Time for a coffee

April 11, 2013

Rhubarb Crumble

Over the last year or so I have been attempting cooking more deserts. One that has worked well for me has been rhubarb crumble.

The way I make this is I take some nice fresh rhubarb, cut it into half inch chunks, place in a saucepan, add a glass of white wine and some sugar and cook for about ten minutes.

The recipe I did look at talked about using port, well I didn’t have any port, but I did have some white wine in the fridge so I used that.

In terms of sugar, a lot depends on how sweet you like your crumble, I personally prefer a slightly more tart fruit filling over a sugary sweet one, so add sugar to taste.

Leave the fruit mixture to cool and make the crumble topping (or cheat and buy one).

Place the fruit mixture into a dish and top with the crumble mixture.

At this point, if I have made a few, I will place the spare ones in the freezer. If I want to eat it now place in a medium oven for 20 minutes or until the crumble starts to brown or the fruit bubbles through.

Serve with custard (or cream if you are that way inclined).

April 5, 2013

That is just wrong!

I am sorry but this is just so wrong, on so many levels…

It would appear (and I know they are not alone, nor are they the first) to put a savoury food within a glazed donut. Yes that’s bacon and eggs in a sweet donut complete with icing.

What is that all about then?

April 4, 2013

Prezzo Perfecto, well nearly

I’ve not been to Prezzo before, there isn’t one close by that I had seen, though I have since found one in Bristol, they occupy the old leadworks where the Firehouse Rotisserie was. However on a recent visit to York, we decided to have lunch there.

It did feel a little “posh” when we went in, and as a family I wasn’t sure we had made the right choice. The ambience, the decor and look of the place was very much a sophisticated place than a family run Italian restaurant. I shouldn’t have worried as the waiting staff immediately made us feel at ease, guided us to a table with a great view outside and provided colouring pencils and stuff to do for the children. Though my first impression was of a place not suitable for a family, they certainly provided a service that welcomed families.

Looking over the menu, the smallest in our family chose pizza, whilst the second youngest chose spaghetti bolognese.

My wife went with the Bianca Pizza for £9.95, I chose the Lobster and Crab Tortelli at £11.95. My eldest son was a little hesitant, at ten years old he often finds the children’s menu a little too young. I don’t think he’s forgiven us when we ordered a children’s meal for him recently and it came on a teddy bear plate! Having said that though, he still enjoy’s a kids lunchbox. In the end after lookng over the menu, he went with the Fusilli with Italian Sausage at £9.25. This is described as being made with red onion, garlic, fresh rocket and fresh chilli in a spicy tomato sauce.

The waiting staff were certainly taken aback when we placed our order and did say that the Fusilli pasta dish was quite spicy. However my son was happy with that and he does enjoy spicy food.

As we waited for our food and looked out the window we realised that this wasn’t an ideal location for a restaurant on the corner of a reasonably busy junction.

However what with fire engines and lots of buses passing by, the children loved it, and spent most of the waiting time looking out of the window. They didn’t have to wait long though, as the food arrived promptly and looked great.

I had ordered the Lobster and Crab Tortelli which came with baby spinach and red chilli in a creamy saffron sauce. I have decided that this year to make a noticeable effort to try out new things when eating out. This was certainly something very different, as I can’t recall ever ordering a filled pasta like this before.

This wasn’t an excessively large portion, but certainly wasn’t tiny either. For me it was about right. The pasta was cooked to perfection, not too soft with still some bite. I did feel that the filling lacked a little in flavour, however the sauce, which I felt might have been overpowering, was not in the least and complemented the pasta well. I did enjoy the addition of the baby spinach and thought the dish was delicious and very nice to eat. It was a great sized portion for lunch, but if you had a bigger appetite you might have wanted to add a salad, or had a starter.

My wife had gone for the Bianca Pizza which had on it goat’s cheese, grilled courgettes, baby sunblushed tomatoes, mozzarella, tomato. She had taken the light option (which increased the price) that takes half the dough of the Classic pizza and the pizza is then served with a mixed salad with a low calorie Italian dressing. It looked really nice and she said it was just right.

So what of the spicy Fusilli with Italian Sausage that my son had gone for? Well it was certainly hot and spicy, but it was scrummy and he finished the entire dish. I was expecting to see slices of sausage in the dish, but it was cooked with “lumps” of sausage, almost like a bolognese consistency. It looked great and I was allowed a quick taste. It certainly was spicy, but not too spicy to be unpleasant as can sometimes happen.

The children’s meals looked great, the pizza was enjoyed as was the spaghetti bolognese. The spaghetti bolognese was a proper bolognese and again I had a quick taste and it was really really nice. It was probably something I would order if I went to Prezzo again.

So why the “well nearly” in the blog post title?  

Well alas the service let us down. It started off so well to begin with. They were welcoming and friendly and our food did arrive quite promptly. However after that it all went a little downhill. I am not sure why, but I think the main reason was that there wasn’t enough staff on. It was a Tuesday lunchtime and I think they anticipated that as it wasn’t a school holiday (schools in York broke up a week later than many parts of the country) they wouldn’t have too many customers. However though when we arrived there was only a few tables occupied, by the time we had finished eating our main courses the place was full and they were turning people away. As a result the two waiting staff appeared to be rushed off their feet. For us that meant it took a while to sort out the desert (just ice cream) and get the bill. The staff though did keep smiling.

So apart from the service issues towards the end of the meal, the food was delicious, it looked great and appeared to be made fresh to order. Really nicely done and now I have found where the Bristol branch is, we might go again.

April 3, 2013

Simple Cupcakes

This is my recipe for quick and easy cup cakes.

Take one egg, now I use a traditional scale so the next bit is easy for me, weigh out identical amounts of soft butter, caster sugar and self-raising flour. I place the egg where I would usually put the weights and then weigh out the butter, sugar and flour. If you have a more modern scale, then weigh the egg, note the weight and then weigh the other ingredients.

This makes about ten small cupcakes, so to make more add more eggs and add more flour, sugar and butter accordingly.

Cream the butter and sugar together until you get a smooth mixture. Add the egg, a tablespoon of milk, a few drops of vanilla extract and one tablespoon of flour. Mix together. Then fold in the flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder until the flour is mixed into the mixture.

Spoon into cupcake cases and bake in the oven for about ten to fifteen minutes.

Allow to cool and then ice to taste.

Very easy to make variations on this, to make chocolate ones add a tablespoon of cocoa, you could also fold in some chocolate chips.

I’ve also made marbled versions by making one batch of plain mixture and one chocolate and then add combinations of the mixture to the cupcake cases.

March 29, 2013

My kind of Aero

Anyone fancy a coffee Aero?

coffee Aero

When I was a kid there were lots of coffee flavoured chocolate bars and treats. You may remember the coffee flavoured Walnut Whip?

coffee flavoured Walnut Whip

Of course in any box of chocolate there were always the coffee creams… which always seemed to be the ones that were left at the end, alongside the turkish delight.

So do you miss those chocolate coffee treats? Or are you glad that have been consigned to the dustbin of history?

March 23, 2013

Grilled Sardines

I have been tempted many times to visit the Tall Ship in the docks in Gloucester, but have never really found the time. On a recent visit for lunch though I realised what I had been missing. This is a very traditional pub in the Gloucester Docks that specialises in fish and seafood.

I had initially anticipated that the “speciality” may mean a reliance on their “special” deep fat fryer. However perusing the menu and the specials showed that this was most certainly not the case. There was a wide choice of dishes, as you might expect a fair bit of fish and seafood, however there was a fair few meat dishes and a nice selection of vegetarian food.

I have found with some pubs an over reliance on the deep fat fryer and the microwave. Processed chilled dishes then reheated either in the fryer or the microwave. Looking over the menu in the Tall Ship, it did appear that wasn’t the case. There was no lamb shank for example. If you ever see a lamb shank on the menu, then be warned I would suspect a lot on that menu would be chilled meals just waiting to be bunged into the microwave.

I decided after a good long look at the menu on the grilled sardines at £8.95. They came with crusty bread and a crispy salad. I really wanted a relatively light lunch. I also wanted to try something that was slightly different to what I would normally have and I also wanted freshly cooked fish, with no chance of reheating.

The food was delivered promptly, but certainly not rushed. It certainly looked great, four whole sardines alongside a small bowl of salad.

The sardines were delicious, moist and full of flavour. Sardines can be a little tricky to eat due the bones. They had been seasoned and garnished with some olive oil.

The crusty bread arrived in a basket, there was a nice selection, it looked homemade, but I wasn’t sure how fresh it was, some pieces were a little dry.

The salad was basic, some iceberg lettuce with tomato, cucumber and a slice of orange! Now that could have been so much better.

However the centrepiece of the meal were the sardines and they were delicious.

March 21, 2013

Rum Aero

Looking over old sweet wrappers (online and for a charity quiz as it happens) I realised how much I missed out in the 1970s and 1980s on various flavours of Aero.

Rum Aero anyone?

I don’t really like Aero now, I am not a fan of Nestlé chocolate which has too much of a nutty oily taste. But coffee and rum aeros, I could be tempted.

March 17, 2013

Winter Fuel

The Dining Room at the Gloucester Campus at Gloucestershire College is in many ways one of the best places I have ever eaten at in an educational institution. They use fresh ingredients and cook the food everyday. There is no pre-processed food here, well not too much. There are usually at least three options on the menu. A recent meal was homemade Lancashire Hotpot served with mashed swede and carrot and cabbage.

Perfect food for a cold winter’s day. The lamb was very tender and full of flavour, the potatoes on the top were cooked through with crispy edges. Overall a delicious meal and excellent value at £3.10.

It’s not the best educational place I have eaten at though (and remember I haven’t eaten everywhere). I use to work at City of Bristol College in the 1990s (or as it was back then Brunel College) and they, like a lot of colleges had a training restaurant. I never use to eat there for lunch, as they did full silver service, you had to have three courses and as a result needed a couple of hours for lunch, and even back then no one had that sort of time for lunch. Then one year a decision was made to move the restaurant from a silver service restaurant to a bistro approach. As a result you could have just a main course and service speeds were much faster, so you could order, eat and pay the bill in about 30 minutes, perfect for a lunchtime in a busy college day. It was also so much nicer than eating a sandwich at your desk. The food was excellent, I remember it been cooked to perfection and seasoned correctly and delicious. There was something rather nice about having a restaurant quality meal for lunch during a busy day, had a really positive impact on morale.

Alas it was a short term venture and before we really grasped what a good idea it was, the concept was reversed. The result, we stopped going there for lunch.

March 13, 2013

I wish I had ordered that…

Sometimes when going out to eat I think about what I would like to eat, of course you then make a choice, but when the food eventually arrives, you think, I wish I had ordered that.

Of course it doesn’t always work that way, usually I am happy with what I have ordered, and sometimes I am really glad I ordered what I did, but now and again you wish you could have chosen differently.

I had a recent experience of that at Frankie and Benny’s where I had ordered the Philly Steak Bake.

My son had gone with the Spaghetti Oceana (£9.25). Spaghetti tossed in our Neapolitan tomato sauce with large prawns, clams and garlic. Served with a fresh rocket, tomato and red onion salad sprinkled with Grana Padano and half a char-grilled lemon on the side for added flavour.

This looked fantastic and according to my son tasted great.

My wife went with the Californian Pizza (£9.75). Creamy goat’s cheese, slices of fresh tomato, mixed peppers, sautéed mushrooms and red onion, with melted mozzarella on our tomato and nut pesto base.

It looked really nice and she said it was delicious and she finished it off, and there was me hoping that I might get a slice at the end.

This was one of those meals where I wished I had what someone else ordered.