Larder larks no. 4

It's been a funny old month. GastroClub on hold (and much missed). A sick computer. A work project that saw me doing 12-hour days for 3 weeks. The weather... I've not done much cooking - the volume of work meant that for the last 10 days at least I've been living on snatched sandwiches and delivered takeaways.

But then a few days ago, this lovely parcel arrived.

It was, of course, a #foodiepenpals parcel and it came from Becky, who had thoughtfully sent me a lovely batch of storecupboard goodies. And I loved the purple packing paper too!

Some of it was scoffed fairly quickly. The olive tapenade survived barely a day - as a topping for rice cakes, it made a tasty snack while I was buried in work. The dried fruit breakfast topper was a welcome addition to my breakfast granola, until it ran out...

Alas, the pickled garlic (something I really love - how did Becky know?) leaked in transit. Becky's handwritten card was a soggy mess on opening the parcel. But, hey, the garlic is pickled, right? I figured it would be fine and as it happened I had a bottle of it in the fridge that was almost empty but was still full of pickling juice. So Becky's garlic went into the fridge with my garlic. Sorted.

The turmeric has gone into my spice cupboard, of course. And the Welsh whisky grain mustard is in the larder (I had a little taste and it's mighty fine).

Most intriguing was the rosemary jelly.

I've never come across this before but I thought it would be good with lamb. A quick chat with Becky on Twitter confirmed this. I've not eat any lamb since its arrival, but I have a good excuse to drop into my butcher this week so I can try it out.

Meanwhile, with the big project finally signed off I'll be getting busy in my kitchen again...

Larder larks extra - with love from the NEC

My kitchen's been a bit quiet over the past week - I've had a few meals out, you see, and in between I've either had beans on toast for supper (such a classic standby!) or cheese, oatcakes and some fruit. And I've been busy with work and also preoccupied with a couple of foodie projects on the horizon.

However, on Wednesday I took the train to Birmingham to visit the Good Food Show at the NEC. I don't go every year but I do like to browse the stalls to buy interesting foods and look at the equipment - you just need to watch your ankles as everyone seems to be trailing trolley shoppers behind them (ok, me included - how else am I to lug everything home?).

I'm a bit of a store cupboard junkie so my mission is to shop for ingredients rather than fresh, prepared foods. I always make a beeline for the artisan traders and if the stalls aren't too busy I'll talk to them to find out more about their products.

I came across these amazing flavoured sea salts - just look at the colour of the lemon one! It has a good, firm taste too. The garlic one smells incredible when you take the lid off, a whiff that smells as fresh as ramsoms in season. I tried a black one too - and it was black - it was supposed to taste of charcoal but I couldn't taste it. The salt comes from salt pans in Cyprus (I'm not sure where exactly), although the company is Swedish. You can buy from their website.

I have the usual infused oils next to my hob - chilli, lemon, rosemary, garlic - but this bottle from Casa de l'Oli was something else. They don't infuse their oils - they press the additional ingredients with the oil to extract the full flavour. The range was impressive so I tasted quite a few while chatting with the owner (a Brit with an olive grove in Catalonia - they press at a local mill there). This one contains thyme, lavender, fennel and rosemary - a wonderfully intense blend. It can be used to cook with or as a drizzle or in dressings.

I also succumbed to this lovely bottle of Womersley's lime, black pepper and lavender dressing, which is versatile enough to use in cooking as well as spiking up a salad. I tasted a fair few of these too - I found most a little too sweet for my savoury palate, but this one had a pleasing sharpness to it. (Is it me or does the bottle remind you of something posh for bathtime?)

I wouldn't be stocking up properly if I didn't come home with some chutneys, so I snapped up a pot of Mr Pitchfork's Pickles Fig Relish, which he tells me is perfect with blue cheeses, and this awesome Hot Garlic Pickle from The Garlic Farm. It's fair to say you need to be a serious fan of garlic to go for this, but you won't be disappointed if you are - there's a major hit of it in that jar.

It's not entirely true that I didn't buy anything fresh. I had a look at the stalls selling some fabulous artisan meats and cheeses but passed up on them because they'd have been unrefrigerated too long by the time I got home. I did get these giant elephant garlic bulbs from The Garlic Farm though (honestly, their stall had so many tempting goodies) - they are crossed with leeks so are much milder (you can eat the stem, apparently). I'm going to roast one tonight, halved and drizzled with some oil, to go with some chicken thighs and french beans. The other I'm going to dry on a window sill for a bit - the stall holder says this intensifies the flavour.

I also bought some very posh scotch eggs from Handmade Scotch Eggs - alas they didn't last long enough to be photographed, as I ate them for a late supper when I got home! After filling up on tastings all day it was enough.

The shopping wouldn't have been complete without some booze - this bottle of sloe vodka certainly hit the spot during a tasting at SloeMotion. They had a nice range of sloe and damson chutneys too.

I was also in the market for kitchen kit. I got a Berghoff cleaver (in the garlic photo) from their stall. I've never owned one before - they make me nervous. The seller gave me a crash course so I don't take my fingers off with it, but I definitely need practice. I was looking for a new mandoline but in among all the stalls selling fancy plastic shredders and the latest potato peelers there were none to be had.

Gripes? Well, obviously, not enough variety among the equipment retailers. @PinkDiva1970 had trouble finding a piping bag despite the plethora of cake decoration stalls. There were around half a dozen retailers of rapeseed oil, ditto producers of the ubiquitous chilli jam. And I really wanted a pint of real ale mid afternoon - lots of drink sellers, but only a Pimms stall selling to actually drink on the spot. I settled for a bottle of Becks from the NEC's own bar, priced at an outrageous £3.80. C'mon Good Food Show, you can do better than that...

An adventure with icing

I like a nice slice of cake now and again - who doesn't? With a mug of tea it's the perfect afternoon snack. The world would be a nicer place if we all had more cake, as it's civilising.

I don't often bake for myself - if I fancy cake, I'll buy myself a slice from somewhere. I like to bake for friends, though - my grandmother's legendary baked Jewish cheesecake (recipe handwritten and handed down) has been taken to Teawitter for sharing. I recently discovered @GoodEggFoodie's delicious tea loaf - the recipe is simplicity itself and it's fruity, my favourite sort of cake. Friends dropping by will always be offered a slice if there's any in the tin.

A couple of weeks back, @MybakesUK tweeted a photo of some doughnuts that had been decorated with Union Jacks using their ready-to-roll fondant icing - they looked amazing and I said so. Before I knew it, they were offering me a pack of the red, white and blue to try out.

Now, I'm not great with icing. I learned to make buttercream as a kid (but don't think I've made any since I was about 12) and the only other time I attempted to ice a cake was one Christmas about 12 years ago when I was still living abroad - that was done with ready-to-roll royal icing and it was passable (my attempt, not the icing which was fine). One reason I don't go for icing much is that I don't have a massively sweet tooth - probably why I prefer a plain slice of fruit cake of some sort. So - a challenge loomed!

I opted to bake a cake that was a cross between a madeira sponge and a fruit loaf - I can't claim any ownership of the recipe for Fruity Teacake, which came from the BBC Good Food website (it was foolproof) but I left out the demerara topping so I could ice it instead.

Being honest, the result wasn't brilliant. That was mostly down to me as I'm not particularly artistic and, as I confessed earlier, am not very experienced at icing (there was no way I was going to attempt a Union Jack so I opted for a simple lattice effect). However, I did feel the instructions on the box could have been more detailed as they seemed to be aimed at people who mostly know what they are doing (I discovered after that there is a lengthy video on their website that fills in the knowledge gap). 

Things I learned the hard way:

• Don't roll the icing too thin
• Be frugal with the water when sticking it down
• If it gets too wet, the colour transfers to everything else 
• The main sheet needs a base to stick it to the cake (jam glaze or buttercream)
• It needs time to dry out a little before cutting the cake
• I need practice!

What is it like to eat? It has a pleasant subtle taste of vanilla and a nice texture on the palate although it was a little too sugary for my very unsweet tooth. I have some left over and I would definitely use it again if baking for an event like Teawitter. Not a bad product all in all - it's worth keeping it in the cupboard and it comes in a lovely retro-style box. PS the cake recipe was lovely too.

Larder larks no. 2

The more I think about it, the more I realise that food parcels are a jewel in any lone gourmet's crown. One of the downsides of living alone is not having others to cook for, unless you invite friends round to dine. And while as a solo foodie you can run riot buying unusual new ingredients to try, secure in the knowledge there are no housemates to object to your culinary or financial profligacy, if you don't like them they lurk in the back of the cupboard gathering dust and making you feel guilty each time you open the door.

Subscribing to a taster box scheme is a cheap way to try new foods, as they come in small quantities. My third Larder Box arrived earlier this month, containing coffee, a curry kit, a glut of chocolate, salt and a condiment.

Most of it has been consumed already - the dinky little bag of handmade chocolate caramels was delicious enough to make up for it being a late substitute for the promised passionfruit marshmallows, while the bar of chocolate was a surprise extra. I'm a heavy coffee drinker, but I didn't actually like the packet of high-end coffee included here - brewed in my filter machine it produced a thin and bitter drink that I abandoned after two mouthfuls. I poured the rest of the pot down the sink and made a fresh one with my regular blend. Luckily the pack was small enough for only one pot so I didn't feel bad about throwing it away - I suspect it would produce a better cup in an espresso machine, though.

The Goan curry kit was fabulous - two packs of spices plus fresh garlic and ginger and some nifty instructions. I'm not confident making curry - I tend to rely on using bought pastes - but I knocked up a tasty prawn curry with it and it was good enough that I could see me buying more of these kits either for myself or as a gift. The smoked sea salt is a welcome addition to my spice cupboard. The real revelation was the spicy banana ketchup. It sounds wrong and it doesn't look appetising - a thick, brown sludge of slurry in a bottle. But it tastes divine. It was perfect with some breaded chicken goujons and brought a new dimension to a breakfast bacon sarnie - less harsh than brown sauce, less sweet than a chutney, just a great balance of fruit and spice.

Then this arrived:

A few weeks ago I signed up to Foodie Penpals, a great idea for food lovers to send and receive a parcel every month, then blog about it. The box can contain homemade treats or bought goodies, up to the modest value of £10. The twist is that the box you receive comes from someone else than the person you send yours too. This beautifully wrapped box came from @Mellymeepmeep, who has a quirky blog about cakes and frocks.

Inside it was crammed with goodies - not only has Mel set the bar very high, I was worried she'd exceeded the £10 limit! As my benefactor lives in Yorkshire, she'd put together a box showcasing some of the great foods from her county.

The locally made pork pie was delicious - crisp pastry encasing a firm pork filling with not too much jelly (just as I like it) - and the artisan cheese is perfectly crumbly with a good balance of salty moistness and underlying sweetness. When it's gone I'll be keeping an eye out for more. Rough oatcakes to accompany the cheese came in a silver foil pack and there was also a tiny taster pot of strawberry jam, heretically matched with the cheese. The Divine chocolate also vanished quickly, but I brewed the Italian hand-blended coffee for breakfast today and it was satisfying in a way that the Larder Box pack was never going to be. So far, so very happy.

What put an extra smile on my face was the very thoughtful inclusion of a vintage cookbook full of recipes for one person as I regularly pick up old recipe books from charity shops. I've only dipped into Goode for One, an early 1980s BBC title, so far and not cooked anything from it yet, but I've already spotted a couple of ideas that are ripe for testing, updating and tweaking 30 years on. Thanks, Mel!

I wonder what June will bring?

Larder larks no. 1

A combination of a foot fracture, a trip away for a dear departed friend's wake and a mountain of work - all in the past fortnight - have meant I've been surviving on a combination of dining out, ordering in takeaways and flinging together the quickest of quick meals in my tiny kitchen so as not to stand on my poor foot too long. Cooking's not very easy, anyway, when your dominant hand is more occupied with a walking stick...

However, I've not stopped thinking about food. Both the things I like to cook and eat and also the things I buy and store. The latter, particularly, have been on mind after I volunteered to take part in a food photography project.

I stumbled across @storecupboards some weeks ago on Twitter and was intrigued - this blog is a delicious combination of the owner's own culinary adventures and his nosiness. In short, he likes snooping in people's larders to see what they eat. I couldn't resist the challenge and promptly trotted off to photograph my own cupboards.

What's in my larder, then?

Lots, it would appear. Possibly too much. I must admit that listing almost everything I keep in my kitchen cupboards and fridge (but not the freezer) quite shocked me. It shocked others too - I had a lot of feedback on Twitter, mainly along the lines of "why do you have so much food? What are you going to do with it all?" In fairness, a lot of it is just ingredients - things you can cook with but not necessarily eat on their own. Plus, I'm a bit of an apocalypse hoarder - one of my parents grew up with wartime rationing and couldn't bear an empty pantry. That's clearly been passed on to me! Also, because I have a disability I have days when I'm simply too ill to cook, which is what the emergency soup tins are for. (And the fridge was over-crammed as I'd just done a shop.)

But it got me thinking and I resolved to use up much more of my larder contents. I've made a start on that already, finishing up two almost-empty jars of chutney and a packet or two of noodles.

I also decided I should write about some of the more exotic ingredients I've picked up on my travels. So here are a couple, in the first of an occasional series.

The pomegranate molasses came from a trip to Turkey a few years ago, when it was almost impossible to find outside London - I mainly use it to coat meat before roasting, but it also finds its way into dressings and dips occasionally. That's a half-litre bottle, by the way - a little goes a long way and I still have half a bottle left.

I found the citron confit on a shelf in a Parisian supermarket - oddly, because I'd never seen it during all the years I lived there. It's a thick paste made up of about 50% lemons and 25% ginger, the rest being oil, alcohol and salt, and it has a pleasingly sour and fiery taste. I use it to flavour chicken and fish or add to tagines. I love cooking with lemons - I get through several fresh ones a week, plus the north African preserved variety. When this jar (alas, almost empty now) is finished, I'm going to figure out how to make my own. Unless I can get back to Paris again soon, obviously.

The herb mix came from a shop in Bardolino, on the shore of Italy's Lake Garda. I forget all the ingredients as it came in a huge bag with a tag on it and had been made by a local producer. It contains parsley and chilli, and I think marjoram, and one other herb. I use it as intended - for stirring through pasta, with nothing else but olive oil to dress it.

Keen to discover more interesting things to eat, I signed up a couple of months ago to Larder Box, which for a modest fee posts a box of interesting British artisan foods to you every month. April's box (in the photo) contained a bottle of pontack, which I'd never heard of but is a deep, slightly spicy and quite sharp sort of vinegar made from elderberries. I've used it a fair bit already, mainly to marinate sticky ribs, and when it's gone I'll definitely be buying more. (The smoked cheese was consumed fairly quickly (!) with the chutney, the chipotle chillies are earning their keep and the parkin, incredibly, is almost untouched - stashed in a cake tin on top of the cupboards, for those days when only cake will do.) I'm now eagerly awaiting the next box, which promises to contain smoked sea salt and banana ketchup. See, I'm hooked already...