Wensleydale and Ginger Scones

What is up with the weather?  One minute, everyone is raving on about how autumnal it is; my fellow foodies are twittering about soups, stews and casseroles; and I'm desperately trying to find my gloves*. The next, it's roasting hot and I'm feeling like Pinchy probably did when he met his end a little while back.

When the weather turned earlier this week, I figured I'd make some soup this weekend and that it should be complimented by a plate of hot, buttered cheese scones.  My mind then wandered off at a tangent as I bought some Wensleydale to go with Bath Olivers - recommended to me by Lizzie (aka @Mrs_Gaffer).  Whilst perusing Ocado online, I came across Wensleydale with Ginger and thus, Wensleydale and Ginger scones were born.

Slightly singed scones with even more cheese

Wensleydale was one of my favourite cheeses long before Wallace and Gromit appeared on the scene.  For the uninitiated, it has a very delicate flavour and is very crumbly too.  It works well with sweet things such as proper apple pie (with a top and a bottom) or ginger cakes.  I have yet to try it with Bath Olivers as I used it all in my scones and will therefore have to buy more next week.


Because I already had a jar of stem ginger in the fridge, I decided to just buy regular Wensleydale and to combine the two into a scone.  That way, I could make some plain Wensleydale scones to see what they were like on their own - and to feed to my fussy toddler, just in case - and I could do some with ginger in as well.

So I made two sets of mixture, one with cheese, a touch of cayenne and a smidgen of mustard; the others with cheese and finely diced ginger.  I placed them in the oven to bake and couldn't work out why, after 12 minutes, the plain scones had barely risen, let alone browned.  Then I noticed I'd stupidly switched my oven on to grill mode in my sleep-befuddled haze (this was 7.30am**) and so consequently, the ginger ones were cooked and nearly singed on top***, whilst I had to rebake the plain Wensleydale ones again.

The resulting scones were both enjoyable, although the Wensleydale flavour is so subtle in the scones that you'd either need a lot more of that and barely any ginger to get both flavours; or as I would recommend, you should just make the ginger scones, omit the cheese from the recipe and eat it on the side in a big fat lump.

Just getting back to the weather - after barbecuing myself in the sunshine all day (and eating a dodgy looking ice lolly), I returned home to find I was shivering cold and so ended up also making this tomato soup from BBC Good Food.  This is the quickest soup ever and is great when a tin of rather foul Heinz tomato soup is the only thing in your store cupboard.

So here's the recipe for both sets of scones.

• 225g self raising flour
• 50g cold butter, cubed
• 145ml buttermilk (or 140ml milk and 5ml lemon juice), warmed
• pinch table salt

-then either-

• 150g Wensleydale, grated
• pinch cayenne pepper
• pinch English mustard powder

-or-

• 1 ball stem ginger, finely chopped
• 150g Wensleydale (optional if you want to try the Wensleydale and Ginger version)

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan/425f.  Place a baking tray in the oven to get hot.
2. In a large mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add your other chosen ingredients and give a quick mix to spread through the bowl evenly.  
4. Pour in the buttermilk and work to form a soft, dough using a round ended knife.  Don't over work the dough.
5. Tip out onto a floured work surface, pat to be about 2.5cm/1 inch thick and then cut using a pastry cutter.  I used an 7cm cutter for my ginger ones and got four from the mix (and one for the dog) and a 5cm cutter for the plain cheese ones and got eight (and one for the dog).
6. Remove the baking tray from the oven, place the scones on to the tray and bake for 10-12 minutes.  If you're baking larger scones, leave them for 14 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly before serving with lashings of butter.

*cold hands = warm heart
**at this point, I'd abandoned the soup plan in favour of a day out at the local-ish farm park with Miss A so the scones had been promoted to picnic fodder
***thankfully I didn't wake the husband with the smoke alarm for once

Dodgy ice lolly

Angela Nilsen's Twice Baked Cheese Souffles

Having been lulled into a false sense of souffle-making-knack-security when I made Kerstin Losch's Mousse di Limao for the Olympic Food Challenge, I figured that I was expert enough to pull off these twice baked souffles.

First bake....

I first happened across the recipe in Good Food Magazine a few months back and filed it away in the 'to do list' as a tick in the 'learn to souffle' box.  It also had the added bonus of being cheesy and low in calories so it was definitely a must-make.

Because the recipe is done in two stages, it allowed me to start it off on Sunday and then finish it today for dinner, thus claiming the recipe for today (my blog, my rules!).  With a full day of Prince2, including the practitioner exam late in the afternoon, I knew I'd be pushing it.  Any other Thursday, I'd've probably given into the hubby's demands for a chippy tea, but now he's on this health kick, chippy trips are banned (by him, not me for once).  But it forced me to not give up on this madcap challenge at the last fence.

Things started well on Sunday with the really cheesy sauce.  The roux is made from olive oil with just a touch of butter.  I'm not sure if the oil makes a difference but for once, I didn't have to battle to beat lumps from the sauce.  The addition of parmesan, Philly, chives and mustard made an amazing tasting cheese sauce.  I carefully folded in the whipped eggs as instructed and set them in the oven to bake in a bain marie.

....second bake....Disaster!

They rose well.  I timed them.  They looked cooked.  I left them to cool, and then ejected them from their pots.  Not good.  All three broke coming out of the mould - it looked like they weren't actually cooked enough in the first place.  Trouble was, even though it said how long to cook them for, there was nothing saying how to check that they'd reached the desired consistency in the middle.  Undeterred, I carefully transferred them to a tupperware box, wrapped as best I could and froze them.

But of course, once they hit the oven, they just spread into a huge, cheesy mess.  And to be honest, they went from tasty to bland - perhaps after the addition of the egg whites to the cheese sauce?  To say I was disappointed to have no tea after such a bad day would've been an understatement.  However now I'm all Prince2'd up, I saw the risk on Sunday and made sure I had some bread in to make toast for my tea instead.  I believe that's a Fallback Plan to use the correct terminology.  Or what mere mortals would refer to as Plan B.  Shame my risk budget didn't extend to lobster and champagne to celebrate surviving the exam with my sanity (just about intact).

So it's a thumbs down to this recipe for me.  But don't let me put you off trying it.  Just make sure you have a risk mitigation plan in place first!  You can find it here.

Olympic Food Challenge: Kebapche with Shopska Salad - Bulgaria

Bulgaria is forever tied to one of my childhood food memories.  My godfather used to travel there a lot for work in the eighties and for some economical reason or another, the Bulgarians couldn't get enough of Sterling.  He used to return home with bags full of Toblerone because apparently, whatever you bought, they gave you the change in chocolate.  One tale I remember quite clearly involved buying a bottle of pink champagne for just £1 and getting one of those mahoosive Toblerones you can only buy in Duty Free as change.  If only you could do that today - I'd be there like a shot.

Kebapche with Shopska Salad

The other food thing I remember was him complaining that all you ever got for pudding was yogurt and cherries.  Everywhere.  He's a chef with his own fancy pants fine dining company and so he's not the kind of person to seek out the most English of foreign restaurants when he's away.  He'll do his best to eat 'native' - short of accosting someone in the street and insisting that they take him home and feed him.  He said it put him off of yogurt and cherries for life.  At the time, I thought this was an amazing thing to have every night for pudding.  Muller Fruit Corners were in their infancy back then and I remember pleading with anyone who would listen to let me have one because I so wanted to taste that glorious shiny black cherry sauce with the snowy white yogurt.  Now, as an adult, I can see that it's not actually the be all and end all of desserts.  But if the restaurant gave you Toblerone as change when you paid, I wouldn't be complaining.


Anyhow, whilst doing my research, I did toy with the idea of an easy-win by doing something with yogurt and cherries.  But I couldn't find a recipe for it!  I then decided to make a Bulgarian Wine Kebab which is basically pork sauteed in wine and served with mash.  But of course, the weather decided to buck its ideas up and I wasn't in the market for a heavy dish like that tonight.  The meat has now been placed in the freezer to languish there for a few months as I'm really not a pork fan.

Luckily, my back up recipe was for lamb kebapche with shopska salad.  Basically minced lamb kebabs with a chopped salad covered in feta.  Simple, fresh and summery.  If I'm honest, similar to a meal that I'd cook myself.  I was a little disappointed by the lack of taste in the meat - the recipe uses minimal spices and I find that lamb mince tends to need a lot thrown into the mix to stop it tasting like cardboard.  My go-to recipe for lamb burgers/meatballs/kebabs is definitely the Lorraine Pascale recipe that's the number two most read post on this blog.

As for the salad, I liked the addition of herbs which is something I wouldn't normally do and the red wine vinegar dressing worked for me.  I normally make the same dressing time and again (olive oil, balsamic, lime juice, garlic, salt and pepper) so it was good to have this lighter combination of flavours. I think I've got some learning to do about appropriate dressings for different salads.

The Bulgarian flag isn't stunted - it's white at the top!

For simplicity, taste and crowd pleasing abilities, this gets another silver for Bulgaria to go with the one they won in the woman's wrestling.  The only medal from the 63 athletes competing in 16 disciplines.

And finally, whilst on the subject of women wrestlers, a week or so ago I happened across a link on the BBC website that allowed you to compare your physique to that of an Olympic athlete.  I am closest to a shot putter or weightlifter (*horrified face*).  The only way I could get round this was by elevating my height to that of when I wear my stilettos - the extra four inches turning me into a footballer instead.  Amusingly, someone commented that pretty much every female they knew came out as a weight lifter, shot putter or wrestler and it must be a fix because nobody came out as a female volleyballer.  Nobody that is, except for one of my male friends.  That did make me chuckle!

Olympic Food Challenge: Halloumi Parcels - Cyprus

What an immense day!  A world record in the means team cycling (although thanks to the torrential rain breaking the Sky box, I missed it).  Gold and silver in the canoe slalom.  Silver for rowing and judo and another gold in the clay pigeon shoot.  Go, Team GB.

As for the challenge, I ski-ed off-piste today and didn't deliver the previously promised dish from Guinea Bissau.  I was seriously not in a mood to eat tea tonight.  So instead, I opted for a 'trip' to Cyprus and some Halloumi Parcels.  A nice, light meal before an evening slaving away in the kitchen, licking cake bowls.  It's a tough life.

So Cyprus.  Thirteen athletes competing in seven disciplines and like El Salvador from last night, still looking for that first medal of any colour.  Rather sensibly, although they've got a cyclist on their team, they've chosen not to compete in the track cycling.  As one of my Twitter buddies said - why does anyone else bother showing up given that we're so awesome?

Divided by the Turkish part and the Greek part, Cyprus is the third most populated island in the Mediterranean.  The cuisine is influenced by both Turkey and Cyprus and this particular dish is reminiscent of the Turkish borek, but using the local delicacy of Halloumi rather than Feta.  The other slight variation is the inclusion of cottage cheese in the mix.  This is also commonly done in several other countries - such as Serbian Cheese Pie (a big version of borek) whereas Turkish borek tend to just stick to feta alone.

I must confess that ever since I went to Turkey fifteen years ago, I've been slightly obsessed with borek and when I was coming up with my recipe list, desperately researched which countries I could get away with making something similar for.  Good girl that I am, I won't be making the Macedonian version in a few days time - but the need for filo is another excuse to make that other Med favourite of Baklava instead.

Simple to make, quick to cook and packed with flavour.  The Halloumi made a nice change to feta and is far less squeaky on the teeth than when you just grill or pan fry it.  I'd make them again if I had some Halloumi and cottage cheese hanging around.  However given that today is the first time I've ever bought cottage cheese, I doubt I'll be making this variation again for a long time.

Because I love borek, I'll be biased and give this one a gold.  You can find the recipe here.

One other thing, I got a shout out on the Foodies 100 Ten at Ten today.  Big up to Ewan Mitchell and the rest of the Olympic Food Challenge Team who need to share in the glory.

Fi Harvey's Courgette and Goat's Cheese Bread

I've been meaning to blog about my holiday for a while now but I've never gotten round to it.  We spent the first week in North Berwick, a seaside town on the Firth of Forth.  We've visited for odd days before to view the famous Bass Rock which is one of the seven great natural wonders of the world, but this year, I decided we'd base ourselves there for a week.

The finished bread - won't last much longer!

Hubby is a keen twitcher (he hates that term) and passionate wildlife photographer so being close to the Bass and with the endless sandy beaches that South East Scotland and North East England have to offer, it seemed like the perfect family holiday.

But what made it even more special was being invited to a gathering of some of the Edinburgh Cake Ladies.  Months ago, I discovered that the lovely @Allison_Patrick who I randomly followed on Twitter lives in North Berwick. She mentioned that she'd organise a gathering but I thought no more of it.  A day or two before we arrived, she asked where we were staying and it turned out she knew the owners of the cottage.  Not only that but she manages a beautiful B&B right next door to where we were staying.

On arrival, I did my usual tour of the cottage, rapidly assessing it for both for how good it looked before we unpacked and how much potential there was for Miss A to break something valuable.  I swiftly removed the bottle of wine that had been left to welcome us from the lounge table and moved onto the kitchen.  At which point I got excited that they'd also left us fresh bread, bacon, eggs and milk from the local farm.  Better than the last place we stayed at in Norfolk where we got a packet of Happy Shopper bourbons.

The fridge also appeared to be dominated by a rather large package of silver foil.  Strange.  But perched on top of it was a note from Allison, welcoming us to North Berwick and saying that the parcel contained a coconut meringue roulade filled with raspberries and marscapone cream.  I was overawed by such generosity from someone I'd never even met.  And it tasted amazing too.

Allison's roulade which didn't last long either!

Not only that but she convened a special meeting of the Cake Ladies where I finally got to meet @HungrySquirrels and @HarbourHussy as well as @Edincakeladies, @MadeByFi, @LouLouElla, @21UrbHousewife and @ShellyLovesTea.  An amazing group of ladies and it made me finally realise that my husband's crackpot plan to move to Scotland might not be so bad after all.  I've been sworn to secrecy not to reveal what went on that night, but I will say that the Buckfast was bought out at one point.  Other than that, what happens at cake club, stays at cake club.

This of course meant that I had a whole bunch of new people to tweet with when I got home - one being Fi Harvey (@MadeByFi) who last week blogged about this amazing summery looking loaf that I just had to try. I had thought about doing it for my Mum's birthday barbecue but that falls right in the middle of the Olympic Challenge and I felt that this bread needed eating and this post needed writing outside of that madness so I made it this morning.

Ready for the oven.

It was a doddle to do and would be really amazing for a picnic or barbecue.  The flavours were so fresh and the bread was so soft.  I will definitely make this time and again.  I'd never thought about tear-and-share bread, but I loved rolling the filling up inside.  There are endless possibilities for that.

For once, I didn't have enough bread flour in for the recipe, so I used half 00 grade pasta flour and I also substituted mint for the basil which made it taste a lot like Borek.  I was a little worried when I sliced the loaf as the filling was desperate to escape but once the dough started to puff in the oven, it was nicely contained.

One small mistake was baking the bread when I was waiting to go for a run.  Having had a liquid-only breakfast (I can't run after eating anything), it came out of the oven and sat wafting its gorgeous summery smell all round the house making me want to scoff the lot.  Luckily it also motivated me through the four miles and made a fab breakfast.

Top marks to Fi for this recipe which you can find published online at the Broughton Spurtle.  Now I just have to try and persuade the hubby to visit North Berwick again next summer.  Usually, it's the other way around!

Wahaca: Mollettes

Never let it be said that I don't like themes and patterns.  This week has mostly been about Stuff-on-Toast.  And today is no exception.  I guess it's a reflection of my current mood because I'm a) looking for something a bit comforting - toast being the cure to everything in my world in preference to a nice cup of tea - and b) because I'm feeling a little fragile healthwise and so I'm not up for big food.

Slightly over-zealous salsa application

Stuff-on-Toast started on Wednesday when I picked up some English muffins from Waitrose on my way home from seeing the Quack.  I'd intended to have them as a snack with Miss A but then quickly got swayed by Rachel Khoo's Stuff-on-Toast recipe - or to give it it's proper name "Tartines Sucrées et Salées".  Yesterday's tea was scrambled eggs and Tommy-K on muffins, washed down with a mouthful of my disasterous Pimms jelly.  Breakfast this morning after an hour of BodyCombat was peanut butter and banana on a toasted muffin and lunch has been the most recent encounter with Stuff-on-Toast in the guise of Mollettes.

I was torn about trying this recipe as it seemed to be quite similar in theme to Miers' Queso Fundido which is basically refried beans smothered in cheese and grilled.  It's probably the one bug bear I have with some recipe books where they're by the same chef.  You often get the same - or minor variations on - other recipes from their previous books.  Miers' Tortilla Soup appears in both Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home and Mexican Cooking Made Easy as do variations on Queso Fundido, Caesar Salad and Mexican Hot Chocolate (just a few off the top of my head).  I own two books by Gordon Ramsay where around 50% of the recipes appear in both books.  The original Hummingbird Bakery and Cake Days have a couple of crossover recipes too.  I appreciate that maybe it's my fault for buying more than one book by the same person.  


Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised with this recipe.  It is a doddle and I was really tempted to make it with all storecupboard ingredients but did half and half, using Discovery refried beans in place of Miers' own recipe (which I really must get around to trying) but making the fresh tomato salsa myself - rather than using some shop-bought that I had in the fridge for using in sandwiches.


If one thing has changed in my cooking this past year it's that I'm more likely to have fresh herbs and tomatoes to hand.  This time last year, I probably hadn't bought a fresh tomato for about five years.  But today, I was able to root some from the back of the crisper, safe in the knowledge that the Ocado man will bring some more this evening.  As for the herbs, my staple is now to have a growing pot of coriander in the garden.  I really wanted to plant my own but I've never successfully grown herbs since we've had a male dog.  When he was a puppy, he took a fancy to chewing them.  I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions to what he does to them now.  I've tried growing them in a wall trough but they just died so now just pop a store-bought pot on my patio table instead.


Making the fresh salsa was a revelation.  Miers uses a combination of tomatoes, chilli, red onion, lime juice, sugar and salt.  I initially thought that the sugar would make it too sweet but it works brilliantly with the slightly salty cheese and beans and the taste combination of all the Stuff-on-Toast(ed muffin) together was amazing.  And despite the cheese and beans, the zingy salsa makes this perfect for a little summer snackage.


It actually comes from the breakfast section of the book.  Much as I love my post-workout peanut butter and banana munch when I've got the time to make it, I am so thinking of swapping it for this once in a while.  New favourite recipe.  Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home - highly recommended

Wahaca: Three Tomato Salad

I have hated fresh tomatoes with a passion for my entire life.  They loiter on the side of your plate in pubs, oozing their juice over the best chips or lurk surreptitiously in the middle of shop-bought sandwiches, making the bread soggy.  This makes me grumpy.  If I'm dining in company, whoever my companion is (historically my grandfather or mother, now the husband) will immediately be furnished with said tomatoes in exchange for cucumber and/or coleslaw.  They offend me so much I can't even have them on my plate.  It's the slimy insides I don't like.  And cherry tomatoes are the work of the devil as they have the greatest slime-to-flesh ratio of all tomatoes.

I've got nothing against cooked tomatoes.  Not cooked whole tomatoes, you understand.  But if they're in a sauce then I'm okay with that.  And, one of my favourite recipes from this blog so far has been Thomasina Miers' chilli jam - which contains mountains of tomatoes.  I keep a huge jar in the fridge to dollop into sandwiches or eat alongside salads.

Not quite as nicely styled as the book version but just as tasty

The only time in my thirty-something years on this planet that I've ever enjoyed tomatoes was the first time I met the parents of my very first boyfriend.  Despite him being off to the top end of the weird scale, I really liked his parents and when they offered to make us dinner, I politely accepted.  His dad was a keen gardener and grew all his own fruit and veg.  You can imagine my horror when the aforementioned meal turned out to be chicken with a fresh tomato salad.  But because I was bought up to have good manners (things have changed since then!) I accepted the plate with good grace and steeled myself to do battle with the mound of tomatoes, taunting me.

What a surprise.  These were firm and tasty and had that gorgoeous fresh-grown tomato smell.  I've always loved that smell and it reminds me of when my mum used to grow tomatoes when I was a child.  Dressed in a simple vinaigrette and sprinkled liberally with salt, they were an absolute revelation.  Nothing like those squidgy, slimy, dreary salad tomatoes peddled by the supermarkets.

Sadly for my tomato-eating career, we split up soon afterwards on the advice of his mother.  She had the sense to see I could do better for myself (I couldn't have done worse!).  Don't get me wrong - she liked me. She even told me I was dating the wrong son and that I'd be a fantastic daughter-in-law (I was a late starter on the dating scene).  But the weird, psychotic tendencies of son number two quickly sent me running for the hills.

The past fifteen years have been plagued by further encounters with both people firmly at the wrong end of the weirdo scale and nasty tomatoes too.  I'm sure I've eaten in places that could've changed my tomato fearing mind, but it's just something I would never consider ordering.  When you go out, you go out to eat for pleasure, not to torture yourself.  Lycopersicoaphobia has remained firmly rooted in my psyche.

Until I got my copy of Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home by Thomasina Miers.  If you're a regular reader, you'll know I adore Thomasina's books.  And I'm now eager to holiday in Mexico one day (although I'll be going by myself as Mr Fussy wouldn't eat the food and would worry that he'd get kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel).  Flicking through the book, the one recipe that really captured my imagination was the aforementioned Three Tomato Salad.  Yes.  Seriously.  I've been obsessing about this for a couple of weeks now to the point where I'm wondering exactly why I'm craving something I can't stand.

For the record, I would like to categorically state that I am not pregnant.  My mother will obviously be very disappointed by that.  My boss will most likely be relieved.  As will the husband because he's starting to make noises about me working late too often.  I am actually working to keep a roof over our heads!

Pretty colours

So today, I headed to Morrisons to pick up some real tomatoes.  They've recently revamped the fruit and veg section and you can buy all manner of weird and wonderful things.  And lots of it doesn't come stuffed into a huge plastic box so you can just buy what you need.  Okay, it's probably more expensive, but I don't mind paying a bit more to buy only what I need if it's far tastier than a giant economy pack of flavourless tomatoes.

I was spoilt for choice with stripy Heirloom tomatoes and tiny orange plum tomatoes, regular cherry tomatoes on the vine and pretty orange and yellow tomatoes.  I really wanted someone to share this joyous occasion with but the husband is crashed out on the bed after another session of the Insanity workout and I'm too impatient to save it until the next time I'm at my mothers so it seemed the perfect antidote to yet another wet and dreary day.

The flavours are amazing.  Fresh tomatoes with feta and pineapple, mixed with a red-wine vinegar dressing.  The salt of the feta cuts beautifully through the sweet tomatoes and is balanced well with the acid from the pineapple and the dressing.  In fact this now ranks up there with my all time favourite recipes from this year.  And I have enough tomatoes left to make it again for tomorrow's lunch.  I was planning on using them to make Gazpacho, but it seems a criminal waste of beautiful tomatoes.

I'm now firmly converted!

Welsh Rarebit (or Rabbit)

I'm feeling mighty guilty for picking a Welsh recipe whilst holidaying in Scotland.  I did do a Scottish recipe on Burns night - and missed St David's Day.  And I'm hoping that during this holiday (this post may auto-publish if I've got no interweb) that I'll have swapped out one of my planned recipes for some lovely, locally sourced Scottish produce.  But with two weeks of quick, speedy recipes to come up with, I'm now getting desperate.

Cheese on toast.  Whod've thought it could be so complicated?  But even in our house, I cook it two different ways.  The husband only likes his bread toasted on one side.  The soft side must then be buttered before being covered in sliced cheese.  The cheese must melt and not have a single speck of brown on it.  He then eats it with a knife and fork.

I, on the other hand, really prefer my cheese unmelted.  Give me two nice pieces of toast that have been left in the toaster until they've cooled a little and gone crispy.  Butter with butter that's out of the fridge, but not too hard or too soft (Lurpak spreadable makes this so much easier - but the toast has to be totally cold or it makes the bread soggy with its higher water content).  I then like my cheese grated on the fine grater setting (never the thick one) and piled on top.

Or, if I'm making proper cheese on toast, then I like a smattering of brown specks, but not so much that it tastes of toasted cheese.  We're a fussy pair, aren't we?

I wondered how I could challenge our foibles.  Sometimes the simple things are the best and can't be improved on.  But I'm all about change this year.  So Welsh Rarebit (Rabbit) it was.

A quick Google turned up so many recipes that I started out with Felicity Cloake's article on how to make the best Welsh Rarebit (Rabbit).  It seems like anything goes with different cheeses, liquids, breads and seasonings.  I just wanted something simple.  The husband was pleased to let me try it as it meant I bought him some beer for the evening - I only needed two tablespoons.

I plumped for egg yolks, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and some Dijon mustard - it was all I had.  And it wasn't half bad.  The husband had a bit and said it was 'too cheesy'.  I think he meant it was too tangy for him.  We always have Double Gloucester as the husband doesn't like really mature cheddar.  The combination of flavours ended up making it tangy like a stronger cheddar but with a beautifully soft, melty texture thanks to the liquid and the eggs.

This is something to experiment with when I get home.  After I've had a bit of a holiday food detox.

You can read Felicity's article here.

Rachel Khoo's Asparagus with Lemon and Mint Vinagrette

During a recent meeting at work, I was accused by my colleagues as being a control freak because I'd taken possession of both the remote control for the overhead projector and the air conditioning.  Despite the fact that I was leading the meeting, they (all males) seemed to think it was because I wear the trousers at home and naturally assume control of the telly zapper and, consequently control the viewing of my household.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Between 7am and 7pm, if the telly is on, it will either be tuned to CBeebies, football or cricket.  With Miss A and the husband doing battle for supremacy if there is a conflict of interests.  After 7pm, the husband is in sole control of what is shown on the lounge telly.  It's one of about three things.  Football.  Reality TV.  Or CSI/NCIS/Law and Order/insert other annoying American drama series in this space.

I am sometimes permitted to join the viewing of programmes, provided I limit my commentary about poor continuity, improbable circumstances and '(s)he is the killer' (usually said within the first five minutes and proving to be correct fifty minutes later) to a minimum.  Likewise, I get red-carded from the football if I utter 'Didn't he used to play for....?', 'Isn't that....?' or 'xyz used to play for Southampton. All the good footballers played for Southampton once upon a time'.

The only time I've ever been able to convince the hubby to watch something out of the ordinary was when I introduced him to Michael McIntyre.  The husband doesn't do funny.  Invariably, I have to explain jokes to him which then means they lose their humour.  But one rare night when I did manage to get a hold of the remote, I tuned in to Comedy Roadshow and because MM was doing his routine about his kids and the husband now gets the harassed parent references, he actually laughed.  And so once in a blue moon, I'm allowed to now watch that too.

Of course, if I had my way, the viewing would predominantly include food programmes.  And comedy.  But certainly at the moment, mostly food.  I used to love Saturday Kitchen (I have a thing for James Martin) but of course, now if I put the telly on on a Saturday, James is rapidly replaced by Justin (aka Timmy the sheep, Mr Tumble, Jake the Tweeny, the man from Gigglebiz etc etc....).  When I was on maternity leave and snowed in (pre baby) I whiled away the hours watching so many back-to-back episodes of Come Dine With Me that I started dreaming about it.  Now, I just fill the Sky box with episodes that never get watched.

And so it will be no surprise to you that I've never seen Little Paris Kitchen.  I know of Rachel Khoo because many of my Twitter friends have raved about her cooking and her amazing sense of style.  I've read articles in Good Food about her.  I meant to Sky + the series, but knew I'd only get to watch it if I got up at 2am to get my mitts on the remote.  And then the dogs would probably pounce on me and insist on watching re-runs of Crufts or something.

Today's recipe is by Khoo, but only because I was desperately Googling at 3am (couldn't sleep - should've caught up with CDWM back catalogue) to find something to do with the bunch of asparagus that was slowly wilting in my fridge, coupled with the now meagre other contents of the fridge which is being cleaned out in preparation for the holiday.

Luckily, I managed to tick all of the boxes, save for lemons (purchased on the way to work).  And even got further use out of my little pack of mint that I bought for Monday's recipe and used again yesterday.  Am pleased with self for being thrifty and actually using up nearly a whole pack of fresh herbs rather than letting them wilt into submission.  In fact, I should declare this as National Mint Week.  Or 366 Recipe Challenge's Mint Week.  Or ....Mint Four Days as I now only have enough left to cover tomorrow's recipe.

Anyway, I'm aware that I've done a whole lot of waffle and so without further ado, this makes a really lovely starter (or main if you're greedy like me) and brings out the best in seasonal asparagus with a few simple ingredients.  Will definitely make again and again.  I just love asparagus and goats cheese.  It pressed all my buttons.  Only had regular green asparagus, and I used a crumbly Chevre with it.  Served with the last bit of the foccacia I made the other day.  Winning tea.

You can find the recipe here (and no, I didn't see it on the One Show!)

Stuffed Peppers

At the moment, I'm reading Nigel Slater's 'Toast'.  Although he was born in 1958 and is a contemporary of my mother and my uncle; many of his food references could have been picked straight from my own childhood.  Brands like Cadburys Smash and Mini Rolls; Birds Custard; Dairylea on Cornish Wafers; and tins of Teatime Selection Biscuits.


Like Slater, as a child, I used to pore over my mother's recipe books and dream of eating many of the things on those glossy colour plates.  Never the things that were drawn or photographed in black-and-white; just the things in glorious technicolour.  Sadly, secondary school cookery (and my mother's assertion that catering was a bad career choice) put paid to any foodie aspirations.

Need to practise with the Instagram aperture setting!

One of my favourite books as a youngster though was a copy of Cookery for Children.  Despite most of the pictures being coloured drawings, there was something exciting about the idiot-proof step-by-step guide to making chocolate orange cheesecake or egg-in-the-window.  I also had copies of Gardening for Children and Modelling (as in craft!) for Children.  All three of which were much thumbed.  But I never once made anything from any of them.

I'm sure the books are probably still stashed away somewhere at my grandparents house, waiting faithfully for me to discover them on that sad day when we'll have to clear the house out.  They are most definitely on the list of things that will be being saved.

My mother recently bought Abigail a cookery book and I was amazed to see that despite technology having progressed so much and it being far easier to do step-by-step photographs, the pictures are still reassuringly hand drawn.  You could almost believe the artist is the same as the style is so similar.  It's only the modern recipes that give away the fact that it's not the same book.

Leafing through it at the weekend, I came across a recipe for stuffed peppers.  As a child, my mother used to have a habit of stuffing anything that found its way into the kitchen and didn't move after five minutes.  Of course, chicken and turkeys expect to be stuffed, but she also stuffed rolled pork joints, capsicums, aubergines, marrows and all manner of offal things.  The thought of stuffed hearts still turns my stomach to this day.

Her stuffed peppers were filled with mince and rice.  I have no idea why I refused to eat them (I guess I was a child and it was my prerogative).  Instead, I got mince, beans and rice - basically chilli without the chilli and using baked beans instead of kidney beans.  She also used to stuff her peppers by slicing the top off, filling the middle and then serving them with the lids back on top, mince peeking provocatively from the top.  Even that didn't sell it to me.

Much as I'd love Abigail to eat stuffed peppers, I think that day is a long way off in the future.  In the meantime, the sentimental side of me couldn't let another children's cookery book go unloved so I decided to make the peppers for my own lunch today.

It's not exactly the weather for such fresh, healthsome food.  These demand to be eaten outside in the sunshine with a crisp green salad, a glass of wine (not for the children of course!) and some crusty bread.  It's a good storecupboard recipe for using up random things from the fridge - I have five more capsicums to do something with before we go on holiday next week.

I also added a handful of pine nuts to the recipe for a bit of crunch, but this is one of those very forgiving recipes that you can tweak to your hearts content.  I also used arborio rice and think next time, I'd cook the rice in stock (as per adapted recipe below).

Can see this working well with chilli con carne (my review of Lorraine Pascale's is the second most popular post on this blog) and loaded with sour cream.  Served of course, like my mother made hers with the top serving as a lid, goodies just about ready to spill over the side.

Forgot to write down the details of the book, but will update the post with the correct references later.

Serves 4

Memories of my childhood

• 4 bell peppers, halved and de-seeded
• 125g arborio rice
• 125g cheddar, grated
• 25g parmesan, grated
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 2 tomatoes, de-seeded and diced
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
• small handful each of parsley and basil, chopped
• 25g pine nuts, toasted
• half a chicken or vegetable stock cube
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/350F.
2. Add the stock cube to a pan of water, bring to the boil then cook the risotto rice for 12 minutes. Drain under cold running water to stop it cooking further.
3. While the rice is cooking, heat the oil in a small frying pan over a medium heat and saute the onion for 3-4 minutes until translucent.  Add the garlic and cook for a further 1-2 minutes, taking care to not let the garlic burn.  Remove from the heat.
4. Place the peppers onto a baking tray.  Mix the onions, garlic, rice, tomatoes, cheeses, pine nuts and herbs together.  Season to taste.
5. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the pepper shells are soft.

Dan Lepard's Cheesy Torpedoes

Following on from last night's barbecue, I managed to convince the husband that we should go out for a picnic today as well.  To do both things in the space of a weekend is bordering on radical.  I don't remember us eating outside more than once the entire time we lived in London.  And when we moved to Wiltshire, no word of a lie, it took me two years to persuade him to go out for a pub lunch.  He's that unadventurous.

So having agreed that we could go on a picnic, I decided make an effort to not rock the boat by providing food that he likes.  Cheese and ham rolls, pork pies, cocktail sausages, hula hoops, cake and strawberries.  All store bought and full of additives and preservatives.  But if it makes him happy and means that we can picnic outside in the beautiful weather, I'm not going to make too much fuss.

Guess who's got a new camera app?

But of course, with a blog to write, I had to cook something new, didn't I?  Whilst researching what to do with my sourdough starter, I came across this Dan Lepard recipe on the Guardian Website (I don't believe it's in Short and Sweet).  What's not to like about a roll packed with cheese and then stuffed with ham salad?  A lot if you're my husband.

The actual making of these is the easiest Dan Lepard bread recipe I've ever seen.  He's a fan of ten-second kneading every ten minutes for thirty minutes rather than the traditional 10 minute knead.  I must admit, I follow his method now even if the recipe isn't his.  But with these cheese rolls, it's even simpler.  Mix the ingredients to a dough.  Rest for ten minutes.  One ten second knead.  First rise.  Shape.  Second rise.  Bake.  Job Done.  This went really well until I decided to pop to the shops with Miss A for picnic supplies.  I had an hour to kill while I waited for the second rise.  Except it took nearly two hours with her in tow (we had to stop in the cafe for a babyccino) and so when I came back, my nicely sized torpedoes were enormous.

Still they baked well and my only failure was not to put them on baking parchment because all the cheese that oozed out welded itself to my baking tray.  Then the husband saw them and announced 'I don't like bread with cheese in it', thus ending my only hope of giving him something additive and preservative free (he didn't eat any strawberries).  His loss I guess.  Actually, I should've already known this after his similar pronouncement last time I made cheese bread for a picnic.

Miss A and I enjoyed them very much although I have a feeling they have to be eaten when fresh and won't keep well.  Luckily I only made half the recipe.  Really easy to do as I just used half a beaten egg in the mix and saved the rest for the egg wash.  And the local herd of sheep came racing across the field the minute I unwrapped my torpedo, encircled us and didn't leave until I'd finished.  Can't help wondering now if sheep are partial to cheese?

I'd probably make these again if I had a social barbecue.  They'd be great filled with something tasty from the grill - maybe really good quality burgers in lieu of a cheese burger.  I know the recipe uses onions and mustard (I replaced that with paprika) but I think they'd work really well with finely diced jalapenos - and then filled with a Mexican burger with loads of guac, pico de gallo and sour cream.  Yummy!

Recipe can be found here

Grilled nectarine salad with roasted chicken, feta, rocket and peanuts

This evening I had what was very nearly a perfect meal for a perfect, summer's evening.  In fact, the meal was perfect.  There were just a few things that spoiled it.

Number 1.  My dogs.  They are intent on trying to burrow their way under the fence to Percy's house.  Percy is a scruffy little white dog who lives in our bottom-of-the-garden neighbour's house.  The need to burrow is accompanied by a lot of noise.  To the outsider, they sound fierce.  With insider knowledge of my two dogs, they just want to play.  Despite being five and four they both behave like mad puppies - even in this heat.  It's really quite exhausting - if I was a dog, I'd just want to laze on the patio.  Still - it saves me from having to dig up lots of weeds.

Number 2.  The absence of a perfect man to share the evening with.  Or in lieu of him, I ate alone as the husband is off shooting vintage pinup pictures in an oilseed rape field - yellow flowers, red-haired model, blue sky.  All very arty.  If I'm honest though, I didn't mind so much that he wasn't around because there was no face pulling that I had fruit, cheese, nuts and chicken all on the one plate.  Nor complaining that I had to take a picture of my dinner first.  Or that it was too hot to eat a cooked meal (he would've had chicken and Uncle Ben's rice with gravy because it's Wednesday).  So I sat and daydreamed about having perfect company in the absence of any.  Tall, dark, handsome, rich, well mannered, eats what's put in front of him and knows how to treat a lady.   A girl can dream.

My new favourite meal, ever!

Number 3.  A chilled glass of Chablis or Prosecco.  I generally don't drink (for no reason other than I'm a lightweight) and very rarely think of having alcohol with a meal.  And I'm certainly too old to drink on a school night.  But this dish and the beautiful evening was just crying out for a little drinky to celebrate the end of a lovely day.  Well it would've been lovely if I'd not been stuck at work all day.  But you know what I mean.

So why this dish?  Well thumbing through my Leith's Simple Cookery the other day, I happened across a recipe for nectarine, feta and rocket salad.  On the way home this afternoon, I had a sudden urge to sink my teeth into a beautifully ripe, yellow-fleshed nectarine.  And with all the other ingredients at home, I figured that would be a good recipe for tonight (I failed on the planning front this week so am just picking things randomly each day).

Then, when I looked online to see if I could find a link for the recipe to put on the blog, I happened across this recipe  by The Food Fox instead.  I was utterly sold by reading the post about the lucky, lucky person who can just drive to their local farm store and buy whole boxes of fresh-off-the-tree nectarines.  I was so jealous.  I don't even want to consider how many food miles my paltry tray of four nectarines travelled.

Nectarines are right up there at the top of my favourite fruit list.  During summer I will pretty much eat nothing else on the fruit front apart from nectarines and raspberries.  Until that very sad day when you bite into a nectarine and the flesh is all furry and you realise the season is over for another year.  I love peaches too.  I'm just not a fan of the fuzzy skin.  The only downer on the nectarine front was that I could only get white-flesh ones.  The taste is great, but the salad would've looked so much better with the juice-oozy yellow-flesh fruit in amongst the pale feta and chicken.

As the blog says, the dish is an assault on the taste buds and senses.  Salty, sweet, sour, crunchy and creamy.  Every mouthful is a different experience with the punchy mustard or the salty-smooth feta, teamed with peppery rocket and crunchy peanuts.  I would eat this every night for dinner throughout the summer and would never get bored.

It's so filling too.  Sometimes I feel a bit cheated with salads simply by their virtuousness and feel that they need some degree of carbs on the side - fresh bread, minted new potatoes in their skins, a little cooled, dressed pasta.  But with this one, I honestly felt absolutely stuffed afterwards, like I'd eaten a big, fat meal and it still came in at less than 500 calories - even with peanuts thrown in.

Now off to enjoy the last of the daylight once I've added it to my make again list.  Shame I can't have it for tea tomorrow!

Lil Ms Squirrel's Baked Cauliflower with Three Cheese Sauce

After yesterday's rather epic post on the subject of 'When can you claim a recipe as being your own?', I'm afraid I'm going to have to continue the theme a little longer.  After I published the blog, a couple of lovely Twitter pals - Sadia (@bakingelements) and Ros (@bakingaddict) sent me some links to blogs to read on the subject.

So as not to bore too much, this article on the Oh Cake blog discusses the issue in good detail and has links to another good post by David Leibovitz on the Food Blog Alliance, also discussing his approach to the issue.  I will definitely practice this ettiquette going forward and have tried to do so in my more recent posts.  Hopefully the only person who could tell me off for copyrighted images is Mr LCC Photography and if he's got a problem with that then I'll just divorce him and make sure I take ownership of the pictures in the divorce :o)

All this has led me to question if I can claim today's recipe as my own.  It started like this.  I bought a cauliflower with the intention of making the Cauliflower Mac n Cheese recipe I blogged about in early January.  Then I panicked as I realised I'd published the recipe but can't remember for the life of me if I'd typed the method myself or not.  I attributed it to the publication, but I recycled the magazine back in January so now I don't know.  Oh well, if they have a problem with that, I'll just take it down.

Next, I realised I needed to make something new today so it was counter-productive to use that recipe.  I love cauliflower cheese and my default recipe was given to me by my grandmother.  Make a pint of white sauce using a roux that's 1oz butter to 1oz flour (or 25g each in my world), grate in a load of cheese until it tastes cheesy (depends on the variety of cheese being used as to when you stop), season and add a pinch of cayenne for a kick.  Pour over well cooked cauliflower and if there's any spare cheese sauce, just spoon it out of the serving bowl once the cauliflower is gone.

Now I'm wondering if she learned that from a book and I'll get chased for copyright or was it handed down from her mother?  I can't ask her without hiring an expensive psychic!  You can see evidence of this culinary excess alongside my post on Toad in the Hole.

With that recipe being very tasty but unhealthy, I thought about trying to make my own from scratch.  Without going and reading anyone else's because I figured that most of them would be really unhealthy - if not as unhealthy as my grandma's recipe.  So I stood before my fridge with my thinking cap on and started to pull things out.

All the thinking was based on past reading on the subject of cheese based dishes, but at no time was this directly attributable to a single source.  When Miss A started weaning, I used to make a simple cheese sauce for pasta by melting some Philly with a little milk and stirring pasta into it.  I never thought to look on the Philly website to find this advice but now, from a recent ad I saw, this is apparently their method.  I also know that lots of cheese sauces recommend using a little Parmesan for the intense flavour and then other cheeses to balance it out.  So I selected Double Gloucester - mostly because it was the only other cheese I had in the fridge.

When I've used milk to thin the Philly, it's made for quite a runny sauce.  So this led to two decisions.  Firstly to use Greek yogurt to thin it and secondly to bake the dish which I hoped would keep the excess liquid from a low fat cheese sauce down.  I blanched the cauliflower for four minutes in boiling water, just to give it a head start on cooking but without it absorbing too much water.  After melting the Philly and yogurt together I grated in a little Parmesan and Double Gloucester, popped in some French mustard and a pinch of paprika, tasted, added black pepper as it was quite a strong cheesy taste already and didn't need any salt and then poured it over the cauli ready to bake.

One last touch was the thought of adding a little crispy prosciutto over the top.  I was going to dry fry some shredded bits, but then figured that it might work just baking a piece on the side of the tray - thus saving on washing up.  And it worked.  You may need to adjust the cooking time depending on the depth of the dish you use.  I used a two-person pie dish for mine.

So here's how I did it.  I don't believe that I copied this from anyone so I'm claiming it as my own.  Based on MyFitnessPal calculations it comes in at under 330cals for the whole dish.

Serves 2 (as a side dish or one as a main)

• 350g cauliflower florets
• 30g Light Philadelphia (or other low fat cream cheese)
• 50g Low fat Greek yogurt
• 15g Parmesan, finely grated
• 20g Double Gloucester (or other mature cheddar), finely grated
• 1/2 tsp Grainy Mustard
• Pinch of Cayenne Pepper
• Black Pepper
• 1 Slice Prosciutto Crudo 
• Fresh Parsley to Garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/180c fan/Gas 4.
2. Parboil the cauliflower florets for four minutes in a pan of boiling, lightly salted water.
3. In a small saucepan, melt the soft cheese with the yogurt until you have a smooth 'sauce'.  Stir in the mustard, Parmesan and half of the Double Gloucester. Season with the Cayenne and black pepper to taste.
4. Place the cauliflower in an ovenproof dish then pour the cheese sauce over the top.   Sprinkle the top with the remaining Double Gloucester. 
5. Place on a baking sheet and put the slice of Prosciutto alongside.  Bake for 20 minutes.
6. When cooked, crumble the crisped Prosciutto over the top and then garnish with parsley.

Baked Mushrooms with Polenta

In the cupboard under the stairs, we have some plastic shelves procured from a large national DIY chain that have become the equivalent of the larder that I would so love to own.  They're currently groaning under the weight of half used bags of flour (plain, self-raising, wholemeal, strong white, strong brown, 00, canadian bread flour, gram, rye, buckwheat); bags of sugar (granulated, caster, light muscavado, dark muscavado, soft dark brown, soft light brown, icing, fruit); various bags of pasta shapes (spirali, rigatoni, macaroni, linguine, papperdelle, spaghetti, vermicelli).  And a bag of polenta.  Plus assorted tins of beans, pulses and tomatoes; more tins of tuna than it's safe to eat in a year; and packets of microwave rice and saag aloo (for the husband).

The husband gets frustrated every so often that they're a mess.  To the untrained eye, they may look that way, but I can lay my hands on anything I need just like that.  When I go to the mothership's for the weekend, the husband occasionally takes it upon himself to 'have a little tidy' and suddenly, things go missing.  If I so much as dwell by the shelves for more than thirty seconds, I get accused of untidying them so I end up buying more of what I can't find in the next weekly shop - only to find a week or so later that I've now got two open bags of xyz flour or abc sugar.  You get my drift.

Sunshiney polenta to brighten a grey day

Anyhow, the polenta has been busy cluttering up the shelving ever since I made cornbread with Miss A.  As that was a resounding failure in terms of broadening the family's food horizon (Miss A and the husband both thought it was cake and were both sorely disappointed), I have - on occasion - been sorely tempted to quietly dispose of the polenta.  In all honesty, there was a time when I probably would've done.  But times are hard now we only have the one salary, a mortgage and an extra mouth to feed, and I am making an effort to be thrifty.  Especially because in doing this challenge, my food expenditure is sometimes higher than it would be if I wasn't.

Having Googled about a bit for ideas for the field mushrooms that arrived with my weekly shop (I don't know why on earth I bought them - I failed on the planning front this week), I happened across a recipe on Taste.com.au for stuffed mushrooms with polenta.  Problem solved.  

I didn't stick to the actual recipe (which you can find here) because I didn't have the fancy-schmanzy shallots and couldn't be bothered to chop a tiny bit of red onion for just one mushroom so I made a simple breadcrumb mix with a little garlic paste, some parsley, olive oil, breadcrumbs and seasoning.  I then made the polenta as per the packet instructions, beat in some parmesan, a teaspoon of half fat creme fraiche (the packet suggested butter and marscapone but I'm trying to compensate for all the chocolate I've been eating of late) and some seasoning.  

Then I licked a bit off of the spoon and nearly binned it.  The package said to cook for just one minute for soft, mash-potato-style polenta and that it would come away from the edges of the pan when it was ready.  Which it duly did.  But the texture was just shy of semi-cooked couscous with a weird "I'm not quite pasta thanks to the parmesan" taste.  But then I got on to having to poach eggs for the husband's ham, egg and chips and whilst I was doing so, the polenta obviously finished expanding and ended up tasting like a really good cheese-mash/pasta/couscous hybrid.  I really enjoyed it.

In fact, I enjoyed the whole dish so much, it's going on my list of new meat-free Monday meals when I'm finished with this blasted blog and it's dictation that I have to try a new recipe every day.  Hugely tasty vegetarian meal and hearty enough that you don't even notice that it's meatless.  I'd always made stuffed mushrooms filled with Philly and topped with breadcrumbs before but always served them on their own with salad.  I couldn't think of an appropriate carb to go with them, but polenta is it.

If you've never tried it, I insist that you do.  I hope you love it as much as me.  

Lil Ms Squirrel's Cheese, Chive and Chorizo Scones

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that this post has absolutely nothing to do with Sconegate.  No, really, it hasn't.  I am SO over it.  It's so last week.  Well okay, when I've finally had the chance to whine about it to my favourite whining buddy, then I'll get over it.  But he's recently had an earful of me whining about a wide variety of other subjects and so I'll save it up for a day when the whining potential over other annoyances is low.

Pretty colours

Actually, the purpose of tonight's recipe was a test run for a little idea that's been bubbling away at the back of my brain for a few days so I decided to give this one element of it a whirl.  I'm not sure why, but I've become obsessed with the idea of adding chorizo to scones.  Given that it's the most commonly used meat-related product so far on this blog, I'm not surprised.  And the recipe encompasses baking and cheese which also feature at the top of the tag cloud, so what's not to like?

Of course me being me, I have this thing about sharing my own recipes in public. When it comes to food, I'm a follower.  I'm not very good on the ideation* front.  I'd much rather take a recipe and tweak it than invent something from scratch.  Then again, as I've said before, do any of us really make a completely new recipe from scratch?  There are certain rules of science in cooking that mean deviation from them just leads to disaster.  Many people try to tinker with cake, but most cakes are based on the pound cake principle.  Or very slight variations of that basic rule of thumb.  

Five and one for the dog as my Grandma would say

Take my scones.  You can't fiddle around too much with the basic recipe because either they don't bake properly or the end result isn't actually a scone.  So although I say it's my recipe, it's really someone else's cheese scone recipe which I found many moons ago that I've now tinkered with to get to this point.

But chorizo was a bit of a revelation for me.  I not only like the flavour in this recipe, I love the way the paprika leaches into the dough and gives you pretty orange streaks.  Thyme seems to be the classic herb to go with chorizo, but I decided to buck that trend, both for the contrast between the orange and green; and moreso because it gave a lovely alliteration to the title.  Cheese, Chive and Chorizo.  

In the tin, ready for later consumption (I ate the dog's one)

So here is a recipe from me to you.  Give it a go.  Tweak it if you like with different varieties of cheese or herbs.  They're great fresh from the oven and I think they're better warmed back up than eaten cold.  If you give it a go, let me know what you think.  All natural and home made.  With nary a jot of wallpaper paste in site.

Makes five large scones and one for the dog

• 225g self raising flour plus extra for dusting.
• 150g cheese, grated (I used 100g double Gloucester and 50g Parmesan)
• 55g butter
• 55g chorizo, diced
• 75ml milk
• pinch of Cayenne pepper
• handful of chives, finely snipped
• milk or a lightly beaten egg for brushing

1. Preheat the oven to 220c/200c fan/gas 5.  Place a baking sheet in the oven to warm.
2. Put the flour and butter into a bowl and rub together until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the cheese, chorizo, cayenne and chives and mix thoroughly.
4. Gradually pour in the milk to form a soft but not sticky dough.  You may need slightly more or less depending on how 'thirsty' your flour is
5. Place the dough onto a floured board and pat to about 2cm thick.  Cut into rounds using a 5cm cutter.  Use all the dough up by forming back gently into a mound and patting and cutting again.
6. Remove the baking tray from the oven and place the scones on the tray.  Brush the tops with egg or milk (I forgot this bit) and bake for 15-20 minutes until risen and golden.
7. Serve warm with lashings of butter.

*I recently had to take my mentor to task over his excessive use of management buzzwords.  He's got this nasty habit of slipping them into a meeting when we're trying to be deadly serious and distracting me from the very important task in hand because I have to stifle a giggle or several.  Take the word 'mandrolic'.  He said it once and suddenly the entire company seemed to be saying it.  It means a long-winded, tedious, manual task.   Just the use of it makes me cringe and the whining factor ramps right up whenever I hear it.  What's wrong with 'manual'?

He has now made it his mission to track down the most ridiculous and random use of words and emails me from whatever presentation he's in with his latest find.  'Ideation' is apparently short-hand for 'Idea Generation'.  Or just people getting sloppy with their speaking if you ask me.

Lorraine Pascale's Quiche Lorraine

This wonderful hot weather just screams out for summer food.  I'm struggling to get my head round the fact that it's too warm to still be wearing opaque tights and that my feet are in desperate need of a pedicure so I can wear flip-flops.  I planned my recipes last week without much consideration for the weather forecast and so have been faffing around trying to switch to recipes more suited to the heat.

Egg Cracker in Chief, whisking the filling.

At about 10am this morning, I suddenly started craving quiche.  Most specifically, my grandma's quiche Lorraine.  She'd always make it for dinner in this weather with a nice crunchy salad.  Except I never learned her recipe from her and it's another thing that makes me more than a little bit sad that I didn't pay more attention when I was younger.

I remember the look - deep filled with chunks of rose-pink ham or bacon and mottled with golden brown toasted cheese on the top; the taste - salty with the sweet taste of soft onions; the texture - firm with the right amount of wobble and melt in the mouth pastry.  But I wouldn't know how to recreate it if my life depended on it.

The only time I've tried to make a quiche before, I proudly stepped back from the oven, baking tray in hand; tripped over one of the dogs and before I knew it, my beautiful leek and feta quiche had been inhaled by my spaniel.  I swear he put the dachshund up to it!

As Lorraine Pascale was sat on my desk (not literally - I was working from home and I'd been leafing through Baking Made Easy at my computer last night), I decided to give her quiche Lorraine a go.  She uses creme fraiche rather than milk and cream for the filling so this gave me the opportunity to eliminate a few calories by going for the half fat version.  She also doesn't use cheese, which is interesting.  A little research revealed that despite all of the BBC Good Food recipes using cheese, the original quiche Lorraine didn't have cheese in it.

Badly patched pastry. I need more practice.

I made my own pastry using Lorraine's recipe.  I've still not cracked pastry making as it was too crumbly. My mum tells me that I make really good shortcrust pastry and it's always nice and short; but I never manage to get that beautiful perfect edge to it as it always breaks off round the edges when I try to put it in the tin.  Maybe I just needed a smidgen of water?

Pascale also uses two egg yolks in the pastry.  And if I'm honest, I didn't like the eggy taste to the pastry when it was cooked on its own in isolation (I rescued a couple of broken edge pieces from the oven).  But it tasted good once assembled.  Likewise, the egg mixture tasted really bland on its own but it worked with the salt-sweet bacon and onion filling.  Because I didn't have quite enough creme fraiche (the recipe uses 430g, I had 300g) I used some Greek yogurt which seemed to make no difference. This had the added benefit of further reducing the calories. Something I cancelled out when I wimped out and added 50g of cheese - half parmesan, half double Gloucester - to the mix.  My flan tin is probably only 2cm deep so I didn't end up using all the egg mixture to fill the case.

I was a little worried that I'd end up with an eggy mess because not only did my pastry start cracking once it was baked blind, I'd also pricked the bottom of the case.  My mum has always instilled the need to do this in me to stop the pastry from puffing up.  I didn't think until after I'd merrily pricked a pretty pattern into the base of the case that the egg might run out everywhere.  Thankfully, with the creme fraiche and yogurt, it was a pretty thick mixture so it stayed put.  And my bottom wasn't soggy.

Rustic looking quiche - is quiche peasant food?

The final result was a really pale looking pie and if I'm honest it looked really unappealing.  After then going out for a run, it looked even less appetising when I came home.  Which is a shame as the flavours are beautiful.  It would look great on a plate with a vibrant coloured salad, but just as a quiche on its own, it's really pale and sad looking.  Of course, that's the traditional look, but if I was really going for my grandmother's style, I'd sprinkle cheese over the top next time.

Definitely one that will evolve to become my own recipe over time.  I just need to remember to be a bit more vigilant checking for bits of shell when my helper is doing egg cracking :)

You can find the original recipe here.  This is my adaptation of it.

Serves 8–10

For the pastry

• 250g plain flour
• 125g cold butter, cubed
• 2 egg yolks
• pinch of salt

1. Rub the butter into the flour in a large bowl until it resembles bread crumbs.  Add the salt.
2. Add the two egg yolks and bring the mixture together to form a firm dough.  Add a tiny splash of chilled water if it seems too dry.
3. Pat to a flat circle about 2cm thick and place in the fridge for thirty minutes.
4. Remove from the fridge for five minutes and use for the recipe below.

For the Quiche

• 1 quantity of pastry using the above recipe or 500g of shop bought short crust pastry
• 1–2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion peeled and finely diced
• 4 rashers of thick cut smoked back bacon diced
• 300ml half fat crème fraîche
• 150ml Greek yogurt (I used full fat in mine as it was all I had but I'd try with low fat next time)
• 25g Parmesan cheese, grated
• 25g Double Gloucester cheese, grated
• 4 eggs lightly beaten
• Freshly ground black pepper

23cm fluted flan dish or tin about 3.5cm deep

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/170C fan gas 5.
2. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to just under the thickness of a £1 coin. Lower the pastry into the tin or dish and ease down into the sides and corners.
3. Place in the fridge for about 30 minutes, or until firm. (oops, I forgot this bit!)
4. Once the pastry is firm, remove it from the fridge and trim the edges: using a sharp knife, cut off the excess pastry around the top of the tin then run a small sharp knife around the edge between the pastry and the tin to loosen slightly.
5. Take a piece of baking paper slightly larger than the tart and scrunch it up, then unscrunch it and line the tart with it, taking it right up the sides. Fill it with baking beans or dried beans and ‘blind bake’ in the oven for 20 minutes, until the edges are light brown and the base is dry to the touch. Remove the baking beans and paper from the pastry case, then return to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside. Turn the oven down to 150°C /130C fan/gas mark 2.
6. The filling can be prepared while the pastry is baking. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a low heat, add the onion and fry until soft and translucent with no colour. This can take a good 15 minutes. If the onion looks as if it is drying out, just add a splash of water water.
7. Add the bacon to the pan, turn up the heat slightly and cook for 5–6 minutes. Remove from the heat and add to the base of the flan dish.  Sprinkle the cheese over.
8. Place the flan dish on a flat baking tray. Whisk the crème fraîche and the eggs together gently in a large bowl, then season with pepper. You will not need any salt as the bacon and chese is already very salty.  Pour the mixture into a jug.
9. Slide the baking tray into the oven, pull the oven shelf the tray is on out slightly and pour the egg mixture into the case.  This stops you spilling it trying to get a full flan case into the oven.
10. Bake in the oven for 30–40 minutes, or until the filling no longer wobbles.
11. Good to eat hot but best eaten cold, giving the mixture a chance to settle. Kept in the fridge it tastes even better the next day (apparently - I'll find out at tomorrow teatime).