Food & Drink Round-Up: April 2019

In this post I share some of the food and drink highlights from last month, bringing together the best of the blog and from my social media during April 2019.

The Old Mill Smokehouse & Craft Ale Bar, Leek

I’d heard mixed feedback about The Old Mill, the latest newcomer to Leek’s food scene. But when I stopped by for lunch, I was pretty impressed. We enjoyed BBQ Texan burgers served with plentiful salad, coleslaw & fries. Being greedy, we also shared sides of fried pickles & BBQ Pit Beans – both excellent. Read my full review here.

Wincle Brewery & Pizza from The Box & Hound

I spent a lovely early Spring evening in early April at Wincle Brewery. The Danebridge based brewer held their first open tap night of the season while The Box & Hound served up delicious wood fired pizza from their converted vintage horsebox.

The Wincle Beer Company is in a lovely setting with beautiful scenery. At this time of year, I was able to enjoy a tasting paddle of three different one-third pints while watching the field of new born lambs just outside.

Box & Hound pizzas (and their incredible dough sticks with wild garlic butter) were outstanding. Catch them at pop-up events like this or book them for your own event.

Read more about what I ate and drank on my Facebook page here.

The Tea Junction, Hulme End

There are so many wonderful places to walk within a thirty minute drive of where I live. One of them is the Manifold Track. It follows the route of the old Leek & Manifold Light Railway and is very popular with walkers, horse riders and cyclists.

At the northerm end of the trail is Hulme End. Here, the old railway buildings have been turned into a visitor centre and next door is The Tea Junction.

I visited the friendly cafe for the first time in April and enjoyed a slice of Victoria sponge and a coffee. Other half had walnut cake. There’s a good range of cakes and scones plus savouries like Staffordshire oatcakes.

The Tea Junction’s dog friendly but, as it was a nice day ,we sat at a picnic bench outside. A great little stop off.

LAMB BOX FROM TROUTSDALE FARM

I’ve been banging on about the fantastic lamb from Troutsdale Farm for ages. I bought one of their boxes of mature, heritage Shropshire breed lamb last summer and wrote about it, with recipes, here.

This April, it was time to get another one. The box contains half a lamb, which doesn’t take up as much space as you might think. In fact, apart from the bag of bones and the trimmings which you can use to make stock, the whole lot went into one drawer of a small, under-the-counter freezer.

The Turnock family at Troutsdale are a lovely bunch who raise their animals with love and care both for them and the environment. Exactly the sort of producers we should all be supporting. Visit the nearby The Lazy Trout pub and you just might find Troutsdale lamb on the menu – that’s where I first discovered it.

I couldn’t wait to get cooking with this wonderful, rich flavoured meat and the first meal I made was these lightly spiced kofta using the mince. They were a real treat, eaten in a homemade socca wrap with loads of salad, feta, toasted pine nuts and tahini.

FIRST ASPARAGUS OF THE SEASON

Apart from our first homegrown runner beans, the seasonal food I most look forward to is English asparagus. I never, ever buy the imported stuff, no matter how tempted I might be.

And that’s not just because of the air miles involved in transporting it from Peru, Mexico or wherever. It’s because I think it’s one of those foods that just tastes better grown here, in season. I’m sure having something all year round means we don’t appreciate it as much as we should anyway.

We ate our first asparagus of the season in mid April. After a brief simmer, the spears went into a hot pan with olive oil until lightly charred. The first asparagus is always special, so I thought it deserved some great accompaniments too.

I made a salad based on quinoa to which I added roasted cherry tomatoes, hazelnuts, peas and broad beans. The latter two were British, but frozen, which I don’t have a problem with as it means they’re very consistent. I do like to take the time to skin the broad beans though! On the side, we had rocket and homegrown pea shoots plus some fried halloumi. The whole lot was dressed with a vinaigrette made with chive from the garden.

Don’t you think that’s worth waiting for?

A PRESENT TO MYSELF

I’d been wanting a second, smaller Le Creuset oval casserole for those times when my existing one is a bit too big. I finally got myself one in April.

If you’ve read my many of my bread recipes, you’ll know that I use cast-iron, heavy, lidded pots to make my loaves. The pots get searingly hot and the steam trapped inside creates a lovely risen bread with a fantastic crust. This smaller one will be particuarly good for wetter doughs, as there’s less room to spread before it starts to rise.

But I use Le Creuset for all sorts of things. It was the perfect size for last Sunday’s slow-roasted breast of lamb (from Troutsdale, of course). I knew, with the lid on to keep in all the juices and flavour, I could just leave it for two and half hours and it would be perfectly cooked.

Admittedly, they’re quite pricey (and the larger ones pretty heavy) but I think Le Creuset are well worth the investment if you can manage it. This isn’t a sponsored post by the way; I just think they’re great products!

THE OLIVE TREE, LICHFIELD

Recently opened under new management and with the aim of creating a fine dining restaurant, I really enjoyed my first visit to The Olive Tree in Lichfield and highly recommend you give it a go. I thought it excellent value for money, especially for the high standard of cooking I ate there.

The cod cheek dish you see here was particularly good. I loved the way the combination of well flavoured cod, crispy potato and pickled cauliflower reminded me of classic fish and chips with plenty of salt and vinegar. Read my full review here.

SCRUMBLES CAKE SHOP, LEEK

My local town of Leek saw the opening of a new cake shop in April, Scrumbles, and I went for a look on its first day.

Owners Sarah and Beth had been selling their cakes at markets as well as to local restaurants, cafes and bars but took the plunge by opening up a little shop on St Edward’s Street on Good Friday.

I loved my jammy dodger cupcake, especially the surprise of another mini jammy dodger at the base of the raspberry-filled cake. As I was one of their first 50 customers, I also got a free, and rather good, brownie.

Judging by the queues, I think Scrumbles is going to do pretty good business.

CHOCOLATE COVERED PEANUT OAT BITES

Back in March I posted about my Oat Bites. These are easy, no bake, whole food treats containing things like nut butters, seeds and dried fruit. For Easter, I decided to make a more indulgent version of the Peanut, Chocolate & Coconut Oat Bites.

 I added twice the amount of both peanut butter and maple syrup, which made them really moist and sweeter too. Best of all, I dipped them in dark chocolate and topped with crushed roasted and salted peanuts. The result was a bit like a Snickers bar, but miles better. I’ll definitely be making this again and think they’d make a nice gift for a foodie friend.

HILLBROOK HONEY FROM PRONTO DELI

We’ve been lucky enough not to have had to buy honey for a while. We’ve friends down in Hampshire and they gave us some jars of their local honey. But we finished those in April, so it was back to lovely Staffordshire honey from Hillbrook Apiaries.

This is a fantastic, complexly flavoured raw honey and I nabbed the last jar on the shelf from the excellent Pronto Delicatessen in Leek. While I was there I also picked up some of my favourite fennel salami and a hunk of Staffordshire cheese.

RAMBLERS RETREAT

For someone who generally thinks of themselves as having more of a savoury bent than a sweet tooth, there’s rather a lot of sweet goodies in this round-up, because here comes more cake!

Oakamoor and Dimmingsdale are two more fantastic places to walk in our beautiful Churnet Valley. In the heart of wooded Dimmingsdale is The Ramblers Retreat which this year is celebrating thirty-eight years of serving tea, cake and more to the walkers enjoying this lovely spot.

We’ve been there lots of times and after breakfast on Easter Sunday we did the easy walk from Oakamoor to Dimmingsdale and back, stopping off for coffee and cake. I went for a generous and delicious slice of Victoria sponge with plenty of jam and cream. Other half had the tallest lemon meringue pie I’d ever seen!

As we had the dog with us, we sat in the gardens. But that’s no hardship as they’re lovely. If the weather’s poor or, as we were, you’re after some shade, there’s covered seating too.

SOCCA

Towards the end of the month I finally got around to posting about Socca, an incredibly simple flatbread made with a batter of chickpea flour. I don’t know how many times I’d made variations of it over the course of a few weeks, but I just couldn’t get enough of it. At some point, I told myself, I had to stop making and scoffing batches on the pretence of perfecting the recipes and just write the darned blog post.

Anyway, I got there in the end and had some fantastic meals on the way!

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