Perfect easy suppers: Dressed Cromer crab with salad leaves and white oaten soda bread
Every other week I shop with my mum. We enjoy a good lunch chez maman and then glide in the comfort of Danny’s car to her favourite stamping ground – Waitrose. With our save money in 2008 challenge this isn’t the top of my supermarket list for bargain store visits but over the months I’ve noticed some good, substantial offers behind the deluxe portals. As the credit crunch starts to bite with a painful rather than a playful nip, their in store offers have increased. Last weekend I shopped there for well under fifty percent of the...
read moreBirthday food: Gambas al pil pil recipe revisted
It’s Danny’s birthday. “What would you like to eat this evening?” “Well, I don’t know really.” “How about Diana Henry’s Spiced Chicken breasts on melting onions with preserved lemon? They’re delicious Even Bunty asked for the recipe.” “They sound great but I don’t remember them.” But I couldn’t find the chicken breasts in the freezer. “How about a takeaway from Arif?” D’s eyes lit up. This Indian restaurant is very good since they...
read moreIndulgent treats: Prawns, spinach and crème fraîche linguine
A couple of years ago we became addicted to Tessa Kiros’ recipe for linguine with prawns and asparagus. Delicious and almost worth crawling the five miles to Newmarket to buy the ingredients. Tonight we decided to eat Clare’s scrumptious quick spinach and prawn gnocchi recipe and then I spotted that we had some linguine in the larder. “Let’s try Clare’s recipe but use the linguine rather than buy gnocchi.” Linguine is the perfect pasta for soaking up a sauce. Danny has a horror of what he describes as...
read moreDeluxe fish pie recipe
A few months ago a local caterer and superb cook was spotted buying a Waitrose fish pie. When she was asked why she was buying one when she could easily run up a pie herself, her response was clipped. "I just couldn’t make it for the price." The story did the rounds in Newmarket and presumably Waitrose fish pie sales soared. Fish pie is a rare treat as fish is so expensive these days. But with a little patience and forethought you can enjoy a great fish pie for a fraction of the price. Every now and then I shop at Waitrose on...
read moreClare’s scrumptious quick spinach and prawn gnocchi recipe
I have been enjoying my friend Clare’s food whilst battling with the wallpaper in her sitting room. Clare is the sort of cook that rustles up something delicious without a huff or a puff. The execution is seamless and the results always delicious. If I work in Saffron Walden I tend to start my day later and return home mid evening and tired. The combination of wallpaper glue, step ladders and the drift of wonderful wafts from her kitchen at around six thirty always had me wilting and longing for an injection of food. Any food. Every...
read moreEasy squid, sweet Romano pepper and Basmati rice salad recipe
Supermarkets are clever. They mark down their soon to be out of date produce. Someone might buy it before it is swept off the shelf and banished (hopefully to a homeless shelter). Danny haunts these shelves when he does the final post run down to Newmarket in the evening. I often return home to find a few bargains on the kitchen table. Last week he had found a fat bag of previously frozen squid, “They were such a bargain that I grabbed them.” There is always a posse around the Tesco shelves. The next evening I returned to find him...
read moreDonagh’s Gambas al pil pil recipe
Donagh (pronounced Dunna) is Danny’s youngest brother. He is a superb cook. When we meet the Dublin flight at Stansted he is Talking Food. The journey to the cottage is spiced with intriguing recipes and discoveries. Sitting in the back of the car, I begin to get nervous as I always seem to cook for Donagh’s first night. Generally, it’s a disaster. The next day we shop, he doesn’t buy the most expensive ingredients as we venture through the entire local tranche from Netto to Waitrose, with a dally at Tesco in between....
read moreSea bass baked with wild fennel and lemon recipe
Do you remember the craze for cooking fish in little foil parcels in the oven? I was looking through some old Waitrose recipes and I thought that I’d try baking some sea bass in them. It worked well and infused the fish with the fennel and lemon flavours. It was easy too, giving me some time to potter in the garden whilst it baked in the oven. We served the bass with the first new potatoes from the garden and warm samphire. Sea bass baked with wild fennel and lemon recipe Set the oven to 220c (200c fan) Ingredients: 2 sea bass, cleaned,...
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