Writing and thoughts from NE Scotland
This cooking lark is easy. Well, sometimes it is anyway. This paté is a case in point. It’s almost ludicrous how simple it is to knock this up in a couple of minutes. I had a day off today so for lunch I threw a few spoonfuls of crowdie and a few smoked mackerel fillets into a small food processor with some horseradish, parsley and smoked paprika. Blitz it for a minute or so then spread it on hot buttered toast. Ridiculously good lunch in minutes.
This totally isn’t a stopgap post because I feel guilty I haven’t posted anything this week. Well… OK it is. Continue reading “Comfort food – beans on toast”
This is another recipe adapted from the excellent Nick Nairn book, New Scottish Cookery. Not that it’s very new any more. It was one of the first cookbooks I bought. My graduation from the simplicity of my other book called something like “400 recipes with only 4 ingredients”.
One of the first recipes I tried from the book is also the one that I’ve made the most. Garlic stuffed mushrooms on toast. It’s pretty easy to see why this was the recipe I went for first. It’s simple but produces great results and is flexible enough to be a dinner party starter (it made an appearance at Christmas one year), a simple main course or a quick dinner for one. Continue reading “Garlic stuffed mushrooms”
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”
Sundays can be maddening. They’re made for not doing much but invariably end up with the pre-monday rush of boring chores like ironing work clothes, doing the weekly shop and cleaning the house. I’d much rather spend the day sitting in the garden (on the rare occasion when sunshine occurs at the weekend), drinking a few beers and generally doing as little as possible. Because I was feeling a bit lazy today and didn’t want to go get lunch from the supermarket I knocked up this quick fishy feed instead. Continue reading “Quick lunch – mackerel, courgette and tomatoes on toast”
Mince and Skirlie 