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Baked celeriac with smoked salmon and caper salsa
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to go through various piles of recipes taken from magazines and newspapers planning to keep no more than ten recipes from any pile. One recipe that I was especially keen to try is this one taken from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Saturday Guardian column. He justly heaps praise on the…
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Greek chicken and pepper pie
Peppers are plentiful in the supermarkets at the moment and I am preferring this pie to richer versions using mushrooms and marscapone or onions and eggs. 5-6 chicken fillets 500 ml chicken stock 3 mixed peppers 6 plum tomatoes 1 medium sized onion,finely chopped 1-2 cloves garlic,crushed 1 tsp sumac ½ tsp paprika ½ tsp…
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Endive with blue cheese and pickled walnuts
Pickled walnuts are a special treat around the family with cold turkey on Boxing Day but this easy starter is my very favourite way of serving them. Measurements for the dressing can vary according to taste. Tender part of a curly endive 3 tbsp white wine vinegar 9 tbsp olive oil 1-2 tsp Dijon mustard…
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Pumpkin, roast pepper and tomato soup
We had invited some neighbours for lunch, forgetting that it would be Thanksgiving. Never too late to make a gesture. I will make pumpkin soup (two large pumpkins still remain from our bumper crop this year) and a cheese cake, not a New York cheesecake but a Sicilian one from the recipe in Skye Gyngell’s very…
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Tomatoes with sumac, shallots and pine nuts
Inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi, this recipe is for my favourite salad of the late summer and the best way I know to use home grown tomatoes. What makes it so good is the generous use of sumac, a spice I first came across in Cyprus and bought simply because I didn’t know what it was.…
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Coronation Chicken
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Celery braised with onion and tomato
This dish is as good cold as it is warm. Serve by itself as a starter or as a vegetable dish to accompany chicken. By adding cooked chick peas, it makes an excellent vegetarian dish. I use the whole head of celery but you may prefer to use only the stalks. -Susan 1 head celery,…
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Queen of Puddings
The first wintery weekend of November and we have finished planting bulbs for spring. Hurrah for Mr Scamp! Every year I buy enough bulbs from him to fill four big pots. I am more than happy for him to make the selection. He knows I like single daffodils and not so high that they might…
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Sloe Gin
I had a look to see where I could find sloes and it could be a good year. I have my ‘special place’ a hedgerow outside Wells, just at the start of the Somerset Levels. If the weather is fine, I will pick for an hour or two on Friday.The fields have blackthorn bushes on…
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Courgette and Tomato Bake
There are three words I try to avoid in recipes, ‘bake’ (as a noun) and ‘drizzle’ (as a verb) and ‘blitz’ as in a blender but with so many courgettes still growing on the allotment, this recipe with blitzed herbs and a drizzle of olive oil is a ‘short form’ for a tasty meal. The…