Jottage from Lancaster - Tunisian Lamb With Aubergine

Of course I have the River Cottage app. I resisted for a while but then in a fit of indulgence I bought it. I often flick through the recipes but until now I haven't actually made any of them. But returning from a short trip down south I began browsing them half way up the M5 and by the time we were past Birmingham I had a few ideas for meals for the next week and I had even written a shopping list ready for what is becoming a regular off-motorway stop at Waitrose in Sandbach.

So armed with my list I bought everything I needed and along with unpacking from our Easter weekend away I had several bags of fruit, veg, lamb and fish.


I was looking forward to this Tunisian lamb and was rather smug about having all the right spices and indeed all the right ingredients down to the almonds and apricots. But alas, I found that making something from an app isn't as easy as I thought it would be. For a start you have to keep dodging back between the ingredients list and the what-to-do bit and this was confusing enough. And somehow it just wasn't as easy to work out what to do when. 


I browned the lamb and didn't take it out of the pan before adding the onions and garlic. I knew that this was I normally did, but I didn't actually see it on the instructions - at least not until it was too late. Then I couldn't work out when to add the aubergines so I just tossed them into the pan at the end. Or, not quite the end. When I had decided it was all finished I remembered that it had apricots and almonds in somewhere. I was sure that I hadn't seen anything about them anywhere. Only when it had all been merrily bubbling away did I realise that I hadn't scrolled far enough down the ingredients list and I hadn't read to the end of the instructions. Here was the missing Aubergine bit at last, but it was all too late.

So I had all the right ingredients but did all the wrong things with them. But amazingly enough, it's turned out really well. I'm going to add some cous cous and serve it up tonight. There's actually enough for a few night but tomorrow we are having fish from another app recipe. I might take the time to read it all through carefully before I start it this time.



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Jottings from Lancaster - Wholemeal Drop Scones

I haven't talked at all about our visit to the River Cottage Canteen in Axminster but I need to here as I have been making wholemeal drop scones - actually spelt drop scones - which was exactly what I ordered the morning we walked into River Cottage Canteen for the first time.

We were on holiday in Devon in October and I was half aware that there was a River Cottage thing at Axminster. I expected some out of the way little fancy restaurant instead of this big, bold frontage right in the middle of the tiny town. We had parked in Tesco and you could conveniently walk from there into the town through a rather picturesque little ginnel right on to the main street. John went off to the bookshop (Archway Books - highly recommended) and I popped my head round the door and decided immediately that we would have to go there for coffee. 


So when John eventually emerged from the bookshop with some interesting acquisitions I dragged him off. Inside it was a lovely deli and a somewhat rustic cafe with wooden tables and trendily unmatched wooden chairs. It was almost empty, it being Monday morning. The coffee menu looked amazing. They did rather nice breakfasts but having resolved not to eat anything at all, all that strong will crumbled under the thought of spelt drop scones with honey. John had toast and we ordered 2 coffees. And then we waited. It was a nice enough place to sit and wait. But when the coffees came and still no sign of the food we began to get a tad restless. Of course, being English, we sat for far longer than anyone in their right minds would. And then we gave up - we just went to the till and offered to pay for the coffees but explained that the food hadn't arrived. The girl was really nice about it and offered to go off and get the food for us and bring us another coffee each, but by then we needed to get on as we had planned a day's geocaching on Golden Cap (the highest point on the south coast).


But they were so nice - she was really kind and apologetic and we didn't even end up paying for the coffees. And by then the spell of the spelt was wearing off and I was being seduced by the deli pies. So we turned to the counter and from their amazing selection bought a ham hock and pea pie, along with a chicken and leek pie. And then a chocolate tart and a pear and almond tart. The former were for tea back at the cottage where we were staying and the yummy sweet tarts to eat with our picnic lunch on Golden Cap. And they were good - I mean REALLY good. Scrumptious pastry and tasty fillings. I couldn't begin to describe the chocolate tart it was just so... 


Anyway, the guy serving us on the deli counter was really kind and wrapped up everything well so that it wouldn't crumble in the back of the car or my backpack on our walk. He had heard of geocaching, but never done it so it was fun to talk to him. So surprisingly, our first encounter with River Cottage was very good but somehow the longing for the spelt drop scone never quite left me.

Drop scones cooking on top of the wood burning stove

River Cottage Canteen and Deli was bristling with books by Hugh, including his new veggie one. You could buy them there signed, but in the end I decided against. Like Heather, the thought of another almost unused cookery book on the shelves was an extravagance too far. At that time I knew nothing about HFW except that he lived at River Cottage somewhere in the West Country and he grew his own veggies. I had seen him on enough TV trailers to know what he looked like but that was the sum total of my knowledge. Still, even knowing so little, it was exciting to be in Axminster. But then a few days later, whiling away a little time in Honiton while John was sampling some of the best 2nd hand bookshops for miles around I noticed that W H Smith had an offer on - all TV cookery books were £9.99 and if you bought 2, the second was £5. Just because, for no reason at all really, I decided to buy the River Cottage Everyday book as I thought it looked really nice. And as we were on holiday and looking for little holiday presents, I bought a second one for £5 for Heather. After all, I had only spent £14.99 and had 2 books which I might have paid £25 each for. And if Heather wasn't bothered, at least we hadn't spent much. But in fact I LOVED the book. I loved the recipes, I loved the pictures and little drawings and I loved the foreword. 


The nice man at the deli counter told us to return for a meal in the evening, but we decided then and there that instead we would go for lunch. What happened when we did that is a blog for another day. Meanwhile the spelt drop scones were calling so here they are.

Ready to eat!

The recipe is really for wholemeal drop scones but I thought it would work just as well with spelt flour - as indeed it did... I even put honey on them.