If Guillermo Del Toro carved pumpkins for a living, they would look like this

From the pile outside one of the shops in the Chelsea Market, New York.

In which our heroine loses her dongle, gets knocked up and finds a bit of blogging mojo again (but not necessarily in that order)

Well, that is flipping typical. I get all excited about a photo of a Halloween pumpkin and the wondrous world of blog, then lose my camera dongle to get the pics out. So this is a no-pic post, unless someone knows how to get digital images out of the black box by magic. Gnomes maybe? There will be a pic here after the weekend of the most AWESOME gourd that looks like something from Pan’s Labryrinth.

The other bit of that title? That somewhat explains my absence here of late. Well, it explains the bit from August onwards. Before August, I was just a lazy, uninspired sort, but after that… You don’t want gory details (which have featured heavily in my Twitter feed) but it mostly involved me, an intimate acquaintance with my bathroom and an new-found inability to deal with opening the fridge door without running back to the bathroom again. (Repeat, pun full intended, ad nauseam.) 

Understandably, food hasn’t been on the agenda lately. Or rather, pleasure in food, which has been a surreal experience for me, when I’ve always been all about the good eating. Sure, I expected to feel sick but the complete absence of desire for any of my usual favourites has probably been the biggest thing that I didn’t anticipate - particularly how low that would make me feel.

It’s amazing how something as simple as a cup of tea can be an emotional crutch. But when you feel sick, all you want is to hunker down with your creature comforts and ride it out (a tried and true formula!). So, for a while there, I was living off fruit, water and French Fries from Walkers Crisps.

Now I’ve hit 17 weeks, my appetite is slowly coming back and the nausea is wearing off (fingers crossed). I can open the fridge door again, which is a good start. I’m cooking bits and pieces, here and there, slowly getting back into the groove (and hunting down all the stuff that B. has misplaced in the kitchen in my absence). Plus, I’m just incredibly excited about this baby, however sick the little so-and-so makes me. Somehow, I get the feeling this is Nature’s way of prepping me for the weeks, months and years ahead…

It’s only a matter of time before we’re wearing matching anoraks

Honestly, we need to have a quick fashion check before we leave the house. Tsk.

The cranky cauliflower

The cauliflower sat there, languishing at the back of the fridge every time I opened the door, staring at me accusingly and the latest (or should I say ‘the last’) conversation went something like this:

Cauliflower: ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you like me any more? Why are you neglecting me?

Me: ‘It’s not that… Erm, it’s just that every time I take a look in here, I get distracted by beer and treats.’

Cauliflower: ‘Sniff – you should have thought of that before you brought me here. Poky little place and the carrots are crap conversationalists.’

Me: ‘You’re right, I’m sorry, what can I do to make it up to you?’

Cauliflower: ‘Stop using me as a token smug-and-fuzzy gesture towards keeping a superfood in the house and turn me into that salad you like making when you’re feeling really lazy.’

Me: ‘Gee, thanks.’

And so it came to pass… No cauliflower gives me backchat and gets away with it, oh no. I sliced, diced and then roasted its ass. Let that be a lesson to the vegetable drawer.

Roasted red pepper and cauliflower salad from The Moosewood Daily Special by The Moosewood Collective

Serves 4

You’ll need:

1 red pepper, sliced into strips
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into small florets (about 4 cups)
1 large russet potato, sliced into 1/4 inch-thick rounds
2 tablespoons olive oil
dash of salt

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I just used 1 tbsp)
2 tablespoons olive oil (I just used 1 tbsp)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 garlic cloves, pressed
2 teaspoons ground fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt (well, I used a generous pinch, to be honest)
pinch of black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Mix the pepper slices, cauliflower and potatoes in a roasting tray with the olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt.

2. Roast for about 2o minutes. Use a spatula to stir one or two times during roasting to prevent sticking and make sure everything browns evenly. The finished cauliflower should be slightly crusty and edged with brown.

3. Whisk together all the dressing ingredients. When the roasted veg mix is ready, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Then put in the serving bowl and toss with the dressing. Or serve up and allow people to dress it individually.

Cook’s notes

Once again, I prefer a less-oily dressing. So I pretty much cut the oil in half.

This salad is brillant when warm and is ok the next day too – although you probably wouldn’t give it to anyone else, as it goes a bit limp, it’s good in a leftovers sort of way.

Goes well with something meaty or fishy. Also just great to tuck into a bowlful on its own, with crusty bread for mopping up the dressing.

The one thing that grows well in our garden apart from the weeds

Picture courtesy of the ever-lovely Mr B.

The occasional brownie chronicles, part – the second

I always assume that when people aren’t blogging for any length of time that they’re off having fabulous adventures/being superheroes/solving world problems. ‘The silence on my blog means I doing something deathly exciting! ‘ – that kind of thing.

Me – I’m just a bit lazy. I have no secret superhero identity and no excuse.

But I do have delicious cheesecake brownies to get back into the bloggy swing of things. And, quite frankly, they deserve their own superhero cape. Chocolate swirled with orange cheesecake - oof, I needed a lie down after one of these little treasures. Giddy from the sugar rush, I tell you.

I’d say… another 4.5 out of 5. Although I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that it would take something really quite severe to make me hand out a low mark. Starting from a premise of extreme brownie bias, see?

Anyway, who wants one?

Chocolate cheesecake brownies from Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible by Tamasin Day Lewis

Makes 16 squares

Cheesecake mixture
340g full-fat cream cheese, softened
85 vanilla caster sugar
1 egg yolk
30g plain flour
grated zest of 1 orange
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice

Brownie mixture
285g vanilla caster sugar
4 eggs
225g unsalted butter
85g cocoa powder (Green & Blacks is grand stuff)
85g plain flour
200g good-quality dark chocolate
110g roasted hazlenuts
110g chocolate chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/375F/gas mark 4. Line a 23cm/9-inch square tin.

2. To make the cheesecake mixture: Cream together the creamcheese and sugar, then add the egg yolk followed by the flour. Finish by mixing in the orange zest and juice. Set aside.

3. For the brownie mix: Beat the sugar and eggs together really well until they have thickened and the sugar has completely dissolved. Melt the butter in a small pan and pour it into the sugar/egg mixture. Sieve the cocoa and flour into the mixture, then melt the chocolate in a double boiler, or in a bowl over a simmering pan of water and pour it into the mixture. Stir it in.

4. Put the hazlenuts and chunks of chocolate into a Ziploc bag and whack it as hard as you can – keeping things chunky and in shards.

5. Spoon alternate dollops of brownie mixture and cheesecake mixture into the tin. Or do a black bottom or a white top, swirling the mixture with a skewer when you’ve finished.

6. Bake for 20-25 mins or until a skewer comes out with slightly sticky crumbs attached.

Cook’s notes

Living with someone who has an irrational dislike of nuts. I feel your pain, for that is also my lot. Sigh. Maybe add some boozy raisins to make up for it.

I saw a recipe somewhere recently that substituted Rolos for chocolate chunks. Nom nom nom.

A bit of cheesecake mixture piping saw me end up with military stripes on my brownies. The cheesecake mixture is just a little too stiff to swirl nicely. So I’d probably add a little extra orange juice next time to slacken the consistency a little more and achieve swirly perfection.

Normal service will resume shortly

Ooof. Weddings. They take it out of you, they really do. And it wasn’t even mine – just a good friend who got hitched over the Easter weekend.

I’m also pulling the ‘bad blogger’ card here. Been really rather inattentive to the poor thing and it’s starting to look a little cobwebby and unloved.

Back soon.

With brownies.

Completely gratuitous non-food post

Some time ago, English Mum was asking for photos of bloggers as little ‘uns.

This is me, at bathtime. It isn’t the one I wanted to share but I think that one is in a box somewhere at my parents house, so I’ll have to go digging next time I’m back. I promise it’s a corker and is a portent of things to come, as far as my life is concerned.

But the story goes that minutes after taking the above photo, I, um, repeated the rather messy act that had landed me in the bath in the first place. All the way up my back. Don’t ask me how, I don’t remember.

I’m not telling you this because I’m proud about that amazing skill (long since lost to me), just setting context for the photo.

Hope you’re not reading this and eating your lunch. Should probably have warned you at the beginning.

The girl who ate Edinburgh

Oof – back since Monday evening and I’ve been running to catch up with meself ever since.

Unsuprising really, when you consider that I bought a daysaver bus ticket and ran all over Edinburgh, eating everything I could, at every opportunity for two of my three days there. (Sunday was a day of rest inbetween, spent gossiping, gawking at Robert Webb’s Flashdance for Comic Relief, raiding my best friend’s bookshelfs and becoming the willing slave of four cats, all of whom had me marked as a soft touch the minute I walked through the door.) 

Now, I did eat some proper meals while I was there (honest, I did) - but there seemed to be a certain theme developing as I sifted through the photos. So, in no particular order, a guide to some sweet and/or nibbly things in Edinburgh…

Loopy Lorna’s Tea House… Charmingly mismatched china, gigglesome and wonderful teacosies that change with the season, the best poached eggs I’ve ever seen and, oh yes, a proper clotted cream tea with soft, warm scones and plenty of jam. Did I take a picture when I was inside? I was way too busy scoffing and it was dreadfully remiss of me.

Apple, custard and raisin brioche from The Manna House Bakery, at the top of Easter Road. All my favourite things in one perfect little bread-wrapped package.

Satisfyingly chewy, rock-salt flecked, rosemary-scented fougasse, again from The Manna House Bakery…

 Valvona & Crolla, a temple of all things food-related at the top of Leith Walk – stacked floor to ceiling with drink, salamis and strings of chillis dangling from the rafters and, if you’re lucky, an old couple arguing in Italian near to the baked goods section. (I liked to imagine they were married and this was just the continuation of an ages-old discussion about something trivial.)

There’s also a lovely little cafe in the back as well  – although the empire has expanded a bit over the past few years to include another cafe and two restaurants. I popped into Centotre on Monday for lunch. Fabulous.

There’s been a lot of redevelopment down near the Old Royal Infirmary site (redubbed ‘the Quartermile’ for sexy selling purposes), most of which seems to involve converting the existing buildings into outrageously overpriced flats and squeezing in some new ones too.

However, tucked cosily at the bottom of one of the new blocks, just next to Middle Meadow Walk, is Peter’s Yard Bakery, a Swedish-run enterprise, where you can stuff yourself full of cardamon-laced pastries and slurp tea to your heart’s content:

Of course, I bought one for later, in case of snacking emergencies, low blood sugar, that kind of thing…

In fact, the only place I didn’t make it to was the one I mentioned specifically in my last post – Falko Konditormeister’s new shop in Bruntsfield. Well, I guess I’ve left something for next time…

Desked!

Well, seeing as the boys over at Desked asked so nicely, here’s where I blog:

It’s not a desk, I know – but it seems kind of fitting to write a food blog from the kitchen table What you can’t see is the fact that the floor is filthy, there’s a teetering pile of washing-up next to the sink and the kitchen on the opposite wall is only half finished. But they only asked to see the desk so my secret is safe, right?

Anyhoo, I’m off to Edinburgh for a long weekend. There is a hen night to attend, food to be eaten, gossip to be exchanged, that kind of thing. And I’m particularly interested to see what Falko Konditormeister’s new shop looks like – this pic was taken outside the door of his first place. Ignore the wheelie bin going for a wander in the background.

Back soon.