Category: Food and drink

Posts about food, drink, recipes and resaurants

Food and drink

Pork medallions with cider gravy

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Just a quick recipe post for this one. Frankly it didn’t turn out nearly as good as I hoped. I’ve finally given up on low-fat creme fraiche now. It’s just no use for cooking at all. Every time I try to gently introduce it to a sauce it splits and curdles, producing an unpleasant mess of a gravy.

So imagine the picture you see here has a lovely, creamy cider sauce poured over the pork instead of the thin gravy I ended up with after abandoning the creme fraiche (I’d tried adding it in tiny amounts at a time without too much heat, didn’t work). Continue reading “Pork medallions with cider gravy” →

Food and drink

Quick and easy smoked mackerel pate

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After 2 months of sitting on my backside due to a knee injury and the arrival of all that white stuff on the ground I decided last night to get back in the game. So as soon as I got home it was into the track suit and I cleared some space in the spare room for the little rowing machine we’ve got (still too much snow in Banchory for me to brave running). But before I got stuck in I needed to decide on what to eat for tea afterwards. It needed to be something I can prepare quickly, preferably beforehand and leave it while I do my session and is quite light as the last thing I want after exercise is a big meal.

I always see smoked mackerel fillets in the supermarket, but aside from fish cakes never really thought of anything to do with them. They’re delicious on their own of course, with a very sweet flavour and I could happily eat a whole packet for dinner (would be good sprinkled with lemon juice with some new tatties and some spring onions I think). But it’s not very exciting and doesn’t seem worthy of a blog like this (like I have standards all of a sudden). Continue reading “Quick and easy smoked mackerel pate” →

Food and drink

Winter Stew

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As we’re in the merciless grip of the worst snow for 45 years it’s definitely time to break out the big guns. Winter stews, casseroles, anything that takes a few hours of cooking with lots of big flavours, root vegetables and plenty of leftovers. Continue reading “Winter Stew” →

Food and drink

Brrr! It’s a bit chilly for chilli

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A foot and a half of snow! In November!?

We’ve had a remarkable week of weather featuring the heaviest November snowfall for 17 years, record low temperatures for the month and thunderstorms during snow showers. It’s bitterly cold and I spend most of the day clearing the snow off our driveway only for snow to return as soon as I go back inside. Even more annoying the snow plough comes along to clear the road and piles the snow across my nice cleared driveway. Then the pavement plough comes along and puts even more snow on the pile.


Continue reading “Brrr! It’s a bit chilly for chilli” →

Food and drink

Stovies

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My brother has a plan he mentions occasionally, to open a late night food cart selling stovies to drunk people. He thinks he’d make a fortune. Around here he probably would as well.

Stovies are another one of those dishes, like mince and tatties, which seems to define Scottish food for some people. They originated as a way of using up leftovers and making the most of what you had. The classic version that you find most often consists of tatties, onions and beef (usually boiled or leftover roast). There are of course regional and generational variations and you can swap the beef for lamb, mince, pork, even duck on one Aberdeen restaurant menu. Never corned beef though. That’s just wrong. Continue reading “Stovies” →