Lousy Hunter

Courgette and ricotta tagliatelle

2010-09-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ingredients 4 medium sized courgettes olive oil 4 cloves of garlic juice of one lemon sea salt & black pepper 1 large bunch basil 150g ricotta 100g Pine Nuts 300g Linguine Fresh Parmesan (approx. 150g) Rinse and top and tail the courgettes, and slice them in to thick matchsticks about 4 inches long. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil

Perfect Piccalilli

2010-03-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ingredients: 3/4lb Marrow (Peeled; cored) 1/4lb Green Tomatoes or green beans 1/4lb shallots or pickling onions 1oz salt 1 and a half oz Plain flour Half oz Mustard Powder Quarter oz of Turmeric Quarter oz ground ginger 4oz soft light brown sugar 1 pint of Malt Vinegar Chop or slice all vegetables into small chunks, place on a large tray; sprinkle with the salt. Leave for several hours

Paprika Aubergine Salad

2010-03-07T10:39:00.000-08:00

Ingredients: 1 aubergine juice of 1 lemon 1 tsp paprika 4 tbsps olive oil sea salt lettuce leaves 1 tbsp whole grain mustard red onion Top and tail the aubergine and thinly slice it, top to bottom, with a very sharp knife, to get very fine disc shapes. Lay on kitchen paper and season with sea salt to drain out the water. Heat a little olive oil in

All the condiments salad

2010-01-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Show an interest in cooking and chances are you will have condiments, biscuits and oils coming out of your ears by the time Christmas is over. I’m not complaining. It’s the best excuse to try things you would never normally buy and to experiment a bit more with some of the products out there. In my attempts to pick away at the ‘condiments beast’ some more I roughly chopped a whole load of

Battered Olives with Sun-dried tomatoes

2010-01-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

I’ve been gawping in awe over the pages of the Terre a Terre cookbook ever since Christmas. It’s flesh-free, food art at its best. Although the recipes look like a big challenge they’re a welcome one that I’m really looking forward to having a bash at soon. With this kind of creativity flaunting itself it seemed, lazy to approach the ever-growing festive condiment gifts by just diving in and

Sweet red cabbage

2010-01-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

A kind of sweet polish cabbage, but without the piggy in the middle, is always needed at this time of year. A big pot of it was forever on the go in our house when I was growing up, most likely, back then, to go with yet more ham. These days I leave out the bacon and replace it with some sun-dried tomatoes to give it that extra sweet kick. 1 small red cabbage 2 large

Hazlenut Sprouts

2010-01-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

No groans and moans, think of them less as sprouts and more as baby cabbages. Sautéed with butter, hazelnuts and finished with a little dusting of Manchego – Brussels sprouts can be the stars of the show. Don’t over cook as this is what releases the sulphurous smell that puts a lot of people off. Avoid this and you’ll have delicious moist cabbages with a crunch of hazelnut. Have them as a side

Basil, lemon and parmesan spaghetti

2010-01-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

I can’t call this pesto. There’s no pounding in a pestle and mortar involved. This probably is a sin in an Italian kitchen but how I see it is, it’s much better than buying the ready made jars of pesto that lose all the fresh zing of herbs and lemon. When I have time I’ll bash the basil to within an inch of its life to make the real deal, but this super quick fix is streets ahead of any of the

Gingerbread Chocolate Bites

2010-01-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

Fiery stem ginger and sharp dark chocolate, like chili and chocolate, work well together. They both have that double punch of sharp flavour. 175g plain flour Small ground black pepper Half a tsp nutmeg Half tsp cinnamon 2 tsps ground ginger Half tsp bicarbonate soda Half tsp baking powder 100g butter 5 tbsp Demerara sugar 4 tbsp Golden Syrup 60g crystallised stem ginger 100g milk chocolate

Basil, Sultana and Feta stuffing

2010-01-04T07:01:00.000-08:00

Don’t know about you, but I fancy stuffing to fill my own cavity, not some dead birds first. It'd be a sad day to banish stuffing from your menu over Christmas just because you don’t eat meat. Meat-fee stuffing can be full of a real mix on interesting flavours. My experiments over the years have shown me that as long as you keep the basis of breadcrumbs and some moistness from stock, oil and

Pearl Barley and Vegetable Soup

2009-11-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

Where did the summer go? It's a thick white sky every morning where the sun used to hang. Bring on the soup to warm the insides. There's something about pearl barley slipping and sliding amongst tender vegetables in a hot stewy broth that can turn a pretty ordinary vegetable soup into something special. Tiny jewels of barley give this soup a lovely contrasting texture and the dash of

Sweet Mung Dal

2009-11-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

Wish I was part of a family with a long line of Indian cooks, who pass down secret recipes, over the generations, so good, they're being taken to the grave. But, I'm not. My family is very English and the only recipes I get passed down are from Good House Keeping circa 1970. So, I pretend. Stirring the pot of yet another Indian-influenced concoction. This Mung Dal recipe was born out of a '

Rolled oat and white chocolate biscuits

2009-10-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

If it's a biscuit you need you should avoid the temptation of a trip to the shop and be the master of your own cookie destiny. It's much more rewarding, you can make a batch of around 20 for next to nothing and you can tailor them any way you choose. This recipe is so simple and made up of very basic ingredients we all tend to have in the cupboard already. It also produces the moistest,

Thin crust pizza

2009-10-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

I had been stuck in a rut with the last pizza dough I used. It was fine but the topping would save it and do a lot of hiding the-not-so-thin-and-crispy base underneath. In a quality pizza restaurant it was always a different story; everything so delicate and fine. I thought this was down to having a really hot pizza oven, which in part it probably is but I'm getting some good results from a

Smoked Wensleydale, tomato and thyme tart

2009-10-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

My love of smoked wensleydale continues as does my quest to find multiple uses for it. The addition of finely sliced fresh tomatoes really make all the difference. Their sweetness bring a lovely contrast to the smoky flavours of the cheese, which all sit together perfectly on this delicate short-crust pastry. Ingredients: For the Pastry: 200g plain flour 100g butter pinch of sea salt 100ml

A plum salad dressing

2009-10-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

An impulse purchase, no need at all for theses plums, yet impossible not to get sucked in by their green, maroon and red flesh flaunting itself next to all the other ordinary fruit and veg. Using plums or peaches, finely chopped, mixed in with a good wine vinegar and olive oil, is a great way to sweeten a salad dressing without adding sugar. It also adds some variety and flavour to a simple

Smoked Wensleydale and Thyme tarts

2009-10-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

I was in the big-cheese of cheese haunts - La Fromargerie - the other week. It 's a beautiful shop, very tiny, but never fails to delight. There are crates of the most unique varieties of pretty ordinary vegetables; tomatoes, beetroot, onions and garlic, they all look much more wild and interesting than the supermarkets' selection, and are strategically adorned around the entrance to be adored

Patatas Bravas with spicy paprika sauce

2009-10-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

The amount of patatas bravas I eat in Barcelona gets pretty disgusting. On my last trip this climaxed after visiting the outstanding Inopia . Their spicy sauce covered roast potatoes were the finest by a long shot. It was the quality and cut of the potato that made them so – golden, thin, discs of crunchy, salted, roast potato; soft and fluffy inside. Patatas bravas can quite easily be

Beetroot and orange salad

2009-10-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

This is a really delicious and simple way to make a salad from fresh beetroot. Roasting the beetroot maintains more flavour than boiling and requires minimum effort. The sweet dense beetroot flavour is a great match for the tangy orange segments and lime salad dressing I have included here. Ingredients: 3 medium sized fresh beetroot half red onion 1 blood or navel orange 5 sun-dried tomatoes

Almond, raspberry and ricotta sponge cake

2009-10-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

This is a really simple sponge cake recipe to pair with any soft fresh fruit such as raspberries, cherries, blackberries, plums or grapes. For this, I really wanted a simple, but very moist sponge for fruit, which it turned out to be a fine example of. In addition to the usual sponge cake method of combining eggs, flour and sugar I tried two different tricks with the recipe in a bid to make the

Slow roasted peach and tomato penne with feta and olives

2009-09-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

Frank Loesser knew what he was talking about; a slow boat to China can be a fine thing, especially when you’re on route to a good meal. Take meat, now, I’m no flesh eater but that’s one thing that always benefits from the go slow, low, more often that not. Then there’s curry, in order for this to be really good it’s best left alone, on the hob and only a whisper of a flame, if anything at all,

Green and orange tomato salad with plum and shallot dressing

2009-09-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

Another day, another tomato. Or that's how it goes round here. I didn't realise I came from a family so obsessed with tomato growing but it seems this is very much the case. All different varieties have found their way to my door over the last couple of months, by the sackful. Small juicy orange ones, stripy firm green ones, gigantic deep red heirlooms as big as melons, and the not so big,

Cannelloni with basil, spinach, mushroom and pinenuts.

2009-08-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

Cannelloni is one of my favourite stuffed pasta dishes. It wasn't always the way. Any memories I had of making it from scratch used to terrify me. I'd envisage endless hours of blending, piping, reducing, stuffing, simmering, layering, baking, chopping, and sauce dripping from your hair, minced veg form the ceiling. I challenged my daemons and nailed this delicious and simple cannelloni dish.

Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies

2009-08-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

It's my dearest friend Stewart's birthday today. I made these peanut butter biscuits for him as he was the one who told me to do this blog in the first place. Thanks Stew and have a lovely birthday. These cookies take on a bit of a snicker biscuit type taste with the peanuts, chocolate, and the sweet, moist surround. They were so easy to make and went down well with Stewart's friends at work so

Good enough for Gwyneth

2009-08-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

Back in Barcelona, and so to Inopia. Visiting only because Gwyneth Paltrow suggest it, and by that I mean - it's on her Goop website. Inopia wasn't in the guide books it wasn't something you'd chance upon during an evening stroll hunting for dinner. We were shameless over what had brought us ; set out clutching a print-out of Gwyneth's 'where to eat in Barcelona newsletter', clinging to the

Organic potato chips and yellow courgettes with rosemary

2009-07-31T07:33:00.000-07:00

Admit you 'prefer to buy organic' and it helps to be thick skinned. Whether it's newspapers saying they've had it confirmed from the Food Standards Agency that there are no additional health benefits or someone moaning it's too expensive - what's the point, or just about everyone giving it the 'food snob' tirade you're gonna get it in the neck one way or another if you dare to fight the organic

Carrot cake

2009-07-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine always knew he was in trouble if his wife started baking. For him, the oven's waft of butter cream cooking into fluffy sponge solids had come to be associated with a slight sense of dread. Egg whites being ferociously whipped into stiff peaks didn't conjure up fond memories of childhood, a pit of lava chocolate bubbling within a soufflé, surrounded by the soft hub of the ovens'

Courgette and lemon tagliatelle

2009-07-28T04:27:00.000-07:00

Cooking can be a bit of a drag sometimes. Not all of the time, in fact most of the time it isn’t but then there are those days. The kind of days that trot off selfishly; leaving you with the evening, in the kitchen, faced with a hungry stomach, and a solitary courgette.So, here we are, one day last week, the courgette and me, with the future looking pretty bleak. A courgette, all by itself on

French toast with berries

2009-07-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

French toast cooked in oil not butter. I kid you not, and guess what? It's not just any old oil it's rapeseed oil. That said, rapeseed oil is 'any old oil' when compared to the cost, accessibility, and pinned against the grand richness of the finest olive oils, but that's what makes it work so well here. It does the job without becoming star of the show. Gently cooking the egg-y bread and not

Beetroot Papardelle

2009-07-19T08:12:00.000-07:00

The restaurant was vegetarian, which was unusual in a city full of fish. It was empty it seemed ashamed of itself, hiding down the bottom of a dirty old street in a rough part of town. This was Barcelona, but it didn't feel like it. La Fernandez didn't fit into either camp of Barcelona's eating establishments. Camp 1: paying homage to the best restaurant in the world, that resides close to the

Chocolate espresso brownies

2009-07-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

Too many Kahlua's, milk and ice had taken place recently. A sensible, productive alternative was much sought after. What better way to extend your love of Kahlua than to glug some into an espresso brownie? This one is crying out for some Kahlua cream or topping of some sorts, which my brain is already tackling for the next batch. However, these were delicious enough with some fresh picked

Carrot salad with feta and honey dressing

2009-06-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

How to make the humble carrot fancy? It's easy, I promise, try this and you'll never look at a carrot the same again. This sweet shredded carrot salad shows you don't have to always cook or grate carrots, they will taste great after a quick scrub down and simply shredded through with a potato peeler. The honey, lemon dressing blends really well with the crunchy sweetness of the carrots here,

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

2009-05-29T02:57:00.000-07:00

Shepherd's pie without the lamb! It's not only possible it tastes better. The creamy mash potatoes cuddle up against sweet gravy soaked, tomato tanging, lip-smacking vegetables and lentils. It's comfort and home in a bowl. To be made on these rainy Sundays that still manage to creep upon us in the summer.For the mash topping you could use half sweet potato and half plain, or half parsnip and half

La Residencia - Deia

2009-05-29T02:34:00.000-07:00

Tomas Graves does not lie. Deia is beyond beautiful. The kind of place people pen many poems about. Rolling mountains, lemon groves, orange trees, pa amb oil, pa amb tomaquet, spicy-sweet piemento du padron, tumbet, sandy coloured houses, tucked away, carved within the rocks' face...I can't pen a poem but you get the gist. The pictures here leave a lot to be desired, some of the food is

Saffron infused dips, baked tikka paneer and whole baked aubergine...Indian inspired spring feast

2009-05-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

Saffron Infused dipAs soon as the saffron touches the water you'll see golden yellow beams muddy its clarity within seconds. Stir in some yoghurt, garlic and lemon juice and you have a great dip to dollop over absolutely everything.Ingredients:Pinch of saffron1 tablespoon of warm water1 clove garlicJuice of half a lemonHalf and teaspoon garam masalasalt and pepper seasoningPut a pinch of saffron

Thai-inspired slurpy noodles

2009-04-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

When eating a noodle dish I don't always want the noodles to be the star of the show, occasionally, but not always. There are days when the soul wants a big deep bowl of spicy broth to furrow around in, slurping away with chopsticks and a spoon.A lot of broths can be, well, a bit too broth-y and I wanted one with a bit more texture and flavour to it in order for it to be a worthwhile contender to

Roast dinner

2009-04-23T04:53:00.000-07:00

Some pictures of a belly-bursting roast dinner we had recently. It is a work in progress as far as recipes are concerned. A lot of it was trial and error, but I remember it all tasting wonderful in the end.Parsnips roasted in a lime marinade, spicy cumin seed carrots, simple potatoes roasted in olive oil, broccoli with chilli and lemon, big fluffy home-made yorkshire puddings (there is a method

Mushroom Lasagna

2009-03-30T09:13:00.001-07:00

This is officially turning into a mushroom blog - a blog for mushroom lovers it is. Is there such a thing? After having a go at Yotam Ottolenghi's mushroom lasagna recipe from the Guardian weekend magazine I couldn't help myself - an experiment was on the horizon. I read Yotam's and it sounded great but evening reading about that amount of cheese gave me the heart-attack jitters.This one has a

Mushroom and Taleggio pizza with oregano pesto

2009-03-02T06:54:00.000-08:00

Pizza is my slow food. I respect the pizza and do not get acquainted with it through a rough board, shop-bought base. I think pizza time is cherished time. Time well spent, I'd say. It's an afternoons work; a consequence of some serious dough and topping grooming. If it's just straight out of a packet and in the oven I feel a bit cheated. I need to have witnessed yeast do it's lively work on

Millionaires Shortbread

2009-02-16T03:33:00.000-08:00

Ingredients: Shortbread: 175g / 6 oz butter 50g / 1.8 oz icing sugar 30g/ 1 oz light brown granulated sugar175g / 6 oz OO flour 75g / 2.6 oz corn-flour Caramel: 1 x tin of 397g condensed milk 2 tbsp golden syrup Chocolate topping: 160g / 6 oz good chocolate I used a mix of green and blacks different flavour including: butterscotch, milk, dark and almond, but choose any you prefer. 2 tbsp

Singapore-inspired noodles with mixed sprouted beans

2009-02-16T03:15:00.000-08:00

Anyone can throw together some good noodles. Although, a good sauce with your noodles can change everything form average to memorable. The sauce on this one is great and it gives it that flavour similar to the Singapore-style noodles on offer in Oriental restaurants in the UK. It's a great dressing to have under your belt for noodle dishes or Asian type salads of any kind as it has a really nice

Pea, basil and courgette rice

2009-01-16T14:47:00.000-08:00

A simple vegetable rice for all occasions. If you live in a house with a rice-fanatic like I do you need to get busy on the rice creations. I love experimenting with all kinds of different vegetables, paste concoctions, and methods of which to cook different flavoured rice in a bid to make it a little more exciting than the usual plain boiled. I think this rice has a Mediterranean feel simply

Baked sweet potato and pecan salad

2009-01-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

This is a robust and fit for chilly autumn kind of salad; with the slow baked sweet potato and feta. The crunchy toasted pecans, zingy lime dressing and crisp spinach leaves lift it and prevent it from being too stodgy. There is also a real fusion of new flavours in this salad. I used to think pinenuts were the only nuts worth pairing with sweet potato, but since they accidentally shared a

Spicy wholewheat linguine with basil pangritata

2009-01-14T07:01:00.000-08:00

Whole-wheat pasta shouldn't be resigned to the back of Gillian McKeith's store-cupboard. If you buy the good quality organic stuff it has a beautiful nutty flavour that tastes much nicer than a lot of dried white pasta you can buy. Also, the brown stuff retains many more vitamins and minerals than white pasta, which loses a lot of its nutritional qualities as the white flour it's made from goes

Creamy, lemony, coconut daal, dhal, dal...curry?

2009-01-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

Dahl, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...a great big, warm, heartening bowl of lentils, with a zing of lemon and a smoke of curry leaves, mustard seeds and lots and lots of garlic.Comfort food at it's best. I used to think there were 'dhal rules' somewhere out there. That it had to be made this way, or that way, or had to contain this or that particular thing. It isn't so. One of the

Raspberry and Blueberry Smoothie

2009-01-06T07:19:00.001-08:00

Smoothies are one of those things that we usually buy ready made as they can be costly to make from scratch, however, if you like them enough to make a big batch or have any mounds of fruit lying around that need using up this is a great time to think about getting the blender out and russling up a drink. Any fruit can be used, the smoothie rules are pretty loose, but blueberry and raspberry go

Yorkshire Puddings

2009-01-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

Yorkshire puddings - the only worthwhile substitute for flesh in any roast dinner. There can't really ever be a recipe for Yorkshire Puddings but more methods and rules to follow for success. How many times have you had your face pressed up the oven door, trying to creep it open a bit without really opening it, just to spy if they are puffing up enough or falling down depressingly soggy and flat?

Mushroom, feta and tarragon soup with pinenuts

2009-01-06T05:45:00.000-08:00

This is a soup for all you mushroom worshipers who adore the vegetable in all its multiple forms. There are so many packed into this one; giving it a great diversity and richness. Use whatever type you can get of a good quality, but make some effort to keep it as varied as possible. Diversity gets the best results. There is so much liquid released when cooking mushrooms I figured it was much

Halloumi Kebab

2008-12-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

Halloumi is the heavy-weight of the cheese world when it comes to being cooked. It can take the chars from a griddle pans' aggresive ridges like no other. Imagine a slab of Brie lasting 2-seconds under those kind of conditions? I discover this is due to it having an unusually high melting point for cheese, which is interesting. No, really, it is interesting, I never looked at cheese in that way

Ginger-Stem-Men

2008-12-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

There's something a little mystical and magical about the old gingerbread folk; devoured at Christmas and chased by baddies in nursery rhymes. These are biscuits with baggage, that never fail to attract the restless hands of curious cooks. I'm ashamed to say though that, for a long time now I had seriously neglected them. Probably due to the fact that the shop bought ones scare me a little bit,

Frittata

2008-12-09T09:57:00.001-08:00

Gone are the days when an omelette was the sorry sad choice for vegetarians on a menu. There wasn't much going on for vegetarians in the 80's and I've had to face many a dire omelette and chips dish in my time. But, having eaten them recently with good tapas I've really fell in love with them and have realised their full potential.That said, I'm all for simplicity when it comes to a frittata.

Home-made Garlic Bread

2008-12-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

I've never known one of these, fresh from the oven, to sit around for more than a minute irrespective of any fussy taste buds hovering close by. It's the one thing that unites fuss-pot eaters world-wide, is it not? There are few culinary combinations that go together as well as garlic, butter, parsley and bread. If it couldn't get any better than that, it's also one of the easiest things to make

Bay and Berry Christmas Swag

2008-12-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

You can swag together pretty much any type of foliage, fruit and vegetables to make beautiful decorated hangings for Christmas. For this particular one we already had three strands of frosted berries on wire. I used this as a base and added the fir branches everyone trims from the bottom of the Christmas tree, bay leaves from the bay tree, attaching them with florist wire and fanned them out

Mushrooms for toast

2008-12-07T07:08:00.000-08:00

Mushrooms are so easy to photograph as some of the different varieties look like works of art in their own right. I love the way the clusters of fairytale-esq toadstools creep up around each other making a miniature mushroom forrest with the Buna Shimeji mushrooms, and the Enoki variety look like some 50-headed fictional creature of the deep.Mushrooms on toast is the dish that reminds me most of

Sweet Potato Curry

2008-12-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

We've heard it all before - but there really is no excuse to go about buying ready made curry paste or sauce when you can make curry this good this quickly. Don't be shy on coming forward with the garlic in this one as it really adds to its glory. Boiling the sweet potatoes in water with a spoon of honey stirred in takes away the starchy edge to sweet potato and draws out a beautiful, delicate

Granola Mounds

2008-11-28T03:41:00.000-08:00

I like Granola and I love fruit but I can't do the whole eating dried fruit in granola thing, and so annoyingly go round picking out all the brightly coloured lumps of dehydrated fruit. Inevitably, the day came to get cracking on some home-made granola. At the drawing board; decided it has to be very nutty, very seed-y and not a bit of dried fruit in sight.Somewhere in the mix it began to look

Apple and Hazelnut Salad with Pomegranate seeds and syrup

2008-11-27T11:17:00.000-08:00

Pomegranates are the Miss Scarlet of the fruit world. They have that distinctive beauty with a bit of an edge. Slicing into their treasure-trove like flesh you unearth mounds of deep red jewelled seeds doused in blood-coloured juices.Put them in any old salad to brighten it up a bit. They go really well with apples and rocket. In this method the apple and the toasted hazelnuts give it a sweet but

Home-made crackers with melted cheese

2008-11-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

I live in a completely crackers household; we go through them at a rate of knots and finding ones to make with relative ease at home has been top of my list for a while. The home-made ones taste so much nicer than the dry flaky ones sitting around in packets. You always imagine they will be buttery in texture, crunchy in bite, and airy and light, but they aren't!This recipe is the perfect canvas