Still here and happier than ever in 2015!

Well here we are nearly half the way through 2015 and not a single blog post to be seen from me.
 Well really - what a very poor show!!!  ;-D
Back at the start of this year I made one single resolution (that's one more than normal) and it was to be more selfish.  More selfish with my time where it concerned people who sapped the life from you, more selfish with myself round people whose endless negativity drags you down, and more selfish in pursuit of a lasting happiness for me.
That is not to say I immediately set off on some sort of hedonistic crusade and forsook all my friends.  In reality only a few things changed, but key was deciding I deserved more of my time.  So to that end; and this is all a bit of a roundabout way of saying it, blogging has taken a backseat along with a few other things.
So what have I been doing?  Applying for work, a little bit of temping, some sorting out of the house, and (this is the biggy) telling the man I fell in love with 22 years ago how I feel!!!  Now that was somewhat scary, but it was a gamble that paid off.  Turns out he feels the same, right down to liking me back 22 years ago.  Who knew??!  (We were both far too shy to do anything about it then.)

The Scotsman on the ancient
clapper style bridge at
Postbridge on Dartmoor.

Now the practicalities of this are not exactly straight forward, which is why I've never admitted it to myself before, let alone him.  He's in Aberdeen.  I'm in Exeter.  These are more than the Proclaimers famed 500 miles of walking apart.  Doh!
He came to visit for a week and with that time together we both realised we were more sure of this than anything before, so we will make it work.
We had a fab week, even though the weather wasn't all it could be, and his friends have already been asking when he's transferring down here!  That's all for the future though.  In the meantime I'm just as happy as I could possibly be, and it's truly wonderful.

So in other news; I have been doing some more temping and am currently on a 2 week assignment as a telephone receptionist.  In between calls though they are happy for me to potter around on the t'internet hence me taking the time to write this post.  Pretty decent of them I'd say.  :-)
On Friday I attended 2 interviews through a different temping agency and, (wait for it) have definitely secured at least one of the positions!  The lady from the agency is calling me back with full details later but apparently they came back with a big 'yes' to me after my interview.  Which is nice considering I'm very out of practice and was physically shaking going into it!  Perhaps a little more faith in myself wouldn't go amiss!  This may mean that I can't get up to Aberdeen as soon as I might have wished to but I will have to wait and find out as the company in question was advertising both 6 month fixed term contracts and permanent positions.  Exciting stuff though, none the less!
One of the other major decisions I have taken is to give up the allotment.  The friend I was helping bowed out at the start of the year and I have come to realise that a full plot on my own is just too much.  Instead I want to concentrate on the much neglected back garden at home.  Although small it's plenty of space just for me and has the advantage of not requiring me to tramp along the road with tools or a wheelbarrow en route to do a bit of digging.

Unsliced bamboo shoots

Otherwise I've been busy in the kitchen - a lot of noodles have been consumed recently as I've been getting right into the Cheung Fun (flat rice noodles in rolls) they sell fresh in my favourite Chinese
supermarket.  I also discovered recently what bamboo shoots look like before they're sliced - crazy huh!
My family came to visit for the annual Exeter Festival of South West Food and Drink.  Saw many lovely things, sampled some of them and bought some cheese.  A lovely time had by all.

#100HAPPYDAYS Set 3: 32 - 45

Time for the next installment of my #100HAPPYDAYS photos.  If anyone missed it first time round or wants a refresher the premise is summed up on their website.

"We live in times when super-busy schedules have become something to boast about. While the speed of life increases, there is less and less time to enjoy the moment that you are in. The ability to appreciate the moment, the environment and yourself in it, is the base for the bridge towards long term happiness of any human being."

You take the time to notice something that makes you happy each day; no matter how big or small.  This in turn should start help to train your brain to notice the things each day which make you happy.  So helping us to stop focusing on the negatives so much. Huff Post have a good explanatory article here.

Day 32: The Dr has brought me free range eggs. Good eh? 

Day 33: I finally got round to acquiring (ahem), a cutting of the most gorgeous and fragrant rambling rose that I've been walking past on my way to and from work for the last 7 years. Yay! 

Day 34: After a friend alerted me by text (thank you!) I managed to snag these couple of bargains at the local Co-op. Smoked salmon is my favourite!!!  

Day 35: Running around with my favourite small person and her pink bunny. (Confusingly called Little Kitty.) She is an absolute joy. 

Day 36: Unexpected catch up with good friends whilst trying out a different pub. 

Day 37: Day 1 of Exeter Festival of South West Food & Drink; with my ma. A favourite cheese of mine but I did make the comment (based on it's looks) 'That's a cheese you wouldn't want to meet down a dark alley' - luckily the owner chap found it pretty funny. 

Any TP fans will know what I mean when I say I think it looks like Horace might. Awesome tasting ewe's milk cheese though - get some from the good folks at Wootton Dairy. 

Day 38: The most gorgeous cider ever tasted by mere mortals. The limited edition Maverick from The Orchard Pig at the food festy. Cider with ginger and a subtle hint of chilli. HOW frigging good is it? And I have 4 pints all my own stashed at home. 

Day 39 (Sunday): Food fest haul. 6 lovely cheeses, mushroom and stilton pie, yummy olives, brilliant The Potted Fish Company bits. (YUM!!) Best cider, Elderflower cordial (try it in your G&T) and my yearly stock up on Cornish Sea Salt. More potted fish loveliness - all those on the top left were free at the end of the fest. Result! 

Day 40: My lovely friend donated me this for my spatzle frolics. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi cariad. 

Day 41: Getting home from a trying day at work to find food delivery accompanied by this note. 

Day 42: The smell of spring, and hope, and new beginnings.  

Day 43: The beauty of the sky never fails to inspire and awe me. Truly I live in a wonderful place. 

Day 44: Making new friends. Bigger jug than me!!  

Day 45: Sleepy kitty. Being very caring and loving... and hardly biting my hand much at all...

I have a full post about the food festy to get up sometime soon.  If you're ever in the area at this time of year it's well worth a visit.
I'm hoping for another happy picture later today - Chiefs have their last home game of the season today vs Harlequins.  Could be a hard game...

A Soup Maker recipe - spicy parsnip soup

Back at Christmas my gift from my mother was a soup maker.  She knows me and my love for kitchen gadgets well!

They were everywhere at the festive season and seem to be the next ‘thing’.  (Move over bread makers, cool your heels ice-cream machines, talk to the hand, cake-pop makers.)  Although I wasn't sure whether they were just a gimmick – after all – I had a blender didn't I? – I was now the proud; if slightly dubious, owner of one.  

A few days later once I was back home I cracked it out for a test run and thought I'd try an adaptation of my spiced roasted parsnip soup recipe.  (May have had something to do with the 4 bags of parsnips I picked up for 25p a go from the CFC too...)

I skipped the roasting this time as I wasn't putting the oven on for anything else and it seemed a bit unnecessary just for a few 'snips.

For some reason the post got lost in the ether but in case anyone is considering the merits of owning one of these, or have recently acquired one, I thought I‘d finally post the recipe.

Spicy Parsnip Soup, for Soup Maker machines

600ml veg stock. 

0.5tsp ground turmeric

0.5tsp ground cayenne

1tsp garam masala

1tsp ground cumin 

1 small Onion

3 sticks Celery

4 small Spud

250g (4sml + 1 larger) Parsnip

100ml water to top up + rinse spices from jug

100ml milk- to taste

100-150ml plain greek yoghurt - taste

Stir spices into stock and leave to cool.  [My soup maker insists on cold stock.]

Chop veg into 2-3cm cubes.

Pop everything bar the milk and yoghurt in measuring jug of your soup maker and check you’re within the volume limits of the machine.  (This will vary from model to model.)

Pour the contents of the jug into the soup maker and press the ‘on’ button.  I used the puree option; my soup maker also comes with a ‘chunky’ option.

Once the cycle has finished taste it.  A little thick and / or on the spicy side – add the milk and yoghurt as desired.

So 20 minutes later and ta daaa – I for one was very impressed.  Super tasty soup in a minimal time frame, especially if you’ve thought ahead and have cold stock to hand.  A short cut for that which I’ll try next time would be to make the stock cube up with a minimal amount of water; just enough to dissolve it, then top up to the required amount with cold water.*

This is invaluable for making fresh soup to take to work for your lunch – you can chuck everything in the jug the night before and just press on when you rise in the morning.  Pop it in a flask and in the colder months it was a lifesaver for this office worker in a building with no microwave!

Having not been totally sure about the benefits of a soup maker, this is a gift that has very quickly convinced me of its value amongst my kitchen gadgets.  It’s fast and it’s proving to be economical as it’s great for those ‘bottom of the veg drawer’ soups –chuck it in and hit ‘puree’.  It’s not the quietest thing in the world when it hits the blend part of the cycle but then, neither is a regular blender or FP.  I’m a firm fan!   Now, just to find somewhere for it to live...
*I've tried this since and it works a treat.

Yorkshire puddings with wild garlic

Just a quick idea, as it's Sunday and you might be making your yorkies later for the roast.
Mix your normal yorkshire pudding batter mix.*
Rinse a handful of wild garlic (ramson) leaves under the tap and squeeze the water out.  Finely chop and add them to the batter.

 Cook as normal.  Yum!
This was an experiment as I wasn't at all sure whether the garlic would burn during the cooking process or whether the flavour would work but it was a success.  As I love garlic and don't have meat for my roasts I'd put these with anything but I'd imagine them working well with a chicken roast, and maybe lamb.

*My regular go to batter mix is 4oz plain flour, 0.5 pint milk and one egg.  There's been a lot in the media over the last year suggesting that actually these quantities should all be the same. IE by volume - crack the egg into a measuring jug and add the same amount of milk and flour (not sure how you do the flour?).  Yorkshire chef Brian Turner advocates the addition of a little vinegar for a good rise; and in fact explains the 'measure the same method' by using a cup.  (Video here.)  Pretty much all the recipes (including my own) recommend a resting period for the batter mix before cooking. Although not Queen Delia!  In fact there's a whole lot of discussion and arguing on the 'perfect' Yorkshire pudding.  See here for a little more info.
Anyway, I like to mix mine up a little by adding herbs to the batter, or try a little hard full-flavoured cheese, or wholegrain mustard.  I guess horseradish could work for accompanying a beef roast - try it and let me know!

Food swap - pasta with salmon and capers paste from Pantelleria

Manu from the beautiful Cooking Manu blog had the great idea of hosting a food swap for bloggers and non-bloggers alike.

I was partnered with Silvia (co-incidentally Manu's sister in law) who is based in Milan, Italy.  I sent her some local Devon wholegrain honey mustard.  I'm intrigued to see what she comes up with for that!
She sent me something new to me - capers paste.  It's from Pantelleria which she explained is an island in Sicily.  (There's a very interesting post about why capers from that region are so special here.)
Now, I was supposed to have posted a recipe using her ingredient by the 31st March but with typical 'Ruth-time' I'm just a little bit late - oops!
I played with various ideas in my head before deciding to use it in a fairly simple pasta dish.  As I'd never used it before I wanted to get a feel for the strength and depth of flavour first time round.

This made a large meal (with leftovers) for 2.

1 bag fresh pasta
2 salmon fillets (mine happened to be hot smoked ones with peppercorns)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic*
1 tsp+ dried basil
1tsp+ dried oregano
1tbsp+ capers paste (pasta di capperi)
Handful calabrese florets
Handful wild garlic (ramsons) leaves*
Little grated strong cheese, if liked
EVOO
Black pepper
Salt
*Use less garlic if you're not a fan.  I am so it tends to go in everything!

Heat a splosh of EVOO over a low heat in a decent size frying pan.
Finely mince the garlic and add to the pan once the oil is warming up.
Finely chop the onion and add it to the pan.  Sweat down for several minutes.
Get a large pan of water boiling for the pasta.  Once it comes to the boil add a generous pinch of salt and the pasta.  Fresh pasta generally only takes 3-4 minutes so keep an eye on the time.
Add the herbs to the onion pan and stir well.  If you feel the mix is drying out now or at any point you may want to add a little water - nab some from the pasta pan if so.
Add the capers paste a little at a time, stirring in well each time and giving it a minute to cook in then tasting.  Bear in mind that the plain pasta will soak up a lot of flavour.
Drain off the pasta once it's done, reserving a little of the cooking water.
Cook the salmon fillets in the pan with the onions and garlic, flake them up as they cook through.
Throw in a handful of calabrese cut into small florets and 4 or 5 minced ramson leaves.  Add a little of the pasta water now to steam the veg.
Grind in black pepper to taste and stir into the pasta.  Add a little grated cheese if liked, I felt the dish needed that extra flavour to balance the salty umami notes from the capers and the strength of the garlic.
Serve and enjoy.

 This was delish and gave me a good idea of how the capers paste works in a dish.  It certainly has a big flavour but also seems invaluable for the umami notes.  I can see this having an incredible affinity with good tomatoes and black olive tapenade on some fantastic bread...Mmmmm...

Mash? Smashed it!

Apologies for the cheesy title but I'm kind of excited by my discovery this evening.  Mash can be nice!!  Good - even tasty!!!  I have always disliked mash; there's no texture, there's no taste, all too often it's too watery and just insipid and all round uninspiring.  To me it has always been the lowest form of cooked potato to eat.
However - as I mentioned I have had something of a epiphany.  I was making mash to top the Chaps cottage pie with (heroic meat cooking by the faint hearted I reckon) and I played around with it a bit and found - The Perfect Mash.
(Imagine a little musical 'ahh ah aaahhh' at this point if you will.)

Do you want to know the first secret?  Do you??

Don't boil the potatoes.

Ahaa - boiling them just introduces water into a; by necessity, floury potato.  It's floury nature means it will soak it up = rubbish mash.
A note here - you need a decent spud too, if that's not too much of an obvious thing to say.  Mine were local Desiree's bought complete with the dirt on from the local grocers.  A good spud should taste nice already, even before we add the magic.
So - if we're not boiling the spuds what are we doing with them?  Some people advocate baking them which is fine if you already have the oven on for something else, but if all you want is a bowl of mash it seems a bit long winded to me.  So - I microwaved them.  Scrub clean then prick the skins well with a fork - they'll explode if you don't!  I had two monsters - over 600g between them.  Microwave for 5 mins, turn over, cook for another 5 and prong with the fork to test if they're done.  If not give them another couple of mins.
Once they're cooked slice open in half to help the steam out.
With a fork to steady the spud (they are hot!) scoop the innards out with a spoon into a bowl.  Roughly mash with the fork.
Add 2 big spoons (about tablespoons) of Greek yoghurt and 2 of horseradish sauce.  Some salt and pepper and a small knob of butter.  Mix in well but endeavour to keep some texture to the mash.
Taste.
Marvel.

I have a lot of catching up to do on a lifetime of spurned mash...

Easy chunky fish chowder

Having taken some fish snaffled up from the bargainous CFC out of the freezer yesterday  with the intention

A mere £3.75 for all 4 fish fillets.  :-)

of making my crunchy topped fish pie, I realised tonight as I got home late from work that I really just could not be bothered.  So - what to do with the fish?  A nice chowder would suit the freezing outdoor temperatures nicely I figured, and should be easy to knock up.
Atypically for me I didn't then embark on a 2 hour research project comparing the relative merits of each and every recipe on the interwebs but I adapted this one from the BBC good food website and made it even easier and chunkier.

Chunky Fish Chowder
EVOO
2 sticks celery - diced
1 leek - sliced then the rounds sliced in half
500g spuds - diced small as I didn't bother peeling them.  I used waxy spuds as that's what I had and what I prefer
1 litre fish (or use veg) stock

Skinning salmon is easy, cod - not so much!

Zest of 1 lemon (if you haven't got a lemon in the house feel free to leave this out - I wasn't convinced you could taste it in the final product tbh)
1 tsp cornflour
2 salmon fillets (my pack was 260g) - skinned and cut into chunks
2 cod fillets (my pack was 220g) - skinned and cut into chunks
300ml full fat milk
150g sweetcorn - defrost if frozen
2 heaped tbsp Greek yoghurt

Soften the celery and leeks in the EVOO for 5ish mins while chopping the spuds.
Add the spuds, stock and lemon zest.  Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.

Stir the cornflour into a small amount of cold water and add to the pot.
Once the potatoes are soft (up to 15 mins) use a masher and crush them into the soup a bit.  How much is up to you.  It saves getting the FP out though!
Add the milk and sweetcorn and warm up.
Add the fish and cook gently for a few minutes until done.  Don't boil or the fish will fall apart.
Serve - I put a little more lemon zest on mine.  The original recipe suggests chives but I didn't have any.

Tasty, easy and filling, I enjoyed this greatly.  Helped warm me through too.  :-)
As I'd used reduced fish it was a cheap dish for me to make and I just used veg that was to hand, so no need to shop especially for this dish.

Quick, tasty & frugal - Tortilla Española (Spanish Omelette)

I wanted to whip up a quick lunch yesterday and was going to make an omelette when I remembered there was half a *tins worth of potatoes in the fridge to be used up.  I love Spanish Tortilla so it was a bit of a no-brainer decision what to do with them.
This is quick, easy and cheap yet satisfying and a bit more of a meal than just an omelette would be.  In fact really this makes enough for a snack later too.  As the Spanish generally advocate serving it at room temperature this is most definitely not a problem for me!
So - what do we need?

1 small onion, halved and sliced finely
Half a tin potatoes- use the value ones
2 eggs
EVOO
Fresh parsley
S+P

Heat a slug of EVOO and sweat down the onions whilst you slice the potatoes.  You can make them thick or thin - it' a matter of personal choice. I've seen recipes for both ways on line and they all claim that theirs is the 'authentic' way of doing it.
Add the potatoes and a pinch of salt and cook gently, half covered, until nicely softened, getting a little colour and taking on all the lovely oniony flavours.
Beat the eggs, add plenty of salt and pepper and pour swiftly into the pan.  Throw in the chopped parsley and give the whole lot a very quick stir so everything is coated in the egg, then cover and leave to cook.
Once you judge the bottom is cooked through, cover the pan with a plate and quickly invert the lot, then slide the tortilla back in to finish cooking.
Serve.  That's all there is to it.  J

You could add other bits to this depending on what you have lying around to use up.  You could also add another egg for an even more substantial final product if wanted.  It's one of those very un-strict recipes.  Have a play with it!

*I don't normally use tinned potatoes but had wanted to experiment with them for my lunch at work.  Our work kitchen is woefully under equipped - there's a coffee maker and a boiling water tap and that's it.  No microwave, toaster, kettle, anything of that sort.  This can make it a bit of a challenge (and one I embrace) to come up with hot food for lunch in the winter.  One day I might get round to a mini-series of posts on 'cooking without a cooker' or something along those lines.

I'm adding this to Chris's Bloggers Around the World - Food World Cup challenge.  Do check it out - there's going to be a lot of posts for this one!

Bloggers around the World - Greece - Tomato Pancakes / Keftedes and the case of the spookily disappearing feta

This month’s country for ‘Bloggers Around the World’ by Chris over at Cooking Around the World is Greece.  Now this is one of my fave  blog challenges but sadly I have not managed to enter for a few months but, as it was I that suggested Greece, I really really am deffo going to get at least one post in for it.  Kinda feel I should!

That said, as my failure to take part in the other months has been due to time constrictions (either in making the dish or in posting it having made it – now that’s really irritating) I decided to start with a quick snack style option and see if I can get more of a main course in later in the month.  --As I’m now posting this at the very end of the month the obvious answer to that was no.  L  Doh!

Now I had intended to serve these tomato pancakes/fritters/keftedes* with a nice authentic Greek hummus to dip into.  Until that is, I started doing my research and found that hummus isn’t really Greek.  It’s most likely Middle Eastern in origin; although it does seem to be one of those things that’s gets argued about, but the earliest reference found for it is in Egypt (13thC) and the word Hummus is Arabic for Chickpea which seems fairly conclusive to my mind. 

 So - a little crumbled feta and some tasty olives would have to do the trick instead.  Hmm – where did that feta go?  One day it was in the fridge and the next – poof – it had vanished in a puff of (Halloween) magic!  Must have been the really big fridge dwelling mice the Chap tells me we have.  The ones that leave human sized bite marks in blocks of cheddar… !!  I settled for some shavings of goats cheese with the olives instead.

*I came across this recipe first on the BBC Good Food website then found it on the original blog.  [I've asked the blog owner for permission to post the recipe but had no response but the blog has been dormant for the last 3 years so I’m going to post it anyway, especially as she said a Greek lady gave her the recipe in the first place.  Plus I made a couple of small tweaks.  Still with me so far?!]  It’s called tomato pancakes there so I tried to find the translation for ‘pancakes’ into Greek.  Hmm – I don’t read the Greek/Phoenician alphabet though which came up with τηγανίτες or κρέπα, so after a little more pottering on google it seemed that keftedes was a close approximation to fritters/pancakes.  Having seen several very similar recipes to this that termed them fritters instead of pancakes I think it’s ok to adopt this term for them.  [Quite possibly any Greek person reading this is wincing at my torturous mishandling of their fair language though as it really isn't ok to use ‘keftedes’ in this way, if so my apologies to you!]  Also my apologies to anyone who just waded through this paragraph and wondered what the point was.  Believe me – I often wonder the same myself when I've been wittering on at length without appearing to get anywhere!

However; we have got to some beautiful warm islands in the blue blue sea and come upon Greece.  I haven’t yet been lucky enough to visit Greece but it’s on my definitely-want-to list.  I imagine the tomatoes there to be bursting with fresh flavour and that these simple little pancakes are a joy to eat.  Here’s how to make them:

Greek Tomato Pancake / Keftedes

5 Tomatoes

2 Spring Onions

1 Egg

Up to 120g Plain Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1-2 tsp dried oregano or fresh if you have it

1 tsp Sea Salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Olive oil for frying

As some of my toms were on the small size I used 6 for the recipe so needed all the flour.  Add up to 100g first is my advice then add the rest if needed.

Slice toms in half round the ‘waist’ – this makes them easier to grate than slicing them top to bottom I found out after the first attempt!

Grate into a colander over a bowl to catch the juice.  (Use this up in soup etc.)

Finely chop the spring onions and mix into the toms.

Beat the egg and whisk into the mix.

Sift in the flour and beat in bit by bit.  Add the seasonings and beat in well too.  Add enough flour to make a thick batter – preferably sans lumps; unless they're the tomatoes!

Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook in spoonfuls – 3 to 4 at a time depending on the size of your pan.  Cook until golden – they must be cooked through or can be a bit nastily mushy as the tomatoes are naturally full of moisture. 

I tried these on the bloke and he said they were ‘ok’.  Damned by faint praise!  I did tend to agree with him though.  I think the issue is that as aforementioned the toms in Greece are probably rather more flavourful than those here, especially at this time of year.  So – use lovely vine-ripened ones of the best quality would be my advice.  Oh – and don’t skimp on the salt; tomatoes are one of those things that really need it to bring the flavour out.

Eating these with the olives worked really well though so I think they are one of those things that contrast well; provide a good foil for something with a bit more depth of flavour.

So – a tasty relatively quick thing to knock up but make it in the summer when the toms are at their best.  Enjoy.  J

Perk up your pies

I'm woefully behind with my posts and have a veritable arms length of them to get up but I thought I'd share this little tip with you quickly.
When you're baking pies, or you could try the same with savoury scones; pop some herbs and ground black pepper in the egg wash over the top.  Whatever takes your fancy really.  This cheese and onion pie benefited from a little oregano, pepper and a squeeze of tomato puree mixed in and liberally sloshed on before baking.  Yum!

National Curry Week 2013

I just found out yesterday it's National Curry Week this week in the UK!  I spied a little display in the shop by my work otherwise it could have passed me by without me realising - and we can't have that can we?  :-)
On the website it tells you a bit about the idea behind it - participating restaurants donate a little of the profits or you can have a home dinner where yourself an friends all bring a dish and donate and the money goes towards helping with relief for disasters and/or malnutrition in Asia.
As I've just stumbled across the event I haven't arranged anything specific but I'm going to make something yummy and possible charge the Chap for it!!  Or just suggest we donate on line perhaps...

Meat Cooking for the Faint Hearted #6 - Bacon and Beans

This is the kind of warming dish I've wanted to try out on/for the Chap for a while now.  I finally made it prompted by my bargain purchase of 3 tins of cannellini beans for 99p at a newly opened 99p store close to

Flanked by some other bargains.
2 packs of the tuna fillets - 99p and
garlic salad 99p.  :-)

us.  This makes it tick the 'frugal' box and the usage of whatever veg you have in that needs using up makes it even better as a cheap meal.
I did a little scooting about on the t'internet and came up with the below; mostly influenced by and adapted from this recipe.

Bacon and White Beans
Lump bacon - you can get cheap mis-shape packs in S'burys and butchers.  (I forgot to weigh how much I used but you can use rashers instead, as much or as little as you like / your pocket dictates.)
1-2 cloves garlic (to taste)
1 small onion / half a whopper (that's what I had)
1 carrot (or a stick of celery or both)
1 can beans - drained and rinsed (I used cannellini but white beans of your choice will do)
250ml stock (I used veg, you could use chicken if you have it)
Black pepper
Sprig Rosemary
1 bay leaf

Chop the bacon into lardons or leave whole if using rashers and chop after cooking.  Fry off the bacon in a heavy based pan - I used my cast iron one person sized casserole.  Fry until crispy then remove but leave the fat in the pan.
Add the sliced and rough chopped onion, minced garlic and the diced carrot and cook for a few minutes until softened.  (I used carrot as I didn't have any celery in the house but use both or either or neither -it's not a real picky recipe.)
Add the beans and bacon and cook for a couple of minutes whilst you nip outside and get the herbs - these are mine by the front door.  Or use dried of course.  :-)
Scrunch up the bay leaf a little and chop the rosemary finely if using fresh.  Add to the pan with plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
Add the stock, stir well and whack up the heat to bring to the boil.  [At this point I realised I forgot the garlic so chucked in a good half teaspoon of garlic granules instead.  Doh!]

Reduce the heat and simmer covered for half an hour, stirring occasionally.  Then uncover and simmer for up to a further 30 minutes stirring more often to ensure it doesn't catch on the bottom.  It may not need the full 30 but do it for as long as it takes to get to a nice sticky consistency.  Adjust this to your preference, leave it more soupy if you like, everything's well cooked by now.
Serve with some fresh greens on the side and watch the Chap wolf it down - he professed it to be lovely and ate the lot at one sitting!  :-)

I had to entrust the Chap with taking this shot but to be fair, this kind of meal is never going to win any 'pretty' awards!

A short treatise on the scotch egg

Now this may seem an odd subject for a pescatarian to pontificate upon but one of my favourite blogs to read has an author who is ADDICTED to the humble scotch egg, so keeps mentioning them, which keeps putting them to the forefront of my mind, and has thus made me overly curious about them.
(Yes John from Going Gently - I am looking at you here.)
Admittedly it doesn't take me a lot to become curious about something when it means I can spend several happy hours pinging around t'internet looking at recipes when the alternative is doing the washing up or some other dull as ditch-water pastime; but in my defence, before I gave up the meat eating I was partial to an occasional scotch egg.  So the realisation that there are many varied recipes for veggie versions out there got

me even more interested.  Then this weekend we found these intriguing sounding variants in Falmouth and the compulsion was complete - I will make veggie / fish based scotch eggs!  Once I've spent hours researching them of course!!  :-D

The origins of the scotch egg seem to be contested territory with many people espousing the 'invented by Fortnum and Mason' line.  F&M themselves lay claim to it, quoting 1738 on their website, although it's not backed up by any actual history pages.  However - a little further research tells us it may have been the name that came first, referring as it did to a preservation process used back in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the encasing in meat / whatever that came later.  *This site explains the preserving method using lightly boiled eggs dusted with a lime-powder disinfectant that was utilised to enable the eggs to be shipped from Scotland to London without spoiling.
A written recipe for the meat encased version first popped up in 1807 (in Britain anyway) and at this time scotch eggs were served hot with gravy as part of a meal.
[I mentioned this to the chap and he was roundly disgusted by the idea; which goes to show how much our preconceptions of what is 'normal' affect our thinking sometimes.  Meat and hard boiled eggs served hot with a sauce shouldn't seem odd surely, but put them in that particular combo and all of sudden our culinary conventions alarms are all shrieking.  I digress...]
Interestingly the info on that website also includes a recipe from the 1861 Mrs Beeton 'The book of Household Management' which indicates it was perfectly normal to make them with anchovies instead of pork.  This was another idea which greatly offended the sensibilities of the chap...  (Should you wish to try this - I might - the 'Forcemeat recipe No. 417' can be found here - scroll down until you reach it.)
The other strong contender for the origin of the idea, although not the 'scotch egg' moniker, seems to be the Indian version called Nargisi Kofta where the egg is cased in spiced lamb.  This was brought to India from Persia and then presumably found it's way to us in the empire days.  Tellingly this ties in with when F&M claim to have invented the scotch egg.  (In the book 'Delights from the Garden of Eden' it's mentioned that meat encased eggs existed in medieval times in Persia.)
Some of the other theories are rounded up here, for anyone not already over-satiated on scotch egg facts.
(I admit I tend to overload on info in a compulsive way before trying new recipes out; in this way I hope to get 'the' definitive idea of what something should be like before attempting to create it.  High falutin - much?!)
Anyway - whatever the history there now seem to be multiple versions out there, from the black pudding encased Manchester egg invented in 2010 (with optional salt and vinegar crisps crust) to the Worcester egg (pickled in worcestershire sauce) to the previously mentioned multitude of veggie options to a 'Geordie egg' which utilises both black and white pudding.  I am trying to come to a conclusion on what to try first, the veggie options range from bean crusts, soya mince, falafel or rice so there's plenty of scope for a little kitchen experimentation.  I do fancy trying a fishy version though - if only the shop in Falmouth hadn't been sold out of that one...

*'The Foods of England' site is a gem with the very worthy mission of finding the story behind all traditional English foods ever!  They also have copies of many early recipe books including the c1390 vellum roll 'The Forme of Cury' (=Ku-Ury - ie cookery) written by the Chief Master Cook of King Richard II.  I find it an absolutely fascinating resource.  Mind you I do like my obscure old recipe books; I love the social history you can glean from them as much as the crazy sounding (to us) recipes.  :-)

Overdue Avocado - Fruit No Waste Food challenge

Using up fruit was this month's No Waste Food Challenge hosted over at Elizabeth's Kitchen for Kate at Turquoise Lemons.  Now it may seem strange but we don't often have fruit that needs using up; I'm more of a 'when I want it I'll go and buy it and eat it there and then' kind of person when it comes to fruit.  A large swathe of the recipes out there for using up fruit seem to focus on bananas as well and as I can't stand the smell of them (it makes me nauseous) they aren't allowed in the house!
However - one fruit I occasionally forget about and then have to use up is avocados.  I love avocados; and I know they're a love it or hate it kind of thing, I think primarily because of the texture for a lot of people.  What I don't like is the whopping price tag stupormarkets seem to put on them, especially when they're often half the price in Aldi or the greengrocers.  As they're massively high in calories too I tend to just have them as an occasional treat.  I will get them when they're reduced on the CFC with the good old yellow sticker on but I find that they're invariably still too hard to eat so have to be stashed for a few days to ripen and soften up.  This is when I sometimes forget about them and end up having to chop some of the more brown portions out meaning any ideas of a pretty fan of slices for presentation has gone out of the window.  (I know, I know - how very 70's eh?!) 

So - a recipe where the avocado makes it's appearance in chunks or mashed would be a good one to utilise.  The obvious one is guacamole which I love but I fancied something different.  A warm cheesy treat on toasted bread... I give you - the avocado melt.  :-)
If you have any 'overdue' avocados to use make sure to chop any brown / black bits out as they will ruin the taste otherwise.  Just use the green bits.  Mash them with some grated cheese to your taste - I use mature cheddar for preference.  Season with some ground black pepper and a little splash of lemon or lime juice if liked.
Toast your bread - I use seeded wholegrain style stuff.  Spread liberally with the avocado and cheese mix and sprinkle a little additional cheese over the top then grill until melty and lovely.  Easy unctuous goodness packed with nutrients that would otherwise have gone in the bin - what could be better?  [Apologies for the lack of photo - having probs getting it off the card.]  If you have a couple of sad mushrooms or a tomato lurking in the fridge to use up then give them a quick slice (and cook in the case of the sh'rooms) and pop them on the toast before covering with the avocado and cheese.  This guy has some other ideas on the same lines.
There's info on the nutritional value and loads of recipes on this site amongst others   Apparently they're not as high in calories as I thought according to that site so if only the price would come down I'd have them more often.  :-)
Another of my fave ways of using up avocados is this lovely avocado and lime ice-cream I made before.  Do give it a try - it's waaay nicer than you might think if you've only had avocados as a savoury item before.