Rummaging through the dusty yumblog archives in search of something tasty which could possibly win the approval* of a discerning (some would say fussy) thirteen-year-old, we came across this recipe for Frittelle di Spaghetti first posted on 17th December 2009, some seven months before said darling child was born. The original introduction referenced Nick Griffin getting a well-deserved public egging… …
Eggs
A celebration of Europe #19 – The Netherlands
It’s Thursday night, so time to visit the fifth happiest country in the world, The Netherlands. Incidentally, as I write this the entire Dutch government has just resigned because, as their PM stated, they were not up to standard. Admittedly they had wrongly accused 20,000 families of tax fraud, but step back for a moment and try to imagine Johnson …
A celebration of Europe #8 – Estonia
Today we are eating pie in Estonia, a country in Northern Europe which borders the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland. Including more than 1,500 islands, its diverse terrain spans rocky beaches, old-growth forest and many lakes. Estonian citizens receive universal health care, free education and the longest paid maternity leave in the OECD. It is one of the world’s …
A celebration of Europe #3 – Bulgaria
On the day Parliament voted through the Brexit deal with little or no scrutiny, shamefully aided by a whipped Labour Party, now is a good time to reflect that were you to have believed the spew of lies wretched up by the Leave campaign, our glorious Kingdom would now be overrun by Bulgarians, and Banitsa, no doubt garnished with chips …
Leek Carbonara
As I had to line up outside the greengrocers in a long socially-spaced covid queue for over twenty minutes to buy, among other things, these three handsome leeks, I thought they should (in true Masterchef style) be made the ‘star of the dish’. This is a modified, and in my ‘umble opinion, much improved Jme Oliver recipe.
Pasta with courgette, basil, parmesan and a beaten egg yolk
This is number seven in our occasional series ‘In search of the perfect pasta sauce’, and once again we have turned to our adopted Italian granny Marcella Hazan for inspiration. Thus far she’s rarely let us down.
Fried egg, avocado and chilli tacos
Want to start your weekend with a lime zest and a chilli zing? Then look no further than this curious and surprisingly delicious Mexican inspired egg-based brunch. Arriba! Arriba! Andale! Andale!
Nids de Monsieur Fouineur
Turning once again to the esteemed ‘Livre de Cuisine des Monsieurs Hommes’ in search of culinary inspiration, Yumblog Junior chanced upon this complex and controversial confection from disgraced chef de cuisine and one time enfant terrible, Monsieur Fouineur. Hounded by the tabloids and plagued by rumours of espionage and peeping tomfoolery, this once great pâtissier never achieved the same levels …
Moroccan chickpea stew with fried egg brik & cucumber salad
Now that interesting looking critter below is called a brik and is essentially an egg dropped into the middle of a sheet of filo which is then wrapped up and shallow fried. It comes accompanied by a spicy chickpea curry and a refreshing cucumber and coriander salad. Service not included. Not only is this a dainty dish to set before …
Spinach, egg & parmesan pizza
Such is the toothsomeness of this pizza, it has now become a Friday evening regular here at Yumblog Cottage – along with six hasty after-work Stellas and a punch up* with rival food bloggers in the precinct. The recipe comes from the excellent ‘Polpo – A Venetian cookbook (of Sorts)‘ by Russell Norman. If you want a copy you can …
Baked spinach & eggs with parmesan, basil & tomato toasts
Depending on the time of day, this dish makes a great brunch, brinner, brea, brupper or supfast.
Surf & Oeuf
Smoked salmon scotch (quail) egg You can tell you’re at the Ocado end of the middle-class spectrum when your 2.5 year old asks for smoked salmon and quails eggs for breakfast. Soon she’ll be insisting on Jo Malone bum wipes. Anyway, if you manage to wrestle the ingredients away from your toddler why not make these lush smoked salmon scotch …
Cheese & spinach brunch
The original source of this recipe was the excellent ‘Abel & Cole Cookbook’ – currently given away free with a month’s trial of their veg boxes. They called it something along the lines of ‘Baked spinach with cheesy weezy wosty eggy wegs’ – a little twee and Belle and Sebastian for comfort – hence the renaming. Preparation time: 5 minutes …
Chocolate pithivier (minus the pithivier)
We had a pair of Hebden Twins coming to dinner so obviously we Googled ‘What do twins eat?’ in search of appropriate ways to tickle their sapphic taste buds. The results threw up a biography of Sue Perkins and an incongruous and seemingly random set of images, but very little in the way of practical advice. Undeterred and after consulting …
Sweetcorn fritters
A while back we bought a bumper pack of frozen sweetcorn for Yumblog Junior hoping this might make a healthy addition to her somewhat restricted and monotonous diet. As is invariably the case she gave our offering a glance of contempt, shook her head and returned to her preferred menu of bananas, Marmite and toothpaste. Parenthood can sometimes be a …
Crêpe au fromage de chèvre
…or goat’s cheese pancakes.
Egg Nog
Thus far we have glogged and grogged… time to get nogging.
Tuna confit salad
Are you sitting confitably, then we’ll begin …
Tomato and cumin soup (avec egg)
With the weekend Guardian scattered over floor and table, Adam and Joe on 6Music and Yumblog Junior playing happily and noisily within the Tachyon beam containment field, few meals are more eagerly anticipated here at at Yumblog Towers than Saturday brunch… and few dishes have endorsed that anticipation with more spicy gusto than this delicious tomato and cumin ‘soup’. The …
Potato and Asparagus Frittata
In an attempt to escape the hysterical media build up to ‘the wedding’, not to mention the event itself with its stupid street parties, stupid bunting, stupid flag waving and general unseemly national deference to our ‘betters’, we left the country and spent Easter in the relaxed sun-drenched (republic) of Berlin. Fortunately for us the Berliners were far too preoccupied …
Chocolate Bavarois
Yumblog Towers saw in the new year with a feast which started with a (very disappointing) trout mousse, followed by a spectacular post-modern deconstructed prawn vol-au-vent, and rounded off with this profoundly rich Simon Hopkinson chocolate and cream-based dessert. A belated Happy New Year to our reader(s).
Stilton (& Rocket) Tart
Despite heroic efforts on our part, post-Christmas still found us with a substantial wedge of a 3 tonne wheel of Stilton left uneaten. This tart was one of several tasty ways we found to remedy the problem.
Œufs brouillés au fromage de chèvre
… or scrambled eggs with goat’s cheese. If you want a different more goaty way to scramble your eggs, this is the recipe for you.
Shakshuka
There are some recipes you can taste just by reading them. This was one such recipe and it read delicious.
Double Yolker
Following on from this week’s earth shattering news of a woman who found six double yolkers* in a single box of eggs, imagine our surprise and delight when we cracked open an egg this morning and found not just a double yolk, but a double yolk bearing the dual fizzogs of cheeky TV light entertainers Ant and Dec. Obviously we …
Café Delic Tuna Salad
Was it only a week ago that the yumbloggers were sitting in 35ºC of Madrid heat on the terraza outside the Café Delic eating lunch and drinking chilled glasses of refreshing Mahou Classic? (Stop it, you’re beginning to sound like a middle class wanker – Ed) Ah yes, Blogger-D had a simple roll generously filled with delicate whispers of the …
In Praise of…Proper Eggs
A weekend with a sister who keeps 4 exceedingly pampered chickens (Dolores, Fifi, Jolene and Daphne) afforded us with a dozen beautiful, tasty, fresh very-free-range eggs, some of which are shown below. Special thanks to Daphne who laid the one in the middle. Not bad handwriting for a chicken.
Baked Herbed Ricotta with Roasted Tomatoes
The plan is at some stage to make our own Ricotta from the whey left over from Yumblog Amalgamated Dairy Industries yoghurt-making enterprise. However I suspect the quantities involved will be minute and certainly a lot smaller than our massive combined appetites.
Clafoutis
Despite a mouthful of fillings, I don’t really have a sweet tooth and so tend not to delve into the sugary world of desserts, afters and puds. However, we had a friend over for a boozy Sunday lunch and this Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall-Clafoutis-Recipe had caught my eye in the Guardian the day before.
Parmesan Custards with Anchovy Toasts
Blogger-D was lucky enough to have a free work jolly to Le Café Anglais last Christmas and said the food was some of the best she’d ever tasted. Blogger-R unfortunately has yet to be offered such a generous perk and so has had to content himself with making this – Rowley Leigh’s ‘signature’ dish of parmesan custard with anchovy toasts. …