beef in beer

I knew there were two rump steaks in the freezer that we brought with us from Somerset – the very last of the Dexter beef.  There’s no way we’d ever eat a whole steak nowadays – it’s just not the sort of meal we have – so I decided, that in light of the chilly…

Irish potato scones

This is a classic Irish recipe – we used to eat them a lot, but sort of forgot about them; I made some for breakfast this morning, and thought I’d share.  It’s an ideal way to use up leftover boiled potato, too! In a food processor, blitz 6oz cold cooked potato, 4oz flour (I always…

food from Unearthed

A few months ago, I was approached by a PR company and asked if I’d like to be involved in a tasting panel, and blog about the results. “Why not?”, I thought – I shall just be honest about the stuff they send. The first set of goodies arrived today, in a white box tied…

pancake day

We don’t normally bother with pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, although Pete did actually make some last night. He is In Charge of pancakes, drop scones*, chilli con carne, dhal, to name but a few. Pancakes are so easy – flour, egg, milk, salt. And yet, all over our local small supermarkets for the past few…

baking and winemaking weekend

Sorted out some wine – filtered and bottled one gallon of parsnip, although the other one went cloudy again, racked the three gallons of rhubarb (which was really 2.5 gallons and racked down to 2 + a bottle), racked the two gallons of apricot and stopped the fermentation, made a gallon of Earl Grey just…

I've got to try this – teabag wine!

8 x fruit teabags of choice, 1kg sugar, 1 teaspoon yeast, 1 teaspoon nutrient, 2tsps lemon juice. Pour boiling water onto teabags and sugar in a large jug and leave until lukewarm. Discard bags and pour liquid into a demijohn. Top up with water to the ‘shoulder’ of the demijohn. Add yeast and nutrient. Fit…

I have a wine filter kit!

A friend who used to do a lot of home winemaking told me that I should get a filter kit to “polish” my wine.  They’re not cheap cheap (about £22 or so with carriage), so I trawled eBay and found somebody selling his father’s old Boots kit.  I offered him £8 including postage, and a…

reactive entertaining

Last night’s supper was already planned, insofar as I knew we needed to use up some of the veg in the fridge, and we’d been eating rice for a few days, so it was time for pasta for a change. I chopped up a fat leek, a red romano pepper, and several cloves of garlic,…

elephant bread

elephant bread, originally uploaded by ramtops. I made some more 5 minute dough yesterday morning, and decanted it into a couple of tins. This one (topped with sesame seeds) was clearly over enthusiastic, and spilled over the tin in a pleasingly proboscis-like way 🙂