rose petal jam

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside...

Today we went to Scarborough which brought back lots of happy memories as I had many a childhood holiday and day trip there. You can't beat a proper English seaside town and Scarborough is a very good example if one. It has a fab golden beached bay, complete with donkeys, a multitude of fish and chip shops, stalls selling candy floss, whelks, donuts and the like. There is a sort of faded grandeur to Scarborough with it's Grand Hotel (once the largest hotel in Europe and extremely glamorous and now a little bit run down) and spa complex, both slightly dilapidated but really charming. As we walked passed the spa complex an open air concert of old fashioned music was about to start and rows of oldies sat in deckchairs with hankies on their heads, like they had been there for thirty years.

Something else which hasn't changed is this icecream parlour where little me once ate a knickerbocker glory the size of her own head ;-)

Today I had a strawberry shake with a scoop of vanilla icecream floating in it - sat at the yellow Formica bar on a red leatherette stool with the painted mirrors and menu boards to gaze at. This isn't a clever attempt at retro chic, it has just always looked like this to the point where you expect the Fonz to show up any minute or at least a Yorkshire version of him!

The icecreams, shakes and sundaes are all served in lovely pressed glass dishes and glasses and with long spoons to scoop, lick and lick some more.

And yes, I had fish and chips too, in the open air, overlooking the beach and the children riding donkeys.

A little something

My mum's friend Caroline is often in need of a 'little something'. By this she generally means a sweet snack, in the morning or afternoon. I thought of her today as I peered into the window of a very nice cake and bread shop in Helmsley called Cinnamon Twist. As well as some rather delicious looking raspberry and white chocolate buns there were these 'little somethings' - or rather 'big somethings' because did you ever see such whopping great meringues as these?!

We bought two from the nice woman who made them and I think we will have them tomorrow, maybe with soft fruits or maybe with chestnut purée and toasted hazlenuts - ooh now the latter sounds nice!

We also went to Rievaulx Abbey today which was lovely and we're going back on Saturday as we discovered that you can do Tai Chi in the morning followed by having a foot or hand massage - such a beautiful setting and serene start to a Saturday, plus it's totally free for English Heritage members.

Just follow your nose;-)

Fortunes kippers are literally world famous and all Fortunes kippers come from one little shed on Henrietta Street in Whitby. To find it, go to the foot of the 199 steps up to the Abbey and St Mary's church and then follow your nose! The rich, smokey aroma will lead you here.

Isn't it lovely? I wish this blog had a smell function so I could share it with you, that tarry, fishy smell...

As well as kippers they smoke other things including bacon which we bought for our breakfast tomorrow.

Some might say that whoever owns Fortunes is missing a huge financial trick to sell only from here, to not get involved with wholesale, franchising and merchandising. My marketeers brain whirrs with the ideas and possibilities of it.

But maybe the fact that you can only get Fortune's smoked goods by going to Whitby to their little shed during the few hours a day they are open is a good thing and part of their charm. But surely an e-commerce website wouldn't hurt? Yes it would? Oh ok then. Good job we find ourselves in Whitby often then. Roll on breakfast time.

Birthday cake at Becketts

Well here we are in Whitby! Today is Dominic's birthday and as part of the celebrations I sent a sneaky email to Julie at Becketts to request a cake with a crumble top for the birthday boy. The really nice thing about Becketts is that you can make this sort of request and it is done with pleasure and no fuss because, as the Americans would say, they are a very customer focused establishment, run by exceptionally nice people like Julie and Brodie. Much as I like a Starbucks you just don't get the sort of welcome and attention in that sort of place that you get at Becketts. Here you can drink tea, eat truly gorgeous and original cakes, read the paper, flick through the books and watch the world go by, all to a brilliant soundtrack of eclectic music. What could be nicerer?

So here is the cake, presented with candles and everything!

How cool is that!

As you can see from these pictures Becketts is a perfect cosy cafe with lovely handwritten boards, gorgeous homemade cakes ( the rhubarb and custard cake is amazing, as is the raspberry and white chocolate one) and they also sell secondhand books, many of which are books I have been meaning to read. They are dog friendly and they sell fairtrade tea and coffee and use free range eggs and local butter to make their cakes. It's all just perfect!

If ever you are Whitby way, you can find them on Skinner Street.

Thanks guys for your contribution to Dom's special day.

Techno wheeze

I am really excited as I am blogging from my iPhone for the first time! Let's see how this works! By the way the photo was taken at our cottage and is of course a lamb shank ;-)

New technology! Hurrah!

Food heroes - Oswestry Food Festival!

Well, we have had Rick Stein banging on about food heroes for ages now, but for what it's worth a food hero of mine is a chap called John Waine (I know, great name huh?)

John, along with some likeminded folk in Oswestry, have started up a food festival in their little town. It's now in it's second year and is on this weekend. The BBC are predicting light rain. I however am being more optimistic and predicting sun, a record turnout and all sorts of foodie wonders and shennanigans.

If you are anywhere near Oswestry them why not pop along? The rest of us will just have to content ourselves with the website http://www.oswestryfoodfestival.co.uk/

John is a true food hero because instead of just saying "wouldn't it be great if..". he got off his arse and did it. That's what it's all about. John is also a great life coach so if anyone reading this would like to get off their arse, John's the man. http://www.johnthecoach.co.uk/

Hat's off to you John, may the sun shine, the rain, rain go away and may your early morning bacon butty be glorious! 

For Sunila

I call this dish Sarah’s Sunny Squash because of the vibrant, sunny look it has and the fact that it always cheers me up. Something else which is sunny and always cheers me up is Sunila. But alas, Suni is in Sri Lanka for the foreseeable, which is quite a long way to go for dinner as you will appreciate. Which is a shame as the meals we have cooked for each other and shared are memorable. I remember a particularly lovely lunch she made me for my birthday whilst she was recovering from Chicken Pox – a velvety, rich soup made with this very squash and a wonderful salad with beetroot and pine nuts. And a tray full of candles to make like a birthday cake, along with a bar of green and blacks chocolate. 

One of the nice things about my friendship with Sunila is that we didn’t meet until well into adulthood – I was 30 and newly married and somehow you feel you get to a stage where you have collected all your friends and everyone else after that is an aquaintance or a nice person to work with. Looking around at those that I know, finding true, kindred spirit type friends in adulthood is fairly unusual. So when she turned up to work at Live Theatre in 2004 she was like a little surprise! When we worked together she often used to enter the building through the window of my office and pause to chat on the window seat before she went off to her office for the morning. I have a very fixed memory of her sat there, sun shining from behind, with a big grin on her pretty face and some sort of naughtiness or mischief in her eyes. Anyone reading this who know her will know that look well :-)

Sunila and I have spent many afternoons, evenings, morning and everything in between happily discussing, agreeing and disagreeing about all matters food. (NB we do talk about other things too, boys, port, art). We are both greedy, adventurous and realise that food really is the stuff of life and no matter what is happening to either of us, we always have food to think about and eat. So nothing is really that bad :-)

I miss you Sunila, this is for you.

Serves 4

2 small red onions, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

a teaspoon of chilli flakes (or less if you are a bit fragile)

a tablespoon or so of olive oil

a large butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and chopped into mouth sized chunks

some vegetable or chicken stock

a few dollops of crème fraiche

2 handfuls of coriander leaves, roughly chopped

naan breads or brown rice to serve

 

gently fry the onion in the oil until its soft and translucent. Add the garlic and chilli flakes and stir in for a min or so. Then add the squash, slightly increase the heat and cook the squash until there are some slightly brownish bits and the outer squash has softened a bit. Then, add just enough stock to almost cover the squash and onion. Cook on a low heat until the stock has reduced and the squash is tender. Add the crème fraiche and stir in along with the coriander. Serve with the bread or rice. So simple but so nice.

The crusade continues...

I know I haven't blogged for a while, but my efforts to stop wasting food continue!

It's been really interesting. The amount of food that we throw out has decreased dramatically. hardly anything is wasted anymore which is great and our shopping bills are much lower too. I think I have been more creative and haven't felt hard done by as I thought that I might without being able to pop out and buy new ingredients on a whim.

Things I have learned are:

1. planning is essential. You need to look at a whole week of meals, or at least a few days, then plan them to make sure that ingredients are duplicated but not meals. I find because I am cooking for two in the main, often you can't buy small amounts of stuff for just one meal, especially in supermarkets so you need to find two meals which use some of the same things but which taste different.

2. Because of this you have to be MORE not less creative. believe me, using a whole savoy cabbage between two people before it goes off and without boring yourself silly is tricky! But I have managed to make it into; a pasta sauce, a soup, a baked dish, a coleslaw type salad.

3. Keep more things in the fridge. Fruits in particular last a lot longer in the fridge (not bananas though, they go weird and black!). Also, if you have soft herbs and you wash and dry them and put them in zip lock plastic bags and get as much air out as possible, they last for ages. Same goes for salad leaves and things like chard and spinach.

4. always always look in your cupboards before shopping. When I did my inventory at the beginning of the experiment I had 5 bags of self raising flour. Presumably because each time I shopped I thought I needed it and bought more. My inner bakers was obviously on overdrive!

5. Following on from that, keep cupboards relatively tidy. You can't tell if you have 5 bags of self raising flour if your dry goods cupboard looks like Armageddon!

6. If you have a random ingredient left over from another meal and don't know what to do with it, go to this website You can enter up to three ingredients you may have to use up and it will spit out recipes for you to try! But BEWARE that you don't pick one that needs you to buy loads of other ingredients - therein madness lies!

7. If you are more budget minded, you naturally lean towards seasonal stuff, which is better for the environment. The more creative you get with something as humble as say swede, the less inclined you feel to buy something more exciting looking that has been flown in from Kenya or somewhere even more far flung.

8. The bin doesn't get as full! For those who get rubbish collections fortnightly rather than weekly, this is a huge bonus as your bin isn't overflowing come bin day. Also, the kitchen bin needs taking out less often which I don't know anyone who enjoys it, so that can only be a good thing!

9. It helps you lose weight! I am much more portion aware now as don't want to have lots of left overs that I struggle to do something with. In doing so and cooking less you end up eating less as there are no 'second helpings' of anything!

10. Having a good store cupboard really helps. If you have lots of basics like different flours, dried whole and ground spices, dried herbs, lentils, pulses, noodles, stock, sauces and flavourings like worcester sauce, tabasco etc, you can make something out of anything! So by always having a good stock of essentials like garlic, olive oil, anchovies packed in oil etc etc you can make a meal from little bits of this and that and it's will always be delicious and well balanced.

So that has been my adventure in reducing waste. I am going to continue, it's not an experiment, it's now a new way of life/ cooking for me. There is still a bit of me that yearns for reckless and wanton purchasing of stuff but having a hard look at the money, time and frankly the world's resources that I was wasting has made me realise that it's no way to run your kitchen.

There is more than enough food in this world for everyone, but we in the west and increasingly in the far east are wasting vast quantities of food and it's just not right. As the world's population grows, food will be scarcer and we are already seeing the impact in predicted wheat and milk shortages.

If we really are throwing away 1/3 of what we buy in this country alone as recent reports in the media suggest, imaging how much food globally is going from field, to shop, to home, to bin without ever being consumed. It's a really sobering thought.

a forgotten treasure

I was going through my food photography archive and found this image, taken long before I started my food blog but in a time when I loved recording the food that I made, just to remember it. (Don't know if I have ever admitted this but I take hardly any of the photos on this blog, they are taken by Dom. He is the artist in the family).

This picture was taken on my birthday weekend, almost 3 years ago. Dom and I were staying in a lovely apartment, set in the eaves of the old coast guard station at Robin Hood's Bay. This was way before we had a cottage of our own. I have always been drawn to this part of the coast, so many childhood memories and I still feel incredibly lucky that we now own our own little piece of north yorkshire heaven there (albeit without a sea view!)

One of the reasons that I love places like RHB, Staithes and Whitby is the whole smugglers thing. Ever since I was small, and reading famous fives avidly, I have been fascinated by smugglers. The whole of this area was riddled with them apparently in the 18th & 19th centuries and the best RHB smuggling fact is that the cottages, which are all higgeldy piggeldy and crowded on top of each other, have secret passage ways and links between them, so much so that a roll of silk could make it's way from the bottom of the village, all the way up the hill, without seeing daylight. Yorkshire had the BEST smugglers. Official.

Oh and the curd? I seem to remember that I used a Nigella recipe, but substituted seville oranges for the usual lemons. It was gorgeous, fruity, rich and resonant, sharp, but sweet.

Perfect to have on toast, with a sea view and the sound of the gulls all around. Just look at that view...

Tricked!

After our trip to the oriental supermarket I had in mind to use up some of the things I bought for last night's dinner in a different way.

I decided to make a thai chicken noodle broth. I had some organic chicken drumsticks in the freezer which needed eating up and I thought poaching them and shredding them in soup would be great and also I could use up some more of the greens we bought to go with last night's dinner and a piece of ginger that was starting to look a little fatigued. My recent store cupboard clear out had revealed thai fish sauce and minced lemon grass in a squeezy tube so it was all there to be used.

I was so bewitched by the chillis we bought. They are so beautiful as you can see and I was marvelling at their perfection - each one seemed like a supermodel of a chilli, slim, perfectly shaped, glossy.

But these little red bullets were tricksy! Now, I always taste a little bit of any fresh chilli I buy to gauge the heat as it varies so much even if you are buying the same kind from the same supplier. Nervously, as these are small and thai, I placed a little bit on my tongue and waited for the tingle. It did tingle, but not vastly so I put four of the little monkeys into the wet and dry grinder, along with the fresh ginger and the garlic.

Later on as the chicken was simmering away in it's fragrant broth, I finely sliced more chillis, about four I think, along with the holy basil, coriander and the spring onions.

When the time came, I took the chopping board over to the pan and scrapped the chillis and the onions into the broth. A small sliver of red chilli remained behind so I popped it into my mouth. Oh my.

The chilli was a real scorcher. Now, I am quite accustomed to chilli, you can't live with dear Dom for 10 years and not be - he's a really chilli addict and they, and various chilli sauces find their way into many dishes in this house. Including things where they really SHOULDN'T be but don't get me started on that. But this one was... well, shall we say beyond uncomfortable? And I had put about eight of them into my soup! The milder one I tasted initially was laughing at me from the broth along with it's seven sizzling sisters!

Well I thought, at least Dom will be happy!

I continued to make the soup and called the boy through for lunch, steeling myself and my taste buds for the assault to come.

Even he admitted it was VERY hot soup and we both had to blow our noses several times whilst eating it. But it was so hot it was funny and actually despite that was really delicious. We sort of smiled and laughed and slurped and gasped our way through it. My eyes even watered at one point and Dom had a few coughs as it hit the back of his throat, over and over again!

I won't give the recipe dear reader for fear of doing you an injury. But if any hardened chilli fans wants to leave me a post and request I will email you the details.

And joy of joys, there is more left over to have for tomorrow's lunch at work. I must remember to take some tissues...