It’s ok, put the dogs back in their kennels, tether the steed, the search is over, we’ve found it. The perfect white bread f’toasting is here and even better hardly any kneading is needed. Brilliant.
(The Perfect) White Bread (Toaster)
Vegetarian
3 Cheese Risotto
…which makes this three times better than a mono cheesed risotto.
Fennel & Green Bean Soup with Ricotta Toasts
When it comes to fennel, my co-blogger has a cool detachment only slightly less chilly than her contempt for cauliflower. This recipe was an attempt to warm her to the idea of eating this hardy, perennial, anethole-rich, umbelliferous herb. Success was moderate.
In Search of…the Perfect Pasta Sauce No 4
Pesto Although I’ve made pesto many times before, I’ve generally haphazardly chucked the ingredients into the food processor and left it to chance. Despite the results usually being good, I thought it was about time I consulted the mama of authentic Italian home cooking, Marcella Hazan and see if she had an angle on this classic sauce. And indeed she …
Lemon Thyme Cake
I’d never made a lemon cake before and we have thyme aplenty on the balcony so how about a lemon thyme cake as featured in the Observer mag a few weeks ago? Oh and the cake master herself was coming to visit Yumblog Junior, perhaps I could show off my culinary skills – she’s tasted my flapjacks and chocolate biscuits, …
Yumblog Celebrates 100 Days of the BIG SOCIETY
If you had any doubts about the half-arsed nature of Dandruff Dave’s BIG SOCIETY, visit the official website.
Shakshuka
There are some recipes you can taste just by reading them. This was one such recipe and it read delicious.
Raspberry Flapjack
Bored with biscuits out of off of the cupboard? Want to eat a flapjack that will taste nothing like the dense sugar marathons that you can get in packets labelled ‘Mrs Futtocks’ home-baked country goodness treats’? Have you a spare half hour? I have the answer.
Chocolate & Honey Meringue
In our new guise as parents we have entered a world where being invited to someone’s house for lunch doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be leaving at midnight having drunk the Rhone valley dry. It’s novel and despite our underlying fatigue, sensible drinking on a weekend still seems inherently wrong. So we had been invited round for salmon barbecued …
Jme’s Double Chocolate Biscuit
In the lull between milk extraction and nappy changing I remembered the vast amounts of 85% plain chocolate I had bought and sought to put some of it to work. I was looking for a chocolate biscuit with a melty bit as I’d never made one before and none of my books could help. A quick google later and Jme …
Minted Chick Pea & Aubergine Salad with Griddled Halloumi
In the spirit of Dandruff Dave’s Big Society we here at Yumblog have served each other redundancy notices so that you, dear reader, can volunteer and write this blog yourself. So come on Dirk, Tony, Helen, Scooter McKenzie, Mimsy Swallows, Zucchini Breath, Briony Bob et al, step forward and become part of this radical new age of Victorian philanthropy. We’re …
Paccheri with Roasted Peppers
Mealtimes have changed here at Yumblog Towers. Top scientists have proved there is now a 99.74% certainty that as soon as we plate up, pull the cork and sit down to enjoy our evening meal, Yumblog Junior will wake from her slumber/get bored with whatever devious distraction we have devised for her, and demand our total and unconditional attention. As …
Aligot
For anyone who hasn’t eaten this butter and cheese laden French take on mashed potato let me tell you it is more comforting than being hugged by a 6 foot Angora rabbit with a PhD in Applied Cuddling. More comforting than lying in a bath of warm Lenor as a Labrador puppy nuzzles your neck and Nurse Gladys Emmanuel whispers …
HF-W’s ‘Ginger’ Lemonade
The ginger is in inverted commas because this ‘ginger’ lemonade didn’t turn out to be particularly gingery. HF-W specifies you use a piece of ginger the size of a thumb, so I can only assume he is the proud owner of digiti primi as big as cucumbers … great for hitchhiking but about as arbitrary as a cup as a …
Elote (Corn on the cob with mayo, cheese & chilli)
I’ll never forget the charming little threadbare street vendor on the dusty corner of Presa Las Virgenes and Paseo de la Reforma where we would regularly purchase our Elotes at the end of a frantic day’s shoot. We’d take these tasty corn ‘popsicles’ up to the terracotta rooftops of our rambling majestic casa and accompanied by an iced bottle of …
Chilled Pea(+pod) & Mint Soup
Readers who feel more comfortable living their lives to a strict set of arbitrary rules will be pleased to discover this recipe adheres to the Four ‘S’ Dictum of Culinary Correctness: 1. Fresh peas are currently available – Seasonal. 2. Our balcony is resplendent with home-grown mint – Sustainable. 3. It’s eaten cold and it’s hot outside – Summery. 4. …
Butterbean Soup?
The question mark is there because if eaten immediately this is a thick wholesome soup, but if left in the fridge overnight and eaten cold, it miraculously transforms into a tasty bean salad. Two different foodstuffs for the price (and effort) of one. Well bargain, innit.
Chickpea Soup
The chefs at our flagship eatery ‘Chez Yumblog’ are always on the look out for new and exciting ways to add the humble, nutritious and CHEAP chickpea to the menu. Consequently there was much excitement in the kitchen when Pascal le Plongeur nervously presented this recipe to the Kitchen Porter, who passed it on to the Commis Chef, who passed …
In Search of…the Perfect Pasta Sauce No 3
Tomato & Cream Sauce The third in this occasional series and the third taken from ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking‘ by Marcella Hazan. The marketing department here at Yumblog (Yumedia Communications) believe this to be the most comprehensive, authentic and definitive cookbook on the subject, so if you like Italian food (and who doesn’t) you should really consider investing …
Cheese S’gone
Victor: A scone and tea at half past three, makes the day a little brighter. So you can keep your cakes and fancy tarts…. Jack and Victor: …and stick them up your shiter.
Baked Beans on Toast
Relax, these are obviously middle-class baked beans which involve overnight soaking, an hour and a half in the oven and plenty of extra virgin olive oil. Preparation time: 10 minutes + overnight soaking Cooking time: 1.5 hours Skill level: easy Serves: 2 Ingredients For the Baked Beans dried pinto beans – enough for 2 (about 150g) 1 bulb of garlic …
Feta & Leek Borek
This recipe is from the poetically titled and yet to be published ‘Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume‘ by Silvena Rowe which was featured in the latest OFM. If this and the other published recipes are anything to go by, this particular publication could well be joining the myriad cookbooks gracing the West Wall of the Keith Talent Wing in the …
Dr Yum Gourmet Crispbread
This recipe was the result of a pioneering scientific experiment to recreate something similar to Dr. Karg Crispbreads which, despite their medical honorific and Teutonic wholemeal worthiness are surprisingly tasty and addictive – especially if topped with a wedge of Extra Mature and a dollop of Branston. And so to the experiment…not being experts in this particular field, we first went …
Arnhem Biscuits
Another Simon Hopkinson recipe, although this time one he borrowed from a cookbook written by Roald Dahl, who in his turn took it from a nice man in Arnhem who made these tasties at his patisserie. Judging by the photo in the (subsequently purchased and truly delightful) Roald Dahl book, these biscuits aren’t quite the right shape but they are …
Raymond Blanc’s Tomato Risotto
OK, so you’ve spent most the weekend in the lab distilling your tomato essence, now to put it into action as the base for this rather delicious Tomato Risotto.
Green Pancakes with Lime Butter
Exhausted by the weeks of avoiding the electioneering and depressed at the prospect that this would no doubt be our last weekend under an (admittedly crap) Labour government, we felt the need for something both fortifying and cheery for breakfast. Turning to a small Yotam Ottolenghi recipe book which had recently plopped out of the Guardian we happened upon this …
Onion Rolls
Hmm, onions, hmm, bread, hmm, onion bread, hmm, onion bread in individual portions, hmm, lovely lunch. Preparation time: 3½ hours (well it is a Dan Lepard recipe) Cooking time: 25 minutes Skill level: Medium Makes: 16 rolls Ingredients onions – sliced thinly – 400g strong wholemeal flour – 100g strong white flour – 500g (plus extra for shaping) sunflower oil …
Mushroom, Spring Greens & Lincolnshire Poacher Toasts
It’s finals week and MasterChef has entered the wacky ‘It’s a Knock Out’ stage. The three finalists are being set some fairly arbitrary ‘tough’ tasks such as last night when they were shipped out to Jodhpur in order to cook for some royal toffs in 120 degrees of heat. No doubt tonight they’ll be forced to run around the kitchen …
Hot Cross Buns
What to do on Easter Sunday when you’ve already filled the cupboards with tasties but there is a sweet tea-time shaped hole in the kitchen – it’s actually a hatch, but I saw Doctor Who and I know all about holes and cracks in walls and time/space continua and giant eyes. So anyway, hot cross buns. With a twist. I, …
Parsley Pikelet
Another slightly involved yet very tasty recipe from the mighty Dan ‘Love Bites’ Lepard. The slightly involved element is both understatement and DL raison d’etre and doubtless all his recipes benefit from the multi-tiered preparation, but SOMETIMES you want to make something you can eat while you can still remember starting the recipe. These are good though. Preparation time: 10 …
An Early Valentines Meal
Ricotta & Parsley Ravioli with Tomato & Cream Sauce The offer of some Valentine themed goodies from our friends at Interflora and a cooking apron from our latest chums at The Last detail, prompted us to cook up something which would make an ideal romantic dinner for two. Besides, it was the day before the day before Blogger-D’s birthday – …
Colcannon Soup
The recent bracing wave of cold and snow prompted a frenzy of soup making here at Yumblog Towers. Of the many and tasty varieties produced few warmed the cockles more than this Colcannon, which is rich, smooth, buttery and fundamentally Bubble and Squeak in an easy to ingest liquid form. So good you’ll want to stick it on the wall. …
One-Pan Pasta With Garlic and Oil
Recently BluSky Innoventions™ the ‘Pseudo-Science, Holistic Wellness, Quantum Synergy & Bio-Weapons Division’ of Yumblog Holdings Plc was given an obscenely large EU grant to investigate whether it is necessary to cook pasta traditionally in a large volume of boiling water, or whether it could be prepared ‘risotto’ style in the merest covering of liquid. Our groundbreaking and highly controversial findings …
Pan Heggerty
If our recent trip to Prague is anything to go by, it would appear the only vegetarian option available in the Czech Republic is deep fried Edam with boiled potatoes. Nothing wrong with that of course – cheese and spuds are two of my favourite food groups especially if the former is heavily grated over the latter and grilled to …
Parkin
Residents only. Another HF-W recipe from the Guardian magazine. His ability to tap into the Blogger-D taste-psyche is uncanny. Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 50 – 60 minutes Skill level: easy Makes: So much you’ll end up feeding it to the squirrels Recipe: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Ingredients medium oatmeal – 340g plain flour – 185g soft brown sugar – 2 …
Carrot, Parsnip & Horseradish Gratin
‘Remember to take a photograph before you have eat it … otherwise you’ll have to resort to using AI to cobbling together a clumsy visual metaphor’ What better way to round off a sunday in which not only have you built the worlds most magnificent shelving ‘solution’ from scratch (and wood) but also found the time to watch a (double) …
Cheese & Beer Bread
This is a recipe from the Hairy Bakers/Bikers. It’s meant to contain brown ale but we didn’t have any so instead I used an alcohol-free driving Cobra which was gathering dust in the fridge. Let’s be honest, it was never going to get drunk. Preparation time: 30 minutes plus 2 hours rising time Cooking time: 25-30 minutes Skill level: easy …
Cheesy Lemons with Basil Oil
I found this Lemony Cheese delight in a back issue of the excellent Donna Hay magazine – the eponymous title from food editor, best-selling cookery writer, and from what I can gather, Queen of Australia.
Review: Abel & Cole Gorgonzola Dolce (Roasted Tomato and Gorgonzola Tarts with Balsamic Vinegar Caramel)
If you follow the link you’ll discover this young Gorgonzola came to us from Sardinia via Acton. Roasted Tomato and Gorgonzola Tarts with Balsamic Vinegar Caramel Preparation time: 10 minutes plus 3 hours drying Cooking time: 35 minutes Skill level: easy Serves: 4 as a starter or 2 as a main Recipe: Way’ro website Ingredients 8 plum tomatoes – halved …
Cloudy Lemonade
When God gives you lemons, make lemonade. Two things. Firstly everyone who blogs up a lemonade recipe starts with this proverb and secondly there is no God. There is however a Waitrose, which is where we got our unwaxed fruit. So more accurately, when you go to Waitrose to buy lemons to make lemonade, make lemonade. Preparation time: 5 minutes …