afternoon tea

the pictures speak for themselves...

and full of vitamin a, too

Busy times, busy eating. But before I can blog any of it, I have a debt to repay.

A while back I offered a carrot hummus recipe I had cooked from a Moro book*, in exchange for the answer to a crossword clue. The clue was guessed, my curiosity satisfied: herewith my repayment.


shopping list:

• the inevitable left over bag of carrots from your box this week / month (limit to around 800 g)
  
• 100g feta


• a handful of fresh mint


• virgin olive oil
  
• 1 tbsp caraway seeds, roughly bashed about with pestle and mortar

scrub and chop the carrots into small chunks for roasting. toss about in a roasting tin with a fair amount of virgin olive oil, cover with foil and roast gas 6 (200 degrees c) for around an hour until soft. i thought they would take less cooking, but they are surprisingly recalcitrant.

now you should mash this. the gent nobly tried with a masher, then a potato ricer, but the frustration was least, and the puree finest, using a hand-held whizzy thing. i imagine this is what a food mixer / blender was invented for.

incidentally, the stunning geometric-print tea towel you see there was designed and hand-printed by the talented 'flotsam and jetsam'. if you like it, she sells on etsy.

onwards! stir in the bashed up caraway, half the mint torn or chopped, and a good few glugs of virgin oil - 2 or 3 tbsp - and season to taste. mix well, then turn into a shallow bowl or plate.
crumble the feta over; chop or snip the rest of the mint over; dribble with oil so it pools in the nooks.

Eat this lukewarm, when the flavours seem fuller, with toasted pitta to scoop it up. The book has a really beautiful way of preparing the pitta, which really does make a difference. Moreover, the book is amazing and beautiful and you would be mad not to put it on your Christmas list. Amazon have a wish list facility which anyone can find on google and thus know what to buy to win your affection. Top tip for any altruistic stalkers out there.

We now have three bags of carrots chez Roy, so the lucky gent might find this week's theatre picnic is a taste of the Spanish sun. If I were reading this the next statement would make me unbearably sick with jealousy, so I completely understand that you might hate me when I say, with great excitement, that I am going to Moro soon and I absolutely can't wait.

Convoluted sentence over, I'm off to bed to read the Moro cookbooks.

* Casa Moro, published by ebury press.

Last weekend in May

On the most glorious sunny Sunday, after the gent's patented perfect scrambed eggs - this time with smoked salmon, on English muffins - with Monmouth coffee and smoothie, I didn't think the day could get any better.

Really, that should be the review in itself. You should read that sentence and then imagine it lasting half an hour, and then you will nearly have lived it.

Anyway, there is more: we sprung out to the park like May lambs gambolling, lounged with the paper like lizards, made daisy chains like a gardening gaoler ... but it was all too much bliss really. We soon got hungry and went to 'The Dervish' for mezze and a beer. Favourite dishes were broad beans with yogurt, spicy minced lamb pieces (I still have the taste from 'Mangal 2' the week before), and a mellow aubergine dish. We filled our boots for just over a tenner each, the food arrived quickly and tasted of holidays and garlic: in short, it's on the 'love list'.


In other news, I have been reading about the designer 'Alabama Chanin' on Burda Style and found it a brief oasis for my eyes. Although I have to confess that anything that uses the word 'lifestyle' usually makes me roll said eyes. I have an old white dress and had been thinking of stitching over it in white to make it more interesting, and am encouraged to see the same idea looking so beautiful, here:
http://www.alabamachanin.com/content/bridal-page-2

Burda interview with Ms Chanin:
http://www.burdastyle.com/blog/show/952

There is no website for the Dervish, so you'll just have to use your imagination as to the 'lifestyle' it evokes...

bits and pieces

Quo Vadis was a happy oasis for an impromptu visit on Friday night. After the V&A's 'Hats: an anthology' exhibition, a beer was in order. And after a beer comes food. I always warm to a place that takes scotch eggs or pork pies seriously, and seeing scotch eggs on the menu certified Quo Vadis a good-hearted place.

I had a tasty fish pie served in an individual baby casserole dish, the gent had slow braised ox cheeks which were sticky and meaty, surrounded by rich bacony bits. The greens were garlicky and buttery. I thought it suffered from 'looks small on the plate but mysteriously fills you up' syndrome, but this is always OK in the end, despite any initial anxiety. And then we both attacked a passion fruit brulee with vim. Next time I'd like to try the gull's eggs starter...
http://www.quovadissoho.co.uk/

This website was mentioned in the Guardian Guide this weekend and I wanted to make a note for myself. 'The history of eating utensils': how could anyone resist a peek?
http://research.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/index.html