A summer off

Greetings and salutations!  I must admit that it has been rather a long time since my last post despite my best intentions.  So; what have we all been up to this summer?

I have been enjoying the fact that we’re actually having a summer this year.  I.E. – sunshine.  I've taken the opportunity of not working to busy myself hacking back the garden.  I knew there was a shed in there somewhere but since it seems that this year is the year that finally the bramble and the honeysuckle have declared all out war on each other, and are both intent on full domination of the garden, said shed took some unearthing!

I have been navigating the perils of ‘signing on’ for the first time.  That’s fun!  There is a distinct paucity of information readily available about what you can get, how you’re eligible for what and how long anything takes.  The entire system seems a bit of a mare but better minds than I have waxed lyrical on this subject many times so I won’t bang on about it.  It has meant I've had to go up into the city centre rather more often than I usually do with the side effect that I happened to go through the Exeter farmer’s market on a Thursday and take a look at what I spied:

 Razor clams! I have wanted to try these for a very long time.  Ever since I saw HFW extolling their virtues several years ago.  After that I came to realise they were one of things that people used to forage for and eat rather a lot more in decades past than currently.  That seems to be changing now though with the rise in popularity of foraging, and awareness of what local delicacies we have available without having to ship our food for miles.  I didn't purchase any yet; being out of employment they seemed a little unnecessary, but I spoke with the stall holder (from local fishmongers Gibson's Plaice) and he told me they have them most weeks bar the winter.  I shall save them for a treat.  J  In fact all of their produce looked very tempting, and beautifully fresh.

I have been making some crafty things.  Remember my purse I made that gets re-invented every time the cover is falling apart too much?  A friend had mentioned that she cannot find a card sized purse anywhere and as it was her birthday coming up I decided to make her one. 

I used some scraps in her favourite colours and stitched it up on a visit home to Ma (and her sewing machine) and she loved it.

I've also been doing waaay more baking than I ever normally have the time for - tried cheese and courgette scones - thoroughly lovely.  Useful to use up any excess courgettes from the garden or allotment.  Which brings me to the news that I am helping a friend with her allotment as she has virtually no experience at growing things.  In return I get to adopt the shed on the right  and get part of the plot to myself and we share the rest.  I've been loving getting back into the digging - it made me realise how much I missed the old plot.  Lots of plans going round my head for next season.

All of these things have made me rather wish I could make a living crafting things, and doing gardens, and baking, with perhaps some social media marketing and invoicing / IT thrown in for good measure.  I wonder if that’s possible...  Sadly something tells me I'm going to have to get a ‘real’ job.  It has been lovely having a several weeks to myself though, for which I am grateful, and it has given me time to re-evaluate quite drastically what I want from a job.  I have come to the conclusion that as long as I can pay the rent and bills and have enough for Zeke and I to live on then it is far more important to me now, to find something I am happy doing / can believe in.  It may take me some time to find this so in the time being I have been applying for casual type stuff/temping whilst I search.  Wish me luck in my quest!

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...

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.

Lemon & Ginger Soba Noodles with Tofu and Salmon Gari and no Matcha ice-cream...yet

This month's country for Bloggers Around the World hosted by Chris at Cooking around the World was here.
Japan.  I love oriental/asian food generally but hadn't cooked anything specifically Japanese before so went on search on t'interwebs for a suitable clutch of recipes.  I had soba noodles in the cupboard to use up as well as tofu so picked this tasty sounding lemon and ginger recipe from Steamy Kitchen.
Incidentally there's a great recipe resource here on the Eat-Japan site that allows you to pick by ingredient type, seasoning, time needed etc.
I wanted to try more than one recipe out and in my travels I came across this baked salmon recipe with gari - the pickled ginger you get with sushi.  I love this stuff so this recipe intrigued me and sounded super simple and quick to make.  Turn oven on - lay salmon in greased dish and scatter gari over the top.  Bake.
I'm not going to put the whole soba noodle recipe here - you need to visit the link to check it out but with lemon, ginger, honey, cayenne, soy, rice vinegar and sesame oil in the dressing plus toasted sesame seeds

you know it's punchy and flavourful.  I halved the amounts of noodles and tofu as the recipe is for 4, although I realised afterward I used the amount of dressing that was for 4 peoples noodles on the halved amount - it was very well flavoured!
The tofu was tasteless - the recipe says to fry until browned - I'm now convinced (having never cooked with tofu before) that this is an unobtainable fallacy as no matter how high I turned my pan and how long

I left the tofu no browning was occurring.  It just started sticking instead.  :-( I think for tofu in future I'll stick to my instinct that says it needs a lot of marinading first to make it taste of anything.
The salmon I liked - but then I love salmon anyway.  I did find it a little on the sweet side but gari can vary in sweetness a lot - a different brand that I have a jar of at work is nothing like as sweet as the one I had here.  I think this dish would be improved vastly by using a less sweet gari but it was interesting to try as a flavour combination.
Lastly - it must be dessert surely?  Well - I had a sachet of Matcha (green tea) powder in the cupboard I've been looking to do something with for a while and after having had Matcha ice-cream once at the local 'Steaks n Sushi' restaurant which I had loved this seemed the obvious answer.  So - I found this very simple sounding recipe at Just One Cookbook - one of many great Japanese food blogs out there.  Then - I ran out of time.
This post should have been up yesterday and although I made the salmon and noodles yesterday I only got to writing it up now so....the ice-cream will have to be a different post.  I shall make it though and let you know how it goes.

Yesterday we had to scarf down the noodles - super yum we decided - then run to catch the rugby bus to see Chiefs beat London Irish 27-6 to get us into the top 6 that would mean we're in the Heineken Cup again next year.  Fingers crossed we can stay there!!

Bloggers around the world - a Mexican feast

This month’s theme for Bloggers Around the World by Chris over at Cooking Around the World was Mexico. Well - other than opening a tin of refried beans (a long time ago) and making (once) guacamole from scratch I've never done any actual Mexican cooking despite being a fan of the country's cuisine so I set out to find some interesting recipes to try.
There's a lot with meat in so I hunted a bit further; I wanted to try and find something that I could enjoy whilst being at the same time authentically Mexican.
I met with some success finding this blog and this site both with recipes on, and the second one introduced me to Esquites, a corn based street food complete with cheese, mayo, lime, chilli and the herb Epazote that I’ve never even heard of let alone can get here!  Nevertheless I decided to give it a bash as I love sweetcorn.  After some more searching for an actual recipe I stumbled on this video from a Mexican restaurant and loosely based my version on that.  This was served with Mexican rice (admittedly from a USA site), refried beans (BBC!) and preceded by a Seabass ceviche from here - I’m sad to say that she isn’t Mexican either!
So – how did it go?
The ceviche was super easy to do and tasty too.  It’s the first time I’ve ever made ceviche or indeed eaten it and I was very much taken with it.  Not sure the coconut came through a lot but then I didn’t see coconut making much of an appearance in any other of the Mexican recipes I looked at so I’m not sure how authentic it’s inclusion is or isn’t.  I had a moment’s worry when I realised I had totally forgotten the tortilla chips to serve it with and that my avocado was still rock hard but I muddled though.    We both found this refreshing, though perhaps more of a summer dish.  Although there’s a lot of lime in it (I used the juice of 2 limes as this was enough to cover the fish) it isn’t too overpowering, just being citrusy and zingy.  I added a minimum of avocado to serve and sadly dumped my plan for guacamole to go with the other dishes as the 2 avocado pears I bought at the weekend had obstinately remained too solid to be used yet, despite putting them in a brown paper bag to hasten the ripening process.
Next to be started was the rice.  Here again I had a minor panic when I came to add the rice to the hot oil as I realised I only had about 1.5 cups of long grain white rice rather than the 2 called for.  I made up the quantity with Arborio rice and the dish seemed none the worse for it.  The Chap hadn’t noticed anyway so it can’t have been too bad.  Again this dish is fairly simple to do and I had great hopes of it but… I found myself a little underwhelmed if I’m honest.  It was nice but it didn’t really ‘sing’ to me.  It needed more heat for sure but I still found the flavours a little lacking and the only thing I changed in the recipe was to use veggie stock instead of chicken which I don’t think would have made that much difference. 
I like the idea of whizzing up your raw onion and tomatoes to make the ‘stock’ for it to be cooked in though and I may borrow this technique for future experimentation.  (Although I did manage to break the only tin opener in the house getting into the tin of tomatoes!!)  If you do check the recipe out however I must state that I most definitely do not advocate discarding any extra you may have like the recipe states!!  Put any left in the fridge for use another day like a good frugal bunny.  Oh and one more thing – this made a lot of rice.
Refried beans.  I must admit to having had a previous fling with refried beans many years ago, back when I was at uni in fact when I used to regularly buy a tin (sorry) and eat them…in something?  In what however I have no recollection.  I have been looking at them again on the shops for a year or 2 now and wondering what exactly it was that I did with them and I’m forced to draw the conclusion that I just ate them as they were.  Which seems to be what a lot of people do; they’re just another element to the meal.  The BBC recipe I used was to actually make them for quesadillas, I just used the start of the recipe that told me how to do the beans.  These were tasty enough although another small problem reared its head here when I ran out of smoked paprika; I think this Mexican meal was starting to be jinxed!  This was after I'd opened the tin of beans by going round the edge individually piercing the lid over and over until all the holes joined up. 
I realised I’ve gone off the texture of these a bit in the last decade  and would enjoy them more in a quesadilla with cheese and toasted tortilla for some contrast but I can see me making these again as a fast easy cheap meal.  Not a lot to report other than that.
Which brings us to the part I was looking forward to trying out most – the esquites!!  Complete with some fresh basil and mint and dried tarragon in an effort to replicate the taste of the missing epazote.  Having scribbled some instructions watching the video I set off.  First problem – I couldn’t get the lid off my jar of small dried chillis that looked the closest equivalent I had to what they fried off first in the film.  No matter how I tried it wasn’t coming off, I was hopping about the kitchen sprinkling the environs with a few choice words but to no avail!  So – some finely minced fresh chilli it was instead.  I fried this off for a few minutes stirring pretty much constantly to ensure they didn’t burn, just fragranced the oil nicely.  Next I added the corn which I judged by eye as enough for the 2 of us.  I now have to own up here to using frozen sweetcorn not the fresh off the cob you should really use, that was my entire forgetful fault though rather than the gremlins that had been dogging me so far!  Fry this until slightly browned – it gives off a lovely popcorny sort of smell.  I must admit to being a little impatient plus aware that this was all taking me absolute acres of time and there was a voracious Chap waiting to be fed so mine weren’t quite browned, but the flavour was getting there.  Add the torn up herbs and keep stirring and frying.  After watching the video I used a sprig of fresh basil and one of fresh mint torn up as that was what the chef described the epazote taste like.  If you read the Wiki article however it claims an aniseedy edge to the taste so I added a couple of decent pinches of dried tarragon too.

Serve in a glass dish (for authenticity you understand, or in a paper cup as you would purchase it off the street) topped with mayo, feta (this being the closest you can get to the queso fresco that should be used), a squeeze of lime juice and a sprinkle of chilli powder.  this was my favourite dish by a mile, it had the most taste and as mentioned before I love sweetcorn so it could only ever be a win for me. 

Served all together the 3 dishes following the ceviche certainly filled us up, I did feel the lack of a contrasting texture though; and of course guacamole would have gone down a treat.
So – some interesting ‘finds’ – ceviche is easy and gooood, rice cooks nicely in whizzed up veg  in a dish in the oven – add more flavour and the missing umami note next time though,  and fried sweetcorn with cheese can only ever be fab.  It’s got cheese in it though hasn’t it…  J  And I need to be a bit more generous with the chilli!

Someone else's kitchen Random Recipe - Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde plus a giveaway!

This month's Random Recipe theme from Dom over at Belleau Kitchen was to use a book picked from another's collection.  I asked my Ma and she dutifully counted all the books and booklets in the house and gave me a total of 37.  I used an on-line random number generator and we came up with 25 which was 'Fillipo Berio Winter Recipes' which flipped open to Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde.  *I've got a couple of the Fillipo Berio booklets myself but not the winter recipes one.  The recipe sounded packed full of flavour and fairly simple to do.  You can see it online here though they seem to have left out the instruction as to what to do with the second half of the lemon juice - I made the fairly safe assumption that it went into the salsa.
So - here we go - for precise measures see their recipe.  I'm sure it's copyright so I'm not giving them here. :-)  (I will say though that 1 lemon and 1 growing plant of parsley cover the requirements.)
Mix EVOO, half the lemon juice and chopped fresh parsley, season and marinate the tuna in it for an hour, turning periodically and stashing in the fridge in the intervening periods.

Meanwhile into a small blender (I'm soooo chuffed we got a little 'mill' blender attachment with the new blender the Chap's bro got us for chrimble - this was it's inaugural outing) put the rinsed capers, the rest of the EVOO, lemon zest (and remaining juice), garlic, parsley and anchovies and whiz it up.

Once the tuna has had it's allotted hour marinating cook it under the grill or in a cast-iron-ridged pan for 3-4 mins per side and serve with the salsa perched atop.  I sort of scooped up the marinade with the tuna and cooked it all in the pan together.
That's it - easy eh?
We made a meal of it by serving on spaghetti with some wilted spinach and the juices from the tuna pan stirred through, and plenty of black pepper.

This was lovely - really zingy and fresh and lemony.  We'd been slightly concerned it could turn out too salty with both capers and anchovies in but not at all.  We liked the salsa so much that I'd easily knock this up to stir through pasta for a quick and easy supper and if you buy your fresh parsley plant, lemon and tin of anchovies from Aldi it works out pretty cheap.  I also had the idea that this would work with the addition of a good handful of wild garlic which is even cheaper at nuppence!  Win win as the yanks might say.  :-)
I've decided to also enter this recipe to the Herbs on a Saturday blog challenge by Karen of Lavender and Lovage which is being hosted this month over at Bangers & Mash.  It seems appropriate with the use of a whole plant of fresh parsley.  This is my first ever submission to them so I hope they're as nice to me as the Random Recipe tribe were on my first time!

*I in fact have 3 of their booklets, 2 of which are the same one, so with such abundance on hand I will give one of them away.  :-)  Just leave a comment mentioning you'd like it and I'll pull a winner out on Sunday.  I'm not going to specify that you have to follow me as I want my followers to be because they find my witterings vaguely interesting and perhaps even informative.  Having originally started this blog kind of by accident to record stuff for myself it's somewhat odd / gratifying / worrying that there's folks out there reading this drivel!!  Thank you, even if you do it only through sympathy.  :-)

Salt, Pepper & Chilli Squid & Prawns

I made this for us on Sunday.  It's one of my favourite things and it's pretty quick and easy to knock up.  Perhaps not the ultra healthiest as it's fried but drain off any oil really well and as you only have a starter size portion it could be worse.  (That is assuming you do only have a starter size portion!!)  I adapted my recipe from one found here on the Gastronomy Domine blog.

For 4 starters: (Halve it for 2)
500g raw squid and raw shelled prawns mixed - or all one or the other whatever you like.  Get your fishmonger to clean the squid for you and cut into thin rings and the tentacles into short lengths - 2 inches ish.
3tbsp rice flour
3tbsp cornflour
1-2 fresh chillies - to your taste
2 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns - whole
1 tbsp freshly ground (for preference) black pepper
1-2 tbsp sea salt (I actually used the lemon fennel and chili salt I bought at the farmers market a little while back)
Oil - for frying so sunflower / vegetable etc

Dry fry the Szechuan peppercorns in a heavy pan for a few mins to release the flavours.  (If you have trouble finding Szechuan peppercorns try health food shops or oriental supermarkets.)  They're less solidly dense than the black ones so you can crumble the odd one up a little with your fingers to add to the textures of this dish and make the flavour of them more accessible having more available surface area.
Slice and chop the chilli finely aiming for small squares no bigger than the peppercorns - it's up to you whether you leave the seeds in or not - of course depending what type of chilli you're using as well.  I used Aji Limon - a yellow one with a slight citrus taste that's nicely hot but doesn't blow your head off and I only used one so I left the seeds in.  [This is the one plant of mine from the 13 chilli plants in 11 different varieties the Chap brought up this year!]  Incidentally if you're as rabidly paranoid as I am (fueled by all those horror stories of people inadequately washing their hands then touching their parts in the bathroom or rubbing their eyes etc) then you can get a pack of these plastic gloves and use those for chopping chillies.  They can be washed and reused as long as you haven't holed them and their tight enough to the hand to enable you to feel properly to chop.
Place the chilli, flours, salt and black pepper in a bowl and add the Szechuan peppers once done and mix well together. 

Put the oil on to heat - about an inch deep will suffice.  It needs to be frying temp - 180/190ish C (that's 350-370ish F or when a cube of bread browns in 60 secs).
Gently dredge the squid pieces and whole prawns in the mixture and fry them off in batches.  Use a slotted / holed spoon and keep turning them regularly; removing from the oil once golden and crisped to your taste.
Drain on  kitchen towel and serve.  A fresh crispy lettuce side would provide a refreshing contrast with this and a piquant chilli dipping sauce of some kind would also work.  Yum!

Impromptu weekend away #2 : Salcombe - Chilli Farm - Home (or is it)

We headed to Salcombe and instead of taking the longer way round we took the back road along part of the Avon estuary.  We didn't know it until we got there but for 3/4 mile this road is tidal - how cool is that!  Luckily we got there at low tide so it was passable albeit very narrow sandwiched between the mud and water on one side and a rock cliff on the other.  The sign at the start of the road warns that it's only passable at certain times - we would have got a pic but there was a vehicle following us. 
We wended our way on up the estuary then cut across country to the Kingsbridge Estuary on which Salcombe nestles and tumbles down the steep valley sides to the water below.

This is a pretty little town; although strangely bereft of 'real' shops - ie it's got highly pricey clothes shops aplenty and some nice but also pricy delis but where does one buy one's bog roll and other such essentials I wonder?!  It seems like you have to have a boat to live here as well - certainly if you want to do your recycling!!

We had a little wander about before turning our minds to where we would rest our heads that night.  Having checked out how much a room in one of the hotels would cost us [£180!!  For 1 night!!] we fetched up outside the council/tourist office [closed] and perused the list of B&B's and pubs they had attached to the board outside - trying to spot the roads on the map also handily affixed to said board.  After a handful of 'no vacancies' we were pointed in the direction of Pengwern; usefully just up the road from our location.  We ended up in their self contained appartment for the night - fantastic view and with the addition of a few essentials for brekkie from the Spar hidden in the depths of the residential area [apparently the only 'real' shop in Salcombe] a snug little place to stay for the night and at £50 for the both of us a fair bit more reasonable than the hotels on the front.  After a quick change we set forth for the evening in search of a couple of fine pints and some supper.

We'd earlier checked out the various menus of places to eat in town and had also picked up a leaflet in the apartment for the new Oyster Shack in Salcombe which had decided us on our eaterie for the night so we decided to try a couple of pints in the local pubs first.

The Kings Arms was the first to be graced by our presence; seemed quite locally but friendly enough.  We didn't stay over long here though as there were no free seats to sit outside admiring the view which is of course what we wanted to do on a warm summers evening away.

A little further up the road is the entrance down some steps to the Ferry Inn - built into the nigh on sheer cliff sides it has a fab view through the windows over the river and once you've purchased your pint you can exit and go down another flight of stairs to the large outdoor seating area immediately adjacent to the water.  There was another bar down here as well.  It's a bit of a hidden gem I'd say with a rather nice sounding specials board and good smelling food.  We had a drink here; were inspected by the pint police (cheeky!) and then thought we'd best move on for dinner.

Well - we traipsed up and down the road (not long) that the Oyster Shack* was supposedly on twice and saw not a hide nor hair of it.  It was all boat sheds, boat shops and one distinctly cheesy looking bar that boasted it was open until midnight and did burgers or something equally unappealing.  Damn.  Back to the centre of town and into our second choice [I think it was 'The Galley'] - a nice but pricey looking menu having caught our [my] eye earlier.  They'd stopped serving - we checked the time - just gone 10pm!  Eek - we hadn't realised it had got so late at all.  They told us to try over the road at the kiddy friendly place I really hadn't wanted to go to [Captain Flints] and told us they thought that or the burger / late opening bar place we'd just turned our noses up at were probably our best bet at that time of night.  Oh well we thought, at least we'd eat and they did some ok sounding pasta dishes even though it was still fairly busy with small people at that time of night.  But no - they didn't want our custom either when we ventured in the door although I can't say I was that saddened - it was more that we were both rather hungry by this point. 

We wandered back along the main road not seeing any positive or open type signs anywhere until I thought I'd try the little bistro up a side alley we'd spotted earlier.  Boatswains [no website of their own - missing a trick there guys!] had some people in still - with a menu with things like wings and potato skins [:-(] etc on but a great looking specials board when we'd checked it out earlier.  I popped in and enquired if they were still serving?  After checking how many we were the very friendly lady said she'd check with the kitchen and returned shortly with the very gladly received news that as they had a table in that had only just started eating it was fine.  She led us upstairs to our own corner table in a window, flanked by a funky metal oil burner and several candles and even brought another couple when she saw it was a litle dark.  The whole place is done out in a tasteful contempory fashion with out being pretentious and the service was super friendly and attentive without making you feel pressured or under the spotlight.  The lady that originally led us in was American - those wings and potato skins were making more sense!  The specials board looked fab and we both chose starters from  it - I had scallops baked in their shells in a parsley and garlic butter and the Chap had grilled squid in some sort of chilli basting.  [I can't remember the exact terminology used.]  Wow - this was seafood of the highest and freshest calibre.  My scallops were to die for - they were sweet and creamy and the flavours were well balanced and complementary.  Chap's squid was equally lovely - and it was a whole one!  I'm afraid there's no pics though because sometimes [just sometimes mind] you have to put the camera away and concentrate on living the moment instead. 
For main I was going to choose a cod dish in a sauce I liked the sound of - it's rare for me to choose something like cod otherwise; but they'd run out of it.  However, the friendly American lady told us of a dish 'off-menu' that she had which was a monkfish tail that'd be big enough for both of us and came in a similar sauce with a bed of spinach as the cod had done.  Well - we were sold both loving monkfish and yes - it was absolutely fab too.  Really really special and the best meal I've had out for some time.  You could taste the freshness of the fish in all the varieties we had; something that's emminently important and can make such a difference to the taste.  That the place was so friendly and welcoming even at that time of night just made it.  [BTW there is no material advantage to me in writing this glowing review in case you were wondering - they're not in the least aware of it and we paid our bill in full already!  This is my honest opinion - as is everything else found here.] 
Having polished off every little scrap of monkfish, spinach, new potatos and sweet potato chips (yummy btw) we decided we really could fit a pudding in - very rare for us as we're both way more savoury people but it was that sort of night.  Incidentally they were more than happy to offer us dessert even though it must have been gone 11pm by then.  I chose the honeycomb ice-cream - creamy and rich with chunks of honeycomb in - very good indeed.  Chap had the baked vanilla cheesecake - also good and very rich.  We eventually left and waddled back up the hill to our appartment for a sound nights rest.  :-D

The next morning I woke early and took a couple of pics of the view from the window at about 5am.  Sadly Chap had parked pretty much bang slap in front of it (!) but you can see how stunning it is overlooking the estuary.
Once we'd actually got up properly, had a leisurely breakfast and paid our bill to the nice people that run the place we took the van down into the town and found a car park so we could have more of a potter about while stuff was open this time.  As it was Fathers' day [yes - this second part of the post has been rather a long time coming!] Chap was thrilled to be allowed to have a wander in a fishing tackle shop.  :-D  In return I was allowed to have a peruse round Gallery 5; a gallery run by a collective of locally based artists I think.  A mixed offering with some painted driftwood pieces in amongst various different painting styles from the different artists.  We had a proper look round the town checking out some of the expensive yet stylish shops - I was especially taken

by these silver plated mussel pickers for eating your moules with - I generally use the empty shells of one.  Something for the chrimble list maybe?  They were in a fab kitchenware shop that was however quite hideously overpriced.  I saw a wood and glass cheeseboard I rather liked - £80odd without the knives!!  They were a further £60odd I think!!  Sheesh.  It being a shop full of lovely lovely kitchen things though there were many items I coveted but as they were well out of what I'm prepared to pay Chap was safe from me managing to clutter up the kitchen any further.
We had a poke about the local wine shop and picked up a bottle of Rosehip Cordial whilst there - which I can now later confirm as refreshing and 'virtuous' feeling [but in a good way] when drunk with sparkling water.

I spotted these and liked the fact that Salcombe has pretty kerbs - my town doesn't manage anything quite this spiffing.  I thought they were pretty cool but then I'm like that.  :-)
We popped into the local Salcombe Dairy's outlet place and had [another] ice-cream.  Chap went for Rum and Raisin with Navy Rum soaked raisins and I had Stem Ginger with real ginger pieces in.  Ooh yum - really peppy and gingery whilst creamy at the same time.  I much preferred it to the Rum and Raisin though that's not a flavour I'd go for anyway - Chap assured me it was delicious!
We decided we'd done Salcombe for the time being and would set a leisurely course home taking in the South Devon Chilli Farm and a spot of lunch en route.  In fact that is where I will leave you as I feel this post is in danger of getting far too long for it's own good and aside from threatening the very fabric of space time with it's sprawling gargantuanness I'm plenty sure you've had enough by now.  [I know I have.]  Stay tuned for the thrilling part 3 - Impromptu weekend - the return!  [That reminds me - the last Harry Potter film is released here today - end of an era or a chance to return to the magic of the printed word?  Whilst firmly being in the 'the book is always better' camp I must admit to a guilty liking of the HP films.  If you go see it let me know if it's any good.]
*The mystery of the missing Oyster Shack - quick google search upon returning home reveals it closed around easter to be replaced with the bar we saw.  Damn.

Arrabiata prawn pasta - speedy supper

Speedy supper for when  it's late, you're tired and hungry and no - you really can't be bothered being virtuous and make a sauce from scratch.  Nowt wrong with that in my opinion.  'Arrabiata' means Angry - which is a reference to the chilli kick this sauce has.  You could use whatever sauce you have in the cupboard though and add your own chilli - or leave it out as you like.  It's quick and simple but still tasty - ideal.

Speedy prawn pasta
Stock cube - veg
EVOO
Pasta
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic
Butter
Mushrooms
Salt
Jar arrabiata pasta sauce - ours was Aldi for about 75-80p-ish but not bad
2-3 tbsp tomato puree
Mushroom ketchup
Dried basil
Handful prawns
Handful spinach
Grated cheese - parmesan if you have it in, cheddar if you don't [or are forgetful of your recent parmesan purchasing activities like I was - dur!!]
Black Pepper

Cook the pasta in plenty of water seasoned with the stock cube and a splosh of oil to prevent sticking.  (I always put the kettle on for the water for things like pasta as it takes a lot less time than boiling the water on the hob from cold - especially if you have an electronic hob - I'm soooo glad I have gas!!)  Ensure to cook al dente as it'll be added to the sauce and heated again later.
Meanwhile heat a little butter and oil in a large wide saucepan.
Chop the onion and garlic and add to pan.  Cook gently to soften.
Chop the mushrooms - use however many you like / have in stock.  I used 5/6 I think.
Add to the pan with the onion and garlic, sprinkle a little salt and cook covered to keep the juices in, stirring occasionally until the mushrooms have sweated right down.
Add the pasta sauce.  As I mentioned ours was an Aldi effort - not bad but it did taste a little sweet to me so I added a good squirt of tomato puree - probably 2-3 tbsp and a splash of mushroom ketchup to counteract this and give the sauce some depth.
Add a decent pinch of basil - I was out of oregano otherwise I'd have added this too.  Any Italian herbs you have will do.
Stir thoroughly then add the pasta and stir well again to get it all covered in sauce.  We had S'bury's basics penne - the grooves hold the sauce nicely and it's v. frugal at a mere 17p for 500g dried product - that's even better than Aldi or Lidl can manage!
Ensure it's heated through thoroughly then add your prawns.  I buy the S'bury's basics frozen 300g bags at £2 a go.  As long as you don't overcook them they're fine, just smaller.  (Hence if overcooked they'll a) vanish and b) turn hard - yeurgh!)  It means that for that price I don't mind adding a large handful - I love prawns!!  [I also know myself and after defrosting while they're sat on the side waiting to go into the pan we seem to magically lose half of them - very odd it is...]
Cook only enough to just heat them *through then add the spinach and turn it into the pasta and sauce, cover the pan and remove from the heat.  Let stand for a bare minute to wilt the spinach.
Serve and sprinkle with grated cheese and a good few twists of black pepper on top.  Voilà!!  Shouldn't have taken too long so now feel free to go collapse and chillax.
*Obviously using your common sense where seafood and the heating / cooking thereof is concerned.  I accept nowt &c &c...
If you don't have spinach use whatever you have; adding at the right point so it gets cooked.  EG - if it's calabrese I'd add for the last 2 mins of the pasta cooking time and thereafter drain it etc all together.  Treat this as a vague guideline suggestion type iof thing and ensure you have value pasta and a jar of sauce in the cupboard for those times and you're away.

Crunchy Topped Fish Pie

Ideal for using up odds and sods of fish in the freezer or buy some pie mix from your local fishmonger (undoubtedly better qulity and value than the stupormarkets - unless it's on the CFC of course), this is a doddle to make, goes a long way, can be a light summery dish or a comforting one for those chillier evenings and best of all is topped with cheesy crunchy breadcrumbs.  No 6 inch layer of mash followed by a game of hunt the prawn here.  This is a FISH pie.  Made of FISH.  It is not an excercise in rebranding a mashed potato pie as it's piscine equivalent in the hope of sqeezing some more pennies out of the poor old public.  You know who I'm talking about here don't you crappy pubs/Youngs &c?  (Did you know there's a whole 18% fish in a Youngs Admirals Pie.  18%?  That's disgusting.  And I had to find that out from S'burys site - they don't tell you on their own.  It's 45% potato - nearly half.  Words fail me.  [Though probably not for long.])  My pie has no potato in it.  Again - NO POTATO.  Don't get me wrong.  I love the spud but there's a place for it and if it's near this dish it's most definitely on the side not in it.  Here the fish is the star.  Even, as previously mentioned, when it's the cheap off cuts and a handful of value prawns.  So - rant over - this is what you do.  Amounts are a little hazy as it depends how big a pie you're making - mine was with a (whisper it) supermarket pie mix from the CFC for 70p with some mussels picked from Exmouth thrown in.

Crunchy Topped Fish Pie
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
Mushrooms - approx 4-5
EVOO
Butter
White wine (optional)
2oz plain flour
0.5 pt milk
S+P
Tarragon - or your preferred herbs - a pinch
Fish
Peas / sweetcorn - to your taste - defrosted if frozen.  I added a little seabeet we had too.
Breadcrumbs
Grated cheese

Put oven on at Gas 6 to heat up.

Put EVOO and butter in pan to heat up.
Chop onion, garlic and mushrooms and fry gently to soften.
After a few mins add a splosh of white wine and raise the heat to boil off the alcohol and reduce the liquid a bit.  Or don't bother with the wine - we had an open bottle to hand so I popped some in.
Meanwhile make the sauce by melting 1oz butter in the microwave. 
Whisk the flour in - 2 rounded tablespoons is a good measure for 2 oz. 
Add a little milk and whisk in to get rid of the lumps then add the rest of the milk and season with S+P and a pinch of tarragon.
Microwave and whisk periodically until thickened and the flour is cooked out.
Lay the raw fish out in the base of your casserole dish and put in the oven to start off.

Mix the onion, garlic and mushrooms into the white sauce and add your veg - peas or whatever you wish.
Pour the sauce over the fish.
Mix the breadcrumbs and grated cheese and sprinkle evenly over the top.

Cook covered in oven for 30 mins-ish dependent on size of pie - until top golden and cheese melted.  Check after 15 mins.  Even with the lid on the crumbs should crisp up nicely.

And that's all there is to it - a fish packed tasty, healthy pie with nary a scrap of watery mash in sight.  You can add your choice of fish - whether as a mix or spoil yourself with just your favourite.  In this way it can be as frugal as you can make it or rather more of a luxury treat for yourself.

Seaside bimble with a forage thrown in

Well in contrast with the excess of the food festy we took a little bimble along the coast the previous week from Exmouth round to Sandy Bay and picked up some rather more frugal foodie goodies.  The weather was glorious, the sea - er - bracing!  [Mighty nippy.]  All in all it was a thoroughly restorative day for someone cooped up with hurty eyes for too long.  Found various shells, some dog whelks and one full size whelk which we stashed in the cool under a rock and failed to find again on the way back!  [Darn those pesky rocks all looking the same!]  I loved the colour of this little crab shell though.

We had taken along the River Cottage 'Edible Seashore' guide and having carefully perused the pages on mussels decided we'd collect a few of decent size to try.  I must say it's a tiny bit thrilling to be doing so when you consider mussels in a pub or restaurant are perceived more as a luxery item with price tag to match and here we were getting them for nuppence - the best price!  Do be aware though that you will need a 'sacrificial knife' once you get home to deal with them.  No - I don't mean for any dodgy offerings to some formless deity of your choice but a knife you don't mind getting very blunted for the purposes of pulling off the *beards and scraping off any barnacles.  The knife I snapped the tip off of getting into oysters after last years food fest does me nicely!  Having got a plastic bag from the local plastic tat / buckets 'n' spades type shop [we were woefully underprepared apart from the book having both forgotten to pick up anything to put any foraged goodies into] we collected a decent handful of mussels and some Sugar Kelp seaweed.  According to the book of words it's good flash deep fried as a kelp crisp - you can tell the difference from regular kelp (which can also be treated this way) as it has wavy edges and a bumpy look whereas regular kelp is flat.

Now - mussels can contain grit as they're filter feeders.  (This is why it's very important indeed you only get them from clean water areas and at certain times of the year which I'm not going to tell you thereby forcing you to look it up yourself.  I take no responsibility for any wild food misadventures, only for my own!)  Containing grit means you need to 'purge' them - soak them in aerated salt water for several hours with or without oatmeal (apparently it can speed the process) before cooking.  If you're going to cook them in a sauce like a classic moules marinière this is important as grit in the dish is a real killer to the enjoyment of great food.  We however; due to time constraints amongst other factors, opted to cook them in plain water letting any grit fall into the pan then shelled them and used them in a fish pie.  Chap and I did taste one each 'straight' as it were and they were delicious.  Sweetish as really fresh prawns can be, a delight to eat knowing we'd scooped them from the waves mere hours before.  We'll definitely be repeating this experience though we'll have to wait now until after the summer as this is when they spawn so you shouldn't pick them.  Apparently they are biggest in Autumn after their summer feeding and before they lose weight over winter so it'll be a treat I'm looking forward to already.

*I learnt from the book that the 'beards' or 'abyssal threads' are made from iron the mussel extracts from the seawater and used to be woven into cloth called 'mussel silk' which such luminaries as Caeser and Ghengis Khan used to wear!  Cool huh?  [In case you hadn't picked up on it yet I am a lover of the odd random and/or esoteric fact or three.]

Oh and the kelp?  Er...we kinda forgot about it so the taste of Sugar Kelp crisps remains to yet delight our tastebuds, or not as it may be.  (We had to throw the seaweed away.)  We will gather some again another time though.  I know - my bad.  :-(  Even free food wastage annoys me!  :-D

Adventures in food - Dried Squid

Bet you're going 'ick' right now eh? Here in Exeter we've got a fair few Chinese, Oriental, Indian and general World Food shops. Having booked off a half day last Wednesday for the abortive IT system switch over (now delayed for a week) and the Chap having been rained off we spent a greater part of the afternoon poking around several of these shops. It's fascinating and often much better value than buying these ingredients in English stupormarkets. Even if you don't fancy some of the more exotic offerings they're especially good for big packs of noodles or rice - works out a much more frugal way of buying these basics as well as things like soy sauce. We ended up with potato based noodles, dried shrimp, shrimp paste, dried squid, water chestnuts and some 'pickled' veg. [I think the 'pickled' bit here is something of a misnomer, at least sometimes. These packets come in a wide range of veg combos with chilli etc added.] Then we looked up what to actually do with the squid! :-D We decided to make a general stir fry with veg, noodles and the squid. This is how it went:

Dried Squid Noodle Stir Fry

Straight potato noodles - approx 1/3 - 1/2 pack

1 dried squid - soaked in water overnight, water changed then soaked for the day*

1 onion

2 carrots

Pack babycorn

6 Mushrooms

Half pack green beans

Half tin (small one) water chestnuts - sliced

0.25 pint veg stock

Pack pickled veg - ours was a kelp and bamboo shoots mix

Splash (big) fish sauce

Splash soy sauce

2 big tea spoons Tom Yum sauce in 0.25 pint hot water

Generic veg oil for stir frying

Sesame oil (if you have it)

These noodles take 8-10 mins boiling according to the packet so we boiled them for a little under that, taking into account that they will be added to the wok again later; drained them and put them on one side. Note here - they stuck together evilly after draining - apparently I should have added a little sesame oil during cooking to prevent this much like you would oil to pasta. [I don't know the proper name for these but check the picture if you want to find them - they end up looking a bit like glass noodles once cooked but don't in the pack.]

Drain your soaked squid and rinse well under running water to ensure no dirt could be left on. It was still fairly tough feeling so we decided to chop it into smallish strips - about 0.5 - 1cm wide. I just used the kitchen scissors, think this was far easier than using a knife would have been.

Heat the veg oil with a little sesame oil for flavouring.

Chop onion and add. Chop rest of the veg and add, stir frying.

Add packet of pickled veg (if using), veg stock and squid.

Add approx 2 tbsp fish sauce [sorry for the approximate measures here but chap did this bit and didn't measure like I would!] and less of soy - maybe 1tbsp-ish.

Mix Tom Yum paste into a little hot water (if you have sauce instead of paste you may not need to do this) and add to the wok. Continue cooking for a short time until veg are nearly cooked to your liking [bear in mind they really should crunch in a stir fry - at least a little bit] then add the noodles and stir to ensure they are evenly coated in sauce and bits.

Serve. [We're 'not very good at quantities' type of people so this made enough to easily feed 4, or 2 and 2 lunches for the next day!]

Hmm - well I'm glad we tried this but simple answer - we're not going to bother with dried squid again. [Any takers for the second one in the pack?] Small pieces were ok but the texture was rubbery, reminiscent of the limpets we had before I blitzed them, only not as nice! Any pieces that were a little larger took a lot of chewing - they did not have a nice mouth feel to me and made me feel slightly icky. Not recommended! that said the general flavours in the sauce we came up with here were nice - just leave out the dried squid!!

*Dried squid smells, no 2 ways about it. Expect your kitten friend to be climbing the cupboard next to you as you prep the squid for this dish. Frankly he may well end up getting the second one, suitably soaked and chopped into treat size portions. Bleargh.

:-( I just can't seem to get the stupid spacing and formatting of this post corrected - down to having manually retyped the whole post. Pah - enough!

Foraged Seafood Stew

Limpets - hmm. The books seem divided on these with Hugh F-W enthusiastic about them; although admitting to their rubbery qualities, and John Wright of Edible Seashore rather more disparaging - describing eating them as like eating pencil erasers dipped in fish paste!! Not exactly encouraging but I didn't share that section with the boys when we were collecting the things. ;-D

We'd placed them in salted water [35g sea salt to 1l water] until we were ready to use them in an effort to purge them - ie rid them of the grit in their stomaches.
Anyway, having seen a few too many references to rubberyness we decided that a long cooking time would be the way to go so we'd use the slow cooker for this stew. It was an experiment really but I was hopeful they'd prove palatable being an easy forage that's not exactly hard to find. I also added some Sea Beet we'd foraged from the same stretch of beach - this is a common seashore plant that we'd never tried before that John Wright was rather more complimentary about than the limpets; likening it to a superior kind of spinach as it doesn't lose it's shape on cooking as spinach does. This is how it went then.

Slow cooker Limpet stew
3 small onions
2 cloves garlic
2tbsp EVOO
0.25 pint white wine
1 tin chopped tomatoes - drain but retain juice
1tsp smoked paprika
Limpets - we had 3.25lb of them in their shells
0.75 pint fish / veg stock
2-3 potatoes
3 white fish fillets chopped into chunks
Sea beet - 3 handfuls
Frozen prawns - 1 handful
Frozen cockles - a handful
Lemon juice

Put EVOO in pan to heat. Finely chop onion and garlic and fry off to soften.

Place wine and drained tomatoes in the SC on high - retain the juices from the toms though.

Add smoked paprika to the frying pan with the onions and garlic and cook for a couple more minutes, stirring well then add the lot to the SC.

Scrub the limpets and add to the SC in their shells. Switch to 'low' setting and add fish stock to cover - I used 0.75 pint made from a cube. Add the tom juice at this point if more liquid is necessary to nearly cover all those shells.

After 8 hours the limpets will fall from their shells with ease; pick the shells out being careful not to burn fingers!

Add the potatoes, chopped into smallish dice and leave for another 2 hours to cook through.

At end of this time try the limpets and discover they're still disappointingly rubbery in texture so decide to try Mr Wright's tip of blending the things.

Blend mainly the limpets and chunks of potato with a little of the liquid. Be startled at the - er - 'interesting' shade of green it goes. [At this point it's fair to say I was getting a little more perturbed as to whether this increasingly long-winded process was actually going to produce something fit to eat. Looks appetising deosn't it?!] Return to SC where the sauce has been cooking away for another half hour.

Add the 3 white fish fillets (I buy the value packs of frozen ones in the stupormarket) to the SC and leave for a further half an hour.

Strip the stems out of the sea beet - they are a remarkably obliging plant in that these tear out very easily. Add them to the SC. Taste for seasoning - I added salt.

Add handful of defrosted prawns and cockles to the SC and stir in. Leave until fully heated through at least.

Immediately prior to serving add a splosh of lemon juice to taste.

Hmm - we all liked this to start with - although liquidizing the whole limpets (rubbery foot and dark stomach section) had left a bit of grit in - solved by just serving from the top of the pot. However after a while the taste becomes a bit much. Having tried this at various points in it's creation I think that next time the best use for limpets would be to simmer them in stock / toms; whatever you want, to give a basis for a bouillabaisse type soup or stew then discard the limpets themselves. The taste of the liquid before blending the limpets into it was better I think.

Anyway - you have to try these things and now we know. Try yourself and make up your own minds though - it may be a taste/texture combo you love but for me - it just didn't live up to the ones I'd had in garlic butter in Madeira a couple of years ago. As you can see from the shells though they're not the same variety as our native type. Perhaps the shore is the best place for me to leave those in future. :-)