Blog - All That I'm Eating

Lemon Drizzle Cake

September 9, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 19 Comments

There have been cakes in my past which I tried either when I was too young to appreciate them or they were a mass produced poor version of what is actually a beautiful cake. An example of this is carrot cake. What I thought carrot cake tasted like was nothing compared to when I made one for myself; it wasn’t dry it was moist, it wasn’t boring it was luscious and the icing is by far my favourite of all icing. Another cake I had always ignored was lemon drizzle cake. Ones that I had tried were too sticky, not lemony or had so much icing you could have waded through it. This was my unshakable opinion and I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, until I made it myself.

This turned out to be one of my favourite cakes to bake as it makes your kitchen smell so good. The classic cake baking aromas are wafting around with a bit of lemon thrown in for good measure. This is another recipe from my Granny. Some recipes make the cake in two tins and put lemon curd or butter icing between the cakes, I made one cake for optimum drizzle potential.

To make the sponge, butter and line a nice deep cake tin. Beat together 175g each of butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy. Part of the reason I like making cakes is because I feel the beating, whisking and subsequent reduction in circumference of my arms more than compensates for the rather large slice I’ll help myself to once complete.
Gradually add in three beaten eggs. Sift 175g self raising flour and a teeny bit of baking powder and fold this into the mixture. Grate in the zest of two lemons and mix. Place in a preheated oven at 180C for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Mine took about 55 minutes in the end. read more

Purple French Beans with Steak

August 24, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 10 Comments

I planted eighteen broad bean seeds under their little cloches back in March and I had eighteen successful broad bean plants come up giving me lovely green pods all of July and early August. I planted eighteen French purple bean seeds under their little cloches and I had two plants come up. I’m not sure it was my year for these little chaps.

Fortunately the two little plants that managed to battle the elements (and the neighbours heavy pawed cat) were rather heavily laden and so I had enough to make a meal. They are such a dark colour and look so lovely in the garden it was a shame to pick them. The plant is also a fantastic purpley green.

I topped and tailed the beans and steamed them gently. I was hoping this would retain some of their purple colour but, unfortunately, they went entirely green! I find that beans are extremely happy with a little lemon juice. I melted a little butter and fried some chopped shallot then squeezed in a little lemon juice to sharpen it up. read more

Foraging

August 14, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 16 Comments

I’ve always been prone to getting out an exceedingly large basket and frolicking amongst the hedgerows at this time of year. I’m normally trying to amass as many blackberries as possible before they disappear. This year has been different as my world has become festooned with plums of all colours just ready for the picking.

These plums were no bigger than an apricot and tasted quite similar. The flesh was as bright as the skin and as sweet as honey.

These plums were very similar to the above but slightly smaller and just as delicious. The picture is black and white so you can get an idea of how many thousands of plums I’m talking about here, I’ve never seen anything so covered in jewels.

These at first I thought were cherries as they are similar in size. To be honest I’m still not entirely sure but I can tell you the skin was slightly tangy and the flesh deep orange and unctuous. read more

Cocktails at La Brasserie in London

August 2, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 8 Comments

This was a gifted experience. A good cocktail is a marvellous thing, a bad cocktail is an evening ruiner. I have had some atrocious cocktails and some incredible ones. I used to spend a lot of time in Leicester where there were loads of places to get good cocktails but unfortunately I don’t frequent Leicester as much as I used to and decent cocktails are now hard to come by.

I visited a friend in London over the weekend and we took ourselves out for some cocktails. I had been invited (by a PR company) to go to Pierres Bar in La Brasserie in Kensington. It’s in a lovely location and it’s just the right size to have atmosphere without being cramped. The staff were all lovely and seemed genuinely interested in making sure we were catered for in every way.
I didn’t take many pictures as I was too busy tucking in to the cocktails! I’m not a cocktail expert but when they’re using a fresh watermelon to make your martini instead of an ominous looking watermelon flavouring it’s going to be good. read more

Blackcurrant Summer Pudding and Red Gooseberry Fool

July 21, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 11 Comments

Summer is a wonderful time for unctuous puddings. Sweet ones, sharp ones, gooey ones and normally in some shade of pink. I wish I had the willpower to buy millions of summer berries and freeze them so I can knock up a pudding anytime I fancy, but I can barely resist them enough for them to make it to the saucepan. How can you go wrong with inky blackcurrants and vibrant gooseberries? Over the weekend I had occasion to make luscious puddings with both of these fruits. First a slightly sweet, sticky blackcurrant summer pudding and then a sharp, creamy gooseberry fool. read more

The Red House at Marsh Benham

July 12, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 7 Comments

The Red House at Marsh Benham jumps out at you as you drive down the road and I had been meaning to go for some time. There was no point in going for a half arsed meal; I wanted to go for a proper one. I’m not sure I’ve been to a place that is both modern and outdated at the same time. The garden is modern, the bar and bar area are modern but as soon as you step over the threshold into the restaurant it is like stepping over the threshold to the 1990s. The bottle green patterned carpets and red velvet chairs should have been replaced when the rest of the restaurant was updated. Fortunately the food distracted me from the décor. read more

My Vegetable Patch

July 5, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 17 Comments

Growing your own has become rather fashionable of recent years. It is now so easy to find interesting varieties, help and advice from all sorts of places. If you’ve considered growing your own but haven’t tried it yet I warn you now, it’s addictive. There’s not a market stand I can go by without having a nose around and come back with something new to try and grow. This post doesn’t have much to say, the pictures speak for themselves.

Courgettes. I’m growing a yellow crookneck variety, an orange patty pan variety and a baby blue round variety.

Beetroot. I cheated and bought plug plants as I was too late to grow from seed.

Carrots. This is the first year I’ve grown carrots and parsnips. I’ve got all sorts of colours of carrot to come up, hopefully anyway.

Apples. The tree has been in the garden for years but this is the first year we’ve had proper fruit.

Tomatoes. I’ve got 7 different varieties this year; yellow, red, plum and beef. I always buy the plants when they’re young as I’ve not had much success growing from seed. Nothing like a fresh tomato. read more

Broad Bean, Bacon and New Potato Salad

June 28, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 8 Comments

I planted my own broad beans back in February full of anticipation and excitement for that day when I could finally snap the pods from the plant, lightly cook them and enjoy them just as they are. To say I was jealous of the broad beans at the farmers’ market is an understatement. I couldn’t possibly buy any and cheat on my home grown ones…could I? Some of my broad beans are at the mangetout stage and I enjoy the occasional one immensely straight from the plant. They’ve a bit more growing to do before I can make my broad bean houmous. Until then the big, fat, shiny green beans from the farmers’ market will keep me going. To make the most of the seasonal ingredients available I cooked up this broad bean, bacon and new potato salad.

One of my favourite things is popping the broad beans out of their fluffy pods. I love the smell. I used around 20 pods if not a few more to get enough beans for this meal. The more the merrier I say.

Ingredients

You will need (for two):

Around 20 broad bean pods
4 rashers bacon
10-12 new potatoes, peeled and quartered (or halved depending on the size)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Fresh herbs, small amounts of each (I used chives and mint), chopped
Salt and pepper
1 small garlic clove, crushed

Method

Remove the broad beans from their pods and boil them in salted water for about 4 minutes.

Keep the water and then boil the potatoes until soft. Drain and put to one side.

When the beans have cooled you can begin one of the most satisfying pursuits imaginable. Squeeze the beans out of their grey, papery cases. Some will come out easily with just a small pinch whereas some require the insertion of a fingernail to get things moving. read more

Love Food Hate Waste

June 20, 2011 By All That I'm Eating 9 Comments

Love Food Hate Waste is a campaign I’d heard of before but didn’t know too much about. Over the weekend they attended the Newbury farmers’ market so I got a chance to find out more about it. It is a national campaign to try and get us all to be less wasteful. Every year in the UK we throw away £10 billion worth of food. That’s mad.
Their message is very simple; waste as little food as possible. They’ve got lots of recipes, tips and useful gadgets available to help but if the message is taken on board, you can’t go far wrong. A cookery demonstration was being given by Ilja from the Pudding Pie cookery school making all sorts of things you might throw away into lovely delicious meals.
My favourite thing was Thai chicken with sour cream dressing and curly kale potato cakes. It was such a lovely marriage of flavours and used up left over mash, chicken and salad. I also gobbled up a few pieces of a lovely apple and polenta cake. The potato cakes she made were so good!

None of the ideas make a meal that will be just acceptable, they are meals you’d be more than happy to eat all the time. To be honest, Boxing day is a day of leftovers and it has to be one of my favourite days for stuffing my face. For me, I have found if you have eggs or potatoes, you can mix pretty much anything in and make a pretty good meal. Take last year when I had more broad beans than I knew what to do with, I cracked a few eggs and got myself a lovely omelette. For left over mashed potato, make some bubble and squeak – you could mix anything in.

With leftovers I think a bit of creativity can turn an average meal into a really interesting one.

All That I’m Eating

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Petersfield Food Festival 2011

June 7, 2011 By All That I'm Eating Leave a Comment

Petersfield is not too far from me and I was informed that there was a food festival taking place with 140 stall holders. Sounded like a pretty good place to be to me! There were so many stalls and so many people it was crazy. Good crazy though. Fortunately there were very many cafés and restaurants around to sit down when you needed a break from shovelling small amounts of chutney in your face.

There were lots of stands doing all sorts of varieties of burger and sausage, coffee, smoothies, pizzas, pasties and all sorts. After much deliberating I settled on having a venison burger and it was delicious. While wandering round I met a man with a very interesting map. It was a map of all the restaurants in the area and the ingredients they used from local suppliers. It was pretty full up and lovely to see how the restaurants supported local producers and businesses.

There were so many stands selling so many different things. The following are a selection of some of my favourites. The first stall I saw, and started salivating at, was Rebecca’s Cupcakes. They all looked lovely but instead of a cupcake, I had rocky road. Unfortunately there is no picture – we ate it far too quickly! The thing that caught my eye about this stand was that the decoration related to the flavour. The cappuccino cake looked like the drink, strawberries and cream were decorated accordingly and my favourite was the cake that looked like a Mr. Whippy ice cream (flake and all). read more