Heaven in a paper bag

Thank you St Ives Bakery. 

This makes my top five (#2-sorry westie, this means you're #6. fancy baking another batch?)

Nx

late night cake bake

Feeling gloomy? Want a big hunk of cake? I was lucky enough to discover the most amazing Zucchini and Walnut cake with my friend Emma in her lovely cake cookery book. And the best part? It's one of your five a day! We cooked deep into the night but just about managed to capture the process on our phones...

 I've got my hands full here. Emma's garden deep in the Peak District is full of lovely green courgettes-who needs the supermarket when you've got a potted garden?

Frantically grating the courgettes... So this is not only a healthy veg cake but this vigorous grating is great (grate) exercise!

Emma does a fab job in the kitchen-she's a natural. Check out that sieving technique!

After binding the gratings in with the cake mix, we blended in the walnuts. It's looking a bit like a bad night out at the moment.

Oh sweet moses this is a beautiful thing-and worth the two hour slow cook. Moist, rich and with a gorgeous nutty crunch.

Everyone I know seems to have an abundance of courgettes at the moment. Now all I need is a friend with a walnut tree! 

Nx

oily fish

Before I forget, the aforementioned Nicky (of leftovers fame) is a bit of a dab hand with a paintbrush (as well as being a senior lecturer in art and design). This fabulous foodie canvas now graces my kitchen wall and very lovely it is too. I'll let you know if/when she starts taking commissions.

That's a whole lot of blogging for one day - a record 4! Goodnight!

Nx

I love hugh darling

My other half loves food. He'd have to. As mentioned previously, our wooing period involved heated Masterchef discussion and lots of River Cottage viewing. But Richard isn't very confident with his cooking and believes taking on anything risky is destined to fail. He has some gorgeous recipe books which are collecting plenty of sticky fingerprints but none of the excitement over the lovely pictures is being channelled into food. 

Then, the other day, Richard took a challenge; cooking with a fish (bream) and vegetable (fennel-now, as a result of this dish, my new favourite vegetable) he (and i) was unfamiliar with. Trust Mr F-W to save the day with a trustworthy recipe which packed a real asian flavour punch and truly gorgeous end result.

Unfortunately, by the time we'd thought about photographing the dish on the plates it was, well...gone! (sorry)

Nx

Crumbs! The cupboards are bare...

We're notoriously a country of wasters. That came out wrong. Not that I'm insinuating that we're all monged out on the green stuff most of the time. No. It's that we throw away so much food which is perfectly edible or, had our heads been sensible and not too big for our bellies, we wouldn't have made such an excess in the first place.
 

But what happens when you need to be thrifty? When the wallet is full of sand and tumbleweed and the cupboard is bare but you can't bear to face the 20p noodle reality. I was faced with this situation yesterday by my good friend Nicky. Sucked dry by her recent home move and a landlord being shifty with his deposit she had only a few pennies and stock cubes to her name.

The e-mail exchange was as follows....
 
  
Nicky: ....i need to call upon your culinary invention skills!
I know you're good at this and i can't think of anything, what dinner can i cook with-

1 potato
1 sweet potato
onion & garlic
a bit of lettuce
a courgette
tin of chopped tomatoes
basil (no cheese argghhhhh)
quorn pieces
frozen peas and sweetcorn
pasta
lentils
rice
and some other ready steady cook stylee store cupboard ingredients like flour etc

No cheese that's the real killer! We're too skint to buy anything. Hope you're having a good day xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To which my culinary cogs whirred for about 15 minutes and I came back with the following:
 
Nathalie: Oh poor you…umm….right will get my ainsley head on.

· pizza (our thrifty version) but without cheese – so make like more of a pesto topping with the basil and courgettes and onion and garlic, you can whack some sweetcorn on too.
· soup – although I appreciate its rather hot for that – lots of chunky veg
· sweet potato crisps
· some kind of stuffed courgette – cook and scoop out innards, mash in with onion, garlic, potato?
· spag bol with the quorn, tomatoes, pasta, onion and garlic etc
· French onion soup
· You could have veggie risotto stuffed into courgettes (another version) or use the lentils for a stuffing too
· Potato and sweetcorn fritters?
· Grated courgette and potato cakes?
· Ratatouille
· If you have curry powder in your cupboard you could make a lentil and veg curry
· Same with chilli – do you have any kind of beans to bulk out with?
· You could make some flatbreads to go with any of the above

Any of those even remotely good?  xxx

My solutions came to fruition and I received the following e-mail from Nicky this very morning:
 
Nicky: My dinner last night was super tasty!
I made potato, courgette, sweet potato and onion rostis, had them on a bed of lettuce with some toasted pine nuts! Christopher was very impressed and has taken the last one for his packed lunch at work today, he shall be the envy of his fellow statisticians!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So the moral here? Well, i'm not entirely sure. But I think there's money to be saved in places you least expect it. www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Nx

Doc-doc-doc-doc-doctor Tim

I've never hidden my love for food telly - and Masterchef this year in particular stole my heart. So I was very excited to discover what 'Children's doctor' Tim was doing now he's left the paediatrics behind him. His dream of a cake empire? Success!
http://www.timkinnaird.com/  


Nx

food frock