A Birthday Treat

Now I know what the Queen feels like – two birthdays in a year!

A while back my friend asked, “would I like a day in London with lunch at Vanilla Black for my birthday present?” Erm, give me a nano second - yes please!

Before we landed for our 1pm reservation on the day I'd had a look at their website where you can find sample set lunch menus et al. For starters – so sorry - their information is Vanilla Black 17-18 Tooks Court, London EC4A 1LB 020 7242 2622 www.vanillablack.co.uk.

First impressions are good. Friendly and helpful staff and the ambience is great – have a look see

and then comes the menu – such high expectations!

Initially I can't help but think that clearly the current trend is to produce artisan breads and posh butter or mayo as an appetiser. Don't get me wrong – this is not a complaint - I could sit and just eat the bread and butter and be a very happy bunny!

This ain't any old bread and butter – the taller of the two is the cherry with (from memory, I think) sultana – it matters not in flavour terms – it was divine. The shorter offering was quinoa and soy seeds. Better than divine however was the caramelised lemon butter – on a scale of 1-10 – 20!

This is a great start.

By the way, I happened to notice on our way through to our table – a display of Vanilla Black cookery books - the day just gets better.

Confession time

… how much food do you waste?

Whether you do your shopping by trolley in a supermarket or on line and delivered how many times have you succumbed and been sucked into deals that on the face of it sound great without actually thinking through whether you're going to eat the food?

We all fall for it, even if you plan your meals ahead in an attempt to limit waste and not throw money into your recycling bin.

How often have you found, lurking in the depths of your crisper drawer, wizened carrots?

Shamefully, in my case, I recently bought a 300g punnet of mini portabella mushrooms, they were a great deal. They are a particular favourite of mine so I was a pushover. A few busy days later I happened to check the date on said mushrooms and by now they were at least two, if not three days over their “best before date”.

Drat and double drat.

Here's my rescue recipe for the 300g punnet :

melt a glug of rapeseed oil together with

a generous knob of unsalted butter in a large

saucepan (or frying pan if you prefer)

add a tsp of garlic paste or even two if you're

a fan

ensure the mushrooms are clean and slice

them thickly

add the mushrooms to the oil and butter, season

with salt and black pepper

add a generous pinch of oregano (or

garlic Italian seasoning)

add a glug of either dry sherry or red wine

add a vegetable stock pot and let it melt into

your mushrooms

add a drop of water – 100ml

and cook the mushrooms on a medium heat for

2/3 minutes

Let the mushrooms cool and then transfer

to a pour and store bag for the freezer or an ordinary

container with lid if you prefer

freeze until required

Rescue mission complete, here's a few ideas for your frozen mushrooms when you're ready.

Use as :

a base for a soup

part of a pie filling (with chicken for example)

a Crostini topping – really handy if you have unexpected

visitors

a filling for a savoury pancake, adding a glug

or two of double cream

I've mentioned in a previous post that older mushrooms have more flavour and adding a drop of dry sherry or red wine enhances the flavour.

Phew – waste crisis averted!

P.s. Oh and by the way the rescue recipe is not meant to be swamped in liquid, it's meant to be an intense stock with mushrooms in it. When you're ready to use in whichever way you choose you'll add stock or cream to suit your recipe.

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!