Mrs Hubbard

When I looked, on one of those dark days between Christmas and New Year, the cupboard was bare.  When my Mother looked she found this:

Hubbard soup (minimal version)

For making something out of nothing, this beats even the tomato and lentil soup that KK makes. Chop one white onion, soften in oil; add a tin of tomatoes and a squeeze of tomato purée.  Cook for a bit - maybe 15 mins - then blend roughly and season well. Serves 3.

Ridiculously Good Sausage rolls

Caramelise some onions by slicing an onion in half, then slicing the halves into slim half moons. Add to a pan with a little oil and cook on a low heat for 30 mins. Add a teaspoon of balsamic and half a teaspoon of sugar and cook a further 15 mins.

Roll out puff pastry into a long rectangle. You will soon fold this in half, lengthwise, so bear this in mind as you place on sausage meat (from Jonathan the butcher, "hardly any fat in there" as Ma kept telling us): keep it to one side, with space all round. Top the meat with caramelised onion then fold the rest of the pastry over the meat, like a long blanket. Tuck the sausage up cosy, press the edges together, and brush with milk. Slice the roll into big chunks; they need to be pretty hefty or the pastry will bounce open as the rolls cook. Bake hot (190 degrees) for about 20 mins.

This was a very warming lunch.

hello? Is it me you're looking for?

The cooking dry spell continued, making me more grateful than ever for other people's home dishes. Jimmy's classic ham, rice and salad; an Ottolenghi-salad lunch crafted by Mel; Alex's barley and black pudding risotto.

And then, after two days alone in the burnt ochre palette of English autumn countryside, I noticed my cooking mojo sitting next to me.  He looked like this:

I had picked courgette, tomatoes, rosemary and thyme from Rosie & Alex's garden. So I made ratatouille and chipolata sausages for supper, and also a lamb stew for school nights this week.

Mojo Lamb

Brown the cheapest of stewing lamb in Alex's nice, deep pot, then remove to a dish. 

In the lamby pan, add more oil, then in it sweat sliced onion and cumin seeds.  

Add diced celery and cook a bit more, keeping the heat low. 

Return the lamb to the pan, cover with water, then add in rosemary, diced carrot and a few odds of courgette that had gone mushy at one end, but you wanted to rescue the edible bits.  

Leave on low for a couple of hours, happy in the knowledge it will taste even better when re-heated after work.

Pour a glass of wine and let the aromatic rosemary smells sharpen your appetite. 

house salad

After a series of increasingly bizarre meals, culminating in 'left over curry with sweetcorn to pad it out, with penne pasta' on Friday, I was ready for real food again. Thank goodness for the weekend!

At Deptford's Big Red Bus on Friday night Jamie and I had wonderful pizza. Saturday's falafel salad at Maltby street market had gorgeous crunchy falafel and silky aubergine. We took in the Ladywell Tavern for beers, lovely coffee and cake at Fee and Brown, and late night chips at a local chipper.  

After all the excitement and sunshine, Sunday evening felt a little quiet and back-to-school sad. So I made House Salad which, being in the Flamingo house, had to be pink.

• New potatoes; boiled, cooled a bit, and quartered lengthwise
• Cos lettuce chopped or torn
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 5 cherry toms
• 5 radishes
• The end of a tin of sweet corn 
• A skinny fillet of salmon, fried then left to rest

Put it all together with the salmon last, warm, on top. Dash over the frying pan oil, half a lime, and a grind of pepper. Eat while listening to radio 4's 'Boswell's life of Johnson' - delightfully distracting and with Miles Jupp to boot. Enjoy with a bitter Campari and soda, contemplating the sweet / sad nature of life.

hot cross bacon savouries

When the corner shop didn't have any hot cross buns on Easter day, my Mother wasn't put out. 

"Let's have some hot cross bacon savouries instead!" she said, somewhat eccentrically. 

Unsurprisingly, they weren't available to purchase, so we made 'em.  Back home I made a pot of coffee while Ma did the following. If you have an oven, and a spare 7 minutes, I suggest you do the same.

• Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees, or gas equivalent. 
• Unwrap and unroll some puff pastry (bought fresh, pre-rolled); cut into 6 squares.  
• Over these squares grate some strong cheddar and lay over a rasher of bacon. I favour smoked streaky. We didn't have much bacon to hand, so cut up 4 rashers and shared this out equally.
• Bring diagonal corners of the pastry together (as in the photo), brush pastry with milk and bake for 20 minutes or so.

Enjoy with coffee, sitting in the Spring sunshine, with your parents, if you are so very lucky as to have some.

ups and downs

'Lady's Choice bacon spread (with REAL bacon)' read the alluring foil sachet, gleaming in the tinned meat aisle of a Phillipine supermarket, like a diamond in a diamond mine full of diamonds.

I lay my culinary trust in a nation that has four aisles of tinned meat products. In a Manillan shop, the corned beef tins segued into corned tuna and corned chicken; and all this before we had even hit the Spam. Corned beef was a saving grace in my childhood. Summer meant occasional good weather, which meant rare salads. And as everyone knows, cucumber and lettuce do not a meal make. When my 8 year old self couldn't go near Pilchards or prawns, or the jelly around pork pie, corned beef came to the rescue. And as with all tinned goods, you are only a ring pull away from delicious: Pinoy cuisine makes ready for the apocalypse and is just waiting in your store cupboard.

So it was something of a personal tragedy to find Lady's Choice bacon spread is pretty grim! I am sure I'll have better luck with the corned beef I have lined up next.

That evening I had a hankering for cauliflower. 

My current challenge is cooking hob only, on 3 rings max., definitely no oven or grill. Or microwave or toaster. I have a kitchen handicap that only organising building works can cure...But cauli is easy.

I boiled sweet baby new potatoes, steamed florettes on top for the last 4 minutes, and made a hasty cheese sauce with stingy mature Cheddar and a dab of English mustard.  Why does it taste even better in my favourite dish?

first meal

My first meal after five days of dry toast and boiled water. Nothing has ever tasted so nourishing, nor left me with such a hearty glow! 

Not a body beautiful detox, I was instead possessed by some bug or virus. It was all a bit too visceral and left me grumpily waif-like and hungry. Five days of not eating properly! 

Miso soup was a real breakthrough & kept me going: salty soup is recommended to replace lost salts in the body and I happened to have some individual paste sachets from the supermarket. I will keep some in store as medical emergency provision! PJ was my other saviour: dry toast really is the only comfortable thing to eat, and PJ looked after me, toasting seedy bread.

My sister had twin symptoms, simultaneously (discussed in too-graphic detail). We recovered at the same time and, whilst wondering what to brave for a meal, I heard she was having 'your mend-all chicken and barley stew'.  Of course!  A now-distant cousin of Nigella's 'praised chicken', the barley version is very gentle and homey. Barley, cubed potato and leek are simmered about, with a few chicken thighs for 50 minutes. My taste buds feel brand new and must be very sensitive, as the dish didn't need seasoning!

when life throws lemons...

... get a table for one and order in a margherita and some guac. If the Mexican food doesn't sort you out, the delight in dining out - so indulgent on a Monday night - soon will!

Definitely not a dry January in this corner of London.

hibernation

Our Christmas choirmaster comes from sunny climes and said he didn't truly understand 'In the bleak midwinter' until he lived in the UK. 

It sure is bleak and dark and grey.  The cold is damp and pervasive, rather than dry as in Scandinavian countries. And January / February are the hardest, longest months. Crisp, blue days are limited, as are beautiful snowfalls to lift the spirits. But I don't mind: there is something necessary about enduring a winter in order to enjoy the spring. And if you don't fight it, but adapt and hibernate, then it can almost be enjoyable.

My native strategy for survival isn't original, but goes along these lines:

• Plan for social life to start in February: say 'no' to everything else.
• Only make plans with your very closest friends; cheering, low maintenance. An exhibition, coffee, Burns night. 
• Look forward to work: there is HEATING there.
• Bed early, every night. With blankets, films and mint tea.
• Eat well. Porridge, coffee, stews, carbs.
• I don't need to add exercise as my daily commute involves more than an hour of walking, but it does help
• Luxury item of the past 2 yrs: go away post-Christmas for a couple of nights. Ensure hotel has log fires and is insanely intimate and cosy.

This year is peculiarly isolated, with two of my favourite people overseas and other friends too busy to meet. I find a cafe quite the best antidote to being alone too much.

Yesterday I had a morning coffee in Watch House, Bermondsey street. Coffee in London has blossomed so much in recent years that I barely try to keep up, so I can tell you only that they were nice people, with great coffee and so cosmopolitan that they were unfazed by an off-menu request ('do you do a cortado or piccolo?' was met with 'sure, which would you like').  The blazing little fire didn't hurt either! It is tiny to sit in but very pretty; bare scandi-chic, hyacinth posies, plugs for phones.  Beautiful, young things were working earnestly at the other tables, two were setting up a new business. 

My other January cafés so far:

Arloe & Moe (of course)
Hej 
Canela: despite no longer making cheese bread. They do a lovely gallaou.
Frank & Taylor: though an outside cart, the friendliness of the boys keeps you warm!

After a solitary weekend I feel strangely purged and calm. Plus my boyfriend has a defrosted freezer, as a special anniversary gift. Lucky boy!

Knitting in Watch House