Flopsy's Krot Cake

It's fairly 'artisanal' looking but it's tasty!

This is another post, except this time a REAL recipe, for my colleague and dear friend, Flopsy. Flopsy is a big fan of carrot cake (or Krot cake as he refers to it by text message) and sometimes we get a factory-made version which is fairly good in the supermarket on the corner for an afternoon treat. However, it's a little dry and a little commercial tasting, as well as being overly sweet. I happened to mention to Foxy one day that my Sam makes an excellent carrot cake and that it was always one of my favourites as a little girl and from that day on, he pestered me for the recipe until he took it upon himself to write to Sam and ask for it. (My memory is like that of a goldfish so I kept forgetting.) Sam dutifully sent it off, as mothers always do, and Flopsy set about making the cake. The result was rather good for a first attempt, though a little thin because he just did it in one layer, in a small tin, rather than doubling it or doing it in a deep baking tray. The cake itself was yummy, but he made a fatal error with the icing on the top. He used granulated brown sugar to make the buttercream, resulting in what he himself described as a rather 'sandy' topping, which I have never let him live down as it was quite hilarious at the time: a sandy, underweight Krot cake which was nevertheless very tasty.

Ever since this carrot cake episode, he has been asking me to make one and I have been rotten and not delivered on my promises several times over. Finally, this Wednesday, I got around to doing it. This is a cake I actually tried out last week on a friend in muffin form, minus the carrots. The flavours were nice so for Flopsy's cake I decided to base it on that and just add carrots and bake it in cake tins. Worked okay!

Carrot Cake

For the cake:

200g wholemeal flour
200g soft dark brown sugar
200g unsalted butter
1-2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp épices pour pain d'épices (I think in England/U.S. this would be All Spice)
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 big handfuls chopped walnuts
2 big handfuls of sultanas or soft big raisins
2-3 big handfuls of grated carrot
3 medium eggs
1-2 tbsp crème fraîche

For the filling:

100g unsalted butter, softened
150g icing sugar
zest of half a large orange

Beat the orange zest into the butter, slowly adding the icing sugar until you have a thick, creamy filling.

Preheat your oven to 200°C and grease two round 7" cake tins and line them with baking parchment.

In a saucepan and on a gentle hear, melt the butter with the sugar, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until you have a brown liquid. Add the maple syrup, the walnuts, the sultanas/raisins and the carrots and stir well. Leave to soak for 5-10 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, put the flour, the baking powder, the cinnamon and the spice and mix together. Once the sugar/butter etc mixture has soaked a little, add it to the dry ingredients and stir in well, with a metal spoon. Add the three eggs, stir in, then add the crème fraîche and stir that in too.

Make sure that you have really stirred the mixture well so that the walnuts/sultanas/carrots are evenly distributed throughout. Split the mixture between the two baking tins and sprinkle a little soft brown sugar over the top of each before putting in the oven for 30 minutes.

Leave the cakes to cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, spread the filling over the bottom of one and place the other on top. The cake's ready!

Lasagne

This is the England home version, made in a real dish, cooked in a real oven and served on a real table...

...and this is the Paris Fairy version, fairy dish, fairy oven, fairy table!

I have finally, FINALLY, plucked up the energy to get back to my blog. The last few weeks I have been so tired that even the thought of taking my shoes off when I get home was almost enough to make me want to cry, mostly thanks to the ever-increasing concoction of medication I take for unimportant reasons I won't bore you with. However, I'm getting used to the new combination and despite my hair which was once thick and healthy becoming limp, dull and a lot thinner (and my house looking like I've emptied out a hairbrush all over it) I'm feeling almost normal again, therefore ready to cook. A friend of mine came to see me the other evening (yes, even once I had cooked, it still took me quite some time to bother to write about it) and requested lasagne and chocolate cake and given that I was in the mood for some high-carb, high-calorie food myself, I was more than happy to oblige. I decided to make her my Conversion Lasagne. There's a reason behind the weird name: my brother's girlfriend has only eaten poultry and sometimes bacon since childhood. The very thought of red meat or such delights as pork and crackling absolutely disgusted her and various attempts on my brother's behalf to tempt her with steak or sausage or other such morsels were in vain. My brother, Jack on the other hand, is a meat-fiend. He would be quite happy if you just served up an entire cow for lunch and left him to it. That would be his idea of heaven.

A couple of years ago, during the Christmas holidays, we were all at home, including Helen and we were having a birthday dinner for my elder brother, Edward. Edward is also a big meat lover but almost more than that, he's a pasta lover. He asked for lasagne and as I had offered to cook that evening to give my mother a rest from all of her spectacular Christmas efforts, I set about making one. I had never really made one before but it looked easy enough and I saw this as my opportunity to sneak in as much cheese as possible into a main meal. Too much cheese = rarely a bad thing. The finished product was a bubbling, juicy effort which, though I say it myself, looked delicious. Helen ate fish that evening and though I'm a huge fish fan, I have to say it looked pretty humble next to lasagne. Apparently, she thought so too. These last two years or so, she has begun eating other meats again. She enjoys steak, bolognese and pork and regularly eats and prepares them all (much to Jack's delight.) The last time I was home, we were talking about the fact that she eats meat now and she said 'Well you know it all started with that lasagne you made for Edward's birthday that time. It looked so delicious and I was so jealous that you were all eating it that it made me think I'd like to try real meat again.' So that's the story behind the name.

Lasagne (for 2 people like me or 4 normal people)

You will need:

400g ground beef
6-8 lasagne sheets
1 batch of tomato sauce (made with 3 chopped mushrooms this time)
Bechamel sauce (see below)
125 grams mozzarella, sliced
125 grams grated comté
150 grams grated gruyère
75 grams parmesan shavings


For the Bechamel sauce:

500 ml semi-skimmed milk
75 grams butter
3-4 tbsps plain flour, sifted
pinch of salt

Heat the milk and butter together in a pan over a medium heat being careful not to burn the milk. Add a pinch of salt and then slowly add the flour, spoon by spoon, stirring with a wooden spoon as you do so. Keep stirring as the sauce heats up and becomes thicker, until you get a thick but still liquid consistency. If you see that the sauce is not thick enough after a few minutes, slowly add a little more flour until it as as thick as you would like. It should still be pourable. Leave the sauce to cool on the side.

For the meat sauce:

Follow the instructions for tomato sauce but just after sautéeing the shallots, add in the ground beef and brown it before continuing with the rest of the sauce. Cover and leave to simmer for at least an hour until the sauce is thick and glossy. Once finished, leave it to cool.

Assembling the lasagne:

Take an oven dish roughly in the region of 20cm by 15cm and of a good depth. Spread a layer of bechamel sauce along the bottom followed by a layer of meat sauce on top of that. Cover with sheets of lasagne then begin again with bechamel sauce and meat sauce. This time however, sprinkle a covering of grated comté (laveing a little aside) over the meat before layering again with lasagne. Bechamel, meat again, then a layer of gruyère (leaving a little aside) and lasagne sheets. Bechamel, meat again, then the remaining comté and gruyère, topped with sliced mozzarella then sprinkled heavily with parmesan shavings.

Bake at 200°C for 30-40 minutes until you can easily put a knife through the pasta and the cheese is browned and bubbling.

You can continue with as many layers as you like, depending on the depth of your dish and pretty much add the cheese wherever you want it (but not on the bottom layer, to avoid burning), this is just how I like to make it because this way you get a nice cheesy topping. Don't make your bechamel layers too thick or it will overwhelm the other ingredients. Adapt ingredients measurements according to taste or size of your lasagne!

The civilised version...

...The Fairy version! But it tastes just as good!

Creative Insomnia Part 2 / La Grande Eloise

As I've already mentioned, I had a few sleep issues last week which seem to be creeping in to this week too. However, as I also mentioned, I've learned to milk the most from those witching hours. In the dead of night, I feel like I've beaten something. Beaten myself? I'm not sure. But that pedicure I'd planned to do the following evening, the pile of delicate clothes that needed hand washing and was scheduled in for that Saturday morning right before sewing the hem back up on my trousers and washing the floor? Well it's all done now. So I've gained that evening spot and that Saturday morning. I can do whatever the hell I want with them. I could go to the early morning showing of a film, I could get to the swimming pool before the hoards of screaming children arrive and start dive-bombing the water. I live alone, which means that I can pretty much do what I want when I want anyway, but I do have a habit of imposing schedules on myself (okay, so I'll be home by about 5:45 which means that I will have showered by 6, I'll clean the bathroom and that'll take me to about 6:20, then I can paint my nails, 6:45, clean the windows, 7:00, read for an hour before the news which will finish in time for me to make a cup of tea before whatever's coming on at 8:45 that evening.) And somewhere in that dictator-esque schedule, there'll be some sort of food of course. Do I sound like a freak? Well I should do, because I am. My name is Kate and I'm a freak. Nice to meet you.

Anyway, all of that to say that the hours I'm awake in the middle of the night are free from schedules. It's gained time in which I can either get ahead in order to gain a chosen morning/afternoon/evening, or I can use it freely to do whatever I want without interruption by myself or anyone else. Sometimes, I just watch television until it's time to get up. Sometimes I mess around on Facebook. Sometimes I stare at the ceiling and think. Occasionally, I call a friend (those who will definitely still be awake for entirely more cool reasons, i.e. they just got home from a night out in the latest fun place to be.)

Sometimes..........I. Make. Cake.

This is called La Grande Eloise because it basically takes its shape from the Eloise cupcake recipe I did for Lauren's daughter a few weeks ago. This is the big girl's version though. This one's for you a bit later on Eloise, but in the mean time, your Mama can enjoy it on your behalf.

For the cake:

200 grams plain flour
150 grams caster sugar
200 grams unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
90 grams dark chocolate
2 tbsp crème fraîche
*I've highlighted where the recipe differs from the cupcakes with italics

Preheat your oven to 190°C and grease two 7" cake tins, then line the bottoms with baking parchment circles.

Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar and baking powder. Cut the butter up into cubes and add to the dry mix. Mix together with your hands until the mixture is slightly soft and starting to blend together a little.

Melt the chocolate.

Add the chocolate to the mixing bowl and stir in with a METAL spoon (a wooden one will mess everything up.)

Add the eggs and stir in.

Add in the crème fraîche and stir everything again with a metal spoon.

Split the mixture equally between the two cake tins.

Place in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, or until you get the clean-knife go ahead!

For the filling:

Follow the instructions as for the topping on the Eloise.

Make sure the cake layers have cooled before adding the filling and topping.

For the topping:

100 grams milk chocolate
2 tbsp crème fraîche
50 grams white chocolate, shaved

Melt the chocolate and stir in the crème fraîche. Leave to cool slightly before spreading it over the top of the cake and letting it run down the sides.

Sprinkle the white chocolate shavings over the top and it's ready for eating!

Creative Insomnia Part 1 / Rochers Coco

Last week, from Monday right up until Friday, I woke up at 3am every single night without fail and every single night without fail I couldn't get back to sleep again. I go through phases like this and learned many years ago to embrace them rather than fight them. The middle of the night is, in fact, a wonderful time to be wide awake. Everything is quiet and time feels sort of...suspended. It's the perfect time for reading, sewing (I'm currently making a fabric rug but won't bore you with the ins and outs until I have a finished product to show off) writing (except for this blog which I totally neglected last week) cleaning and also, of course, cooking. I think it was Wednesday night at 3am when I woke up with my first thought being 'desiccated coconut.' Yes I did. I really can't say why, but that's the first thing I thought of. So, upon realising that this night was going to go the same way as the previous two, I jumped out of bed and headed to the cupboard to dig out the coconut. What should I do with it? Make a coconut cake? No, all my butter was in the fridge and I'd have to wait a good hour for it to soften before being able to start. At this point, I turned the packet over and whaddyaknow? There's a recipe for 'rochers coco' on the back! Okay so it's cheating because it's not really a recipe of my own, but they were so good and so very quick and easy to make that I wanted to share it. I modified it a little because I was a little scared of how sweet they'd be so here's my version:

40 grams Acacia honey
125 grams caster sugar
150 grams desiccated coconut
30 grams plain flour
2 egg whites
1/2 sachet vanilla sugar

Preheat your oven to 150 °c.

In a small pan over a low heat, melt the sugars and the honey together until they form a smooth paste then take off the heat.

Add the flour and coconut to the sugar and honey and stir until you have a thick mixture. Mix in the two egg whites.

Take a teaspoon and place evenly sized blobs of the mixture on a greased baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes until golden.

Serve warm (but not straight from the oven, all that sugar and honey can and will take the roof of your mouth off...I found out the hard way by helping myself to a little stray blob) or cold.

Happy Fish update

This weekend, Felix had the great idea of adding a couple of chopped fresh tomatoes and a few shallots to the Happy Fish recipe. Just add them both in a couple of minutes after the salmon has hit the pan and continue as normal with the rest of the recipe. We ate it with rice and a salad of frisé lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and fresh figs and it was delicious.


* This dish tastes soooo much better than it could EVER look in a photo!

Layered Lemon Drizzle Cake

I've always loved making cakes at home with Samik but it is only recently that I've dared to really go it alone as far as baking is concerned. I was always worried that my little oven just wouldn't be up to the job, but so long as you have time on your hands, anything is possible with that little monster. I have to bake one layer at a time, but normal people will be able to just do it in one go. It doesn't bother me that much really, since it makes a whole evening out of the baking process and I get quite the sense of achievement as I assemble the whole thing and look at the fruits of my labour!


Lemon Drizzle Cake has always been one of my favourites. Generally, it is just a single layer with a sweet lemon frosting but I decided to thicken it up a bit and do a lemon cake Victoria Sponge-style. It's the simplest thing in the world, just a two layered sponge (with lemon zest) with a little buttercream filling and an easy-peasy frosting. Here's how:

200 grams plain flour
300 grams unsalted butter, soft but not melted (200 grams cubed)
250 grams castor sugar
50 grams muscovado sugar
100 grams icing sugar
3 tsp granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp crème fraîche
1 tsp baking powder
2 lemons

Start by zesting the two lemons. Once zested, juice them both and leave to the side. In a mixing bowl, put the flour, 150 grams of castor sugar (you need the rest for the frosting) and the baking powder. Add the zest and stir everything together. Add the 200 grams cubed butter and mix everything together with your hands until the mixture is soft and crumbly. Add the three eggs and the crème fraîche and stir in with a metal spoon until you have a smooth cake mixture.

Grease two 7" baking tins with butter and line the bottoms with greaseproof paper. Split the mixture between the two tins and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 190°C.

Once you have removed the cakes, leave one of them in the tin and prod the top several times all over with a fork.

In a saucepan on the hotplate, bring the remaining 100 grams of castor sugar and the 50 grams of muscovado sugar to a fast boil with the juice of the two lemons. Keep stirring as it boils then turn down the heat for a minute or so before removing from the hotplate. Keep stirring for another minute or two until it is a slightly sticky, syrupy mixture. Drizzle the syrup over the cake still in the tin (with the fork prods!) and smooth it in with a knife, letting it soak into the cake.

Immediately sprinkle the 3 teaspoons of castor sugar over the top of the syrup and leave to cool until the top is set and 'frosted.'

In a small bowl, beat the remaining butter with the icing sugar until you have a smooth buttercream. Once both cake layers are completely cool, spread the buttercream on the flat side of the bottom layer then place the frosted one on top. Serve alone or with a spoonful of crème fraîche as a dessert.

If I don't dedicate this post to Flopsy he'll kill me, so...for Flopsy

Okay, I promise this will be the last Parma ham/goat's cheese/fig post for a while, but as I mentioned in my previous post, it's leftovers time again. So this evening I did some fridge-diving and came up with the following:

a bagel
a fig (yes, I've been eating a lot of these recently, there are too many good ones at the local market)
goat's cheese (see 'fig')
Parma ham (see 'goat's cheese' and 'fig')
ricotta
mixed leaves

...these things were made for eachother!

The thing about bagels is that they don't seem quite right when there's no cream cheese. You try finding cream cheese in France. I saw it once, in a bagel shop over in the 6th, in pots that you could buy and take home. The bagel shop near me doesn't sell it though which is too bad because I'm not getting in the metro and schlepping over to the 6th in this heat (despite yesterday's dreams of Autumn, today is a very unacceptable 29°C) in the name of a sandwich. And anyway, newly bought cream cheese for the occasion would not count as leftovers so what I've got will have to do.

Here goes then, with how I assembled this little gem:

Cut the bagel in half and toast.

Spread ricotta on each slice. Top with goat's cheese and put under the grill for a few minutes until the cheese has melted and bubbled a little.

In the mean time, tear up the Parma ham, slice up the fig and prepare a little honey mustard (easy enough, honey and mustard in equal quantities, stir around and there you have it!)

Place the Parma Ham over the cheese on one slice, place the fig on top of that and then cover with as much honey mustard as pleases you.

Top with a few mixed leaves and sandwich it all up with the other bagel slice. It's not cream cheese, but it's good.

Love Autumn

Autumn is my very favourite season for so many reasons. I love the seasonal fruit and vegetables, the colours of the leaves and the evening light and mostly, I love the temperature. I am very fair-skinned and the summer sun and heat really doesn't agree with me. I know that September 1st is still a few days away and that the temperatures probably won't drop to anything respectable (by my standards anyway) for at least a couple more weeks yet...BUT, in my excitement, I've already started on the soups.

Having done a lot of food shopping, a lot of cooking and a lot of eating this past week, I decided that the first half of the coming week was going to have to be all about leftovers. Since soups are the perfect way to use up vegetables that are perhaps past their best and I just happened to have four carrots waiting around in the bottom drawer of the fridge and a couple of apples that weren't quite crunchy enough anymore, that's what went in the pot!

Carrot and Apple Soup

4 good sized carrots
2 apples (any kind, mine were Pink Lady)
2 tsp of ginger (unfortunately I didn't have any fresh to hand, but this would be better)
1 litre of vegetable stock
2 shallots
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 large tbsp crème fraîche
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Walnuts to serve

Finely chop the shallots and cut up the carrots and apples.

Sauté the shallots in a little olive oil then add the carrots and apples and sauté for a further few minutes.

Add the ginger powder, the garlic, a pinch of salt and a little ground black pepper. Stir as you sauté so that nothing catches or burns.

Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil for 10 minutes.

Turn the heat right down, cover and simmer for an hour.

Take the soup off the heat and leave for 10 minutes before adding the crème fraîche and blending.

Serve with a handful of chopped walnuts.


*I just had a bowl of soup before posting and it was yummy!

Nothing to do with food, but while I was baking...

One of my several pet hates is crispy feet. I can't stand them. As soon as I feel slightly dry feet rubbing against each other under the covers I have to leap out of bed and moisturise them. This is yet another thing passed down to me by my mother and indeed her mother before her. Samik has always spoken with great affection and concern about feet with a look of real compassion on her face as she announces to me "Yes but Kate, your poor little feet. They carry you around all day for the whole of your life, you stub your toes, you cramp them into shoes, you tramp them around the swimming pool...your poor feet, they're really just trying to help you and we're all so mean to them." And I promise you, she speaks with real conviction. She really loves her feet, and a sweet pair of feet she has too. Always soft, always sparkly clean and lovely little toes that descend in correct size order.

As for my grandmother, well she broke her hip and wrist a few months ago and spent a long time in hospital. Gaga is 90 years old and still does her own garden, lights her own bonfires, cleans the house, sets the fire, cooks for whoever's visiting and so on. She was most upset to be out of order for such a long time. However, she did not let a mere hospital stay get in the way of her general upkeep. Samik took in her favourite moisturising cream and various other potions and Gaga saw to it that she was clean and polished every single minute of every single day during her stay. Her nails were painted, her hair was brushed. The day after her operation in fact, we went to visit her expecting to see her looking pale, washed out and a little dishevelled. No, she was beautiful. So pretty. She even made the baby pink hospital nightie look good. By the time I last went home, she was back in her own house and busying about as much as is possible whilst still a little incapacitated. Because of remaining swelling and soreness in her hip joint, it is hard for her to reach her feet so I offered to do her a pedicure. She slipped off her little slippers and presented me with the softest feet in the world. Feet that have been trotting about for 90 whole years, feet that chased a teacher down a corridor with a whip when the teacher unjustly accused her of talking in class and tried to beat her, which walked 3 miles to school each day and back and padded down the stairs in the dead of night to steal cakes from the pantry, feet which took her aboard a train to London in her late teens and danced the night away in a city she was just discovering then walked away from her first fiancé into the arms of a young serviceman on a train who would be my grandfather, feet that have been hidden from her sight four times by pregnancy and which trod the boards of bedrooms rocking her children and in turn her grandchildren...those feet! So much of her life was in my hands as I soaked them, scrubbed them, moisturised them and painted the dainty nails which are still in such good condition, that had it not been for other company, I could have sat there for hours and asked her to recount again all those stories of hers she told me as a child on her knee.

I look after my feet. I couldn't look myself in the eye if I didn't, silly though that may sound. Each time I see them looking a little worn and tired I think of my mother's little foot speech, of her perfect toes and my grandmother's dainty nails. I have no excuse not to take care of them.

So very early this morning, while these were baking away in the oven, I made the most of the pre-dawn quiet to sit down and perform my weekly pedicure. You don't have to spend loads in a salon to have decent feet, you just need to invest in a few essential products and set aside half an hour. Once you're done with the feet, you can follow exactly the same procedure for the hands and then voilà! your extremities are at least half near worthy of an admiring glance from a 90 year old lady.


Recipe for luscious feet

Wash your feet and make sure that they are thoroughly dry before using a Ped Egg or other such instrument to remove old skin.

Fill a washing up bowl with warm water and add a few drops of Weleda Rose Oil or Bio Oil. Soak both feet for 5-10 minutes, massaging the oily water in as you soak.

Take an exfoliating foot scrub of your choice (I use Scholl Foot Smooth Shower Scrub) and rub it well into both feet, working around the toes, the heels and the ball of the feet. Rinse in the oily water then shower them off with cold water.

Dry thoroughly.

Rub in something like Balm Balm Rose Geranium all over, again concentrating especially on the balls of the feet, the heels and around the outside of the big and little toes.

Treat your nails as you see fit, by pushing cuticles back with a cotton bud on a cuticles stick and then rubbing in nail hydrating cream, my favourite is by Flexitol (excellent results.) Leave your feet and nails to absorb the cream for at least an hour then paint a pretty colour!

The muffins were delicious.

Feeling crabby? Head to Norfolk.

I am a lucky girl. I grew up in the county of Norfolk, East Anglia, England. It's a beautiful region and is one of those rare places where you can find yourselves in the depth of the countryside one minute, then five minutes drive away you'll be on the water's edge on a beautiful, deserted beach. I grew up about half an hour inland, in a tiny, wincy village called Ringland. Beautiful hills, miles of fields to run, ride and play in, a breathtakingly pretty 15th century church and a comfortable house to play hide and seek in. After decades there, my parents decided that they would like to spend their retirement on the coast. Ideal for my father to spend his days stalking out birds, perfect for my mother who loves to walk and scan the beaches for pebbles. To cut a long story short, they moved up to the North Norfolk coast last year, did some fantastic work on their lovely little house and now wake up every morning feeling lucky to be where they are. And they deserve it. As for me, like I said, I'm lucky too. Whenever I'm tired, stressed, ready for a holiday...CRABBY, in short, I head home. There is no better place.

There is a place on the North Norfolk coast called Cromer. Ever heard of the Cromer Crab? Well, apparently these crabs are some of the best in the world and though I haven't yet visited all the corners of the earth, I've tried many, and these Cromer guys are definitely the best so far. The entire Norfolk coast line is in fact well known for its crabs and even lobsters and if you're ever in England and like a decent bit of shellfish, do take a day to go up there and make up your own mind!


The most amazing thing about my parents' new home, other than it being a little village just a stone's throw from the aforementioned Cromer, is that it is literally a three minute walk from the beach. It's a pebbly beach and makes for an excruciating yet effective foot massage but it's also the perfect spot for watching crab boats come in. When I was last there in early August, I had the extra pleasure of a visit from my younger brother, Jack (otherwise known as Pigswill.) Jack and I are both early risers so we made it our business to head down to the beach at the crack of dawn to welcome the fishermen in from their early morning jaunts on the crazy wild waves of the North Sea. No need for swimwear, I'd just head straight on into the water fully dressed because trudging back up to the house dripping wet in squelchy sandals is TOO MUCH FUN. The other very special thing about these early morning wanders is that, if you time it for when the crab/fish boats are just coming in, you can take your pick from what is literally fresh out of the water before the rest makes it into town to be dressed, wrapped and sold for at least twice the dawn price. Excellent.



The other thing we have in abundance up in North Norfolk is samphire, which is essentially a glorifed seaweed. It really does taste of the sea, but not in the same salty, vinagery way that oysters do. (I used to love oysters, that all changed but it's another story.) Samphire is delicious served with a little butter and, of course, a local crab. Don't buy it in town, rather hunt along the coastline for the little wayside vendors who sell it at literally a quarter of the price. Needless to say, we stocked up on a little of this during my holiday (if my parents are reading this, then I'm not sure they'd use the word 'holiday' to describe the 15 day tornado that hits whenever I rock up in their little haven of peace and loveliness) and teamed it with a local crab and some crayfish which had made the long journey down from Scotland for dinner.

There's only one kind of bun in my oven...

Contrary to what my current dress size would have you believe, I am not pregnant. However, a number of my friends have recently given birth (all to girls, funnily enough) and as far as I'm concerned birth=celebration=CAKE, right?

So, I decided to make a few little baby sized cakes, otherwise known as cupcakes, to celebrate the safe arrival of these new little people. One of my dearest friends, Lauren, gave birth to Eloise Claire on July 18th and if she's anything like her Mummy, she's going to looooove chocolate. Eloise, I therefore give you 3-chocolate cupcakes. Internet, I give you:

THE ELOISE

The cupcakes:

200 grams plain flour
150 grams caster sugar
200 grams unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
90 grams milk chocolate
2 tsp crème fraîche

Preheat your oven to 190°C and lay out some cake cases in a muffin tray.

Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar and baking powder. Cut the butter up into cubes and add to the dry mix. Mix together with your hands until the mixture is soft and starting to blend together a little.

Melt the chocolate (August heatwave, microwave or bain marie, whatever works for you)

Add the chocolate to the mixing bowl and stir in with a METAL spoon (a wooden one will mess everything up.)

Add the eggs and bust out the hand blender to whip it all up nicely. (Do not use a whisk!) If you've got a Kitchen Aid or other such excellent contraption, you could use this. If you'd ever seen my kitchen, you'd know why I don't have one.

Add in the crème fraîche and stir everything again with a metal spoon.

Drop about 2 dessert spoons of mixture into each cake case (the case should not be full to the top) and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

The topping:

100 grams unsalted butter (softish but not melted)
300 grams icing sugar
2 tsp dark chocolate powder (100% cocoa if you can find it)
50 grams white chocolate, shaved into flakes
50 grams dark chocolate, shaved into flakes
50 grams milk chocolate, shaved into flakes

Put the butter in a bowl and add 1/3 of the icing sugar. Beat together with a fork, adding the rest of the icing sugar as you go until you get a fluffy buttercream texture. Add in the cocoa powder and beat together some more.

Spread a layer of the buttercream on top of each cupcake and then sprinkle on the various chocolate flakes for decoration...et voilà!

* I neglected to mention that, unfortunately, Eloise lives in England. I live in France. Unfortunately again, this means that I am obliged to eat these cakes for you sweet baby, but I promise that the first birthday you have where you'll be able to eat chocolate stuff without making a ridiculous mess of your face or my floor, I'll make you these. Deal? In the mean time, you gobble up your milk, Mama will gobble up your cheeks, and I'll gobble up these little babies of my own...

* Oh, and Eloise? I SHAVED chocolate for you. Do you have any idea what that did to my knuckles, or more importantly, MY MANICURE?!

Goat's Cheese, Parma Ham and Fig Toasts

Sometimes the things left over from the weekend that need using up make the best dinners! This is what I made and promptly devoured this evening. The first half I really enjoyed. The second half? Well, I decided to drizzle a little honey over the top and put it back in the oven for a few minutes and I REALLY enjoyed it.

(Serves 2 as a main course or 4 as a starter)

1 small pre-cooked oven baguette (or a fresh one would work too I suppose, but this is what I had to hand)
A good few dollops of homemade tomato sauce
2 large, ripe figs, sliced into 6
8 decent slices of goat's cheese
2 large slices of Parma Ham, cut in half

Heat the baguette at around 220°C (or follow instructions on a packaged oven baguette) until warm and slightly crunchy on the outside. Remove from the oven and cut in half. Cut these halves in half again lengthways.

On each slice, spread three or four teaspoons of the tomato sauce and cover with half a slice of Parma Ham.

Lay three slices of fig over the Parma Ham and then two slices of goat's cheese on top of that.

Put in the oven for ten minutes at 220°C or until goat's cheese is melted and golden.


For something really yummy, drizzle a little runny honey over the toasts once removed from the oven. Put them back in for a few more minutes, keeping an eye on them to make sure the honey doesn't burn. Remove, enjoy!

Potato Skin Man...

...with a tulip petal face and hat.

Simple, versatile tomato sauce

This sauce is so easy to make and will work for pasta, pizza, bruschetta, or even just scooping it right out of the pan into your mouth. It'll keep in the fridge for a few days, or even the freezer if you want to stockpile it. This way you'll always have it to hand to rustle up something quick and easy if unexpected visitors drop in.

8 plum tomatoes, peeled (bring them to the boil to make this easier) and chopped
3 shallots, chopped finely
2 tsp rosemary (dried)
2 tsp thyme (dried)
2 tsp Marmite
1 large clove of garlic
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil

Once you've peeled and chopped your tomatoes and set them to the side, sauté the shallots in a little olive oil in a saucepan along with the rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper and crushed garlic. Once the shallots have softened, add the Marmite and stir well until everything is coated a slightly sticky brown.

Add a pinch of salt and grind in some black pepper.

Add the tomatoes and stir in well. Keep everything on a high heat and let the sauce bubble for about 5 minutes.

Turn the heat right down, cover and let the sauce cook slowly for about half an hour.

Remove the cover and let simmer for another 20 minutes with no lid, in order to reduce to a thick sauce.

It's ready!

To your good health!

Lentils are one of my favourite foods. I think it's another one of those things that my mother passed on to me during my own baking period in her womb. When we're having a day together, just her and me, you can be pretty sure that lentils will feature somewhere in that day and it's highly likely that figs will make an appearance too.

Lentils are exceedingly good for you, providing a good dose of protein and iron, among other things. Figs, as well as being delicious, are a source of magnesium, potassium and calcium. Ginger on the other hand, is well known for its healing properties, helping to alleviate migraines, arthritis, nausea and gastrointestinal difficulties. Need I say more? This dish is good health in a bowl. Serve it warm with a chicken breast or piece of fish, or have it on its own served cold for lunch.

Ginger and Fig Lentils

250 grams Puy lentils (or other green lentils if you can't get your hands on the Puy)
3 tsp fresh ginger root
6 medium sized shallots
6 fresh, ripe figs, chopped into quarters
1 yellow courgette, chopped into thick pieces
1 green courgette, chopped into thick pieces
6 chestnut mushrooms, chopped
a handful of fresh rosemary
a handful of fresh thyme
1 tsp ginger powder
1 large clove garlic, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 small glass of white wine
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

First the lentils:

First rinse your lentils in cold water. Place them in a large pan with at least three times their volume of water and add the ginger powder, half the rosemary, half the thyme, a pinch of salt, a twist of ground pepper, the two bay leaves and three peeled, whole shallots (don't chop them.) Bring to the boil and simmer until cooked. This should take around 20-30 minutes depending on the lentils but refer to the individual packaging for instructions.

Once the lentils are ready, strain them and place in a bowl to the side. Remove the bay leaves.

Then the vegetables:

Chop up the remaining shallots and in a large pan, drizzle a little olive oil. Once heated, add the chopped shallots and soften for a minute or so. Add the remaining thyme and rosemary as well as the fresh ginger and the crushed garlic. Stir well being careful not to burn the shallots or garlic. If necessary, add another drizzle of oil.

Add the chopped courgettes and continue to toss the contents of the pan whilst cooking. Keep stirring over a relatively high heat for a 4-5 minutes before adding the chestnut mushrooms.

Once the courgettes and mushrooms are cooked through (but not limp), add the figs. Lower the heat to medium and carry on tossing the vegetables as the figs soften and cook.

Add the rested lentils into the pan and toss everything together, making sure not to crush the figs though they should be fairly soft and shapeless at this point.

Finally, add the glass of white wine, turn the heat right down, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. During the last few minutes, remove the cover. You should keep the lentils over the heat until the wine has evaporated and there is no liquid in the pan.

Serve hot or cold as you prefer.

Happy Fish

This recipe takes its name from the person for whom it was invented. This person is very special to me for myriad reasons and his name, Felix, just so happens to be Latin for 'happy' which is just perfect since he is one of the happiest people I know. When I say that he is happy, I don't mean that he wanders around with a permanent grin on his face under the illusion that life is a bed of roses. No. This man has known suffering on a scale that most of us could never come close to understanding. This man, however, has been blessed with a grace that I have never before encountered. This man is strong, beautiful, elegant, generous, kind and serene. I love to cook for this man and this man loves to eat what I cook, especially Happy Fish. So Felix, this one's for you.

(For two people)

2 salmon fillets
500 grams fresh, cooked Tiger prawns
500 ml Crème Fraîche

Marinade:

100 ml olive oil
3 tbsp runny honey
1 large clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp fresh ginger
4 heaped tsp Colombo spice
Salt
Pepper


Preparation

Start by shelling and washing the prawns, drying them out on a piece of kitchen towel is a good idea too to avoid a watery marinade mix.

In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil and honey, then stir in the ginger, Colombo spice and crushed garlic. Add a little salt and pepper. Stir hard for a good minute to make a smooth marinade.

Place the prawns in another bowl and cover well with half of the marinade. Stir them about to ensure that everything is well coated then cover and place in the refrigerator.

With the remaining marinade, coat the salmon fillets, again making sure that each side is well coated. Turn them a few times in the marinade then cover and place in the refrigerator alongside the prawns.

Leave the salmon and prawns to marinade in the fridge for at least six hours.



Cooking

Remove the salmon and prawns from the fridge and leave to stand for a few minutes while you heat a large frying/sauté pan. Once the pan is hot, add the two salmon fillets. (You don't need to add any oil to the pan since you have plenty in the marinade.)

Cook the salmon fillets on both sides until cooked through and slightly browned (this should take about 5 - 8 minutes.)

Add the prawns and keep everything on a fairly high heat until the prawns too are slightly browned (5-8 minutes.) Make sure that you turn the salmon and prawns regularly to avoid burning or sticking and keep stirring round any remaining marinade at the bottom of the pan.

Once everything is browned and cooked through, add the crème fraîche. Stir it in, making sure you get all the marinade from the bottom and corners of the pan. Be careful not to bash the fish about too much while you're doing this as you don't want it to flake. Turn the heat down to fairly low and let everything simmer for a few minutes as you watch the crème fraîche take on the colour of the marinade.

Serve with rice and/or green salad.

* I like to buy fresh Tiger prawns and shell them myself. However, if you don't have much time, you could buy ready shelled ones or even frozen. Do make sure that any frozen fish is fully thawed before marinading.

* You may not want to add as much crème fraîche as is suggested here. Adding less will give a slightly stronger flavour to the marinade and make a thicker sauce. This is good if you're serving it with salad. Many people like a slightly thinner sauce when serving with rice in which case, add the whole 500 ml. Either way, it's up to you and your taste buds!

The Kitchen

Welcome to my kitchen! Having grown up in a home of which the kitchen was most definitely the heart, I was bound to follow in the footsteps of the culinary queens who taught me everything I know: my mother and my grandmother.

One of the first stories I remember being told by my grandmother was one in which she would creep downstairs into the pantry to help herself to the piles of cakes which would always adorn the multi-tiered cakestand hidden therein. My grandmother's mother died when she was only nine years old so the woman of the household was a rather austere housekeeper who liked to keep Gaga (my grandmother) in dietary check. When caught with her fingers in the various pies and other treats she came across, the said fingers would meet with a crack from a giant wooden ruler or a wet-handed smack, but this was never enough to stop her. You see, from a very young age, Gaga had what she would later pass on to my mother (hereby known as Samik) who in turn would pass it on to me: an appetite. And a healthy one at that.

Much of my time as a child was spent at my mother's side as I watched her cook, bake and concoct. I was as an integral part of the kitchen as the wooden spoons that stirred the golden brown syrupy butter I so loved to lick up as I mixed it with oats to make Flapjacks. I was encouraged to get my hands dirty, to experiment, to mess up as many times as I needed to in order to achieve what I had set out to do and I do believe that the endless patience with and remarkable enthusiasm for my kitchen exploits shown by my parents is what led me to really FEEL cooking as a pleasure and an expression of self, in much the same way as I do music or literature and so on and so forth.

I very rarely follow recipes and I almost never measure. I like to use fresh ingredients whenever I can and cook from scratch. I have what could probably enter the running for Smallest Kitchen In The World and in keeping with that, I also have what can't be far from the smallest oven in the world. By way of this blog, I mean to share what I truly believe about food: that no matter how small your facilities, how limited your time, how short your patience, a really good meal is right there at your fingertips.