A slightly different spag bol

I REALISED I hadn’t made spaghetti Bolognese for ages so I decided to try a different recipe for a change, but I regretted this slightly when I was trawling around Tesco looking for a jar of antipasti mushrooms. Although I did find them I don’t think they added loads to the recipe. I also used dried oregano and thyme but fresh basil. The recipe is huge so I halved everything although I did put two tins of tomatoes in. I also used a lot more bacon as I needed to use it up. It is a good recipe and good for something different but I think a normal spag bol is just as good. I also had courgettes which worked quite well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spaghettibolognese_67868

The best burger and a winning Sunday lunch

I TOOK Kat and Kaylee, when they came to visit, to the wonderful Lotte’s Kitchen which is run by Lotte Duncan. Lotte has her own cook books and has a cute little cafe in the small Oxfordshire village of Chinnor, which is on the border of Buckinghamshire.
It has brightly coloured decor with lots of lovely items to buy, as well as lunch. The menu is quite small but what they serve is lovely and there is a good selection of cakes.
I went for a special with Kaylee, which was a cheese burger, served with a big side salad (£10.50). it was the nicest burger I had eaten in a long time.
It was thick, but not too greasy. I am not a big cheese fan but the cheese on top was melted into the burger and was light and creamy. It was served in a white bun with mayo on the top.

The salad was fresh with spring onions and a delightful dressing. I loved this meal.

Kat went for the broccoli soup with cheese and chutney toastie. She wasn’t overly keen on the soup but the toastie was amazing, she said.

A great cafe to visit. I only wish I lived a bit closer.

The next day we went to The Royal Standard in Knotty Green for Sunday lunch. I had to book. It was packed when we arrived. It is a lovely old pub, apparently the oldest almshouse in England, and has a great menu. The only annoying thing is you have to order you food at the bar on a Sunday, which takes ages.

I went for the pork roast (£12) which is a huge portion of pork, with a large crunchy piece of crackling, a huge Yorkshire pud, cabbage, parsnip, swede and carrot and roast potatoes. This knocked spots off the last pub roast I had. It was all delightfully cooked and tasty. The only problem I had was with the white pepper on some of the vegetables. Kaylee almost defeated the beef roast (£14) and Kat went for a delightful looking fish pie, served with fresh greens. A winning Sunday lunch.

Good sea bass recipe

I am on a bit of a healthy eating kick so want to eat more fish. At Tesco at the moment they are selling whole sea bass for £2.

So I looked for a recipe online and found this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roastedseabasswithsw_84857

It is really simple to make but really delicious. I left the head and tail on when I cooked it, which was fine. I also didn’t have all the herbs but dried thyme was fine.

I served it with fried courgettes and mushrooms.

The art of cupcakes

I had a few moments to spare so I decided to make cupcakes for Penny and Michelle. I went on a cupcake making course last year for work so I used the recipe from that, which is a bit more complicated than I usually use:

It was:

Cakes:

110g unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Two medium eggs

150g self raising flour

125g plain flour

100ml milk or buttermilk

A splash of lemon juice

Cook at 180 degrees in a fan oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

Butter icing:

300g icing sugar

150g butter

For the cakes cream together the butter and sugar, add the vanilla bean paste, then the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour. Mix. Then fold in the rest of the flour. Add the lemon juice and milk. The scoop into cupcake cases.

For the butter icing cream together the butter and the icing sugar. Pipe on top of the cakes.

The cake is quite dense I think and not as spongey as I am used to. The vanilla bean paste really does make a difference though as it has a strong vanilla flavour.

I am still not as good as I would like to be with the piping bag but I tried two effects. I later added fudge pieces to the top, which were really good.

A wheely good roast? Not so much

I had heard a lot of good things about The Wheel at Naphill so nursing a slight hangover I took my friends, Michelle and Penny, to go and try it out for Sunday lunch. It is a funny shaped pub and is bigger than you think it is. There was a nice fire going in the bar area and we were seated out the back, which was a dark and cramped. It was also really noisy. It took quite a while to be even given the menus, which is quite simple and reasonably priced.


I went for the roast chicken, as did Penny. When it came it was presented quite nicely but the chicken was a chicken breast rather than roast chicken, which left me a bit disappointed. The parsnip and roast potatoes were good and actually the Yorkshire pudding was excellent. It was served with a selection of vegetables including cabbage, carrots and cauliflower. For £8.95 this was pretty good but it wasn’t amazing and there was no stuffing. It was lacking anything to make it an amazing roast.

Michelle went for the chicken and ham pie. The waiter forgot to ask what she would like it served with. It came with chips so Michelle asked for mash, which took a bit of time to arrive. The pie looked good- lots of pastry but it was a little burnt in the middle.

Overall I wouldn’t rush to go back to this pub for Sunday lunch. There are better roasts in the area.

Nigella's shortcut sausage meatballs

I decided to cook a recipe out of Nigellissima for when Penny and Michelle came. I was going to cook them lasagne but as this was covered with cheese, and Penny had given cheese up for lent I went for Nigella’s shortcut sausage meatballs.

They were really easy to make. I couldn’t find any Italian sausages so I went for Cumberland instead. This served three but it says it serves four and I don’t think this would stretch to that many. I served it with tagliatelle and a green salad and tomatoes.

The result is a thick tomatoey sauce with easy, tasty meatballs. It would be great for a quick midweek dinner. Here’s the recipe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortcut_sausage_39857

Earlier in the day we ventured into Marlow for a snack for lunch. It ended up being a mission to even find a parking space and we didn’t find one until car park number 4. We then went to go to a cafe but there was no seats left. We were all feeling pretty hungry by now so we went to the Slug and Lettuce. It is a bit dark in there but otherwise an ok atmosphere. Took a little while to get served and had to wait a bit for the food. But when it was came it was pretty good. Michelle and I went for the Ultimate Platter (£11.95), which had tasty Southern Fried chicken pieces, sticky BBQ ribs, juicy battered mushrooms, thick potato wedges, crispy onion rings and good garlic slices. It was all well cooked and tasty although I wasn’t too impressed with the amount of meat on the ribs. Penny went for the avocado, bacon and chicken Panini which looked pretty good.

Lamb shank- the food of love?

The lamb shank

FOR Valentine’s Day Tom took me to The Old Queen’s Head in Penn. I was really looking forward to this as although I had drunk there before (Tom and I went on our first date here!) I had never eaten there. It was busy but not too packed and I was relieved to see it wasn’t bursting at the seams with over amorous couples. I also like the fact that they didn’t have a set menu for Valentine’s, although they did have specials.

I didn’t fancy a starter so we went straight to the mains. I went for Slow-cooked lamb shoulder with roast garlic mash, purple sprouting broccoli and roasting juices (£15.50). I loved the way they presented it. They had shred the lamb off the bone and mixed it with carrot and put it in a cylinder shape. The meat was tender and so good and went really well with the garlicky, yet not overpowering mash, and the jus. Tom had Pan-roast sea bream fillet with dauphine potatoes, confit tomato, lemon butter sauce and saffron oil (£15.75). It was really well presented and Tom said the fish was really well cooked.

The desserts weren’t quite as great as the mains. I had Banoffee pot with Chantilly cream (£5.50), which had a strange flavour! The biscuit base wasn’t crunchy enough and then there was a puree of banana, topped with toffee and cream. It was nice but not great. Tom had the Millionaire shortbread with coffee ice cream (£6.75), which looked pretty standard to me with a chunk of shortbread- with a very hard chocolate topping. Tom wasn’t blown away by this.

Overall though it has a great atmosphere with friendly staff and the mains were both winners. The company was of course the best thing.