Curiosity - The Story Behind the Still.

I felt very privileged to be invited along to a tasting tour at the Warner Edwards distillery earlier today. This was a rare chance to see where the magic happens and get a real insight into how a successful spirit producer has skillfully built up their business.

We pulled into the drive at a gorgeous farmhouse overlooking the surrounding countryside and made our way into the barn that houses "Curiosity", Tom Warner and Sion Edwards' magnificent copper Holstein still. As Sion talked us through the founding stories of the craft gin company, "Curiosity" bubbled away in the background, distilling the spirit that bought Tom and Sion to where they are today. 

The creation of this IWSC award winning gin had humble beginnings at Tom and Sion's local pub where they decided the best way to create a top quality spirit was to taste every gin possible and then taste them again for good measure. Which would have been extremely productive, had they remembered to take notes! Eventually after months of research they settled on 11 botanicals which would harmoniously flavour their end product. We learnt that juniper and coriander seeds form the base of any gin's flavour and the other botanicals must compliment this base character and not overpower it. 

Warner Edwards have a lovely connection to their community and surroundings. The water they use to create the gin is drawn from an aquifer in the neighbouring field. The elderflowers so are picked from the farms hedgerows on the very special summer's day when they flower.  Every year the locals are invited to take part in the sloe harvest and each person who donates a bucket of sloes is rewarded with a bottle of sloe gin.

So there we are, "Curiosity" meaning an unusual object/ oddity or a quest for knowledge. Warner Edwards have certainly turned their curiosity into a successful business which they run with pride, dedication and outstanding expertise. 

Five-a-Day January

Never having really been one for calorie counting I decided to try something new for January and take on one of our "Eat Well Challenges" at work. Our new Eat Well show is fast approaching and I wanted to get in the mood. 

I went for the Five-a-Day challenge, the idea was to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, as an extra challenge I decided to be a vegetarian during the week and only indulge my meat cravings at weekends. My main reason for taking part was to discover new recipes and try to improve my approach to eating well. 

Healthy Shopping Trolley! 

One of things I discovered was that by using grains such as quinoa, freekeh and lentils you can create filling dishes that are inexpensive, satisfying and count towards your fruit and veg intake! I used a lot of Merchant Gourmet's products as its ready straight out the packet so it's no faff and great quality. 

Something else I have really discovered the value of is avocados, a real wonder ingredient if you're avoiding meat, it's satisfying and delicious. Mash it up and spread it on toast, pop it in a pitta, top your salad with thick slices. It really does compliment almost everything. 

So I wanted to share with you my selection of my top recipes this January: 

Spicy baked eggs: 

Here's my scribbled version of the recipe, a great store-cupboard wonder, use up any veg you may have in the fridge, try slicing up some courgettes or throwing in some mushrooms. 

I had this without the chorizo for a meat free mid-weeker!

Quinoa stuffed peppers:

Another great store-cupboard dinner, if you've got the quinoa and the peppers you can chuck anything in. 

I like it like this:

Ingredients (serves 2) 

2 red peppers halved and seeds removed 

1 packet of red and white quinoa 

Handful of chopped spring onions 

Handful of chopped black olives 

Small handful of chopped fresh herbs 

4 slices of halloumi, feta or goats cheese

Small handful of golden sultanas 

Preheat oven to 200 c

Lightly brush the peppers with olive oil and roast in the oven

Combine the quinoa, spring onions, olives, herbs and sultanas In a small bowl. 

After the peppers have been roasting for 20 mins, remove them and stuff with the quinoa. Top them with slices of cheese and continue to roast for 5 - 10 minutes. 

Serve with a crisp green salad. 

Cheeky bacon Brunch treat : 

(for that meaty weekend treat)

Ingredients (serves 1)

1 slice bacon, grilled

1 avocado, mashed with salt pepper and lemon juice

Thick slice of sourdough bread 

1 egg poached 

Dollop of chorizo jam

Pile the avocado onto the bread, no need for butter. Top with the bacon, poached egg and a dollop of chorizo jam, if you fancy!  

Egg and Puy lentil salad :

A super no-fuss salad with plenty of nutritional value and as you can see a great lunchbox filler! 

Ingredients:

1 x boiled egg

1 packet of beluga or puy lentils 

1 small stick of celery/red cabbage or any crunchy vegetable- sliced

2 tablespoons of olive oil 

1 tsp of whole grain mustard 

2 tsp of lemon juice 

1 tsp honey 

Sea salt and a grind of pepper 

Sourdough Happiness at Bread Ahead Bakery

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend Bread Ahead Bakery’s “Wild About Yeast" sourdough baking course, here’s how I got on.

 

The first thing I loved about it was the bustling market setting ( Borough Market!). We settled in around the big wooden table munching on brownies from the bakery and sipping tea while the rain came down outside the big floor to ceiling windows. Bakers ran in and out with boxes of Bread Ahead’s famous doughnuts and metre long loaves of “Cathedral Bread” named after Southwark Cathedral right next door.

 

 

What a lovely atmosphere in which to spend a Saturday afternoon, a world away from my normal idea of a cookery school in a country house, in someone’s fancy kitchen. This was a working bakery, a successful business, enough to inspire even the meekest of bakers and having just won Slow Food’s London’s Best Bakery award we knew we were in for learning some brilliant expertise.

 

 

Our first lesson was making our starter, who we brought to life in a little pot, named (Bilbo Baggins) and then put to one side to begin his life and gather the wild yeast that is carried on the air. Our instructor Aiden Chapman demonstrated his passion for baking immediately by delving us into the world of sourdough and his lifelong love for this fascinating way of baking. I loved the idea that your soughdough starter will carry on and on and give birth to many loaves in it’s lifetime, spreading it’s happiness over the years and even passed down from generation to generation, who knows, maybe my grandchildren will be cultivating Bilbo in their futuristic fridges in 30 years’ time.

We then moved on to a beautiful rye dough, which we made into two loaves, one was shaped in a banneton, a round basket used for shaping and proving dough. Once turned out this beautiful loaf’s surface begins to crack in an artistic pattern, I loved the individuality of each loaf. Each one was unique and beautiful. The 2^nd loaf we made from the rye was shaped and baked in a loaf tin and flavoured with caraway seeds, coriander seeds and thick, sticky molasses. It smelt heavenly whilst baking and came out beautifully.

 

Next up was our brilliant Beetroot no-knead psycadelic sourdough! Quite a mouthful indeed, but this is what I have decided to name it after a brilliantly fun mixing session of bright pink beetroot. Aiden also informed us that the terminology "bad trip" comes from when British sailors would go on long sea voyages, apparently the sourdough bread they made on these long voyages from starters kept in varying conditions had hallucinogenic properties, making this swirly bread dough even more apt.

The fun continued with another kind of pre-ferment called a Poolish, something that Bread Ahead had created for us to speed up the process. We used this to hone our shaping skills and made both a traditional French baguette and a pizza base. Both turned out fantastically. The pizza base was wonderfully crisp and flavourful, the mozzarella was from one of the market stalls and tasted milky and delicious, overall a grade A pizza and therefore one happy Cat.

 

 

A wonderful day was topped off by the levanne loaves, we used a pre proven dough to learn all about shaping and cutting, how to ensure our loaves would bloom outwards and grow into beautiful shapes in the oven.

 

 

I would thoroughly recommend the Bread Ahead Wild About Yeast course, I’ve yet to replicate it at home, but I can’t wait to do it and get into a rhythm of baking sourdough bread for my friends and family every week. The expertise and knowledge you gain from this course are hugely valuable and the day itself was a delight, extremely hands on and wonderfully rewarding. There is nothing like pulling your freshly baked loaves from the oven and revelling in their success - except perhaps travelling home on the tube with 6 warm loaves radiating beautiful aromas around the carriage.

 

Tastes of Tuscany

Rooftops in Siena

Having just returned from a gorgeous trip to Italy, I thought I would share with you some of the flavours, thoughts and photos from our week in Tuscany.

The first thing I noticed about Italian cooking was that it relies, even more so than french cuisine, on a simple combination of excellent ingredients. And that it almost always involves copious amounts of top quality olive oil. Although I love french cuisine I often find it to be fussy and heavy on complicated technique and tricky ingredients. I find Italian cooking to be refreshingly simple, easy to understand and replicate at home, often relying on just three great ingredients. Pasta, Mushrooms, cream.

Tomatoes, Bread, Oil.

Or in one case when we went out for the famous "Bistecca Fiorentina" Steak, steak and more steak! 

We seriously underestimated the size of this beast, a must eat apparently when you visit this region. Despite the warnings of our waiter we went ahead and ordered (one between two). It must have been about half a cow, but it was delicious, brilliantly blue and a perfect accompaniment to a glass of Chianti Classico and the view of the Tuscan hills. 

one of the most simple foods was the one we both enjoyed the most, a bruscetta with fresh tomatoes and beautiful viscous olive oil.  So simple but some fantastic, and a wonderful showcase of how italian cuisine really sings with simplicity and great produce. 

Aperitivo

One thing we loved was the Italian tradition of aperitivo, somewhat similar to the french tradition but more focussed on the food. While the french tend to nibble on saucisson, nuts and and cubes of comte. Italians lay on a full on buffet, often bursting with panini, mini sandwiches topped with cheese, meat and aromatic truffle paste. Meaning that whilst out walking in the early evening you are often greeted with the delightful aroma of truffle on the air. 

I love to visit a supermarket everytime I go to a different country, just wandering around the aisles marvelling at the differences is always and interesting experience. (To be honest I even enjoy going to Waitrose!) We managed to pick up some Tallegio in Florence from a small supermarket and my love of this fabulous cheese has now been elevated to one of my faves. This soft, stinky bloomy rinded cheese has found a firm place in my cheese filled heart. 

Recent Experiments with Di Simone Pastes by Soralina

I've been getting obsessed with Italy for a while now and at the BBC Good Food Show Summer this obsession was fed by a lovely company called Soralina. Not only do they stock incredible citrus flavoured olive oil and pasta from the Abruzzo region in Italy but also the most incredible pastes that are such versatile ingredients! They kindly gave me some of their amazing products to try and I've been experimenting ever since.

Mini Bruschetta with Black Olive Paste and Anchovy

I made these for my friends hen do, they were so easy and went done a treat, perfect to nibble with drinks.

Ingredients

• Baguette cut into 1 cm think rounds
• Black Olive Paste ( I used Soralina's)
• Cherry Tomatoes - halved 
• Anchovies
• basil 
• Parma Ham 
• Ricotta 
• Good Quality Olive oil ( Soralina) 

Method

• Drizzle with olive oil and Toast the slices of bread on both sides under the grill ( Careful they don't catch. )
• Spread each mini toast with black olive paste then add a cherry tomato half and a piece of torn basil 
• I like two versions one for fish lovers and one for meat lovers. for fish lovers top each Bruschetta with some anchovy fillet and a drizzle of olive oil. 
• For meat lovers roll up a tea spoon of ricotta in a piece of parma ham or any cured ham you may have and secure on top of your bruschetta with a cocktail stick. Drizzle with oil and you're ready to roll.

Spinach, Artichoke and Asparagus Pasta Bake 

An indulgent bake, perfect weekend fuel and great with a crisp green salad and freshly baked bread.

Ingredients:

• Large pasta shells or conchiglie
• Half a jar of asparagus paste ( Soralina!) 
• 1 large bag of spinach 
• 1 jar of artichoke hearts 
• 150g Pancetta cubes (or lardons)
• 2 heaped teaspoons lemon zest
• 100g grated Parmesan
• 1 ball of mozzarella 
• half a glass of white wine 
• 2 cloves of garlic crushed and chopped 

Method

• Preheat your oven to 220 degrees (200 fan). 
• Cook your pasta until it's al dente in salted water. 
• Fry your pancetta and garlic in a big pan for 5 minutes until cooked or crisped ( depeneding on how you like it!) 
• Pour in the wine and stir for 5 minutes to burn off the alcohol. 
• Tip in your spinach and wilt down then add your chopped artichokes squirt in some lemon juice and add your zest. Season with a good ol' twist of black pepper. 
• Drain your pasta and add to the pan. Stir in your Parmesan at this point with the half jar of asparagus paste. 
• Season to taste and tip into a large baking dish with a good surface area. Tear up your mozzarella ball and distribute evenly on top of the bake. 
• Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and serve when the cheese is golden and bubbling, with a crisp green salad and freshly baked bread, if you like.  

Bistrot du Potager: Review

After my recent visit to France to see the Frenchie, I fell in love with the cuisine in the exquisite city of Lyon once more and here's a little sneaky peek into my favourite restaurant Le Bistrot du Potager.

Bistro du Potager: Review

Bistrot Du Potager Tapas Menu

 This wonderful refined French tapas restaurant may not embody the beating bloody heart of Lyonnaise cuisine but it's a wonderful place full of exciting flavours and influences from all over, and great if you're wanting to venture away from the the Andouilette option in the Bouchons.

Grilled escalope of Fois Gras

Mini raviolis in a Saint Marcellin Sauce

The menu is a selection of seasonal tapas dishes presented on a big ol' blackboard that's brought to your table. You choose about six to eight (or nine or ten!) between two people and the choice is excruciatingly difficult because they  all sounds so damn good. Out first dish of grilled fois gras, sweet vinegar sauce and broad beans. It was delicious but over far too soon. Our dish of mini ravioli in a Saint Marcellin sauce took us further towards the Lyon roots (Saint Marcellin being the preferred regional cheese of the city) and filled us up a little more, scooped up with hunks of crusty bread from the local boulangere, it was divine sharing food.

Below are a few of the other delicious small plates we dined on during the meal. One disappointment was that they had run out of tempura courgette flowers which sounded incredible- maybe next time!

Grilled Sardines with olive oil, red peppers and spring onions

 Grilled seasonal green and white asparagus, lardo and aged sheep cheese

Buffalo Mozzarella with provencale dressing and cured beef

A must visit if you're ever in town, especially in the summer, their menu changes but during the summer months it just sings with influences from Italy and the med.

DIY Cheese Celebration Cake

My friend Steph and I share a love of all things cheesy and so this year for her birthday I decided to give her an extra special birthday surprise.

I have spent hours of surfing cheese wedding cake pictures online, and asking myself the question- is it bizarre to buy a cheese wedding cake just to eat myself?  Whilst pondering this question an idea suddenly hit me. What if I could make my own mini cheese celebration cake and use it as an exciting present for my cheese loving friend? (whilst also getting stuck in to its’ delicious creamy goodness at our joint birthday party- mwahahaha)

Here is my guide to making your own DIY cheese celebration cake.

Equipment:

Selection of assorted cheese wheels
Cocktail Sticks
Paper or card
Pretty fabric
Cake Board, chopping board or slate cheese board
Candles

1. Buy assortment of cheeses, they must be full wheels not wedges or slices. You can get them from a cheese shop if you’re feeling flush or a local supermarket (I’d recommend the selection in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose or M & S)

2. Create little mini labels from your paper and cocktail sticks with the names of your cheeses.

3. Place your fabric on your serving board

4. Unwrap the cheese an hour before you’re ready to serve the cake and place the cheeses one on top of another on top of your prepared serving board.

Tip: It is better you use a sturdy cheese for the bottom, if it’s too creamy and free flowing you cake may collapse into a pile of gooey cheesiness! (I however used a camembert and it was fine so just give your cheese a squidge and see how firm it is)

5. Once you have stacked the cheeses then arrange your cocktail stick signs on each cheese. 

6. You’re now free to decorate your cheese celebration cake. I simply topped mine with bright birthday cake candles.

7. Some other ideas include edible flowers or fruits which can also be served alongside, you could even buy some fancy crackers and arrange them in a pattern as part of your cake.

8. Sing Happy Birthday. Blow out Candles. Gorge yourself.