Local Food - Norbury Blue

Norbury Blue is just one of the many delicious local foods available to us.

This is what the boys and I had for lunch today. Local Bread and Local Cheese, such a hardship.
Actually the only hardship was not having some local Denbies wine to go with it.

Norbury Blue - a delicate blue veined cheese made by Michaela at Norbury Park Farm in Mickleham, near Dorking. I met Michaela soon after she'd first started producing a few years ago. She was at a local farm shop promoting her new cheese. It has since gained a good reputation and rightly so, it's superb.


We also had some not quite so local cheese, though still from the UK. Y Fenni from Wales, it's a mature cheddar blended with whole grain mustard and ale. It's quite strong and I'm not sure the boys enjoyed it in its natural state (they've enjoyed it melted in sauce before).

Little Foodies Fight Over Food!

My boys just had their first physical fight. They are so good with each other and apart from the odd cross word we never have to worry about them getting along.

Small had done his usual and pinched what was left of the cucumber in the fridge.
He'd left it on a table so Little had picked it up and started to eat it.
First thing I know of this is...
Small: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrrghhhhhhh, my cucumber"
Little: "Well, you weren't eating it."
Small: "MY CUCUMBER"
Little: "Too late, I've eaten it. You left it on the table, I thought you didn't want it"
Boff, Crash, Small (2.5 years) pushes Little (5.5 years) who falls over.
Little: "You're ridiclious, absolutely ridicllllliiiiiiooouuusssss!"
(I don't want to correct him on how to say it properly).

Not quite a full on fight I suppose as Little didn't hit him back. All the same, over a cucumber? Over the Easter Eggs I could understand but not cucumber - my children are weird!

I think this weekend we should teach them how to have a proper fight with food. A real throwing of food sort of fight, get it out of their system. I'm thinking location: garden, I'm thinking gloopy custard and watered down jam, maybe some beans and cereal so it sticks to the wet stuff.... Oh I'm going to have so much fun....

7 Things about me & Little Foodies

Marie at Marie's muses has tagged me for 7 things about me (for my friends and family who are new to the blogging world, it's basically where you tell things about yourself, then ask others to do the same). Being new to blogging myself I have been a little overwhelmed at the fantastic recipes and writing from bloggers all over the world, and people are so nice too. Being rather English I was a little unsure of the whole etiquette thing so here goes (I feel like my son in the school playground - they play tag)...

Anyway for the 7 things about me. I'll try to keep it short.

1. I used to live in a cowshed, a rather beautiful cowshed, but a cowshed all the same.
2. I like to garden but as with most things I do, I have to be in the mood.
3. I like photography but my husband is better at it so I tend to leave it to him.
4. We have a wormery, which my children think of as additional pets (all 3000 of them).
5. I'm messy. I used to be messy, then I was tidy and now I'm messy again!
   
6. I used to have a proper suit and boot, board (bored) meetings type job.
7. I don't like celery. I try to re-introduce it to myself in the same way you re-introduce foods to a baby/child when they don't like something. It doesn't work! It's disgusting!

The people I'm tagging.
Freya & Paul at Writing at the Kitchen Table Possibly my favourite blog. Huge respect for anyone who can cook a pigs head and write about it with such good grace and humour.
Kelly-Jane at Cooking The Books Lovely lady in Scotland who cooks great things from cookery books and could make anyone gain weight with her delicious writing.
The little foodies at Boys Can Cook Too These are my beloved boys, my two most favourite people in the world (along with their quite nice Daddy).
Tash at Vintage Pretty This lady writes about, among other things the future of our food and farmers.
Maggie at TOC Aromatherapy This lady I have a lot of time for. Firstly because she had the good will to carry me in her tummy for 9 months and because she just so happens to make the most fantastic organic aromatherapy products. I persuaded her to set up a blog recently too which she isn't writing on currently as she's at a big North East Festival. She will though.
Roz at Stay@ home Mummy & d bizness This lady is just starting out with a cake business. I stumbled across her blog as you do. You should check out her website - AMAZING cakes!

Little Foodies Easy Take on Madhur's Easy Chickpea and Potato Curry

I totally understand the thinking that Indian cooking can be hard work but this really is easy and well worth it. I am a total tinker in the kitchen so it was hard having to write things down as I went. All I can say is I've made this with more of one thing and less of another, without fresh coriander, even without the onion, it still tasted great.

I have too many spices (nah, you can never have enough!). People also tend to give me spices. One of my husbands colleagues very kindly gave me a bag of spices last week (Thank you C), we don't even know what some of them are, should be fun giving them a try though. I should sort through my rather large collection and throw some away. Better still make some spice blends and give them as Happy Spring gifts.

If you'd like to have a little dry powder habit (that's legal) you can shop online at the following places.

Natco are suppliers of spices, condiments & almost everything you'd need to cook Indian food.
Click Natco to shop online.
Seasoned Pioneers sell a good range of seasonings and spices. All of their blends are made by hand, in house using traditional production techniques and genuine recipes .
Click Seasoned Pioneers to shop online.
Wing Yip stores are great fun to go and visit, again with almost everything you could possibly want to make Asian food. Bottles & Jars, Tins & Dry Goods, Fresh Foods, Frozen Foods, they even sell cooking equipment, crockery and cutlery. They don't have so much choice online but that's probably a good thing.
Click Wing Yip to shop online.

LittleFoodies Easy Take on Madhur's Easy Chickpea Curry
Gives 4-6 servings.
The inspiration is from Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible pg187 Easy Chickpea Curry. It's so tasty and comforting and just what I needed one evening last weekend. It does have quite a kick which you could tone down by putting less chilli and cayenne in. To adjust it for the palates of LittleFoodies I add lots of plain yogurt to theirs and serve with plenty of rice.

Ingredients:
650g peeled potatoes cut roughly into chunks (about 2cm)
3 small onions (about 250g before peeling) finely chopped
2 tins of chickpeas in water 410g (2 x 240g net drained weight) EDIT **
500ml of boiling water
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Handful of fresh coriander
4 large cloves garlic
4 smallish tomatoes (about 250g)
3 teaspoons ready chopped ginger in sunflower oil from a jar (I used Barts you can use fresh)
2 teaspoons of ready chopped chilli in vinegar from a jar (I used Watirose cooks ingredients, you could use fresh as Madhur suggests or dried I just had these to hand.)
4 bay leaves
one cinammon stick or a few pieces of cassia bark
5 cardamon pods (I put 10 in this time it was too many!!)
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
pinch of salt
First prepare the spices, this feels like the daunting bit to me. I start by measuring all of the ground spices in to one container - that way I know what I'm working with. So...

In a bowl measure the ground coriander. ground cumin, ground turmeric, cayenne pepper and salt. Put to one side.
Chop the tomatoes.
In a blender add the chopped tomatoes, garlic, ginger, chillies, fresh coriander, the ground spices and 10 tablesoons of water. Blitz well until the tomatoes & garlic are in tiny pieces.
Heat the oil in a pan, then add the bay leaves, cardamon pods & cassia or cinammon.
After about 20 seconds add the onions and potatoes. Fry for about 5 minutes.
Add the paste from the blender and keep at high temperature for a minute or two stirring every10 seconds or so to avoid it sticking on the bottom.
Cover and turn the heat down to low and cook for about 5 minutes. Stir every minute or so.
Add the chickpeas and 500ml water. Give it a good stir to mix it all up.
Bring to the boil and then reduce heat, cover and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes.
Make sure potatoes are cooked and it's ready to eat. Yummy!

A Taste of Yellow - Best Laid Plans....

and all that. There are those days when things don't go according to plan. Today was one of them... We'd agreed, only with ourselves, to make a certain menu for A Taste of Yellow, unable to get to the shops today we adapted the menu to suit what we had in the house. Thankfully we are well stocked for such days. On top of this, husband was going to be late home and Small fell asleep on the sofa. So Little and I cooked and then ate together in the sunshine. Not as planned, but beautiful all the same. The others just had theirs and enjoyed it just as much as we did.

A Taste of Yellow Menu from the Little Foodies Household

Toasty Stars and Roasty Sunshine Peppers
Serves 4-6 people
2 yellow peppers
4 cloves of garlic
a tablespoon of oil
4 slices of bread.

Turn oven to 200C.
Wash the yellow peppers. Cut one into quarters and chop the other into small pieces.
Rub oil over the 4 quarters of yellow pepper and the garlic
Arrange on a baking tray. Cook for approx 25 minutes at 200C, 400F, Gas Mark 6.
In the meantime, Toast some sliced bread - whatever you have. When it's toasted use a star shaped cutter and press out shapes from the toast.
When the pepper and garlic have cooked and cooled a little, squeeze the garlic out of the skin into a blender and add the roasted yellow pepper and the raw yellow pepper. Blitz to the consistency that you like. Then spoon a little onto each star toast. These got a very big thumbs up! I think the mixture of the raw pepper with the roasted pepper worked really well.





Yellow Pagetti Cream (Spaghetti with creamy saffron sauce & shredded roasted chicken)
Serves 4-6 people
500g pack of long spaghetti
Equivalent of 2 roasted chicken breasts, shredded (We used meat from chicken roasted yesterday)
2 cloves garlic crushed
Large pinch of saffron
50ml boiling hot water
1 pot of double cream
Tablespoon of oil
salt and pepper




Cook the spaghetti
In a small pot add the pinch of saffron and cover with boiling water
In a separate pan add the oil and fry the garlic and chicken for a couple of minutes
Add the cream and saffron with the water that it's in and cook on high for approx 5 minutes
Drain the spaghetti and add the creamy chicken sauce. Add salt and pepper if required. I thought it needed it. It was delicate and light - perfect for eating in the late afternoon sun.

Marzipan Muffins (makes 12 large muffins)
We adapted a plain muffin recipe from an old Aga recipe sheet that I had. (I must add we don't have an Aga, it would be lovely if we did, but we don't).

450g (16oz/1lb) plain flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
115g (4oz) caster sugar (we only had cinammon sugar which we made at Christmas)
300ml (1/2 pint) milk
2 large eggs (beaten)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
55g (2oz) melted butter
225g (8oz) marzipan (We used Mediterranean almond marzipan as it has a better flavour)


Turn the oven to 170C, 325F or Gas Mark 3.
Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar into a bowl and mix together.
Cut the marzipan into 12 equal pieces then roll each one into a ball.
Measure the milk, add the eggs, vanilla and melted butter, mix it all up with a fork.
Add the wet mix to the dry mix and stir it quite lightly. It will be gooey and lumpy. Avoid over mixing or it can give the muffin a tough texture when eating.
Spoon into muffin cases then pop a ball of marzipan on the top and push into the middle with your finger then gently push the muffin mix over to cover the hole where it's gone in.
Bake in the oven for 20-25mins. Leave to cool a little before trying!
These are not too sweet and the almond marzipan tastes lovely when you get to it. I think maybe next time I would chop the marzipan up and mix it in so that you have a chance of getting a piece with each mouthful.

Why all this yellow food? Barbara at Winos and Foodies (inspired name!) has thought of a great way for raising awareness for cancer and cancer survivors. It is being recognised as an official event in support of LiveStrong Day on 16th May. Check out Barbara's blog on the 16th May for a final round up from food bloggers around the world who took part.

Little Foodies don't believe in torturing dinosaurs!

I just read Joey's blog 80 Breakfasts with a great Moomin cake. Very cool and very cute!

It reminded me of one of the first birthday parties for children we ever hosted and how we may have unwittingly set our firstborn up for a lifetime of therapy. Unfortunately Little was into that big purple dinosaur Barney. Being a super lovely mummy willing to go to great lengths to please my children (without spoiling them of course) I went to our local cookshop and hired a Barney Cake Tin. My memory fails me as to which birthday party it was.

Anyway, with the cake tin ready to go I made a plain sponge cake mix of mammoth proportions. Buttered and floured the tin so it wouldn't stick. Made the first cake, which stuck to the tin and broke into small pieces. Not good! I made up some more, buttered and floured the inside of the stupid cake tin and thankfully second time round it worked. I let it cool. It was a baking hot August day and the icing was far too runny. I'd almost got the purple colour right (I know food colours aren't great but it's not every day and I had made other 'proper' cakes for everyone to eat). In the end I threw the lurid purple icing over the top of Barney and kept my fingers crossed that it looked okay. It really didn't so no matter how much finger crossing I did it was just a purple mess.

After we'd all eaten it was Happy Birthday time. I put in the candles and brought the cake out, everyone was singing. For a child that was known for always being happy, too much excitement sent him in the other direction. For the first 3 years the Happy Birthday song made him cry, as did too many presents. We'd have to open them over a few days or he was completely overwhelmed. And overwhelmed I think he was. Just as he began to admire his Barney Cake, he noticed the knife, which of course we needed to cut the silly cake as that's what you do with birthday cake right?

"You're going to kill Barney??" Sounding desperate. "You are NOT going to kill Barney!" and so ensued a whole lot more tears and most probably, a future involving therapy. For those that were there you'll remember it wasn't one of my finest creations and as for stupid Barney he wasn't loved quite as much after that, so maybe it was a good thing...

A Taste of Yellow - Little Foodies Menu

This could have been tricky but ended up being really great fun to discuss with the children. I said that we had to come up with a menu full of sunshine yellow food to celebrate life. I didn't see the point in going into the big C word with my children. At nearly 3 and nearly 6 years old I think I can spare them that. Life really is for living and while we can we should savour every moment.

We've done some tastebud testing and have come up with a full 3 course meal for A Taste of Yellow. Tomorrow we will cook....

Starter: Roasted Yellow Pepper Bruschetta
Main Course: Spaghetti with Saffron Cream Sauce and Scallops
Dessert: Marzipan Muffins

So a complete carb fest, but one we shall enjoy making and eating. We'll post pics and full recipe details tomorrow after we've cooked and tasted it.

A Taste of Yellow - Life is for Living!

This could be quite a sombre one so if you want the short version...

Please support - A Taste of Yellow being organised by Barbara at Winos and Foodies.

I e-mailed Susana last week. I've mentioned her before. You can check out her site by clicking on the link Running for Lisa in the side bar on the right. She's a big foodie. She runs marathons to raise money for cancer research. She's GREAT! I knew she'd want to do something for this and I was right she does.

All too many of us have a link with cancer in one way or another, often in more ways than one and for the sole reason that until a cure is found there isn't one - we should continue to raise awareness and raise money if we can.

Life is for living - hopefully with a little sunshine along the way.

Nice title Barbara - A Taste of Yellow. My sons favourite colour

For our recipe we'll probably make spaghetti with a saffron cream sauce and something else yellow with it. We'll post the recipe another day when we've made it and have a picture.

Little Foodies Baking Play Date

Little had a (girl) friend back to play today. I said they could bake. He made a Christmas Tree shaped one. I know it's not quite the season but we don't have that many shapes and his friend was using the heart shaped one that we seem to favour. For a start, the hearts the only silicone bakeware we have that actually does what it says it's supposed to.

Aswell as realising that old cake tins are just as good, if not better, I've come to the realisation for sure - I'm a pig disguised as a human! I should probably find this upsetting but I'm oddly comforted by it. I suspected it, but knew for sure when after Small's refusal of some, I finished off the last of the banana and honey tea loaf. I then had a huge dinner (potato and chickpea curry with A LOT of rice) only to come into the kitchen just now and start nibbling on the cake made earlier. This was a fair sized cake at 5pm this evening, the picture shows a quarter of what's left, though I'm not guilty of eating it all. It was supposed to be for tomorrow but Small came along and decided to take a big handful while it was being iced. This caused a major fit of tears. Thankfully Small had the good grace to apologise and they were soon friends again. I think it was Small's way of letting us know that he should have been included. 'Okay, we heard you loud and clear Mister!" I'll remember this for next time.

For the CAKE
We used the age old recipe that almost everyone I know, knows by heart. Though we threw in some cocoa powder for good measure (about a tablespoon).
4oz self raising flour, 4oz caster sugar, 4oz softened butter, 2 medium size eggs. I always have to turn the scales back to the imperial measurement to do this as I don't have a clue and can never be bothered to convert it to metric.
You know the rest. Cream the butter and sugar, Mix in eggs, then flour, scrape into tin, bake for about 20 minutes at 175C.

Lucky people who are just growing up with metric now and wont have to learn both!