Leftovers and what to do with them...

I got to the stage today where I got a bit "fooded out" - I had to plan next weeks meals and go shopping but I really didn't want to, the past few weeks have been a bit full on in the kitchen, and just for a while my enthusiasm had waned.  The house was full of good things but I didn't want to eat any of them, and I had to use up stuff that we were all a little bit bored of.  Thankfully my friends on Facebook came to the rescue  with some helpful suggestions and I got over it!

We don't usually have leftovers in our house, unless I've cooked extra on purpose so there's some for the next day's lunch.  Christmas is the only time when I have to think extra carefully what to do so as to avoid waste and boredom of  eating the same old things, ie turkey.  Following on from my "It's Christmas!" and "Waste not want not" posts, here is a guide to how to manage what can be a food overload during the Festive Season.

One.  Don't overbuy in the first place.  It's very easy to go crazy with the shopping and cook way too much of everything.  Remember there will be snacks, starters, the main course, probably a selction of puddings, cheese, chocolates, sweets etc.. The only thing in my experience you have to cook loads of is roast potatoes.  Also, check use by dates and buy the longest date possible.

Two.  After Christmas dinner, make sure to give away lots to those who are going back to a house without any leftovers.  There's nothing worse than waking up on boxing day with a bare fridge and no leftover meat to have with chips that day.  Keep enough for yourself though!  This is one of those times when washed out Chinese takeaway containers come into their own (and yes, I DO have takeaways now and again).  I've also given away excess macaroons, trifle and Christmas cake, which keeps for ages and incidentally is yummy with cheddar cheese.

Three.  Make bubble and squeak with the sprouts and carrots, you can make it into little patties, Nigel Slater puts a piece of cheese in the middle (I'm going to try that!) or go for the freeform version.  As a greens lover, B&S is one of my favourite things.  Have with cold meat and a fried egg.

Four.  Freeze some.  I froze a good dollop of the parsnip and ginger puree and the red cabbage this year, to enjoy with a roast dinner at a later date.

Five.  Think creatively.  This is what I did with my  seven and a half kilo turkey this year:  Fed thirteen people for Christmas Day dinner, gave some away, had some cold while I picked the meat off the bones on Christmas evening, made sandwiches, husband took some to work in a box with tomatoes and chilli and cranberry sauce.  Had some more cold with bubble and squeak, remains of bread sauce and remains of red cabbage.  On Boxing day I made three litres of stock from the bones, adding two chicken carcases from the freezer and the usual carrot, celery, onion, herbs etc. I froze two litres and refrigerated the rest.  I was going to make soup but changed my mind and made a turkey, ham, leek and mushroom pie using both the stock and some leftover double cream that was brought to go with the puddings -  I rustled up some shortcrust pastry in the processor and there you have it - there was enough for two pies so I gave the smaller one to my parents.  Turkey, gone.  Other friends have had ideas of Asian turkey salad, Turkey fricassee, Fajitas etc.  I think the Asian salad is a great idea, lots of people tell me that after Christmas they crave salad, fresh tastes and a bit of spice!  There are often ideas for using leftovers in food magazines and on websites such as lovefood.com.

Six.  Plan the next weeks meals around what you have left, this usually means you will spend less too at a time of year when money is tight. 

Seven.  Remember things keep for longer than you might think. Cheese, for example.

My food waste bin was emptied today (after three weeks) and it was still only two thirds full, even with all the bones from the stock, and some bubble and squeak which had to be wasted because I burnt it :-(   There was only a very small amount of plate scrapings on Christmas Day, but this IS my family we are talking about.

And it's okay to have tea and chocolate for breakfast every day if you're not going to work or school.... you think I'm joking, don't you?

Thank you for reading, more soon.

Caroline x

PS  I don't think I ever mentioned the result of the Bake Off.  I did win the biscuit category, but there was only one other entrant.  So I am officially the best biscuit maker out of two biscuit makers in the hospital.  And I have a high quality certificate to prove it!

PPS  I am now the proud owner of  a KitchenAid Artisan Food MIxer.  I think that after a while it may deserve a blog post all to itself...

It's Christmas!

Christmas dinner.  Everyone has an opinion.  Sprouts or not?  Where to go, who's going to cook?  Love or loathe the whole thing?  I am firmly in the "love" camp and I had been looking forward to cooking Christmas dinner and planning it for quite some time, in fact for over a month, on and off.  I've only cooked Christmas dinner twice before, once for two (with my first husband) and once for eleven when I was expecting my son and at the stage of pregnancy where you have the burst of energy and feel like superwoman for a short while.  I had an issue of delicious magazine with a very inspirational festive menu and during a family dinner at my brother-in-law's house suddenly thought "Why not?" and invited everyone on the husband's side of the family for Christmas dinner.  My father-in-law didn't come in the end but there were thirteen of us: Mother-in-law, three brothers-in-law, two sisters-in-law, one sister-in-law's Mum, two nieces, plus husband, daughter, son and me.  We couldn't seat everyone in one room so we had one table in the kitchen diner and one in the conservatory. It was also the one day in the year where I used both my ovens.  The smaller one is usually only a glorified baking tray cupboard.

The large number of guests in a relatively small house dictated that we had to do a fair amount of borrowing: some folding tables and chairs from my parents, extra cutlery, salt and pepper grinders, crockery, serving dishes and pans from mother-in-law. We bought lots of new wine glasses when we saw a special offer too as we didn't have enough matching ones.

In the end it was pretty much a complete triumph, the secret being I didn't do it all myself.  I accepted all offers of help, and it paid off.  The only thing that really went wrong was that I was so busy cooking and having such a great time that I forgot to take photos for this blog, so there aren't as many photos as I'd like!  So as the smell of turkey stock wafts through the air, I'll take you through it..

Starting with festive drinks.  While at the Good Food Show, husband and I had discovered The King's Ginger, a gorgeous ginger liqueuer discussed  in my previous post, and mixed with a glass of cava it became a "Ginger Royale" and was beautiful. In fact ginger somehow ended up being a recurring theme throughout the meal so it was just as well everybody liked it.  I also mixed cava with Chambord (a raspberry based liqueuer) and added a frozen raspberry.  The main course was accompanied by red or white wine, there was a dessert wine (2007 Domaine de Grange Neuve Monbazillac) for later on, and port and whiskey with the cheeseboard. We forgot about the chilli vodka in the freezer though, which was probably a good thing.  And a cup of peppermint tea was essential for me to aid digestion!

There were the usual olives, crisps, etc and sister-in-law M (a trained chef and fellow foodie) had made seasonally spiced nuts, sausage & sage plamiers - which were delicious bite sized pastry morsels - also figs and goats cheese wrapped in prosciutto; and smoked salmon triangles.  Everyone enjoyed these while the main event came together.

On counting afterwards the main course had thirteen components!!  The turkey was not an expensive one but simply a supermarket frozen bird, but it was excellent value for money.  It weighed about seven and a half kilos and took a couple of days to defrost in a bucket in a cool garage.  I think it's what you do with a turkey that decides the flavour, rather than it's origins.  Rick Stein once failed in attempt to distinguish between an expensive turkey and a cheap one by taste alone, so I think that says a lot.

I stuffed the neck end of the turkey with a stuffing made with dried cultivated mushrooms soaked in boiling water for twenty minutes (the soaking water being kept to add to the gravy), good quality sausagemeat from sausages we had as part of a half pig purchase earlier in the year, pork mince, torn up sourdough bread, chopped rosemary from the garden, onion and garlic softened in butter, with some grated parmesan and seasoning - all bound together with an egg yolk. I put two halves of an orange in the body cavity together with more rosemary and bay leaves from the garden, rubbed the outside with softened butter and covered the breast with rashers of streaky bacon.  The turkey was roasted in a very deep and thick foil tray (I washed it and recycled it afterwards) on top of a large roasting tray borrowed from Mum.  It only just went in the oven widthwise.  It was roasted for three hours covered with foil, plus another 50 minutes with the foil removed, and then rested for an hour and a quarter while the roast potates were cooked.  Sister-in-law M kindly carved it for me as there was so much going on at the dishing it up stage.  That was the time I had my usual moment of panic and wanted to run away and hide under the duvet, but I did some deep breathing and told myself to get on with it!   Pigs in blankets were brought ready cooked by sister-in-law M's Mum and warmed up in oven number two.

 I didn't get a photo of the intact turkey...

The gravy was the secret of alchemy!  I did partially cheat with two Knorr "gravy pots", some boiling water, the mushroom soaking water which had been left in a jar for a couple of days so that all the gritty bits had setled out, the juices from the turkey tin after the fat had been skimmed off, a splosh of red wine, and some Worcestershire sauce. The resulting mixture was thickened with cornflour in cold water.

The gammon was a biggish unsmoked joint, roasted with a glaze brushed on for the last 45 minutes of the cooking time.  The idea was from a Sainsbury's recipe card from several years ago.  The glaze was a mixture of the grated zest of eight clementines, clementine juice, chopped stem ginger from a jar, some of the ginger syrup and some mustard seeds.  The zested clementines were halved and added to the roasting dish too.  The gammon was sliced and served cold.

The roast potatoes were the husband's domain.  He always maintains his roasties are better than mine and he's right.  He only cuts them up if they are very big, apparently size does matter.  They were parboiled, roughed up  by shaking the pan and roasted for a good hour in goose fat which was heated up for ten minutes first in a hot oven.  As the turkey rested for so long, there was plenty of time to turn up the main oven and cook them. Before roasting he sprinkled them with cornish sea salt and some less coarse salt flavoured with rosemary.  The end result was spectacularly good, very crisp and crunchy and the outside and a beautiful golden colour and fluffy on the inside.  He used two and a half kilos of potatoes and there was only one potato left over.

Vegetables!  All our family LOVE Brussels sprouts, in fact they are my husband's favourite vegetable and I could get my son to eat unfamiliar foods when he was a baby by mixing chopped sprouts in with them.  Christmas dinner just wouldn't be Christmas dinner without sprouts in my opinion.  I blanched the sprouts until just done, then mixed them with roasted carrots, browned butter and toasted halved macadamia nuts.  Red cabbage was provided pre-cooked by sister-in-law M and microwaved to heat it up.

I've found roast parsnips always get burnt somehow, and I wanted to try a new way with them, so I made a puree of softened shallots and parsnips cooked in milk with ground ginger.  This was done in advance and reheated in a pan.  There was also the traditional bread sauce with nutmeg, made by sister-in-law M's Mum and brought in her slow cooker which I plugged in in the conservatory. Sister-in-law M had made proper cranberry sauce too.

Another new accompaniment recipe from delicious magazine was caramelised pears and chestnuts.  Chopped onions were softened and set aside, then peeled quartered pears cooked in butter and sugar until golden and set aside.  Then pre cooked chestnuts were toasted in foaming butter with thyme (from the garden) and salt, and all the ingredients were combined, adding a squeeze of lemon juice, and put in an overproof dish ready to be reheated for twenty minutes in the oven prior to serving.

And that was the main course!  It all came together and nothing got forgotten.  I have memories of Christmas dinners where dishes have been found in the microwave at teatime...  After all that we needed a loooong pause before the large selection of puddings, so we did some present opening and had a poetry competition between courses.  I won! But that's another story.

For afters on Christmas day I think you have to have a Christmas pudding and you have to have a trifle.  Mother-in-law had made a really top notch and not at all heavy Christmas pud, which she had cooked at her house and brought snuggled up in a towel.  It was put to gently re heat in a pan of water between courses, and served with brandy butter made by sister-in-law M's Mum which tasted as if it had an entire barrel of brandy in, it fairly took your breath away but was very good.  There was cream too if you wanted.

I had also designed a Black Forest Trifle, inspired by the classic gateau.  I started with some chocolate cake trimmings I had in the freezer and soaked them in creme de cacao and kirsch from the  jars of cherries in kirsch I had tried so hard to source (as previous posts testify). Then came a layer of cherries in kirsch and blackcurrant jelly. Next a layer of chocolate custard. I was going to cheat and buy it ready made but I could only get normal custard so I melted some dark choloate and mixed it in.  Then came a layer of  halved red grapes. Then whipped cream with creme de cacao in, another layer of cherries in kirsch and topped with more whipped cream, gleaming with edible silver shimmer spray and chocolate stars.

Sister-in-law M had made a very very chocolatey chocolate log, Mother-in-law had made mince pies and a Christmas cake which my son had helped with on Christmas Eve, it was her very thoughtful idea to remove him from the house for the final day of preparations as a six year old helper is not always all that helpful!

I had made coffee cream macaroons which were favourably received as always.  Brother-in-law R and sister-in-law V had brought a luxury cheese hamper with gourmet crackers, grapes, the Wookey Hole cheddar, apparently voted the best cheese in the world, all manner of other lovely cheeses and wild boar pate.  They had also brought a selection of hot chilli sauces (as are enjoyed by many members of our family) and there followed a chilli sauce tasting session.  Others had got to the having-a-nice-cup-of-tea stage.

The whole thing took from about 11am to about 7pm and was so relaxed and happy, even the clearing up was a case of pottering about, running the dishwasher and doing some more when you felt like it.  No one felt dumped on, everyone helped and although looking back it WAS a lot of work, I really, really enjoyed myself.

I couldn't have done it without a great deal of planning and organisation.  I'm a great one for lists and notes, and I had bro-in-law T to help me for two (quite relaxed) days of prep.  We didn't get stressed or feel rushed at all.  On day one, Sunday 23rd, we cooked the gammon, made the stuffing, made the pear and chestnut dish, made the parsnip puree and prepped the sprouts.  And made a sausage casserole for dinner.  On day two, Christmas Eve, we spent the morning making the trifle and the macaroons, and in the afternoon we prepped the carrots, toasted the macadamia nuts, stuffed and baconed the turkey and made a few things for an evening meal - three pizzas, sticky cranberry sausages and stilton puffs.  We also laid the tables, sorted crockery, cutlery, candles, crackers and chairs.  All this preparation enabled Christmas morning to be very chilled.  All there was to do was put the turkey in the oven at the planned time, slice the gammon, peel and parboil the potatoes and wait for the other dishes to arrive...

All that remains for me is to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I feel a post about using up the Christmas leftovers coming on soon...

Thank you for reading,

Caroline :-)

The Good Food Show Experience.

Last Friday my husband and I went to the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham.  A few of my friends found it hard to believe I hadn't been to a Good Food Show before, and I'm not really sure why I hadn't, it was just one of those things I hadn't got round to doing - and hubby had got tickets as part of my birthday present, so I had been looking forward to it for a while.

We got there about half an hour after opening time and it was already fairly busy.  We seemed to have arrived at the alcolic beverages end, and apart from a venison hotdog for a second breakfast, the first half an hour was spent sampling a wide variety of drinks, including elderflower liqueur, Belgian fruit beer, premium gin, blackcurrant liqueur and best of all, ginger liqueur.  Even the cheese had whisky in!  The ginger liqueur actually turned out to be the best thing I tasted all day, and I bought a big bottle.  It was called the King's Ginger, and was created in the early 1900s for 
King Edward VII. The Royal Physician was concerned about the monarch's health, exposed as he was to the elements indulging in one of his preferred pursuits, driving his 'horseless carriage'.  In 1903 he commissioned the formulation of a liqueur which would warm and revivify His Majesty; the result, a rich, golden nectar with a pronounced spicy ginger emphasis and delightfully crisp flavour. It came with assorted cocktail and "winter cup" recipes but was gorgeous on its own, and will be drunk with cheese after Christmas dinner..

Speaking of cheese, the show was host to the 2012 World Cheese Awards.  A large area was devoted to a display of hundreds of cheeses, but sadly, even though only a tiny bit of each had been eaten, they were labelled as "no longer fit for consumption".  What a waste!  I was very unimpressed.

 
In addition to all the stands, there were quite a few "theatre" kitchens, sponsored by various programmes or manufacturers: the Masterchef Experience (with adjoining Masterchef restaurant where you could go for lunch); The Great British Bake Off Stage, where we saw John Whaite, GBBO Winner 2012 doing his stuff and explaining why it is a good idea not to put your fingers into a blender; Saturday Kitchen Live; The Magimix Theatre; the M&S Christmas theatre and the Food for Thought theatre.  My favourite of these was the Masterchef Experience, where we saw the wonderful Monica Galetti making chicken livers with onion puree and winding up Andi Peters.  She was very funny, with a wicked smile to match her wicked sense of humour; and not at all as fearsome as she seems on the television. 

We had booked tickets to the Masterchef Cook Off in the Supertheatre, which was in a separate screened off area and much larger than the other demo kitchens, with space for an audience of 2,500!  After the warm up man, Gregg Wallace and John Torode came on and introduced the Masterchef and Celebrity Masterchef winners of 2012 - Shelina Permalloo and Emma Kennedy, who had 20 minutes to cook a dish for John and Gregg to taste.  The presenters and contestants all held their own, it was as good as, if not better than watching the programme, partly because you could actually smell the cooking!  They both cooked fish, Shelina winning with red mullet and courgette flowers stuffed with crabmeat.

After the cook off we continued looking at the stands, although it was sometimes hard to keep track of where you were and what you had seen before because some companies had several stands in different places and there were often different companies selling similar products, for instance I lost track of the number of different toffee flavoured vodkas.  The husband was also keen to try all the different types of chilli sauces, but the choice was so bewilderingly large that after a while he  just couldn't face any more! We weren't really hungry for lunch, so we just shared a wild boar, prune and armagnac sausage roll.

I didn't think that every stall fitted with the "Good Food" ethos - for every artisan sausage there was a curry sauce in a jar stall - but we did come away with a good range of delicious items.  As well as the ginger liqueur, we bought the cheese with whisky; peach and rosemary chutney; lamb carpaccio; Chinese jasmine tea; strawberry bellini;  and a new whisk.  I had hoped there might be a special offer on Kitchen Aid mixers, but there wasn't, probably because the show was heavily sponsored by Magimix. I got some Christmas gifts too.  The show guide was free and had loads of good ideas and interesting recipes in, including Shelina's, so I may have to try that soon.

There also happened to be a stand with an enormous display of black cherries in kirsh!

In other news, this week's new recipe was creamy lobster soup for the husband's birthday dinner, using the shell from the last lobster and another one to further flavour some fish stock, herbs, carrot, onion and a roux based milky sauce; with the lobster meat stirred in at the last moment.  A resounding success.  We followed it with steak and chips, berry panna cotta and cheese & biscuits.  I bought the panna cotta ready made as I spent so long cooking the soup that there wasn't time to make a pud.  Just wanted you to know that I am normal and I do cut corners now and again... I have also bought a frozen turkey for Christmas, but I think with Christmas turkeys it's what you do with them that can make all the difference.

This week I will be entering a Bake Off competion in the hospital where I work, but first I'm off with the hubby in search of a Kitchen Aid artisan stand mixer in oyx black for MY Christmas present.

Thanks for reading, come back soon and find out how the Bake Off goes, will I finally win something?

Caroline x

Too clever for my own good?

Last night my husband and I went to dinner at a friend's house.  The plan was that she would make the main course and I'd do the pudding, so I had made the coffee torte with layered morning coffee biscuits, which I think I mentioned in "The competitive spirit..." post.  She also kindly said she would pick us up, so we could both have some wine and get a taxi the five miles home at the end of the evening.

On the way there though, she admitted that she was nervous cooking for me as a guest.  This was the second time this month that someone had said this, and now I'm starting to get a little worried!  I really never considered that anyone would actually think I was that good a cook to be bothered about what I might think of their cooking.  What if this puts people off inviting us to dinner? That would be a shame.  On the other hand, I was quite flattered.  As you might have already read, I've had my fair share of disasters.  A recipe went in the bin only the other day...  I've still got a lot to learn.  The friend I was going to dinner with is in my opinion just as good a cook as I am, in fact we spend a fair amount of time talking about food and swapping ideas.

As it was, she need not have worried.  I always concentrate on the good points (unlike my Dad who always has to find something to say: "As a counsel of perfection....").  I might suggest an improvement, but I'm happy enough that someone has put in the time and effort to cook for me, and wouldn't insult them by insulting their food.  Even the husband, who is my harshest critic and has even been known to denounce a dish as "disappointing!" before he has even tasted it - afterwards being forced to quite literally eat his words - is not critical of anyone else's home cooking but mine.  Anyway, the friend's main course was a delicious Moroccan dish with spiced minced lamb in filo pastry with poppy seeds, accompanied by a carrot salad and pitta breads; and there were clean plates and compliments all round.

In other news, Lidl have got various treats in store for the Christmas season including cooked frozen lobsters and frozen macarons.  I had to buy the macarons to see what they were like and to be honest if you don't fancy making them, they're not half bad.  We bought a lobster as I had never prepared one and fancied a challenge.  My son kept asking if "Lobby" the lobster was defrosted yet as he really wanted to help me prepare him.  I used a cherry stoner/olive pitter to crack the claws  and once we had got the meat out of the claws, arms and tail (all in one piece on my first go) we made a herb mayonnaise and had the lobster with it on bread with a sprinking of red chilli. I even eat the liver and kept the pieces of shell to make stock with a view to some kind of lobster soup for the husband's birthday.

 



Today I'm going to make the 100th new recipe of 2012, jam roly poly.  You might be subjected to some statistics at the end of the year, I've slowed down a bit so I'm not going to break any records, but it's nice to still break 100.

Thank you for reading, more soon, the Christmas dinner plans are coming on well.

Caroline x

The Quest for New Ingredients

A few weeks ago I somehow managed to invite ten family members for Christmas dinner, which with the four of us will make a total of fourteen.  I am quite looking forward to it and will write a post on the planning and outcome at a later date.  One of the things that sprang to mind was the possibility of a black forest trifle for a Christmas dessert,  I have been researching it and decided to include cherries in kirsch, allegedly available in Sainsburys.  However, the procurement of said cherries has not proved easy...

One of the few good points of living in a city for me would be the easy availability of any ingredient you could wish for, probably even key limes.  Living in a small village means that sometimes even in the nearest large towns I can't find what I want, so I have to search online and pay postage and wait for ages for whatever it is, or travel to a city, or substitute for a similar, but usually less successful ingredient.  If I do go to London or somewhere, I look out for shops which might sell interesting ingredients, rather than looking for clothes as the average woman might...

Going back to the cherries - I tried ebay with no success at all.  I tried Amazon, who had them but you either had to buy six jars at once, the postage cost was more than the cost of the item, the availability was stated as "four to six weeks" or in one case the customer review said they were bitter and went in the bin (which after today's experiment with radicchio... but we won't go there at the moment!)  So I had the bright idea of asking my friends on facebook to have a look for me if they happened to be going to a large Sainsburys or a Waitrose (who always seem to have all kinds of things you didn't even know you wanted and make you spend a fortune). Two of them kindly offered to help, and at the time of writing one has looked with no success and the other hasn't got back to me.  I feel I might need to resort to Plan B - either getting some fresh cherries and cooking them in Kirsch and sugar, or just cheating and mixing tinned cherries with the liqueur.  Either way, I get the rest of the bottle to play with!

 

 

Speaking of liqueuers, they ARE well worth buying online.  I've discovered a wonderful website called drinks direct who sell virtually every liqueur known to man.  A trifle makers heaven!  And they often have special offers on.  It was there I purchased the vanilla galliano for the first of my designer trifles.  I also got white Creme de Cacao, which was unavailable in Asda; and a gorgeous lychee liqueur, which has been half drunk already without being used in any recipes at all!  I was going to add a splash of it to my celebrated lychee cava cocktails: liquidise a tin of lychees in syrup, freeze in ice cube trays, then pop one in a flute and top up with cava or champagne.

Despite my lack of success with the cherries I have managed to get quite a few ingredients online. Liquid glucose, membrillo (quince paste - which I cut into chunks and had on sticks with manchego cheese but didn't like it as it tasted too much like honey), matcha green tea powder - used to make green tea icing for cupcakes, Japanese panko breadcrumbs.  Wing Yip is an online Chinese supermarket I have used in the past, when my sister was alive we used to combine orders, and buy things like five spice powder in bulk and share them.  Another friend of mine sometimes goes to Leicester and gets me massive packs of garam masala and cumin seeds from Indian supermarkets.

I have this happy vision  of my retirement that I will live somewhere near the sea, and I can spend my twilight years finding lovely fresh fish and other ingredients on a daily basis, forgetting the menu planning and shopping lists, having time to browse in a market and see what's available without being in a rush, and having the time to play around in the kitchen inventing recipes...  one day...

Thank you for reading,

Caroline x :-)

The competetive spirit... or not.

Last weekend I came second in a pudding competition, for the second time.  I'm not really a very competetive person.  I applied to go on the tv show "Come Dine With Me" a while ago and got down to the last twenty for the local episode, but no further.  When I watched the programme I realised I had had a lucky escape... I didn't think much to the food or the people... but I would definitely have won if I had been a contestant due to the low standard of the other participants!  I wouldn't want to go on "Masterchef" as I would never want to make cooking a career, it would be too much pressure, the hours are dreadful and I would stop enjoying it.  Family and friends can forgive the odd disaster (see a previous post - What could possibly go wrong?) but paying customers probably wouldn't.  I am considering "The Great British Bake Off", though I would have a lot to learn, it does look like a lot of fun, and I DO love baking.  We will see.

Back to the pudding competitions.  About six months ago, my Mum told me about a pudding competition that was being held in her village for the first time.  The idea was to raise funds towards a new village hall.  People would make one or more puddings and bring them along to the village hall where members of the public would taste as many of them as their stomachs could handle for the princely sum of £3 and then vote for their favourite by means of a marble in a plastic cup. The pudding with the most marbles would then be declared the winner and it's creator would receive a silver trophy (donated by a kind benefactor).  Tea and coffee would be included. 

I telephoned the organiser beforehand to check I would be eligible as I didn't live in the village.  I was.  I also wanted to check what their definition of a pudding was.  She said "anything that you would like to eat for pudding".  So I made a raspberry rose tart and a coffee, chocolate and mascarpone torte and duly turned up on the day, putting my identity underneath the serving plate as requested.  There were sixteen puddings, some of which were totally consumed.  The village hall was packed with willing tasters, and £190 was raised.  When the winners were announced, my raspberry tart actually came bottom with no votes (I think the base was too hard, but it did taste nice) but the torte came second, losing out by one vote to a banoffee pie.

Having said I'm not competitive, I was a little bit miffed.  Banoffee pie does taste nice, true, but doesn't involve much skill (tinned caramel?), and was "thrown together" in the words of its creator; whereas my torte involved lovingly piecing together eighty morning coffee biscuits soaked in kahlua and strong coffee, with coffee butter icing and grated chocolate in between each layer, and enveloping the whole thing in vanilla mascarpone cream decoarated with chocolate stars.  Ho Hum.  There is always next year.

Last weekend, a similar event was held by the opera group I sing with, to raise funds for the production. It was organised in exactly the same way, we had twenty-two puddings entered and it raised about £120.  This time I made a Mars bar cheesecake and a strawberry and mascarpone swiss roll, and the cheesecake came second.  The winner this time was my personal favourite, a raspberry and white chocolate meringue roulade, though I also loved the chocolate orange profiteroles, which happened to be made by the same person.

Interestingly, in both competitions there were duplicate entries.  The first one had two tiramisus (that IS the plural, I checked, wondering if it was just tiramisu) and the second had two bakewell tarts (one with jam, one with mincemeat) and two bread puddings.  One of the bread puddings looked like a burnt brick but actually tasted fantastic, and not burnt at all, it was slightly chewy but in a good way and tasted much better than the other more stylish one.  There was a fantastic selection and a very high standard throughout and I did try ALL the puddings in both competitions, though only a very little bit of each!

View from one end of the table, last slice of Swiss roll in the foreground...

 

 



 

And from the other end.

 

 

The coffee, chocolate and mascarpone torte from the first competition.

 

 

After both competitions, I didn't eat anything sweet or indeed puddingy for quite some time.

 

On another note, this weekend I have (possibly rashly) invited lots of family for Christmas dinner, there might be up to sixteen of us.  Luckily, quite a few of them have offered to help either cooking various aspects of the meal, peeling spuds or having the children so they're out of the way.  I've started to get quite excited!

 

More soon, thank you for reading,

 

Caroline x

Waste not, want not.

Our council has recently introduced a food waste collection.  Reading the leaflet that accompanied the new food waste bin, I was horrified to discover that FORTY-ONE PERCENT by weight of black bin (ie non recyclable) waste is food waste.  What a waste of money, fuel, energy, water and time.

Various friends assured me I would be surprised at the amount of waste that would go in my bin once the time came to start using it, and claimed that it would be filled up on a weekly basis, but actually hardly anything goes in. According to my research the average household generates 3.2kg of food waste weekly, ours is less than 700g. And no, although I do have some OCD tendencies, I don't weigh it every week!  According to an article in the Guardian last year household food waste has reduced by 13% in three years, but is still costing the consumer the same due to inflation.  Food waste generated by UK families in a year will still completely fill Wembley stadium nine times, (rather than ten times) though, so to be honest there is still a lot of room for improvement.There are various reasons why our family generates so little food waste, and I thought it might make for an interesting blog post.

Firstly, we are a family that eats just about everything.  I was brought up to keep trying things until I did like them, and I am doing the same with my own children because it really worked.  There are foods I don't prefer, but apart from honey on toast and liquorice I don't really dislike anything.  So leftovers can be eaten by anyone, and it makes menu planning (see later) much easier.  It also makes a big difference if you have someone in the family who doesn't mind using up broken biscuits, manky fruit from the dregs of the fruit bowl and end-of-packet cereal dust.  That will be me then.

We compost at home, anything that can be composted. Peelings, teabags, fruit cores, etc, also handy for disposal of shredded confidential documents.  My parents were surprised when I started composting as I'm not into gardening and have a garden the size of a postage stamp, just big enough to grow some herbs in.  I didn't start composting to get some free compost, but rather to cut down on unaviodable food waste such as peelings going to landfill. I have actually given away my home made compost via freecycle! I don't put eggshells, avocoado peel or stones or other large fruit stones such as mango stones in as they just don't decompose fast enough in a domestic setting, so they DO go in the food waste bin, along with bones, the odd burnt toast crust and the very occasional plate scraping.

The contents of our food waste bin after two weeks: two little bags.

I often have leftovers for the next day's lunch - and it makes a change from boring sandwiches.

Plan your meals weekly and only buy what you actually need - I usually do the food shopping on Saturday mornings so I sit down on a Thurday or Friday night with a list of what will be in the Tuesday vegbox (they email it to me), a list of what needs using up in the fridge, and my recipe folders, cookery books, magazines etc and plan menus for the week, this also helps to keep costs down.  I've got a list of items we always need, the "weekly check" such as teabags, coffee, cereals, milk, fruit; and I go through that checking what we need.  I have a look at the calendar and see what everyone is doing, so I know whether we need something super quick on a particular day, or if I can indulge myself with a new recipe midweek.  Sometimes it does have to be different meals for different family members, or if the husband is going out I can look forward to having something he doesn't particularly like.  I usually have something in the freezer for emergency last minute changes of plan too.

Speaking of the freezer,  use it well. I always freeze sliced bread for my son's sandwiches and get out a third or half a loaf at a time, as we don't use much sliced bread.  Bread which does go stale can be made into breadcrumbs.  If I make a cake and cut bits off it to shape it they get frozen for the next trifle.  Also roast chicken carcases get frozen and made into stock several at a time.

Use store cupboard ingredients, but keep track of what you've got, do a "cabinet reshuffle" every few months so you don't forget what you've got.

Don't take too much notice of best before dates.  If it has gone off, you can usually tell. If cheese goes mouldy I cut off the outside and the middle is fine.  That said, check the dates when you go shopping to make sure you don't buy something that won't keep until you've planned to use it.

Apples too elderly to be palatable raw can be used to top a pork chop, my husband's signature dish is pork chops with apples and prunes; or made into apple sauce.  Over ripe bananas can be transformed into banana bread or put in a smoothie.  Past its best veg can be roasted and even put in a tart. One of my favourite books with tips for reducing food waste is Economy Gastronomy, a tie in with a TV series from 2009 (at present from £6.53 on amazon).

The love food hate waste website is also recommended: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com.

So, I challenge YOU to reduce your food waste!  If everyone just tried a little bit harder, we might fill less Wembley stadiums next year :-)

Thank you for reading, more soon.

Caroline x

A love of puddings versus healthy eating.

I am often asked, "Why are you not the size of a house when you make so many puddings, cakes and sweet things?"  This blog post aims to answer this question. I weigh a tiny bit more than  the average UK woman but am two dress sizes smaller for reasons which for now are a mystery to me. My weight is quite stable and doesn't fluctuate much, the only times I have lost lots of weight have been just after having a baby or when I have been very unhappy, and I don't plan on being in either of those situations again if I can help it.

So, what's my strategy for not putting on weight?  First and foremost, it's all about portion control.  I never deny myself anything. I always have butter rather than margarine.  However I have learned (and it HAS taken a few years!) not to overdo it.  My Mum always said "All things in moderation" when we were growing up and it was sage advice.  Here is an example.  As some readers may know, I LOVE peanut butter kitkat chunky bars.  When they were discontinued I was so heartbroken I emailed the manufacturers to ask why, and was told demand was too low to justify relatively high manufacturing costs. When they relaunched them recently with a competition to find the 'chunky champion' I voted my little heart out and was over the moon when peanut butter got 47% of the vote and was chosen to be permanently relaunched.  You get the picture.  Anyway I have HALF a bar every weekday when I am at work.  I find a whole one is just a bit too much.  People are amazed I can eat half a bar of chocolate and save the other half for another day.  But I can.  We try to only have chips once a week, and crisps at the weekend.  We only have puddings on Sundays and for special occasions.  When you keep treats really as a treat, they become more of one.

Also, I do really love vegetables, especially greens, I feel a bit wierd if I go a day without eating something green.  Another great quote I remember hearing once was "Green food = good.  Beige food = bad."  And although I love sweet things I would always rather have an extra helping of veg than an extra helping of pudding.  Sometimes I can have my five a day in one meal.  My husband maintains that its all the vegetables I feed him that are keeping him healthy despite smoking and drinking lots of red wine. It all balances out.

While on the subject of wine, I've found that as the years go by I am getting to be more and more of a lightweight when it comes to alcoholic beverages, and although I love the taste I am not able to drink as much without feeling the after effects.  These days I would rather have a lesser amount of something a bit special than lots of a bog standard 'three-for-a-tenner' bottle.  If I do find my clothes getting tight, just cutting out the wine for a while and the associated crisps and snacks which seem to accompany it seems to do the trick and help me lose a few pounds. I use wine and liqueurs in cooking quite a bit, but you get the taste without too many calories and often the alcohol is cooked off.

And there is chocolate.  My children and I always have chocolate first thing in the morning at weekends, it has become something of a tradition in our house.  However we don't have massive bars of dairy milk, just a little chocolate stick from Lidl - they have a sort of creamy filling, come in packets of eleven and are just enough to feel like a treat but only about the size of one kitkat finger.  Chocolate, like wine, is something where I prefer quality rather than quantity.  I'm a member of the Chocolate Tasting Club and can make one box of quality chocolates last four weeks, even including sharing them with my family.  They are so deluxe you only want two at the most in one go, and they are far more satisfying with less calories than a big bar of mainstream chocolate.

Breakfast is really important to keep me going and I always have it, usually granola or weetabix but I also love an egg on toast.  Sometimes I scramble eggs but mostly I cook one or two in a small non stick milk pan with a tiny bit of oil, on a medium heat with a saucer on top, sort of fried but healthier.  If I've been making macaroons, a leftover egg yolk (or two!) can be added to make it extra proteinaceous!

True, I enjoy making puddings and sweet treats, but I also really enjoy sharing them.  A large part of the joy of cooking is making friends and family happy by cooking them something special. I'm happy with a small piece of whatever it is, so that there is plenty for everyone else.

I've learned to stop eating when I'm full, but this doesn't make for waste, because I often have any leftovers for the next days lunch.  Our family creates hardly any food waste, everything that can be composted is, and at the time of writing our food waste bin is less than half full in three weeks....  but the food waste issue is something to be discussed in a future post.

Here's a picture of today's new recipe pudding: pear, almond and amaretto tart (from the new Lorraine Pascale book), and one of the proteinaceous breakfast:

Thank you for reading, more soon....

Caroline x

What could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday I made a toad-in-the-hole, however the Yorkshire pudding (or Yorkshture pudding as my son calls it!) part was sadly flat and unrisen, although it tasted ok.  I have never been very consistent with Yorkshire pudding, I think it is all to do with the size of tin versus the quantity of mixture, sometimes it's a triumph and sometimes, like yesterday, it's frankly rubbish.  This got me thinking about what could go wrong in the kitchen, and as I usually only share successes with the community at large I thought it might be confession time!

As far as my husband and I can remember, I have never cooked anything that has actually been inedible.  Interestingly the very first new recipe after I made my resolution (see "Welcome post") has been the only one ever to score only one star out of the possible five. It was a Nigella recipe for smoked cod with cannellini beans and included some peppercorns in the sauce.  I accidentally put too many in, and you were meant to remove them before serving , but as there were so many it would have taken forever and the food would have been cold so I just intructed the husband to leave them on the side of the plate.  This did not work.  They were too disguised by the sauce and every now and then you would crunch on one, flooding your mouth with pepperiness. Several years later I made another fish dish with chinese Sichuan peppercorns, crushed in the pestle and mortar, and these were really rather nice, not quite as peppery as the normal ones; but after the smoked cod disaster I didn't risk it on the husband and had it by myself while he was away.

There have also been recipes that have just been plain boring and tasteless.  It can be quite disappointing when you're looking forward to something new and then you have to put sweet chilli sauce on it to make it taste of anything at all.  For example tagliatelle with pancetta, lemon, broccoli and walnuts.  Sounds quite flavoursome. It wasn't. I've had similar experiences with quiches and curries.  You never know with chillies either, they can be bland as anything or fearsomly hot. Sometimes the flavour doesn't live up to the smell either which is worse. Even in a recipe taken from a magazine, the flavours just may not work, like haddock, prawn and cheese bake.  I never put cheese in a fish risotto so I was dubious about this one, and rightly so.

Desserts and cakes have lots of potential for problems.  In particular things that need to be set, with gelatine or agar.  There was the time I made a mars bar cheesecake, which I had made a few times before and was very popular.  I thought I knew what I was doing and decided to have a few cans of cider while making it.  Mistake.  I didn't dissolve the gelatine properly and as you consumed the cheesecake lumps of gluey, bogey-like gelatine got left in your mouth.  Most people politely left them on the side of the plate.  Then there was the strawberry mousse cake which didn't have enough gelatine in it.  When removed from the tin it looked fab but after a few minutes began to collapse and go a bit free-form.  I made another one a few weeks later with more gelatine and much better results. A similar thing happened with my limoncello cheesecake which used vegetarian gel powder, you have to use it differently to gelatine and I didn't... but rescued it with an hour in the freezer.  I've made cakes that weren't cooked in the middle and had to be turned into a ring cake with fruit piled up in the middle. I haven't ever tried to bake something with the oven on grill setting, but I know people that have, I'm lucky enough to have a separate grill.

 Strawberry mousse cake take one: oo-er!

 Take two: much better.

I've made naan bread that was more biscuit than bread, burnt things and set fire to things, made a coconut delight that was anything but delightful; and made hokey pokey that just tasted of bicarbonate of soda and made you foam at the mouth a bit! 

Then there are simple accidents, such as collapsing fridge shelves (I caught the just-setting trifle successfully) and the time I was up until midnight making jubilee cupcakes for school with triple coloured piped icing and they looked beautiful until I tried to move the cooling rack then... plop plop plop! they fell upside down, splatting their icing onto the table. I swore so loudly I woke the husband up, and he was upstairs!

The trouble is, I've shot myself in the foot with all this new recipe malarkey. The family now have such high standards it's quite difficult to serve up something run-of-the-mill, even on a weeknight.  I do have to go to work four days a week, I'm not home until 6.15pm and so I've had to become an expert on meals that are not only interesting but quick too, or we get hungry, and when we get hungry in our family, we tend to get short-tempered too.  And vegtarian on a Sunday didn't go down too well, in fact it was "unacceptable" a few years ago, but I'm working on that one...

Generally though, things do turn out remarkably well!

Thank you for reading, Caroline x

Tales of cheese and chocolate.

This blog post is not so much about culinary creations as culinary experiences.  What do you think of when you think of Switzerland?  Fresh air, mountains, army knives, banking or designer watches?  My first thoughts are of cheese and chocolate, and I was really looking forward to my first visit...

I had not been abroad for eight years (the last time was my honeymoon) when my friend invited me to Switzerland for her wedding. I was keen to find out more about food and drink in this beautiful country.  On the day I arrived in the village of Moiry, in the canton of Vaud,  there was a  houseful of guests.  Family and friends came and went all day long, enjoying pizza, pasta, salad, Swiss wine, coffee, chocolates, chat and each other’s company. We also enjoyed sachertorte brought back by my friend from a recent visit to Vienna. I really enjoyed the wine and wondered why I had never had Swiss wine before.  On doing some research, only 2% of it is exported, I think they like to keep it all for themselves, it was certainly very delicious.

The following morning,  we breakfasted on fresh bread with jams and marmalade, fruit juice and lovely coffee.  I’m usually a tea person in the mornings but decided to embrace change, as I was feeling very continental, I was told the Swiss only drink tea if they are ill.  After helping with preparations for my friend’s civil ceremony (a small family only event), and lunching on leftovers, the wedding party departed and I was left to my own devices for the rest of the day with another friend who was staying at the house but also not going to the civil ceremony.  

We borrowed bikes and headed for La Sarraz, two villages away and where we had got off the train the day before, on a mission to buy mint for the Pimm’s to be served at the big wedding party the following day.  After a stroll round the Co-op,  we found the mint (the last pack available) and picked up some fish and vegetables for dinner later.  Chocolate for my children was also purchased, as I’d promised to bring them some back.  I took a photo of some strangely dyed eggs, which I think were pre-hardboiled. The bike ride back to Moiry was uphill all the way, the sun had come out with a vengeance and we certainly broke out into a sweat, but made it back easily – passing cows with bells, goats and even some nuns en route.

After some chill-out time, and a walk through the village and into the forest, we returned to cook dinner.  The fish we had bought was pangasius, which I hadn’t heard of before.  I googled it and wished I hadn’t as there are some very scaremongering websites claiming it is unsustainable and could even make you ill due to dodgy aquaculture practices.  After some research I decided the good reviews outweighed the bad, and pan fried it with dill and served it on a bed of ribboned courettes and carrots with cherry tomatoes, accompanied by crusty bread.  I would say it wasn’t the tastiest fish in the world and I probably wouldn’t buy it again but it was ok, and we didn’t have any ill effects.

On Saturday morning we were up quite early as preparations had to be made for the big wedding party to be held at a Chalet, about forty minutes’ drive away, higher up in the mountains.  The wedding ceremony was to be held in a clearing in the pastureland, in a home-made “church” with the “aisle” and seating made out of hay and hay bales, and at the front an archway of pieces of wood, decorated with flowers.  The reception meal and party was to be held in a (very clean) barn area, which was also decorated.

When all was as it should be we had some lunch before it was time to get changed.  I had a “croque” of ham on bread with mustard, covered with melted cheese and what looked like paprika on the top.  I was informed that often the bread is quite stale so they soak it in wine first, although they hadn’t this time.  It was accompanied by gherkins and small pickled onions, which later I found to be a common accompaniment to savoury food, and very delicious.  I love gherkins! After this we went to a small hotel about ten minutes’ drive away where I would be staying overnight to get changed, and returned to the chalet for the ceremony and reception.

The ceremony was very unusual, combining a rock & roll theme with music, poetry and readings in both French and English (this was the French-speaking part of Switzerland).  It included what was what was termed the wine ceremony.  The guests had each written on a card a good wish for the happy couple and the two youngest bridesmaids collected these in a basket while music played.  The cards were sealed up in a wooden box containing a large bottle of red wine, the idea being that in five years’ time all would be invited back to drink the wine while the couple read the messages from their wedding day.  At this point the bride and groom drank wine out of two large trophies, which were then offered to the rest of the adult congregation as more music played. Next came the exchange of vows and rings, and they were declared married!  The bride and groom walked back up the aisle together to the strains of “You are the one for me, for me, for me, formidable” by Charles Aznavour. 

Afterwards there was photography (brief) and then the guests headed off to the chalet for aperitifs of Pimm’s or Swiss wine, accompanied by bread, breasaola (Italian air dried salted beef) and the usual gherkins and pickled onions.   When it was time to eat, each guest picked out their name card, which were pegged to string outside the barn and matched it to their place inside.  I was on the Jimi Hendrix table, with lots of people I knew and some I had just met.  Wine and conversation flowed, and as we waited for the starter there was a game of “Mr & Mrs” where the newlyweds sat on high stools at the front with placards with “ME/MOI” and “HIM/HER” on them, when asked questions by the guests they used the placards to display their answers, to much hilarity! Sugar cubes were also distributed to the guests, with a piece of coloured paper on which to write a message to the newly married couple, and some ribbon.  Each guest wrapped their sugar cube in their message and tied the ribbon round to make a tiny “present”.  The next day these were presented to the couple in a tin to take home, the idea being that every time they had sugar in their coffee they would find a message.

 

The starter was a salad buffet, with green leaves, assorted shredded cabbage and carrot salad with a choice of three dressings.  Each table was called to the buffet in turn when a song by the rock band of their table was played.  The main course was served to the table.  Roast pork with a delicious gravy reminiscent of the IKEA meatball gravy only much, much nicer; accompanied by garden vegetables and a creamy potato bake.  After all had eaten, a second helping was offered.  Before dessert, speeches were made by bride, groom, and bride’s father, some in both languages and some in just French. Dessert was meringues with fruit and double cream, and very scrumptious.  Before, during and after dessert, a live band played, a disco followed and there was much dancing and general merriment into the early hours.

The next morning I woke at 9.15am and after a quick wash and brush up, checked out of the hotel and went back to the chalet for breakfast, which was almost over but not quite!  Coffee, bread, two cheeses (gruyere and a creamy brie-like cheese), and jam were enjoyed al fresco.  After the clearing up was completed and some goodbyes had been said to those who were heading for home, we returned to Moiry for a restful day as some of us felt a little delicate!

We had a late lunch (cooked by my friend) of pasta with a creamy sauce of onions, bacon and gruyere, known as macaroni cheese d’alpage (only it was rigatoni!) but affectionately known to the family as “stinky pasta”!! Most of the day was spent sitting on the sunny balcony with coffee and little chocolates, or napping and the evening meal was a simple affair of bread, cheese (including a fabulous soft cheese with walnuts) and Swiss red wine.  I was also offered a sneaky meringue with cream as my friend began preparations for the next day’s dessert, a tart made with raisinee a “vin cuit” or cooked wine.  She explained to me what raisinee is, here is an explanation I found on the internet:

The “vin cuit” is a kind of very thick syrup, made out of fallen apples and/or pears that cannot be sold or eaten raw…  A second-life is given to them: they are crushed, so that their juice is extracted. This juice is then cooked for so long that it reduces and becomes thick and syrupy, like a kind of molasses.  To produce 1 kilo of raisinée, at least 10 kilos of juice is needed. The mixture has to be stirred carefully in a cauldron with a wooden spoon, over an open wood fire and it should not be left unattended because when overcooked the juice becomes bitter.

I was told that it needs to be stirred for twenty four hours and that villagers would take turns to stir it through the night. An early night followed, as tomorrow I was to be introduced to the delights of raclette!  Something I had heard about and eagerly anticipated…

I was up quite early and after a breakfast of hazelnut yoghurt, bread and jam with coffee, I helped with the preparations for the raclette party and barbecue that was to happen at lunchtime, thirty adults and many children had been invited, so there was much to do.  The garden was decorated with lanterns and the wedding flowers, bunting and table decorations, triangular sun canopies were put up to give some shade to the three large tables with benches either side,  and the tarte raisinee and a tarte a la crème were cooked.  Drinks were organised – Swiss beer, Swiss wine, coffee and Pimm’s for the grown-ups and iced tea and sprite for the children (the sprite was cooled in the “fountain” – which was really the cow watering trough just across the road), plus lots of water as it was quite a hot and sunny day. Crisps and snacks were put on the table; there was a sort of savoury croissant-like pastry stuffed with minced meat, and a baguette stuffed with a mixture of egg, ham and gherkins.  Many people brought assorted salads and the kitchen resembled a patisserie as there were SIX tartes of various kinds and two kinds of homemade biscuits (some tasted like they had caraway seeds in and the others were light and melt-in-the-mouth, a bit like trifle sponges only nicer).

In the corner of the garden there was a round table with the raclette “apparatus” on it.  Raclette is both the name of the cheese and the dish with which it is made.  The whole cheeses are about 6kg in weight and nearly one and a half of these were consumed at the party.  “Racler” means “to scrape” and the aim of the apparatus is to heat the cut surface of the cheese, melting it so that it can be scraped off and eaten with a variety of things, traditionally boiled potatoes and the now very familiar pickled onions and gherkins.  Raclette was one of those foods that I ended up having to eat with my eyes shut to fully appreciate the flavour! Each of the three half cheeses at the party had a subtly different flavour, and all were completely and utterly delicious.  There was a long queue and two men had the full time job of serving the raclette, although they were relieved later so that they could eat some.

There was also a barbecue happening at the same time, with the smell of sizzling marinated pork steaks and Swiss sausages floating through the air mingled with the smell of the cooking cheese.  The pork was very tasty, and so were the sausages.  There were two sorts, a white fat sausage called Kalbsbratwurst and another longer, thinner spicier one reminiscent of chorizo.  I only had a small piece of each though as I had to save room for the tartes.

There were two tartes a la crème, one made by my friend with puff pastry, and a similar one made by someone else with short pastry.  There was the tarte raisinee, a linzertorte (with jam and a sponge like base), an apricot tart and one made with hazelnuts drizzled with icing. I had to try a little piece of each for research purposes!  The tarte raisinee and the puff pastry tarte a la crème were the winners in my book, but all were delicious.

All too soon it was time to say goodbye, leave the party and leave Switzerland.  I was sad to go but really looking forward to seeing my family again.  The journey to the airport was easy, we arrived in plenty of time to buy large amounts of chocolate to take home to my friends and family, and get ideas for future macaroon flavours from a shop at the airport.  All went smoothly, we took off early, and I said goodbye to Geneva, looking out of the plane window as the lights twinkled in the darkness like diamonds on a Swiss watch.

During my time in Switzerland I met lots of new people from all over the world and enjoyed talking to them about their food experiences and their likes and dislikes.  I always find that even if people don’t like to cook, they usually have an opinion on food and cooking which makes for good conversation. And plenty of food and drink also makes for a great wedding!

So - what do I love about Switzerland?  Fresh air, cleanliness and lack of litter, friendliness of local people, the food (especially the cheese) and the wine.  The few minus points I could come up with are that everything is very expensive; and the noise of the cow bells does get to you after a while… every cow has a bell, and there are a lot of cows…

I'm planning to make a Swiss roll this weekend, and I wondered if Swiss rolls actually have anything to do with Switzerland.  It turns out that the origins of the term Swiss roll are unclear and the cake originated in Central Europe, but not in Switzerland as the name would suggest.  So now you know.

Thank you for reading,  Caroline x