Category Archives: Cooking

Christmas Ham

Posted on December 23, 2015 | Leave a comment

We normally cook something for cold meat sandwiches just before Christmas. It might be brisket, or a pâté, or, as this year, a ham. I’ve just had a “carver’s perk” from this one, which is a particularly delicious mild cure.

Christmas ham 002a
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Back to lovely coffee again

Posted on November 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

My ability to make coffee has been in slow decline. On my day I can still do it well – the grind just so, the dose well-judged, the tamp exact, and the water temperature beautifully in the low to mid 90s. And my nice Gaggia Classic was fully capable. I’m not blaming the tools, but the operator. In recent times I’ve found myself buying cheaper coffee rather than “waste” the good stuff on an indifferent brew.

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So with some trepidation, and a certain amount of regret, I chopped in the Gaggia Classic and replaced it with a Gaggia Titanium bean-to-cup machine.
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Excalibur 4900 Dehydrator

Posted on October 24, 2015 | Leave a comment

I’ve thought about this in previous years, but not taken the plunge until now. We always have an excess of allotment produce which we find difficult to store. We fill the freezers and make jam and pickles, but we don’t bottle or can our produce, and we don’t dehydrate. It was the crates of apples that made my mind up. They’ll keep until Christmas, but not much beyond that.

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Not only can you dry apple slices, but you can also make “fruit leathers”, which I’m betting are going to go down a storm with the grandchildren.
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We won superb Blackacre Farm eggs!

Posted on October 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

I entered a competition run by the very excellent Blackacre Farm, producers of fine free-range eggs. And won!

The prize was a very generous six dozen “Waddling Free” duck eggs.

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Stoate’s Mill Sourdough

Posted on October 3, 2015 | 1 comment

I’ve just taken six lovely sourdough loaves out of the oven, made with Stoate’s Mill organic strong white and rye flours. They smell and look delectable.

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I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to try one, though!
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Stoates Mill Flour

Posted on September 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

On our way back from River Cottage, we called in to the excellent Stoate’s Mill near Shaftesbury to buy some of their organic bread flour.

fishing flour 005a
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River Cottage: Shoreline Fishing Course

Posted on September 12, 2015 | Leave a comment

It’s always a joy and a pleasure to attend a River Cottage course, and this one had come up as a special offer. It would have been rude not to. It’s been a while since I did any shore fishing, so that clinched it.

For the first time, Jean didn’t join me on the course, but instead opted to explore the local area. That was OK, but as you’ll see, caused me pangs of guilt later in the day.

fishing flour 002a
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Philips Airfryer. Not a huge success.

Posted on February 23, 2015 | Leave a comment

Most of the gadgets in my batterie de cuisine are pretty successful. The Vitamix and Magimix that we’ve had for years live on the worktop and get exercised frequently. More recent acquisitions like the Assistent, the JO Home Cooker, and the Sansaire sous vide machine are all kept within easy reach. So perhaps I can be forgiven the occasional failure.

Step forward the Philips Airfryer. This machine promises to dry-fry all sorts of things, from potato chips (obviously) to aubergine slices, steaks, and even to bake cakes. One the box there’s a mouth-watering picture of beautiful home-cooked fries emerging from the cooking drawer.

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Bread Maker Panasonic 2502

Posted on January 22, 2015 | 2 comments

Although we love our sourdough bread, we’re not too proud to use a bread making machine as well. Sometimes in the autumn the freezers are too full of fruit or veg to store even half a dozen loaves. Sometimes it’s nice just to make a plain white or wheatmeal loaf for sandwiches.

Anyhow, our old breadmaker was showing signs of age, and loaves weren’t always proving properly. Probably just a fault with the thermostat, but it was a cheapo model, and almost certainly not economic to repair.

I had an Amazon voucher from Nectar points, so it went towards a Panasonic 2502 machine.

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Christmas Ice Cream Making

Posted on December 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

One of the things that we’ve established as a little tradition is to make ice cream at Christmas as gifts for our friends.  There’s not much coming off the allotment, so instead we can dig out some fruit from the freezers.  And although we have to supplement eggs from our own flock with commercial eggs, it harks back to the prolific days of summer and autumn.

The Gelatiera churning raspberry ice cream

The Gelatiera churning raspberry ice cream

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