Recipe corner: Saag paneer (spinach and paneer curry)

Of all the British Indian Restaurant curries, saag paneer is one of my all time favourites and I think that I’ve finally come up with a home version that is good as any I’ve eaten out. I’d be the first person to say that I am not versed in authentic Indian home cooking. My recipe, detailed below, is a mash up of several others that I have collected like a spice loving magpie. In fusing these dishes together, I’ve probably created something as inauthentic as you like but, my view with cooking is that the most important question is always: “Does it taste good?” as opposed to: “Is this how my grandmother’s grandmother made it?”

NB: Since both of my grandmothers’ grandmothers were probably Irish peasants, I can’t imagine that they were concerned with much more than boiling up enough potatoes to keep their families fuelled.

Right - let’s talk the recipe. It may seem like something of a faff to cook, and spice, spinach and paneer separately and, if so, make the spinach as written and then just bung the cubed paneer cheese in at the end and stir well. You don’t even need to fry the cheese really, I just like the little additional texture that it gives.

Also, as with all curries, this one will benefit from sitting around in the fridge for a couple of days while all the flavours get to know each other. What I would suggest is, making the spinach in advance then spicing and frying the paneer fairly last minute to really maximise that lovely textural contrast mentioned above.

Some more top notch food photography for you...

Ingredients

For the spinach:

2 tsp rapeseed oil
Tsp dried fenugreek seeds
Medium onion, finely chopped

Generous tbsp of tomato purée, mixed with 120ml boiling water

2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Fresh ginger (equivalent weight to the garlic cloves), grated
0.5 tsp chilli powder
Heaped tsp cumin
Heaped tsp ground coriander
0.5 tsp turmeric
Heaped tsp garam masala
Generous pinch of salt

225g frozen spinach (around 6 “pucks”)

For the paneer:

120g paneer cheese, cut into small cubes
Tsp rapeseed oil
0.5 tsp each of: ground coriander, cumin and paprika
0.25 tsp turmeric
Generous pinch of salt

Serves 2

Start with the spinach. Heat the oil, gently, in a large pan and add the fenugreek seeds. As they start to brown off and smell a little toasty, add the onions and fry until they are softened but not brown.

Next, in goes the diluted tomato purée and the rest of the spices. Mix well. Keep the heat nice and low and simmer everything together for about 5 minutes.

At this point you can add the spinach. Again, mix well and stir gently to allow it to melt and combine with the ingredients. Turn the heat down low, low, low, cover the pan and cook for 15-20 mins. You will need to check and stir frequently. If it is drying out, add a splash of water.

Place the paneer cubes into a large bowl, drizzle over the oil and sprinkle over the spices. Toss to combine.

To finish the curry: heat a dry frying pan over a gentle flame, add the cubes of paneer and cook, regularly shaking and turning, until start to go crisp and golden on all sides. Stir through the spinach before serving. The whole thing can be done in advance, paneer and all, but for maximum flavour and texture, make the spinach slightly in advance and stir the paneer through at the last minute.

Recent eats - the at home edition.

The days fly by so quickly that, on the few occasions when I have sat down to write this post, I have ended up spending a good five minutes staring at a blank screen while attempting to remember what on Earth I have actually cooked recently. I mean, I do cook - most days. And it usually tastes pretty good. But I have an appalling memory, especially when it comes to blogging. I’ve resorted to going back through my photos as a reminder which means that this post ends up being a summary of the dishes that I have photographed recently rather than particular favourites, but there. I suppose that if I was moved to photograph it, I probably liked it.

Actually, I’m going to start by talking about something fantastically delicious for which I do not have a picture. I mean, I do have a picture but it is so spectacularly bad, even for me, that I’m not prepared to use it. And that is D’s Merguez burgers. When he made his last batch of Merguez sausages he reserved some of the meat to make into patties. We fried these and then loaded them into a brioche bun with houmous, slices of roasted red pepper and a minted yoghurt and feta whip. What a combo. What a burger. Why am I writing this post while hungry?

For something a bit more refined, I commend to your attention Nathan Outlaw’s pan fried fish with spring vegetable nage. Such a versatile dish. Such an understated pleasure to eat. I’m having a bit of a moment with hake recently, so that is what we chose to serve here and just behold that wonderful, salty, crispy skin - a perfect foil to the silken creaminess of the nage underneath.

And another lovely seafood dish: the always wonderful Diana Henry’s crab, tomato and saffron tart. I used the recipe in her latest book, but this online version looks much the same. Now I, personally, often find crab a bit cloying, but the layer of almost jammy tomatoes cuts through that richness and provides a welcome contrast. Unfortunately, my pastry skills remain poor and I struggled with the shortness of the dough here; I ended up smushing it into the tin like Play-Doh rather than rolling it out. Still good though, and it did us two suppers and one packed lunch accompanied by a variety of salady bits and pieces.

Finally, not so much a dish but another very welcome addition to the fridge: I’ve been strewing these pickled chillies over a lot of things recently and they’re a lovely way to add tiny pops of both acidity and chilli heat to all sorts of dishes. Along with my continuing sriracha obsession, and the fact that I manage to find a way to incorporate D’s green chilli and coriander salsa into practically everything I eat, I’m becoming quite the chilli fiend!

Rusty Shears, Whitby (my new happy place)

We took ourselves off to Whitby for a couple of days this last weekend. We booked it months ago to mark the date on which we first met (fourteen!!! years ago) but we never need very much excuse to travel across. It's the perfect place to relax, take deep breaths of chip-scented sea air and be a wee bit indulgent.

And if it is indulgence that you are after, alongside a side of whimsy and a good, stiff gin then look no further than Rusty Shears - a tea shop come House of Gin. Was there ever a more appealing combination?

It doesn't open in the evening, but the sign reassures customers that gin is served from 11am, and there is nothing guaranteed to make one feel more hedonistic than ordering gin and tonic with lunch (we waited till one o clock because spirits before noon does feel wrong). There is an absolutely massive selection - we managed to try five different ones across the course of two visits and still had barely scratched the menu's surface. Amongst them - a local gin brewed in someone's garage just up the road and a Scottish gin with a mere two botanicals (juniper and rosehip should you be interested). It was total ginvana.

But obviously sustenance is needed alongside and the menu of sandwiches, light bites and the most delicious homemade cake hit the spot perfectly. I jumped at the chance to order a Reuben on rye, a great personal favourite, and D opted for wild mushrooms on toast. Then we committed the grave error of treating ourselves to a piece of cake apiece. I say error; the cake was fantastic, sublime. My Guinness cake with a thick layer of lighter-than-air-and-sweeter-than-a-kitten's-purr frosting was perfect. D's maple pecan cheesecake was a delight. But all that sugar occasioned, unsurprisingly, quite the slump and we ended up staggering back to our room for a much needed post-cake nap. Still, that's what holidays are for, no?

There was nothing that I did not like about this place from the eccentrically nostalgic decor (Miss Marple after she'd hit the gin selection) to the enthusiastic and charming staff. Oh, actually. I'm sad about the fact that it isn't open in the evenings - we could absolutely have whiled away an entire evening and an awful lot of money there - and that it is in Whitby rather than Leeds. But perhaps, given how much I both gin and cake, it is all for the best.

Easter Sunday lunch

Although Christmas Day is generally the time where we push the boat out with regards lunch, we decided to put a little bit of time, trouble and thought into our Easter repast this year.  And, might I say, the results were very pleasing.

We wanted our starter to be nice and simple and, as luck would have it, we still had a packet of Tobermory smoked salmon in the freezer so elected to have that alongside some homemade bread.  It turned out, when said packet was retrieved, that the smoked salmon was actually smoked trout but we enjoyed it just the same.  It needed nothing more than a scrunch of black pepper and a few drops of lemon juice to make it perfect.  As for the bread, my love affair with Dan Lepard's sour cream loaf continues.  Such a good bread.  We ate the last of it yesterday (Thursday), lightly toasted, and it was still very delicious indeed.

For our main course, we wanted to try and recapture the glorious duck dish that we ate at Joro earlier this year.  The duck was brined for 48 hours and then served with a coriander and peanut pesto and a katsu sauce.  To make it more substantial than the original, we added a side of rice through which we stirred D's coriander and green chilli chutney.  This was utterly sublime, and I intend to blog the full recipe very soon so that I don't manage to forget exactly what we did.  If you happen to come to our house for dinner in the course of the next year, it is quite likely that this is what you will be served.

D gave up sweet stuff for Lent, bless his heart.  For six weeks he eschewed puddings, sweets, chocolate, biscuits and cake like a little trooper.  So I let him choose what he wanted for dessert on Easter Sunday, and his request was for a no-bake lemon cheesecake.  When I came to research this, I found that the majority of lemon cheesecake recipes were, in fact, baked.  But I came across this one by Mary Berry which seemed to fit the bill nicely.  It may seem a cheat to use lemon curd as a flavouring but the results were delicious and it was incredibly easy to do.  Instead of making one large cake, which served eight, I opted to half the recipe and make four cheesecake pots which makes life an awful lot easier in terms of serving.  My only criticism was that, for me, the ratio of base to topping was slightly off - the biscuit at the bottom is always my favourite part of a cheesecake.  So, if I make this again, I'd probably up the amount of crumb in the bottom of the pots by half.  Bear in mind though that I am greedy. 

We finished with cheese from The Cheeseboard in Harrogate.  If you ever happen to find yourself in Harrogate, and if you are a lover of cheese, then you must make them a visit.  The selection is amazing and they do nice bread and chutneys too (although obviously my bread is better!)

There may not have been a roast lamb in sight (I will remedy that shortly - one should never have to wait too long for a roast lamb dinner) but a very pleasing meal all the same and it was nice to mark the most important celebration in the liturgical year for all that I would no longer consider myself a practicing Catholic.  I hope that everyone out there on T'Internet, particularly those of the Christian persuasion, had a very happy and holy Easter.  The next stop is surely Spring!

Recipe corner: D's green chilli and coriander salsa / chutney / sauce / thing

Hey! Long time no blog! I'd love to say it's because I've been out and about having adventures but other than going to work and getting ahead on my Goodreads challenge, I have accomplished very little.

I've been cooking - it's not that there has been nothing to say. We had a week of vegetarian meals, for example, which was great. I loved trying out some new recipes which included finally making Marcella Hazan's tomato butter sauce which I thought was DREAMY. And the kale salad that I served on the side was also a surprise hit.

We've also both developed something of an unholy passion for sriracha and are busily drizzling it on everything. Top tip - combine it with mayonnaise, Greek yoghurt, dill and a squoosh of lemon juice for the most fabulous burger sauce.

But today we're talking about another condiment which has taken up permanent residence in our fridge. This stuff is so good - stir it through rice, splodge it on cheese on toast or just eat it with a spoon, it's addictive. D just made his latest batch today and I got him to weigh out everything so that I could report it EXACTLY but, of course, as with any sauce of this type, you can tweak to your own individual tastes.

This keeps in the fridge for weeks. We run through it pretty quickly though.

Ingredients

150g green chillies
150g fresh coriander - stalks and all
25g shallot
25g garlic
90g vegetable oil
30g white wine vinegar
15g lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Whizz all the ingredients up together and season well. The end.

Dan Lepard's sour cream sandwich bread

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, since I believe most tinternetters with an interest in bread baking discovered (and raved about) this recipe ages ago. But I've never been ahead of the zeitgeist; I work on the basis that if I'm slow enough, by the time I discover things they might be just coming back into fashion.

I'm not going to reproduce the recipe here because, y'know, copyright. If you own Mr Lepard's much lauded baking book, "Short and Sweet", it's in there and, luckily enough if you don't, it is also available on The Guardian website: here. It's featured in a list of his top ten bread recipes, all of which I want to make.

It's well worth having a go at this recipe just out of curiosity - I find it fascinating that the technique of very short, sharp kneads can produce such a beautiful texture when it is so different to the traditional method. The result is a loaf with a soft crust, and a light, fluffy crumb.

I decided to opt for mini loaves to make use of the gorgeous little tins that I was gifted earlier this year. Aren't they sweet? A half batch of the mixture made eight perfectly little dinky ones which required just 12-15 minutes baking. Here are six of them, fresh from the oven:

One of their fellows having already been ripped open and slathered with butter. Behold that gorgeous, pillowy interior:

Highly recommended!

A breakfast for on the go, and a TV dinner

I can't believe that we're coming up to the halfway point of 2017 already.  That can't possibly be right.

Lesley (hello, Lesley!) has recently started 5:2ing and asked me how it was going - so now, six months in, seems like a good point to assess progress so far and make some general comments on the diet (which will probably be exactly the same comments that I make every time that I do a progress report but they are good comments and bear repeating).  I will post that shortly.

Also, I have a couple of fantastic little things-to-do-with-broad-beans that I must share with you.  If you have an allotment (or, indeed, a garden) you may well be overrun with them at the moment and searching for new ideas.  Another, somewhat annoying, watch this space.

In the meantime, I just wanted to bookmark a couple of recipes for posterity and commend them to your attention.

These breakfast bars, a Nigella recipe via a lovely blog, are a cinch to make and a fantastic way of using up all those odd bags of dried fruit and nuts and seeds of which I seem to have a cupboard full.  They're healthy-ish: lots of good stuff in there but certainly not a low calorie or sugar option.  They last exceptionally well (over a week in an airtight container and still fine) and are perfect for breakfast on the go.  Which, in our house means breakfast at your desk when you've reluctantly hauled yourself out of bed in time to get to the office for seven.

And this garlic butter prawn linguine dish, we made on a Saturday night after a bottle of wine and an emotional rollercoaster of a Dr Who episode.  It is extraordinarily simple and low effort but delivers on indulgence and flavour.  Just the kind of thing that you want to cook and eat on a Saturday night after a bottle of wine and an emotional rollercoaster of a Dr Who episode.  One that I will be retaining up my sleeve for future use.

Back soon!

And breathe...

I couldn't bear to have that last post up at the top of the feed anymore, so, here. We haven't had an obligatory cute cat picture in a while.

As guard cats go, she's not the greatest. But did you ever see a more beautiful feline?*

* I may be biased.

Recipe corner: Tomato and ricotta "baked ziti"

I adore pasta bake in all its forms. It’s not pretty food and it certainly doesn’t tend to be sophisticated but, oh! A big pile of gooey, cheesy pasta will always make my greedy little heart beat slightly faster. As a child, admittedly before my taste buds developed a modicum of sophistication, tuna pasta bake would often be my choice for a birthday supper. Yes, it sits leaden in the stomach. Yes, the majority of Italians would turn their noses up. Yes, by the time that you’ve strewn enough cheese it becomes ridiculously high in calories and saturated fat (add a side salad if it makes you feel better). I don’t care.

The dish that I cooked last night, a layered tomato and ricotta pasta bake, was a vague attempt to re-create a baked ziti that I used to eat at the restaurant chain Sbarro. Sadly, it no longer has a UK presence so I cannot go back to check how close I got – however, it chimed pretty closely with the memory and I adored it. D felt it lacked a little oomph – perhaps some chorizo or bacon or chilli in the tomato sauce would remedy this – to me, was perfect as it was, and incredible comfort food.

In terms of technique, I aped pretty closely the Pioneer Woman’s baked ziti, figuring that an American dish required an American home cook’s wisdom. Her recipe is here – as you see, she favours a meat sauce, but mine is strictly vegetarian. That is not to say that it is particularly healthy; yes, there is a lot of cheese in there. Comfort yourself that the tomato sauce will pack in a couple of your five a day and contains relatively little fat.

Cooks’s notes: I didn’t have a stick of celery so substituted it for a second grated carrot, but you’re ideally aiming for a classic soffrito here. I keep a stash of Parmesan rinds in my freezer to whack into soups and sauces and they do add tremendous flavour but, if you’re not weird like me, just make sure you add stock rather than water to the tomato sauce. For the mozzarella, go for the slightly firmer kind that comes in a square block rather than a ball – it’s better for cooking.

Ingredients

Tomato sauce:

Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 stick of celery, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Generous sprig of oregano (or a heaped tsp of the dried variety)
50ml red wine
200g tin of chopped tomatoes
Tbsp tomato puree
Tsp sugar
Parmesan rind


Cheese sauce:

200g ricotta cheese
50g Parmesan cheese, finely grated
75g mozzarella cheese, grated
Egg
Scant pinch of ground nutmeg
Tbsp lemon juice


180g dried penne pasta
100g mozzarella cheese


Serves 2 – 4 depending on the depths of your hunger / greed


Make the tomato sauce. Heat the olive oil and sweat off the onion and the celery with a decent pinch of salt. When beginning to soften, add the carrot, garlic and oregano and sweat a bit longer until you have a colourful mulch of vegetables.

Tip in the red wine and allow it to bubble down to almost nothing. Then add the tomatoes, the puree and the sugar and stir well. Fill the tomato tin with water and add that too, along with the Parmesan rind. Season, bring to a vigorous boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer and reduce by about a third. When it is done, allow to cool slightly before blitzing to a rough puree in the food processor.

Combine all the ingredients for the cheese sauce in a nice, large bowl and season well. Plenty of black pepper is called for here.

Cook the pasta for a couple of minutes less than it suggests on the packet – you want it to be a little too al dente so that it retains texture on baking. Once cooked, stir into the cheese sauce, along with a generous spoonful of the tomato sauce. You should have a nice, loose texture but, if not, a little splash of the pasta water will help it along.

Layer up the bake – half the pasta, half the remaining tomato sauce, half of the mozzarella cheese then repeat. Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 40 minutes, removing the foil for the last 15 to get some colour on the top.

The inhumanity!

It is ten o clock on Wednesday morning.  The second fast day of the week is a few hours down.  Already, our fearless heroine is having to steel herself, screw her courage to the sticking place and generally just work hard to not have an almighty tantrum right in the middle of the office.

Yep, this is the same fearless heroine who quite frequently doesn't bother to eat breakfast on the days on which she goes to work.  So how, exactly, is today different?

I guess that we will file it under "The mind is a strange and wonderful thing".  And we will also do our best to remember that it will get easier again and, also, that a nice result on the scales will make all of this seem worthwhile.

I have moved my "official" (to no one but me) weigh in day to a Friday so that it falls after the two fast days and before the weekend bean-fest.  While logically I know that there is no real difference, again it comes down to mind games.  My lowest weekly weight tends to fall on a Friday so why not have that number as the one that I capture for posterity?  It also means that, should the second weekly fast fall on a Wednesday rather than a Thursday (as often happens) I might be less inclined to go off the rails and declare Thursday night the unofficial start to the weekend.  Might being the operative word.

And, in other news, I popped into M&S this morning to pick up my prawn layer salad (note to self: START MAKING YOUR OWN PACKED LUNCH YOU LAZY MARE) and came away with this instead:

Now we can all be a bit sniffy about supermarket sushi - it is not the real thing by any stretch of the imagination but I quite enjoy it on its own merits and it is perfect for fasting - plenty of textural variation and good, strong flavours make it seem more substantial than its calorie count (193!) would suggest.  I'm looking forward to lunchtime with the kind of fervour that is usually the prerogative of teenage girls waiting the new Harry Styles album.

5:2 hero products

So far this year I have managed to finish each calendar month lighter than I started. Admittedly, in February the difference was less than a pound (whoops!) but the point still (just about) stands.  5:2 works.

While there's no denying that fast days themselves are rubbish, I have found one of the keys to getting through them so far is sticking to a fairly limited routine of foodstuffs. Variety and experimentation are for the rest of the week.

Picture taken from thelaughingcow.co.uk

I have always had a sneaky fondness for plastic cheese triangles and find these great for fast days. They're only 25 calories each but the texture and mouth-feel definitely make them seem more indulgent.  The cheese flavour is not pronounced but it is definitely there. They can be eaten alone in a pinch, but if I have calories to spare, I like them on an oatcake or similarly low calorie cracker for a bit of crunch.

Picture taken from wikipedia.org

It goes without saying that fruit and veg are low in calories and high in bulk but it's these little beauties I find myself reaching for the most. Essential fast day fodder. Chop 'em and sprinkle with salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar.

OBVIOUSLY in an ideal world I would make a proper packed lunch every single day but, while I'm better about this than I used to be, I'm still capable of being ridiculously lazy. When I need to buy lunch on the go, this salad is what I reach for. It's a smidge over 200 calories but the Marie Rose sauce is pleasingly rich for such a meagre amount. I also like the fact that, although it is primarily veg, it contains a layer of pasta which (for me, a carb monster) gives it an additional satisfaction factor.

Picture taken from waitrose.com

Popcorn is a staple in our house at the moment. One of the things I miss when I'm fasting is the act of eating itself - actually chewing. Popcorn helps with this because you can have a decent portion for not very many calories and it takes a while to chomp through. And it's scrummy and feels like a treat (cinema / going out associations assist with this).
Have I missed anything blindingly obvious? Is there a product out there that will help make fast days more bearable? If there are any 5:2-ers out there who have other hero products to share then please...well, share

Foodie at home: the best of 2015

Being a terribly sad spreadsheet obsessive, I keep a record during the year of our evening meals. Not all of them, just the ones that we would be happy to repeat.  I also note how many times that particular dish is cooked so that I can measure the popularity.  I've been doing this on and off since midway through 2012.  I probably need to get out more.

Anyway, it does mean that come the end of the year I am well equipped to reflect upon what we have been cooking (and eating).  Which is lucky for the purposes of this post.

As ever, our most consumed dish is the ubiquitous pan fried salmon fillet with pasta pesto.  which we have had seven times this year.  I don't know what it is about this particular combination of flavours that we love so much but it is a household staple.  The pesto is out of a jar, making this incredibly quick and simple to throw together.  Often, we stir ribbons of courgette and a handful of peas through the pasta for added green.  I don't think that I will ever get tired of eating this.

We try and have a roast dinner at least every other Sunday, and 2015 was the year of the roast lemongrass and turmeric chicken from Diana Henry's stunning "A Bird in Hand".  This recipe is all kinds of tasty.  And, as an accompanying side dish, my coronation rice salad works perfectly.  I'm so proud of that recipe - it definitely surpasses the original supermarket version that inspired it in the first place.

Continuing on a theme of spice, 2015 was the year when D created the masala spiced fish finger sandwich as an anniversary meal which I absolutely loved.  A good sandwich is a thing of beauty and a joy forever and this one was superlative.

Another innovation for 2015 was to institute "Sunday breakfast" as a way to extend our early morning fare beyond bacon sandwiches.  We've had some gorgeous dishes so far, but my favourite is probably the bhurji pau - spicy scrambled eggs.  I owe Babu Street Kitchen a debt of gratitude for opening our eyes to the possibility of spice at breakfast time.

From India to Italy - and one of my ingredients of the year (I banged on about it enough) has to be the 'nduja sausage that I bought from The Ham and Cheese Company.  Oh, but I love this stuff.  I've got lots of ideas for introducing it into different recipes, but to be honest, you probably will never better just spreading it thinly on toast, drizzling with a little olive oil and flashing it under a piping hot grill to melt slightly.

Talking of toast, I think that this year I might finally have conquered my fear of bread making.  Certainly, I have become distinctly more proficient and my confidence continues to grow.  The satisfaction of eating freshly baked bread, warm from the oven, is immense.  I don't have a huge repertoire as of yet but this Hairy Bikers' recipe for a rustic Spanish loaf is definitely a current household favourite.  I might have to write that up over here actually, as recipes on the BBC website have a nasty little habit of disappearing.

And finally, there was very little in the way of Weight Watching this year and nowhere is this more evidenced than by this remarkable dessert that we made at Easter - hot cross bun pudding with salted caramel.  We served it with a stollen flavoured ice cream, but it would be just as good drowned in cream.

Here's to more good cooking and eating in 2016!

Foodie Abroad: the best of 2015

This year we were lucky enough to go to not one but two 2* Michelin restaurants.  While Michelin is certainly not the be all and end all, two stars still means something – generally seriously good food and service as slick as a dolphin’s tummy. 

But there were delights to be had all over the place at every price point.  2015 was the year we inaugurated the CNO (Cheap Night Out) in Leeds – and although we tailed off a bit in the last few months that is definitely a habit we are going to get back to next year.  Leeds has an embarassment of riches when it comes to fabulous little independent joints producing top class dishes.  And not just Leeds – we also experienced some fantastic food in Harrogate which is the merest hop, skip and jump away.

Our annual trip to the West of Scotland was as wonderful as ever and full of good eating experiences, from city to shore.  We also experienced the delights of Nottingham (although I’m still bitter that D wouldn’t let me visit the kitty café) and the truly majestic fish and chips of the Magpie in Whitby. 

But what were the highlights?  The dishes that made our eyes roll back in our heads, the places that made us feel all warm and fuzzy?  Read on, dear friend.

The Geri Halliwell award for “Spicing up our Lives” goes to…Babu Bombay Street Kitchen in Glasgow.  We only went there for breakfast but it inspired two – two! – recipes when we got home, as we realised that life would never be complete without bhurji pau in it.  We’re planning to go back next year and check out the lunch menu.  Honourable mention to Tharavadu for a Keralan sea bass dish that I would eat every week if I could.

The Augustus Gloop award for “Pudding of the Year” goes to…the strawberry cheesecake at Norse, Harrogate.  Fairy light but packing a serious flavour punch – this was truly skilled cooking and a sublime eating experience.  Honourable mention to Restarant Sat Bains for producing what was, essentially, an ur-Aero.  An Aero to transcend all others. 

The Jeeves award for “Sublime Service” has to go to Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, and to one waitress in particular who spent the entire meal gently ripping the piss out of D.  He loved it.  It goes to show that the mark of truly fantastic waiting staff is to understand your customer and tailor their experience accordingly.  Oh, and also to bring along extra marshmallows for the entire table.

The Bruce-Willis-in-the-Sixth-Sense award for “Plate of food that causes the Jaw to Drop”…now, this was a tough one.  But in the end, I had to go for the kohlrabi tagliatelle with pesto at Restaurant Sat Bains.  It was a prime example of a dish that sounded humble but tasted anything but.  It was the highlight of a truly awesome meal that included the bread of the Gods and frozen chicken livers.  And it was vegetarian.

All in all, an excellent year with the promise of more good stuff to come in 2016.  I can’t wait!

"Books. Cats. Life is good."

It's always easy to focus on the negative when, as that glorious Edward Gorey quote suggests, there is plenty to be cheerful about.

Cats, for one thing. We haven't had a Minx picture for a while, have we?

Moody

She continues to be as eccentric a creature as ever there was and a total Mummy's girl to boot which is great news for the Mummy in question - less so for D. She literally walks over him to get to me.

 

On the subject of books - or rather, adaptations of books, has anyone else been watching the adaption of "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" on BBC1?  Fabulous stuff.  One of those series that makes you happy to hand over your license fee.  I am considering rereading the novel (which I adore) but there are so many things to read and so very little time.  One of my current favourite websites is Goodreads; I pore greedily over my personalised recommendations on an almost daily basis.  We are going to Scotland for two weeks in August and I plan to spend quite a lot of quality time with my Kindle. 

 

In other news, our strawberry plants delivered up their first fruit at the weekend.  I wish that I had taken a photograph to mark the occasion.  We ceremoniously ate one strawberry each and agreed that they actually tasted of strawberries which was a minor revelation.  The plants continue to prosper, and we may even get a bowlful to douse with sugar and cream before the summer is out - watch this space.

Amelia Rope chocolate (being a little of what you fancy)

I am a fully paid up, card carrying, unashamed chocoholic. Let's just get that out of the way first, shall we?  If there is a pudding on the menu that involves chocolate in any shape or form, you can be 99% sure that I will order it.  If there are two, then I'll be trying to convince D to order the other one.

This has been going on for a long time.  My mother claims to still remember the look of bliss that passed across my face the very first time that I was given a chocolate button. And I'm sure that there is a story in the family annals about me as a toddler managing to steal and eat my way through an entire box of chocolates (and it does sound like the kind of thing that I would do - moderation and I are not regular bedfellows).

Mind you, I'm not a chocolate snob.  A four finger Kit Kat is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  As is a bar of Dairy Milk, cold from the fridge and eaten with a cup of coffee.  But on the days when I don't have many points to spare yet need a chocolate hit, I tend to find myself turning towards the more expensive end of the market where you find greater intensity and complexity of flavour and thus can satisfy yourself with a smaller amount (theoretically).

And so it is that I wanted to commend to your attention the wonderful products produced by Amelia Rope.  If you're a chocolate fan - particularly a salted chocolate fan - then you need to give these a whirl because in terms of balancing flavours this woman is on a par with Willy Wonka himself.  The chocolate itself is superlative but factor in a dusting of sea salt and a few drops of one of Ms Rope's beautiful flavoured oils and you have an absolute masterpiece.  If I had to pick a favourite, I'd probably come down on the side of pale lemon and sea salt simply because it is a slightly unusual pairing and utterly, compellingly delicious.  If portion control is your issue, then follow the example of  D, who got me a box of salted chocolate cubes instead of an Easter egg; these are an absolutely perfect way for me to get a sweet fix at the end of the day and still feel relatively virtuous.

This is not a cheap product by any means, and the fixed £5 delivery charge means that you are better off buying a number of bars at a time - although this is no very great hardship.  If you are a fellow chocolate lover and you do give it a try then I'd love to hear what you think - or alternatively, get your own recommendations.

NB:  Sadly, this is not a sponsored post.  It is just bloody lovely chocolate.
NB2: If you are a Weight Watcher, both milk and dark chocolate are 1pp per 7g square.