Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

Christmas ham

Friday, December 28th, 2018 | Food, Life

We’ve outdone ourselves this year. Usually, when we make our annual pilgrimage to buy the Christmas ham, they top out at about 6kg. But, this year, we found them all of the way up to 9kg.

We weren’t sure 9kg would fit in the oven. Or in the fridge. So, we went for a conservative 8.67kg ham. Which still beats our record by over two kilograms. Venla seemed pretty pleased with it.

Vegan cookbooks

Thursday, October 25th, 2018 | Food

I’ve been working through a few of Aine Carlin’s cookbooks that Sarann kindly lent me. They’re not doing it for me, to be honest. They’re not filled with recipes, and many of them just didn’t take my interest or were based around ingredients I couldn’t use. But there were a few nice dishes.

Aduki bean casserole from The New Vegan

Shepherd’s pie with sweet potato mash topping.

Cannellini bean stew.

Slow Cook Book

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2018 | Books, Food

The Slow Cook Book is a cookbook by Heather Whinney. It contains hundreds of recipes and all of them come with instructions for how to do it in a slow cooker, or using a more traditional method. This feature is great when you forget to put your slow cooker on and need to cook your dinner in a lot less time.

Some of the recipes are a little involved: there is 15-20 minutes of prep and pre-cooking in a pan before you put it into the cooker. However, once you get used to this and plan for it, it’s not too much hassle and comes in a predictable format.

The recipes are tasty. However, as is a problem with most slow cooker recipes, they tend to be very liquidy. And there is a lot of them. We’ve been doing one a week for probably over a year and still haven’t got the end.

Finland nutrition

Thursday, August 9th, 2018 | Food

While I was over in Finland, I raided their supermarkets for the sports products they had. Some of it was Finnish, some of it was American. Here is what I found.

Gatorade

I’ve never tried Gatorade before but it thumbs up. I like this stuff. It doesn’t feel as heavy as Lucozade.

Powerade

Another widely sold drink that I’ve never tried. It was good, but I prefer the flavours of Gatorade.

Maxim protein bar

This was very tasty. Almost as tasty as the Carb Killa bars.

Arla protein yoghurt

Chocolate and orange flavour. it definitely has a distinctive taste compared with other yoghurts, but in terms of mixing up my recovery food, I could see myself throwing in some of these.

Tupla protein bar

This not only looks like a Mars bar (but has no relation) but also tastes like a chewy version of a Mars bar. All of which is good.

Cricket protein bar

These are named Leader Zircca bars. Leader is the brand, and zircca is the Finnish word for cricket. Not the game, but the insect. It’s made of crickets: 15 of them go into each bar. They were okay and didn’t taste like you were eating insects, but I haven’t left craving more.

Ken Hom’s Complete Chinese Cookbook

Sunday, June 10th, 2018 | Books, Food

We’ve really enjoyed Ken Hom’s cookbook. We’ve been working our way through the 60-odd recipes we thought looked tasty over the past three or fours months and can now conclusively say that it is a winner.

All of the recipes have been easy to follow. A lot of them start the same way: by chopping up some meat and marinating it in a mixture of sesame oil, rice wine, soy sauce and corn flour. Then typically stir-fried with a variety of other ingredients.

If you’re looking for authentic Chinese food, this isn’t the book for you. The recipes are Westernised, which makes them both easy to cook and very tasty.

Sweet and sour pork.

Chicken and sweetcorn soup. It should have been chicken and spinach soup, but I cooked all of the spinach the day before and had to rely on stereotypes to fill in the blank.

Chicken with sesame seeds.

Braised fish.

Tesco removing “best before” dates

Thursday, May 24th, 2018 | Food

This week, Tesco announced that it was removing “best before” dates from around 70 products including apples, potatoes, tomatoes, lemons and onions.

In 2012, I wrote about how banning “best before” dates could contribute to reducing food waste. Has Tesco taken this step because of the relentless pressure of six years of being sharing my blog post? No. But I’m pleased about their decision nonetheless.

Creamy sweet potato soup

Monday, May 7th, 2018 | Food

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with soups a little. Nothing too exciting, but I have decided that rather than working from recipes, I’m just going to throw stuff into a pan and see if I can do it off-script. This recipe worked out well, so I thought I would share.

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • Carrot
  • Fennel
  • Garlic clove
  • 1 tsp crushed chillis
  • Sweet potato
  • 1 litre chicken stock
  • 100g sweetcorn
  • 300ml double cream
  • Flat-leaf parsley
  • Chicken breasts

Instructions

Cook the chicken breasts in the oven according to packet instructions: usually around 30-35 minutes at 180-200 degrees C will do it. Put some bowls in a plate warmer.

Meanwhile, heat a large pan with some vegetable oil it in. Finely slice the carrot, fennel and garlic and combine it with the crushed chillis. Season with salt and pepper and cook it for a few minutes.

Peel and dice the sweet potato into any size chunks you like. Throw this in and continue to cook for a few more minutes. Add the chicken stock and sweetcorn and bring to a boil. Leave to simmer until the chicken is two minutes away from done.

When the chicken is almost ready, take a stick blender to the pan and destroy everything until there are no lumps. Add the double cream and stir to heat through. You can take the pan off the heat.

Take the chicken out of the oven and slice. Fill your bowls with some soup, then dump the sliced chicken in the middle. Chop some parsley and sprinkle that around the edges.

The Star Inn

Tuesday, March 13th, 2018 | Food, Reviews

The Star Inn, also known as The Star at Harome is a Michelin-starred restaurant by Andrew Pern, located on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors.

It’s set in a 14th century thatched cottage with an open fire. The ceiling is a bit low: fine for us, but I felt bad for the tall waiter who had to duck every time he moved through the dining room. The atmosphere was intimate, with only a few tables nicely spaced out in each room.

The food was excellent, but not mind-blowing. What I mean by that is that they have executed the dishes very well. They are skillfully crafted and delicious. However, they are not anything you won’t have had before: it’s just gastropub food done to a very high level. No bad thing.

The dishes

I started with The Rockpool: a langoustine bisque containing king scallop, mussels and a selection of other seafood delicacies (maybe a bit of lobster or an oyster, I’m not sure). After that, I moved onto the venison before finishing with the chocolate torte.

Each dish was well thought through in terms of presentation. I think my starter shined more than the main. Elina had the beef consomme to start, followed by the mutton which was packed with taste. There was a mix up with the dessert when she got rice pudding instead of ice cream, but at least there was a birthday candle in it.

The drinks

They had soft drinks, which beat out our last Michelin experience. That said, I think I managed to disappoint the waiter. When I inquired as to what they had, he said they had a lot of things so just name some. I named dandelion and burdock, followed by Iron Bru, both of which came up short. They did have a good selection of juices and fizzy drinks, though. And the alcoholic selection was extensive, of course.

Cost

It’s a reasonably priced place. We spent just under £100 ordering from the à la carte menu. That got us three courses, plus several little bonus courses, and some soft drinks. The tasting menu is a bit more expensive but they also do a very reasonable locals menu which is £25 for three courses.

Eggs and soldiers

Friday, March 9th, 2018 | Food, Photos

I saw this on Instagram and had to replicate.

Blood pancakes

Saturday, January 27th, 2018 | Food

Recently, we finally found a long-sought-after commodity in Leeds. Blood. They sell it by the bag at the international supermarket.

“What do you do with a bag of blood?” you ask. Why, make blood pancakes, of course.

I was a little skeptical, I think partially because of Elina’s reassurance that I didn’t have to eat all of them. Having tasted them, I would describe them as okay. They taste a lot like Scotch pancakes and go well with lingonberry jam.