home alone

Two days off work - a mid-week weekend, if you will - and I am having a wonderful time. You see here that I made the best of a guilty scoot round H&M's home department. The pseudo-rustic little bags charmed themselves home with me and it didn't take me long to put them to a good use, to whit: holding 4 or 5 different bags of flour on the top shelf (the naughty shelf, as in a newsagent, dedicated here to baking goods), and containing a several half-finished bags of rice and pulses on the bottom shelf.

After a shuffle-tidy I felt as if this had actually been a virtuous move. Note the famous nutmeg enjoying its bamboo throne on the middle shelf!

Oh dear, and here is evidence of my less-virtuous side when home alone: lunch for one. I was ravenous after a morning swim so had an early lunch. Broccoli and stilton soup straight from the saucepan with some bread; the extra delicacy you espy is a cold sausage with mustard. If I'm to be honest, a completely blasted, burnt stump of a sausage. I know it is a bad craftsman who blames his tools, but before this oven I'm sure I never managed to burn a sausage: I couldn't have done that if I had tried!

I won't be snobbish about shop-bought soup as it is really handy and I just love the pea and ham from *ahem* Waitrose. This broccoli and stilton soup reminded me how very lovely my own version is, too: I'll add a note to my 'foods to cook' list and make it soon.

oven: conquered

Finally! After 8 cross months, a half decent cake.

I used to bake frequently, however since moving to this flat I have wrestled with this oven. This Freakin' Temperamental Stupid Oven, to give its full name. Cakes are either blasted in 30 mins or completely raw inside with a hardy crust outwith.

The gent's family are in town this weekend and I thought a cake would be cheering for anyone stopping by. By happy coincidence my favourite cake is easy to tweak, to make it gluten-free so everyone can have it: I hate having separate foods for different people, it feels so mean spirited. And anyway this is such a wonderful cake I would have this over a sponge any day. It is Nigella's 'damp lemon & almond' with adjustments. Easy, easy:

cream together 225g butter and sugar (I always use the unrefined, or golden, caster sugar. It is mad how set in your ways you can get with ingredients). Add in 4 big, free range eggs, one at a time; after each egg shake in a little brown rice flour. Just a scant tablespoon or so. At this point I was cross-eyed with love for my food mixer: hands free to work while someone else stirs!

Now add 250g ground almonds (if you grind them yourself the quantities will be a bit different); zest and juice of two unwaxed lemons; a little almond extract. Nigella uses almond essence, so Im not sure on measurements for essence: I used 'a tiny splash' then tasted to check.

50 mins in an unreliable oven, or whenever a knife comes out clean.

Very unfortunately trains seem to have major problems today so the gent's aunt & uncle are delayed for tea. This photo is evidence that, although a bit scorched, the cake did all right. We are sitting on our hands so there is some left for tomorrow.

rainy days and thursdays

And November begins! Rain and wind and gloom. Luckily my friend Deb really inspired me and autumnal breakfasts in this tiny thimble of a flat now consist of porridge. Warming, blanketing porridge. Podge, as a sister calls it.

I like it best with fruit - maybe plums or apple thrown in at the start - but more cupboard-friendly for the busy, is jam. Home made in Cornwall, Sussex, Hammersmith or Hampshire, if you have productive and generous relatives!

And here is my fabulous coffee, the beans ground in my new grinder a moment before brewing.

I think I am ready to face the day now!

kate and sidney

What with the weather finally turning autumnal, my thoughts have turned to stew. I will shortly be making THAT beef and anchovy stew, however I am currently enjoying a frugal streak and am trying to continue it.

In the frugal larder recently there has been carrot smudge for lunch (made regularly from the Moro cookbook, as in my June 2009 blog). At 90p per kg, carrots are easily the cheapest thing for supermarket-bound urban folks right now. And at the farmer's market we found sweetcorn cobs 4-for-a-pound - and I just can't get enough cauliflower and cabbage. All British, all wonderful.

So maximum deliciousness and minimum expense really leads me to steak and kidney. You can probably use delicious cuts of steak, but I rather think the point is to use the scraggy, sinewey ends which turn out so well after a gentle 4 hours of transformation. Offal may be getting more expensive the more that it is used in restaurants and in weekend-magazine recipes, however it is still wonderfully (if relatively) cheap: around 60 pence for two lamb kidneys at Waitrose this morning.

There are many delicious recipes and one day I will get through them all; however when I want to really enjoy a steak and kidney then my mother's recipe comes out. Only knowing how few people will read this will entice me to part with this treasured piece of my family cooking history. Brace yourself: 4 ingredients. 10 minutes to assemble; 4 hours to cook.

The butcher at the Ginger Pig goaded me into taking more meat than I needed: it really did look paltry, but I didn't explain it was only for two people. And supposed to be FRUGAL! So I took 12 oz of chuck steak (they were out of skirt) and 8 oz kidneys (5 oz lamb's kidney and 3 oz of pig's kidney - due to shortage in the shop rather than from preference). At home I carefully cubed the kidney to exclude sinew and tube, and tossed it in seasoned flour with the diced beef.

This went into a plastic pudding bowl and a china pie-blackbird nestled in the middle, in lieu of the upturned egg cup my mother always uses: this keeps the pastry from sinking soggily into the stew in the centre. I poured in cold water to almost cover the meat, then sat on top a layer of closed cap mushrooms, de-stalked and the right way up to look like floating pebbles: these also help the pastry stay above the stew.

The suet pastry is a marvel in its own right: so speedy to make! 4oz flour, 2 oz suet, seasoning and cold water to bind. This was plopped on top of the mushrooms and spread about to the edges so it covered the stew like a dimpled lid, sealing in the steam. I fitted on the plastic pudding basin lid, lashed around a helping of cling film and then foil (standing the bowl in the centre of a large square, pulling the corners up to meet over the top: to keep the water out), and boiled away for 4 hours, topping up the water to make sure it didn't dry out.

One thing that foxed me was the lack of trivet: I have no idea if anyone else even uses these, and if my teaspoons are ok as an alternative? It's how I usually do it, but I really must check up on this. It completely ruined the coating on my spoons, so if you also don't have a trivet, please use something you don't love.


A word on the plastic pudding basin: I used this as I haven't yet inherited a china pudding basin. Naturally I will never be a stern matriarch-type until I possess such a thing, but I do have two muslin cloths in amongst my aprons, for the day when I tie up a pudding with paper, cloth and string, like a proper ruler of the hearth and home. Until then, the plastic one is actually jolly fine.

After 4 steamy hours, what was the result? My best, most favourite taste-memory. Soft soft meats, a thin, inimitable gravy and a doughy, almost gluey pastry. Sprouts and boiled potato are the supreme companions but we spotted a delicious cabbage for this time. The gent was appreciative, as he always is, but was a little bemused at my delight. For me the pleasure lies not only in the lovely meal, but also in the alchemy: four basic ingredients transformed whilst I read the paper. What's not to love?

23.10.11

My kingdom for a nutmeg

My mother told me something so fascinating, so revolutionary, that I have been reeling ever since. Put it this way: do you know where mace comes from?

Years ago I accidentally bought blade mace instead of powdered (for a beef + anchovy stew I rave about every 6 months; next rave due shortly). The blade mace was brown and rigid and shard-like and I had no idea how to render it into a powder. I inevitably tried the pestle 'n' mortar with poor results. But even then, with a curious lack of inquisitiveness, I didn't think to look up what mace actually was.

I guessed it was probably a spice like nutmeg, on account of its smell, which was pretty good going for my untuned senses.

Then quite by chance, a few weeks ago, my mother offered me the bronzed ovoid you see in this picture. It is the outside shell of a nutmeg, with a partial, vine-like lace-work of mace attached. When you shake the nut you can feel the nutmeg inside rattle, and it looks as if the mace will be easy to just snap off... I just had to take some photos first, it is absolutely beautiful.

I still have no idea how to powder the resiney mace substance, but by hook or by crook it will be going in that beef stew!

the gent cooks too

Of course he does. The man is far more refined in his cooking than I.

Last week there was Butternut squash soup which was like a blanket of carbs and saved me from missing lunch the next day at work. Horror.

Then came a most amazing Coq au vin, the recipe an amalgam of various versions, and the taste halfway between bistro and Sunday night hearth. When he checks a recipe the starting place is the Larousse bible found in Oxfam. The bar is set high!

And when I was occupied with making pasta one evening, he returned home laden and set about marinere-ing some moules. Better than 'Aux moules' in Lille, better even than 'Les moules Zola' in Dijon: holiday in a bowl.

And for my part, I am a most appreciative eater. I can't wait for his next stint in the kitchen!

testing, testing...

I am typing - or perhaps I should say tapping - this out on a cute iphone and testing the blogger app.

If all goes to plan there will also be a photo of last nights supper. I knew even as I reached for the camera that this would be a rare case of the picture not telling a thousand words. In fact it tells you no more than three... but what a trio!

Carbonara, Spaghetti + Unctuous.

It also serves to remind me that I can actually make it quite well. It was a little heavy on nutmeg but I did it the Roy-patented-best-way; that is, with one egg + one egg yolk. Normally I forget about the yolk out of ingrained frugality (little-sister's theory is that this is a relic of our pseudo- 1950's upbringing) but being 9pm and hungry made me reckless. It was worth the angst.

The gent revived a delightful red wine from the previous night and we made merry, dissecting our evening watching a modern day 'animal vegetable, mineral'. Given this is the inaugural blog-by-app, I will push the techie boat out and give you the twitter hashtag: #museumsavm

I am not abandoning the big screen of computer just yet, but this app is a *very* handy alternative for a quick note to bloggy self.