Sun is splitting the stones here in Cork( yes I’m gloating, normally we look on the news where they say England is having a heatwave whilst we are in our raincoats) Having people for 10 nights straight? It would end up as a murder mystery book !!
Wonderful recommendations- thank you. I’m using the Recipe Keeper app, which I have recently discovered, and they’ve all gone straight in there. Busy cooking week ahead 😀
Following you is becoming dangerous (but in a good way). You said you wanted it to be like a chat with a pal who'd discovered something nice and wanted to share. Trouble is my tastes feel ´dangerously' aligned with yours and so I keep discovering lovely things that I'd like to try/acquire...my actual real friends do not provide such fabulous information and so are less 'dangerous'. Love it, love the danger....
Great read. Read it in the sunshine and enjoyed, even though a) I prefer our guests to come for tea, which is fairly quick. and b) I hate cooking, even easy cooking.
Sometimes the fantasy is just being someone else, leading a different life.....
Fantastically useful post as always. Love the hot smoked salmon rice bowl, I’ve been making the New York Times sesame tuna bowl on repeat since you mentioned it. On a side note I think you said in a post earlier this year you would recommend some outdoor rugs, I’m holding off getting some as your recommendations are always spot on.
Oh God, just as well you mentioned it, had completely forgotten! The ones I would have recommended were Weaver Green, but they seem to have quadrupled in price since I last looked. Dunelm also good and more sanely priced. La Redoute excellent. Thanks re post!
A flying visit, as we are at peak Work Hell - big event tomorrow. (Please cross fingers for good attendance, our poor exhibitors have come from France and we want it to be worth their while.)
As ever, India, a dizzying selection of deliciousness. I love cauliflower, but the thought of it always depresses me - same with butternut squash and sweet potatoes - but I will absolutely make the schwarma.
Dishes like this are especially poignant as I am probably going to commence injections of Wegovy and, having done my due diligence, have learned that spicy and/or garlicky dishes will play absolute havoc with a digestive system gone completely weird. I could cry, but… I think it must be done.
While here, may I put in a word for a lovely, cheerful recipe called Picnic Pie? Not a pork slab with a neverending egg (pork slab is straight out of Brian Butterfield’s lexicon), but a sort of funny, unfancy Pithivier made with thin omelettes fines herbes (made like crêpes), good ham and grated cheese in layers. Base and top made with bought all-butter puff. It comes from Rose Prince’s lovely book, Kitchenella, which I must dig out and enjoy before food disappears from my life. It comes out puffy and golden and beautiful. Eat at room temperature.
Thank you - you have just sorted out the Glyndebourne Picnic question! Off to cut the grass in the sunshine, ignoring the easterly breeze which is coming straight from Siberia over my hedge…
So... again sitting in bed reading this after another catering job. This time an 80th birthday tea party for 80 people - how fabulous to have that many friends for your 80th - the woman is a legend. Couldn't agree more re the tarragon chicken - do try with red rice... feels a bit "summerier" - ha - than mash, and looks pretty, and stick a bit of elderflower cordial in the cream to go with the summer pudding. Laughed about putting the leftovers in a baguette... used to do this as a chalet girl a hundred years ago, when we needed a picnic lunch. Yum. Have lots of things that I would add to the list if we were all chatting round the kitchen table! ENJOY THE SUNSHINE
Wonderful to have 80 for 80 - hats off to her. Vg idea re red rice, ditto elderflower (in fact they're all out, must pick and make cordial asap). What else did you make as chalet girl, a job I've always slightly envied? Thank you re sunshine. It's gone now, obviously.
God it was fun... absolutely exhausting, and I remain deeply nostalgic about French supermarkets to this day, but would sell my soul to do it all over again.
Some of the things we cooked are still regulars in the repertoire (duck with raspberry vinegar sauce and celeriac puree, aforementioned tarragon chicken, tarte aux myrtilles, and guinea fowl with a port and orange sauce most notably), but some (lemon surprise pudding, the outcome of which was always as much of a surprise to us as it was to the guests, and an ill advised avocado and basil sorbet that the guests threw out the window) are best left in the early 90's. Happy days.
I really like those M&S glasses. Cloudless blue sky in Lincolnshire this morning; your WRR is going to be off the scale if it doesn’t perk up in Suffolk. Fingers crossed…
Cauliflower recipe is astonishingly good 😊
Fabulous sunshine here in Connemara in the beautiful west of Ireland 🙌🏼 I truly hope it has finally arrived in your neck of the woods.
Wonderful recipes but it’s the cauliflower one that stands out for me! Can’t wait to try. Thank you ❤️
The cauliflower one is so delicious. Am replying on Monday - yesterday was lovely, today less so.
Tangentially related to food - India was it you who bought all the green cabbage bowls of different sizes from M and S before I saw them??!!😂😂
Haha, not me!
Sun is splitting the stones here in Cork( yes I’m gloating, normally we look on the news where they say England is having a heatwave whilst we are in our raincoats) Having people for 10 nights straight? It would end up as a murder mystery book !!
They were VERY loved guests, otherwise yes, totally. LUCKY YOU re splitting the stones!
I want fat, burnished chickens, sounds so good!
And you shall have them! (Thin chickens are so depressing)
Truly!
Wonderful recommendations- thank you. I’m using the Recipe Keeper app, which I have recently discovered, and they’ve all gone straight in there. Busy cooking week ahead 😀
Ooh, I must go and have a look at that, thank you!
Following you is becoming dangerous (but in a good way). You said you wanted it to be like a chat with a pal who'd discovered something nice and wanted to share. Trouble is my tastes feel ´dangerously' aligned with yours and so I keep discovering lovely things that I'd like to try/acquire...my actual real friends do not provide such fabulous information and so are less 'dangerous'. Love it, love the danger....
I am making a dangerous face and waggling my eyebrows at you.
I utterly love the Blanche Vaughn book - great recommendation
Isn't it brilliant? Currently my most used.
Great read. Read it in the sunshine and enjoyed, even though a) I prefer our guests to come for tea, which is fairly quick. and b) I hate cooking, even easy cooking.
Sometimes the fantasy is just being someone else, leading a different life.....
Totally. I love reading about people whose lives are the opposite of mine.
Fantastically useful post as always. Love the hot smoked salmon rice bowl, I’ve been making the New York Times sesame tuna bowl on repeat since you mentioned it. On a side note I think you said in a post earlier this year you would recommend some outdoor rugs, I’m holding off getting some as your recommendations are always spot on.
Oh God, just as well you mentioned it, had completely forgotten! The ones I would have recommended were Weaver Green, but they seem to have quadrupled in price since I last looked. Dunelm also good and more sanely priced. La Redoute excellent. Thanks re post!
India - what delicious recipes ☀️☀️ My gorgeous friend Ceri has her first cookbook out next week - https://www.pavilionbooks.com/products/it-starts-with-veg-100-seasonal-suppers-and-sides-ceri-jones-9780008603939/ - I wanted to share in case you were interested in receiving a copy - 🍆🥒🌽🥕🥦 Alex x
Thank you and yes I am! I will contact Pavillion.
A flying visit, as we are at peak Work Hell - big event tomorrow. (Please cross fingers for good attendance, our poor exhibitors have come from France and we want it to be worth their while.)
As ever, India, a dizzying selection of deliciousness. I love cauliflower, but the thought of it always depresses me - same with butternut squash and sweet potatoes - but I will absolutely make the schwarma.
Dishes like this are especially poignant as I am probably going to commence injections of Wegovy and, having done my due diligence, have learned that spicy and/or garlicky dishes will play absolute havoc with a digestive system gone completely weird. I could cry, but… I think it must be done.
While here, may I put in a word for a lovely, cheerful recipe called Picnic Pie? Not a pork slab with a neverending egg (pork slab is straight out of Brian Butterfield’s lexicon), but a sort of funny, unfancy Pithivier made with thin omelettes fines herbes (made like crêpes), good ham and grated cheese in layers. Base and top made with bought all-butter puff. It comes from Rose Prince’s lovely book, Kitchenella, which I must dig out and enjoy before food disappears from my life. It comes out puffy and golden and beautiful. Eat at room temperature.
There’s a lovely video on YouTube - https://youtu.be/RPkkerehsd4?si=_mdnG6-d1Yz7tDTj - or search for Rose Prince Picnic Pie.
Apparently she served it at a do and Ruthie and Rose went back for seconds, which is the highest praise.
Now, a quick bath before the Man with the Van arrives and takes us and our massive amount of kit to the venue. Wish us luck. xxx
Oh yum, that sounds so good. I have that book somewhere - yellow cloth cover? - and am going to dig it out.
Yes, that’s the one!
Thank you - you have just sorted out the Glyndebourne Picnic question! Off to cut the grass in the sunshine, ignoring the easterly breeze which is coming straight from Siberia over my hedge…
Hurrah! Very glad. Are you seeing the sexy Carmen?
No, the glittering Merry Widow!
So... again sitting in bed reading this after another catering job. This time an 80th birthday tea party for 80 people - how fabulous to have that many friends for your 80th - the woman is a legend. Couldn't agree more re the tarragon chicken - do try with red rice... feels a bit "summerier" - ha - than mash, and looks pretty, and stick a bit of elderflower cordial in the cream to go with the summer pudding. Laughed about putting the leftovers in a baguette... used to do this as a chalet girl a hundred years ago, when we needed a picnic lunch. Yum. Have lots of things that I would add to the list if we were all chatting round the kitchen table! ENJOY THE SUNSHINE
Wonderful to have 80 for 80 - hats off to her. Vg idea re red rice, ditto elderflower (in fact they're all out, must pick and make cordial asap). What else did you make as chalet girl, a job I've always slightly envied? Thank you re sunshine. It's gone now, obviously.
God it was fun... absolutely exhausting, and I remain deeply nostalgic about French supermarkets to this day, but would sell my soul to do it all over again.
Some of the things we cooked are still regulars in the repertoire (duck with raspberry vinegar sauce and celeriac puree, aforementioned tarragon chicken, tarte aux myrtilles, and guinea fowl with a port and orange sauce most notably), but some (lemon surprise pudding, the outcome of which was always as much of a surprise to us as it was to the guests, and an ill advised avocado and basil sorbet that the guests threw out the window) are best left in the early 90's. Happy days.
I made a creamy chicken asparagus and tarragon pie over the weekend, topped with spiralled filo! Good inspo as ever India! Thank you 🥰
YUM.
I really like those M&S glasses. Cloudless blue sky in Lincolnshire this morning; your WRR is going to be off the scale if it doesn’t perk up in Suffolk. Fingers crossed…
I mean, it's not raining and the wind isn't howling, but the sky is not blue. Or maybe not blue YET.
I’m sure that’s it, it’s just working its way down the east coast.