Jottage from Lancaster - Spinach, Penne and Cheese Spouffle

Although I had bought some nice whiting to eat tonight, I just couldn't resist making Spinach, Penne and Cheese Spouffle. It took a lot of saucepans - I think I used 3 or 4 in the end, as well as a bowl and numerous ladles, spoons and knives, my electric mixer and a cheese grater. It was one of those things that are described as 'simple' suppers but which take quite a bit of preparation. The recipe in Veg Everyday was for 4 portions so I halved it and somehow the ingredients looked very sparse. Just 37g of cheese, 50g of pasta and 25g each of butter and flour. I couldn't see it ever making anything substantial. Even half a packet of spinach wilted down to a little bit at the bottom of the saucepan. I was convinced that somehow it wouldn't come out to much. 


Optimistically I prepared it and put it all into a nice Laura Ashley oven proof dish and popped it into the oven. After 30 minutes it came out and looked just lovely. It was just a bit brown on the top and creamy and delicious in the middle. And it tasted wonderful. And even though there wasn't much of anything in it, it felt like a good meal. This picture makes it look almost like an omelette but in fact it was quite deep and there was easily enough for 2 of us.

It all took a little longer to make as I was totting up calories as I went along. I reckon this was 430 calories per portion. For such a nourishing and sustaining meal I think that's quite good. This is a recipe that I think I will return to again and again. In the book, Hugh gives an alternative with courgettes and I can't wait to have a go at that.

Jottage from Lancaster - Boring Diet Stuff 1

There's nothing much more boring than people going on about dieting and I know that I am one of the worst. I have some 50+ years of trying to lose extra weight and like a lot of other people before me, the constant dieting has done nothing more than add weight over time. But even so I always want to find the perfect diet and never quite learn my lesson. So it was with some glee that I pounced on Hugh's anti-Atkins diet which he puts in his book Hugh Fearnley Eats-it-All. I have had a modicum of success with the Atkins diet, and I actually enjoy it, but even I can see that it isn't terribly sensible for me for the long term. I like my fruit and veg too much.

Today is supposed to be Happy Monday and so it may well be a good diet to start yet another diet. So here is Hugh's anti-Atkins diet which I propose to have a shot at.

Hugh's anti-Atkins diet
This is principally a diet for energy and health, not weight loss, but serious fatties will probably find the kilos fall off. By rights I should earn billions for this, as it is guaranteed to keep you well-nourished and fit for the rest of your life. But here it is, gratis, from the goodness of my happy, healthy heart:
For breakfast: Eat a bunch of fresh fruit. Then, if you're still really hungry, have a piece of toast.
Mid-morning snack: Eat more fruit. Then, if you're still really hungry, have another piece of toast.
Lunch: Eat a bunch of veg. Raw if possible. If you're still hungry, have a sandwich (but not two), or a piece of chicken, or a lump of cheese (but not both). Eat with juice or water, not Coca Cola or Fanta.
Mid-afternoon: Have another piece of fruit. If it's a bad day, have a biscuit too.
Supper: Eat whatever the hell you like. If you're actually trying to lose weight, eat whatever the hell you like, but not too much of it.

I am not going to carry on with a blog about dieting as that would be too boring, even for me - but suffice it to say that I will now be counting calories when I make anything.

Jottage from Cambridge: Meals for Rainy Days: Pinto bean chilli and North African squash and chickpea stew

Chickpeas stewing away

Pinto bean chilli

Luckily for my parents I never came home from school one day declaring that I had turned vegetarian, and would never ever be tempted by sausages or bacon again. Growing up surrounded by farms full of plump chickens and cows grazing in lush green fields I can’t imagine the horror they would have felt from such a statement. However, although I have never completely renounced meat, I’ve never been afraid of nut cutlets, and I was over the moon when a large Amazon package arrived containing Hugh’s Veg book (a birthday present from my mother). With this addition to our collection of cookbooks Theo and I have decided to have one vegetarian meal every week. (In fact I was a little tempted to suggest that we both become vegetarian for a month, but this seemed a bit drastic.) I am certain we will save a few pennies as meat seems to be terribly expensive these days. Whenever I go to the supermarket, I am always amazed at the prices – who wants to pay £6 for a small pack of some miserable looking chicken breasts? Also, it seems terribly healthy eating beans and lentils – though I must never tell Theo that I’ve added lentils to anything as he claims he doesn’t like them. Having just read the introduction to Hugh’s Veg book (and made two of the recipes in it) I am in absolute agreement that meat free dishes have what he describes as ‘tastes, scents and textures’ that both ‘tempt and gratify’. 

I thought I would try out a couple of the recipes yesterday as Tristan seemed content crawling about the floor, and the sizzling sounds of onions frying, and smells of turmeric, ginger and cinnamon wafting around the kitchen couldn’t do any harm to his cheerful mood. It was a drizzly day in Cambridge and, looking at my washing outside which has been damp for days, I began to assemble all the ingredients I would need – pots of cumin, ginger, cinnamon, as well as all the vegetables sitting in the bottom of the fridge. I decided to make the Pinto Bean Chilli and African Squash and Chickpea stew. (n.b.  making vege dishes in tandem is very easy, as there are no concerns about knifes, pans and chopping boards becoming contaminated with raw meat and needing to be washed up quickly.) I left out a few ingredients from both recipes: the wine, oregano and coriander from the Pinto Bean Chilli, and the celery and coriander from the stew. However, looking at the variety of colours of the veg and spices in the pans, I was satisfied that both meals would be delicious. 

Tristan had the stew for his dinner (the squash was squashy enough so no blending was necessary) and, although I received a few grudging looks, he ate quite a lot of it. I, meanwhile, decided to try and Pinto Bean Chilli, and put some generous spoonfuls in a tortilla wrap. Although I had soaked the pinto beans overnight they were still a bit hard (they didn’t have any tins of pinto beans in Sainsbury’s), but overall it was a perfect meal. Tonight we are going to try the stew and, as long as I remember not to tell Theo about the lentils, I am sure it is also going to be a success. 

Jottage from Lancaster - North African Squash and Chickpea Stew

It's been a few days of bright sunny days here with hard frosts in the morning, barely clearing in the daytime.  Geocaching hasn't really been possible with all the rain we have had recently but we went out yesterday morning and the frozen ground made it far less muddy than we expected. So today we thought we would tackle another couple of caches.  One was very high, but as we knew that before we set out, we packed a small stepladder into the car and carried it over a stile, across a field and down a flight of stairs to a gloomy railway tunnel under the M6 to find it nicely placed within reach if you were on the top step. 


Our second cache of the day we knew was tricky to get as it was a very muddy path to get to it. When we saw the path it wasn't so much a track as a small swampy stream but a helpful passing lady told us we could avoid that by walking through her garden. And this we did, but then we hit what looked like a deeply frozen patch of thick mud. Unfortunately the frozen surface was only an illusion and immediately we were plunged into several inches of thick, claggy mud, churned up by cows by a gateway. We waded through this and I lost my shoe but John managed to pull it out. 


After finding the cache we thought that the original path may have been the best one after all. So we ventured that way only to realise our mistake very quickly. It was horrible. There were hedges either side of hawthorn - nothing easy to hang on to - and almost immediately the hedge thorns helped themselves to my woolly gloves and then sprung back away from me so I had to wade back through the mud to retrieve them. Then as my foot went deeper and deeper I realised I had lost both my shoes into the mire. John bravely went back to try and get them, he had Wellingtons on but it didn't help a lot. One shoe came out, almost unrecognisably thick with mud but the other stubbornly refused to budge and although he delved deeper and deeper with bare hands it had gone for good. By now I had given up walking and managed with difficulty to crawl along the horrible muddy track (and remember, it wasn't just muddy - the ground temperature was at freezing too). I walked back the final quarter of a mile to the car along a decent track but we were both really miserable - cold, very, very muddy and dirty and generally despondent. Nothing mattered but getting home and throwing everything into the washing machine and then sitting by the fire. 

North African Squash and Chickpea Stew

This may not have much to do with cooking, but as anyone knows, having something nice and warming to eat cheers up the soul as well as anything. Tonight I had decided to cook from the Veg Everyday book and the target was North African Squash and Chickpea Stew. It looked warming with lots of lovely spices and it wasn't much trouble to make up. In the end I made it in my new massive cast iron casserole dish and then cooked it on the wood burning stove. Even just looking at it made me feel better and it was really comforting to eat. It was supposed to make 6 portions but we both had seconds. I then threw in some chorizo and there is now another meal for tomorrow night. Definitely feel good comfort food and like the pinto bean casserole, it seems a very versatile dish that can be brought out again and again.

With added chorizo

We have both now recovered from our adventures but it was really unpleasant and we both felt it wasn't worth it. But we both know in our heart of hearts that we would do just the same again...

Jottage from Lancaster - Jam Roly Poly

This is a blog which charts a momentous moment (if such a moment can exist). Heather bought John a birthday card with a recipe for Jam Roly Poly on it - and gave him a challenge to actually make one. Anyone who knows John will know about his skills with toast, eggs (boiled AND poached) and maybe Shreddies. But no one would ever associate him with baking, even though all of us suspected he would actually enjoy 

it if he tried it.


But today he decided would be the day he had a go. We had the birthday card with the details, but it was a bit vague - needing a bit of egg, a dash of sugar, a pinch of salt, so we ventured on to the internet to find a clear and unambiguous recipe. We ended up with a Nigella one - Hugh's flaming jam roly poly looked fun - but maybe a tad advanced for a beginner...


Steaming a jam roly poly is all very well, but I don't have a steamer which it would fit so we wanted something we could put into the oven. We needed suet, and our trip to the Post Office in Wray soon yielded the familiar red, yellow and blue packet (how old is the design for Atora suet? are there any other kinds of suet? how long will the rest of his packet languish in my cupboard?)

With surprising ease, he followed all the instructions and with only a little prompting from me not to put in the last ounce of flour left in the bottom of the packet 'just to finish it up' - it all seemed to be coming together.

A little fuzzy uncertainty along the way...

So the resultant rather floppy, messy jam roly poly went into the oven for 40 or so minutes.

Uncooked jam roly poly

And after 40 mins the finished pud.

Definitely a success and we gobbled up a sizeable portion each with custard while sitting by the fire looking at the drizzly rain outside. Perfection!

Jottage from Cambridge - Digestives

I wasn’t all that thrilled that it was Monday yesterday either (see previous post). My poor husband left for work at the crack of dawn to attend an early morning meeting, and it already felt like it was going to be a long week. However I did have something to look forward to. A couple of my close friends were coming round with their babies, and I had promised them tea and cake. However, not quite having the strength to make a cake I thought I would make Hugh’s digestives (Everyday, p.88) which my mum had told me were delicious. I set to work taking out all the ingredients I would need and assembling them on the kitchen table. Theo and I have a very impressive range of sugars so I wasn’t surprised to find that I had the required soft brown variety. The biscuits took no time at all to make and I thought they looked quite tasty when I took them out of the oven. I was just relaxing with Tristan when another friend mailed to say she was in town and was I doing anything. I decided to invite her to the house too, but that would require making another batch of biscuits as the pile I had made looked a bit paltry for four adults. 

James, Tristan, Isabel and Margot 

I had actually made a big batch of dough (Hugh says that it keeps in the fridge for a few days) so all I had to do was warm it up with my hands (it turns as hard as rock after an hour or two in the cold), roll out and put in the oven. So, by 2.30 when everyone arrived the kettle was on and I had a nice looking plate of biscuits. I decided to add a few chocolate digestives that I had in the cupboard just in case my homemade ones weren’t all that pleasant. So the outcome … Well either no-one was that hungry or my biscuits weren’t especially good. Alas, I think probably the latter. They were far too salty, and certainly to be kept well away from the babies. I did actually give Tristan a bit of one but he wasn’t that interested – though it wasn’t yellow and banana-shaped so not all that surprising. I reluctantly ate a couple but the pile remained undisturbed for most of the afternoon. 

Uneaten plate of digestives (the plate looked the same after all the tea had been drunk)

Everyone was too polite to take the McVities as I had made such a fuss about making my own biscuits (to the extent that I told everyone that they had been invited round purely so I could write a new post for my blog). I tried to tempt Theo when he got back from work but he nibbled the corner of one and then agreed with me that they were far too salty. So, that was my first Hugh disaster. I might try them again without salt, but for now I will be content with the shop-bought kind. 

Jottage from Lancaster - Blue Monday and Pinto Bean Chilli

It's apparently blue Monday. The day that people are most depressed. And I am. It's only the nitpickers amongst you that would point out a) that it's Sunday and b) blue Monday is at the end of January not the beginning. However, I am blue and so it is with a heavy heart (but strong arms) that I picked up Hugh's weighty River Cottage Veg that Heather gave me for Christmas. But the prose and the lovely pictures soon made me forget (to some extent) my Blue-Monday/Sunday-ness and just reading his section on Comfort Food made me realise that if I picked myself up and did a bit of cooking then I might feel a whole lot better. 


The chosen pick-me-up recipe was Pinto Bean Chilli - which looked warming, comforting, just the thing. I had all the ingredients (well, I didn't have courgettes but that didn't seem important and I'm not that keen on them anyway) and so I have been cutting up veg, opening a couple of tins and mixing, gently frying, and pestling and mortaring myself into calmness. 


I hauled out the last couple of peppers from the fridge and used the second as a substitute for the missing courgettes. It's after Christmas and I couldn't divulge the sell-by date on the packet but let's just say they needed finishing. I am doing some buttery leeks and cabbage with it (River Cottage Everyday), which is one of my favourite recipes. 


Out of the oven it comes...

                                                  ...and after lunch the verdict.


This really is comfort food. I wanted to serve it up in nice rustic bowls but I didn't have anything like that, and maybe a nice chunk of home made bread to mop up the juices - but the cabbage/leek combo was lovely. I am very pleased that I only added about half a little red chili rather than 2-3 green chilies (to taste), as it is very hot. What is striking is that it seems to be a very versatile recipe. Hugh recommends serving it up with a lot of little accompaniments, and I think that would work really well. Or adding a poached egg would be really nice (Hugh says that a poached egg would go well with practically anything), but you could add chorizo or a bit of pork or even chicken and it would be lovely for meat eaters too. 


So the blues are now chased away and I still have enough in the pot to make at least another full meal for 2 of us. From now on I will make sure I have a tin of pinto beans in the cupboard if they strike on the last Monday of January!

Jottage from Lancaster/Cambridge - The Victoria Sponge (Birthday Cake)

There is nothing that John likes more than a nice Victoria Sponge and so the Family Cookbook seemed to provide the answer to provide him with favourite cake all ready for his birthday tomorrow. As Heather, Theo and Tristan are still up for Christmas then it makes sense to celebrate before they go home tomorrow so we decided to get the cake made today then we could all celebrate together tonight.


Heather gathered all the ingredients together on the kitchen table and prepared for making the cake, something she is very good at, but even so she struggled slightly with the complexities of the Family Cookbook - which may well be easy for beginners, but seemed to have a lot of steps for the old hands. Note that the tomato ketchup on the table isn't actually one of the ingredients, but is just still there from last night's Shepherd's Pie (Hugh's Mum's recipe).

She had some trouble with my oven and I couldn't quite work out why I noticed straight away that she had put on the top oven when she meant to put on the main one. More often than not, I do the same and never notice for an hour after I have left maybe a good sized piece of lamb in a cold oven while the top oven is spewing out smoke from the burnt bits that are coating the grill pan I keep in there. However, after a little longer than the recipe called for, these 2 golden rounds of cake appeared.

We had some debate about adding whipped double cream or buttercream along with the jam as a filling, but John loves it just with jam and nothing else, so we stuck to Hugh's instructions faithfully. We have some lovely strawberry jam and of course, as everyone in our family never attains an age over 57, we can use the candles yet again (see Pheasant and Chorizo - birthday celebrations).


And the final filled cake (without the candles) with the cook...

...and the birthday boy cutting it with the musical knife merrily playing 'Happy Birthday to you!'

Now he has a new Kobo and a Bjork app for his iPad to keep him quiet for a few hours.


By common consent the cake was voted about the best ever birthday cake anyone could hope for. Seconds all round!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jottage from Lancaster/Cambridge - Lemon Tart

I have been lacking a bit in inspiration over the festive season, hence not putting up any new posts at all. However I couldn’t resist reporting on the concoction of a very delicious lemon tart. The recipe came from the River Cottage Family Cookbook (pp. 52-3) – one of my Christmas presents. The book is full of lovely pictures and is clearly meant to be used by young children (there are quite a few pictures of cute kids peeling, chopping and eating things). It is neatly divided up into the major food groups – flour, milk, eggs etc. – with descriptions at the beginning of each chapter about what extraordinary things can be created from the most basic ingredients. The lemon tart was the most obvious thing to make as my mother had already bought a load of lemons, and my husband adores lemon tart more than pretty much anything else. Supermarket brands of lemon tart are generally pretty good, and for about 3.99 you can get yourself a nice tart which might even be sprinkled with some icing sugar. I was intrigued to know what it would taste like if I made it myself though.

Ethan and Amelia making breadcrumbs from butter and flour

This was my first attempt at making a lemon tart and I had no idea how time-consuming it was going to be. Hugh’s recipe was fairly straightforward  but there were a surprising number of steps and not much explanation at certain points – for example, he didn’t explain why the pastry needed to be pricked with a fork, or why a baking sheet needed to be warmed up in the oven. Also, what on earth are baking beans for and what would have happened if we hadn’t used them? Pastry is pretty fragile stuff it seems, and needs a lot of care and attention. I gathered the assistance of my 5 year old nephew, Ethan, and 2 year old niece Amelia, and – as the pictures below reveal – they got stuck in mixing the flour and butter together.

Tristan making sure that we follow the recipe correctly

However I couldn’t really interest them in the next stage (too many Christmas presents to play with)– a pity as there can’t be many things more satisfying than mixing together butter, sugar, eggs and lemons. We poured the gloopy mix into our perfect pastry case and warmed it slightly under the grill before eating. Unlike shop bought tarts the filling was very runny, but it was a perfect shade of yellow – not pale at all, but the colour of real lemons. There were no complaints at the table that night, and there wasn’t a scrap of pastry left.

The final product - edges slightly burned as we didn't read the bit which suggested you cover the sides in foil