Alphonso Mangoes

I recently bumped into a friend in one of the Asian food stores on Magdalen street. She was stuffing two boxes of Alphonso mangoes into the back of her son's buggy. With each box containing approx 12 fruit I wish I had asked her what she was going to do with them. I also bought a box of the delicious fragrant, deep orange coloured juicy mangoes and have eaten them just as they then sucking the stone ending up with a orange mustache no one told me about. Thanks kids.

Alphonso's are so different from the all year round mangoes, like the ones that never ripen which I buy in bulk from Lidls when they are 35p. They are great for mango chutney but truly disappointing eaten on their own when compared to an Alphonso.

The last time I bought a box (a grate) of mangoes was when I lived on Hamilton Island, Great Barrier Reef - the fruit is grown nearby on the mainland. They were so tasty, so perfectly ripe that I couldn't manage to eat all the fruit and that's the only trouble with buying in bulk, you have to eat a lot of fruit or make something out of them. There I had no cooking facilities but Skye Gyngell has included a few recipes in her recent column for The Independent.

The Alphoso season is short, perhaps only available for the next week if that. I'm going to try and buy another box today and make a sorbet or ice-cream using the clever Play and Freeze which I was given last summer although Skye's jam recipes sounds just up my street.

Nostalgic Chocolate Chip Biscuits

These biscuits taste just like ones my Mum use to make when we were younger. They are light and crunchy with a buttery taste.

Chocolate + Nut Biscuits

• 70g caster sugar


• 70 demerara sugar


• 125g unsalted butter

Cream together the above ingredients in a bowl.

Add to the creamed ingredients -

• 1 beaten egg


• 60g dark chocolate, roughly chopped


• 60g white chocolate, roughly chopped


• 60g chopped hazelnuts

Mix in -

• 140g plain flour, sieved


• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda, sieved

Either roll into sausage, wrap in cling film and fridge or place teaspoons of mixture on to baking tray.
Bake at 170ºc for 10 - 12 mins.

Shove Tuesday

I have a glitch in my router. I have discovered that Typepad doesn't like me blogging unless I reset the router. Weird and irritating, but at least I have now worked out the ferocious blogging deterrent that is just an irritating bit of router weirdness. Yesterday I was all ready to set up on Blogger, in fact I did, only I never got round to writing anything. Somethings never change.

As you can see from the egg and flour set up above, I tried to post a blog on pancake day. I had been hyping myself all day for the mess and fighting that would occur once the jug, whisk, egg and flour would be visible. My girls love to argue and cause a bit of competitive rumpus shoving and even more so when cooking is involved. Where as I like nothing more than to hear them get on and be kind to each other.

I seem to remember my Mum feeling a little beaten by Pancake Day, they were more a bi-anual tradition than an annual one. If Pancake Day could be Shrove Sunday, not Shove Tuesday it would be a lot more fun for me.

I started
writing this on Monday and it's now Saturday. Some people blog
effortlessly but my attempts are always thwarted by something or other.
I have images stacked up in iPhoto, of subjects I want to eulogize
about... one day I'll write about them.

We drove to London on Sunday to visit Simon & Angie at the very successful, 'St Judes in the City' exhibition held at the Bankside Gallery
over the past 10 days. Before we hit the river bank, we took a trip to
Spitalfields to visit the girls Auntie Miranda at her clothes stall in
the market. Just next to Miranda's stall is one of the Leon Restaurants,
a chain of eaterys set up by Allegra McEvedy, Henry Dimbleby and John
Vincent in 2004.  The food is simple, seasonal, inexpensive, wholesome
and tasty and perfect for family outings.

I've been cooking from
the Leon book since Christmas when I received it as I gift. The
Moroccan Meatballs have been eaten a few times, they're good and dead
simple to make.

Here's a quick recipe how to make Meat Balls similar to Leon's:

500g minced lamb
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
lots for freshly ground pepper and sea salt
1 handful of both chopped mint and parsley
1 pitta torn up and soaked in milk
1 good pinch of dried oregano

1. Squeeze the excess milk from the pitta bread and add to a bowl with all of the other ingredients.
2. Using your hands, mix all the ingredients together until well combined.
3. Roll into balls and either char grill as they do at Leon's, fry or bake on silicone sheet in hot oven for 15 minutes.

We
eat ours with either a homemade spicy tomato sauce made from: two tins
of whole plum tomatoes added to a pan which contains browned sliced
garlic cooked in olive oil. Add a cinnamon stick, a pinch of chili
flakes, a pinch of sugar, oregano, salt and black pepper. Reduce until
thick.

Alternatively, serve with rocket leaves, tzakiki, houmous, pitta bread and baked sliced aubergine.

Poladroids

 

  

I can see I'm going to be spending some time converting some of my snaps into Polodroids - a free download that turns your photos into images that look like Polaroids. Polaroid is a recent discovery which I blogged about on the St Jude's weblog, All Things Considered earlier this week.

The above photos were taken on Boxing Day in the woods next to Wells beach, carrying a poorly Matilda on an hour long walk. I guess we shouldn't have taken her, but we thought the fresh air would wake her not send her to sleep in Stu's arms.

Below is the original of the above. Can you see why I love Poladroid - it even crops my head.

Back Blogging

My six month blog diet is now over. I'm celebrating by eating warm mince pies and dropping dollops of suet goo on the key board. The blog diet seemed quite strict, usually I do have weak moments with diets, but I really stuck to this regime.

The blog diet allowed to sleep at night (late night postings for me, had the same effect as eating slabs of plain chocolate or drinking espresso before bed). Blog abstention also meant I wasn't obsessing about what to cook and photo all the time. With the blog diet, we eat less cake, I talk to Stu in the evenings and I watch dreadful but alluring TV like Survivors.

Why I have decided to start writing now is because I'm avoiding doing all the other things I have on my to-do list in preparation for Christmas. Today is to be card making and writing day ... That's my cue to get on with it.

Last week at Jelly Festival

Jelly Festival

This time last week we were serving food to a steady stream of happy cider drunk punters at Jelly Festival, South Creake, Norfolk. The lead up to the festival was a little stressful. I guess the most stressful thing was not knowing what quantities of food to per-order in anticipation of the hopefully hungry festival goers or, how little to order in case the event was a wet wash out. It was both.

The week prior to the event, Stu with the aid of a workshop full of tools and an eye for typography, started to design a sign for our stall. We were selling BBQ sweetcorn with various flavoured butters, garlic bread, BBQ mushrooms drenched in garlic butter served in a toasted baguette and for pudding, chocolate brownies.

sign making in progress

Days before the Saturday event, I foolishly decided to order 14 cases of sweetcorn. That's 420 cobs. Yikes. I also ordered 40 baguettes and I made 144 servings of Ottolenghi's brownies. What an over ambitious fool I am. Why didn't I believe the weather forecast and why didn't I realise that we could never have manage to sell 420 cobs on the 2 large BBQs even if we were busy from the 12pm start? Still, it was the first time Stu and I had sold food at a stall and also the first time we have ever cooked in the same kitchen/gazebo/field together. We managed to co-ordinate mechanically, and with the help of our dearest friend Rosie who was serving the customers, we did managed to make a slight profit. All thanks to the sunshine though, if the rain hadn't cleared like it did at 3pm, we would have been in miserable, damp and in gloomy debt but instead, we're thinking where and when is the next festival? If we do ever repeat this formula, I don't think I really want to spend Monday morning selling (almost giving away) boxes of sweetcorn to Norwich market stall holders in 'Apprentice' style cut your losses sales-girl mode.

our stall

Warm honeyed figs

My Lidls bargain of the day - a box of Israeli green figs, perfectly ripe and very cheap. For 20 figs, the box cost less that a fiver - not bad. I hadn't dropped in for fruit and veg so to wasn't paying attention to the goods on offer, but a lovely elderly man proudly showed me his about-to-be-purchased box of figs, saying that this will tide him over until he starts to climb a fig tree for perfectly ripe figs on Elm Hill. He then shared his favourite way of eating them, he said that they are delicious fried with butter.

I've just tried his suggestion, adding to the butter; honey, a cinnamon
stick and a squeeze of lemon. I then dolloped on a heap of Greek yogurt
and drizzle of honey. I liked them a lot.

Play and Freeze

Make ice-cream with no mess, no electricity but possibly a broken toe....

Apart from the almost injuries, Play and Freeze is brilliant and a must have for anyone with a team of energetic helpers and ice-cream lovers. Fi, clever ol' Fi, turned up to the campsite with an early birthday gift of ice, rock salt, cream, vanilla sugar and chocolate chips and a large cube wrapped in paper - the Play and Freeze.

We've tried a few flavours, so far raspberries, cream and Greek yogurt is really good. I've been making a banana cake lately which requires the bananas to be cooked in a butterscotch sauce. I can't stop thinking about how tasty caramelised bananas would be when added with cream and Greek yogurt to the ice-cream ball. For now, here's how we made raspberry ripple.

Firstly, add ice-cubes and rock salt to one end.

To the end end, add cream...raspberries, Greek yogurt, vanilla sugar and milk

Then roll it, kick it (gently) drag it, fight over it for ten whole minutes, stirring it a few times.

then eat it.

Back at Stiffkey

Our impromptu camping trip to Stiffkey last week was, as always fabulous and mostly very relaxing. We even managed to dodge the rain and lap up some sunshine - not an easy thing to do over the past few summers. The lack of sunny days is depressing, Stu noted that we've haven't had the sail up (our makeshift shade from the sun on the decking) yet this summer. Last year we had it up so much more, and we thought last year's climate was bad. I'm sure the indifferent weather is affecting us all, perhaps not the girls so much but it definitely is me. Being inside, hiding from the rain when I know we shouldn't be, isn't fun and I guess that's why camping is good. You're outside pretty much what ever the weather, windy, cold, wet and sunny. The girls never seem to mind the cooler days but then they are not aware of what seasons mean and what we expect from them.

At Stiffkey, we pitched at our usual spot, ate bbq'd meat and fish, made ice-cream and walked out across the five bridges to the beautiful and quiet sandy beach at Stiffkey. The best bit, was the marsh tide. Watching the beautiful sunset reflect on the pools of water across the marsh is wonderful. Stu and Evie even managed to swim in the creeks in the following high morning tide. I had the excuse of staying out of the biting wind and staying in the warm tent drinking tea and reading the A tale of 12 Kitchens while Matilda dozed.