Yellow Courgettes

I have two pots of yellow courgettes in the garden sending out endless flowers and courgettes. I'm hoping that this unexpectedly fine weather hasn't given me unreal expectations of how easy they are to grow; i'm planning on growing them every summer from now on. The first crop became a courgette, flower and goats cheese pizza using a Delia recipe for a single pizza dough and some soft goats cheese leftover in the fridge. It made for a light, fresh and simple summer pizza and was especially pleasing as it was the first handmade pizza dough I have made.

Tonight's crop will make a courgette, flower and lovage pasta with a little garlic and creme fraiche stirred in.

Ginger Cake

So as requested here is the recipe for the Sticky Ginger Cake with Ginger Fudge Icing. It's from the BBC Good Food 101 Cakes and Bakes book - which is a winner where baking is concerned. I like this recipe - it is the same method as a more traditional gingerbread - with the butter and sugar melted and then the other ingredients mixed in. It makes for a runny batter which will escape from your cake tin if you don't line it, and requires slightly longer cooking - but the finished cake is moist and dense. Perfect for winter. Ingredients: 200g unsalt butter 175g molasses sugar ( i used dark muscovado - is that the same???) 3 tbsp black treacle 150ml milk 2 large eggs, beaten 4 pieces stem ginger, chopped 300g SRF 1 tbsp ground ginger For the icing: 4 tbsp ginger syrup from the stem ginger jar 330g golden icing sugar, sifted 140g unsalt butter, softened 2 tsp lemon juice Method: Preheat the oven to 160 degrees/ 14o fan oven/ GM4 Butter and line 23cm/ 9in cake tin Melt butter, sugar, treacle in a saucepan. Briefly cool, then stir in milk. Beat in eggs. Add chopped stem ginger. Sift in SRF, ground ginger and a pinch of salt. Combine thoroughly. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes (mine took more like 40 - 45 and that was on fan oven setting 160 degrees)until firm and risen. Cool in tin for an hour then transfer to wire rack. Skewer the top of the cooled cake all over and drizzle over 2 tbsps of ginger syrup. Mix remaining syrup with remaining icing ingredients. Ice. Eat.

Keen-wah

Quinoa. Kwin-oh-ah? Kwin-wah? Keen-wah? There was some dissent in our household as to how to pronounce this 'pseudo-cereal'. Since I was actually correct for once on a point of pronunciation (that is entirely unrelated to scottish contrariness) I get to blog about it and say I told you so! Keen-wah it is. I was inspired by a Queen Bee post about quinoa, that I have subsequently failed to find, in addition to a re-discovered appreciation of Couscous. These days anything that cooks by a method involving 'pour in some hot water and ignore for five minutes' is getting some regard. We changed a River Cottage recipe somewhat to make a tasty side dish, to go with our Cumberland Pork Sausages and Chestnut Mushrooms roasted with Rosemary and Olive Oil. It went something like this: Roast some whole almonds and roughly chop. Fry 3 garlic cloves and 2 onions, both finely sliced with 1 chopped chilli and some grated ginger. Add cooked quinoa (we used cheat M&S red and white quinoa - I didn't realise when i picked it up it was either microwave for one minute or BOIL IN THE BAG! That's something i've not had since square pieces of fish in sauce in childhood) along with juice and zest of 1 lemon, a bag of baby spinach, ground pepper and the roughly chopped almonds. Stir through, season and add a splash of soy sauce if required. Serve. Clean plate.

Autumn is here

Autumn must be here - we had crumble for tea. Plum and cinnamon crumble with vanilla ice cream on the side. The plums weren't as tasty as they looked, but the crumble topping was fine. It consisted of 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar and 1/4 cup oats pulsed in the food processor with a flick of cinnamon. Baked for only 20 minutes and served with the rhubarb liquer that pregnant me had squirrelled away last christmas. All good.

Rhubarb Fool

The novelty of rhubarb is beginning to wear off, as it is now a regular in the veggie box. Which isn't to say that it isn't still being enjoyed! This week we had three sticks of rhubarb and I had a shot at a rhubarb fool - from a recipe adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller - Thank you Moni and Greta! So, I sliced the rhubarb thin and it went in to a pot with 1/2 cup of caster sugar and the zest and juice of 1/2 lemon. Then stirred over a moderate heat for 5 - 10 minutes and once the rhubarb was tender it was quickly cooled down by stirring over a cold pan of water (I presume to help keep the colour/ flavour/ texture). Once cool I stirred it through a half and half mixture of whipped double cream and half fat greek style yoghurt (about a cup of each i think) and served glass dishes topped with the crystallised ginger, finely chopped, that I came across lurking in the cupboard.

I was really impressed by how rhubarb-ey it tasted and maybe means that from now on I'll be using lemon zest/ juice in place of orange in rhubarb recipes to bring out the flavour.

West Coast Birthday

We went west coast for the weekend to celebrate my birthday. There were snow flurries on the way but the sun came out and shone all weekend. Although it was chilly Scotland was looking particularly gorgeous in the sunshine. Especially with lovely blue water views, distant islands and bright yellow broom in bloom. Here's Castle Stalker from the cafe viewpoint with views down the west coast and over to Mull:

And here are the views from near Benderloch to Mull with a tiny speck of a Cal Mac Ferry heading over from Oban (you'll have to take my word for it!):

Ardersier to Fort George

Just a few pictures of the beach front walk from the village along to the Fort George last weekend when the sun was shining...

Hello Spring

It's just such glorious weather here - all set to turn cold and wintry again - but for the last week it has been gorgeous sunshine. And life has been as exciting as doing lots of washing for baby to be and getting it dry outside in the fresh air on the new washing line. Such simple pleasures.

The daffodils are out in force, there are bright red tulips in the house and the food on the table is also turning with the seasons. Goodbye porridge and jam! Hello fresh fruit, bircher muesli and crackers with feta.

I was sure I had seen a fine crop of rhubarb at the grocers recently (where?) and it put me in mind of a rhubarb and orange cake for friends coming for dinner. According to Tescos, however, rhubarb was not yet in season (and if it isn't in Tesco in Inverness then it might as well not be in season) and so there was a last minute change in plan to plums, which were looking just as pink and tasty as any fresh rhubarb.




Plum and Orange Cake

Ingredients
400g plums, stoned and quartered
50 gram golden caster sugar
zest 1/2 small orange

150gram golden caster sugar
140gram butter, softenend
2 beaten eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
85gram SR Flour
100gram ground almond
Juice 1/2 small orange

Topping
15g butter, melted
25g light muscovado sugar
finely grated zest 1/2 small orange
50g slivered almonds

Method

Stone and quarter plums, stir in 50g golden caster sugar and zest of 1/2 orange and leave to soak for an hour.
Preheat oven to 190 degrees C/ Gas 5/ Fan oven 170.
Butter and line 23cm/ 9 inch cake tin.
Cream butter with 6 oz golden caster sugar.
Add eggs, baking powder, SRFlour and ground almond and gently mix.
Stir in juice of 1/2 orange (step I omitted which led to me pouring the juice over the cake mix before it went in to the
oven - seemed to work ok!) and gently stir.
Pour in to cake tin and level.
Drain the plums and spoon over the cake mixture.
Bake for 25 minutes.

Meantime make the topping:
Combine butter, light muscovado sugar, zest of 1/2 orange and slivered almonds.

After 25 minutes remove cake from oven and scatter over the topping mixture.
Reduce temperature to 180 degrees C/ Gas 4/ Fan oven 160 and return to oven for a further 15- 20 minutes or until firm.
(Mine took at least an additional 10 minutes after that).
Cool in the tin and then transfer to a rack.
Dust with icing sugar.

Here is a truly terrible photo of my finished cake that we had simply sliced and served cold with creme fraiche. It was full of
plums and very juicy!



Now imagine my delight when our veggie box arrived this week and inside a bunch of lovely fresh organic rhubarb!



I've often wondered about how to perfect a rhubarb tart and have had a few goes at it (Do you soak the rhubarb first? Or partially roast it? I'm certainly not for stewing the fruit first - it loses it's colour and texture) and maybe this weekend I'll have another go. Although the Bourke Street Bakery recipe book (Thank you Queen Bee!) has a recipe for Rhubarb Danish that also looks interesting. It calls for making a batch of croissant pastry which might be an effort too far, but I could cheat with the ready made croissant pastry we have in the fridge. Although it has been promised for bacon croissants for brunch and someone might not be happy...

Dunsyre Blue Cheese Biscuits

There is a really great dairy in the village that has a really great cheese shop. Surprisingly so for our village. We only 'discovered' it a couple of weeks ago, even though it has been there all this time, and we have been back two more times since. I can't tell you all the cheeses we tried yesterday - but I can say they were really good. There was dunsyre blue, criffel, their own cheddar and something called something like, oh, i can't remember.

As blue cheese is currently off the menu for me and since I'm missing it - i decided to make some blue cheese biscuits.

They went like this:
Crumble 175gm of a crumbly blue cheese and mix with 150g softened butter and 1 egg yolk. Stir in 125 g plain flour and either 50g blue cornmeal (that's what Nigella said) or (if you've not such a thing to hand or to buy anywhere nearby) 50g semolina. I did all of that in the food processor. Then knead the mix lightly to a soft dough and rest in the fridge for half an hour. Roll out to 5mm thickness (i think it could have been more) and bake on a lined baking tray at 200 degrees for 10 or so minutes.

They looked like this:


And they tasted like a really fancy cheddar biscuit with a slightly doughy centre and a flaky, biscuity shell. Really good.

(Connage Cheese Dairy http://www.connage.co.uk/ )

Indian Summer

The oddity of warm weather at the end of September - warmer days than we have had for most of summer - had us hoping of painting the back gate, trimming the lavender plants for winter and washing the car. A nice day pottering in the garden, but it wasn't to be! The view across the water to the Black Isle has disappeared and the white sky meets the sea as the drizzle comes down. The outdoor plans have turned indoors and whilst I await the delivery of some chicken stock for a pot of Ishbel's chicken and rice soup (complete with organic carrots and leeks from this weeks veggies) I have put on a banana loaf to bake for afternoon tea. Carb loading for tomorrow's gentle 5K turn around Inverness, which is looking more gentle walk and picnic than competitive run.

View from the garden gate across to Chanonry Point Lighthouse:



Don't they say that baking is a science? The quantities, the mixture, the temperatures not to be played with or else the experiment fails? Well after a spell in South Africa last year where the recipes were often adapted to what was fresh from the garden or available to hand (the nearest decent shop being 40 minutes away) I am of the opinion that there is also a large element of art or magic to baking. Yoghurt for cream, brown flour for white, cape gooseberries a last minute addition to a batch of muffins all worked out a treat and well worth repeating.



It remains to be seen then how the banana loaf will turn out given just how many changes I made to the recipe! In an effort to make a healthier, homelier version I substituted soaking the raisins in hot rum for soaking them in hot tea; I replaced the white flour with a golden wholemeal; brown sugar for white; whilst mashing the bananas I softened them with a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt; the walnuts I omitted and instead of vanilla essence I added a couple of pinches of ground cinnamon. Mayhem!



It may not be for me to say whether or not the cake is a success, but it certainly smells a treat right now.

When is a turnip not a turnip?

Why, when it is a scottish swede. A bigger, milder, sweeter purple and orange root vegetable popular in scotland and often served on the side of some haggis. They may call it neeps (tur-neeps) but it is in fact a swede. Apart from a side to haggis, it is kind of hard to know what to do with a regular delivery of swede. There is some cooking in a pot right now with chopped carrots, leek, green pepper and red lentils - to make a simple pot of scottish soup. The turnipy flavour can be a bit much for a soup - but nice from time to time. There is also an interesting recipe for a slow cooked swede and beef stew - which looks very wholesome and wintry - i'm sure it'll be made in due course.



For dinner yesterday in the absence of beef and using mostly the ingredients that were already in the cupboard, the man made a Swede, Bacon and Rosemary Risotto. The recipe was adapted from a vegetarian recipe website with the addition of the organic bacon that comes with the veggie box and some rosemary. The latter with half a mind on the Jamie Oliver tagliatelle with parsnip and bacon. The flavours were great together and even better for leftover lunch at work today - that little bit stickier from a night in the fridge and 5 minutes in the evil microwave.

More vegetable box cooking tales to follow...

How to ruin some perfectly lovely beetroot...

...by turning it in to the home made version of your most basic supermarket vinegary pickled beetroot (and way to get yourself in to big trouble with your better half at the same time). Simply take the lovely fresh organic sweet lovely beetroot that arrives in your weekly veggie box, roast them whole in tin foil for two to three hours in the oven, peel, slice and bottle with a red wine vinegar, shallot, peppercorn reduction and serve anytime after 24 hours. Expect extreme disappointment when the only thing you can taste is vinegar. It reminds me of a character in a long forgotten book who spent hours slaving over the stove to turn out something you could't tell apart from Heinz tomato soup or Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pie (from a tin). I have learnt my lesson and next time we will stop at the peel stage and simply eat.

Am Faochagach

I should have mentioned that Munros are mountains in Scotland that are over 3000 feet. There are 283 Munros in Scotland and some folk 'Munro Baggers' set themself the challenge of climbing them all. Here's one last pic of Am Faochagach - taken from the bouldery summit with hazy views to distant mountain tops above a high mountain loch.

Am Faochagach

I think the name means The Whelk - and refers to the whelk like shape summit of the mountain - which is rather besides the point here given I don't seem to have taken a good picture of this feature. I did take many pictures though - on our nine hour return climb of this Munro in the northwest of Scotland.

About two hours in from the start we came to an old stone dwelling, presumably made from all the boulders that tumble down the mountain side. Likely abandoned as the only way there appears to involve a number of hours hopping between seemingly dry tufts of grass in a very wet peat bog, having forded a number of small rivers. I took shoes especially for the crossings - to keep my walking shoes dry - but that was also marvellously beside the point as from within minutes of setting off across the bog I stuck my foot in a not dry tuft of grass up to my ankle. The tried and tested method of black bin bags over the shoes looked just as good - with the added bonus of a home made sledge for the little runs of snow on the way down from the summit - but I get ahead of myself.



Once we climbed out of the bogs and started up the mountain things got a little drier. It was a slightly hazy warm summers day in spring, but there were plenty of pools of water with amorous frogs (amorous with each other) and brilliant green frogspawn. We even saw a large brown adder curled up on a rock warming in the sun. And plenty of deer heading up the hill above us.



After 4 hours we stopped near this waterfall to consider our way to the summit and eat our sandwiches. We opted for curving up the left side and over the back of the whelk, rather than the sheer drop to the right and the cornices of snow. This shallow picture doesn't do justice to our fearfulness, nor to the hour of scrambling up over steep boulders to meet the top.



Once we got there we met a fellow sitting in the sun, around the other side of the cairn. He said we had climbed the wild side and kindly took a number of out of focus photos of us three mountaineers. It seemed like we had climbed too soon and should have followed the river down at the base for longer, and we tried to put this right on the way back down; what we gained in a quicker descent (scarily quick when speeding on a black bin bag towards some very jaggy looking rocks - at which point I was very happy to have asked the salient question earlier - how do you stop?) we lost in a longer walk back across the bog and lots more hopping across twisting turning streams and water channels.



The sky was moody on the last gasp and we seemed to be getting no nearer to the car for hours. When we came back to the first river we were straight across in our walking boots. I say straight across - I looked more like a scuttling hermit crab as bent double and holding on to rocks for balance I gingerly felt my way across the slippy river bed.



And then it was a ravenous race back to the hotel before the kitchen closed and a very fine dinner of steak and chips was washed down with pints of beer, guilt free.

I don't believe there is a better way to spend a day in the Scottish Highlands. And I'm filled with a longing to go and do it all again.

South Along Loch Ness from Inverness

View from Dorres...


At the top of the road (didn't quite get the angle back to Loch Ness in the distance)...


FREEZING...

Sheena's What's Top in Inverness / The Highlands

Since we have moved to Inverness we have been eating out just as regularly as ever we did in Melbourne. All sorts of meals at just about any time of day. Admittedly the range of cuisines is a rather different compared with what is available in Australia - there is no Japanese restaurant in Inverness at all - but that isn't to say that we haven't had some good food here. Indeed, after some deliberation and plenty research there are even a few places that are becoming our favourites in amongst all the various choices. So I am going to unashamedly steal the idea from the likes of Mr Preston and that man who writes reviews in the Glasgow Herald and have a hit list for what's worth eating - and doing - nearby.

The categories thus far are:

#1 Cafe In Inverness
Best Harbour Cafe in Nairn
Most charming Italian Restaurant (and also most romantic setting)
The most rated 'I've never had a bad meal there" restaurant in Inverness
Best Health Food Store that I can think of in Scotland
Best (?only) Asian Foodstore in Inverness
Best Bookstore Cafe in Inverness

I'm sure there was more on the list when I thought about this before - but now that we are permanent fixtures here in the Highland Capital, there will be plenty more time for further research and deliberation. And if we get bored we can always work our way through the what's not hot lot.

101 things to do with Smoked Haddock. #2: Kedgeree

The Scottish cooking continues and this time it was a very tasty new year bowl of kedgeree.



For two, here's what you do...

Put two smoked haddock fillets in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil, turn down the heat, cover and simmer gently for 6 minutes. Put fish in a covered dish in a medium oven to keep warm and set the cooking liquid aside for later use. Melt a good dollop of butter in the same pan and fry a chopped onion till soft and golden. Add 1/2 teaspoon of hot curry powder and stir through. Add 150 grams long grain rice and 250mls of the reserved liquid. Stir, bring to boil, cover with a well fitting lid and cook on low heat for 12 minutes (or until rice tender). When it's done stir through the flaked fish, 2 chopped boiled eggs, flat leaf parsley, juice of half lemon and two tablespoons of butter. Cover and return to low heat for a couple of minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of garam masala, tomato salad and some lime pickle.

It's light, lively, smokey and scored a well deserved 8.5 out of 10 on the Ising scale.

Scottish Dinner Number 1

I've come over all Scottish when it comes to cooking dinners. Some fine hearty tasty dinners are required to heat us from the inside when it is minus twelve out. I cheated the first night and we had M&S pre-made cauliflower cheese to go with the aged rib eye steaks. Very very tasty indeed. We more than compensated for being lazy on the cauli by setting out to make home made hollandaise one evening at 8:30pm after a day of unpacking boxes.



I think this was originally a Douglas creation - made for me many years ago just outside of Inverness - so very appropriate to have it again. Oven baked smoked haddock (in tin foil with a bit of butter and lemon) over spinach with olive oil roasted potatoes and hollandaise sauce. Fine fixings for a winters evening.

The Road To Inverness

We hired a van on the weekend and in a break in the weather drove to Glasgow and back to retrieve a bunch of my possessions from my parents house, my sister's loft, my friend's basement, another's shed. I'd only left things for 12 months and four years later I was struggling to remember just exactly what I had left where.

Anyhoo. We left Glasgow mid snow storm and had an uneventful drive back to Inverness. And here are a few photies He took with my phone.

Snow Light.

The weird light around midnight just as the snow stopped falling.
View from the hospital staff accommodation.