Fuck the Tories
Tis the season to be marmalading and what better a way of spending your locked-down hours than preparing a two-stage chunky dark marmalade? Imagine your friends’ delight when you deliver to them a jar of this delicious breakfast fodder. Imagine.
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 …
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 …
Ok, so eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that this isn’t technically food, however, it is a recipe of sorts and uses completely benign and edible ingredients. Besides, once we’ve negotiated our glorious no-deal Brexit and the only food available in the shops is powdered egg and chlorinated luncheon meat, we could easily find ourselves rooting around in the bathroom cabinet …
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) …
Traditional Cheese Fondue
Baked stuffed tomatoes from yumblog
On the occasion of impending guests we thought that a butter-rich pastry was the place to start. Then we thought that filling that butter-rich pastry with cream, eggs and cheese might be the very thing. And some wine and a bit more butter. And finally, because we didn’t want our guests to think we were trying to render them obese …
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.
… or an Italian version of a baguette. Not to be confused with the French Stick – the English version of the baguette which is 24 inches of pale bendy disappointment and about as authentic as Peckham Spring Water.
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 …
It’s been a while since we’ve borsched a beetroot so when the Hebden Twins paid a brief visit the other morning and dropped off among other home-grown things, these handsome fellows, we knew exactly what to do with them.
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 …
We had some lovely irregular muddy carrots in our latest Abel & Cole box, so we thought we’d break with tradition and instead of ignoring them for a week until they were as limp as a Young Conservative’s handshake, we’d use them right away …
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 …
…or goat’s cheese pancakes.
The inverted commas are there because this loaf contains no yeast and is actually more of a savoury cake than a bread. This has the added advantage that as well as being pleasantly toothsome, it can also manifest from a wishful inkling to an incontrovertible plateful in just under an hour and a half. That’s quicker than it takes to …
We like a bargain here at Yumblog Cottage, so when we spied the veg stall at Todmorden Market selling large boxes of portobello mushrooms for the VERY reasonable price of two quid, we couldn’t resist. They proved to be the frugal basis of three meals – this, a tasty cream of mushroom soup (recipe in the queue), and a disappointing …
Porcini Mushroom (with Tomato) Sauce This was less of a search for the perfect pasta sauce, and more because we had an empty fridge and needed to knock up something tasty from what is commonly known as ‘store cupboard standbys’. What do you mean you don’t always have porcini mushrooms in the house? Hand in your John Lewis Store Card …
…or potato pancakes with toasted goat’s cheese. Or indeed rosti with toasted goat’s cheese. But another Alsatian dish anyway.
Another visit from the sister and her handsomely mustachioed Frenchman ‘friend’ and another opportunity to push out the culinary boat and prove there are a few people left in this country who still know how to use a knife and fork and don’t think dinner should be deep-fried and served in a bucket. This soup kicked off the four courses …
Here’s a quick and tasty meal to enjoy as the earth’s crust inexplicably crumbles and spews forth molten drivel*.
If you fancy two of your five-a-day smothered in cheese sauce then this is the recipe for you.
Being a puritan and a snob, I wouldn’t normally condone any recipe for pesto which strayed away from the traditional holy trinity of basil, pine nuts and parmesan. Profane variations such as ‘Rocket and walnut’ or ‘Spinach and sun-dried tomatoes’ have a desperate and makeshift ‘Ready Steady Cook’ feel about them, which in my experience never fails to disappoint. FACTOID: …
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 …
This is less of a recipe and more of a reminder to shove a Camembert in the oven once in a while for a fast fatty indulgent treat … and do it soon before this world inexorably unravels to a lawless (and cheeseless) wasteland.
4. Potato and Onion Gratin Remarkably after only 4 (admittedly onion heavy) meals, we have reached the end of our £2 sack of onions. On this occasion they were consenting adults in a cheeky extramarital foursome with potatoes, cream and cheese – resulting in this very rich and even verier delicious gratin.
3. Smothered Onion Sauce (for pasta) When looking for tasty ways to eat our way through a sack of onions it was only natural we turn to The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking‘ by Marcella Hazan, a book which up to now has never failed to deliver excellent pasta sauces. And this is no exception … sweet, unusual and utterly …
1. Vegetarian(ish) French(ish) Onion Soup Around our way virtually every shop sells these 4kg sacks of onions for a very reasonable £2, so we thought we’d buy one and see if we could eat the entire contents in sufficiently varied ways that we didn’t slump into an Allium ennui induced coma. This onion soup is French(ish) because it is made …