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Pesto Although I’ve made pesto many times before, I’ve generally haphazardly chucked the ingredients into the food processor and left it to chance. Despite the results usually being good, I thought it was about time I consulted the mama of authentic Italian home cooking, Marcella Hazan and see if she had an angle on this [...]

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A recent trawling of the recipe archive of the excellent Australian Gourmet Traveller Magazine website, produced among other things, this simple ‘one-pot’ fish dish. Instead of cod we opted to use the (considerably) cheaper and (coincidentally) sustainable whiting and spend the money we saved on an impressive quantity of prawns.

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There are some recipes you can taste just by reading them. This was one such recipe and it read delicious.

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As soon as I saw this recipe with it’s unusual ‘Boil in the Bag’ cooking technique, I knew I had to take it to our experimental kitchen here at Yumblog Towers and see if it was worthy of a place on the menu of our amusingly post-modern and knowingly ironic restaurant ‘The Yummy Duck’.

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In theory you could arrive home from work after an exhausting day Ice Road Trucking, and 10 minutes later be sitting at the dining table sipping a chilled white Rioja and tucking into this tasty treat… quicker than it takes to microwave a bowl of Batchelors UnSavoury Rice.

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In the spirit of Dandruff Dave’s Big Society we here at Yumblog have served each other redundancy notices so that you, dear reader, can volunteer and write this blog yourself.  So come on Dirk, Tony, Helen, Scooter McKenzie, Mimsy Swallows, Zucchini Breath, Briony Bob et al, step forward and become part of this radical new [...]

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Mealtimes have changed here at Yumblog Towers. Top scientists have proved there is now a 99.74% certainty that as soon as we plate up, pull the cork and sit down to enjoy our evening meal, Yumblog Junior will wake from her slumber/get bored with whatever devious distraction we have devised for her, and demand our [...]

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Tomato & Cream Sauce The third in this occasional series and the third taken from ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking‘ by Marcella Hazan. The marketing department here at Yumblog (Yumedia Communications) believe this to be the most comprehensive, authentic and definitive cookbook on the subject, so if you like Italian food (and who doesn’t) [...]

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OK, so you’ve spent most the weekend in the lab distilling your tomato essence, now to put it into action as the base for this rather delicious Tomato Risotto. Paxton the Pig: Scroll down and read the review from James Rose … such a warm, expressive Grandfather.

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Here’s the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them had hair of gold, like their mother, the youngest one in curls.

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Cornish Yarg is a mild yet flavoursome firm cheese not to be confused with the Cornish ‘Yarp’ – the only word uttered by Michael in ‘Hot Fuzz’.

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This recipe is based on Yotam Ottolenghi’s legume noodle soup which, although delicious, we felt could be improved with the audacious addition of a little chilli heat and a handful or two of prawns.

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Ricotta & Parsley Ravioli with Tomato & Cream Sauce The offer of some Valentine themed goodies from our friends at Interflora and a cooking apron from our latest chums at The Last detail, prompted us to cook up something which would make an ideal romantic dinner for two. Besides, it was the day before the [...]

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Recently a friend of Yumblog arrived breathless on our doorstep brandishing a bag of chickpea flour and gabbling lavish tales of a crepe-like dish prepared for her by a Frenchman with an impressive moustache. With some reluctance we let her in and once calmed with a Lager & Campari, set about making sense of her [...]

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Recently BluSky Innoventions™ the ‘Pseudo-Science, Holistic Wellness, Quantum Synergy & Bio-Weapons Division’ of Yumblog Holdings Plc was given an obscenely large EU grant to investigate whether it is necessary to cook pasta traditionally in a large volume of boiling water, or whether it could be prepared ‘risotto’ style in the merest covering of liquid. Our [...]

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Kale, Cheese & Bread Soup For what is essentially a soggy cheese and cabbage sandwich, this is very, very tasty.

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What better way to round off a sunday in which not only have you built the worlds most magnificent shelving ‘solution’ from scratch (and wood) but also found the time to watch a (double) episode from the forth (and darkest) season of BSG than by sitting down with your (lovely) co-blogger and eating this hearty, [...]

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The recent purchase of a £25 bargain pasta maker* has led to a spate of fresh pasta making here at Yumblog Towers. Whether this enthusiasm lasts or whether this gadget ends up in the back of the cupboard along with the onion goggles, Waring Professional Martini Maker, OXO Good Grips® Strawberry Huller, Cuisinart® Soup Maker, [...]

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A rare meaty yumblog recipe here, although this is still a tasty dish even if the pig element is left out.

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I found this Lemony Cheese delight in a back issue of the excellent Donna Hay magazine – the eponymous title from food editor, best-selling cookery writer, and from what I can gather, Queen of Australia.

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Our new chums at Abel & Cole have been sending us more delicious treats to cook, scoff and review. This week our stash included organic Scottish Salmon which if you follow that link you will find out live in remote and spacious cages off the coast of the Orkneys. It goes on to report that [...]

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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 [...]

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If you follow the link you’ll discover this young Gorgonzola came to us from Sardinia via Acton. Roasted Tomato and Gorgonzola Tarts with Balsamic Vinegar Caramel

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Butter & Tomato Sauce A recent trip to the magnificent St John led to a visit to their website which in turn resulted in the purchase of a Fergus Henderson-endorsed cookbook called The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. It’s perfect bedtime reading and has an intriguing section on simple tomato-based sauces for [...]

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A couple of weeks ago we had a slap up anniversary feed at St John in Smithfield, and this dish was on the menu. Obviously visiting the home of ‘Nose to Tail eating’ and plumping for the vegetarian option is like… (Note to Blogger-D: Please insert apt and amusing analogy here.) (Note to Blogger-R: Can’t [...]

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I know what you are thinking. Rhubarb soup? Savoury rhubarb soup? Never heard of that before. Sounds intriguing. Could be tasty. Could be unpleasant. Could be a toxic coupling of sour fruit and salty meaty water. Must get some rhubarb and give it a go. Well that’s what I thought anyway. Besides, the recipe was [...]

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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.

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I got this recipe from an article called ‘Five ways with potatoes’ in this months OFM. Nigel Slater calls it ‘Potato pancakes with herb and youghurt sauce‘ but I changed the name as for me the feta was the main event and therefore deserved higher billing. I’m also not sure my brain can accommodate yet [...]

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This layered jellified curiosity comes from Gregg (Beefy beefy mushrooms) Wallace’s book ‘VEG!!!‘. The exclamation marks are mine of course.

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There’s that fork again.

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I came across this recipe in last month’s Wa’ro magazine and it looked so tasty I had to give it a try. It also gave me the opportunity to photograph it alongside this stylishly knackered old fork which I bought recently in a charity shop purely for use as a prop. Everybody’s doing it – [...]

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‘I can’t be in love if it’s plastic to live on my own just seems tragic but we’ll raise our swords high when our day comes you thought it was gold but it was bronze so, get here in time when our day comes you thought it was gold but it was bronze’ If this [...]

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We would like to reassure readers that despite selling 20% of yumblog to Coca-Cola for a cool £30m, we are adamant that our ideals* and pseudo-eco-friendly sentiments will be in no way compromised. Yumblog will still be cynically overpriced, we will continue to put patronising and twee drivel in a ‘handwritten’ font on all our [...]

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In accordance with government guidelines and the criteria laid down by the Foods Standards Agency (FSA) (and because you are all, dear readers, lazy obese mollycoddled porcine cretins incapable of making a decision unless the myriad complexities of an issue are reduced to a simple 3-digit number) yumblog will in future state the calorific value [...]

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Hi Guys, Just wanted you to be the first to know that at 2:46 this morning, Jools gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!! She weighed 6lbs 10 and we have called her ‘Petal Blossom Herbal Essence Bonjela Aviva AmbiPur ScarletDivision Clinique FlavourShaker Twitter Pantene Pro-V Sky+ “Ooooh Danone” Sainsbury’s Tefal Yulumba Rainbow Oliver’. Both [...]

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“I’m sitting at this table called love, staring down at the irony of life. How come we’ve reached this fork in the road, and yet it cuts like a knife”*

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I came across this recipe in Saturday’s Telegraph magazine (not mine you understand). I was drawn to it because not only does it include a novelty pasta and three favoured salty ingredients (anchovies, olives and capers) but it also bizarrely contains a smattering of raisins. Would this be (as Gregg and John often say) one [...]

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A double hit of carbs here – like a chip butty – only posher – innit.

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This was something a little bit special for Valentine’s Day courtesy of Rick Stein.

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It’s MasterChef final week, yeah. Such a shame that the nice Greek guy was dumped last Thursday as he was our favourite, we actively liked him. Now it’s down to the young one, the posh one and the beardy baldy cry baby one who sounds like Tony Blair. The posho is bound to win, but [...]

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