Summer Squeak

New potatoes and asparagus are both in season as I write, closely followed by broad beans and peas.

I think it's true to say that we associate bubble and squeak as an autumn/winter dish using leftover veggies. Why not have a summer squeak with leftover new potatoes and asparagus. Ingredients in season are usually reasonably priced and good deals available.

I appreciate that Jersey Royals are expensive and in my neck of the woods they don't seem to vary that much during their short season. There are however loads of other varieties of new potato out there for example, Cornish new potatoes and your summer squeak could include meat or fish if you wish.

Here's a recipe off the top of my head – this is one of my “fly by the seat of your pants”/”live dangerously” versions! One small tip – when you're doing your shopping ensure that you take account of the extra new potatoes and asparagus or any other veggies needed that you'd like to include in your squeak.

Here goes :

Summer Squeak

Serves 2

350g (ish) cooked new potatoes

1 medium onion, finely diced

200g cooked asparagus, chopped into bite sized pieces

OR

200g fresh peas – raw or cooked

OR

200g broad beans, podded, blanched

and popped from the outer thick skin

OR

a mixture of all three!

Salt and black pepper

30g unsalted butter & glug of rapeseed oil

Melt the oil and butter in a large frying pan, add the diced onion and sauté on a medium heat for 2/3 minutes. Add the potato and mix together, sauté for a further 2/3 minutes. Add the asparagus/peas/beans, combine thoroughly and cook for a further 2/3 minutes.

Serve in a warmed bowl, topped with a poached egg.

As an option if you prefer to add meat. Omit the oil and butter and sauté 200g of finely diced chorizo or diced smoked back bacon and then add the onion and potatoes, followed finally by the veggies.

Hope your squeak is scrumdiddlyumptious!

Many moons ago …

… my Mum worked full-time which included Saturday. My sister and me helped out with chores. Even then I loved to cook – perhaps to strong a word – but in those days we were taught to cook etc., at school – then it was called Housecraft - nostalgia is a wonderful thing.

Anyway I digress. To give perspective I think I should point out that I am going way back almost to the Dark Ages – 1967 ish. The gas cookers of the day were basic and mostly made by a company called De La Rue – by today's standards of the fashionable “range” style they would look like a cooker you'd put in a dolls house despite the fact that they did make different sizes!

Moving on with my story. Mum didn't arrive home from work until 6pm and so we would do what we could towards “tea” as it was called in those days.

One Saturday afternoon I decided I'd make a cake for after “tea”. Full of enthusiasm I opened the box – yep, add an egg, stir and away we go. Obviously I needed a cake tin - found a perfect circular one and the rest, as they say, is history.

It's wasn't rocket science and into the oven went the cake. At the appropriate time I opened the oven door, so excited and oh so horrified to be greeted with the sight of a grotesque mess - it had completely melted – as it would do, since the cake tin I'd chosen with such care was in fact plastic – a twisted molten mess that would qualify as an candidate for an exhibit at Tate Modern! A combination of molten white plastic and a biscuit coloured cake mix all over the oven rack and there was nothing I could do about it …..

except wait for Mum to get home.

When you eventually get to be a grown-up and you've had these little hiccups along the way we should perhaps remind ourselves of how fear clutches at your heart when you're a youngster.

How many times have you heard, “things are never as bad as they seem” - YES THEY ARE I'M LOOKING AT MY MUM'S WRECKED OVEN. Two hours seemed like two weeks until she arrived home and I was able to confess.

How lucky was I – she took one look at it – by now a cooled monster - carefully removed the rack from the oven and consigned it to an outhouse – when she'd stopped laughing – and that is where the expression “a wicked sense of humour” comes from - our Mum had the best!

To finish off my story, some several days later I was summoned to the outhouse where said rack with the twisted Tate Modern offering lay, still in tact. “Stand back” was the command and I watched as Mum swung a very large hammer and whacked the rack and the molten mess split right in two and the rack was as clean as a whistle.

P.s. The rack lasted for years as did Mum's sense of humour.

Scrumdiddlyumptious

To coin a word from the late great Roald Dahl and one that forms part of his Dictionary – there's nothing better than nonsense words to explain what you're trying to say.

This word describes perfectly the Alfredo sauce mentioned in My Quest and, to do the sauce justice, I feel I should elaborate on the flexibility of said sauce apart from using with pasta.

To begin, I served it to my Ladies in a recent class, as a warm dip with rice crackers. I wanted them to taste the sauce in its most simple form – they said “one to be used again and again”, “beautifully smooth velvety sauce” and “so simple and versatile”. As is always the case you can mess with it if you so wish by adding garlic paste.

Its other uses :

Add sautéed mushrooms to the sauce and serve with a smoked chicken breast

Add sautéed mushrooms to the sauce and serve as a crostini topping

Remember the recent Stromboli recipe – use the sauce on the base for a change

instead of tomato paste and add bits and pieces of your choice

- vegetarian or not - whatever takes your fancy

Serve with smoked haddock and asparagus

The sauce, in a covered container, will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days. You can freeze it – but give some thought to the quantities that you'd generally use and freeze accordingly. Note to self – remember the small pots from the baby aisle in your supermarket. These pots are really useful and come in bright colours – easy to see in your freezer but don't take up unnecessary space.

The pots shown in the photograph below are by Vital Baby and come in packs of four. You'll see from the photograph that these little beauties have a tiny non-slip circle on the base so the pots stay where they are put when you are filling them and don't end up on the floor!

I will now shut up about the Alfredo sauce – I hope you love it as much as I do!

My Quest

Following my epiphany at Trattoria La Festa in Stowe my quest was to find a recipe for a light creamy sauce worthy of that bowl of Fettuccine Alfredo. Over the years I've tried so many recipes – some ok, some definitely not.

A couple of years ago I came across “The Leftovers Handbook” by Suzy Bowler – remember what I said in the Guilty Pleasure post about the tab marking system when you're taking your first glance through your new cookery book, here's a photograph of my copy of the book :

The tabs, or rather the number of tabs indicate how good a book this is and I am delighted to report that my quest is over since the book contains, in my view, the best and definitely the nearest version of the sauce I had in Stowe. I know that I've written the words “keep it simple” in the past and time and again this proves to be the case. The bizarre thing is that I've spent hours try to recreate this sauce and it turns out that it takes three ingredients and takes only a few minutes to make.

For ease of reference, here it is :

Alfredo Sauce

Alfredo is traditionally served with pasta – however it's so good and tasty it lends itself to other dishes and particularly leftovers.

1 tbsp unsalted butter

200ml double cream

50g freshly grated Parmesan, plus more for sprinkling

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Gently heat the butter and the cream together, stirring, until the butter has melted, then stir in the Parmesan.

Slowly bring to a gentle boil, turn down the heat and simmer, stir continuously for a minute or so until you have a smooth, creamy sauce.

This sauce can be made ahead.

The above recipe would be sufficient for two servings – enough to coat 225g uncooked pasta. Traditionally there are no additions to Alfredo although I've had it served with petit pois.

Thank you to The Leftovers Handbook – you've made a grumpy old woman very happy!

Sensational Stowe

Stowe, Vermont, USA is sensational and particularly so in our Autumn - Fall in the USA.

On the Upper Mountain Road in Stowe you can find Top Notch at Stowe www.topnotchresort.com a truly luxurious spa et al and yours truly was fortunate enough to stay. You can absorb all the stunning scenery on foot, on a bicycle or, my personal favourite mode of transport, on horseback. You can even ski if that's your thing.

Absolutely random piece of additional information – Vermont is where Ben & Jerry's ice cream began.

Whenever I visit the USA I always pay attention to the weather forecasts – why you may ask – answer - because they're accurate. So, you can imagine that I was slightly concerned when it forecast snow in two days time. Hey, they might be wrong.

You know you can always tell when it has snowed – it's really bright when you wake up in the morning. That'll teach me to pack Wellington boots – pinpoint accuracy as usual – I should have known better than to doubt.

More concern, picture perfect though the snowfall was, that evening dinner was booked next door at Trattoria La Festa 4080 Upper Mountain Road, Stowe, VT 05672 www.trattoriastowe.com (see also La Toscana Country Inn – they have rooms too.) I feel I should clarify “next door” - next door in the UK means exactly that – in the USA and in this instance it's half a mile down the drive out of Top Notch and then a climb up the next drive to the restaurant – you might recall that the address is Upper Mountain Road – emphasis on “mountain”. Did we make it and was it worth the wrecked shoes – you betcha – big time. Without question I was served the best bowl of Fettuccine Alfredo I've ever eaten and more to the point, the only bowl of pasta I've ever finished in my life.

A perfect combination – over indulgence with the pasta and being able to walk it off in such a beautiful place. By the way the Alfredo sauce triggered a mission to recreate it that lasted years.

If you've any sort of holiday destination list, bucket or otherwise I would strongly recommend you add Stowe and Vermont!

A bit of red wine!

Thoughts from a grumpy old woman.

If there's one thing (actually there's more than one) that drives me crazy it's the constant misuse of the English language in particular when applied to the title above - a “bit” refers to a solid, i.e. a morsel of food, of “bite”. To the best of my knowledge red wine is not a solid ….. if you think the same way I apologise because from now on when either watching your favourite cooking show/magazine programme or listening to your radio – in my case crystal set since as I write I know I sound like the grumpiest old woman ever - I now realise I've turned you into a crazy person. I don't care, I've kept this to myself for so long there must be others out there who think as I do.

I appeal to the major culprits of said misuse who are, you may not be surprised to learn - the celebrity chefs – the word to use is “drop” i.e. a small quantity of liquid. You don't need to go to catering college or train as a chef to attain this earth shattering information!

Whilst I'm on the subject, of celebrity chefs that is, I might as well have another moan – in particular relating to kitchen hygiene or rather lack of. Will someone please let these chefs know that wearing a big fat designer wrist watch whilst you are cooking is not a good idea hygienically speaking – if you want to keep an eye on the time pin a fob watch to your whites or better still buy a large kitchen wall clock that can be wiped down and everyone gets the benefit.

I feel so much better having got that off my chest!

I shouldn't have bothered

… to get out of bed!

When I try any recipe for the first time, particularly one of the baking variety, I follow it to the absolute microgram – baking is a science and unless you have super powers you can't wing it!

So, stall set out for the latest trial – a “loaf cake” type of thing. My mise en place is done and I'm ready to rock and roll.

Everything seems to be going swimmingly – not a complicated recipe – it's in the oven and my trusted timer is set. Note to self – whatever timing is given in a recipe I always set mine to at least 5 minutes before that stated. In this case however it didn't help at all.

I don't know why – may be it's just a sight thing – it didn't look right – there's a lot of mixture for the tin bearing in mind it has to rise – or rather I hope it will.

In this case my misgivings proved to be entirely correct and despite the comfort of setting a timer something told me I needed to sneak a peek and look at progress way before the time was up. Thank goodness I did – horror of horrors there was a molten dripping mess oozing over the sides of the tin, on to the baking sheet the tin was on - over the oven shelf the baking sheet was on - over the next two oven shelves and onto its final resting place, the bottom of the oven where (thankfully) I have an oven liner. Note to self if you haven't got an oven liner can I suggest you invest in one!

If at this point you're thinking what's all the fuss is about can I put it another way – have you ever dropped and broken an egg and watched it spread at the speed of light – have you ever knocked over a mug of coffee or a container of milk – it's impossible to stop the spread of liquid and mop it up fast enough before the coffee/milk has accelerated and landed in your cutlery drawer.

The Bionic Man or Woman ain't go nothing on me – oh and don't forget the oven is hot - the faster I tried to stem the flow of the molten lava the messier it got.

The moral of this story, not surprisingly, is that not every recipe is as good as it should be.

Happy baking oh and spare a kind thought for any competitor on the Great British Bake Off when it looks as if they've made a complete hash of what we (obviously sat on our sofas at home) consider to be straight forward baking!