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Plum cake
I was going to have made The Summer Fruit and Almond Cake for my aunt’s 100th birthday tomorrow but the overnight wind and rain reduced our raspberries and blackberries to mush. But there are plums! Queen Victoria’s! I substituted 350g of prepared plums for the fruit in the Summer Cake recipe and the result is…
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Bean and Mint Salad
Earlier this week, I went to see Rick Stein give a cookery demonstration organised by Toppings, the bookshop in Bath to promote his new book, From Venice to Istanbul. He mentioned how vegetables are not served hot in Greece or Turkey and the importance of yoghurt in the cooking of the Eastern Mediterrranean countries – two…
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Runner bean chutney
Runner beans are brilliant this year. This chutney is the perfect solution for how to process them. -Susan
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Trout with Dill
This recipe is based on one in Mark Hix’s British Seasonal Food. He uses fennel tops in place of dill. Different flavours but equally good as he suggests. Fillets of trout or sea trout can be easily cooked and served as a simple meal for two or as a starter for four or more. 1 sea…
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Devilled kidneys
A special treat for a Friday evening to celebrate the delivery of lamb from Mr Roberts, the butcher in Bala. His lamb is superb and now we are well stocked up until next year. Ribs of beef were also included in our order. All now safely stored in the deepfreeze. This favourite recipe is based on…
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Summer fruit and almond cake
Spent a rainy day sitting on the floor of my office looking through the mound of recipes torn from magazines and newspapers. Some recipes I was never going to cook. These were put into the paper recycle, some were filed for future use and a small pile was put to one side. These were the…
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Trout with Salsa Verde
This recipe is for Simon fishing at Bredwardine on the river Wye in Herefordshire. “A wonderfully strong, clean, meandering river, the Wye has been a regular pilgrimage of mine for over a decade. Although I am mainly in hope of catching the powerful Barbel (Barbus barbus) in the company of some old friends, there are…
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Ratatouille Niçoise
On the first page of Frederic Raphael’s novel, Heaven and Earth (1985) is the description of a tea-cloth on which is printed a recipe for ratatouille “Coriander seeds,” he said. “That’s a new one.” I love ratatouille, especially with scrambled eggs for a quick supper or cold as ‘a delicious beginning to a summer meal’…
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Fig Tart
Here is a pudding I haven’t made but really want to make and know it will be delicious. We shall be in Madeira next week in time to catch the late, sweet figs we buy from the lady whose stall we pass on our way for coffee at the Café do Teatro in Funchal. One…
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Summer Pudding
The first summer pudding is made and ready for supper this evening. I have just picked a final bucket full of redcurrants and removed the netting from the bushes so that the birds can eat what is left. It was a good harvest this year. I have made enough redcurrant jelly and more redcurrant juice is frozen…