Cooking With Richard

Earlier …

Even earlier …..

Much much earlier …….

We’ve got puy lentils, sausages, some Italian sausage, and a simple chilli salsa. Quick, but rather too rich.

The elderberries were really disappointing this year, but we eventually found a single tree which had a small crop that we could pick:

Last year was much better …

Update

After cleaning them up, here are the totals:

• Elderberries: 2 lbs (about 1 kg)
• Brambles: 1 lb (about 500g)
• Tiny spiders: 4 (1 rescued, 3 will end up in a crumble)

We spent a long time this weekend in the scarier parts of London — Hackey and Elephant & Castle.

These are tomatoes and a zucchini flower from Samara’s garden:

Tommy’s vegetarian chilli:

Natsco’s carrot cake:

and more time-lapse Tokyo photography.

This fruit is growing on a nearby tree. Is it edible?

This is the flower, which I’m pretty sure is the passion flower:

This is the fruit in situ:

And here is the fruit. Shall I eat it?

… sounds like a dodgy pub, and currently it’s a googlewhack. And somehow it reminds me of the sign by the Cat and Lion pub in Stretton which I used to drive past every day on my way to work at Daresbury Laboratory. The sign showed a lion “lying down” with a lamb, reminiscent of the Tate and Lyle logo.

I digress.

On Thursday we had roast shoulder of lamb which was most excellent.

Today this lovely moggy turned up in our back garden. Actually he was “lying down” with the little sparrows, but we’ll forgive him that because it’s part of his nature:

One day I’ll be allowed to own a cat. It’s past time.

This is from last weekend, a “Chicken Fattee” (this is from the Casa Moro cookbook). It was pretty good but took ages to make because you have to make it in about five different stages. However the caramelised onion and bean rice which goes with the recipe was absolutely fab — you can just about see it in the background on the right. Even the rice takes about 2 hours to make including all the preparation:

Carrots from N-sama’s garden:

Fig rolls rock …

Tring has a small but rather wonderful Natural History Museum. Actually it is more properly known as the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, which is now managed by the Natural History Museum in London. The collection is marvellously Victorian — 4000 stuffed animals, a spectacle rather than an education.

A couple of weeks ago I was boiling tins of condensed milk for 5 hours and at the weekend I got to open one to find delicious toffee inside:

I made the Hungry Monk Banoffi pie recipe, which was quite easy (by far the most difficult part was making the pastry case):

Jamie Oliver’s roast pork loin, nectarines, thyme and butter. The recipe is from Return of the Naked Chef. Served with celeriac and potato mash and a selection of roasted vegetables.

It’s really very simple to make. Start by stuffing the pork with nectarines and a thyme/butter mixture:

Roast in the oven as usual and rest.

Meanwhile I made the accoutrements, roast parsnips, roast carrots, boiled celeriac and baked potatoes (for the mash).

I caramelised meat juices to make a gravy (with some chicken stock and mirin).

Serve sprinkled with some fresh thyme flowers.

If you’re on mixi, please join my community.

Update: Apparently that link doesn’t work. Try this one instead. (Thanks Lady E)

You should really click this link …
You tube link

His job is a helicopter lineman.

EOS 5D, lovely camera.

But can you tell what’s missing from the photo?

This tiny fellow turned up in the garden today. We think he’s a garden warbler, a plain tiny brown bird who migrates to the UK during Spring and Summer only.

The photos aren’t really good because he uses the cover of the trees and bushes and doesn’t come out.

There were plenty of common birds in the garden today, including this beautiful juvenile blue tit. I can tell this is a juvenile because his (or her?) crown isn’t yet blue, but more of a black colour.

This is one of the blackbirds’ daughters. She seems to like to sit around in the garden in the late afternoon just sunbathing. Crazy …

Can you tell which ones I made? I don’t have “the knack”.

Macaroni cheese, is it Italian? I made this from Mary Berry’s recipe, but substituting a mix of mozzarella, cheddar, ricotta and parmesan instead of her mix (which included a cheese called Fontina which proved hard to obtain). Anyway, great taste and very easy to make:

Rhubarb crumble is my all-time favourite British pudding. I varied this slightly, adding crushed almonds and cinnamon to the crumble, and not very much sugar. The effect is good but you have to eat it with plenty of icecream to give it sweetness: