Category Archives: Experiences

Cookies and Pate

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Cookies and Pate
Once again I managed to turn a holiday into an excuse to spend 12 hours a day in the kitchen, this time with a rather perfect background of Jazz recording next door, intoxicating blue sky and for that matter intoxicating amounts of wine.

 Although I particularly enjoyed the saxophone production line assisting me when making 80 canapés for the concert, the most successful recipes turned out to be duck liver pate (only in france) and chocolate chip cookies of which I couldn’t make enough…
Disclaimer: Unfortunately I had no scales or measuring jugs etc so I did mot of the amounts by sight… but I’ve written roughly the right amounts

Cookies
These cookies may not look much like cookies, more like misshapen slabs but I have testimonials that the are pretty damn good.

Makes roughly 30-40
500g butter
500g caster sugar
1tbsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
500-600g flour (until you have the right consistency)
pinch of salt
200g chocolate chips

1. Cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the eggs one at a time with the vanilla extract, you will need to beat pretty hard to combine.
3. Add the flour a bit at a time with the salt and mix hard. You want to have the consistency of a stiff cake mix, not quite as solid as your average biscuit dough.
4. Finally stir through the chocolate chips.
5. Scoop ice cream size balls of the cookie dough onto a greaseproof paper lined tray and bake in the oven for 12-15mins at 180oC until the dough has spread out and the cookies are golden brown, just starting to crisp up on the edges, you may have to separate the cookies. Leave to cool and harden up, serve.

Pate
I’m not sure yet whether this pate will work out of france because it is so very french, mostly duck livers and garlic… I also realise the prospect of eating duck liver might freak some people out so there is an equally rich mushroom pate recipe below which pretty much looks the same too. Usually you would use brandy or port for this but all I had was wine… Likewise for the really daring feel free to set the alcohol in the pan on fire (flambé) I was just a bit scared of burning down someone else’s house.

Makes A lot.
900g duck livers
400g butter
pepper and salt
thyme
6 shallots
10 garlic cloves
200ml white wine
200ml red wine

1. Heat 200g of butter in a pan and add the shallots, garlic, pepper and lots of salt. Sweat for 5-8mins or until soft. Add the thyme.
2. Add the duck livers and brown all over, add the alcohol and bubble it off as quickly as possible (here is where the flambé comes in)
– you may want to do this in batches depending on your pan.
3. Blitz the livers mix and the rest of the butter in a food processor till smooth, pour into a dish and leave in the fridge to set.

Mushroom Pate

Makes a lot
150g butter
4 shallots
2 leeks

12 cloves garlic
700g basic white mushrooms (mix this up a bit and add different mushrooms for different flavour)
salt and pepper
tarragon
200g creme fraiche

1. Sweat the shallots, leeks and garlic in a pan with the butter, salt and pepper until soft. Add the tarragon and mushrooms and bubble until most of the liquid from the mushrooms has gone.
2. Blitz in a food processor with the creme fraiche, then pour into a dish and leave in the fridge to set.

Dustbin Tales

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Dustbin Tales
            A good friend of ours is one of my favourite types of people, the sort of person who will eat anything. I cannot stand fussy eaters. (I know I contradict myself a bit on this because of not liking cheese but you know what I mean) So of course I am always delighted when he comes round to dinner or drinks and I can palm of some of my latest invention on him. He is always a grateful receiver of any cookies, brownies or cake that are left lying round the house which I baked as a stress reliever and can’t persuade any of our family to eat any more. So I was delighted when I was asked to cater his 21st birthday. I had absolutely free reign on a savoury and sweet canapé spread; I could experiment with mini macaroons, cheesecake bites, three different sorts of dip and mini toad in the hole. I made mini satay chicken, white wine jellies, chargrilled squid and mini apple pies. Most of all I got to make a spread sheet to organise the whole thing – brilliant! The only request was that I make a cake like the one his mum made for him every year for his birthday.

            As I mentioned before this friend was famous for eating everything, so his mum had come up with a dustbin cake. A chocolate cake with the top sliced off, topped with all the disgusting gummy sweets he wasn’t allowed most of the year and then the top of the cake placed over them. Now I wanted to go one step further for this cake. So I planned a 4 layer chocolate cake, of which I cut out a hole in each layer. I filled the hole with gummy sweets, smothered the cake in chocolate icing with a few token gummy worms making their exits down the sides and topped the whole thing off with a pure chocolate disc lid. On this lid I piped lines coming off the centre and added on a fondant handle and there you have it a pure chocolate dustbin. I was later told that this was breakfast for weeks afterwards, ah well better to over cater than under….

Italian in the Isle of Man

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Italian in the Isle of Man
If I told you that the traditional dish of the Isle of Man was the grand choice between herring and boiled potatoes and chips with gravy and cheese you might get the idea that this place isn’t perhaps known for its grand haute cuisine. However that wasn’t why we were there, it was no Italy. But luckily we were provided with the most lovely selection of home cooked meals (particularly a melt in the mouth lamb shank, fluffy trifle and copious wine on the last night) and a few of us were impressed with the traditional kipper roll (gutted I missed this), manx beer (NOT me), goats milk strawberry cheesecake ice cream (definitely me), and of course the Manx Knobs (humbug like sweets). In fact we were given so much food, tea, cake and sandwiches here there and everywhere, that a walk up the ‘mountain’ was definitely well received.
One thing I can definitely attest to is the quality of the food in the Italian restaurant La Piazza in Douglas. Lovely and filling, the highlight was unfortunately dessert by which point I was really full, any other time I would have just eaten several portions of that! More later.
The choice of starters was unfortunately limited due to the lateness of the hour, but the newbie and I shared between us a rather disappointing Caprese salad (literally just mozzarella and tomato, no dressing or pesto or nothing) and retro vol au vents (two the size of a pie each) with a lovely creamy mushroom sauce, possibly again could have a done with a touch more seasoning. However I’m glad we shared because one of them alongside the considerably lighter salad was a better size for a starter than two giant puff pastries. Im likewise pleased I didn’t opt for the garlic bread as it was literally a pizza size, if I’d have had that alongside a second pizza…..

Talking of which I opted for the house specialty, classic margarita base with garlic butter and parma ham. It was very tasty, the garlic butter added an extra layer of flavour and the parma ham was very good quality, added at just the right moment. The main issue was again finishing my plate. I have always been the good little girl that finishes everything on my plate as my mother told me to…. in this case it was possibly a mistake. Likewise the newbie had a large plate of carbonara which she couldn’t finish but the historian next to me made solid work of the volcanic looking calzone. The best moment of the night was when the northerner got confused about the sea bass dish believing that bass couldn’t possibly be a fish, but rather a manxian assortment of seafood, I believe she was rather surprised when the dish arrived.


At this point the meal deteriorated as only choir tours can and a game of pass the string bean mouth to mouth. It was probably a good thing we were basically the only people left in the restaurant at this point, although I believe one unsuspecting customer was treated to possibly the loudest, most overly harmonised and operatic Happy Birthday she had ever heard…What happens when you mix a choir and wine.
Then came the grand finale, dessert. I wisely passed on the profiteroles (I believe a good profiterole is one in a million and as expected they were soggy and too much plain cream) and grudgingly passed on the pannacotta which ran out, although I was mainly excited by the jam smiley face, and was rewarded with one of the best tiramisu’s I have ever had. Rather than a disappointing mountain of plain whipped cream, soggy lady fingers and bitter cocoa powder, we were treated to a sweet boozy zabaglione (sort of custardy but sweeter and thicker) layered with spongy lady fingers, strong coffee and dark chocolate shavings. I could have eaten another couple. La Piazza I salute you

Confusing the Palate

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Confusing the Palate

Once again I have been possibly slightly unwittingly coerced by my friends to cook for them in what can only be described as basic cooking conditions. This time it was marginally easier, only 4 to cook for, no dietary restrictions and a more free day leading up to it. Plus I had further enticement as the three dinner guests agreed to match my menu with wines for each course. As per usual the menu was possibly a little obsessively planned – excel, timetable, price itemised shopping list….. If only I gave my degree this much attention.

Unfortunately that day the time I had allotted to finishing my coursework so I felt slightly better about jet setting to the Isle of Man on choir tour ( yes we did fly and it was a very exciting tour) was spent trying in Vain to save my degree, I accidentally wiped my computer hard drive, hopefully this can be remedied – watch this space. Most people in this circumstance would most likely be in hysterics, alleviating anger by throwing heavy objects at the wall, or immediately degrading from their degree and moving to anguished exile in Siberia to escape the pain of the disappearance of half a years worth of coursework. I’m afraid I did none of these things. The excitement of cooking a dinner party made up if my favourite foods, with some of my favourite people and a copious amount of good wine somehow managed to inspire such a cloud of optimism – I am still living in the sphere of it and am still convinced this will be ok- my mother on the other hand is despairing, possibly mostly at my casual attitude….
Anyway back to dinner – if anything can distract me from a possible career ending mistake it would be confit chicken, truffle jus, peanut butter parfait…. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We began with prosecco and walkers crisps. However these wakers crisps tasted especially good because I’d stolen them from the snack basket of the current bane of my life, the college fundraising campaign. If you have ever had to persuade people to give you money when they are trying it tell you that they’ve just been made redundant/had a baby/ bought a house so can’t afford it right now you will understand the soul draining experience that is telephone campaign. (Disclaimer – the crisps were meant for workers like me so it wasn’t so much stealing)

 I wanted to challenge our taste buds by starting with a sweet course and ending with a savoury while still trying maintain some sort of style and complexity within my ‘having to reboot the oven every 15mins’ limitations. So we began with a Roasted tomato and caramelised onion Tarte Tatin with Ricotta quenelle. This is a surprisingly easy dish, particularly with the aid of Lakeland disposable foil pudding dishes – effectively the basis of this meal.

Serves 4
2 large tomatoes
Thyme
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 onions
1tbsp butter
Bay leaf
2 tbsp sugar + 2tbsp sugar
Salt
Pepper
Drop vanilla essence
White wine vinegar (I shamefully had to use fish and chip vinegar)
Ready rolled puff pastry

Roast the tomatoes, cut in half and garlic still in its skin with a drizzle of olive oil, pinch of salt and thyme leaves for about 10-15mins at 180oC.
Meanwhile chop the onions and then sweat over a medium heat in the butter with a good sprinkling of salt (add water if the onions look like they will burn).
When translucent add the bay leaf, a splash of vinegar, pepper, drop of vanilla and half the sugar. When sticky and caramelised, set aside.
Finally melt the remaining sugar with 2tbsp water till a golden amber colour .
Place 1tsp caramel in the base of 4 foil pudding pots. Top with the tomatoes, flat side down and a garlic clove, squeezed out of its skin. Then add a spoonful of onions. Finally top with a disk of puff pastry.
Bake in the oven for 15 min or until golden – turn over – make a quenelle with a spoon of ricotta and serve.

The main used one of my favourite ingredients. I can’t stress enough how amazing a few drops of truffle oil is in most dishes! Some of the best examples include in mash potatoes, mushroom risotto, in butter for steak or even (if you’re feeling adventurous) white truffle and black pepper ice cream with strawberries. It is most definitely worth the £3.99 I paid for it – this bottle is going to last me for about a year, even the smell of it is pretty satisfying.
Other than the truffle oil, all the ingredients in this main are pretty cheap which just goes to show that you don’t need to spend a lot to throw a great dinner party (this is one of the many tips I tend to shout at the TV screen when watching Come Dine with Me, along with why do you start cooking when your guests arrive???). I do agree that you can taste a great cut of organic meat, especially with steak where the better the quality the less you have to do to it, I barely cook mine, BUT I used sainsbury’s basics chicken leg pieces for this dish, at the grand total of 4 for £2.69, and it came out absolutely beautifully.
So here it is Confit Chicken leg, buttered cabbage with nutmeg, butternut squash dauphinoise, toasted hazelnuts and truffle jus. Again relatively easy, just prep the hazelnuts, chicken, dauphinoise and chop the cabbage in advance and you can pretty much just leave it to cook while you can go and drink with your guests (take notes Come dine with me contestants).

Serves 4
For the Chicken
4 chicken legs
2l sunflower/vegetable oil
1tsp truffle oil
8-10 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
few sprigs of thyme
50g sea salt flakes
pepper
For the Cabbage
1 savoy cabbage
2tbsp water
50g salted butter
pinch of nutmeg
pepper
For the Jus
1-2tsp truffle oil
1 stock cube
small knob of butter
rosemary
2 garlic cloves
sprig thyme
bay leaf
pepper
splash lemon juice
For the Dauphinoise
1 butternut squash
pepper
8 cloves or so garlic
sea salt flakes
thyme
bay leaf
300ml cream
(milk)
For the Hazlenuts
100g blanched hazlenuts finely chopped (or bashed)

Rub the chicken with the salt, crushed garlic cloves, pepper and herbs, set aside for about an hour or so. Meanwhile toast the hazelnuts in a dry saucepan over a medium heat NB keep tossing to try and prevent burning, set aside.
Chop the squash into slices and layer in a shallow dish, studding every couple of layers with garlic cloves, a good sprinkling of salt and some pepper and the herbs. Pour over the cream, you may need a bit of milk to bring the cream/milk to the same level as the top layer of the squash, alternatively you can top this up with cream, the dish will be more stodgy but richer and really delicious.
Chop the cabbage into strips (the best way to do this is cut out the centre and chop all the sides into strips). Place into a saucepan with the butter, water, nutmeg and pepper, set aside.
Wash most of the salt off the chicken, reserving the herbs, half of the garlic and about 5-10g of the salt (this is approximate, the idea is you need a bit left). Place in a shallow dish and cover the chicken and herbs etc with the oils.
Put the chicken in the oven at 150oC for about an hour and a half. Forty minutes before you want to eat put the squash in the oven, when ready the squash should be starting to brown on top.
Meanwhile for the jus, chop the garlic and place in a small saucepan with the butter and sauté for 2-3mins. Pour over the lemon juice and add the herbs and 250ml water. Add the stock cube and stir to dissolve over a medium heat. Reduce to about half then add the truffle oil. Remove from the heat.
5mins before you want to eat, put the cabbage on the heat and cover, cook for 5mins and then remove from the heat.
To serve, place a handful of cabbage in the middle of the plate, top with a chicken leg and sprinkle with hazelnuts, finally spoon over some jus. Serve the dauphinoise separately, trust me a normal sized portion may not be enough for each person.

Now since I had done a sweet starter I decided to counter expectations with a salty dessert based on the american classic snack, a PBJ sandwich. My sister will tell you how obsessed I am with peanut butter, so much so that she promised to make me a giant peanut butter cup in lieu of a cake for my 18th birthday (if you’re reading this it’s 3 years down the line and I’m still waiting on that). When we went to America the excitement of every single chocolate bar having a version in peanut butter not to mention every restaurant meal. While in San Francisco last year I remember having a peanut butter cheesecake slice for lunch rather than the more nutritious savoury burritos my friends have. I do try and limit my addiction as too much of a good thing (at least in this case) would make me end up morbidly obese, but since I got to choose the menu for this party, it was inevitably included. This isn’t for everyone (my haribo addicted dinner partner would’ve preferred a sweeter dessert) but for me it encapsulates heaven


Peanut butter parfait, cookie crumbs, chocolate squares and homemade strawberry jam
Makes 6
For the parfait
200g peanut butter
300g cream cheese
75g sugar
vanilla extract
200ml cream
3/4 sachet powdered gelatine
1 packet chocolate chip cookies
50g butter
For the chocolate squares
masking tape
dark chocolate (60% or more)
For the jam
400g strawberries
150g sugar
1 sachet powdered gelatine
black pepper
vanilla extract

Beat together the peanut butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract. Add the sugar, beat, then whisk together the gelatine and cream to combine before adding to the mix and beating further. Meanwhile make the cookies into crumbs, best done in a food processor. grease 6 pudding dishes (see above) well and then cover in cookie crumbs. (the best way to do this is place a large spoonful in the bottom and then pour out, turning as you do to cover all the sides). Fill the moulds with parfait and leave to set in the fridge. Reserve the remaining cookie crumbs
Meanwhile make a grid on a parchment lined tray with the masking tape. Melt the chocolate and spread over the grid, leave at room temperature to set, when still soft but not liquid, peel off the masking tape carefully, you should be left with perfect chocolate squares, place in the fridge to set.
Macerate (cover) the chopped strawberries in the sugar and black pepper. After about 30mins, place over a medium heat and liquids using a hand held blender. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3-5mins. Add the gelatine and stir to dissolve, leave to cool. Ideally you would then put this in a piping bag, I didn’t have one 😦
To serve, place a chocolate square on the plate, release the parfait and place on top, finish with a second chocolate square. Use the piping bag to pipe dots of jam around this (again I couldn’t do this) and scatter with cookie crumbs.

 

For finishing touches to the perfect evening, add wine and good company.

The Breakfast of Kings

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The Breakfast of Kings     
           This is from a couple of years ago but it is one food memory I will not be forgetting anytime soon.

 I think my idea of heaven would be a never-ending supply of every cuisine, expertly cooked washed down with limitless champagne. I didn’t realise you could get sick of perfectly chilled proper champagne till I experienced the ultimate brunch in Dubai. We were in Dubai on choir tour (don’t ask). I had already made the mistake of pre-empting this brunch so had not eaten breakfast before our morning concert. This was not a good idea. I fainted. However the brunch was worth it. We walked into a deluxe dining room and sat outside in the basking hot sun overlooking an incredibly fake golf course. We were given unlimited champagne for the equivalent of £20, which wasn’t bad considering we had full access to the brunch buffet free. When I say buffet I talk in the loosest terms, this wasn’t a buffet it was a feast. There was a sushi bar, where the chefs prepared the food before your eyes, a Chinese stall, a Greek stall, a seafood buffet (I had never tried lobster before but I’m pretty sure I ate at least two here), an antipasti bar, a British food bar (they do roast beef better than us) and a whole lot more. Then once you had eaten first course you could move on to the pudding stall, a traditional rice pudding Arabic dessert, cheesecake, chocolate cake, jelly, apple crumble, macaroons (you know how much I love macaroons) and so much more. Kids weren’t left out, there was a kids stall with hot dogs, ham burgers, ice cream, a chocolate fountain, candy floss a playground, my stomach wasn’t big enough.

            Most of Dubai I would say confused me. It was lovely but it was a film set. Large expanses of desert were interrupted every now and then by shopping malls or schools that could rival the Taj Mahal but this multicultural society certainly boomed when it came to food fusion, it may feel like it hasn’t got much original culture, but it has taken some of the best bits of others (mostly the food).

The Lobster Quadrille: The Yorkshireman part 2 – Brown’s Brasserie

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The Lobster Quadrille: The Yorkshireman part 2 – Brown’s Brasserie

In my last post I described the beer cake. It had one of the best responses to a cake I’ve had, simply because I walked in the room for the sparkling wine drinks, the birthday boy and gathered assembly were drinking large pints. However following the drinks we all headed over to Browns to continue the celebrations.
It was a little surreal approaching the restaurant for their weekly lobster night to walk through a throng of hand horns and placards being thrust in our plates by protestors protesting against lobster killing, but luckily once you got in the restaurant the regular blasts of horns and shouting dispersed into vague background noise.
I was quite hungry at this point and there was just one starter calling out to me and my neighbour, the sharing plate. This I would strongly recommend! I particularly enjoyed the calamari which were crisp but not chewy inside and went well with lime and chilli mayonnaise, which lacked heat but was tasty nonetheless. The honey mustard chicken again lacked a huge hit of the promised flavour but was still tasty and very well cooked. I really liked the prawn cocktail, chunky prawns and a hit of marie rose sauce which didn’t try to pretend it was anything other than what it should be, mayonnaise, worcester sauce and ketchup (it may have been more fancy then this but I loved it’s lack of pretentiousness). Again I really enjoyed the duck crispy chilli duck which was full of flavour but perhaps should’ve been described as hop-sin duck because that is what it was in reality. The chorizo sausage roll was very good and definitely lived up to its description, as did the lavish breadsticks which were so much more than breadsticks, more like morish buttery pastry sticks (this was not one for the figure conscious) which went so well with the rich lime and chilli mayonnaise for absolute decadence, carried the actually quite spicy harissa houmous and were complimented by the more plain and light aubergine caviar. Altogether perhaps browns could do with rewriting their description, but the finished product was delicious, although most definitely for sharing, perhaps we were a bit ambitious only sharing between the two of us…

 For the main I was told that I absolutely had to have the lobster surf and turf and was even offered sponsorship to order it (which of course I gratefully accepted -don’t judge, food lover+student – all donations accepted). The problem I had with the main was that having advertised this as a dish for lobster lovers, the lobster was significantly smaller than others I’ve had in the past (see dubai and Brussels) and was slightly overcooked and lacked flavour. For £25 you would have thought they could at least have run to a sauce for either the steak or lobster. Having had my rant the turf bit of my meal was lovely. I do like my steaks virtually mooing on the plate and I know a minute steak is quite hard to cook medium rare so I really should’ve asked for rare. Despite this they managed a good medium rare which I was impressed with and the fluffy thin chips were really good especially when dipped in Brown’s homemade ketchup, which I have had before and absolutely adore, it is so much better than Heinz (which for the record I love on brunch – this just goes the extra mile!) The steak doesn’t quite beat Cau, but at the moment that is a tough act to follow.

All in all in Brown’s, choose wisely and you will be rewarded. (I probably chose a little unwisely as I should’ve remembered Cambridge is as far from the sea as humanly possible.) Sometimes the most expensive choice isn’t necessarily the best, but what they know well they pull off well. (And trust me they know chips, calamari and breadsticks very well apparently)  

Playing House

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Playing House
There is a reason I cook less in Cambridge. Mostly because my kitchen this year consists of two ‘warming plates’ and a microwave and my fridge (as I’ve said before) resembles the toy fridge that came with the ‘my first kitchen’ I got at the age of three. I have minimal access to an oven and any attempt to use it involves running four floors down my staircase and two floors up on another one, which is always fun when you’re carrying a hot tray…. Plus I have limited (three armchairs) seating and only a desk to eat off. All this makes it less than ideal to throw a dinner party, but I took up the challenge when my friend the Girtonion persuaded me to throw one with her.

We optimistically set a date in a month and a half’s time, although being me, I planned the menu about a week later. Limitations included budget ( if we had a fish starter, we went with a veggie main), gluten intolerance and logistics, oven space (I went with no-cook starter and dessert). 
On the day itself, about an hour and a half before the start of the party, we had an offer of a better venue, with a proper table and enough chairs and and oven in the next door room. While fantastic, this proved an entertaining challenge as we carried 3 large lasagnes through college and across the road, I was surprised we managed to pull this off but with 3 minutes to go we were semi-organised. 
While enjoying a fine selection of wines (my friends have good taste) we sat down.
Gin and Juniper cured Salmon, pickled cucumber and creme fraiche 
( see christmas blog for the recipe)
This was possibly the easiest course to do within our limitations and relatively cheap with Sainsburys basics salmon fillets, who knew. Although I panicked and left the cure on too long so they were a little too salty but luckily managed to balance out with the mellowing flavours of the creme fraiche and cucumber.

Goats Cheese and Butternut Squash no pasta lasagne, with sage and garlic chips and broccoli.
Why I decided to cook a lasagne for a gluten-free meal I am not entirely sure, but I love the Nigella goats cheese and pumpkin lasagne 
So in order to tweak it to suit my limitations, we used squash instead of pumpkin, cut down on expensive goats cheese and upped the mozzarella, increased the garlic (always makes things better), replaced the pine nuts with walnuts and replaced the pasta with slices of courgette and aubergine. my original idea as an interesting side was fried garlic polenta, but alas a lack of interesting ingredients in the supermarkets of Cambridge scuppered this plan. Instead we went with chips. We parboiled the potatoes with salt, sage and garlic, tossed the drained contents in oil and roasted for about an hour – they appeared to go down well, my neighbours at the table started grazing on extra chips of the tray before we had even served all the food. 
Lemon Posset, popping candy and gluten free shortbread.
Lemon posset is a delightfully easy dessert, in this case quirkily served in plastic cups (Ok maybe that is all I had…) Simply bring 600ml cream and 150g sugar and the zest of 3 lemons to the boil, boil for 3 mins before whisking in the juice of 3 lemons, pour into glasses and leave to set. Note to self, next time don’t put the popping candy on till the last minute otherwise you simply create a sort of strawberry flavour creme brûlée topping to your posset…. 
For the shortbread I got to use my new bright red Kitchen aid for the first time. Again devilishly simple. Cream 150g butter, 75g sugar, 1tsp salt, add 250g gluten free self raising flour, roll into flattened balls and bake at 180oC for 12-15mins till golden brown.
There were moments I thought a three course meal for nine would be impossible in college, it wasn’t, but boy it made me appreciate my kitchen at home. 

If you go down to the woods today…

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If you go down to the woods today…

So as you may have realised from this blog I am generally not very good at spontaneity. Of course this is a benefit when it comes to cooking elaborate 5 course dinners…. but generally as a student I am learning to juggle everything with a tight schedule and a bit of spontaneity every now and then is a welcome stress release. Of course spontaneity can vary from taking a long cycle ride, heading to the museum or in my case soaking gummy bears in gin….
It was one of those weird afternoons following brunch when I wanted a snack because I can’t cope with only having two meals a day, so stopped off for a healthy cereal bar. Of course I met my friend who suggested tangfastics were a more juvenile approach and I should probably start acting like the kid I feel like inside rather than the mature soon to be graduate I actually am. Upon spotting the gummy bears I mused that I had always wanted to try gummy bears in vodka having read they grow to about 4 times in size, he suggested we actually try it. Of course I only had gin (being more a g and t girl than a vodka coke) so we used that instead. A few days later and all I can say is that half a packet of gummy bears engorged to the size of a key with gin, makes for rather good pre-drinking.

Same friend, different experiment. Following on from the successful gin gummy bears, we decided to try the much talked about skittle vodka. Deciding that skittles wouldn’t make our final vodka enough like sours, we used skittle sours. Trying not to eat too many we skilfully divided all the skittles into colours, this was the fun part, brought out the ocd in us, I think all Cambridge students have it a little. We then downed 5 bottles of fizzy water and filled up with vodka, I’ll keep you updated on the results

In another note, same friend and I headed to chophouse again (I am not normally this decadent) and had the exciting sharing plate. I have been wanting to try this for a while but this plate is rather difficult to share between four…much better between two.

 Venison Pate with sweetcorn relish and brown sourdough, possibly my favourite part of the dish , meaty and chunky, balanced by the tangy relish. Then there was the pork crackling, crunchy and salty – not quite up their with the maypole’s but then the maypole is specifically tailored for drunken munchies. The cheese, I was assured, was very good cheddar, as detailed many times, I am not a cheese fan. Likewise personally I wasn’t such a fan of the gammon although that is more personal taste as it was smokey and I’m sure hit the spots for more of a gammon lover. I am always a big fan of cured salmon, especially beetroot cured and this was good, although I think it was sliced a little thinly, I think cured salmon tastes better a little thicker so you can taste how much meatier it is than smoked salmon and not so salty but they still did well, plus good value for money, we were stuffed.

The Student 3-course meal

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The Student 3-course meal

You know those days when you feel like celebrating (in my case recovering from the flu) but have no money and have left it a little too late to organise stuff with friends? Or perhaps you have just finished an essay and are only just realising that you want food and celebratory food? (or perhaps to speed the essay on its way?) Or maybe you forgot it was your anniversary, but the budget is limited….

Poor mans G+T
so you have no ice, the college accommodation you’re in only provides a paltry fridge the size of a shoebox which of course you have stuffed half of with beverages rather than food… In my case I’ve chosen to refrigerate the tonic, but refrigerating the gin works just as well, especially if your G+Ts tend to be Gin with a dash of tonic…..
I like using Sainsbury’s ‘London Gin’, one above the basics so it tastes slightly better (or if you have parents visiting stock your cupboard with something nice, my personal favourite being Tanqueray, don’t mean to sound like an advert but I can really taste the difference – can’t wait till their visit in two weeks….)
Tonic wise, the basics is fine, but again if you can afford it schweppes is nicer – slimline for the calorie conscious.
To really pimp up this drink, i like to use a dash of lemon juice, one of the squeezable lemons will do, I find my G+Ts are so far and few between any lemons I buy tend to turn a nasty shade of green before I get round to including them in my drink…..
Not quite Gourmet but highly passable.

Starter from the Cupboard
A starter made from a student store cupboard is tricky… but i managed to create one with virtually no prep as well.
Starting point, some sainsbury’s basics chopped tomatoes and some crisp bread.

Chopped tomatoes
1 chopped onion
2 chopped cloves garlic
vinaigrette made with 1/2 oil, 1/2 vinegar (balsamic if possible)
salt and pepper
(if you have basil even better)

Mix altogether and top the crisp bread

In pizza express they would charge you £4.80 for that (and this serves a lot more than one)

Main Course
I always tend to have cooked chicken (mostly because I don’t trust my fridge to not give me food poisoning if I keep raw meat in there constantly), and I try and keep onions, carrots and sweet potatoes in my cupboard because they always come in useful.
So Supper today is…Mashed Sweet Potato Balsamic roast and ricotta cheese

Chop onions and carrots, toss in oil, balsamic, salt and pepper. Place in a microwave proof dish and cover with cling film, pierced in various places. Cook on high for 7-10mins. Remove. Prick a sweet potato and place in the microwave for 6mins on high. Remove and replace carrots and onions in uncovered, cook for 2mins, then stir in chicken and cook for a further 2mins. Meanwhile scoop the mash out of the sweet potato skin, season with salt and pepper and butter (sometimes I add a spoonful of pesto but it’s fine without)
Serve all with a dollop of ricotta cheese on the side.

Dessert
Ok so it would be really easy to buy a pot of Gu and heat that up in the microwave and all that but this is cheap and chocolatey and easy, and you can even call it molecular gastronomy because it has an element of science….

Dark Chocolate and water. Melt over a pan of water in a bowl without stirring. Cool. Once Cool whisk together. To pimp it up add a little orange zest and top with creme fraiche.

A cheap and easy 3 course meal, using mostly store cupboard ingredients. Add a large glass of red wine for real celebration.

Cakes in Shapes

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Cakes in Shapes
            For a while during year 13 I got momentarily obsessed with a show called Cake Boss. It is set in a New Jersey Bakery, a reality show around Buddy Valstro, an Italian American and his family. The main reason this particular show caught my eye was how they created cakes that were works of art; cakes that had firework displays, cake’s that moved, giant life size people. I wasn’t quite at that stage yet but I gradually began to have a go at making themed cakes. It started when a friend gave me a giant cupcake mould for my birthday, it came out well and I caught the bug. The next cake I made was a bra for a friend who always joked about her boobs. Another idea for a cake was a simple round cake, smothered in icing as a thank you to a show crew, all the cast signed it in edible pen and it ended up looking quite cool.
My sister’s 21stwas a simple 2 and a 1 with black notes, shopping bags and books all over. That September I got another two opportunities to experiment. Firstly I made a goodbye cake for a friend of ours who was going to the Caribbean. I made a tropical version of a carrot cake with pineapple and mango. Then I swirled blue food dye into buttercream icing to create a sea, then I used crushed digestives for sand, made a chocolate palm tree and decorated the beach with chocolate seashells. The other cake was for a joint 90th birthday for two of my grandparents. We were all going on a riverboats so the cake had to be transportable and themed yet not melt. I decided to make a buttercream and fondant covered vanilla sponge. I finished this with smaller cakes in the shape of an aeroplane and scrabble pieces. This is in homage to my grandpa who worked as an aeroplane engineer for years (he helped design the engine for concord) and my grandma who is a scrabble fiend at her nursing home.
The only person I haven’t got round to making a cake for is myself, but with my 21stbirthday coming up I’ll have to bite the bullet and do it.