the red kitchen

Feeling blue

I seem to be on a blue cheese, bacon and walnut bender. The recent cold blustery weather has made me very, very hungry, all the time, and I'm craving all things heavy, warming and rib-sticking, thus tonight's dinner.

Bacon-wrapped chicken, seared then roasted, surrounded by more bacon, mushrooms, onions and garlic and a glug of red wine, plus polenta rich with this year's organic Tuscan EV olive oil (lovingly brought home for us by Bruno's parents after their Tuscan summer idyll - they are so good to us) and parmesan (a huge craggy chunk, also courtesy of Ruth and Ersnt), and a salad adapted from my latest Brocki read, 'On Rue Tatin: The Simple Pleasures of Life in a Small French Town', by Susan Loomis - salad greens, walnuts, tart apples and crumbled blue cheese, with a vinaigrette thick with hard-boiled egg yolk (leftover from Lola's lunch - she loves eggs, but only the whites of hard-boiled eggs, so I often have surplus egg yolks hanging about). An oldie but a goodie, and so delicious with a glass of red wine.

We spooned the juices from the chicken and wine-soaked vegetables over the polenta, and it was great. Previously I've made the chicken with roasted potatoes, but having something soft and spoonable to soak up all the yummy juices was a definite party pleaser. And the salad - the salad I could have eaten alone, it was so good. What is it with the apples, walnuts and stinky roquefort?! Perfect!

And now Bruno has just handed me a waffle cone with a scoop of distinctly alcoholic prune icecream, with a cup of hot peppermint tea. Now I can go to bed happy.

Sugar fingers

Sugar fingers, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

I made shortbread from the River Cottage Family Cookbook for afternoon tea and Max couldn't resist helping himself to some sugary crumbs before the first slice was eaten (note green playdough on his fingers, remnants of the T-Rex necklaces he made earlier in the afternoon).

The shortbread was good, despite having to substitute cornflour for rice flour in the recipe, and very simple, a good one to make with kids as it doesn't require much mixing or other technique, merely rubbing the dry ingredients with the butter and pressing into a cake tin (don't even have to bother greasing or lining the tin).

And, it looked super lovely, sweetly pale and sprinkled with vanilla sugar from my big glass bottle of lumpy, vanilla-soaked sugar.

The good pizza

the good pizza, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

The pizza recipe from The River Cottage Family cookbook is excellent - I've made it every week since I got the book at Christmas. The recipe itself is simple, and I'm sure it's not so different to other pizza recipes, but, well, I'm particularly enamoured of this one at the moment. I think it's the teaspoon of sugar and no salt in the tomato sauce that does the trick. Last night I made this pizza and we had a pizza picnic in front of the telly watching this, complete with picnic blanket and paper napkins. The kiddies loved it.

Tried and Tested Kitchen: Corn Cakes

The Test Kitchen hasn't been too, errm, testy lately, so I thought I'd entertain you with some old favourites - Bill Granger's Corn Cakes (ok, so he calls them Sweetcorn Fritters). 

These are big favourites in the Kitschenette household. Quick and easy and delicious. Usually I roast some tomatoes in balsamic vinegar and olive oil to go with them, as the corn cakes soak up the vinegary juices fantastically. A splodge of a good mayonnaise (home-made or otherwise, maybe with some lime juice to sparkle it up) on the side, maybe some proscuitto or Bunderfleisch (raw dried meat, popular in Swissyland), slices of ripe avocado - gosh, what a great meal. Oh, and a bit of leafy greenery never goes astray, either.

At some stage I used to add some grated zucchini to the mix as well, but I found that it tended to make the fritters/cakes soggy and heavy. So now I do without it, and the result is much better, and lighter. Also, Bill specifies the addition of capsicum to the vege mix, but I DESPISE capsicum, so I skip it. They taste much better capsicum-free.