I love making a meal for the family on Sunday. Sometimes they come to my house; sometimes I take everything to theirs. It’s more of the latter the moment. With two little boys having school and pre-school the next morning and needing early nights, it’s easier to be based at their home. We don’t ‘do’ […]
I love fish and eat it at least once or twice a week and when I saw this recipe in Moro the Cookbook a few days’ ago, I knew I just had to make it. A few years’ ago, I almost lived by Moro: Moro the Cookbook, Casa Moro and Moro East. One of then biggest highlights […]
British Summer Time ended today, the clocks went back an hour so we all had an extra hour in bed (except of course if you have small children who don’t understand these things) and autumn arrived with a vengeance. Heavy rain and blustery winds raged through the night and into the morning; it was definitely […]
I like apple-based desserts more than any other kind, from a homely apple crumble or pie (which always has to be served with Bird’s custard in my house or there are complaints!) to fancier tarts and cakes. I’ve made little tartlets on flaky pastry, deep-filled tartlets. I’ve made tarts with apple purée on the bottom […]
Given my love of Italian food and because I’ve been writing this blog for over nine years now, it’s a bit surprising that I haven’t given a recipe for a traditional Lasagna al Forno before. I’ve given a vegetable version and have talked about making – and eating! – lasagna, but have not given an […]
My son Jonathan has been a keen cook since he was small enough to need to stand on a stool to chop and mix ingredients and his sons Freddie (5½) and Benjamin (2¾) are fast following in his footsteps. Thus they were very excited yesterday by Daddy’s new ‘toy’: a super-grade KitchenAid mixer with a […]
This is an adaptation of a Rick Stein recipe in his Long Weekends book. I’m particularly attached to this book (and the accompanying DVD of the TV series) at the moment, not only for its great and reliable recipes, but its subject: Long Weekends. Pre-Lockdown I’d become well practised at making the most of a […]
Meet (left to right) Gwen, Mildred, Maud and Gerty. My daughter and her wife recently got four hens. They live in a 16th century farmhouse in Worcestershire, at the end of a long unmade-up road surrounded by farmland. They’re not farmers themselves, but at their home they’ve created a wonderful bucolic living space where they […]
I like the heat, I like the sun; I was born under the sun sign of Aries and put my love of the sun down to that. I promise you would never want to be out and about with me on a wet, cold and windy day because my mood takes a nosedive. However, even […]
It was a spontaneous buy. I stopped off at the local fishmonger’s to buy some salmon and prawns and saw fillets of red mullet. I remembered it’s one of Rick Stein’s favourite fish and so decided to get some. I’ve cooked red mullet before, but long ago, and wasn’t sure what to do with it […]