getting ready for the last hurrah

This time last year, we spent a fabulous weekend down on the Devon coast with our good friends and our vans. We were van virgins last year, but a year on, van veterans, we're headed off for another weekend, this time to celebrate their eldest daughter's 8th birthday with, I think, 7 or 8 other families, down in Dorset, to the fabulous Burnbake campsite, as venerated by Cool Camping.

With a camping weekend pending, normally, there would be plenty of opportunity for advance cooking of lovely things, but this time round, we have our instructions - it is to be fish & chips from the chippie in Swanage on Friday night, and a BBQ on the beach on Saturday. Can't wait.

However, the instructions do not take account of cake. Cake is the second most desirable item to take camping (I'm assumng the accomodation, be it van, tent or other) after alcohol. It is a sad fact but a true one that I would find camping a much less rounded experience without my Friday night van G&T. Things have been a bit hectic this week, but I've got a tin of Hugh F-W's 10 minute chocolate chip cookies from River Cottage Everday ready to go (if we don't eat them all beforehand). I actually made the oat and raisin alternative that he gives, but Pink got a bit sad about the lack of chocolate (she is so her mother's daughter!), so I fiddled about with the quantites and instead of putting nuts in (which would have meant they couldn't have them in their lunches at school) I put 100g of chocolate chunks in. I would recommend this. They are extremely good (if I do say so myself).

I am hoping to have time tomorrow to bake a cherry & coconut loaf (Nigella's from Kitchen) or possibly a sticky ginger treacle cake out of the Camper Van Cook Book, but I will have to see how it goes.

The thing I am most pleased with however, is that I have managed to be organised for Sunday evening. I mean let's face it, the last thing you want to be doing after a full on weekend out in the open air doing fun camping things is to sort out a meal, but as the scent of Autumn fills the air, and with my mind turning to things warming, I managed to sort my life out, and tonight, have a delicious beef casserole gently cooking away in the slow cooker. I will freeze half of it and put the rest on the fridge ready for re-heating on Sunday night. Am looking forward to it almost as much as the camping itself...

Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken...

So the last time I managed a post I was roasting a chicken, and very delicious it was too, especially after the fish disaster on Saturday. GAA has now moved on to the next relative and we are feeling relaxed - and exhausted: especially the husband who has been subject to more art & culture in the last 3 days than he could ever have thought possible.

I was flicking through the Good Food mag that I purchased the other week and it has a whole section on how to use up a roast chicken. Not just how to use up the left overs: it specifically encourages you to roast a chicken then use it for other things rather than eating "as a roast". How odd.

I guess that it's a good way of encouraging people to buy a whole chicken and using it all up, rather than buying pieces (breast fillets etc). A whole bird is honestly is much better value, and while I don't think I would ever roast a chicken with the intention of using the roast meat primarily in other recipes, I thought I would witter on about my favourite ways of using up leftover roast chicken (after the first meal of chicken, roast potatoes etc).

If there's plenty of gravy left from the first meal, I find there are 2 easy options. The first is to re-heat the gravy and serve the cold chicken with boiled potatoes and veg with the hot gravy poured over (or 'on the side' if you are Pink). The kids are also pretty keen on a pasta with chicken and gravy sauce. To make the sauce, I re-heat the gravy and thin it out with some creme fraiche or cream if there's any such naughtiness left over from the pudding, or if not, then some stock, and depending on what it's tasting like, perhaps adding some dijon or wholegrain mustard (depending on what's not mouldy in the fridge). Once the pasta is cooked, just drain it, chuck it in with the sauce and add in the cold diced chicken.

Stuffed pancakes is another good way of making a little leftover chicken go along way. We're lucky that we have a constant (if variable) supply of eggs, so if I'm feeling like super lovely mummy, I will make the kids pancakes for a pudding and make sure there are enough pancakes leftover to do this for the following night - it also freezes well for another time. So, for the filling, I would finely chop some mushrooms (really fine, so the kids don't notice) and cook them down, and wilt some chard or spinach (again - we have tonnes in the garden, but it's easy to get hold of a bag of spinach), squeeze it out and chop it up. Add the leftover gravy and ingredients as mentioned for the pasta sauce as above, but remember that you don't want it too runny - just to keep the mushrooms, spinach and chicken moist - then get the pancakes, dollop some of the filling along one edge then roll up and put in an ovenproof dish. Do the rest with all the pancakes, and hopefully you will have a bit of sauce left over to pour over the top, although it's not strictly necessary - you can always apply Tommie K when you serve it if it's a bit dry, then sprinkle on some grated cheese and bake in the oven till hot. Yum.

If there isn't enough gravy left, then I do noodles and stirfry some veg with some chinese five spice and some soy sauce.

If you have a discerning GAA or similar staying, there are a couple of more sophisticated options that are useful to fall back on. The Good Food mag was advocating a chicken risotto as the 'primary' recipe to knock up with the roast chicken and I'd agree that risotto is always a good option, but the real beaut is Chicken and Chorizo couscous. This is another Good Food recipe, copied out on to an index card and is probably the most used in my box of recipes. To serve 6, the ingredients are as follows:

350g each of couscous & cooked chicken; 100g sliced chorizo
3 medium tomatoes, deseeded (that's what the recipe says - I never bother - and if I don't have big tomatoes, I have used a handful of cherry toms)  and chopped
100g frozen peas (again, the recipe says they should be thawed but I never bother)
900ml hot chicken or veg stock (if yp've been really organised you can use the stock you made from the chicken carcass - or alternatively dissolve a couple of stock cubes...)
1/2-1 tsp harissa paste or hot chilli sauce
pinch of saffron,
1 tsp each of ground ginger & ground coriander
3tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp chopped coriander (or parsley is fine too - or don't bother)

Pre-heat oven to 180C/Gas 4 (fan 160)

You put the couscous, chicken, chorizo, tomatoes and peas in a large shallow dish, and combine the stock. harissa, saffron, ground ginger and coriander with the oil, and seasoning. Pour the stock mixture over the couscous etc give a good stir with a fork and cover tightly with tin foil then bake for 30 mins. Remove foil, stir in the fresh coriander (or parsley) (if you can be bothered), breaking up any clumps of couscous and serve.

You can replace the peas with courgette, and you can add other veg. It's really delicious. The recipe above is for 6 but you can halve it etc or make a big load and the leftovers are delicious cold - especially with some tabasco...

(Almost) Perfect Picnics, and Suicidal Suppers...

We made it to Wisley yesterday at around midday, as per instructions, to be met with full carparks and crowds of people. None of us had checked, and it turned out that we had chosen Wisley as our venue on the weekend of its flower show. We were directed to an overflow carpark, quite a way from the main entrance. We met up with F2 (one of the 2 families we were meeting - see post from Friday 9th September) almost immediately, having arrived not long after them and so fortunately had been directed to the same car park. After half an hour of waiting, F1 (bringing GAA) had not arrived. And F2 wife, and, more importantly the link between us and F1, had forgotten her mobile, so we had no way of contacting them. Cue contrived conversation about how we never used to have mobile phones and things would always turn out one way or the other, so we decided to head into the garden and take it from there. I began to warm very much to F2 wife as she began to write notes to F1 to leave at various key points, on the basis that they might just be directed to the same car park us we had. This is very much a recipe junkie approach to life - much to the husband's despair.

Picnic anxiety returned when F2 child appeared with a very desirable picnic holder type thing, but we headed off together nonetheless. Our confidence that we would meet up with F1 suffered a further blow when we realised that there were not 1 but 3 cafes in the garden. We headed for the first cafe near the main entrance but no F1 and no GAA, so we decided, it being most definitely lunchtime, we decided to find a spot and feed out 4 kids (and ourselves) and worry about F2 and GAA later.

Imagine my relief to discover that F2 picnic was in many ways very similar to ours (albeit packaged in a more desirable container - which I have tracked down to John Lewis - you could have guessed!). We had potato salad - homemade and with hiomegrown potatoes - they had cold rice salad. They may have had muscat grapes left over from their recent holiday in France, but they had shop-bought biscuits to my homemade cake. We both had designer crisps with us. A draw, I feel.

Eventually, lack of mobile phone not withstanding, we were united with F1 (delayed by an accident on their trip from Cambridge) and we had a very jolly afternoon dodging the rain and forging new family ties. It was a great relief that the older kids (ours and the F2 kids) did a quick appraisal of each other, found each other to be suitable companions and headed off to find the nearest muddy ditch (there are several at Wisley).

It was late by the time we left, GAA safely installed in the front of the car while Recipe Junkie was crammed in the back between the kids' booster seats, wishing that she wasn't quite so addicted to baking. GAA's suitcase fell on top of Fred (who had had to accompany us and who had spent a miserable afternoon in the car, visited by the husband whenever he wanted a fag (the husband that is, not the dog), and the kids were getting ratty. "Still" thought I, "I have a simple but delicious meal ready to knock together and still be in time to watch Dr Who".

Rule No 1: Never ever ever cook something new when you have guests. I wish I could follow this - it must be the cardinal rule of entertaining. On the basis that I never remember this until it is too late, the husband has started to refer to my 'Suicidal Suppers'. Saturday night was no exception. I had ordered the finest sea bass to be roasted whole, along with a roast peper and tomato salsa. The meal came from a Good Food mag (September 2009), and I had selected it for a couple of reasons. I thought that GAA would probably like fish, and it seemed like a quick but sophisticated meal. I have never roasted whole fish before.

In fact, the meal was relatively easy to put together. The fish were already scaled and gutted and it was just a matter of shoving some lemon slices inside along with some parsley stalks and roasting for 20 minutes, and the salsa was also quick and easy. Served with some new potatoes, it should have been (and in my head, it so was) a triumph of sophisticated dining, suiting the palates of young and old alike. However, when it came down to it, I think I'd forgotten that I really don't like it when my food looks like it's supposed to be - so faced with the fish, eye whitened from the cooking, tail on, it just didn't seem so appetising. And there are just so many bones. It tasted good, but it went cold quite quickly - what with all the faffing around getting people to the table. Blue manned up and ate it - we all liked the salsa anyway, GAA, the husband and I too, but Pink looked at it, tried the timiest mouthful and said - "Mummy - I do like some fish - just not this type". I know what she meant.  

Sunday is of course another day. The feta & chard parcels were a great success at lunchtime for the adults (Blue didn't like, but tried at least before chowing down on his preferred cheese and chutney sarnies, and Pink was in junk food heaven at a birthday party taking place at local soft play), and as I type, the lovely scent of roast chicken is wafting out of the oven for our supper. After the hazards of playing with fire (and fish) last night, I needed something routine to night to keep it together. I'm doing rosemary roast new potatoes and Vichy carrots (Sarah Raven again - cook them in water but with some butter, sugar and salt & pepper till the water is all gone and the carrots are glazed then chuck in parsely and lemon juice) and for pudding, a rhubarb puff thing that needs to go in my 'How Puff Pastry Saved my Life'  recipe book that I found on the Good Food website http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10371/rhubarb-puffs-with-oaty-streusel-topping .I'm going to whisper that it doesn't quite seem the weather for crumble (even though it has been lashing with rain) but GAA has expressed a desire for Rhubarb and we have a freezer full, so this seemed like the least labour-intensive option. Puff pastry (bought) is a wonderful thing.

Anyway, I need to get off my backside and get on with the gravy, otherwise my beautiful roast chuck will suffer the same fate as Friday night's fishfingers, and that would never do.

Picnic anxiety

So it's Friday evening and I'm feeling a bit stressed. In fact, I have anxiety about what to put in our picnic tomorrow when we will be going to Wisley to meet up with the husband's great aunt from Australia (henceforth "GAA"). She is already in England staying with another family. Tomorrow, other family (F1), the Recipe Junkie mob, plus another family (F2) are meeting up at RHS Wisley so that we can spend the day together and then we will assume responsibility for GAA.

Now the 2 other families are almost entirely unknown quantities. The wife/mother in F2 is somehow distantly related to the husband, and the wife/mother in F1 is her step (or half - I can't remember which) sister. All quite complicated. F1 includes and 18 month old and F2 includes a 9yr old and a 7 yr old.

I could handle all this except I have only met the adults from F2 once, at a funeral, and the adults of F1 not at all, and I just don't know how to approach 'the picnic'. I don't know if these other children are paragons of virtue who will only eat wholefoods and spurn chocolate in favour of fruit, or faddy fusspots. And secretly (well, not so secretly) I want to produce something that will show my family to be good. I can't guarantee their behaviour, but if I get the food right, then at the picnic at least, I can be pretty sure that for 5 minutes, all will be well, and it's the thought of those 5 minutes that I am clinging on to. So here is the dilemma - do I try and rustle up something delicious, organic and delightful (which the children will probably eat but might - might just - turn their noses up), or suppress my desire to perform as an alpha mummy (exhausting myself into the bargain) and just produce a normal picnic. For the past few days I have been considering the many suggestions for picnic food in the many Good Food magazines I have (in month order) in the study. Should I make ploughman rolls (home baked with cheese and tomato baked into them)? Should I make a fritatta or roast some chicken legs in some exotic marinade? This must, I think, be the current manifestation of my competitive streak.

However, I did nothing about the ploughmans rolls, the fritatta or the chicken legs, and given that it's already after G&T o'clock, and I am blogging you can guess that I have managed to get a grip and head for the middle ground (I should clarify that I do not yet have said G&T in hand). Ham and cheese rolls it will be (peanut butter on crackers for Pink - I would rather pander to her foibles than have her not eat enough and be foul). But I think I might manage some homemade hummus and some carrot sticks to dip, and, as I type, there is in the oven, Nigella's seed cake (from Kitchen). An odd choice, perhaps, but I know that my kids will like it, and I can't help feeling a little bit smug about taking homemade cake along. It's another really easy loaf cake, and it has ground almonds and caraway seeds in it. The smell from the kitchen is divine. And there it is again - that feeling that perhaps F1 or F2 will turn up with homemade cake AND something else (that I can't think of) that will make me feel inadequate (or, heaven forbid, they will have compared notes to come up with a super amazing picnic) . But inadequate I will just have to feel.

In the midst of all this angst, I managed to burn the kids' fishfingers for tea, but at least they'll be able to eat homemade cake tomorrow.

Things are not always as they seem...

...and so there was a perfectly good reason for me to be buying red wine and chocolate at 9.45 this morning. The woman on the till in the Co-op looked at me a bit strangely, and when I said "Honestly it's not that bad" she looked at me again, asked me for my Co-Op card, and when I said I didn't have it and scrabbled round in my pocket and handed over a tenner from among the debris (2 dog biscuits, a couple of old receipts and a furry cola bottle), she said "Are you sure? Looks quite bad to me!".

I maintained a dignified silence and left the shop.

In truth, the reason for the chocolate might seem rather weak, but I'm giving blood later today and I tend to have low iron levels which can stop the Blood service taking my pint. However, after the 8 pints that George had during his first year of chemo, I feel that this is something really important to do, so in the run up to donating, I take measures to boost my iron levels. "Dark chocolate, though" I hear you muse. "Sounds like an excuse to me". Well, there's a thing. When I was discharged from hospital 5 days after having Blue by emergency c section, with low iron levels, I was advised by the hospital not to take iron tablets or eat spinach. Oh no. The advice was very clear - red meat and dark chocolate. I had the best steak of my life that evening - huge, rare and bloody. Unfortunately, that advice also fueled an already frightening relationship with Green & Blacks which only ended when Pink was about 1 and I realised I had put on over 3 stone (to be fair, the circumstances were exceptional, and the choc wasn't the only thing to blame, but even so...). The 3 stone has gone, but I use the opportunity of giving blood to sneak in a few cheeky bars of the good stuff. This morning, it was a bar of co-op dark choc with spices and orange oil, and very delicious it was with my cup of coffee.

You see, although I know you want me to say that red wine works with dark chocolate to increase the absorption of iron, the truth is that the wine is for the chilli this evening. But as I am giving blood and then hopefully going on a rare night out to the cinema this evening, it all needs to be cooked in advance and ready to go. One of my pots of braised mince is out of the freezer ready to be transformed, once I've finished working, the it iwll be a matter of frying some onions and garlic, chucking in the mince, kidney beans and some tomatoes along with some spices and I will have a delicious meal ready for all the family to enjoy. I feel like I am living in some 50s lifestyle show about how to be a good wife and mother. Pass the gin someone.

I know I'm getting old when...

...a good evening involves pottering around, unhindered in the kitchen and making something delicious.

Blue & pink are fast asleep and the husband is off doing good community works keeping the local youth off the streets (probably burning things - but in a controlled scout-type way in woods somewhere) so I had the kitchen to myself. Sarah Raven beckoned yet again, back to page 395 of the Garden Cookbook, and those feta & chard parcels. The husband's great aunt is coming to stay at the weekend. She is an amazing woman of indeterminate age who lives in Australia and comes to Europe every couple of years for a grand tour. She might be 70, or even 80 - but she has the mind and stamina of someone much younger. Anyway, I have been troubled by the catering required for her stay and these parcels look like just the job for Sunday lunchtime.

The recipe is straightforward - fry leek in butter, add the chard leaves (you could use spinach) to wilt, then beat in some feta and parmesan and a beaten egg, and make parcels out of strips of filo pastry. I love this kind of fiddling, making a filling, cutting up the filo and then dolloping in some filling and folding and folding to make little delicious triangles. I have frozen them uncooked, so on Sunday I can take out what I need, brush with egg, roll in sesame seeds and bake till crisp. Can't wait.

I had some filo left  over, but as luck would have it, in the fridge I had some apple mush that I'd baked yesterday with a dollop of honey. I had intended to make baked apples, but I kept breaking the apples up when I was coring them, so just chopped everything up, squeezed some runny honey over the apple and baked it (the oven was on anyway). Earlier this evening, I made some blackcurrant cupcakes (recipe also in Sarah Raven - can you see a new addiction developing?) and had a few blackcurrants left over, so I mixed them in with the apple, and bingo, managed to have just enough to make apple & blackcurrant parcels out of the left over filo.

I've frozen the parcels on 2 trays. One is just the feta & chard, the other is half and half (feta & chard, apple & blackcurrant). I have laid the parcels out on greaseproof and labeled them, but I would lay bets on someone getting an apple & blackcurrant parcel on Sunday...

green soup and onion tart

Maybe it was all those rabbits but I really didn't feel like cooking meat today. Besides, the garden is full of veg, and the weather was horrible so I felt like something warming and comforting. I bought a Good Food mag the other week (October 2011 if you're interested), on the basis of having had a skim though while staying at mum's. There was a recipe for an onion tart (p 40) made in the same way as a tarte tatin, but using a scone base. There's also a similar recipe in Domestic Goddess (p.85 of my edition), so in the interests of crossing another DG recipe off the list, I got out DG too and picked out the best bits of both. I cooked the onions according to Nigella (30 mins, rather than 5-8 mins specified in GF), and did this before I went up to school to collect the kids. I also used Nigella's scone base recipe. The GF one used wholemeal flour and in the interests of getting the kids to eat it, I thought I'd go with all plain flour - the browner food is, the more suspicious they are of it, unless it's HP. However, I didn't use the cheese that Nigella specifies because my kids can be a bit funny about cheese in things, and I cooked the thyme with the onions rather than adding it afterwards which is what Nigella does.

I thought the kids would probably enjoy it, but I was really pleased by how much they liked it. They did have HP with it (Nigella endorses it as an accompaniement to this particular recipe, so it must be OK), and beans from the garden, and it all disappeared. Blue even had seconds and asked if he could take some for lunch tomorrow "but only if the onion doesn't slide off" - he does have a point! I don't think it would freeze particularly well, but I think it will taste OK cold, although as I type, it is sitting in the oven covered in foil trying to stay warm for when the husband gets home.

More in hope than expectation, I started the meal with chard and coconut soup from Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook. I found this recipe the other night - or rather the husband did as he was recipe surfing trying to find out how best to use up his bumper celery crop (!). I was actually looking up the chard & feta parcels he'd mentioned, as they may be the answer to my food dilemma this coming weekend, and on the same page (395) is this very simple and, as it turns out, delicious soup recipe. It's basically sweated onions & garlic, add chard, veg stock and coconut milk, simmer for 10 mins and whizz up - how easy is that: and totally delicious. Now I am not an idiot - just because I like something doesn't mean the kids will, and I was definitely not expecting them to have more than a sip. I did dress it up, giving them each a little espresso cup to try, rather than a big green bowl ful, and I actually managed not to call it 'special green soup' (or similar. I wouldn't tell them what was in it - Blue was convinced from the colour that it would be pea (peas being his nemesis) - but they both tried it nevertheless, and both finished their cups up. I even managed not to try and force them to have some more, but was satsified that they'd tried it and finished what I'd given them. Probably a first for me!

I haven't had my onion tart yet, but I did have some soup with the kids becuase after all the weather today and 2 'bracing' walks (for bracing, read very wet and windy) with the rabbit catcher. I'm looking forward to proper supper when the husband gets home.