Jottage from Lancaster - Tristan and Amelia's birthday

We went to Cambridge for Tristan's first birthday party which Heather has written about in her own Jottage. Tristan shares a birthday with his cousin, Amelia who was 3, and the celebrations were for her too. By the time we came down to the kitchen on the morning of the party for breakfast, Heather had already put the oven on and was busy preparing the last minute salad and cycled off to the supermarket to buy the final oddments. It was clear she had thought through the menu in some detail, and we were both musing on the difference that River Cottage had made to both our lives  which was so obvious when you looked at the table groaning with made-from-scratch food.


Of course the chocolate cake disaster was the one cloud on the horizon. The birthday cake should be the centre piece of the table, but it was pushed to the back so that perhaps no one would notice just how it hadn't risen. I can't explain why it went to wrong, but in the event the flat cake with candles was mostly eaten (although Amelia didn't actually eat hers, she was the only one). To my dismay, Ethan, who is almost 6 did comment on how flat it was but no one else said a word. 


The original Mary Berry cake, which had been crammed into a plastic box, was brought out later in the afternoon and picked at in small pieces by everyone. It was the nicer textured cake by far, but the geometrical problems made it rather unattractive (burnt and flattish on one side, well-risen on the other, and about 10 percent of it stuck to the budget-priced silicone cake mould). I had layered it with a tin of mandarins and soaked it in the juice then topped it with Greek yoghurt, which actually wasn't bad at all.

The cake, adapted for Amelia's 3rd birthday with a new centre candle

So now the birthday is over and I have a pinto bean chilli cooking on the stove - one of my favourite feel-good recipes from River Cottage Veg. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Heather wasn't already planning next year's celebrations!

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 - 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!