Reclaiming the kitchen - Quick (& Chaotic) Portuguese Custard Tarts

We got back from camp on Friday afternoon and I'd been mega-organised so that for the first few days back, I didn't really have to do much in the way of cooking. Yes, I know I maxed out with a pretty splendid pavlova (yes, i do say so myself) on Saturday night for the post-camp post-mortem, but we had quiche on Sunday night, Nigella's African Chicken drumsticks on Monday night (already frozen in the marinade a couple of weeks' ago with that meal in mind, so I just had to de-frost and cook some rice) and fresh tortelloni (also stashed in the freezer) last night. The rest of the time, we have been eating up the leftovers from the camp itself and from Saturday's BBQ. While this has all made my life much easier in some respects (back at work, settling la BF* in, catching a modest amount of sporting endeavour...) I have felt strangely adrift, especially with someone French to feed.


Today it was time to reclaim the kitchen. Lemon & rosemary pork steaks with corn on the cob along with, from the garden, new potatoes and a 'medley of beans' (broads, dwarf French, purple beans, borlotti), and to follow, Quick Portuguese Tarts from Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals.

Now, I don't own a copy of 30 Minute Meals - it kind of passed me by as a cook book - but I was browsing in the library the other day while the kids picked their summer reading challenge books (and sulked because I wouldn't let them choose DVDs) and I picked it up. I was strangely drawn in and before I knew it, I was checking it out, along with a book of curry recipes by Anjum Anand.

I'm probably the last to know this, but the premise of 30 Minute Meals is that you can cook a delicious 2 course meal from scratch in 30 minutes. Apparently, "... It’s about being organised, working fast and using shortcuts and clever tricks to put insanely delicious plates of food on the table in no time.". I read the introduction quite carefully, because I wanted to make sure I'd got it right. Then I read some of the recipes.

The food itself looks great. Very Jamie Oliver, good meals. I’ll definitely be trying some of them – I might even buy the book, But 30 minutes? Really? And after a hard day’s work? I reckon I’m reasonably handy in the kitchen. I know what’s what, and how to do most of what’s called for in the book, but I am having trouble envisaging how I might whip up any of the menus in the allotted time. However, I’ll reserve judgment on that for now, and ask you to watch this space… 

In the meantime, let me tell you about the Quick Portuguese Tarts that came from the book (I gave you the link again – can you tell that I liked them?).

Now, I remember back in the early Jamie days, making something similar from The Return of the Naked Chef. In fact, I just looked it up and it’s pretty much the same thing, although the 30 minute version is a little more ‘bang, crash’. You have to extract the recipe from the overall scheme of the instructions because the meal is timetabled as a whole, for the allotted 30 minutes, so it dots back and forward from main to pud and back again, but it’s pretty straightforward to get out the relevant bits. 

You make the pastry cases using puff pastry which you dust with cinnamon, then roll into a sausage, slice up and then squodge out each rolled up piece into a pastry case using a muffin tin as a guide. You bake the cases empty, and then when they come out of the oven all puffed up, you push the middle of the pastry back down so you can spoon in the filling – a mix of crème fraiche, orange zest vanilla, sugar and egg. Back in the oven, and while the filling cooks to a wobble, you make a caramel using the juice of the orange and what seems like an obscene amount of sugar. 

Once the tarts are cooked, you whip then out of the oven, drizzle over the caramel and leave to cool.

They are delicious. Pink didn’t like hers, but she’s funny with things like that. The recipe made 6 and they all went, even though I was hoping to keep one aside to send the Husband to work with tomorrow. I also managed to make a satisfying amount of mess as I went. Jamie advocates clearing as you go into the sink. Sorry Jamie - I think I may have fallen at the first hurdle...

____________________________________________________
*la baby-sitter francaise

The Tripe will out

So, why am I thinking about tripe?

On Sunday night, Pink and I collected ‘la baby-sitter francaise’ (‘la BF’) from the airport: a quiet and very sweet girl, the daughter of a friend of a friend, who is staying with us for 3 weeks in what is hopefully going to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. She will provide me with some child care and we will speak English with her.

The visit didn’t get off to a hugely successful start from my perspective as I arrived at Southampton airport to realise that there was no flight due in from Perpignan (the airport I had anticipated she would fly from) and that it was some weeks, nay months, since I had seen a photo of her... I managed to quash increasingly panicked visions of having to leg it back to Heathrow, or some other airport, while an angry French Madame hounded me on the phone (I have no idea if her mother is likely to be an angry French Madame, but I suppose I’d be pretty mad if someone left my teenage daughter stranded at a foreign airport), and my fears were unfounded as she eventually appeared on the flight from Beziers. Anyway, despite that, and her not surfacing till approximately 10.30 in the morning, the visit seems to be going well. Blue, who behaved beyond embarrassingly last summer when we had a different BF to stay with us, appears to have taken a shine to her (or, at least, decided not to take against her) and Pink is positively enthralled, especially as she produced presents of untold glory (vis wooden bead jewellery) on arrival.

I hope la BF will feel welcome and enjoy her time with us. Her English is just about OK, and she is keen (she has brought an English novel to read with her), but I remember what it was like. I spent several happy summers from the age of 18 with a lovely but chaotic family with 6 children, travelling between Paris, Carcassone and, latterly, Nantes. Thanks to those visits, I can fend off amorous French builders, translate most of Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, make steak & kidney pie in the searing heat of a midi summer, cope with 6 consecutive cases of chicken pox – 3 concurrent , and deal with trigger-happy gendarmes when a number plate falls off your car at a peage while travelling on the autoroute du soleil with too many kids in the car (2 hiding under blankets in the boot) and a cold box full of illegally harvested escargots de Bourgogne chomping on thyme and rosemary on their way to being roasted with garlic butter. In case you ever find yourselves in a similar situation, the answer is, sadly, cleavage...

 

and I can still speak pretty fluent French.

But until you find your feet (or your boobs) it can be totally bewildering. Being immersed in someone else’s family is tiring enough, let alone having to do it all in a different language.

And here is the point of my post (there was one). I have many wonderful food memories from those trips to France – the father in particular seemed to delight in seeing what he could entice ‘l’anglaise’ to eat. One night he came home with a side of salmon which he proceeded to nail to a board and cook against an open fire – Finnish style, he assured me. I have eaten snails 4 different ways, beautiful sardines – proper enormous ones, fresh from the sea and BBQ’d with their heads on so that you crunch through everything, and many other delicacies. And as much as he delighted in producing these delicacies, I prided myself on being able to rise to the challenge without flinching.

But one day, it all fell apart. Picture if you will, a blisteringly hot day: 8.30 a.m. and the cicadas were already rasping. We were camped out chez les grandparents in their beautiful country house outside Carcassone (shady terrace along the front of the house, pool in the garden). There was some excitement at the prospect of the lunch to be served up that day, and a huge earthenware casserole was produced from the freezer and ceremoniously carried into the kitchen. It was ‘des tripes’ (pronounced ‘treep’, with that roll of the ‘r’). Had I misunderstood? This was my 3^rd or 4^th visit to the family, and I was fairly confident with my French by then. At least twice during the morning, I was advised about the recipe and the fact that it was a regional delicacy. I had to deal with an ‘it’s so unfair’ conversation with various of the kids in my care about why the adults would get des tripes, but they would only have chicken. I was going to have to eat it.

By now, the casserole was defrosting and heating slowly on the stove (no respecters of English food safety rules, these), and as I walked passed the kitchen, I would get a waft...

it looked a little like this

Now I should probably explain that when I was a child, my mother used to feed me (and the dog) tripe and onions which she cooked in milk. My Dad was at sea. Apparently, I used to wolf it down. But then he stopped being at sea and started being at home, and things changed. I am advised by my mother (not that she’s bitter or anything) that he used to walk around making retching noises whenever she cooked it, and she soon stopped. According to her, however, I never showed any signs of not liking tripe.

And yet there I stood some 20 years later, literally frozen with panic. I was going to be presented with a plate of tripe casserole, and I just couldn’t face it. In the heat, I began to feel nauseous and sweaty at my hairline. I’d like to be able to tell you that I managed to overcome what must only have been a psychological reaction, learned from my Dad, but I couldn’t do it. And while I have a twinge of regret that I can’t regale you with some shocking but hilarious vomiting over grandmere incident, I must confess that I had to wimp out. Just before lunch was served, I had to try and explain that I simply couldn’t eat ‘des tripes’. I tried 2 or 3 times to express quite how deep this total inability to even try the dish was – I tried to communicate that I wasn’t just being a little fussy, but my language skills deserted me. All I could manage was a garbled “je ne peux pas manger des tripes” before running to the bathroom to splash cold water over my face.

All was fine. I got chicken and, to the delight of the 2 oldest children, my portion of tripes was shared between them, but I’m never quite sure that they really understood.

So if in the next 3 weeks, I start muttering about cooking something that you think will freak out la BF, stop me. I have already tried to explain to her that if there is anything she doesn’t like or doesn’t want to eat, she must tell me. But I’m not sure she has understood...

Is there anything that you really and honestly can’t eat? Any great stories? Did you actually vomit over grandmere? I’d love to hear them...

Post Camp Pavlova

When I made the Swedish Summer Cake, I had 4 egg whites left over. The Goddess urged me to make coffee toffee meringues with them (check out the recipe in Kitchen). I thought about it, but at the time, regrettably, it would have been a step too far.  I put the egg whites in the freezer and vowed that I would remember that the old marge tub covered in cling film (because I’d lost the lid) contained 4 egg whites, and that I was going to use them for this purpose.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. We returned from scout camp yesterday, exhausted and totally minging, but having had a great time. It did of course help that the sun shone solidly, but it was a great week.

In a move to combat the post-camp exhaustion, the decision was taken that on return yesterday, all the kit would just be dumped in the scout hut and we would go back this afternoon for clean up, followed by a BBQ at ours to drink all the booze we wished we could have drunk while we were supervising our charges. That’s not to say we didn’t have the odd ‘lemonade’ but with 22 10-14 year olds in your care, restraint is most definitely required.

Bearing that in mind, you’ll understand when I say that I over-achieved on the wine front last night, 2 loads of washing down, and trying to stay awake long enough to see Team GB’s entry into the amazing Olympic Opening Ceremony last night. It was not to be – I gave up round about Ecuador – but still woke up with a reasonably thick head and a trip to the supermarket in mind.

I had remembered the coffee toffee meringue, but decided that individual puddings would not work today, partly because I had no idea quite how many people would be coming. So then I thought, Pavlova. During my reasonably stress-free trip round the supermarket (mainly because the kids stayed at home so I was free to amble round and get distracted by the cookery books section) I noticed that they actually had some nectarines which were genuinely ripe. And some apricots. “I expect those would taste good with toffee sauce” I thought. Clearly, a week of bashing out uncomplicated crowd pleasers on the food front, and lashings of tinned rice pudding and custard (which I LOVE, don’t get me wrong) have left me hankering for a good tinker in the kitchen. A plan formed.

Working on the coffee toffee idea, but consulting Forever Summer for all things pavlova (in particular the recipe for Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova – which I probably should make another time because it looks scrummy), I came up with a coffee meringue topped with cream, nectarines, apricots and toffee sauce. I decided to go for a couple of extra egg whites in the meringue (I’ll use the yolks in a quiche), and have fiddled around with the quantities accordingly, to make:

Post-camp Pavlova

Ingredients: 30g butter, 150g golden syrup, 100g light brown sugar, 720 ml double cream (yes, I know it’s a pain to get that amount), 250g caster sugar, 3 teaspoons instant coffee powder, pinch of cream of tartar, 6 egg whites, 50g toasted chopped hazelnuts, 4 ripe peaches/nectarines, 320g apricots

Method: First make the toffee sauce. In a small pan, and over a low heat, melt together the butter, syrup and 50g of the light brown sugar, occasionally swirling the pan around. When melted, bring to the boil and bubble the mixture for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in 120 ml of the double cream then set aside to cool.

For the meringue, pre-heat the oven to 180⁰C, and line a baking tray with baking parchment on the underside of which you have drawn a circle approx 23 cm in diameter to act as a guide for forming the disc of meringue. Mix together the caster sugar, the rest of the light brown sugar (50g), the coffee powder and the cream of tartar in a bowl. The soft brown sugar may clump a bit so try and get all the lumps out first.

Whisk the egg whites till they start to go to the soft peak stage, then carry on whisking adding the sugar mixture a tablespoon at a time, till you have a glossy, thick meringue. Carefully mound the meringue into the middle of the circle (you should be able to see it on the baking paper) then spread to form a fat disc that will be approx 23 cm in diameter. Sprinkle 20g of the chopped hazelnuts on top of the meringue mixture, then put the baking tray in to the oven, immediately reducing the heat to 150⁰.

Cook for an hour or so (it may need a little longer) till the meringue is dry on the outside and perhaps a little cracked, but still feels like it might be squidgy on the inside. Leave to cool.

To assemble, place the meringue disc on whatever you are going to serve it on. Whip the remaining 600 ml of double cream so that it is firm enough to be spread and to hold the fruit, but still reasonably soft. Chop up the fruit into reasonably small chunks  - you could peel it first, but I wasn’t in the mood. Spread the cream over the meringue, top with the fruit and sprinkle over the remaining hazlenuts. Drizzle over about half (or whatever you think looks good) the now cooled toffee sauce. Serve with the remaining toffee sauce on the side.

I wanted to take a picture to show you what a slice lookes like, but it got eaten too quickly. This served a slice each for 14 adults with a small bit left over, and at least 3 people fought to lick the remains of the toffee sauce out of the jug. You know who you are...

Finally, just because I can't resist, I'm linking up with Forever Nigella again, for the July 'Sizzling Summer' event. It's hosted by Amy at Cooking, Cakes andChildren for Sarah from Maison Cupcake

I'm also adding this to the link on Scottish Mum blog for the Funky Foodies. for July.

Adieu Recipe Junkie, Hello Scout Wife

Did I mention that Recipe Junkie is a year old next week? On 24^th July to be precise.

“What are you planning?” I hear you cry. Some great and glorious feast? Something to tantalise the tastebuds?

Unfortunately not. There may not even be cake. Think chilli (mild) and rice, think bangers, (gulp) Smash and (double gulp) gravy made from a PACKET, think tuna pasta.

For today, for one week only, Recipe Junkie becomes

Yes, that’s right. Later today, I am heading to darkest Gloucestershire with Pink, along with another Scoutwife and her daughter to join the Husband and Blue, 23 scouts and the other leaders and hangers on supporters (both in the physical and moral sense). My fellow SW and I get a few hours reprieve due to our daughters’ hectic social diary which includes a ‘must go to birthday party’ this morning. This means that I will be driving Daisy the camper van packed to the gunnels with various bits and pieces and towing a trailer full of wood out of convoy. I’d advise you stay well clear of the M4 this afternoon.

Being a Scoutwife kind of happened by stealth. I didn’t do much in the way of Brownies or anything when I was young, and Guides, well, no thank you. I hadn’t even done much camping till I met the Husband.

But things change.

After I’d done my stint on the local Playgroup Committee, and hadn’t yet sold my soul to the PTA, the Husband indicated that his work commitments were such that he might be able to help out with the local scouts. He was a scout himself and wanted to get involved again. “I’m not going to be a leader or anything like that” he said. Famous last words.  

Before I knew it, I was acting as camp fire sausage checker (yes, Health & Safety is everywhere) and knew the words to more campfire songs than I’d ever wanted to (Anyone for a burst of “Oh you’ll never get to heaven...”?). It turned out that the Husband would get much more out of the whole thing if he did become a leader, so guess what...

And today we are heading off for our annual camp. Last year we joined 5,000 other scouts from across Europe in Haarlem, outside Amsterdam for a 10 day jamborette. This year, it’s South Gloucestershire, for 6 days of fun and frolics, and hopefully no rain.

So what is the role of Scoutwife?

Well, you can probably tell that the ‘wife’ part gives it away. We do the (mostly) fluffy bit. We are the keepers of the camp menu, the face paints, the friendship bracelet embroidery silks and the ‘missing home biscuits’. We are the surrogate mothers not only for the scouts, but for all the wannabe scouts who accompany us. For our troop is not a troop run by spinsters of a certain age with ample bosoms and whiskery chins, nor by more senior gentlemen in dodgy shorts whose wives are probably only too glad to see the back of them for a week. Put your prejudices behind you. Our troop is run by a group of 4 30-40 yr old guys, all with young families of their own. We have a choice – let them spend a week of their holiday without us, or go too. So by day, we herd kids, make tea, slice huge amounts of onions, make friendship bracelets, paint faces, read stories, keep an eye on stores, do any washing that might be required (you’d be surprised how many bedwetters there still are in the 10+ age range) or drying out of wet kit, dish out TLC and the odd plaster, and occasionally sneak out for a hot shower and a coffee, and by night we smoke fags, drink scotch and brawl... actually, I made that last bit up...

And it is MASSIVE fun

True, there have been times this week when I’d secretly wondered if I should suggest 2 weeks all inclusive in the Carribean for next year, particularly when I was cutting up 14 metres of cotton sheeting in preparation for tie dying neckers, and soaking the labels off 20 jam jars ready to make lanterns. Never more so than on Thursday after approximately 5 hours in the Cash & Carry and supermarket, to gather together the wherewithal to keep the Army marching on – think 700 Weetabix, 250 bags of crisps - we staggered out of Morrisons at 9.36 p.m. on Thursday night, buried in cornflakes and sachets of angel delight, gagging for a beer, only to realise that we had forgotten the Smash...

But on the whole, we have a great laugh. The Scouts can be a challenge, but it is truly a good thing to realise that not all 10-14yr olds are violent hoodies out to mug old ladies for their i-phones, and to be there in the background to help out as they get to test their boundaries is a real privilege. My own kids love it. They get to do things that plenty of 8 and 6 year olds don’t even know exist, meeting lots of different people and experiencing some amazing things.

So for now, it’s adieu Recipe Junkie, hello Scoutwife. But don’t fret. I’m already planning a Nigella inspired coffee toffee meringue pavlova for the post camp BBQ...

Warm-ish Summer Garden Salad for the end of term

So here we are, the end of term. Did you survive? Remember how I was saying recently that I sometimes feel like I need to arm myself for the battle of daily life? Well, I feel like I won out, triumphed over the vaguaries and whims of the school calendar, and actually remembered to pick the kids up at 1.30 today.

Much as I’d like to be slumping in a chair this evening with a huge G&T and a “Thank f**k for that”, we are going away tomorrow. I hope to get the opportunity to tell you a little more about this if I get time, but know for the purposes of this post that today has been a long round of lists, piles and clearing up, slotted around work and a particularly unpleasant visit to the doctors to have a coil changed. I won’t elaborate too much suffice to say that a quick out and in (as it were) ended up as 40 minutes of me lying there with a light shining up my ‘hinky’ (as Pink calls it) while my doctor first couldn’t get the old one out and then couldn’t get the new one in. Apparently I have a tricky cervix, brought on by having 2 emergency caesareans. It was not a pleasant experience. Mind you, neither were the ECSs...

My parents – my mum, the Allotment Junkie in particular – had an annual cry that they would go away for 2 weeks in the summer and all the veg would come at once. Well, on current performance, that’s unlikely to happen to us because (a) the weather has been so rubbish that there’s not a massive glut on the way any time soon, and (b) we’re only going for a week, but there was still produce to be eaten up before we left. I have been carefully working my way through my meal plan, using up bits and pieces in the fridge and from the garden, as I went, until this evening. I am pleased to announce that apart from half a pot of mascarpone cheese, there is pretty much just enough left to make into sandwiches for tomorrow’s picnic, and I can leave the fridge with a clear conscience.

I did have 2/3 of a pack of cooking chorizo left. The original reason why I bought it has been lost to me, but I used 1/3 of it to make soup last week after the swimming gala. I do like chorizo. I guess it’s become the ‘new bacon’ for the Hugh F-W-watching-middle-classes (well, me anyway) in some respects, although I’d never have chorizo in a sarnie with tomato ketchup and a cup of coffee to soothe me a hangover... However, combined with some of the last eggs still left from the chickens, new potatoes, broad beans, a handful of peas and some spring onions from the garden, it made a really lovely salad for us to have this evening.

I love this kind of salad. There are no real quantities, although I have put a rough guide in here for form’s sake – if you want to cook more potatoes, you can do, and you don’t need to put them all in the salad - save to have them as potato salad or something the next day. Pink is particularly partial to fried cold potatoes or you can put them in a frittata. Another thing about this is that as you are hard boiling the eggs, it’s better if they are not too fresh as they are difficult to peel. The eggs I used this evening were 3 & 4 days old and they were still a bugger to get the shell off. Finally I’ve called this a Warm-ish Garden salad because if you were organised and got it all assembled and too the table super quick, it would be quite warm, But it’s not a problem if things go a little off the rails and you don’t...

A Warm-ish Summer Garden Salad

To serve 4

Ingredients: 500g washed new potatoes, 4 eggs, 300g podded broad beans (will come from approx 600g broad bean pods) 150g podded peas, 6 spring onions, finely sliced, 150g cooking chorizo, sherry vinegar

Method: Place the potatoes in a large pan and place the eggs on top (the eggs will finish cooking before the potatoes and you don’t want to be fishing around for them). Cover with cold water and bring to the boil. When the pan comes to the boil set the timer for 6-7 minutes depending on how big your eggs are and how hard you like them cooked. I’d say no more than 8 minutes for large eggs to be properly hard boiled all the way through, although I prefer to go for the slightly softer egg. When the eggs have had their time, leave the potatoes on the boil and carefully remove the eggs to a bowl of cold water. Stick the broad beans and peas to steam over the potatoes for 3-4 minutes and remove. Keep warm if possible. Slice the chorizo and heat a small frying pan over a reasonably high heat. Chuck in the chorizo and fry so that the fat and juices run out and the chorizo cooks up and starts to get a little bit of a crust on it. Splash in approx a tablespoon of sherry vinegar and cook off. Be careful not to set fire to any nearby tea towels like I nearly did. Let the vinegar and chorizo bubble up a bit then tip into a large bowl with the broad beans and peas.

Hopefully by now (or at some stage earlier) the potatoes will have cooked, so drain them into a colander and if they are on the large side, cut into chunks and add to the chorizo and broad bean mixture. Chuck in the finely sliced spring onions and mix everything carefully together. Peel the eggs, halve or quarter them, which ever you prefer, and sit them artfully round the side of the salad bowl.

We ate it with green salad, also from the garden.

Reader Appreciation Award

On 24^th July, my blog will be 1 year old. I love my blog. When I started, I had no idea how compulsive it would be or how much – and I mean really HOW MUCH – I would enjoy it. When I first started I wrote 4 posts and then a hacker got into my google account, locked me out and stamped all over my bonfire. I was gutted. We went off on our holidays, but I felt bereft.  On our return, I applied myself to regaining control over my virtual life. I managed to kick out the hacker, and with some far more secure passwords in hand, I triumphed.

My google stats tell me that this will be my 176^th post. I can’t believe I’ve had that much to say (well, maybe I haven’t) but what started out as something to please myself actually appears to be enjoyed by a few other people. I’m not talking anything grand, but I can say that people who don’t know me in real life (and might therefore feel some kind of obligation to look in every now and again and give me a virtual pat on the head) are reading what I write, and enjoying it.

The purpose of telling you all this is that a few weeks ago, I was presented with a Reader Appreciation Award from Single Married Mum, who I am fairly sure I have never met in RL. More than receiving the award itself (proof that at least one other person has read my blog) is that I received it from someone whose blog I love. If you haven’t visited her, please do take the time to do so. You’ll find a warm account of her family life, her charity shop finds, her lovely photographs,  and above all, her amazing strength dealing with everything we all have to deal with, while her Husband is in Afghanistan.

The rules of the award are fairly straightforward:

1. Include the award logo on my blog:

2. Answer the 10 questions below, for fun
3. Nominate other blogs you enjoy – the recommended number is 10-12, but you can choose any number
4. Pay the love forward – provide your nominees with a link to your post, and comment on their blog to let them know they’ve been included and invite them to take part
5. Pay the love back with gratitude and link to the blogger(s) who nominated you

Favourite Colour – I had my colours ‘done’ after Blue was born. One of those days where you pay through the nose for someone to hold up lots of different coloured pieces of cloth and tell you whether you’ve got blue or yellow skin tones, and from there what your ‘season’ is. It turns out that i am ‘brown summer’ but for those of you with more important things to worry about, what it basically means is that I can’t wear yellow or black. Fortunately, it turned out that I was still allowed to wear the colours that I mostly like to wear, but I now have a handy little wallet which I can bustle off into a changing room and agonise over if I ever actually get to go shopping for clothes.  I like colour though, and my favourite colour is one that I am actually supposed to wear lots of, which is a kind of delphinium blue. I took some pictures of the delphiniums in the garden a couple            of weeks ago, but even then the rain had started to trash them. They are bent and broken now, but still a glorious blue.

Favourite Animal – I am unashamedly a dog person. I grew up with dogs, I have a dog now. A 3 legged springer spaniel called Fred. If I had a blog about something other than food it would be called something like “How to Train an Almost Untrainable Super Speedy Duck Killing But Very Loveable Idiot Dog Who Throws Himself Off Quarry Edges and Doesn’t Feel Pain”. But that would be quite a mouthful. I’m also quite fond of pigs. When we had our kitchen done a couple of years ago, I finally found a home for ‘the pig’ – a set of tiles my mum gave me for my 21^st birthday and which I have been carrying round with me ever since. Guess the fact that I finally felt that I could get them grouted onto a wall means something quite profound about where I am in life.

Favourite non-alcoholic drink – This so depends on what time of day it is and what mood I’m in. I can’t function without a cup of tea in the morning, and after I’ve walked the dog and am settling down to work, only a cup of coffee will do. If the unfortunate situation arose where I was at a pub/party and was not partaking of alcoholic refreshment, it would probably be either a lime & soda water or a ginger beer. Or a tomato juice, fully pimped with Tabasco, lemon, ice etc.  

Facebook or Twitter – My short answer is that I use them for different things, and I don’t think I can choose, because they are different beasts as far as I’m concerned. Facebook is where I keep up with friends and family, although Recipe Junkie has her own facebook page now (https://www.facebook.com/RecipeJ?ref=hl#!/RecipeJ if you were interested...) which I am enjoying. I’ve only been on Twitter for 2 or 3 months. Initially, I feared that I was passed it – it was all too sharp, too edgy, too witty for me, and I would never be able to understand how to use it, and then all of a sudden it started to make sense. There’s still lots of Twitter that I haven’t explored properly, but I get it now. And maybe I’m not really sharp enough or witty enough to be there, but it works for what I thought it might do. I have ‘met’ some really excellent people in the Twittersphere and I love dipping in and out when I can. I also love that you can sometimes be lucky enough to catch the virtual eye of someone you would never otherwise come in to contact with. Once again, Nigel Slater – you don’t know how much I bask in the memory of you re-tweeting my Rhubarb and VanillaJam.

Favourite Pattern –  This is a William Morris pattern that has been with me all my life. We had curtains in this material when I was a child and it re-appears at odd times in my life bringing with it a huge rush of nostalgia.

Do you prefer giving or getting presents? Well, of course I should say giving presents, but giving presents means choosing what to give and I am singularly rubbish at it. On the rare occasions I get it right, I feel a huge sense of relief more than anything else. Some people seem to be natural present buyers, but not me. I feel like I hardly ever buy with the confidene of knowing that what I have bought will give the recipient the pleasure I want ot to give. may be this is because I never EVER know what to get my father. i feel like all his life he has been waiting for something amazing to come along, and it never arrives. So he gets socks and books - although I do try hard to find him new reads. Still it's always gratifying to see the kids faces when they get a top present, and sometimes, it;s the little things that are the real 'wow' for them, and i love that.

Favourite number - I could say 4, because my little family is 4 of us, but then the children would be outraged that I hadn't included the dog or the chickens, so that would make it 10. It could be 13 because we got married on the 13th and I like to be a little controversial occasionally (well, not that choosing 13 as a favourtie number is hugely controversial or anything but you know what I mean). Or it could be 3, because the dog only has 3 legs. Yes, you've guessed it. I just do not have a favourite number. Sorry.

Favourite Day of the Week - I'm quite fond of Thursday. The start of the week is always a mad rush, and while I love the weekends, there's something about Thursday, when you can have that sense of anticipation of something good to come. Work is a little more manageable than it has been earlier in the week, and I can have some space while the kids are at school to think ahead. Thursday is also the day the house usually gets cleaned, so I usually have 20 minutes or so before the kids are home from school and before the dog has had a chance to get covered in mud, when the house is quiet, clean and tidy. It doesn't bother me that much when it's not clean and tidy, but I do enjoy that brief moment of calm and quiet.

Favourite Flower  - my favourite flower depends on many things. A couple of weeks ago it was the delphiniums in the garden, but they’ve been ravaged by the rain now. Before that it was the poppies in the fields where I walk the dog – just beautiful. I love being out of doors, and wild flowers are definitely my favourite. My Granny always had what she called ‘a little tussy mussy’ on her kitchen table – basically a little bunch of flowers she’d picked out and about.

What is your passion –  well that’s easy, isn’t it. Food. And my family. Feeding my family is what my blog basically has at its heart and although I like to dally with the occasional show stopper, I definitely fall into the home cook league rather than the chef league. Frankly I wouldn’t want it any other way. 

Now for nominations.

There are a couple of food blogs that I just love. The View from the Table and Crumbs - Feed Your Family. I have recently discovered, and very much enjoy reading Mamacook.

I enjoy reading Pint Sized Rants, because so often when I flail around the edges of an argument, she has got to the nub of it deftly and succinctly. I don't always agree with her, but I am in awe of her ability to make a strong and convincing argument in a few words. She has a dog too.

For something completely off the wall, I nominate Jacked in my Job .

Mouther Goutte tells amazing stories and you really should give her blog a visit. She hasn't been blogging for long, and I think she may already have been awarded this by someone else, but there - I'll heap on the accolades,

Yellowfields Camping also gets my Readers Appreciation Award because she has opened up a whole new world of campsites without me having to do the leg work. It helps that she obviously likes the same kind of camp sites that we do (campfires yes, rows, no), but I am very appreciative!

Swedish Summer Cake

She wiped the cream from the spatula, smearing it luxuriously on the sponge, and languorously placed the strawberries onto the vanilla-flavoured confection.Viewed from above, it would be all innocent, all strawberries and cream, but she knew that in truth, this only concealed something altogether more grown up, a custard that tasted like ambrosia but paved the way to darker, more dangerous places, oozing over the fruit, this time sprinkled in sugar so that juices had started to run. Would he be tempted? Could she take him to a place he had never been before. She knew he was watching her. She smoothed down her apron and ran her fingers through her hair. As if in anticipation of what was to come, she moved more slowly. She turned to reveal what she knew he was waiting for - had been waiting for - for so long...

"It's ready, darling" she murmured huskily....

To me, this is cake porn at its finest. The Goddess tries to dress it up as a wholesome and homely summer treat, but it's from Scandanavia, and it's nothing of the sort. True, we had it for pudding on Sunday lunchtime, but it could just as well grace the dessert table of some more decadent feast.

This cake has been whispering to me ever since I got my hands on Kitchen. Every time I looked at the book, I could hear it. Baaaaake me! Eeeeeeeat me! Every time I got the book down from the shelf, it somehow ended up open on that page. This happens to me alot.

I couldn't bear it any longer, and having won the delicious Forman and Field box of goodies last week, I knew that if we were having a celebration meal, this would have to be the pudding.

It’s called Swedish Summer Cake.


I can’t find the recipe on line, so I can’t put a link in. To be honest, even if you didn’t go a bundle on the family food sections (I do - you can't beat her recipes), it would be worth buying Kitchen just for this cake. (She’s not paying me, by the way).

It’s 3 layers of light sponge  sandwiched to gether with a custard cream and strawberries and topped with whipped cream and more fruit.

I think ‘whisked sponge’ might be the technical term for the cake – there is no fat (yes, girls, this could be a slimming aid...or maybe not) in the sponge mixture. You whisk the eggs and sugar together to be a light, moussey texture then add in some hot water as you carry on whisking - I did all this in my trusty Kenwood. Finally, you whisk in flour and baking powder and bake for half an hour or so.

a bit wonky, but hey - did it matter?

There’s proper custard involved:

I know I have eulogised about the properties of Birds Custard before, but I felt that there was no adulterating this recipe. I had to follow it down the line. It was fairly quick and easy to be honest. It did end up a little runny, and a quick consultation of Nigella.com after the event, suggests that I didn’t leave it to thicken up for quite long enough, but to be honest, I’m, not complaining.

You have to split the sponge into 3 discs. I love the way Nigella instructs you to “courageously, slice the cake horizontally into 3 layers...” I sliced courageously and made a bit of a pigs ear of it to be honest. However, I was heartened by her earlier words of encouragement “...any clumsiness is either easily concealed or adds to the homespun charm of it all...” There you see – it was fine that my top layer looked like this after cutting.

To sandwich together you whisk a huge amount of cream with some vanilla extract, and then fold a third of the cream into your custard. You macerate strawberries with some caster sugar, and layer sponge, the custard cream and fruit up, then top with the rest of the vanilla cream and strawbs.

Did you want a reminder of what it looked like?

It is divine.

I'm linking up with Forever Nigella again. The July event is hosted by Amy at Cooking, Cakes andChildren for Sarah from Maison Cupcake

The theme is 'sizzling summer' . If I had to justify the entry of this cake in that category, it is Swedish Summer Cake. Then I can attest to the fact that we ate it for lunch  al fresco on Sunday, hot on the heals of a lovely chicken chasseur.  With a lovely glass of chilled white wine. And if you were focussing on the 'sizzle' part of the category, well, returning to my earlier theme, despite it's innocent looks, I do believe that this is a 'hot' cake...