Fuck the Tories
Sticking with A’s, we board an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-76 and continue our culinary journey with an 18-hour, 15,668 km, direct flight to Argentina (in-flight movie – ‘Taken 3’, vegetarian option – chicken). Touching down at Buenos Aires International Airport, we take a cab to the tiny unspoilt fishing village of Mar del Plata where, overlooking the deserted picturesque bay, we …
If, as Yumblog, you like the idea of gnocchi but in reality find them a tad disappointing after all the faff they take to make, then perhaps you should try their lesser known but more interesting cousin, gnudi.
Saint Valentine visited Yumblog Villas on Sunday bearing Philosophy Football gifts, homemade cards and 650g of wet fish. All were welcome and put to good use. If you fancy cooking the delicious looking burger above/below, be forewarned this recipe requires around 3 hours put aside for salting and chilling … that said, it’s not as if you have people to …
These stuffed flatbreads are fairly substantial and so are traditionally simply served with yoghurt and/or chutney. However it had been a long and punishing trek up the Hindu Kush and by the time we made camp we were famished, so we ate ours accompanied by the braised aubergines below.
Having acquired a taste for lockdown travel we thought we’d take a relaxing last-minute weekend break to Afghanistan. Along with the Speedos, flip flops and factor 50, we packed Parwana – Recipes and stories from an Afgan kitchen – the latest addition to the culinary wing of the Yumblog library. Banjaan borani is the first recipe taken from this book, …
So after queueing for only ten hours at Passport Control, here we are back in Blighty (108,013 mainly avoidable Covid deaths and counting). We had filled our suitcases with all sorts of tasty European goodies gathered on our tour but regrettably, after negotiating the barbed wire and daisy cutters of no-man’s land, all were confiscated by a UK border guard …
And so ends our travels. After the longest journey of this adventure so far we arrive at a snow covered twilit Sweden. As the Disunited Kingdom slowly bleeds out from the self-inflicted wound of Brexit we spend our last night dining beneath the aurora borealis pondering our future and planning possible escape routes from a country that is feeling ever …
Boarding the train we have a long journey west through Italy and France to Spain, followed by a ferry trip out into the Atlantic ocean to the Canary Islands where this recipe originates.
A short borderless drive south-west through Hungary we arrive in Slovenia, famished and in search of a hearty stew. With thanks to Louise for the tip, borne of many trips to her parents’ home country accompanied by Greg, the avowed eschewer of meat. The original Jota contains pork. No really.
Sorry Greece, we didn’t forget you, just somewhere along the journey we forgot to write you up. And to add a dash of insult to injury, for authenticity we consulted that Athens-born Hellenic super chef, Jamie Oliver. Asos, Greece.
We had a long train journey today, travelling from Europe’s most westerly country to its most eastern. That said, the scenery was beautiful, the trains modern and punctual, and the buffet car well stocked with cheese toasties. I would take the description ‘stew’ with a pinch of salt (and possibly a twist of black pepper), as this recipe is essentially …
What better way to round up a Saturday than to head south west and spend the evening eating in Portugal, specifically the Algarve. We’ll assume that if you have come here in search of Cataplana (the recipe), you won’t be in possession of a Cataplana (a copper lidded pan traditionally used to cook said recipe). Worry not, you can easily …
And so we reached Friday night, traditional domain of a trip to the pub, chips for the child and a couple of jars of finest pilsner for her and him. That was in the olden days. Now we make our own entertainment; following a conversation on our walk to see the murmuration, it became apparent that the child was interested …
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 …
Heading south to the Mediterranean we are off to Malta. It’s refreshing to be in a country with a coastline as now we can have a break from the root vegetables of the East and enjoy something altogether more fishy, or in this case, tentically. And on the subject of Brexit (who mentioned Brexit – Ed), please read the beautifully …
In contrast to yesterday’s simple snack, today we’re heading to Luxembourg for something a little more refined. Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. As of 2020, Luxembourg citizens had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access …
Obviously unless you have an allotment, sorrel is going to be a tricky ingredient to source. If this is the case, substitute with spinach and a squeeze of lemon juice. Latvia is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy and ranks 39th in the Human Development Index. It performs favourably in measurements of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, …
Arguably an obvious choice. Undeniably a tasty one. There was mild panic when a trip to Sainsburys was met with an empty shelf where the Mozzarella should have been. Hopefully this was down to an oversight by the manager rather than a consequence of Brexit, but it is too dismal to speculate. On the fruitless walk back along London Road …
Friday evening was spent with our nearest EU neighbour, the Republic of Ireland. As a rule the week ends with a dinner which is quick and easy to make and has sufficient heft to soak up the evening’s drinking. Boxty ticks all those boxties.
Bags packed, we’re off to Hungary for a bowl of noodled soup. For a relatively small country Hungary has many largest things: largest thermal water cave system and (second) largest thermal lake in the world, not forgetting the largest lake and largest natural grasslands in Europe. Budapest, Hungary
And so to our spiritual home, Germany. A country that seems to get most things right in the same way we don’t anymore. In 2018 on a visit to Berlin we saw Scritti Politti at an event called ‘Goodbye UK – and Thank You for the Music‘, a celebration paying ‘homage to the extraordinary musical creativity that made the United …
What better way to start a new year than a visit to France, specifically the heavily German influenced region of Alsace. Colmar, Alsace, France.
From Estonia we head north a little bit to Finland, a Nordic country located in Northern Europe. Finland shares land borders with Sweden to the west, Russia to the east, and Norway to the north. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life and human development. In 2015, …
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 …
The challenge Yumblog faces as a vegetarian/fish/seafood blog, is that many countries in Project EU lean towards a meat-centric and essentially pig-based diet. Added to this, fish dishes from landlocked countries invariably feature carp – a best-avoided flaccid, grainy creature which tastes of mud and has a texture not dissimilar to tripe. On a 2009 visit to Prague (some photos …
Our New Year’s Eve dinner found us straddling the 1,898 km between Croatia and Cyprus. Croatia served us the main course of these tasty prawns accompanied by a flat bread called Lepinja, and Cyprus a dessert of light and zesty rice pudding. Croatia is classified by the World Bank as a high-income economy and ranks very high on the Human …
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 …
Unfortunately Andrew the Fishmonger was closed today so we were forced to resort to the Sainsbury’s chiller cabinet of vacuum-packed disappointment. As I picked over the hermetically sealed packets of sweaty fillets I couldn’t help but recall the magnificent fresh fish departments of Spanish supermarkets. Anything with a gill, tenticle, sucker or shell that had ever swum, slithered or drifted …
We thought we’d end the year and start the new with a celebration of the 28 27 members of the European Union. Each day we’ll be serving a meal from a different EU member state, striving for the authentic and traditional and avoiding the cliched – and to make it unnecessarily complicated, doing it in alphabetical order. Today we’ll be …
If you are the impulsive sort who starts cooking a dish before fully reading the method, and then 10 minutes before your planned meal time come across the instruction ‘marinade for a fortnight’, then please read the recipe below thoroughly as it contains not only ‘simmer for two hours‘ but also ‘soak overnight‘. That said, forewarned is forearmed, and planning …
When a succession of veg boxes leaves you with a cumulative glut of lettuces, you come to the realisation that there is only so much you can eat in traditional salad form, and cooking seems to be limited to braised side dishes, either solo or avec pois. But worry not dear reader(s) for there is hope (especially if like me …
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.
As the result of a Christmas spent in France hosted by, among others, Jean-Pierre the moustachioed turophile, we had pretty much vowed to stay away from cheese for long into the new year. That was until, in an idle moment, we happened across this tempting Potato, Leek and Gruyère tart from the ever reliable and inspirational Gourmet Traveller website. Be …
Here’s wishing a ‘Happy New Year’ to all our lovely readers. In many ways 2017 wasn’t the best, but trust me 2018 is going to be great. The Tories will implode under the sheer weight of their incompetence, corruption and lies, Corbyn will march us joyfully towards a new Socialist dawn, Brexit will be cancelled, Greggs will be nationalised, and …
After the stunning and heroic intake of baked goods* on our recent tri-city Teutonic train tour of Düsseldorf, Berlin and Köln, thoughts and waist-lines turned to meals of a lighter, altogether less bready nature. This recipe fulfilled that desire to such a degree we ate it two days on the trot – first as here with prawns, and secondly (as there) …
Thought it would be safer to put ‘falafels’ in inverted commas as the absence of chickpeas and the inclusion of halloumi, would probably leave us open to criticism from ‘The Guild of Master Falafel Makers‘ as well as purists, pedants, trolls, stupid people and no doubt the odd het up vegan. We here at Yumblog don’t want any trouble, especially as …
The source of this recipe can be found in ‘The Gaza Kitchen‘ by Laila El-Haddad & Maggie Schmitt. This is an impressive collection of Palestinian recipes interspersed with stories of life, struggle and food in the oppressed land of Gaza. We have made a few tiny modifications, tweaked proportions, and converted the measurements from ‘cups’ to the 21st century, but …
Consider the humble chickpea. Nutritious, ubiquitous, tasty, cheap, and as versatile as a 46-piece socket set. It can be stir-fried, casseroled, tagined, enstewed, devilled, saladated, hummouserised, soupified, and in this case, masalaed. If you’re contemplating doing something interesting with a tin of chickpeas this weekend, we here at Yumblog Villas urge you to give this a go.
By far the most prolific and rampant vegetable currently growing in the collective garden here at Yumblog Villas is the courgette. Some have become so pumped up they have started to hang around with the marrows. Two such swaggering beasts constituted the bulk of this refreshing, light yet substantial summer soup. I’ll suggest next year we also grow peas and …
You know humanity is truly approaching the end of days when a flier from McDonnalds drops on the doormat and not only pronounces ‘We deliver, McDelivery has arrived’, but also proudly trumpets that this essential service is bought to you by UberEATS. A partnership forged in the fat-clogged sewers of neoliberal hell. It could only be worse if your Happy …