Holiday Pie

I'm on holiday at the moment (yay) so you mainly don't get to see the things I'm eating as they're fairly utilitarian and I'm invariably too hungry to stop and photograph them.

Oh, and my phone mainly doesn't work down here - the mixed blessing of the English countryside...

I thought I'd just keep you warm with a holiday pie, though.
Actually the second holiday pie - there was an unphotographed rhubarb and strawberry job a couple of days ago.

I made some shortcrust pastry out of (new) butter and flour that might well have been in the cupboard for several hundred years...

Surprisingly, it rolled out rather well, despite the makeshift nature of my rolling pin.


I found a fortunate pie dish, lined it with the pastry and stuck it in the fridge for a bit, before pricking, "brushing" (no brush here, obviously) with egg white and blind baking.

I made a kind of creme patissiere.


And cooked some bramley apples in butter and a bit of sugar.



When everything was a bit cooler, I spread the custard over the tart base and dolloped the apple mixture over it. I sort of latticed the top with the leftover pastry - as ever, there wasn't *quite* enough.



The biggest handicap in holiday baking is the oven, which is, to say the least, a trifle eccentric...



But I'm getting better at it.
So here it is cooked.



And sliced and sampled.





Anyway - it's high tide now and the sum is shining, so I'm off for a pre lunch swim.

More things I've eaten soon - promise :)

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Surf 'n' Turf

Date night and the final (probably) night before my callous abandonment of poor husband in favour of happy holidays, so - to celebrate - this...

Giant she-beast...




Heritage tomatoes.




Super old Ginger Pig rump steak.




Et voila!




I ate all of this.
And pudding :)


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Making Kimchi

I recently came into possession of some Korean chilli powder and glutinous rice flour (thank you again lovely Sous Chef Shop), so kimchi was inevitable really.

I cooked a custardy thing with a bit of the flour and some water and mixed it with probably half a tub of chilli powder and some stinky fish sauce.

I mixed it into some chopped napa cabbage, ginger and spring opinions and left it in a bowl for a bit.




And then I stuck it into sterilised jars and left them out to ferment for a few days (opening the jars occasionally to let out the build up of gas).

They're in the fridge now.
They won't last long - I can't stop eating them. Kimchi rocks.

I have also made some cookies in the style of Heston. Very few remain.




Also, I've eaten some things...

Stirfried vegetables with shiritaki noodles.




Chicken and roasted brassicas.




Leftover vegetable salad and butternut squash.




Livers, mushrooms and tomatoes.




Squid and courgettes.




And some (sideways) eggnimals. Yum :)

Summer Lollies

First of all, a wee disclaimer.
These are probably not technically lollies - they're not really frozen liquid.
They're not really ice cream bars either, though, so I'm hoping they fall at least broadly inside the boundaries of this month's BSFIC.

I'm honestly not certain anyone is going to be able to equal the genius of Kavey's pickleback lollies - I've genuinely been racking my brains to come up with something similarly brilliant and have nothing. Zilch. Nada.

So instead, here we go - raspberry lollies - maybe not genius or totally correct, but really very yummy - other than actual fruit, my very favourite kind of pudding and super summery into the bargain!

First I made an Italian meringue - you could obviously use any recipe that you have for this, but I weighed out 150g egg whites (conveniently 4 egg's worth) and stuck them into the bowl of my mixer along with 60g caster sugar.
Whilst whisking these to so-called soft peaks, I heated another 240g caster sugar in a little saucepan with about 60g water, until it reached 121oC.
I then kept whisking and gradually poured the sugar syrup into the egg whites until it was all gone, increased the mixer speed a bit and kept whisking (for 5 to 10 minutes) until the whole thing was cool.

This made about a million times more meringue than I actually needed, but I think that smaller quantities would be harder to work with, so we'll just have to use the rest for something else - it keeps
pretty well in the fridge (as long as you can keep your fingers out of it).

I pureed some raspberries (in a sieve - back to basics!) until I had about 85g of sieved puree, added it to about 140g of the meringue and whisked till mixed.

I whisked about 60g double cream, folded that in too and assembled my lollies.

I stuck them in the freezer for probably overnight to firm up.

Some time during the freezing, I whizzed up some freeze dried raspberries (obtained from the AMAZING new Sous Chef website) to a powder, so that, when the lollies were frozen and turned out, I could coat them in delicious (and pretty) raspberry dust...

Pleasing, no?

I'm entering these into Kavey's August Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream party round up :-)

Chicken Surprise...

Because I was surprised to find some (almost certainly) chicken thighs during my freezer foraging last night...

I chopped up some beautiful "candy" beetroots (honestly - is any food prettier...?)




And fried them up with garlic, spring onions and chilli (this is technically known as a stuff-I-found-in-the-fridge dish, as is traditional the day before vegetable man comes...)




I boned, skinned, flattened and stripy-grill-panned my defrosted freezer bounty and ate it all in about 30 seconds.




I seem to be having a Hungry Day.

Husband had the same with added potatoes and ginger beer.

All very tasty and sufficiently quick for a late home evening!

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Things I Have Eaten This Week

Wall-E, duck livers and things that are green.

Tea in the garden with @ginandcrumpets (who is a delicious-food-genius).

And again in close up...

Lazy Sunday spritzes.

And rum, lime and soda (I'm not a total boozehound - honest!)

Sunday afternoon stuffed marrow - stuffed with (veggie only) mushroom "ragu", much to husband's horror.
Cooking the ragu.

Stuffing the marrow.

And finally - out of the oven.

I also made some jammy dodgers.

And the beginnings of some lovely stinky kimchi.

And that's the story of my life so far... Tune in again for chapter 1,725.
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Some Things

Here are some things I've eaten recently.
I have further things on my other camera, but I'm not organised enough to have transferred them all to the relevant place yet.
I need a System!
Mushrooms, garlic scapes and delicious eggs.

Eggs, asparagus and kimchi. A little odd, but probably one of my favourite staple meals...

Stirfried leftover chicken and vegetables with courgette ribbons.

And finally - a kind of larb (with pork mince, which is cheap/special EVERYWHERE at the moment - is there suddenly a huge pig excess?) with salad.

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