Food & Drink Round-Up July 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 July 2019. Includes holiday eating on Anglesey, homegrown veg, food writing tips and my first taste of Tibetan food.

anglesey

At the beginning of July, we were still enjoying our holiday on Anglesey. For us, a big part of any holiday is sampling the local food. On Anglesey that means lots of fantastic seafood like these Menai mussels.

We’ve been holidaying on Anglesey for a good few years now, and this year revisited old favourites and discovered some new ones too. I wrote a blog post all about the best bits. Read Anglesey: food highlights from a Summer holiday here.

Of course even I couldn’t cover everywhere in two weeks. Why not share your favourite Anglesey food and drink by commenting on that post?

Homegrown Veg

We had mostly fantastic weather while we were on holiday. But I couldn’t help thinking of my little veg plot back home.

This year, I’ve tried to increase the amount of fruit and veg we grow so, as the sun just kept on shining, I did anxiously wonder how my garden was coping.

Thankfully, we returned to find that most things had survived. However, despite the July heatwave, it still took a few weeks more for my hanging basket tomatoes to starting ripening.

We did find a good crop of spring onions ready to go. For the first time, I’d grown them in a big pot which worked a treat. We ate the first bunch in a frittata with peas and feta.

Despite the lack of watering, we even had some yellow baby courgettes to come back to. We didn’t have many though, so I combined them with shop-bought green ones. I charred them in a griddle pan and dressed them with a mint vinaigrette and a sprinkle of toasted nuts and seeds.

Nice alongside the spring onion frittata, feta sprinkled over and with a few more little vegetable salads.

Advance preparation

I’m a huge fan of preparing food in advance whenever I can. My freezer is always full of stuff like stews, sauces and roasted meat. There’s usually at least one variety of cooked grain in there too as they freeze really well.

But I really prefer a mix of grains like brown rice and bulgur wheat and seeds-eaten-as-grains like quinoa and buckwheat. So, in July, I got myself organized and cooked up a batch of each.

Mixed together then frozen in portions for one or two people, we now have grains ready to accompany loads of different meals or use as the base of a salad. All you do is take from the freezer the night before or ping in the microwave.

Take a look at my Facebook post for a guide on amounts to cook.

Homemade Yogurt

Who’d have thought it was possible to get excited about a pot of yogurt? Well you do when you’ve had your first go at homemade & it worked!

In July I starting making it using the yogurt function on my Instant Pot electric pressure cooker and couldn’t believe how easy it was.

I was particularly pleased when my second batch, using some from the first as the ‘starter’, worked perfectly too.

The plan now is to experiment with different incubation periods to see what effect that has on the texture and taste of the finished yogurt. I’ll write a blog post with instructions and tips when I’m done.

Using up preserves

Sorry if it sounds like I’m wishing the Summer away, but it won’t be long now before it’s preserve making season.

So I guess it’s fitting that I just used the last of my 2018 homemade Gooseberry Jam in these quickly made weekend treats.

At home, we rarely eat pudding during the week. But on Fridays I like to bake something sweet that will last a few days.

My Jammy Shortbread Squares with Oat Crumble Topping are really easy. They’re a layer of buttery shortbread spread with jam, topped with an oaty crumble. For this batch, I added a few chopped pecans to the crumble and flavoured the shortbread base and the crumble with ground ginger.

We ate them cold, but they’re good heated up and eaten with custard, cream or ice-cream too.

Four Friends Tibetan Restaurant, Congleton

In July I had my first taste of Tibetan food and loved it.

I’d spotted Four Friends restaurant when I’d gone to the Congleton Food & Drink Festival and couldn’t wait to try it.

When we went back to eat there, we enjoyed our beef momo dumplings, chicken curry, noodles and Tibetan bread so much we even ordered seconds!

Four Friends is great value for money and you can take your own beer or wine too. Read my review of Four Friends here

Sexing up an old favourite

Aubergine & Chickpea Curry is one of those dishes I’ve been making for years. We usually have most of the ingredients to hand so, as long as we remember to pick up an aubergine or two, it’s a good weeknight option.

But last month it dawned on me that I could sex up my old favourite. Holding back some of the chickpeas and roasting them for a crispy garnish really took the deliciousness up a notch.

The crispy chickpeas are so moreish, it’s worth making a whole batch to scatter over salads too. Get the recipe for the curry and the crispy chickpeas here.

tapas at home

Perhaps due to all that eating out on holiday, I notice that this monthly round-up contains much more eating at home than in cafes, pubs or restaurants.

We’ve also had some record breaking heat recently, which often means we don’t want a big plate of food.

So, one weekend, I made some tapas which we could pick at as we fancied.

I made a classic tortilla potato omelette, fried some shell-on prawns in olive oil, butter, garlic, parsley and sliced up some Portuguese cured meats.

A really simple thing we love is pan con tomate which goes really well with tapas. Each person makes their own at the table, rubbing bread (in this case homemade and toasted) with a clove of garlic and a chunk of tomato. Then you drizzle it with olive oil plus a sprinkle of  salt if you like.

Pan con tomate or, in its Catalan guise of pa amb tomaquet, is also special to me as it was the first food I ate in Spain almost twenty-five years ago. It’s a constant source of regret to me that I never photographed what I ate back then. I’d have some stonking images from my travels which took me all over Spain, plus a good chunk of Italy too…

Nduja

Talking of Italy, last month I opened up the jar of nduja  that was tucked away in a kitchen cupboard.

Nduja is a firey paste from Calabria, down in the toe of Italy. Made with hot peppers, pork and pork fat, you only need a small amount as it’s incredibly hot.

I decided to use some on a pizza, along with my homemade roasted tomato sauce, home grown spring onions, basil, mozzarella, sheep’s milk cheese and Parmesan.

Little dabs of nduja here and there really livened up the cheesy, tomatoey pizza.

The Jervis Arms

But it wasn’t all home cooking in July.

After a quick and enjoyable meal, ages ago, at The Jervis Arms in Onecote I’d kept meaning to go back for a more leisurely dinner. I finally got around to it last month.

By all accounts, the new owners who took over in 2017 have transformed the place. As well as the refurbishment inside and out, they’ve created a welcoming pub with an interesting and varied choice of hearty, well cooked food. The prices are very reasonable too. Read my review of The Jervis Arms here.

Food Writing Tips

In July, I was invited onto BBC Radio Derby to talk about my food writing and give a few tips.

It really got me thinking so, after the show, I decided to put together a little piece for my blog. Maybe it will help someone else who’s thinking of starting a food blog. Read my Food Writing Tips here

I hope you enjoyed my July highlights. Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to hear about my foodie August.

All images © Moorlands Eater & not to be reproduced without permission