rose petal jam

red is the colour

Red cabbage is a favourite of ours. I cannot imagine Christmas dinner without it; it looks so beautiful on the plate and really takes the festive flavours such as cinnamon and cloves to its heart. Often I cook it in red wine, but I know lots of people (my mum included) aren’t keen on food cooked in wine, so it is just as lovely cooked in apple juice (the cloudy kind is more softly apple-ish I find, the clear is a bit sharp).

It’s hard to see how such few and humble ingredients can make something so delicious that Dominic reckons he could just eat it on it’s own, but it does.

Mulled Red Cabbage

Makes enough for 4

A medium sized red cabbage
Enough apple juice to almost cover – about 500ml should do
6 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon of muscavado sugar

Put everything into a large pan. Bring to the boil and simmer, uncovered for about 1-1/2 hours until the cabbage is tender and most of the liquid has reduced away. C’est tout! Amazingly easy. If you like, and can find them, pick out the cloves and cinnamon before eating. As this makes enough for four and there are just two of us, we freeze some...

it freezes really well and there is nothing nicer than knowing that there is a little batch of it, waiting in the freezer, maybe to be brought out on a chilly night to eat with fluffy mash and some roasted chicken or maybe a nice beef casserole…

the joys of garlic

My sisters lovely boyfriend/ partner (never sure what the current description is) has an allotment and is always popping round with stuff for us to eat. His lettuce is phenomenal, so thick and tasty and totally unlike that which you buy in the supermarkets and greengrocers. Anyhow, his latest offering was his first bulb of garlic of the season. We had never seen garlic with its whole stem – all 60cms or so of it, and the sight of the fat little bulb with its pretty purplish skin and white underneath makes a very pretty picture as you can see.

We decided straight away that we should honour it by making garlic bread with it, a big favourite with me and a fab accompaniment to the mussel dish described earlier.

Dom took charge of the making of the butter and having whizzed the garlic and the parsley in our wet and dry grinder, made an amazing, vibrant green butter to smear into the slices of the fine baguette we’d bought that morning. It looked almost unreal it was so green and again, makes a very pretty picture.

In hindsight we used too much butter (yes, it IS possible) but it was utterly delicious and lost none of it’s vibrancy in cooking. It went so well with the mussels, especially to help mop up all the lovely juices.

Green garlic bread

You will need:

A large handful of parsley, more than you think necessary
1/3 of a pack of butter
A whole head of garlic
A medium baguette (about 30cm long or so)
salt

Finely chop the parsley and the garlic, in a blender if possible to get really fine pulp/ paste.
Mash into the butter and season with salt.
Cut slits almost all the way down the bread, about 2cm apart. Smear the butter into the cracks making sure both sides of bread have some butter on.
Wrap tightly in foil and bake in the oven at about 200 degrees c for 10 mins.
Open the foil and bake open for another 5 mins.
Serve. With a napkin.
Don’t go out, breath on strangers or kiss anyone else who hasn’t eaten it with you.