I had fond memories of Batchelors Savoury Rice. I remember it magically appearing sometime during the 1970s and becoming a regular teatime favourite along with butterscotch Angel Delight, Dream Topping and Arctic Roll. However, having just sampled three miserable variations, I now know that 30 years can play terrible tricks on the mind, and memories, like failed fireworks, should never …
Happy New Year
This time last year we posted a recipe for ‘Minted Pea & Lettuce Soup‘ with the uplifting introduction “Happy New Year. It’s 2008 and it looks like the year ahead is going to be shit”. Predictions don’t come more accurate than that. So what of 2009? Shitter. Much shitter. Shittier than Shitty Jack McShit after losing his car keys at …
Bass Wrapped in Lettuce
Following a traditional Christmas in Suffolk (Turkey or Quorn roast with all the trimmings, a disappointing episode of Doctor Who and Israel bombing Palestine, etc) we had a second, less traditional Christmas dinner a few days later in Berlin (Some photos here). This lettuce-wrapped bass was the main attraction, served alongside an indulgent Gratin Dauphinois and a flourish of buttered …
Gratin Dauphinois
For the definitive yuletide Gratin Dauphinois recipe to accompany the also-blogged lettuce-wrapped bass we turned to Larousse Gastronomique.
Cheesy Baked Cod with Avocado
A delicate piece of cod smothered with cream and cheddar and then baked along with avocado – now this is a retro dish the great and terrifying Fanny would be proud of.
RIP Woolworths – Farewell Pick’n’Mix
Pot-au-feu
Traditionally this dish was a way of using cheaper cuts of meat and worthy root vegetables and was kept topped up and bubbling away over an open fire indefinitely. This is a gentrified version using a recipe from the archetypal gentleman himself, Gordon (Cheat ‘n’ two veg) Ramsay.
More Christmas gift ideas from Yumblog
A magical winter wonderland treat for all the family
Christmas gift ideas from Yumblog
Milk Loaf
Here we have another superb and satisfyingly time-consuming recipe from Dan Lepard. This one caught my eye because two of the ingredients are cream and golden syrup.
Yumblog launches a unique new magazine
Hi Guys, Yumie Magazine is the exciting new food and lifestyle title from Yumblog. Each issue will be packed with more than 100 rehashed and reheated recipes by us here at Yumie. You can look forward to massively overblown photography and ill-thought out writing from some of the least known ‘celebrities’ in the world today. The magazine is a ‘burnt …
Potato and Oatmeal Soup
What could be more comforting and warming than soup? Porridge perhaps. So why not combine the two and make this silky smooth winter treat. (Remember to take a photograph before you eat all the soup )
Community Payback
Now your whole family can be the pride of the community. A perfect Christmas present exclusive to yumblog and just one click away. Many more designs available from our shop
Happy Christmas from yumblog
It’s the 1st of December, so officially Christmas starts here. Happy Christmas to all our readers. R&D. xxx
Loss in Translition
GREGG WALLACE!’s Pumpkin Fondue
It’s a Hallowe’en tradition at Yumblog Cottage to celebrate the 31st October with this pumpkin fondue devised by the mighty GREGG WALLACE! himself. I say tradition, we made it for the first time last year, however, it is so tasty I am sure we’ll tucking into it again in 2009* Phwaaaar!
CaterPlate®
Last weekend was spent eating and boozing in Oxford and no trip to The City of Dreaming Spires is complete without a visit to the quaint and slightly anachronistic department store Boswells. If you walk through the luggage section, past the Oxford tourist tat, turn left and go downstairs to the basement, you will happen upon an excellent and well …
Yuckblog 6: Basics v Batchelors
A battle between two behemoths here. The ubiquitous high-street-killer Sainsbury’s, and the daddy of dehydrated snack foods, Batchelors – the company which bought us such culinary innovations as Cup-a-Soup and Savoury Rice. So which is the best? Only one way to find out. Food fight. ‘Do not purchase if open or torn‘
Cicatelli with Spinach, Cream & Gorgonzola
The clocks went back this weekend and suddenly it was winter. Time to lay down some much needed winter fat* to sustain us through the long chill months ahead, and what better way then eating refined carbohydrate swimming in cheese and cream.
Cheese Scones
And so it came to pass in dying chill days of October that the idea of soup for lunch started to grow in its appeal and so it was that a pair of Thermos was bought. And then Blogger D did make a rather tasty spinach and rosemary soup. And it had been recommended even on the Waitrose website that …
Delia’s Pickled Beetroot with Shallots
Delia prefers to bake rather than boil her beetroots and then pickle them in red wine vinegar rather than the more usual malt. This, she told me over a Cherry Bakewell, goes to make a milder more beetrooty pickle.
Pickled Onions
You may need some emotional support for this recipe as peeling 2kg of onions can be a long, tedious and tearful process. Not dissimilar to listening to an entire Coldplay album.
A free Christmas card from yumblog
Well freeish. All you have to do is click here to download the pdf, then print, mount on card, trim, fold down the middle and buy a stamp. Get a grown-up to help if necessary and be careful – scissors and scalpels can be sharp and dangerous. Have a safe xmas, R & D. x If you’re making this for …
Yuckblog 5: Splendips Raspberry Cheesecake
Yummy, now for dessert. And what better after a bowl of delicious Asda ‘Good For You!’ Spaghetti in a cheese flavoured sauce with broccoli floret pieces than a raspberry cheesecake? Your dinner guests will be so impressed.
Cep
As the financial markets imploded and governments around the world desperately threw good money after bad, we were at a market in the South of France spending (accidentally) €6.65 on a single mushroom. At the time of writing that’s about a fiver. A fiver for one bleeding mushroom. It had better be good.
Yuckblog 4: Asda ‘Good For You!’ v Ainsley ‘Meal in 5!’
Here we have two cheesy pasta treats which are so enthusiastic they have exclamation marks. One contains real broccoli floret pieces and is good for you!, while the other in ready in 5! and makes the bold claim of being gloriously tasty. ‘Warning requires cooking – in a proper pan!’
Yuckblog 3: Attack a Snak v Lunch Pack
It was obvious from the outset that this was going to be an unfair contest as these products are intended for two very different markets. One is a collection of processed junk cynically targeted at children and the other a holy trinity of ‘Trusted Brands’ marketed to grown-ups. ‘Delicious hot or cold’
Yuckblog 2: Dairylea Lunchables v Brunchettas
In the blue corner, weighing in at 295 calories and boasting no artificial colours or flavours we have ‘Dairylea Lunchables’. And in the red corner, 117 calories lighter but armed with a free plastic handy spreader fork ‘Brunchettas’ ‘Lunchables can make a fun change to a sandwich’
Yuckblog 1: Mug Shot v Asda Pasta Mealpot
A regular game we play to enliven the joyless visit to a supermarket is to hunt down the most ridiculous, unappetising, over-packaged or ill-conceived snack ‘food’ and snarl Duncan Bannatyne style derision at it. However, as enjoyable as this is, I sometimes feel we are just being middle-class OFM-reading wankers and so perhaps should give these products the benefit of …
Coburg Loaf
Always on the look out for novelty bread flours, I came across a packet of Doves Farm organic Barleycorn in Way’ro. It’s a mixture of wheat and barley flours, malted barley flakes and linseed. Apparently this loaf was one of two things named in honour of Prince Albert.
Chewy Light Rye Bread
I had to give this one a try, if only because it contains treacle, soggy Ryvita and onion. What’s more, it takes a whole weekend to make.
Pullum Frontonianum (Chicken a la Fronto) – Part 2
And so to the cooking of the chicken in the name research for Archaeologist T. That rainy weekend we hastened to Cirencester and having paused briefly at a local butcher selling free range chicken, we hurried on to Waitrose where we knew an organic beast would be waiting. Artist impession of how Pullum Frontoniaum may have looked in olden Roman …
Borsch
A family gathering in Suffolk this weekend meant I was able to plunder my sister’s vegetable patch and return home with a binbags worth of wonderful homegrown produce. Along with a variety of beans, carrots and onions, my swag consisted of several kilos of beetroot as big as your face. The obvious thing to do was to make a bucket …
Squid with Lentils and Preserved Lemon
A Squid (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) is a very sensitive magnetometer used to measure extremely small magnetic fields and is based on a superconducting loop containing Josephson junctions. Less well known, it is also a tasty fishy treat which it turns out, goes very well with lentils. “If animal trapped call 410-844-6286” — Baltimore, traditional.
Minestrone Soup
As 10 CC once said: “Life is a minestrone wrapped up in Parma ham/cheese. Death is an old D’Artagnan, suspenders in deep freeze”. Or something like that. Purple Podded Peas from Gwydwr’s garden
Lager Batons
After the sourdough fiasco I felt the need to purge the memory by baking something successfully. This is a handy recipe as it uses only store cupboard essentials: flour, salt, yeast, honey and lager.
Sourdough Fiasco
Ok, so we now have our sourdough starter sitting ominously in a jar at the back of the fridge gently seeping brown water. Time to make some bread. For a recipe I turn to the Observer Organic Allotment Blog and follow their elaborate and long-winded instructions to the letter.
Making a Sourdough Starter
If you believe the hype (well in my narrow Guardian reading world anyway) everyone in credit crunch UK is now an artisan baker spending their precious downtime in the kitchen fashioning crusty bloomers and squeezing out granary torpedoes. Generally (and childishly) if I find myself on a bandwagon I have the irrestable urge to jump off and find a more …
Rosemary Focaccia
On Saturday we went to a rain-drenched Oxford and had lunch at the highly recommended Branca Restaurant. Before tucking into fried calamari with lemon and chilli dressing followed by a big fat skate wing with scallops and mash, I soaked up the house red by nibbling away at some fine rosemary focaccia. So fine in fact, that I had to …