Merry Christmas (Eve)!!

 

I get WAY more excited about our Christmas Eve buffet than any other meal on the calendar. It’s my special day; once we’ve picked up the turkey then BOOM, it’s time to get prepping. Here’s what we had this time round; white crabmeat and cress cocktails, lobster with samphire, coconut prawns, crudités with our blue cheese dip, Parma ham, fig and goat’s cheese bundles, pigs in blankets and of course, cheese and pineapples! With some tiramisu macarons and spice pear Bellini’s thrown in for good measure. My, god the acid reflux… HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Xxx

Scotch Broth

Everyone’s getting so excited about Christmas but we haven’t got any of our decorations up yet! We don’t normally put our tree up until about the eighteenth, so in the meantime I think there’s time for a quick non-Christmas post. We’re big on soups in our house and if there isn’t any soup, then there’s a strong chance that Daddy won’t actually eat lunch, which is really annoying because he ends up wandering the house and invariably getting into a stink with one of us. With the days getting even shorter and even colder, it’s important that his immune system is tip-top so I often find myself slipping as much nourishment as possible into soups to trick him.

New Look!

I was thinking the other day that my webpage was looking a little worn out but luckily, in exchange for a cookie or three I was able to hire an expert illustrator to draw me a new logo! Many thanks to Amy Mckay, my big sister!
Check out her website here: http://www.amymckay.com

In praise of the Baked Apple

Without fail around late autumn our neighbours give us a bucket of Bramley apples harvested from a tree in their garden. I was always jealous of this tree as a child and sometimes vaulted the fence to nick an apple or two; in our garden we had (and still possess) a gnarled, glorified stump of a pear tree that supports a tree house. No fruit has ever fallen from this tree apart from one year when it was clearly trying to die, dropping onto the vegetable patch all of four small, stumpy pears which were promptly scoffed by crows and the dog. Once a year with my bucket of cookers I’d set out to try a range of new, exciting, crumble, chutney or pie recipes I’d been hoarding since the summer but the baked apple only featured once in my repertoire. This was because the few I made were cooked in the microwave and were understandably disgusting. I mean look at them, they’re like the Elephant Man of desserts.

Happy Halloween Everybody!!

Sausage Mummies: roasted in ketchup and honey then wrapped in sourdough bandages

Sourdough Bones with Roasted Pumpkin and Chestnut Soup

Blueberry Cheesecake with White Chocolate Strawberry Ghosties

Our Pumpkins!

Çerkez tavuğu

Having sniffled and sweated my way through a particularly nasty cold, I celebrated my first day of feeling well with a trip to Manchester with Amy this week; we did a bit of window shopping, returned something hideous I’d bought and most importantly we dropped in to a Turkish restaurant at 205 Deansgate: Topkapi Palace. Apparently Roger’s been to the real deal on a school trip; alas, I am but a poor lout who’s never been to Turkey. I’d seen this place the week before on my way to the Museum of Science and Industry and noted how it actually had people sitting inside, as well as a decent lunch menu of £7.95 for two courses, so we decided to give it a try.

Dogs n’ Dough, Manchester

Now that I’m based back in West Yorkshire, Manchester is only a half hour train ride away, rather than a two-hour trek. Exhausting all the restaurant options in York really made me feel like it was time to be moving on and Manchester, with its seemingly endless eatery options really gets me excited. I get the sense that the city cares about its food; Simon Rogan's The French narrowly missed out on a Michelin star this year but has raised the bar pretty high, and there's enough money knocking about to warrant some pretty good cocktail bars. If I had the money I know where I’d spend it. But I don’t have the money. And as for drinks, the 10.30 curfew of the last-train-home doesn’t really give me the option for a night on the tiles, nor am I an afternoon cocktail person.

"Spanish" Paella

Not having set foot on Spanish soil, my experience of paella so far hasn’t been that great. A market stall in northern France does shine through in my memory; heaving with onlookers all ogling a steaming pan the width of a double bed, we fought our way through the crowd for a family-size portion of the stuff, studded with spindly langoustines, peppers and tomatoes. But of course that was good; I was ten for god’s sake and it was the holidays!

Chinese-style Pork Buns

When I was small we used to drive to Manchester and stop off at a little bakery up some steps in Chinatown. Inside there were glass-fronted displays of all kinds of sweet and savoury soft doughy buns, glazed and shining. We always bought something sweet with bean paste in it, which got thrown out after we’d taken one bite each in the back of the car but the star of our purchases was always the pork buns. The dough itself was sweet and pillowy soft but that filling! Tender roasted pork with honey and five spice. I didn’t know what char siu was back then but now I try to recreate those flavours every time I’m out of ideas with a piece of pork sitting in front of me. This time around I had a few pieces of pork belly to use up, so I felt that the time was upon me to try and recreate my Manchester favourite.

Red Lentil Dahl

Everyone has at least one emergency recipe in their arsenal, even if it’s just frozen chips with cheese. When the cupboards are bare and it’s lunchtime, this is the one that I fall back on time and time again. It’s based on a recipe I saw a few years back in The Guardian by Yotam Ottolenghi (before he was famous, yeah?). Lots of budget foodstuffs like pigs ears and oxtails have recently been picked up by celebrity chefs and so thrown off their uncool reputations. Lentils, on the other hand, still bring to mind images of dingy 1970s bedsits and hippies. I’m not going to fight for their cause but I do always have some in the cupboard and they taste great in spicy soups or as sloppy rainy day meals like this! I make this recipe by memory and according to what doesn’t have a thin layer of mould on it in the fridge; the results are always slightly different but still tasty.

Red’s True Barbecue, Leeds.

Take a look in the ready meal aisle of any supermarket and you’ll see just how much Man vs. Food has affected the way we eat. I remember a time when the “American” section in Sainsbury’s boasted a few fajita kits, loaded potato skins and spicy chicken wings. Tex-Mex however, has finally given way to “genuine Mex”, with burritos and quesadillas popping up regularly in high street chains and though I still have to buy my ancho chillies online, some supermarkets have started to stock a little more than sachets of taco seasoning. Drooling over philly cheese steaks dipped in beef juice or groaning at the thought of a Ruben sandwich has also become more of a reality this past year. I’ve been given the nickname “burger freak” by my mum recently, as whenever she gets a text from me, I’m telling her about some new patty I’m trying. I find it difficult to tear myself away from Gourmet Burger Kitchen and their blue cheese and bacon burger at the best of times, but having spotted a friend on Facebook eating out at a restaurant that had “barbecue” in its name; it felt like a day trip was in order.

Trinity Kitchen, Leeds

Trinity Kitchen opened its doors just over a year ago in the heart of Leeds’ new shopping mall on Albion Street. When visiting the city to shop, it’s now the first place I hit and that’s not just because it’s right next to the station! Trinity adds a much-needed string to Leeds’s bow in my opinion and I’m a big fan of the place. Local businesses must not enjoy seeing swathes of people heading there to shop but the centre houses almost all of the high street chains and it is tempting just to visit Trinity and then head back home. Of course, I try not to do this as I don’t want to miss other favourites, like the Corn Exchange, Kirkgate Market, Harvey Nichols and little boutique cafés and shops but when it’s a rainy Leeds day the temptation to skip these can get pretty strong.

Carrot and Coriander Soup

It’s no secret that I’ve been trying to teach Roger how to cook. Unfortunately, my success rate isn’t as high as I would have hoped; a confidence knock has kept him back after a misspell on my account led to him using a whole bag of flour (how could he use a kilo of flour?) to try to bring pizza dough back to a knead-able consistency when too much water was specified in the recipe. One thing I have learnt is that there is no room for initiative in the novice cook. If a recipe stated “add poison”, I’m pretty sure Roger would, because the recipe said so. Despite these setbacks, I still enjoy making Roger watch me cook, even if he doesn’t, in the vain hope that one day he’ll realise that he can do it too! I know, it won’t ever happen, but please humour me.

Turkey Schnitzels

Living on a student budget doesn’t mean you actually have to eat like one. Recently, all of the newspapers and particularly the radio (that’s right Radio 4, I’m listening) are obsessed with Jack Monroe. Obviously, she is a bit of an inspiration, having gone through hard times and actually used food banks rather than just waffled on about how important they are (and oh-my-goodness I just googled her and we’re the same age..). Nevertheless, having read her G2 articles, a lot of her recipes don’t exactly jump off the page, especially if Felicity Cloake has something ultra-ritzy with cream and white wine sharing the same page.

Granola Bars

Normally the granola bar is seen as the boring cousin of the flapjack. Dry and often tasteless, I’ll be the first to admit that I’d side with the flapjack if it was pitted against the granola bar in a fight. This may have something to do with a lust for golden syrup that’s rarely sated but the fact that so many granola bars are dry and hard, rather than moist and soft is always a turn off for me. Last week however, I made the mistake of buying an unsatisfactory coconut and after having shoved a quarter of it in a spicy chicken pulao rice dish, I still had three quarters of the soft-fleshy thing left. Always one to rise to a challenge, I went in search of recipes that could tempt me and lo, the granola bar won.

Raspberry and Limoncello Jelly Shots

I’m sure it has become obvious that I don’t get invited to many parties. But that’s because University finished and there isn’t anyone around! That’s my excuse for an early night, anyway. Roger, on the other hand, actually has friends that he sees and everything and in a moment of madness last week we invited a few over for some drinks. Essay season has just passed, so it felt appropriate to push the boat out and celebrate by making some fancy jelly shots and cookies.