Cider slow cooked gammon to go with lovely garden veg

Now, you might think that with all this time available what with the internet being down and an unexpected weekend at home. I would have turned my hand to some serious cuisine efforts, but certainly on Saturday, I was feeling very uninspired. 

Having proudly blogged my menu plan for July on Friday, I realised when I got home that day that I had forgotten to take the planned salmon out of the freezer in time, so the kids had fish fingers and chips before the school discos. I got out a couple of pieces of salmon out for the Husband and I in the hope that they would defrost in time, but when I eventually got home, head thumping from one too many renditions of Nellie the Elephant, from dealing with the indecision of numerous children with £1 to spend and far too much choice, and slightly sozzled after a couple of illicit glasses of wine produced by the school facilities manager for those of us helping out, it was nearly 10 p.m. The Husband was ravenous having not eaten, and was out of the door like a shot to the chippy. Not a patch on Mr Stein’s, but just what was needed.

This left me with 2 pieces of salmon that needed to be eaten up. For those of you who think I must be some unbearable paragon of unprocessed food virtue, you will rejoice to hear that I found a pizza express pizza and some garlic bread in the freezer and fed that to the kids on Saturday evening (although I’ll admit to making them eat salad from the garden alongside – I do have some standards). The Husband and I did however have grilled salmon (I rubbed a little sesame oil on, but nothing else) with new potatoes out of the garden and some green bean (which weren’t). It was lovely, simple food (well, that's my excuse!).

And this is where this weekend has been really lovely. After all the miserable rain, the garden and allotment have suddenly produced real food for us to eat. True, we’ve been eating salad from the garden (lettuce and rocket) for a few weeks, and there’s been rhubarb and beetroot, but it’s all been a little bit hit and miss. But not this weekend.

This weekend, we have had raspberries, strawberries, red and blackcurrants, and gooseberries. 

There has been new potatoes,

 

 broad beans

and carrots.

Somehow the sight of all this lovely produce galvanised me into action.

Most of the fruit has gone into the freezer for now (watch out for summer pudding, coming soon to a blog near you), but it was the turn of the gooseberries to get the straight-out-of-the-garden treatment and got turned into gooseberry and orange drizzle cake.

The veg – well, we ate them for supper on Sunday. I boiled the new potatoes and steamed the carrots and broad beans on top. Just delicious.

Broad beans are one of my favourite vegetables, and the thing is, for all the fancy things you can do with them, I really love them just steamed, as a vegetable. There are plenty of amazing vegetable cookery books available that will give you plenty of things to do with veg once you are sick of eating them as is, but really, you can’t beat them straight out of the garden just served as they are.

The other thing about broad beans is that they go really well with gammon. Now, I was intrigued to read a fellow blogger ‘s post about slow cooking a piece of gammon and had bought some with (a) the broad beans and (b) the slow cooking idea in mind. I don’t use my slpow cooker as much as I’d like to and tend to just do straightforward casseroles in it, but I would like to use it more because I just love that – “Oh look it’s all done!” feeling at the end of the day. Anyway, I couldn’t go back to her blog to check out how she’d done her gammon, so I had a look at my slow cooker cook book for an idea of how much liquid to use, and came up with: 

Cider slow cooked Gammon 

Ingredients: 500g smoked gammon joint, 500ml cider (I used homebrewed stuff from last autumn), an onion, a carrot, 2 cloves and a bay leaf, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and a tablespoon of crème fraiche

Method: Remove all the packaging from the joint, place in a bowl, cover with cold water and soak overnight. Drain off the water from the joint and set aside. Heat up the slow cooker on the high setting.

Peel and slice the onion, and fry in dash of oil for a few minutes with the bay leaf and cloves till the onion is starting to soften. Pour in the cider and bring to the boil. When the liquid is boiling, put the gammon joint into the slow cooker, pour on the boiling liquid, put the lid on the slow cooker and leave for 5-6 hours.

Once the gammon is cooked, remove the meat and strain the cooking liquid into a pan. Make a sauce by bringing the liquid to the boil and whisk in the Dijon mustard and crème fraiche. You probably won’t need any salt but you might want to grind in some pepper.

Serve the gammon with new potatoes and broad beans – and any other veg you feel like – as fresh as possible - with the sauce on the side.

This is not a craft blog #2

After our broadband fell over on Thursday lunchtime, it has still not been fixed. I have been provided with a cheery text message for BT advising me that they aim to fix the problem by 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Yes WEDNESDAY. That’s nearly a whole week without access to the internet at home. I haven’t yet managed to get through to an actual person at BT to explain calmly and rationally how much of a complete an utter embuggerance this is. Not only does it mean I cannot work at home, I cannot do internet shopping, check my bank balance, or do a myriad of other things, including Facebook, blog reading etc. 

However, rather than focussing on the negatives of all this, which would be very easy, I have been considering the positives of our internet-free weekend. Not only have we not had access to the internet all weekend, but the planned entertainment – trip to the Science museum on Saturday afternoon, followed by dumping of children with their Uncle in Earlsfield while the Husband and I went to a party – also fell through as Pink developed some alarming stomach pains on Saturday morning. Of course it all amounted to nothing, but by the time we had worked that out, we had decided that it wasn’t worth risking the trip – especially as one of the options we were presented with by the out of hours GP service was appendicitis. I am the most unsympathetic person I know if you're talking coughs, colds and grazed knees, but serious stuff gets me all on edge...

So instead of cramming all the jobs we needed to get done this weekend into a couple of hours on Saturday morning before we left, and on Sunday afternoon after we returned, no doubt hungover and grumpy, we have had a leisurely stroll through the washing and housework tasks, and even got round to some other things.

Now, as I have said before, this is not a craft blog, but I managed to not only clear out our spare room and reorganise my various stashes of material and sewing bits and pieces with which I might one day produce something glorious, I did manage to complete 2 projects that have been on my mind. I made a curtain to act as a pull across to go underneath Pink’s high bed:

And a matching cushion. 

I made them out of left over curtain material, and I was particularly pleased with the cushion cover because the material I had left (from the material I had left - if you see what I mean) after making the bed curtain was not quite wide enough but I managed to extend the fabric by making a trim out of a purple ribbon that I found stashed away. Oh the multiple benefits of having a clear out.

I’m not going to tell you what I did because both are a total cobble – I couldn’t get online to check out any tips from the lovely craft bloggers out there – but on the whole I was pleased with how they turned out.

I’ve also managed to do some more work on my quilt. Some of you may remember that the Husband gave me this in kit form for Christmas, and it was one of my goals for April to finish it. Well, it’s probably no surprise to learn that it’s still not finished, but I have been plodding away at it and I have now hand quilted round all the flowers – all 25  of them, and am on the second seam of the border that I am going to quilt. Once I have done that, all I will have left to do is the binding round the edge and it will be finished. 

So bets on this time next year then.

Organising July - the meal plan

So my internet is down. How to post? Well I have sneaked off to the 'office' of my employers, a rather swanky shed garden office, and am quickly going to upload a post that I wrote yesterday sans internet...

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Meal planning.

Sometimes I’m brilliant at it (yes, I know, blow my own trumpet why don’t I) and sometimes I am totally and utterly rubbish. I have a love-hate relationship with the whole thing. I know it makes sense - when it works out, I have a lovely plan of everything we are going to eat – usually for a month. When it's worked out REALLY well, it means that I've had lots of time to sit around flicking through my lovely stash of cookbooks and horded magazines, working out lovely balanced meals that all the family will enjoy (there's lots of lovely going on there isn't there). This makes shopping lists easier, and helps me feel that I am in control, because let’s face it, I’m really not.

When it doesn’t work out, well, then, we eat a lot of pasta and I spend a lot of money in the local Co-Op. In fact, the meal planning began in earnest when, at the end of one particularlly skint month, I actuyally added up everything I'd spent in the Co-Op (one of the curses of being a horder is that I always have my receipts stuffed into my purse).

I started this month, more than most, feeling the need to get a grip on something in my life.

We’re in the last 3 weeks of term and there are various end of term events that need to be negotiated, the kids are knackered, the Husband’s work is threatening to remove him from us for days here and there and for a full week later on in the month (the week immediately before we go on Scout camp). It’s the village ‘Sheepfair’ next weekend, which is an excuse for 2 days of drinking a great local event which happens once every 4 years, and my father in law will be staying, then my Mum is coming for a couple of days (and to take possession of the dog for his ‘summer holidays’). We go on scout camp for the last week of the month, well, Saturday to Friday (involving a whole other meal plan in itself), and then the French girl we are hosting for 3 weeks arrives on the Sunday.

I needed to get ORGANISED.

For me, most things start in the kitchen, so getting organised usually involves me planning, to a greater or lesser extent, what meals we will eat around whatever thing it is that is making me stress, but little else. As the whole of July is pretty much stressing me out at the moment, I have planned out (mostly) the meals for a month, and am starting to feel a little calmer. if i'm being totally honest with myself, it's fair to say that we will prbably go off plan at east once a week, but that doesn't matter, because it has served its purpose. I am organised.

This month has majored heavily on various back copies of July Good Food magazines which I have kept because at some point I decided that they were good issues to keep (I had a major clear out a year or so ago) with a couple of old favourites from Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall and Nigella thrown in for good measure.

The recipes are picked on the basis of ease of preparation, amount of vegetables and general yumminess. Seeing as how I have been so efficient, I thought I’d share my plan with you. There are some holes. You can improvise. I will be!

MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
2nd Kids out Left over burgers; salad; bread	3rd Husband away Cheese & marmite pasties (GF June 2012 but already in freezer), new potatoes, carrot sticks; strawberries & ice cream	4th Husband out; kids pick up 4.30 Macaroni peas (Veg Everyday)	5th Rainbows BBQ – taking pudding (from Kitchen by Nigella) & salad	6th Salmon, green beans, new potatoes	7th Away for night	8th
9th After school hordes; Cubs Pork burgers with herby chips (GF July 09 p26)	10th extra long ballet Pea & watercress pasta (GF July 10 p33)	11th kids pick up 4.30 Lamb meatballs	12th  Last Rainbows – Olympic theme Summer salad with anchovy dressing (GF July 09 p 27)	13th Pizzas	14th Sheepfair Quiche	15th  H to Saudi
16th H away, Allotment Junkie here; Cubs Cheesy bean burgers (GF July 10 p26)	17th H away, AJ here Lemon & Rosemary pork (GF July 10 p39)	18th H away; kids pick up 4.30	19th H away; Pink to M&T’s  party Cheese & Marmite pasties (as for 03/07)	20th	21st Off to camp!!	22nd CAMP
23rd CAMP	24th CAMP	25th CAMP	26th CAMP	27th Home from camp	28th Post camp BBQ	29th French girl arrives
30th African Chicken (Kitchen, Nigella Lawson)	31st Bolognaise

And, yes, I know. I know what you're thinking. "She's a freak!". Frankly, I'm not sure I should have shared the fact that I am so blimmin anal about it, but doesn't it look FABULOUS?? I'll admit to have made a special effort for the purposes of this post - usually, it's all scribbled in, with lots of crossings out, but it works for me.

Do you meal plan? I'm linking up with some other meal planners  at home with Mrs M and feel like I'm not alone, so if youmeal plan too, come and join in!

Forever Nigella - No Fuss Fruit Tart

Oh Nigella, it’s been a while.  Once again diverted by other things, a couple of Americans with a cake shop in Chiswick, a particularly good issue of the Good Food magazine...,  I’ve let your cakes and puddings fall out of my repertoire. But no more.

I am massively over-excited, and no, I haven’t been reading 50 Shades of Grey.

The exciting thing(s) that has(ve) happened is that (1) I am making a pudding to take to a BBQ tomorrow evening, (2) the Forever Nigella event this month is ‘Sizzling Summer’ and (3) I have managed to co-ordinate so that I can finally take part.

If you’ve read my blog before, you may have been aware that Nigella is where it all started for me. How to be a Domestic Goddess was myunlikely saviour in times of real crisis. I love her recipes, and her books - which are real books to read as well as great recipe books. I’ve come across the Forever Nigella event before and never managed to get myself organised enough to contribute, so I am very pleased to have got in there this month.

The July event is hosted by Amy at Cooking, Cakes andChildren for Sarah from Maison Cupcake

I know you’re all dying to know what I’m making, so hear it is: No Fuss Fruit tart from Kitchen. Kitchen has been one of my favourite Nigella books. I love Domestic Goddess and I always turn to Feast if I’m thinking of something special, but Kitchen, full of fantastic and easy family food is really a winner. However, until now, I have majored on the main courses (although I’ve made the Blondies several times - try replacing 50g of the oats with dessicated coconut), but I will be investigating the dessert sections more thoroughly in future.

I followed the recipe from the book, and you can find it on the BBC website here. This is the kind of recipe that I LOVE Nigella for – it looks amazingly fabulous, but it is just dead quick and easy, although you do need to make it at least 4 hours in advance.

The tart case is basically butter and digestive biscuits whizzed together into crumbs

and pressed into a tart tin.

The filling is a mixture of lemon curd and Philadelphia (stop drooling now) which you spread into the bottom of the biscuit case:

And you top it all off with a delightful mixture of summer fruits (I used raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and blueberries).

 Now the only question is whether it will make it till tomorrow evening.

Versatile Blogger? Why, thank you!!

I have been nominated by  The View from the Table for the Versatile Blogger award. This is so very lovely.

I remember when I first started blogging last year, and saw some of these awards being tossed around the blogs I was reading - I wondered if I’d ever get a nomination, and now here I am - and here it is.

I think the lovely thing about it is not only that it’s a sign that other people are reading and enjoying what I witter away about, but in this particular case, I have been awarded it by someone whose blog I happen to particularly like. She writes about food too, and always has a good story to tell. Thank you for my award. I am flattered and pleased.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to dress up in a sparkly dress and some spangly shoes (although that’s probably a good thing) and give a speech, but I do get to tell you 7 random facts about myself, and then share the love on. So here goes.

First, the official bit. The rules of the award are as follows:

1.       Thank the Blogger who nominated you

2.       Include a link to their site

3.      Include the award image to your post

4.       Include the award inage to your blog

5.       Give 7 random facts about yourself

6.       Nominate 15 other Bloggers for the award, including links to their sites

7.       Let those bloggers know they have been nominated

My 7 Random Facts:

-       I had a letter to the editor printed in the Times when I was 13 (and, yes, insufferable)

-       If my Dad had had his wish I would have been named Sorrel. Good job he   was in the South China Sea when I was born, then.

-       I don't have a middle name 

-        I ran the Great South Run in 2010 in 1 hr 40 minutes. Yes really. Despite all the cake.

-        My favourite film is Local Hero

-        I once stuck a pea up my nose and had to go to hospital to get it removed

-        I can touch my nose with my tongue (go on – try it: you know you want to)

And I nominate:

Single Married Mum –  her hubby’s away in Afghanistan for a YEAR and she’s holding the fort with 3 kids, so I read her blog and can imagine what it might have been like for me had the Husband stayed in the Army. She writes about all sorts of things in a way that I love – and although she’s very modest, I think she’s pretty talented & versatile. And she has a camper van too – called Betty.

Attempting the Ordinary – I love her take on life

Apple Pie with Wensleydale – check out the food. Just GORGEOUS

Inside a British Mum’s Kitchen – again – check out the food. CHECK IT OUT!!

Grace at The Old Police House (she may already have had this award, but there’s nothing in the rules that says she can’t have it again, I don’t think!)

Crafts on Sea –  great crafts, good books and wine.

Truly Myrtle  –  if I could knit, this is where I’d be. I love how she writes about her gorgeous knitting and other craftiness with such enthusiasm and warmth, and there’s always a story there

Made by Yours Truly – another lovely craft blog that I read and get all excited about the lovely projects,

Yummy Mummy? Really? title says it all to me. I've only just started reading her blog, and I think she's an old hand and will probably think this is terribly passe, but neverthless, Yummy Mummy - I salute you 

Now, there’s no obligation on any of you to do anything with this, and I think some of you have previously been nominated, but I don’t think there’s anything in the rules that says I can’t heap on the love a little more. Also, I haven't nominated a full 15 - I'd like to save a few nominations for later.

Damp Weather? No, Dampers

So, another wet morning dawned and I contemplated the school run and dog walk, once again smothered in wet proofs. Pink had left her wellies at school (she went home with a friend yesterday) and I had no suitable alternative footwear for her, having given in to her pleas for summer sandals when she needed new shoes. And she was wearing tights, so, much as I  thought "Well she can just wear her crocs up to school" the reality of following this through was that I would end up at school trying to pull her wet feet into tights while feeling stressed that I wasn't already walking the dog so that I could get home to start work... In the end she wore tights and sandals, and skipped to school, the skipping rope leaving muddy lines up the back of her tights. It's rained all day and it's raining now. Our house is an old one and it needs some sunshine. I just feel cold and damp.

We had the wettest June since records began? I don't doubt it. And July looks like it's going to be just as bad going on current form, but frankly I've stopped looking at the forecast because it's one thing to be depressed about the weather as it happens, but you move in to a whole different realm once you start being depressed about weather that hasn't even happened yet.

Against all the odds, we have been camping 6 times this year already, and experienced mixed weather conditions, from the cold (the Husband took the kids for a night before Easter), through the wet (the first May Bank Holiday, and a night in half term)  to the totally and utterly glorious. This last weekend counted as a glorious one. Despite the predicted heavy showers, the only real rain we encountered was some persistent drizzle on Friday night, a short shower late Saturday afternoon as we were thinking of packing up fron the beach anyway, and rain as we left at the end of Sunday. And Saturday was fabulous. Windy, but with real proper sunshine. The kind of day to remember on days like today.




yes, I know it's a rubbish photo but I only had my phone with me





We were camping just outside Padstow on a cute little site called Dennis Cove Camping, literally walking distance from the harbour - and to the beaches. We had fish & chips from Rick Stein's chippy on Friday evening in the drizzle, and Saturday dawned windy but sunny so there was nothing for it but to head for the beach. We had a great seaside day. After various attempts to swim (I can attest to the fact that it was freezing, having done the decent this and immersed myself - and I speak as one who grew up swimming in the sea off the west coast of Scotland - but maybe it gets colder the older you are...), the children joined forces and set to building an enormous fort, while the adults variously assisted, read books and threw endless stones into the sea for the dog (me).


We had a mega BBQ on Saturday night and we'd had such a good afternoon on the beach that I didn't get round to making the damper scones that I had come prepared for, anticipating fairly miserable weather for most of the weekend and thinking we'd need some cheering up.

However, undeterred, (and with the bit between my teeth), I decided to make the dampers on Sunday morning. My lovely friend Louise made these when we were all at Forgewood on the other utterly glorious weekend we've had this year, She got the recipe out of a little camping cookbook from M&S (of all places) and I was keen to give it a go.

Mini Damper Bread Rolls

(to make about 8)

275g self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
175 ml milk
2 tablespoons runny honey
olive oil to grease; butter and jam to serve

If you are planning to make these while camping and don't have a handy set of camping scales (like I don't) you can measure out the dry ingredients before you go. You can also measure out the milk, or make a handy marker in a cup or other receptacle that you might take with you. I kind of winged it using a plastic mug...

Basically, combine flour and salt in a bowl then mix together the milk and honey and add to the dry ingredients; mix together to a dough, and then form the dough into 8 scone shaped pieces. You do need to make then reasonably flat because otherwise they won't cook in the middle - I know - I was that person who ended up having to slice them in half mid-cook...

Get your fire/stove going, lightly grease the pan you are going to use - a frying pan type is good, but anything really would work, then place the dampers into the pan for about 10 minutes, turning regularly. You can check that they are cooked by tapping - if they sound hollow, bingo.

in the pan

with jam

Serve with butter and jam (I can recommend rhubarb and vanilla...), tea or coffee, and a sense of satisfaction, (even if your fingers are now covered in dried up sticky flour mix and you have to trog back to the shower block to wash them...)

woops - not sure about the black smudge there...



Fish & Chips and Reminiscing - Padstow, 9 years on...

The last time we went to Padstow, I was 6 or so months’ pregnant with Blue. It was, I suppose, our last holiday where we were free to do what we pleased. The week started with a night in a B&B in darkest Devon, near South Molton, where we were due to pick up the Husband’s brand new sailing dinghy. Having concluded that transaction, we towed it to Padstow where we were due to spend a night at The Old Customs House right on the Harbour.

Have you ever tried towing anything (or, to be honest, driving even when you’re not towing) through Padstow? I don’t advise it. Anyway, after many hairy turns and near misses, accompanied by some ‘fruity’ language, we eventually we made it out, back to the ‘park and ride’ at the top of the hill outside Padstow and started again. We had a lovely evening, made even more lovely by the fact that we had dinner at Rick Stein’s The Seafood Restaurant. This was probably our first experience of really expensive food, but it was so worth it, and such a treat. It had taken much planning (I’d never before experienced having to book somewhere months in advance), but oh yes, it was worth it.

It was a great ‘restaurant experience’ – very relaxed and jolly – not stuffy like I imagine some places might be, and the food was just divine. My only complaint was that as I was pregnant, I couldn’t indulge in my passion for seafood proper – and there on the menu was the oysters and chorizo dish that I’d seen on some programme or other. I salivated but resisted. I’m storing that particular tale up for one of those “What have you ever done for me” type arguments that I expect will come from Blue in the future.


After our night in Padstow, we moved on to a cute little cottage in Port Gaverne for a week’s relaxing where we spent most of the time trying to work out what we would call Blue depending on whether he was a boy or a girl (he’s not really called Blue – if you hadn’t worked that out). The rest of the week’s food was of course overshadowed by the Seafood Restaurant experience but I also recall a delicious pint or 2 of prawns in the pub (I know – I think I decided that some cooked prawns were probably OK), and also a supremely disappointing fish & chip supper.

Fish & chips are one of my favourites. In my mind, we had them every Friday night as a child from George & Angela’s chip shop (I can’t believe it’s still there, let alone has a web page – but I googled out of idle curiosity and there it was!). The reality is probably that we had them 2 or 3 times, but who’s counting? Anyway, I am always on the lookout for a good chip shop and I remember thinking that Port Isaac would just HAVE to be a winner for fresh fish & chips. So we slogged up the hill (remember, I was quite pregnant by then, and the road was STEEP!) and down the other side from Port Gaverne into Port Isaac and bought the chips, which we then took to a bench overlooking the sea. They were really disappointing, although discussing it recently with the Husband he reckons they were fine and it was my pregnancy taste buds going mad that was the problem. They also gave me chronic indigestion to the point where I nearly couldn't walk back over the hill to bed. Another story to add to the list, perhaps?

One of the things my kids often gripe about is that we never get food from the chippy/pub etc. “When will we eat in a restaurant again?” is a common whinge of Pink’s when she’s feeling like giving me a hard time. Out comes the well trodden speech about mummy and daddy having to choose how they spend their money and how I can feed them better food for a fraction of the price... I know it’s falling on deaf ears, but there we go.

However, this weekend found us back in Padstow, and – oh joy – Fish & Chips. But not just any fish & chips – Rick Stein’s fish & chips. You guessed it - a romantic re-visit to The Seafood Restaurant was not on the cards, but who needs that when you can sit in the drizzle and eat the most divine fish & chips EVER. The kids were in heaven, but so was I. We had haddock and chips, and I also had a deep fried scallop. The kids had scampi – I shared half my haddock with Blue in return for half his scampi because he couldn’t decide what he wanted, but the scallop was all mine. We also had mushy peas. Now, I know people are divided on the subject, but frankly, I don’t want to hear it. In my book, mushy peas are just lovely, and these ones were pretty darn good.

As for the rest of the food, well, the fish was creamy, the batter was crisp, the chips were lovely and ‘chip-shoppy’, and the tartare sauce came in little tubs and was divine – none of your Hellmans sachets here (although there’s nothing wrong with a Hellman’s sachet, it was fitting that these chips should be accompanied by something a little more upmarket). The ketchup was Heinz. I took a bottle in my pocket.

The kids had lemonade. From a can. And the Husband and I (and our companions, for we were there mob handed in advance of the Padstow to Rock swim that took place on Sunday) washed down the food with an excellent bottle or 2 of ‘Chalky’s Bark’ beer. Apparently the second of Mr Stein’s collaborations with a local brewery, this is beer with a hint of ginger (as opposed to ginger beer) and very good too.

Price-wise – well, without the beer it would have been less than £30 for 4 of us, and to be honest, I don’t think it was that over-priced. The food was really good, and I’ve paid that for vastly inferior chips in Lyme Regis before now.

I didn’t have my camera with me, so I couldn’t take any pics of the food – you’ll just have to take my word for it!