This soup kicked off the four courses and is a variation (and dare I say improvement) on a Valentine Warner recipe from the highly recommended ‘What to Eat Now: Spring and Summer’.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 – 25 minutes
Skill level: straightforward if a little faffy for a soup
Serves: 4 as a starter

Ingredients

• 1 large shallot – finely dices
• 1 large cucumber
• fresh podded garden peas – 220g (keep the pods)
• 1 large round lettuce
• butter – 25g
• 2 garlic clove – crushed and chopped
• nutmeg – ¼ tsp or a good grating
• vegetable stock – 400ml
• lemon juice – squeeze
• a handful of cooked prawns
• créme fraîche – 4tbsp
• salt & pepper

Pod the peas.

Next put the pea pods into a saucepan along with the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 5-8 minutes until the pods are tender.

Remove from the heat and when cool enough to handle, pour into a liquidiser.

Liquidise thoroughly and then pass through a sieve into a bowl. Use the back of a ladle to force as much of the liquid out of the pulp. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan and add the chopped shallot and garlic. Cook for about 8 minutes or until translucent but not coloured.

Peel the cucumber, cut in half  lengthways and scoop out (and discard) the seeds. Roughly chop and add to the pan along with the nutmeg and some generous seasoning.

Cook over a medium heat for a further 3-4 minutes until soft and translucent.

Add the peas and the sieved pea pod/stock mixture, cover and simmer gently for 7 or so minutes until the peas are tender. Take care not to overcook.

Remove from the heat and when cool enough to handle, pour into a liquidiser and blitz thoroughly until smooth.

Leave in the liquidiser to cool.

Meanwhile separate the lettuce leaves from the stalk, keeping the stalk as this will add to the flavour (just trim off any brown).

Rinse the leaves and stalk thoroughly in a sieve, drain and roughly chop.

When the soup is cool, add the lettuce and stalk and liquidise until smooth – you’ll probably have to do this in stages as the lettuce is quite bulky.

Add a squeeze of lemon juice, taste and adjust the seasoning.

Pass through a fine sieve into a suitable container and chill in the fridge.

Remove from the fridge and hour before serving as you don’t want it so cold you lose the flavour. Stir in the créme fraîche, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Ladel into the serving bowls and float on a few prawns.

Serve and enjoy.

Verdict: Liquid summer. The use of the pea pods was my audacious ‘improvement’ and I feel it added considerably to the depth of peaness in this soup. The prawns are not essential, however as well as being pretty they also add nice little sweet nuggets of fishiness to the whole experience.

Drink: A good bottle of red from the Frenchman, a not so good bottle of white from the Englishman.

Entertainment: Talk of Rome, Paris and Todmorden.

Yumblog Junior discovers cherries

Preparation time: 20-30 minutes (plus AT LEAST 24 HOURS confiting time)
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2
Recipe: Yotam Ottolenghi

Ingredients

For the confit

• tuna steak – 300g
• 4 rosemary sprigs
• 4 bay leaves
• 3 black peppercorns – 3 tbsp
• extra-virgin olive oil – 350ml

For the salad

• waxy potatoes – peeled and cut into 2cm pieces – 600g
• turmeric – ½ tsp
• anchovies – roughly chopped – 20g
• black peppercorns – 3 tbsp
• harissa paste – 3 tsp
• capers – roughly chopped – 4 tbsp
• preserved lemon – skin, finely chopped – 2 tsp
• black olives – pitted and halved – 60g
• lemon juice – 2 tbsp
• preserved piquillo peppers – torn into rough strips – 140g
• 4 free-range eggs – hard-boiled, peeled and quartered
• 1 little gem lettuce – leaves casually torn
• parsley – roughly chopped – handful
• s & p

For the tuna confit:

AT LEAST 24 HOURS before wanting to eat, put the rosemary, bay and peppercorns in a saucepan, add the oil and heat to just below boiling point.

Place your tuna steak(s) in a suitable sized dish and pour over the oil mixture. Ensure that the tuna is completely covered – if not, heat more oil and top up.

Set aside to cool and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. Turn the tuna over half way through the process.

For the salad:

Boil the potatoes and turmeric in salted water for until cooked.

Drain and put the potatoes in a large bowl. While they are still hot, add the anchovies, harissa, capers, preserved lemon, olives and some salt, along with 90ml of the tuna oil and some of the peppercorns. Mix and leave to cool.

Remove the tuna from the oil, break into bite-sized chunks and add to the salad.

Add the lemon juice, peppers, eggs, lettuce and parsley, toss gently, taste and adjust the seasoning. Add more oil if necessary, and serve.

Verdict: Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a subtle and pointless variation on Salade Niçoise, for this is a spicy (and superior) beast packed to the gills with BIG FLAVOURS and piquant wit. The tuna has the succulency of sashimi, although some might find it a little too ‘raw’ for comfort.

Drink: A few interesting ales and a bottle of provocative red.

Entertainment: Season 4 of ‘Ideal’ has arrived, so have been reacquainting ourselves with Moz, Nikki, Cartoon Head, PC Phil Collins, et al.

Preparation time: 10 minutes plus a few hours (or overnight) for drying*
Cooking time: 15 – 25 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2 as a side

* Not entirely necessary.

Frisk along and collect these

• 3 courgettes – thinly sliced lengthways (use a potato peeler)
• 3 garlic cloves – thinly sliced
• mint leaves – coarsely chopped – a good handful
• balsamic vinegar – 1tsp (or to taste)
• extra-virgin olive oil
• s & p

Place the courgette slices in a single layer on a tea towel and leave to stand overnight to dry.

Heat a little olive oil in a small frying pan and fry the garlic until just turning golden. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Place a lightly oiled griddle pan on a high heat and lay on some courgette strips. Turn over when bottom side is cooked (about a minute) and repeat.

Set aside on some kitchen paper and griddle your next batch of courgettes. Continue until you have run out of courgette to griddle.

Put the garlic, mint, courgette and vinegar in a bowl and mix.

Season to taste.

Serve with a few extra mint leaves and a drizzle of olive oil.

Eat warm or cold.

Verdict: Very good indeed and a pleasant change from our usual salad.

Drink: See ‘Wilted greens and potato with cheese sauce’.

Entertainment: Ditto.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2 – 4

Ingredients

For the salad

• puy lentils – 200g
• 1 bay leaf
• ½ an onion – peeled
• 1 garlic clove – peeled and halved
• A generous bunch of parsley – leaves only – roughly chopped
• ½ red onion – very thinly sliced
• a soft cheese of your choice (we opted for an East Lee which we bought on a recent recce to Todmorden)

For the dressing

• capers – drained, rinsed and finely chopped – 1 tbsp
• olive oil – 3 tbsp
• cider vinegar – 2 tsp
• English mustard – 1 tsp
• caster sugar – 1 tsp
• s & p

Rinse the lentils and put in a pan along with the bay leaf, onion half and garlic.

Add enough cold water to cover by about 1cm.

Place on the hob and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer until the lentils are just cooked but still have a little bite – about 20 minutes.

Drain, and dump the bay leaf, onion and garlic.

Meanwhile make the dressing by combining the chopped capers, olive oil, vinegar, mustard and sugar (easily done by shaking in a jam jar). Taste, and season if necessary.

Warm the cheese in a moderate oven/atop a radiator/on a sunny windowsill/etc.

Mix the warm lentils with the dressing and then lightly toss in the chopped parsley.

Cut the cheese into bite-size pieces and add to the salad along with the sliced red onion.

Give the seasoning one final check and serve.

* A Lancashire Butter Pie – 100% vegetarian (apart from the lard)

Verdict: A substantial, earthy and very tasty salad which has become a regular here at Yumblog Towers. Experiment with different cheeses such as halloumi or possibly even flaked fish.

Drink: A cheeky monday evening bottle of white.

Entertainment: Taking turns to contain a very much more mobile Yumblog Junior … and ‘Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets’ – the Pistou soup looked good.

Yumblog Junior peers over the top of her Containment Box ™

If your griddled halloumi doesn’t adhere to these rules, throw it away and start again.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 2 aubergines – cut into 2cm cubes
• extra virgin olive oil – 3 tbsp
• 410g can of chick peas – rinsed and drained (or soak and cook dried chick peas)
• 1 lemon – peel and pith removed – roughly chopped
• 1 clove of garlic – crushed
• tahini – 1 tbsp
• fresh mint – a generous handful – shredded
• halloumi – 250g pack – cut into 8 slices
• rocket – 100g

Mix together the aubergine cubes and olive oil, season and place in a large non-stick frying pan.

Cook over a medium heat for 15 – 25 minutes or until the aubergine is soft and light brown.

Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile put the chick peas in a large bowl and gently crush with a potato masher.

Add the lemon (including juice), tahini, garlic, mint, seasoning and mix together.

Add the cooled cooked aubergine and combine all the ingredients.

Next place a griddle over a medium heat and dry fry the halloumi for a minute or two on each side. (If it doesn’t look like the diagram, throw away and start again)

To serve, place some rocket on the plate, spoon over the aubergine salad and top with the halloumi. Garnish with a few mint leaves.

Verdict: A quick, easy, tasty and healthy midweek meal which could become a regular on the menu here at Yumblog Towers… be generous with the mint.

Drink: A bottle of red.

Entertainment: ‘Celebrity Masterchef’, week 2. Mark Little is charming. Danielle ‘I shag footballers for a living‘ Lloyd isn’t.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 20ish minutes
Skill level: very easy
Serves: 4

Ingredients

• dried butter beans – soaked, cooked and drained – 350g
• 2 cloves of garlic – chopped
• extra-virgin olive oil – 8 tbsp
• vegetable bouillon – 250ml
• chopped parsley – 3 tbsp
• sea salt and black pepper

Pour the oil into a suitable soup pan and gently saute the garlic to a light gold colour.

Add the butter beans, season with salt and pepper and cook covered for 5 minutes over a medium heat.

Remove about a teacupful of beans and liquidise to a paste.

Return to the pan of remaining beans and add the bouillon.

Simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Stir in the parsley and remove from the heat.

Serve with some toasted crusty bread drizzled with olive oil.

Verdict: Very good in both its soup and salad guises. Obviously, if you prefer you could add extra stock/water for a more liquid soup.

Drink: Co-op organic ale.

Entertainment: The frustratingly equivocal ‘Cloverfield‘ on terrestrial TV which sent us to bed with far too many unanswered giant-Manhattan-eating-monster questions.

Why not splash out and spend three and a half euros on a fancy tin of tuna?

Preparation time: 15 minutes plus time to let the potatoes cool
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients (quantities are fashionably vague)

• new potatoes – boiled, cooled and chopped into smallish pieces – enough for 2 people
• tin of good tuna steak – drained
• 3 hard boiled free-range eggs – roughly chopped
• 1 large ripe tomato – chopped into small pieces
• sun-dried tomatoes – chopped – several
• Jalapeño peppers – sliced – some
• lettuce leaves of your choice
• s & p
• olive oil
• white wine vinegar
• sesame seeds

Put the potatoes, tuna, egg, tomatoes and peppers into a large bowl and mix together with your hands. Season.

Make a generous amount of dressing by mixing together the olive oil and vinegar in a ratio of 4:1.

Pour over the salad, add some sesame seeds and mix together. Check the seasoning.

The salad will benefit from sitting for a short while so that all the flavours can meld together.

To serve, line the dishes with the lettuce leaves and spoon over the salad. Drizzle with a little more peppery olive oil.

Order another beer and enjoy.

Verdict: This was almost as tasty as the one I had on holiday despite it being a damp evening in Bethnal Green. Remember to be generous with the sun dried tomatoes, Jalapeño peppers and olive oil as these all combine to give this salad its zingy kick.

Drink: A bottle of Rosé from the disappointing wine section at the local Co-Op.

Entertainment: ‘New Tricks’ on iPlayer. A not very guilty pleasure here at Yumblog Towers. Who could resist singing along to the theme tune?

Preparation time: 110 minutes plus chilling time, or if using preshelled shrimps, 5 minutes plus chilling time
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 60g unsalted butter
• Juice of 1/4 lemon
• A small pinch of nutmeg
• A small pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 small bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp anchovy essence or paste
• 70g peeled brown shrimps
• Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Melt the butter, add the lemon juice, nutmeg, cayenne, bay leaf and anchovy essence. Simmer on a low heat for two minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool until it’s just warm.

Add the shrimps to the butter mixture and stir well. Season with salt and freshly ground white pepper. Put the mixture in two ramekins or straight onto plates.

If you are not serving them that day, put the ramekins in the fridge and cover with clingfilm.

An hour before serving, remove from the fridge to soften the butter.

Spread on a light brown bread.

Verdict: Despite hearing almost the whole of the Freak Zone whilst standing up peeling the blighters it was well worth it, the subtle flavours of the spices mixed with the butter were utterly delicious and despite thinking we were hard done by with our meagre portions, half a ramekin is pretty filling.

Drink: A glass or two of eau de robinet.

Entertainment: Unreconstructed fag-smoking-Duran-playing Ashes to Ashes.

Yumblog is sticking with the porkies told in our autobiography ‘Yumble Pie’ that we were in fact the Glasgow giants’ star player and gloriously took them to the final of the 1978 Scottish World Cup where we scored a brilliant hat trick in the last minute of extra time. And instead of a lap of honour, Yumblog ran a full marathon – in under three hours – dressed as a giant cock – for fucking charity!

The Germans have no word for ‘Schadenfreude’

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20-30 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 4 as a side dish

Ingredients

• 2 medium aubergines
• 2 large red peppers
• 2 small onions
• olive oil
• garlic – 2-3 cloves – crushed
• parsley – handful – chopped
• anchovies (optional)
• s & p

Lightly coat the vegetables (halve and de-seed the peppers, but keep the aubergines and onions whole) in olive oil and place on a baking tray.

Put in a hot oven and bake until soft, puckered and blackened (like in the lovely photo below). This should take 20-30 minutes.

When cool enough to handle remove the skin from the pepper and aubergine.

Cut the peppers and onions into quarters, the aubergines into slices lengthways, and arrange in a pleasing fashion on a serving dish.

Mix the garlic with a generous slug of olive oil and pour over the vegetables.

Season with course sea salt and sprinkle with the parsley.

Finish off with a few anchovies. Vegetarians could leave these out or substitute with goat’s cheese.

If possible leave for a few hours for the flavours to blend.

Eat cold as a salad or reheat in the oven for a hot dish.

Verdict: Looks good, tastes good and by golly does you good.

Drink: A pair of Meantime before and a few glasses of red during.

Entertainment: Listening to two sisters talking in a way that only sisters can.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: It’s a salad
Skill level: Easy
Serves: 2 as a starter or light lunch

Ingredients

• a dozen juicy, crunchy, peppery radishes
• 1 apple
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• rape seed oil – 1 tbsp
• fresh mint – 12 leaves – shredded
• s & p

Remove the choicest leaves from the radishes and put aside. Slice the radishes to the thickness of a Ten New Pence piece. Quarter and core the apple and also slice to the thickness of a 10p.

Put the leaves, radishes and apple in a suitable bowl.

Mix together the lemon juice and oil and season with salt and a good twist of black pepper.

Pour over the salad and finish off with a scattering of mint.

Hail the very first radish of the season.

Verdict: Refreshing, minty and sharp. Home-grown radishes are far superior to shop-bought.

Drink: H20 and K4E.

Entertainment: Sunday paper.