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 …
Traditional Cheese Fondue
Baked stuffed tomatoes from yumblog
Straddling the seasons by paradoxically being both light and summery yet warming and wintery this dish could, if not prepared strictly to the recipe below, set up an inverted spiralling loop of cognitive dissonance capable of causing a brobdingnagian antithetical bi-cranial logic schism (and possible nose bleed). So be warned.
If, like us, you thought the tastiest way to deal with a beetroot was to borscht it, you’re in for a treat – this is possibly tastier. Better still, apart from the beetroot and a bit of cream, it can be constructed from what are commonly called ‘store cupboard staples‘.
We have just been blessed, here in Brighton, with a visitation from a bearded prophet from the North (Islington). Known variously as the Anointed One, the Author of Eternal Salvation, the Alpha and Omega, the great I am, or simply … Jeremy H Corbyn. A beacon of light in these dark days, and possibly our only hope to oust the …
Hey meat-eaters! Invited a hapless vegetarian over to your barbecue? Why not forego the meat-free delights of (Sp)Asda and surprise them by serving up something which is actually tasty for once – fr’instance, this hearty succulent and colourful burger packed with thought-provoking flavours and textural anomalies!
Pity the poor baby octopus, born a hatchling among a thousand siblings, each no larger than a pinhead and yet all filled with the innocent expectation of a future filled with fun, laughter and adventure. Then, just as they open their eyes and blink with wonder at the world around them, they are dredged into a giant net and hauled …
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.
One of the (myriad) advantages of leaving Hebden Bridge is we are no longer hostage to the weekly visit of ‘Paul the Fish’ with his stall of filleted fish and erratic Welsh mussels. Living in sunny Brighton we now have access to the full aquatic range of anything with scale, shell or tentacle which swims, crawls, drifts or slithers in …
We have been doubly blessed since we moved here to sunny Brighton, for not only do we now have casual access to a Waitrose, but a mere 20 strides away on the opposite side of the street is the Taj grocer, a large independently owned store offering a cornucopia of (eastern) international ingredients the likes of which we’ve not seen …
I know what you’re thinking: “What the Fricking Frack are cod cheeks?” The answer (they’re the meaty jowls of the Gadus Morhua) begs the obvious supplementary question “…and where on earth do you expect me to get hold of those obscure little frackers?” The immediate reply is sorry, not even Waitrose stock them, so unless you can find yourself a …
Bream steamed with celery, ginger & pickled plums
As much as I love to cook, sometimes it’s a welcome treat to prepare a meal which requires little more effort than a nifty flip of the switch on the Magimix.
Obviously when I first eyed a display of Romanesco at the local veg market I mused how the inflorescence had an approximate self-similar character, with the branched meristems making a logarithmic spiral and how it approximated a natural fractal with each bud composed of a series of smaller buds, all arranged in yet another logarithmic spiral. (I don’t need to …
Despite your average British tomato being a Dutch grown, prematurely picked, under-ripe, woolly, anaemic, flavourless, blemish-free and over-chilled orb of disappointment, it’s still hard to get a genuine green tomato in this country… unless of course you live in Yorkshire and grow your own, in which case they’ll ALL be green from lack of sunlight. So when I found a …
Don’t roll your eyes, I know what you’re thinking, “Stuffed marrow? When it comes to vegetarian misery, it’s up there with the brown rice and kidney bean salad …or anything involving couscous or a that stalwart of the ‘vegetarian option’, the butternut squash”. Relax, this is like no other marrow you’ve stuffed before, and as well as being very tasty …
The day started with two itinerant cows and ended with a trip back in time to 1978. In between there was a misfuelling which led to three spontaneous guests for dinner. We served them pasta with this simple and deceptively delicious roasted pepper sauce.
Such is the fast turnaround of this post I still have a piece of samphire lodged between my teeth and a prawn juice stain on my t-shirt.
Sun turns to grey, grey turns to wet and wet heralds the first flood alert for, ooh days. Time to get nostalgic about those long balmy Yorkshire summer evenings sitting on the white-washed terraza under ancient gnarled trees, their branches heavy with succulent ripe Barm Cakes still warm from the day’s sun. It was on one such evening when we …
Summer has eventually arrived in the UK. It has even managed to reluctantly drag itself all the way up to Yorkshire where, tripping over Stoodley Pike and tumbling down the hill it collapsed bloody and exhausted in our very own back yard. In fact one afternoon it was so balmy I was able to pop out down to the One …
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 …
Waiting for a post from Yumblog is a lot like waiting for a bus. Nothing for six weeks and then two come along at once. There the similarities end, so hop on board and enjoy the ride. What’s that, you don’t have the correct change? Bugger off and walk then.
One of the meatier vegetarian dishes you’ll find here on Yumblog.
Spinach, egg & parmesan pizza is like so yesterday. This is now our Friday evening pizza of choice.
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 …
Sometimes I wonder why we bother. We try our best to make this blog an edifying and sophisticated experience, but a glance at our site stats shows that the top three search queries which brought you here today were ‘Soft porn’, ‘Chicken pox’ and ‘Dairylea Lunchables’. You’re a weird and mucky bunch. Incidentally, anyone browsing for the 12th most popular …
Look, everyone I have an iPad Mini. In fact as I write this I’m on the morming commute steaming through the Calder Valley aboard the Northern Rail Executive Express. For those of you not in the know, the Northern Rail Executive Express is a sleek luxuriously upholstered silver bullet from the future which flashes silently and smoothly between Leeds and …
So tasty is this pasta dish it has taken over from the mighty ‘La pasta col tocca d’arrosto’ as THE quick and reliable midweek regular here at yumblog cottage. Originally an Angela Hartnett recipe which came to our attention as the result of a surplus of kale and google search, it has, over the months, transmuted, transformed and transmogrified into …
In lieu of having anything (interesting) to write about baked beans, here are a few words/phrases and accompanying definitions from Yumblog Junior’s ever increasing personal lexicon: Circle ham – German sausage Rainbrella – Umbrella Yellow people – The Simpsons Oop sake – For fuck’s sake! Ah, the things they say!
When the Spanish cook octopus they like to ‘scare’ it first by dunking it in and out of boiling water a couple of times before the final plunge…this being an Italian dish we decided to refrain from terrorising our poor dead eight-legged cephalopodic friend and just plop it straight in the pot.
Pity the green pepper, no wonder it’s a little bitter, here in the UK its sole function is to ‘add a bit of colour’ to that dull and unwanted guest at every barbecue, picnic or family gathering* – the rice and sweetcorn salad. Not so in Spain where the pimiento verde is treated with the respect it deserves and makes …
This is a bit like a kedgeree … but with potatoes instead of rice… and smoked mackerel instead of haddock … and horseradish instead of curry powder… In fact now I think about it, nothing like a kedgeree. In that case, consider this a Salade Niçoise with mackerel replacing the tuna and an absence of olives, green beans and anchovies. …
The arrival of Granny and an aunty to celebrate Yumblog Junior’s second birthday had the added advantage of the potential for babysitting and therefore a rare evening out for the parents. Searching for tasty and cheesy ballast with which to fortify ourselves before what was inevitably going to be a multi-pint boozy night out, we sensibly turned to the ever-dependable …
Sorry about the irregular nature of recent posts but I have recently started a new job in Manchester and feel it would be considerate to my new employer to wait a few weeks before I spend all my working day writing up posts for yumblog. On the plus side I have discovered a superb fishmonger in the Arndale centre which …
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 …
If any of you dodgy lot were to break into Yumblog Cottage, you would probably notice (apart from how bloody cold it is) that despite several shelf loads of cookbooks, there was virtually nothing ‘written’ by TV chefs. No matter how frantically you rummaged, you’d find no Jamie, Nigella, Gordon, Heston, Sophie, Ainsley, Gino, Levi, Hugh or god forbid Nigel. …
…or goat’s cheese pancakes.
