Cooking With Richard

Easter weekend was a wash-out because of the high winds, rain and snow:

We went to the Rose and Crown in Kings Langley for beer and greasy pub fish and chips and ale pie:

In Japan:

In Britain:

More ..

More ………

This was a rather lovely, friendly restaurant that we discovered in Rue Mouffetard, Paris.

We had a starter of escargots (snails):

N-sama had a beef stew which tasted like a peposo:

I had a very pleasant cassoulet:

Altogether, a highly recommended restaurant, not particularly because the food was outstanding (although it was very good), but because the place was cosy and friendly.

Photo and someone’s boggy entry.

Delicious pesto from a recipe from Jamie’s Italy book:

The pesto is home made, from a couple of bunches of basil.

Mushi (insects) are very popular in Japan as pets or even for eating. We got these tasty mushi from a popular mushi shop ….

From here:

New Years day “kakizome” 1, 2, 3, wikipedia:

Surprisingly tasty Vietnamese peanuts:

http://eatbma.blogspot.com/2006/07/farmer-brand-roasted-peanuts.html

Documentary about wildlife in Japan (this link will only work for the next 2 or 3 days, so watch it now!)

Click! —> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008cb9b

I tidied up my office!

Application BH2007/00516, Elmshurst, Warren Road - Construction of a part two and part three storey 75 bed nursing home. Provision of 19 parking spaces. (Re-submission of withdrawn application BH2006/01039).

We’re invited to a Thanksgiving day party with a ‘merkin friend of ours. For this I had to make the highly traditional green bean casserole, with thanks to both Hugh’s mum and the Campbell’s kitchen recipe — I combined these and other recipes to make:

The “French” friend onions are made by hand. Apparently in America they sell fried onions in cans. How strange is that?

But the main ingredient in this and about 70 other Campbell’s(TM)-invented recipes is this slightly nauseating tinned soup:

Despite that, the end result isn’t too bad, although I couldn’t see myself eating it regularly.

Our friend put on the whole feast:

Happy campers:

My banoffi pie:

I think the white duck’s wearing the trousers …

Previously …
Preeeeeviously …

All the ladybirds except the one at the bottom are evil invaders from Asia, the Harlequin ladybird:

The first Harlequin was found in a pub car park in Essex in 2004 and since then the ladybird is spreading aggressively throughout the UK, even as far as Wales:

We reported these to the survey and got back a nice response:

Dear Richard

Thank you very much for your ladybird photo. You have correctly identified a harlequin, Harmonia axyridis. This is a valuable record for our survey.

At the moment ladybirds are forming aggregations in preparation for winter - which they spend in a dormant state. This is why they are so conspicuous at the moment. Harlequin ladybirds characteristically spend winter in buildings and are particularly attracted to light coloured stone at this time of year. We think this relates to their behaviour in their native range (Asia) where they head for rocky mountains to overwinter.

In the spring the ladybirds will start to emerge and again this is a time when we see lots but not as many as in the autumn because quite a few will die over the winter time.

It would be great if you could record all your future observations on-line - www.harlequin-survey.org

You may like to know that we now have confirmed records of the harlequin from many sites across southern England, East Anglia and the Midlands. Further north there are a large number of records from Derbyshire and Cheshire and a few from Staffordshire, Humberside, Lancashire, Yorkshire and county Durham. The Harlequin has now also reached Wales, with records from Glamorgan, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.

If you would like to download a colour ladybird identification sheet, please click on the link at this website page http://www.ladybird-survey.org/UKladybirds/UKladybirds.htm

Thanks again and best wishes,

Conkers!

I’ve eaten polenta once or twice but this was the first time I made it properly. Wow, easy, it took about 5 minutes to cook this. In fact the hardest part was measuring out the water and maize:

This was a kind of southern US / Mexican “fusion” which I made basically from store-cupboard ingredients. It’s a creamy vegetarian kidney bean curry, and polenta fried in butter. Vegetarian food has never been so unhealthy.

A few days ago I made this parmigiana (aubergines and tomatoes, very tasty):

Fried oysters from Hiyashi HAYASHI in Miyajima — おいしかった！

Lunchtime kaiseki from a really excellent restaurant in Hiroshima called An. The first dish was a western-style chilli-prawn:

N-sama had this seafood dish with rich sauce:

Icecream: