‘Dear Nigel’

Dear Nigel

Thanks to you and your Kitchen Diaries,  I have not been eating that healthily this week. First there was the chicken, leek and bacon pie, ooh all the crisp butter rich puff pastry (from a packet as you suggested) and that milky thick sauce. The kids declared it better than the school’s chicken pie, which perhaps is not hard, as they don’t like the school’s chicken pie , Girl Lacer still didn’t particularly like the filling but Boy Lacer ate nearly all of it, as did Mr. Lacer, who is still scarred by his mother’s chicken.

And I think you’d approve that I used spare pie filling, the next day, to make the most delicious filled jacket potato.

Then there was the little cupcakes that weren’t really cupcakes as you’re not really a cupcake kinda cook, these had chopped apricots in the batter and oats sprinkled on the top, so at first glance looked quite healthy, so let’s forget about the nearly whole packet of butter (minus a tiny sliver) that went into them and the half a bag of sugar, that made them so damn delicious, my waistline won’t forget.

And then there was that parsley risotto, ahhh buttery carb heaven.

But at least by the end of the week I was a bit more controlled, your spicy squash was lovely, although I ‘cheated’ heavily as I was only making it for one, so I used shop bought chilli sauce and added the ginger, lime juice etc. to that instead, it was still pretty good.

And then finally there was that pear salad, crisp and refreshing.

I have really enjoyed cooking from mainly the January pages of Kitchen Diaries I and II, I’m not normally much of a seasonal cook, although I know I should be but with your books I know that all I have to do is turn to the month I’m in and I’ll find food that just feels right.

Looking forward to cooking through the seasons with you.

Mrs. Lacer

Cooking 2013 style

When we packed up the flat to move out temporarily, the amount of food we had to throw out was shocking, the sort of shocking that is going to be hard not to forget and will, I hope, mean that my new vow to use up what we have, will stay a vow. Moving into a flat with literally no food (minus the landlord’s various bits that are still scattered around the place, which of course we’re not going to touch) meant that for the first time, in a long time, when we bought a week’s worth of food, that was actually a week’s worth of food, not, as it had been before, a weekly stock up to add to what was already there and it was liberating. Being able to open the cupboard or fridge and to see exactly what we had, not having to search through a jumble of half used packets and sodden cucumbers, it was wonderful, so when we move back to our flat, with it’s new, improved kitchen but still limited storage (it is after, still a very small kitchen and one of the things we’re doing is actually taking out cupboards so that we can have a breakfast bar), I want to continue that. Obviously some things will stay in the kitchen for longer than a week; I want a stock of basics, flour, pasta, sugar, rice, noodles, soy sauce, olive oil, herbs, spices etc. but everything else comes in the kitchen and gets eaten within that week. I have always envied Nigel Slater in his cooking programme, where he raids his fridge to finish off the last of his food before doing his weekly shop at the beginning of each episode, I want to do that. I’ve been working under this new ‘rule’ for about a week and a half now and although I haven’t been perfect; in the first week I had to throw out some pesto, passata and some salad, all packets that had been opened but not completely used up (the pesto and passata had been very nearly used up, the salad not so, salad is a problem in this house as I’m really the only person who eats it), but I’m getting there. So anyway, this new way of thinking is going to have to be accompanied by a slightly different way of cooking and shopping, I haven’t quite figured out how my shopping is going to change yet, I’m actually keeping a weekly record of what we’re throwing out, if certain things keep popping up on that list I’ll know to stop buying them or at least to buy smaller packet sizes or brands that keep for longer but the cooking, I think I know what I’ve got to change. Before I used to menu plan by picking a book and just using that, that way I could keep just one cookery book in the kitchen that week and not waste time trying to remember and find which books I’d planned from but some books, well, they’ll ask you to use an ingredient in one recipe and that’s it, that’s the only time really that ingredient is used, so a waste of whatever you’ve got left. Not all cookery books are like that though, Nigel Slater is good as his recipe lists tend to be just stuff you’ve got in your kitchen anyway. So, cooking 2013 style is going to involve menu planning with recipes that include the same ingredients, if that’s from a number of different books then so be it. Cooking 2013 style will also involve cooking the same dish more than once in a week, another good way of using up ingredients, it’s also a good way of memorising a recipe so that I can eventually make it (and inevitably adapt it) so that I don’t need the original book.

So, what have I been cooking? As it happens I’ve been just using one book this week, by the aforementioned Nigel Slater; Kitchen Diaries I, one of my birthday presents, it was not a good start though, first recipe I cooked, cheese smothered potatoes ended up a burnt mess, I think the recipe really need some liquid in it to prevent the sliced potatoes in the pan from catching. The whole recipe reminded me of an earlier Nigel recipe where he does cook sliced potatoes in stock and my mouth has been watering for me to cook it ever since this disaster but unfortunately that book is in storage.

The next recipe worked a lot better, a chicken noodle soup.

Then there was a chicken rice salad which was so nice I happily made it again a few days later.

And then there was a aubergine and bulgar wheat salad which lovely to, although I had to add a lot more liquid than Nigel instructed, otherwise I would have had another burnt mess on my hands.

This week’s key ingredients have been cold roast chicken and fresh mint and I don’t feel like I’ve been eating the same thing over and over again at all, in fact I had to go out and buy more chicken as I ran out and mint is definitely going to have to be a key ingredient in new herb garden I’m planning for when we get back to our flat. So far, so successful.

(I will write a proper review of Kitchen Diaries once I’ve cooked a few more of the dishes, whether that’ll be next week or in a few months, I don’t know. I am aware that I did cook my way through another cook book recently that never made these pages; Two Greedy Italians, it feels too late to review it now, particularly as in part most of the recipes weren’t, to be honest, that remarkable, except for one, their bolognese, oh my god, how could something so simple be so deeply savoury and delicious? When I originally cooked the recipe I was highly sceptical, the ingredient list was very small, just basically really mince and passata and I was all “where are the other ingredients? this is going to taste so boring!” and I was so wrong. I have cooked that recipe so many times since I don’t need the book anymore and actually it’s already morphed into something, a cross between it and my previous favourite bolognese recipe by Tanya Ramsay, so I’ve smooched the original recipe’s purity some what but it goes to show you, that sometimes less is more)

Happy Birthday Me

It’s been an interesting birthday, we moved out of our flat yesterday and our builders started properly today (they had been around earlier to remove the patio and rant about planning laws just before Christmas). The new flat is ‘interesting’, this is where I have to be careful not to insult anyone living in anything post 1980s but ummm, character is a bit lacking isn’t it? Actually, I think there is some really cool modern architecture, take Bauhaus for example or the redevelopment around Tate Modern (anyone got a spare million or two so I can get a flat round there?) but a lot of stuff, hmmmm. Oh god I’m turning in Prince Charles or maybe I’ve just lived in a period part of London for too long, after all prior to moving to our little patch of South West London we used to live in the Docklands, which is a prime example of 1980s architecture and we loved it and the flat we lived in (1980s ex housing association) did not demand the constant feeding of money just to maintain it. We also, back when we were still renting and living in the Docklands, lived for a year in the most beautiful 1980s apartment building by the river, this 1 bed flat was miles bigger than our current tiny two bed flat (as in the flat currently playing host to a veritable party of builders, not the flat we’ve just moved to) and me and Mr. Lacer still get dreamy eyed every time we reminisce about that flat. Ok, now that I’ve proved that I do like some 1980s architecture, the flat we’ve just moved into, not so, don’t get me wrong, it’s a very nice flat, in a way, it’s at least twice as big as our actual money draining flat, possibly bordering to three times as big, it’s so big it’s a drag walking to the front door to answer the intercom and if the kids are up one end and we’re up the other end you can’t hear what they’re doing (which is really odd). But ugh it’s so 80s! Living in this estate, as opposed to the 1930s estate we normally live in, feels like we’re living in a completely different part of London (actually it feels like we’re living back in the Docklands), even though we’re still in the same area. The flat has the most ridiculous uplighters (sorry uplighter fans) leaving the entire flat in shadow, it has a surfeit of windows (three in the living room, three in the hallway, two in our bedroom and a standard amount in the kitchen and kids room, this place must cost a fortune to curtain) and then there’s the most stupidly ornate door frames, moans she who’s refurbishing her 1930s flat with a very distinct nod to the ummm 1930s. Oh and the kitchen, oh the kitchen, I never thought I’d meet a kitchen that made my tiny, crappy galley kitchen (that is now no more, it was ripped out today) look good but I’ve just met it, this kitchen is bigger but the storage is awful. What doesn’t help with the storage is that (and this is so odd), the flat is full of the landlord’s belongings! Now I’ve rented plenty of times before and never had this before, I think it’s because it’s a short term let, the landlord normally lives here and just moves out when he’s got a letting, so there’s like his shampoo in the bathroom and drawers full of plastic shopping bags in the kitchen.

Anyway so we moved and today’s my birthday and I had to wake up ridiculously early to go and meet the junk removal guys at the money drain flat as they were coming today to rescue Mr. Lacer from about ten gazillion trips down the tip (we threw out a lot), we have been throwing out so much stuff that I’m getting on first name very friendly terms with these junk removal guys, it’s getting a habit. And also I needed to go and leave some paperwork for the builders and plaster the flat with post-it-notes. I did have a chance, before I ran to the flat like a knackered she-devil, as the junk removal guys rang whilst I was still in 1980s-land flat, to open my minimal birthday presents, basically a pair of gloves, some money from the mother-in-law and a really cool cookbook from my sister. Now my sister was living dangerously buying me a cookbook, now you’d think buying me a cookbook would actually be a really safe bet but you’d be surprised how many cookbooks I get given which are just so not me (said cookbooks now residing down the charity shop where they should have gone a long time ago). I’m always a bit perplexed by this as I can go into the cookbook section of Waterstones and pretty much want to buy everything (see I said I’m easy), yet my relatives seem to find the few known examples of cookbooks I actually don’t like. But my sister must have been hit by the good cookbook fairy’s happy stick because she bought me Polpo, a Venetian cookery book that unlike another Venetian cookery book I used to own until it went to the great charity shop in the sky, is actually full of useful recipes. The pizzettas in particular look gorgeous.

Anyway, by the time I got back home to 80s land it was time for Mr. Lacer and Girl Lacer to go out because they *ahem* forgot something, when they came back I got some additional birthday presents, a lovely bath smelly from Girl Lacer and Kitchen Diaries 1 & 2 from Mr. Lacer (this was after I’d told Mr. Lacer that a certain favourite TV chef of mine had been releasing his diaries about his kitchen and I didn’t have them, Mr. Lacer googled the rest to find the title). Kitchen Diaries 1 & 2 are also gorgeous, I have been a very lucky girl with cookbooks today, sigh I just love the way Nigel Slater writes and of course his recipes . . . Mr. Lacer will be paid back for his generous birthday present with good food.

So I spent the rest of the morning devouring Nigel Slater (like you do) and then we went out to Jamie’s Italian for lunch (this has been such a foodie day). I had my favourite proscuitto, rocket and pear salad (again) and raspberry and amaretto brownie with ice cream.

What in a way was the real treat though was how close it was, money pit flat is about half an hour’s walk into the town centre, which is fair enough, 80s land is 5 minutes, it’s bliss! Now that is what I’ll miss when we move back, not the space, just how close it is to the shops. And after Jamie’s I did go shopping, with the mother-in-law’s money and you know what? There is nothing like having just packed up your worldly belongings and having chucked out so much stuff you need a junk removal service (again) to make you not actually want to buy anything in the shops. I checked out all my favourite clothes shop and although there was stuff I liked, nothing called to me, saying can I come home with you? Because every time I got even a slightly bit tempted, I just remembered the whole packing process and put the dress or whatever back down again. Now I am really hoping that this flat refurbishment is, in a way, a new start, I think the timing, right at the start of the new year is quite fortuitous, we’ve just gone through the purging process with the packing, we’re currently living somewhere with just enough stuff to get us through the month, the stuff that’s really important to us (for me that’s my sewing machine, embroidery floss, a bag of fabric and just an armful of cookery and craft books). This place will be a lot easier to keep tidy and I hope with the changes in the flat when we get back (and the great big throw out), it will be easier to keep tidy there to. I want to keep remembering that I have enough. In 2012 I deliberately went from two part time jobs to one part time job and I have been beginning to think that maybe I need to go back to working two jobs again (or maybe just find a more conventionally and longer houred part time job) but maybe if I just remember a bit more about the enough, I can keep my working hours as they are. This hasn’t been a sudden transformation (if it were I’d be worried about its permanence), living on pretty much one salary tends to make you reasonably careful with money anyway, it was a tricky transition to jump when I started working again and my wardrobe did have some catching up to do but for about the last year, at least with clothes shopping, I always go clothes shopping with holes in my wardrobe specifically in mind and have more fun trying to find ‘the perfect white shirt’ or ‘the perfect blazer’. At the moment I’m looking for ‘the perfect casual tops’, as my wardrobe has too many T-shirts and I’m beginning to think late 30s, maybe cut back a little on the T-shirts. I’m also looking for ‘the perfect cord mini’ but I have a sneaky suspicion ‘the perfect cord mini’ is in my head and I’m going to have to sew it, I think ‘the perfect casual tops’ may also be in my head to and will also need to be sewn because I did look today and I couldn’t find anything ‘just right’.

Anyway, after the abortive shopping (actually it wasn’t that abortive, I bought some craft supplies), I unfortunately couldn’t walk the 5 minutes back ‘home’ as I needed to go and see if we had any post back at ‘proper home’ aka see if I had any birthday cards, there was one, don’t laugh. But I had an even better birthday treat, to discover that our builders had already taken out our kitchen and bathroom, I have yet to see our builders actually build anything but the speed at which they’ve removed the patio, kitchen and bathroom makes me think they must be really good demolishers.

When I got back to 80s land I had an email from the builders with a not so birthday treat, our joists need reinforcing and whoever laid our bathroom floor (as in the actual floor and not the tiles) obviously didn’t know how to lay a floor, like I say, our flat swallows money.

Cooking with Pinterest

I know that a common ‘complaint’ with Pinterest is that you can spend all your time pinning stuff and never actually doing it. I can be pretty bad at that, although I think I’ve made a few things from my craft board and I’ve certainly bought a few things from my style board and products I love board (in that respect Pinterest is bad for the wallet and very good for Etsy’s accounts…..). I even actually showed my (hopefully) builder pictures from my home board today, as I wanted to describe how I want my kitchen and bathroom. But I have not made much from my food board, so I’ve changed that, this is what I’ve been making recently!

1st November – ‘Crack’ bread

The chance of an ‘unhealthy’ dish making my food Pinterest board? High. Particularly if it’s got the holy duo of cheese and bacon in it. This is ‘crack’ bread, properly known as cheddar, bacon, ranch pulls. I hit a slight issue with this in that I couldn’t find a round sour dough loaf to make this, managed to order a sort of round one in my weekly shop but that turned out to be out of stock, so they substituted it with something even less practical, however it did work, it was quite adapted though (a running theme it turned out when I cooked with Pinterest recipes) as it’s an American recipe and to be honest I couldn’t be arsed to do the conversions, so I guesstimated, plus we do not have ranch dressing mix in this country, so I had to use actual ranch dressing (reducing the melted butter a bit instead). Anyway, it was nice, would have been nicer with the sour dough bread I actually ordered but not so nice I’m going to be making this again.

10th November - Pesto lasagne

Doesn’t look like much but this pesto lasagne was really nice, home made pesto and everything don’t you know. Could have done with a nice, astringent rocket salad on the side mind you, to counter balance the milkyness of the lasagne but I’d have been the only person to appreciate that (everyone else hates rocket) and anyway, I didn’t have any.

13th November – Bacon, cheddar mashed potato (what did I say about bacon and cheese?)

Altered a bit for reasons similar to the ranch bread and yep, I like my bacon crispy. This was ok but I am scared for life about my own mashed potato because whatever I do it will never ever taste as nice as Mr. Lacer’s mashed potato, probably for the same reason he makes really good toast – butter, far more than I seem to ever be genetically programmed to put on.

14th November - Vegetable patch stew

 

To make up for all that cheese, bacon and carbs I’ve been eating, actually making this one was a real treat, a complete and utter rarity for a Wednesday early evening, I had the flat to myself, so I pottered in the kitchen, chopping and frying vegetables for an hour, it was bliss. And it tasted absolutely gorgeous to, even the kids liked it. I had dished out just enough for me and Mr. Lacer (although I had made the full amount, as I wanted plenty of left overs), the kids were getting ready for bed by this point but they begged for forks to try some (didn’t think it’d be their cup of tea at all) and they absolutely loved it and have demanded it for tea tomorrow (thank god for left overs). This recipe by Mr. Can Do No Wrong Nigel Slater, is one I’ll be making again and again and again.

Other not quite successes

The problem with cooking from other blog recipes as opposed to cooking from recipe books (or at least magazine websites) is that sometimes the recipes aren’t quite so well tested. I had one complete inedible disaster with a sort of (surprise, surprise) cheese and bacon muffin thing and a made a butternut squash soup, which although edible was nowhere near as nice as my favourite butternut squash soup recipes (why, oh why do I keep trying new butternut squash soup recipes?).

Anyway, I am still cooking my way through my Pinterest board, although probably not all of it, even too many cheese and bacon recipes for me and that’s not to mention the over emphasis on stuff containing sugar…..

 

Toast

I’ve had a copy of Toast, Nigel Slater’s memoir, for quite some time, inspired to read it after watching the film of the book last year. I read probably the first third and then went on to read something else and then something else after that and then something else after that, you get my drift. However I started reading it again recently, picking up from where I left off easily due to having remembered the film and also because of the format of the book being very short stories, so it wasn’t hard to find a fresh place to start. So I started reading it again and found myself whizzing through the book (aided by a recent 4 hour wait in a hospital waiting room) and really enjoyed it.

Just as with Nigel Slater’s cook books, Nigel Slater when he writes a memoir is just as readable, he has a very smooth way with words and is often quite funny. I think a lot of people would have seen the Toast adaptation on TV and I know a lot of foodies who have already read the book, so it’s not much of a secret that Slater did not have a particularly happy childhood. His mother dies when he is young and his father marries the housekeeper, someone that at least the teenage Slater thinks is a horrible woman.

I remember a lot of criticism after the adaptation came out that Slater was a bit of a nasty, spoilt brat as a child, specially in his behaviour towards his father’s second wife and the book doesn’t particularly paint Slater in that much of a better light (although in fairness the second wife did sound an incredibly manipulative woman). The sections in the book where the teenage Slater is unhappy because his step mother is telling him to do his homework, wash his face etc. etc., whereas as far as he’s concerned other boys can do what they want, did sort of suggest he was on cloud cuckoo land with that one.

The book was fascinating though as a look into what food and what relationships with food, shaped someone who is now 30 – 40 years (?) later one of my favourite food writers. It was also a trip through memory lane of the sort of dishes that thankfully I can only very, very vaguely remember, prawn cocktail, ugh no thank you, I am very glad that has remained in the past.

And finally it’s worth reading for the walnut whips, particularly when they’re combined with a spot of dog walking, the final scene on that one is cringe worthy hilarious.

All promise, no delivery

I rarely spend all afternoon cooking something because quite frankly I just don’t have the time. Like this afternoon, there were plenty of things I could have been getting on with, some pleasurable (I have several finished pieces of embroidery that need sewing into their new homes) and some not (I have lots of laundry to sort) but no, I thought I’d take the time to cook something nice, Leon 2′s Chicken with 100 Cloves and Potato Leon-aise. The chicken with 100 cloves (actually it was 93) smelt absolutely amazing as it cooked, the Potato Leon-aise probably smelt nice to, it’s just the smell of the chicken was so overwhelming. So I was really really looking forward to this and yeugh, where shall I start? The potatoes were the worse, sort of like dauphinaise without the cream, the top was over cooked, the bottom undercooked and a thin layer of the middle edible, but not really worth the effort. The chicken at least was cooked properly but you really wouldn’t have thought I’d cooked it with so much garlic, so not worth the effort either. Two recipes I will not cook again (for the record Nigel Slater does do far nicer creamless daphinoise recipes, so the idea can work, I should have stuck with Nigel!).

Salad planted

The salad seedlings that had been living on my bedroom window sill were planted up today. Now I know salad seedlings aren’t meant to transplant well, but I’m following Nigel Slater’s advice here because I’ve had problems with my salad in the past when sowing directly because the seedlings get eaten before they even have a chance. However, having planted the seedlings up now, I’m not convinced these seedlings are going to survive either, they were very weak and floppy, we’ll see. Whilst planting I did also plant some seeds directly as well, so I’ve either done some successional planting or I’ve got even longer to wait for my salad.

The netting was a present from my dad for Christmas, it fits the salad bed pretty well but not quite well enough, so some seedlings are out in the open, at the mercy of the parakeets. Now I know wood pigeons are a nightmare for seedlings because there is a pair of wood pigeons in my back garden who consider anything I plant a snack but I’ve never had to deal with a large concentration of parakeets before, we’ll see what happens but I’ve heard farmers hate them, so I can imagine they’re going to be a problem.