be shiny and thick.
That's soup. Easy isn't it? With the veg you can add garlic, caraway seeds, cumin seeds or even orange peel, add the juice with the stock. Play with the tastes. You'll learn the different tastes, before and after salt, before and after sieving.
Most of our soups start the same as this, and then we just play with the main ingredients.
Hope you have a lovely time making this- any problems give me a shout.
Saturday 6 December 2008
Now we have a painted building, and negotiations are up and running to update the inside cafe and kitchen, Jodie and I have decided to write a blog to keep our customers informed and involved with the businness.
Our Christmas trees are up, carols and songs are playing and the mince pies are smelling delicious. Any orders for pork pies, mince pies and desserts for the Christmas period are being taken, and we are already being bombarded with trade calendars and diaries.
We are thinking of putting some recipe and menu ideas on this, if anyone has any suggestions for dishes or would like questions answered we shall do our best.
Our Christmas trees are up, carols and songs are playing and the mince pies are smelling delicious. Any orders for pork pies, mince pies and desserts for the Christmas period are being taken, and we are already being bombarded with trade calendars and diaries.
We are thinking of putting some recipe and menu ideas on this, if anyone has any suggestions for dishes or would like questions answered we shall do our best.
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