All That I'm Eating

Recipe ideas for budget meals, everyday cooking and a little indulgence. Travel inspiration and restaurant reviews too.

Cardamom infused Porridge with Raspberries

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raspberries on top of porridge
A weekend breakfast is a completely different thing to a weekday breakfast. I don’t know about you but my weekday breakfasts consist of shovelling yoghurt (if I’m lucky I’ve added some fruit or nuts) into my mouth while running around trying to get ready being very careful not to spill anything on myself. It’s not what you would call relaxing. A weekend breakfast is a whole new affair; the possibilities are endless. Pancakes, pastries, fruit, tea, coffee, juice, a full English, toast and jam and many others are all contenders but can sometimes involve a need to purchase these items in advance. This cardamom infused porridge is for one of those mornings where you feel like something luxurious but only have basic ingredients.

Ingredients

You will need (for 2 bowls):

  • 1 cup of milk
  • 1/2 cup of oats
  • 1 cardamom pod
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • Handful raspberries

Method

Crack open the cardamom and add to the milk in a saucepan. Heat the milk and cardamom very gently for about 20 minutes. Remove the milk from the heat when done. 

Put the oats into another saucepan and then sieve the milk into the oats. Cook the oats, stirring often, on a medium heat to the texture that you like; some like it so rubbery you could bounce it and others prefer it very thin. I go for somewhere in between the two.

When the porridge is ready remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sugar. Stir half of the raspberries into the porridge and then put the remaining berries on top. I enjoyed this with a nice cup of tea. read more

A Trip to Bruges

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Bruges Skyline
We sat at my laptop around two weeks ago trawling the internet for some holiday inspiration. None came and so we adopted the ‘let’s just book whatever leaves next week’ attitude; a method I will most certainly be using again. We booked a three day trip to Bruges, getting there by Eurostar with a small a bag as possible (well, I still needed everything ever) and it was fantastic. There was plenty of chocolate, beer, waffles and sightseeing.

We had a great little guide book to the city and based our trip around that. Our hotel was a five minute walk from the station and about ten minutes from the city centre; to get to the centre was either through a park or cobbled back streets, each equally as picturesque.

One of the places I really wanted to visit was Cambrinus; a wooden and stained glass window bar which serves 400 different beers. I didn’t think I liked beer, after my trip to Bruges it turns out I do. We managed to sample 20 different beers between us in three days; good for the taste buds, bad for the belly.
The picture above shows the massive beer menu (left), the Delerium tasting beer selection (middle) and a passion fruit beer (right) with cheese and meat that you can order to nibble on. read more

An interview with Daniel Galmiche

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Daniel Galmiche and Caroline Taylor at The Vineyard
From the first time I went to The Vineyard I have been hooked. To have somewhere with so many good memories and entirely faultless food on my doorstep (almost) I think I am quite lucky. Each time I have been I have met Daniel Galmiche for a quick chat or seen him in and around the restaurant and I have always been curious to find out more about the food, the ethos and the man in the kitchen. You might recognise him from Saturday Kitchen which he loves being a part of.

It was a lovely sunny day and we sat outside to chat about all things food. I started by asking Daniel about matching the dishes at The Vineyard with wine; most importantly which comes first, the wine or the meal? He said it depends, sometimes the wine is tasted first to find any characteristics in the wine that can be picked out in the food and the dishes can be adapted to it. More often the dish is created from what is in season and the wine matched afterwards.

The Vineyard is the only restaurant in Britain which allows its diners to make their own choices; the discovery menu is served with wine that is already selected but the menu is in fact not a menu but a selection of dishes from which you choose what you like. Having tried the ‘menu’ before it makes a much more interesting read because the dishes aren’t categorised; you can have what you like in whatever order you like. Slightly smaller portions means you can try more dishes and each one is perfectly matched to wine, for Daniel this is the future of dining. It makes the dining experience fun, it makes people at the table talk about what’s on the table and every wine I have tried there has been exceptional.

We moved on to talk about the ingredients used at The Vineyard; as Daniel says, you can’t have good food without good ingredients. The Vineyard uses the best possible quality, seasonal ingredients and works really closely with his suppliers, they are also part of The Sustainable Restaurant Association. 80% of the ingredients used are British and around 50% of these are from Scotland.
I then asked a slightly tricky question: what is your favourite French and British ingredient? Daniel’s favourite French ingredient is Poulet de Bresse and British ingredient is scallops from Orkney. Also, Balmoral venison, langoustines, girolles and raspberries from Scotland.
Then, the most difficult question of all: what is the one ingredient he couldn’t live without? He said dark chocolate and other than chocolate; olive oil, garlic, chilli, lime and lemongrass. read more

Lime Macerated Cherries with Caramelised Brioche

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Toasted Brioche with Lime Macerated Cherries
Considering how much I like cherries I don’t get the chance to eat very many of them. I have never had much success with a supermarket cherry preferring to take my chances at the farmers’ market where I might be lucky to nab a punnet if I am early enough. The cherries used for this spontaneous dessert were earned by my own fair hand. I was meandering through the market, deliberating how many doughnuts were too many for breakfast, when I was called to help one of the stall holders who couldn’t fill enough punnets to keep up with demand. My reward for much scooping was a big punnet of cherries all to myself.  

Ingredients

You will need (for two):

  • 300g cherries, de-stoned
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • Juice 1 lime
  • 2 slices brioche
  • Butter
  • Demerara sugar

Method

I quite like de-stoning cherries. I find it a therapeutic thing to do and once you get into the swing of things it takes no time at all. I have to admit that my fingers were stained for days afterwards which is not something I’ve ever encountered with cherries before. Put the de-stoned cherries into a bowl with the caster sugar and lime juice and then leave to macerate overnight. Remove the cherries from the fridge an hour or so before you want to eat them so that they are at room temperature. Lightly toast the brioche and then spread generously with butter. Sprinkle over a little demerara sugar and then put under a grill so that the sugar lightly caramelises. Remove from the grill and top with the cherries.

For an impromptu dessert I was pretty pleased with this. The cherries create their own sweet and sour juice which soaks into the sweet bread. It’s crunchy at the edges and gooey in the middle. The lime freshens everything up and the cherries were a lovely shade of deep crimson which looked great on top of the sugar topped bread. Perhaps it was because these were free cherries, maybe it was because I had to work for them but there was something a bit more special about this sweet treat than normal. read more

New Potato, Green Bean and Iberico Salad

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new potato green bean and iberico ham salad
When I go out and there is a charcuterie board on offer I struggle to turn it down. I find cured meat fascinating and it’s one of my absolute favourite indulgences. One of my top five would have to be Iberico ham. I can’t get enough of it although my waist and bank balance would probably encourage me to eat a bit less. I like to make an expensive ingredient go as far as possible so this Spanish inspired potato salad is an attempt to do exactly that.

More and more I am cooking Spanish food and dishes. It’s a cuisine I have dabbled in while dining out but not one that I am terribly experienced in; I’ve made a few paellas and tapas in my time but I’d like to delve deeper and cook some more unusual meals in the future. This dinner was a bit of a hodge podge mix of ingredients but it worked wonderfully well.

Ingredients

You will need (for two):
  • 500g small new potatoes (I used Jersey Royals), scrubbed
  • Small handful green beans, sliced in inch sized pieces
  • As much Iberico ham as you can spare
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Sherry vinegar
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • Salt and pepper

Method

This is a throw it together really simple recipe. Put the potatoes into cold salted water and bring the potatoes to the boil. When the potatoes are almost cooked, add the beans into the same water for the last 2 or 3 minutes of cooking. In the meantime mix together three parts oil to one part vinegar (make extra if you have some spare bread to dip in afterwards) then crush the garlic clove in and add the salt and pepper. When the potatoes and beans are cooked, drain them and pour the dressing over to warm through. Serve up and top with the Iberico ham.

It’s such a simple meal but it delivers so much flavour. Earthy potatoes, sweet beans, sharp dressing and creamy Iberico ham make each mouthful different in flavour and texture. It took around fifteen minutes from start to finish and with a nice glass of wine makes a delicious, quick Friday night dinner. Well with a bit of imagination you could be on the Andalucian coast. read more

Sticky Toffee and Date Cake from Baked In

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sticky toffee and date cake with toffee sauce and cream
Back in July I was at a food festival and got talking to a company called Baked In. They sell the dried ingredients you need to make a cake, all pre-weighed and ready to go. They asked me if I’d like to give one of their mixes a try, the sticky toffee and date was calling out to me so I grabbed a bag and headed off looking forward to putting on my apron. Since then we have had some very lovely hot weather and baking on a hot day wasn’t appealing to me; I’d much rather be outside in the sun. Last week however there was a rainy day last week which was the perfect time to get baking!

Ingredients

You will need (for one finished cake):

  • 1 sticky toffee and date cake mix
  • 1 egg
  • 125g unsalted butter
  • 175ml boiling water

Method

The instructions were really easy to follow and the kit contained everything including a butter measurer, a skewer to test doneness and baking paper. It smells lovely when you open the bag too thanks to the fresh vanilla in the sugar.

You start by greasing and lining a 20cm x 20cm tin and preheating the oven. The pre-weighed dates are mixed with boiling water to soften them. The sugar is mixed with butter before the flour is added. The egg and date mix is added after that. I’ve not made a cake with that method before but it worked a treat and was really easy to mix up. This goes into the oven for around 30 minutes. read more

Paprika Topside of Beef with Roasted Garlic Mash and Peas and Onions

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fried topside of beef with roasted garlic mashed potatoes peas and onions allthatimeating (3 of 4)
I wrote on my blog a little while back that humble doesn’t have to be hum drum and it got me thinking. Can I make what might be considered a luxury into a cheap, and hopefully humble, meal. Steak, for me at least, is considered an expensive luxury; it’s not something I buy on a regular basis. It is however something I enjoy and it was about time I tried a cheaper cut to see if it could cut the mustard.

Enter my knowledgeable butcher. I had heard that hanger (or onglet) steak was a cheap alternative that is normally used for slow cooking. Unfortunately there was no hanger available as it was all frozen, but not to worry, as I was assured that a few slices of topside would be a good substitute. My butcher took off a few thick steaks from the topside and butterflied them for me, I couldn’t wait to give it a try. The topside came in at £12.95 per kg whereas sirloin would have been £24.50 per kg. read more

Damson Gin with Lemon and Lime

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damson gin

It’s nice to have a cupboard full of foraged wares. Currently I am housing sloe port made with sloes that were steeping in gin for two years, a nine month damson gin and I am now using the gin soaked damsons to kick off a batch of damson port. I’ve been busy. As nice as it is to sip the damson gin like a thin fruity syrup it’s also nice to be able to jazz it up sometimes.

After nine months of steeping the damson gin has come out a glorious, deep, rich red colour and it is asking to be made into a long drink. This is my perfect summer evening tipple. If I don’t have lemonade in the house it is just as good with a bit of tonic. It doesn’t look fancy, it’s not got any frills but when it tastes this good and fresh it doesn’t need any. read more

What I’ve learnt from doing a few cookery demonstrations

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Food Demo Caroline Taylor
2012 was the first year that I stood up in front of people and cooked something. I did two demos that year and cooked different dishes at each one. They both went well; I didn’t trip up, forget anything or burn myself so I’d call it a roaring success. There was a little incident with some beetroot juice but the less said about that the better. This year I had three cookery demonstrations planned in all at different food festivals: Eat Reading, Petersfield and Newbury. So after cooking in front of a crowd five times I thought it would be useful to pass on what I’ve learnt.
  • First and most importantly cook something that you like and that you are passionate about. This is for two reasons: you will cook it better and you can talk about it with ease.
  • Practice, practice, practice. It’s amazing how much longer or shorter something takes outside than inside. For example it can take an age to bring a pan of water to boil on a gas hob with the wind blowing. If you are well rehearsed then if something doesn’t go quite to plan you won’t panic.
  • Take notes with you that you can refer to. I would have forgotten to add some ingredients if I didn’t have my notes to remind me!
  • Think about some interesting things you can talk about. You need some facts or stories to fill in the gaps between boiling, chopping or grating otherwise you’ll just be standing in silence. 
  • Get the audience involved; talk to them, ask them questions. In my experience it’s far more enjoyable for the audience and you if you engage with them.
  • Make sure you know what equipment is provided and what you might need to bring yourself. It’s remarkable how many times I could have been short of a peeler if I hadn’t taken one just in case!
  • Relax. I just think that I’m in my own kitchen showing a friend how to cook something. If you’re calm and relaxed you’ll enjoy yourself much more.

I always get really nervous before I start cooking so this year I cooked the same dishes for every demo I did; it got easier every time I cooked it. The time seems to fly by and at the end I have no idea where the last 30 minutes went, what happened or what I said but the food always gets eaten up and a few members of the audience come and ask questions which is always nice. If you’re thinking of doing a demo yourself I hope the above will be helpful information; you never know unless you try. read more

Broad Beans and Goat’s Cheese on Toast

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broad beans on toast
Things on toast, no matter whether they are cheese, beans or mushrooms make a fantastic, easy and fast dinner. I think something on toast has a humble feel about it; it’s simple and satisfying. However, humble doesn’t have to be hum drum. I had a pile of broad beans and had bought some soft goat’s cheese for another meal, but, after a hectic day I wanted something quick and filling: beans on toast. Well, sort of.

Ingredients

You will need (for two slices):

  • 2 large handfuls of broad beans in the pod
  • 2 spring onions
  • A few sprigs of basil
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • Soft goat’s cheese
  • 2 slices of good quality white bread

Method

Start by removing the beans from their pods. When you have a pile of pale green beans, put them into some lightly salted boiling water for around four minutes.
Drain the beans when cooked and then run them under cold water to stop them cooking. When they have cooled down, remove the grey skins from each bean. It sounds like effort but it’s honestly just a quick insertion of a finger nail on one side and a gentle squeeze on the other. They just pop right out.

Finely chop the spring onions and roughly chop the basil. In a bowl mix together the beans, spring onions, basil, olive oil and a little salt and pepper.
Toast the bread and then spread the goat’s cheese thickly onto each slice and top with the bean mixture. read more

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