This is a great lunch-time soup. You can make it vegetarian by leaving out the bacon, but I do love the salty touch of bacon in soup.
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 Corn Cobs – corn scraped off with a sharp knife
2 medium carrots – peeled and chopped/sliced (I cut into big diagonal slices)
1 stick of celery – chopped
1 onion – chopped roughly
Half a fennel bulb (optional)
2 medium potatoes – chopped roughly
1 chilli, deseeded and chopped (I always wear surgical gloves for this job or else I end up burning my skin!)
4 rashers back bacon – snipped with scissors into small pieces
3 tabs olive oil
small handful of mixed herbs – I used basil, parsley and coriander – chopped
For the Toppings
Half an avocado – roughly chopped
Half a dozen cherry tomatoes – quartered
Half a lemon or lime
2 tabs of thick Greek yoghurt or to taste
A handful of grated cheese eg cheddar
Method
Saute all of the vegetables and the chilli, but not the corn. Soften for about ten minutes. Add two pints water, chicken stock or vegetable stock. If you only have water available then it is fine as long as you check your seasoning. Bring to the boil and season well with sea salt and freshly milled black pepper. Simmer gently, covered, for about 20 minutes. Check the seasoning. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a little more oil in a small pan. Blitz the soup, but not fully, using a stick blender. I like it about half and half chunky and blended. You can do this easily with the stick blender in the pan, without having to remove any of the soup. Put the pan back on the heat and add the bacon, half of the herbs and the corn. I do not like pureed corn, which is why I add it later on, rather than risking blending it with the other vegetables. If it is not creamy enough, you can add a dollop of yoghurt or cream. Simmer for another five minutes to cook the corn. Mix the tomatoes and avocado with the rest of the herbs, some lemon or lime juice and a splash of olive oil.
Serve the soup in bowls, letting your guests choose their own toppings. If you want to push the boat out and are extra hungry, you could also sprinkle over some tortilla chips.
This is a recipe which I adapted from BBC Good Food Magazine, April 2017 issue. The original recipe is for Pot-Roast Bombay Chicken. I have changed it quite a bit, so give you my version below. My main changes were to add more vegetables for extra goodness, and to make my own spice paste. I also add Greek yoghurt, as I am addicted to it!
Serves about 4 People
1 Chicken weighing about 1.5kg or 3lbs
2 cloves garlic
2 fresh red chillis
small piece of ginger
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp spice mix such as garam masala
2 tsp turmeric
1 tab fenugreek seeds
6 tabs full-fat Greek Yoghurt
4 tabs sunflower or other oil (not extra virgin olive oil)
2 onions – I used one red and one ordinary – cut into big chunks
3 carrots – cut into large chunks or slices
750g new potatoes – halved or cut into chunky slices
Half a cauliflower – broken into big florets
100g spinach
About 6 medium tomatoes – quartered
Fresh coriander – a handful
4 tabs dessicated coconut or a can of coconut milk
Method
You need a large roasting tin or a big casserole which will hold all your ingrdients with the vegetables around the chicken. Sear your vegetables in the hot tin/dish. Add the fenugreek seeds and some grated ginger. Meanwhile make a spice paste with the all of the spices apart from the fenugreek and just half of the ginger. I put them into a mini blender with 2 tabs yogurt and 2 tabs oil and blitz into a paste. Smear half of this over the chicken. Boil some water and soak the coconut in about half a pint of water.
Remove the vegetables from the pan and sear the chicken on its own until nicely browned on both sides. Add the rest of the spice paste and put the vegetables back in the pan. Strain the coconut liquid over the vegetables and chicken, or pour in a can of cooconut milk. Season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the rest of the yoghurt and mix in. Add the tomatoes. Cook this uncovered in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes, then lower the heat to 180 degrees and cook for a further hour or so, basting occasionally. Check that the chicken is cooked by pulling a leg to see that it comes away easily.
Add the spinach to the tin and stir until it is wilted. Leave the chicken to rest for about 10 minutes. I put it onto a carving plate and kept the vegetables warm over a low heat on the hob. Sprinkle the vegetables with some fresh coriander. Carve the chicken and serve with the vegetables and amazing gravy which will be in the tin.
I am a keen gardener when it comes to growing food, but not always successful. Some years I spend weeks and weeks sowing and nurturing vegetable seeds, and then they either produce very few crops, or the whole lot is consumed by slugs. I have had success some years with beetroot, spinach, peas and courgettes, but have to admit that this year was a bit of wash-out.
This is why fruit trees can be so rewarding; you generally get very good crops for little or no labour at all. Of course the down-side is that there is an awful lot of fruit to deal with all at once. We are consistently getting good crops of apples from our three trees (Cox’s Orange Pippin, Ribston Pippin and Bramley) and this year we had 11lbs pears from the Doyenne du Comice tree.
In the picture above you can see me harvesting the pears in our garden. I have never tried storing apples and pears for use later in the season. In theory I know this should be possible by wrapping perfect fruit individually in newspaper and then putting them into a dry box. The box would then have to be stored in a cool, dry place. We have sheds which are damp and prone to infestation by bugs and larger creatures, so this storage option does not seem worth the risk for the amount of fruit that we have. We therefore enjoy fresh apples for as long as we can, and I cook as many dishes as I can from the rest of the fruit. We prefer our pears cooked, and the fruits in our garden never seem to reach that perfect ripeness which makes them worth eating raw.
Pear Harvest from Vine Cottage – 11lb Fruit
Below I show you some of the dishes that I have made from our harvest, with an indication of the source of the recipe. There are two recipes of my own, with a quick resume of my ingredients and method.
Pear and Cardamom Tart
This recipe is from the trusty BBC Good Food magazine, and includes a frangipane, one of my favourites, which works so well with both apples and pears. Using cardamom in sweet dishes may be new to some people, but it does work really well. My only change to this recipe was to slice and cook and cook the pears first, as there is no way they would have softened enough just cooking them in the tart without the pre-cooking. Obviously this depends on your pears. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1758664/pear-and-cardamom-tart
Apple and Pear Crumble with a Meringue Topping
It may seem odd to put a meringue topping on a crumble, but it is something my mother picked up from Fanny Craddock I believe! She used to make crumbles in this way when I was a child, particularly if we had egg whites lurking in the fridge (perfectly fresh of course!) The meringue makes the crumble a bit more squidgy, which is very pleasing.
New Jelly StrainerVine Cottage Pear JellyVine Cottage Apple Jelly
I am a great fan of jellies, so treated myself to a new jelly strainer from Lakeland recently. It is quite a challenge to store in my small kitchen, but is well worth the bother. Before I had the jelly bag and stand, I was hanging a muslin bag from a cupboard door and in danger of causing damage to the cupboard (never mind the inconvenience of not being able to use the cupboard whilst jelly-making was in progress!)
Jelly is a great idea for using fruit which is too awkward to peel and cut into sensible shapes, for example crab apples. I also think it is the best way of using medlars and quinces. However, I love jelly so much that I tend to make some every year from whatever apples and pears I have not made into tarts and other dishes. If you have not tried it before, or only bought it from the shops, give it a go. I use jelly in all my gravies, and it is also very good with bread and cheese or a pork pie. The recipe I use is based on one by Sarah Raven in her book Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook. Basically you need 450g sugar per 600ml of liquid, but do have a look at some recipes for more detail.
Pork Shoulder ready to slow-roastSlow-roast Pork Shoulder with carrots, roast potatoes and Celeriac and Cavolo Nero Colcannon with Thyme and Bacon Crumb
This was last night’s dinner. The Colcannon recipe is from the BBC Good Food Magazine October issue. This would make a meal in itself, and could easily be vegetarian without the bacon. Slow-roast or pulled pork may be very popular and on many restaurant menus, but that does not stop it from being an excellent dish. It also pervades the house with the most amazing aromas whilst it is cooking!
I did my own recipe last night. I do recommend a pork shoulder if you can get one, as it is cheaper than some other cuts. However, any pork roasting joint will be fine. Mine weighed just over a kilo and was enough meat for 4 people. As there were only 3 of us, we have left-overs. It is probably not worth slow-roasting a joint much smaller really.
I put the meat into a large roasting tin, and added some big chunks of apple and onion. I studded the meat with some rosemary stalks and bay leaves. I then added about 300ml red wine to the tin and swilled out a dijon mustard jar, pouring the liquid over. I covered the dish with foil and cooked it at 150 degrees for 4 hours, addding some more wine after a couple of hours. I then poured away the juices and put the meat back in the oven, uncovered, smeared with a little maple syrup. I turned the oven up to 200 degrees and roasted some potatoes at the same time. I made my gravy with the juices from the tin, adding some vegetable water, pear jelly and more red wine. I mashed in some of the apples and onions, and served the rest as a side dish.
I hope you too enjoy harvesting fruit from your garden if you are lucky enough to have some. If not, you can always make friends with someone who has excess fruit in their garden and would be glad to pass it onto someone else! Please share your recipes if you have any particular favourites.
Being a fan of Radio 4 and a long-term listener to Desert Island Discs, I thought that it would be fun to list my all-time favourite cookery writers. This is not a list of books, but of the writers, as I’d find it so hard to choose one book by each writer. In addition, please note that these are not in order of preference. as that would also be a hard choice to make. I have picked 8, as there are 8 tracks allowed on the Radio 4 desert island.
Nigella Lawson – chosen because she is a cook rather than a chef and loves good, home-cooking. She is also not afraid to add her own twists to classic recipes. Her descriptive, chatty style also appeals to me, and the fact that many of her books are arranged by themes rather than traditionally separating out main courses, puddings and so on. In her new book, At my Table: A Celebration of Home Cooking, there are no chapters at all, although the last section is devoted to puddings and cakes.
Nigel Slater – again he is a home cook rather than a chef and is a master of fast food with no compromises on ingredients or flavour.
Jamie Oliver – his sheer enthuiasm and love of food is infectious. His recipes really work, and he really cares about the quality of food and the state of the nation’s diet. I own more of Jamie Oliver cookery books than I do of any other cookery writer.
Delia Smith – I grew up cooking with Delia. At school, studying home economics, we used to watch videos in class of Delia’s Complete Cookery Course. She is not afraid to go right back to basics, but also has some really innovative recipes.
Rick Stein – a couple of years ago I went on a half day course at Rick Stein’s Cookery School. I love fish, which is how I first came to Rick, but in recent years I have really enjoyed his themed books based around his global travels. He is of course a chef rather than a cook, but his recipes are still good for the home cook.
Madhur Jaffrey – years ago, Madhur was one of the few writers I came across writing recipes for genuine Indian food. I have always been a fan of spices and even 20 years ago I had given up on curry powder and have always ground my own spices.
Sophie Grigson – another writer who uses fresh, seasonal produce. My particular favourite is Sophie Grigson’s Country Kitchen, which takes the reader through the seasons with suggestions for use of ingredients. They are recipes you actually want to make, rather than just read.
Yotam Ottolenghi – I love Middle-Eastern food, so could not manage without Yotam. I particularly love his imaginative vegetarian recipes. Many people have commented that his recipes use far too many ingredients, or ones that are difficult to come by. This is not my experience, and is perhaps a reflection of what I typically keep in my storecupboard!
You may have spotted by now that I cook proper meals every day, and that I use a fair number of recipes from cookery books and magazines/newspapers, as well as devising my own recipes. I thought it would be interesting to sometimes write a diary for the week showing you what I have cooked for dinner. I am not including breakfasts, as my breakfast is usually the same each morning – Greek yoghurt with fresh fruit and honey. I have not photographed every meal, especially as sometimes we eat left-overs of a previous meal. For lunch I usually make sandwiches or have left-overs of some dinner which needs eating up. I’ll include the lunches if they were particulary notable or if I made some bread from a recipe that I’d like to share. Sometimes I shall also include some home-bakes for afternoon tea or pudding.
Sunday 10th September
Dinner: Roast Chicken and Potatoes with Apple Stuffing, Carrots, Peas and Gravy
Although I have no photo of this meal, I’d just like to tell you about the stuffing. We have three apple trees in our garden, all of which produce reasonable crops each year. Having not had time to make an apple pudding, I decided to make an apple stuffing. For this I mixed 4oz breadcrumbs, 2oz melted butter (you could use suet instead), a handful of freshly chopped herbs such as parsley and thyme, a beaten egg, two grated apples and a little lemon rind and juice. On this occasion I stuffed the body cavity of the chicken, but you could also make stuffing balls. To make this meal easier, as we were sitting in the living room having drinks and nibbles with relatives whilst it was cooking, I put some unpeeled maincrop potato pieces in the tin with the chicken whilst roasting it.
Later on I cooked fresh carrots and peas together in a pan with a small amount of water, rosemary, vanilla extract, a knob of butter and a teaspoon of sugar. I cooked the carrots for about 10 minutes before adding the fresh peas and then cooking them together for another five minutes. I always make my gravy by adding some vegetable water, wine, dijon mustard and a spoon of home-made jelly to the juices in the roasting tin.
Monday 11th September
I unexpectedly went out for an early dinner/meeting, so made pizzas for Paul and Jess. My dinner is pictured below. We went to the Black Boy pub in Shinfield: https://www.baronspubs.com/blackboy/
Fish Tortillas at The Black Boy in Shinfield
The meal was excellent, and the staff were really helpful and available with accurate information for a colleague who is gluten intolerant.
Tuesday 12th September
Pork Osso Buco with Aubergines, Apples and Chickpeas, served with mash
Okay, confession time! This recipe was not one of my best! I wanted to leave something for Paul to put in the oven whilst I was out at yet another meeting. I could then make the mashed potato on my return. The dish would have been perfect without the aubergine, but it was in the oven too long and was of too soft a texture to go with the other ingredients, particularly serving it with mash. I cooked the meat in some lovely cider which we bought on holiday in Spain this year: http://www.agroturismoarratzain.com/
So in future, I’d leave out the aubergine and use some fennel instead for a crunchier texture.
Wednesday 13th September
Ratatouille and Melting Mozarella Crumble from Sainsburys Magazine September Issue
This dish was a real winner! We eat vegetarian food at least a couple of times a week, and this dish fitted the bill and satisfied Paul, who misses the solid taste of flesh more than I do! It is a fairly standard ratatouille recipe with the addition of spinach. It is piled into a baking dish and has mozarella torn over the top before adding a crumble topping made with breadcrumbs, rosemary and toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds. You then bake it until it is crisp and bubbling. I think that my breadcrumb mixture was particularly tasty, as I was using up some mini bruschetta topped with tomatoes and olive oil. They had gone soft, but were perfect blitzed into crumbs, tomatoes included.
Thursday 14th September
Indian-spiced Celeriac Rosti with herb yoghurt from Sainsburys Magazine September Issue
Indian-spiced Celeriac Rosti with Herb Yoghurt and Left-over Aubergine Sauce
In the picture you will see that I did also eat up the remains of the aubergine sauce left-over from the pork casserole, so for me this was not quite a vegetarian dish. Rosti are a fun dish to make and to give a different texture to vegetables. Apparently celeriac is also very low in calories. The suggestion was to serve the rosti with mango chutney, and I just happened to have made a couple of jars of that recently – so much better home-made!
Friday 15th September – Fish Pie made according to a Jamie Oliver recipe (The Return of the Naked Chef 2000)
Fantastic Fish Pie from The Return of the Naked Chef
I have made this wonderful pie many times, and have adapted the recipe to suit my tastes and preferences. The best tip I learnt from Jamie by making this pie was that it is not necessary to cook fish before putting it into a pie. This means that you use fewer pans, and that the fish holds its shape better. Jamie includes spinach and carrot in his recipe. I have always used more carrot than he suggests, and I also add fennel and celery. Originally this was a way of bribing my daughter Jess into eating more vegetables, as she has always loved fish pie. I continue to make the pie with these additions even if I am not trying to deceive children.
Saturday 16th September Chicken with Chorizo, Chick Peas and Kale from Davina’s 5 Weeks to Sugar Free
I was not particularly looking for sugar-free recipes, but I spotted this book in my mother’s house and noted a few really good recipes in it. Chorizo and chick peas are two of my favourite ingredients and I could happily just make a meal out of these ingredients. This went really well with a jacket potato and butter.
Blackberry Doughnut with Custard and Strawberry and Balsamic Vinegar Ice-cream
I enjoy cooking with my daughter Jess, although it is unusual for us to find time to have a cooking session nowadays. She is a chef in a local pub and on her days off is not often in the mood for long cooking sessions with her mother! I managed to tempt her with this enticing-looking recipe for BlackberryDoughnuts in BBC Good Food Magazine. Personally I give doughnuts a wide berth if commerically made, but home-made they are completely different.
Cooked Doughnuts
Rosie Birkett includes a recipe for quick blackberry jam for filling these doughnuts, and suggests serving them with Bay Leaf Custard. In the end we went for home-made vanilla custard, and I had one serving with a portion of Strawberry Ice-cream with Balsamic Vinegar (a Delia Smith favourite recipe of mine).
Home-made Blackberry Jam
Jess, my daughter, insists on having a proper deep-fat fryer, so we had to give that a good clean up before using it; I don’t like the stickiness of fryers, so insist on keeping it in the shed!
Cooked and Filled Blackberry Doughnuts
We did find that it was difficult to get the frying temperature right for cooking the doughnuts all the way through but not burnt on the outside, despite heating the oil to the suggested temperature of 180 degrees C. In the end, we put them in the oven for about 7 minutes, after frying them.
The verdict was positive all round, and we would definitely make these doughnuts again, maybe using different varieties of home-made or good-quality bought jam to suit the seasons. We were lucky enough to have some freshly-picked blackberries for making the jam.
The other recipe I made from Rosie’s selection was Slow-cooked Marrow with fennel and Tomato. I love marrow, although many people seem to either treat it as a joke or a burden, or an over-grown courgette. I do think that stuffed marrow is good, but that it is great to ring the changes, having marrow as a side dish or main course vegetarian dish. Rosie describes this dish as a little like caponata. She serves it with some sourdough bread and soft goats’ cheese. On this occasion I left out the bread and cheese, but I think that it would be great served in this way as a first course.
I have no photo of my version of this dish, so you will just have to imagine it! I shall be making the other dishes featured in this article sometime soon: Braised Squid with Fennel and Tomatoes , Devilled Prawns and Corny Polenta and Cacio e Pepe with Runner Beans.
I am seriously tempted to buy Rosie’s book, which is featured below. She uses seasonal, fresh produce and simple store cupboard ingredients.
This is the kind of cookery book to persuade meat eaters to eat more vegetarian food! I am a confirmed omnivore but love vegetables and meals without meat. Yotam Ottolenghi is a particular favourite of mine, with his Middle- Eastern slant on food. He was born in Israel, and is Israeli-British. I probably identify with Yotam as he is not a vegetarian either, but was asked to write this book by The Guardian.
This book is beautiful in itself, and, like all of Yotam’s books, is a high-quality hardback with a substantial cover rather than the traditional boards with a dust-jacket. Inside there are beautful line drawings of vegetables as well as really enticing photos of every dish.
As a non-vegetarian I make no judgements on the views of others, but personally am not a fan of tofu, quorn and other specific vegetarian and vegan meat substitutes. Maybe ‘meat substitute’ is the wrong expression to use, but I am not sure how else to explain what I mean. Yotam includes very little of these ingredients in his recipes, which for me is a definite plus point. Two of the recipes which include tofu are Gado Gado and Mee Goreng. My answer is to substitute halloumi or paneer, which I love (vegans may not approve!)
Before I go on to list some of my favourite recipes from this book, it is probably worth assessing which recipes are suitable for vegans. I was discussing this subject with my fellow-blogger Niki di Palma (https://westslidestory.com/) who is indeed a vegan! Apparently lots of vegetarian cookery books are not great for vegans, as the recipes tend to use a lot of cheese and yoghurt.
I can see some recipes which could certainly have the cheese or yoghurt removed to make them vegan-friendly. I have made the Spicy Moroccan Carrot Salad on a number of occasions, and I see no harm in leaving out the yoghurt, or maybe using coconut milk instead. There are some other lovely salad recipes in the book, such as Beetroot, Orange and Black Olive, Green Bean with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon and Mango and Coconut Rice. On a warm day I think that a selection of these salads would make a substantial meal. Main course recipes which are vegan without adaptations include: The Ultimate Winter Couscous (ingredients include pumpkin, carrots, parsnips and chickpeas), Gado Gado, Mee Goreng (both already mentioned), Broad Bean Burgers, Black Pepper Tofu (despite my aversion to tofu, this one might even have me converted!), Quinoa and Grilled Sourdough Salad and Soba Noodles with Aubergine and Mango.
I am particularly keen on the recipes for: Lentils with Grilled Aubergine (this satisfies my constant cravings for puy lentils and yoghurt), Chard and Saffron Omelettes (did I mention that I also adore eggs?), Very Full Tart (filled with sweet potatoes, aubergine, peppers and tomatoes), Chickpea, Tomato and Bread Soup and Tamara’s Ratatouille (also vegan!)
This book is very adaptable and would also suit a confirmed meat-eater who would like some more interesting ways of jazzing up meat meals. Many of the dishes would go well on a buffet table or work as accompaniments to roasted and grilled meats.
I am still enjoying cooking with figs, although our crop from the garden is nearly finished. I indulged in some shop-bought figs recently and tried this recipe from the Waitrose Magazine. I show you below the recipe from the Waitrose Magazine and my own version. I used soft goats’ cheese instead of taleggio on this occasion. I do love taleggio, but surprisingly had none in the fridge when I decided to make this as part of a selection of tapas last night. It was so good, and I shall certainly be making it again as a first course or on a big platter as canapes. There is something really satisfying about hot canapes.
Split Figs, stuffed with Taleggio, walnuts, thyme and honey
Split Figs, Stuffed with Cheese, Walnuts, Thyme and Honey
The other tapas I made were streaky bacon-wrapped halloumi and chilli crostini topped with finely chopped tomatoes, mixed with olive oil and fresh basil. In the picture you can also see my favourite sweet-pickled herrings and a dip made from Greek yoghurt, home-made mango chutney and smoked paprika.
I have a whole bookcase dedicated to cookery books, and I do actually use them. Apparently this is not always the case; I am told that many people own cookery books and do not cook any recipes from them. This is not to say that I do not sometimes change and adapt recipes or invent my own recipes. You may be thinking that I spend an awful lot of time in the kitchen, and you would be right! I am going to share some of my favourites with you, and am starting by reviewing a selection by specific writers.
Nigella Bites was published in 2001, although I am not sure how long I have owned it. A quick skim through the book and I can count at least 21 recipes I have cooked from this book, many of them on numerous occasions. I love Nigella’s chatty, descriptive style and her suggestions for changing, adapting and even (dare I say it?!) improving the recipes. She is also one of the chefs I enjoy watching on television. My one rule for watching chefs on television is that the content of the programme has to be the pure pleasure of food with no competitiveness. Thus I am not a fan of Masterchef or The Great British Bake Off. Anyway, I digress.
I know that not everyone enjoys Nigella’s style. She is very sexy and attractive and enjoys her food very much. I must admit that I do love gazing at other peoples’ kitchens. I have a very small kitchen, and sometimes try to do too much in it.
The format of Nigella’s recipe books is to organise by themes and menus rather than conventionally grouping together all the starters, main courses, puddings and so on. Some of the chapters in Nigella Bites are: All-Day Breakfast, Comfort Food, Trashy, Suppertime and Slow-Cook Weekend.
There are some recipes in this book which I shall probably never try. I am not a fan of pomegranate seeds: I have tried them and find them completely bitter and indigestible. Pomegranate molasses is a different matter – I love it and use it frequently. I am also not keen on the Jewish way of making chicken soup, so I’ll not be trying the version in this book. Another recipe I am not tempted to try is the Ham in Cocoa Cola, however much it might be recommended! Some of my favourite recipes are:
Welsh-Rarebit Muffins – cake-style savoury muffins which are wonderful for breakfast.
Double Potato and Halloumi Bake – a really excellent vegetarian dish which is good for everyday as well as being special enough for a party dish.
Chocolate Fudge Cake – one of many chocolate cake recipes by Nigella; this one has a lovely squidgy chocolate icing made with plain chocolate. At this point I need to show you the evidence that I have made this cake on many occasions. See the state that this page is in, in my book!
Chocolate Fudge Cake Recipe
Thai Yellow Pumpkin and Seafood Curry – this is one recipe I turn to again and again. I sometimes serve it with basmati rice, or I have made it more soupy and just served it in big bowls.
Bitter Orange Ice-cream – again I have made this on many occasions. It is the easiest orange ice-cream ever to make, being completely made from cream rather than from a custard base. Nigella also helpfully has instructions for making either with seville oranges (only available for a short time in the winter) or with sweet oranges and limes.
Soft and Sharp Involtini – this is a wonderful Italian vegetarian dish of stuffed aubergine slices. It is easy enough to make for a mid-week meal, although some may dispute this (I spend a reasonable amount of time preparing evening meals and am also very quick at putting meals together once I know a recipe well).
Bream with Anchovies and Thyme, served with the following recipe of Chick Peas with Chilli, Garlic and Thyme. Nigella uses two of my favourite ingredients in this medley – anchovies and chick peas.
Chocolate Pots – I show you below the photo of my pages, which have been stuck together with chocolate. A good thing I more or less know the ingredients! This is the easiest of cold chocolate pots to make and can easily be adapted for larger quantities.
Chocolate Pots recipe
I hope that you enjoy this cookery book as much as I do. It really is worth having a look at, and none of the recipes contain ingredients which are difficult to get hold of. Simplicity is the key in this book.
We often joke that our beautiful, rented cottage should be called Fig Cottage rather than Vine Cottage. The fig trees that you see in the picture are really prolific and yield plenty of fruit each year. The vine sometimes yields a good crop of grapes, but they are pippy and do not taste good. I have tried juice, jelly, wine…. you name it, but nothing is worth the effort!
Anyway, to return to the fig trees. The only way of harvesting ours is to climb up a ladder, as they are too high up to reach and inevitably they drop splat on the ground when ripe! This is our first serious year of harvesting figs, as although we have lived here for 12 years, we did not invest in the ladder for a few years, and then kept failing to erect it in time for the fig season. I am not a great climber, so this task is left to Paul in our great way of the household division of labour. After all, you would not catch him standing over the stove making a tasty dish from home-grown figs. The cottage is not very tall, which is a good for the task of climbing up to pick figs. It was a gloriously hot day when we tackled this task, which was most welcome, as, having just returned from a month of almost non-stop sunshine in Southern Europe, we were glad not to be confronted by a typical English August.
Here I am with the basket of figs. I shall then give you the recipes for the dishes I made from them, with one link where I used someone else’s recipe.
Sarah with a Basket of Figs from Vine Cottage
For lunch that day I made a salad, which I am sure is very similar to fig salads made by many others. Here is my version:
Slice some fresh figs, and drizzle with honey and olive oil. Grill for about five minutes until soft, slightly charred and hot. Add a few slices of soft cheese; I used Chaource, but taleggio or goats’ cheese would be good. Grill for a few more minutes until melted and oozing. Serve with parma ham or prosciutto cotto, dressed with a little more olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Grind over some black pepper and sea salt. You could have some lovely ciabatta with it, or some linguette flatbreads, which we love. I was very restrained and had neither, just choosing to have another salad of tomatoes and avocado to make my complete lunch.
Grilled Figs, Prosciutto and Chaource with HoneyDejeuner dans Le Jardin
My next idea was to make fig rolls. I have to say that I have never enjoyed them when bought in the shops, or have possibly just looked at them and thought ‘yuck!’ The idea of making them with fresh figs seemed a good one, although having done it once, I think I’ll do it again with dried figs. This time I needed some help, as when making cakes and pastries, for texture and consistency I prefer to leave the research to the experts. I turned to Felicity Cloake (@felicitycloake) in The Guardian for this recipe, as I have often enjoyed her ‘How to make the Perfect….’ series of recipes. Here is the link to her excellent recipe: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2016/may/05/how-to-make-the-perfect-fig-rolls The only change I made was to use fresh figs. Also, I was out of soft plain flour, so used strong plain instead, which was fine. My other flour was spelt flour. We had fig rolls warm for pudding in the evening, with a scoop of home-made banana ice-cream – wonderful combination!
Fig Rolls made to Felicity Cloake’s Recipe
For dinner last night, before consuming the fig rolls, I decided to make a seasonal dish of chicken with figs and honey. For this , I jointed a chicken and so we had a breast, and two legs divided into drumsticks and thighs. We did not finish it all between the two of us, and there is still a breast and some wing pieces for more chicken dishes. If you have never jointed a chicken, give it a go! It makes for some really economical meals, rather than buying chicken pieces separately. I have a big sharp knife and a pair of poultry shears for the job.
I roasted the chicken joints with olive oil and rosemary and a few mushrooms. At the same time I prepared a dish of new potatoes and fennel. I parboiled some sliced new potatoes and an onion, then layered them with a raw sliced fennel bulb and a drizzle of olive oil and some creme fraiche. I baked this in the oven with the chicken at 180 degrees celsius for about 40 minutes. After this, the potatoes continued to cook and I added a drizzle of honey and half a dozen sliced figs to the chicken dish. I then covered the potato dish with foil and turned up the oven to finish cooking the chicken for 15 minutes. To finish it off I took the chicken, figs and mushrooms out of the tin and boiled up the delicious juices with a glass of cider. This happened to be from a bottle that we bought in Spain on our travels.
This chicken and fig creation was declared good, and definitely one to be repeated (even with some shop-bought figs!)
Figgy Chicken with Baked New Potatoes and Fennel
All of these dishes were made from the basket of figs that you see in the picture above, and there were still a few left for breakfast for me; my standard breakfast is Greek yoghurt and honey with fresh fruit.
