Recipe

Mediterranean platter

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I was in the Brewdog bar at the weekend. There’s a full blog post about that on the way but it gave me a good idea for dinner. Instead of the normal bar food options they serves cheese and meat boards full of sliced salami, various cheese, oatcakes, olives, chutneys and a sliced baguette.

It looks great but I’m not the biggest cheese fan in the world and we opted for a break elsewhere for dinner before returning for more beer. Fast forward to Monday though and the Brewdog platter had given me some inspiration for an easy but delicious dinner. Continue reading “Mediterranean platter” →

Food and drink

Veal escalopes with sage and garlic sauce

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First of all, sorry about the pictures of this one. One of these days I’ll learn to do the sauce last but yesterday was not that day. I was planning to have my glamorous and able assistant see to the tatties while I made the sauce for the veal, but of course the phone rang as soon as the meat hit the pan. Instead of remaining calm and working through everything in a relaxed manner I panicked.

What I should have done was make the mash then leave it on a low heat to keep warm while I made the sauce. What I actually did was put the veal in the oven to rest, start the sauce then drain the tatties and start mashing them while the sauce reduced…and reduced…and continued to reduce some more until there was hardly any of it left. Oops. Continue reading “Veal escalopes with sage and garlic sauce” →

Thoughts

Colonsay Brewery selection and Adnams Innovation

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I was browsing for beer in the booze shop at the weekend and came across some colourfully labelled bottles from the Colonsay Brewery in the Hebrides. There were three different beers on offer, IPA, 80\- and a lager. Each with a pleasing blurb on the back.

“After a hard days brewing there is nothing better than to walk down to the pier with a couple of bottles of 80/- ale, throw a line over the side and catch something for supper. Aye right” Continue reading “Colonsay Brewery selection and Adnams Innovation” →

Food and drink

Homemade Pizza

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Is there anything better on a Saturday night than beer and pizza? As long as we’re not talking a can of Tennents and a supermarket oven pizza anyway! There’s no excuse for not making your own pizza now and then and it’s guaran-damn-teed to be much better than the frozen ones.

Basically, if you can make bread you can make pizza. It’s really just dough stretched and rolled extra thin so it cooks quickly with a crispy crust. You can do it by hand using the recipe below or chuck it all in a machine to make the dough. The hardest bit is the sauce and if you’re not in the mood to make that you can just buy a jar of passata with herbs as a perfectly good alternative. Continue reading “Homemade Pizza” →

News

Inspiration Chain

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Photo by mab2413 on flickr
Congratulations to Hannah at the Corner Cottage Bakery for becoming the latest winner in the Inspiration Chain! Hannah was sent Appetite by Nigel Slater and is giving away the excellent Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit as her inspiring book. Go to her post here to win a copy!

I’m particularly pleased about this as it was a giveaway on A Wee Bit Of Cooking which offered a copy of the Flavour Thesaurus as a prize which gave me the idea to start this little chain. Unfortunately I didn’t win that one but I did get a copy of the book for Christmas, it’s a superb reference and a great book to have around if you’re stuck for ideas.

Well done to Hannah and good luck to everyone who enters the giveaway.