Food & Drink Round-Up December 2019

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

Includes a birthday meal with a MasterChef finalist, seasonal baking and Christmas in Wales.

Love Food, Hate Waste

It’s not often we have leftover mashed potato in our house. It’s a favourite winter comfort food and we both have quite an appetite.

But there was a little left one night, which had leeks in too. I really hate waste, so the next day I made it into potato and leek cakes for a brunch treat.

I had about 120 grams of the mash and added pepper, garlic granules and a teaspoon of flour to bind it. Made into little patties, coated in more flour then fried in olive oil and butter, they were a treat with a fried egg on top.

Please love your leftovers!

A BIRTHDAY DINNER BRINGS AN INVITATION

The beginning of December saw my fiftieth birthday. I don’t usually make a big deal of birthdays, preferring just to go out for a quiet meal.

So it was a happy coincidence that MasterChef: The Professionals finalist Louisa Ellis happened to be cooking up a special tasting menu that very night in Alstonefield. Read my blog post all about it here 

I got chatting to the couple behind us who turned out to be the owners of The Old Mill Smokehouse in Leek.

I wrote about a lunchtime visit to The Old Mill here, but I haven’t yet returned for the full Smokehouse experience I’d intended to.

That will be remedied in January though, as the couple invited me to their Burns Night event. Tickets for the four course dinner with four selected whiskies are still available if you want to join us: email bookings@theoldmillsmokeshouse.co.uk

BIRTHDAY FANNY

I’ve been following Keep Calm & Fanny On on Twitter for some time. It’s written by Kevin Geddes, a Fanny Cradock fan who’s been writing about her and cooking her recipes for many years.

So when I saw he’d a book coming out, The Many Careers of Fanny Cradock, I knew it had to go on my birthday present list.

Other than the foreword by Nicholas Parsons, I haven’t started on the book yet. But it looks like an interesting read.

Often ridiculed and sometimes thought of as a joke, I’m looking forward to learning about the real Fanny Cradock behind the TV image.

RETURN TO A FAVOURITE: THE THREE HORSESHOES

While I love discovering new places to eat and drink, there’s something comforting about returning to an old favourite. You can just rock up and know you’re going to be fed well, with next to no chance of disappointment.

That’s the case with The Three Horseshoes at Blackshaw Moor near Leek. I don’t know how many times we’ve eaten there, whether for a quick, simple bite or one of their modern British dishes. It’s also just about the only place I’ll go for a carvery.

One Saturday in December, after we’d dropped the dog off for a groom in Leek, we took the opportunity to pop out to The Three Horseshoes for lunch. It was as good as ever and with their famously generous portions too.

My starter was a rich terrine of pheasant, partridge and pigeon, served with pickled local plums.

I followed that with sirloin of Longhorn beef (cooked very pink which is correct for this cut), celeriac fondant (okay, a teensy bit underdone in the centre), carrots, parsnips, perfect mashed potato, curly kale, king oyster mushroom AND (my favourite) wonderfully soft and deeply flavoured braised beef cheek.

Simple Coffee & Cake

Another favourite is The Tea Junction at Hulme End.

We often stop off there after a walk with the dog along the Manifold Trail and that’s exactly what we did one sunny Sunday in December.

Mind you, although it was sunny, there was also a nip in the air. Thankfully, dogs are allowed inside The Tea Junction so we didn’t have to shiver at one of the outside tables.

They serve a lovely selection of homemade cakes as well as simple savoury food like Staffordshire oatcakes, bacon butties and jacket potatoes.

Other half and I aren’t into fancy coffees, so had a mug of the straightforward stuff: his with milk, mine black. My carrot cake and his treacle tart were just right.

A friendly, simple place which, sometimes, is all you really need.

Goodbye RAWR, Hello NØRTH

NØRTH Kitchen + Bar is the new incarnation of RAWR in Stoke-on-Trent’s Cultural Quarter. The change came in early November 2019 with the new brand and a new menu. I visited one December lunchtime and very much approved.

Although we experienced a few glitches, at the end of my review of NØRTH which you can read here I was still happy to recommend them. Overall, they continue to produce good quality cooking with lots of fresh ingredients that are presented in imaginative and tasty combinations.

Bowls of Goodness (& not a Buddha in sight)

One of the changes at NØRTH that I certainly approve of is the ditching of the term ‘Buddha bowls’. Now simply named ‘bowls’, they’re still full of fresh, real foods like this wonderful one I ate when they were RAWR.

But, as I’ve written previously, the mention of ‘Buddha bowls’ may have me rolling my eyes in quiet annoyance or metaphorically pulling at my hair in irritation.

A concept apparently created by ‘health bloggers’, it generally means a bowl containing small portions of lots of different, ‘healthy’ things – a bit of protein, raw and cooked vegetables, perhaps some grain. Or, as I like to call it, a MEAL.

At home, we often eat this way and had a particularly good couple of bowls during December. The one above was based around lightly smoked, baked salmon with rice plus cooked and raw veggies.

The beige drizzle was the result of my experimenting with using kimchi in dressings to give a tangy, pickled flavour. For this one I whizzed up some of the Korean fermented cabbage with tahini, lime, sweet chilli plus fish sauce. We loved the strong flavour so I think I’ll be continuing the experimentation.

The bowl we enjoyed a couple of nights later was based around an old favourite.

Baba Ganoush is a hummus-like dip where the chickpeas are replaced with smoky aubergine. My version includes a whole head of roasted garlic too. Also in the bowl were spiced roasted cauliflower, carrots and onion, toasted bulgar wheat, crispy cabbage and crispy chickpeas.

Tell Paxo & Co. To Get Stuffed

I love that one of the most consistently popular recipes on my blog is also one of the simplest: Sage & Onion Sausagemeat Stuffing.

When I posted it in Dec 2017, I pointed out the irony of a country which throws away masses of bread but also buys packets of phoney dried breadcrumbs to make stuffing.

Believe it or not, some of the ‘fancier’ versions of shop bought breadcrumbs (including things like ‘ciabatta-style crumbs’) cost, per gram, more than an organic, free-range turkey!

Don’t you think these stuffing balls, studded with sweet, moist onions and tasting of meaty, porky sausage, are more inviting than the dried up specimens from a packet?

Chai Spiced Star Bread at The Takeaway Christmas Show

One of the things I was most pleased with cooking in December was my Chai Spiced Star Bread.

Sweet, buttery and with peppery spices, I thought it was just the thing to take along to BBC Radio Stoke’s The Takeaway Christmas show. Judging by how fast it went and the great feedback I got, that was a good call.

Besides seeing guests of the show I already knew, it was great to finally meet Sarah Winkle of The Credit Crunch Cooke. I also spent ages chatting with Nina from The Spice Yard and Sonia of Chury’s; two inspiring women who both set up and now run their own food businesses.

At the end of the night I was introduced to John from Goldstone Hall Hotel. John had brought along mysterious little sachets of deliciousness and would say, ‘taste that, what do you think that is?’ After sampling his amazing miso butter and woodruff panna cotta I think I’m going to have to widen my eating out horizons to include Shropshire.

The Best Mince Pies Ever

As every year, come the latter part of December, and I’m breaking out my Homemade Mincemeat and making mince pies.

The strange thing is, although I used exactly the same recipe for the mincemeat and the Sweet Shortcrust Pastry, 2019’s mince pies were the best ever.

I made a batch to take with us on our Christmas holiday in Wales and they were just perfect. The filling not too sweet, the pastry (which is so easy to work with you don’t even need to chill it before rolling out) was buttery and crisp.

I haven’t had shop-bought mince pies in yonks, but did try one that was left for us in our holiday let as it seemed rude not too. They weren’t the cheapest but, my god, it really did underline the fact that homemade is miles better than factory-made.

I do wonder if people made more of their own food from scratch whether there’d be quite the same obscene level of Christmas waste.

Christmas in Wales

We decided to have a fairly stripped-back Christmas this year. We went away on holiday in Wales, renting a cosy house in Borth-y-Gest, just outside Porthmadog. Our aim was to do very little except walk the dog on the fabulous beaches, gaze at the mountain views and enjoy some simple food.

On holiday, when we’re not eating out, it tends to be my other half who does most of the cooking. He enjoys it, but has less time when we’re at home. I like a change from my usual routine so it works out well for both of us.

Arriving in Porthmadog, we were pleased to see that a fishmonger had opened on the High Street since our last visit: Blas y Môr.

They had a good range of seafood and that night other half cooked us a fabulous starter of grilled oysters with butter and Parmesan plus some langoustines.

A few nights later we had plainly fried hake from the same fishmongerand it was the freshest, tastiest I can remember.

A SIMPLE CHRISTMAS DINNER

For Christmas Day, we decided to go back to one of our old traditions. That is to go out for a good walk and then come back to eat something completely untraditional and which takes little time to prepare.

I’d actually prepped the star ingredient for the main course almost two weeks before.I’d made a big pot of my Beef Short Rib Ragu and put batches of it in the freezer.

So, all that was left to do on the day (after eating our starter of cured meats, olives, mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes), was dress a salad and boil the pasta. I added some fresh basil when combining the ragu and tagliatelle, a scattering of Parmesan to serve and that was it.

Just about our simplest Christmas dinner ever, I think. And no one had to spend most of the day in the kitchen.

Dylan’s in Criccieth

With many places serving limited menus or with restricted opening over the Christmas period, we’d decided we weren’t going to eat out that much while on holiday.

However, one place we knew we wanted to go was Dylan’s in Criccieth. We’d loved their food at the Menai Bridge branch during our Summer holiday on Anglesey so, with Criccieth was only a fifteen minute drive from the house, we went over for lunch.

It’s set in a wonderfully restored 1930s art deco building right on the seafront. There’s stunning views, including of Criccieth’s famous castle on the hill, which we could appreciate from our window seat in the dog friendly section.

LUNCH

I had seared Seared King Scallops (£11.95) to start. These were big, fat, juicy and well coloured on the outside. Just how I like them. They came with two towers of confit pork belly, rich and tasty. There was a squash puree too along with crisp apple and pine nuts to freshen things up.

ID went for the house speciality: Moules Mariniere (£9.50, or £15.50 as a main course). Dylan’s is rightly proud of these Menai Strait mussels which are always good and sweet tasting.

They came with some fine sourdough bread to mop up the white wine, garlic, shallot and cream sauce.

We both followed with Lobster Mac ‘n’ Cheese (£22.95, or £12.95 as a starter). The lobster was local, from the Llŷn Peninsula, and came in chunky, generous quantity.

A shared side of Mixed Leaf Salad (£3.50) was large and very fresh.

Puds were a trio of Ice Creams (£6.50) for him and Apple Pie (£6.95) for me. Although it sounds like a simple, everyday thing to pull off, it’s surprising how often I’m disappointed when I’ve ordered apple pie. Undercooked apple, too sweet filling and rubbish pastry are the usual pitfalls.

But I can’t remember a better one than at Dylans. No measly slice either, this was a whole pie (about the same size a chip shop steak and kidney pie) and came topped with a creamy frozen honey yogurt and a swirl of toffee sauce.

Now I guess I have to complete the set by trying Dylan’s Llandudno branch.

Omelette Soup

Back home, the first thing I cooked after our holiday was this Thai-inspired omelette soup. It was light and incredibly simple.

I flavoured chicken stock with garlic, ginger, chilli, soy and fish sauces plus a litttle sugar and lime. I added carrot and pak choi plus a few pink prawns near the end. Once in the bowls, I topped the soup with strips of omelette & some coriander leaf.

Not bad for something made on the hoof and my first foray back into the kitchen.

I hope you enjoyed my highlights for December. Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to hear about my food & drink in 2020.

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