The Birds

Autumn is here - Alli cooks

The heating has gone on, Autumn has finally arrived so thoughts of a nut roast crossed my mind for tonight's meal, but I changed my mind when I looked for inspiration. I love goats cheese so I was drawn to 'Goats Cheese purses w roasted red pepper sauce' from New Food for Thought - I didn't have any sun dried tomato condiment, so I just left it out...still tasted lush! 

The dish was accompanied by root veg roasted in a greaseproof paper package - new pots, carrots, baby parsnips, garlic, shallots - sprinkled with some olive oil and a sprig of rosemary chucked in. Wrap them up, roast and dish them up in their packets (watch out for the steam!) The little packets went down well with the birds...tweet!


For desert it was the turn of Nigel Slater to provide the recipe - Poached pears with Florentines - full of naughty cream. You can watch the recipe being made her - cheers Nige! We chatted about you, 'Toast' and the TV film of your autobiography - we loved it!


A world gone mad with an obsession for plastic surgery was on the agenda tonight, with one solution to the madness being enforced watching of the movie 'Brazil' by Terry Gilliam - that should sort things out!

Wheat-friendly version - an individual ramekin of the pie filling with a rich tomato sauce, baked. Leave the Florentines out of the cream.


Happy half term Alli x

You have to start somewhere...Alli cooks

The somewhere, this Thursday, is my house. I'm cooking. I'm waiting for a close group of friends to turn up and share the food, booze and spend time chatting, laughing and catching up with each other.


I say 'this Thursday' because we meet up every Thursday, as a group and have done for years. We are all old enough to be post-feminists and we call our night, tongue-in-cheek, 'Birds' Night', and it's a night that is very special to us all.


Taking time out of prepping & cooking 'family meals', to make something more adventurous for the birds, is a pleasure. But the evening is not all about the food - the company is the best aspect of our gatherings and over the years we've seen each other through all sorts of 'life-stuff', chewed the fat about all subjects and prattled on about twaddle as well, and without each other things just wouldn't be right. 


So, what did we prattle on about? I'm not saying. What did we eat? I'll tell you now.


When considering the menu we have to consider a wide range of food needs. I'm the vegetarian and Sally doesn't eat wheat. If I can't make it along to a night then it's a 'meat-fest' in my absence and if Sally can't make it then there's a 'wheat-fest'! You get the idea.


Tonight, it's a full house!


To start: nibbles including olives, vegetable crisps (there would have been some Kettles cheesy crisps but I was so ravenous when I got home from work that I polished most of them off! Sorry birds!)


Main: (Here, I have to admit, that Steve cooked the main meal tonight)

Delicious individual Souffles 

with mature cheddar, Port Salut & Roquefort -

 cooked in their own little ramekins

steamed green beans (from our very own allotment!)

a tomato compote 

a lightly dressed bag a green salad

(from the supermarket, which is near the allotment!) 

Dessert:

Blackberry and Cinnamon Torte

Use rice flour & baking powder to make it wheat free.

I've been making this torte for years as it is easily made by pressing a button on the food processor and pulling out a bag of frozen fruit from the freezer...the neighbours got to the blackberries before me this year. You could experiment with other fruits. Let me know how you get on.

Food can sometimes be tied in to our memories and events in our lives. One of the first nights I made this pie was in September 1997. I know this because I was pregnant with my son, Princess Diana had died and my father had been dead for less than a year. Why are these details important to the recipe? Well, grief hits us all in a million different ways and when Lady Di died the nation went into mourning, but it got to the part of me that was mourning my fathers' death and on the day of the televised funeral of Di, I was desperate to get my large pregnant body, with raging hormones, well away from the funeral...so we went and picked blackberries. Those berries made their way into the pie when a group of friends got together for a meal. It became known as 'Di Pie'...and has stuck!

Here's the original copy from the pages of my first recipe book - handwritten recipes from pre-computer, internet days.

I copied this recipes from a magazine, wish I'd bought the book as now it sells for over £30! Ursulas-Italian-Desserts

The souffle recipe is from the Anton-Mosimann-Naturally.

So, we eat, we talked and we had a good time. Till next Thursday, have a good week. 

Alli x

Thank Goodness it's Friday! Lucy Cooks

Delia’s veggie moussaka seems like the perfect dish for an Autumn eve.. lentils, aubergines, peppers galore with a fluffy ricotta toppping.  Delish.  The birds rated it a winner.  Salad and warm bread on the side.  Laura and Henk approved so it must have been ok.  

Sally pitched up later after a (tense, sweaty Open Evening).  The joys of choosing A levels with your teenagers.

Check out the tart tatin.  Raymond’s instructions proved rather over- prescriptive so I went free- style on the apple arrangement.  The caramel didn’t burn and the (frozen) puff pastry puffed so a result.  Lovely with single cream.

Conversation turns to the highs and lows of parenting.  How is it that you might know (in theory) about the right thing to do but get it so wrong in the moment?  Apologising to your kids “Hmmm I’m sorry, I was wrong to say that …’ can be hard to do we think.

Enough for now.  Glad to see that there is still a slice or two of tart left over.  A nice Friday breakfast.

Lucy.