The naming of things. Asparagus, Ham and Rice Bake Recipe
When I was a wooden toymaker I made a small car, simply shaped, immensely tactile. My sister christened it the Dumpy Car. I knew in an instant that the name would sell the car. I’d listen to people chatting about the toys on the stand. If I heard them mention the Dumpy Car, I knew that they were likely to buy. The words sound comfortable and solid, good in the mouth, with just enough resonance. I sold thousands of them. Danny has a problem with the name “bake”. “Never make us a bake. I’d have to leave. Just...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Light summery vegetable soup recipe
We should be sylphlike by now. We were gradually shedding the pounds with the new half veggie diet and soup each day for lunch. The dangerous thing about losing weight with little effort is that you can start to take it for granted and assume that whatever you eat will have no effect on your size. Unlike multi national corporations, we didn’t want to grow. Gradually we’ve slithered back to sandwiches for lunch. Chocolate bars, biscuits and the occasional ice cream treat on a hot day have tempted us. “Gosh, you’ve put on...
read moreQuick suppers: Portobello mushrooms with deluxe rice, bacon and spinach stuffing recipe
If we holiday abroad it’s generally in Italy. We love the country, the people, the fashion, and the food. Four years ago Danny gave me a week in Rome for my birthday. The perfect present. We arrived, changed into fresh clothes and immediately headed out to find a restaurant. In that magical way of happy holidays we drifted into a side street and found a wonderful restaurant, nestled behind some large ferns. Danny had taught himself the basic structure of the language as he commuted from Exeter to the cottage. Abba Gold was tossed aside...
read moreSpinach
I bet spinach producers were involved in the invention of Popeye. Perhaps the animator was a son of a spinach farmer or scion of a canned vegetable family. Children watching the cartoons in cinemas probably bayed for tinned spinach when they got home. Sales must have soared. I can vaguely remember tinned spinach as a child before the advent of those dinky little frozen nuggets. The tinned stuff was pretty vile but I didn’t hold my nose and chomp. Although I envied the strength of Popeye I didn’t want to end up looking like his...
read moreBest vegetarian recipes: Double tomato tartines recipe
Bored up a ladder is quite a good state to be in if I’m working across the road from the cottage. It’s salved by a proper lunch hour. I can guzzle a sandwich and concentrate on a bit of midday weeding. Yesterday I decided to cook us lunch, from scratch. I had found an intriguing recipe and also have four dolls sized virgin bread tins that I have been aching to use for some time. Facing a glut of tomatoes in the fridge I’d grazed several cookery books and the recipe that caught my eye was deep within in The Silver Spoon. This...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Vegetarian Comfort Pie recipe
Last week was wet and cold and gloomy. I fancied some winterish flavours and felt inspired to try my hand at creating a new vegetarian dish. I wanted to make something that would avoid the palaver of many veggie dishes. A dish that I could leave bubbling in the slow cooker for hours, that didn’t need loads of preparation, required no frying off and wasn’t packed with tomatoes, chilli, cheeses and sweet peppers. I wanted the subtleness of deep English wintery flavours. A vegetarian dish that I could imagine being served in an...
read moreThe mayonnaise obsession
It started last year. I sampled some homemade mayo at a client’s house. I was making a chicken salad lunch for a golf widower. Their homemade mayo was stunning. Light, tasty and sublime. He liked it too. The next week it was the same menu with a pivotal difference. “It will have to be the bottled stuff, Fiona. It’s in the door of the fridge.” I discovered that it was Hellmann’s, full fat. I could tell from his plate he wasn’t so keen on this one. Since then the thought of that first homemade mayo has stayed...
read moreAsparagus and ricotta tarts sprinkled with lemon zest and parmesan recipe
Although we are in the middle of the asparagus season it wasn’t until last week that I found English asparagus on sale locally. I bought a couple of bunches, put them in a large jug of cold water and forgot about them. I spotted them a few evenings later, looking less than their best so I snapped off the tops and made these savoury tarts. Perhaps it was desperation to get the best possible return on the small harvest that made things move up a gear in the cottage smallholder kitchen. Or possibly the fact that Danny had left a tempting...
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