food, reviews and of course coffee
I was at a conference at The Brewery in London many years ago now, and it was a great conference. However the coffee was awful, I don’t think I have ever had decent coffee at a conference.
What was great about this conference though was outside the venue was a coffee cart based in the back of a Piaggio van. It had a full espresso machine in there.
It was great coffee and nice to get out from the venue during the breaks as well.
I have a simple recipe for a gluten free loaf cake, but despite usually having no problems, I did recently have a bit of a disaster.
The recipe is quite simple and is based on the weight of two eggs
Ingredients
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon into a loaf tin and bake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
The main issue I had was I thought it was cooked. I used a metal skewer to see if it was cooked and after inserting into the cake it came out clean. I think that was because it was only about 25 minutes into the cooking time.
However, alas the entire middle of the cake was uncooked, so though it looked okay after coming out of the oven, as it cooled it completely collapsed in on itself.
There was no way to salvage the cake, so I started over and this time cooked it for the right amount of time, so this time it worked.
Went shopping at the weekend in Weston-super-Mare, which to be honest, is now quite a depressing experience with all the shops that have closed down, and many of these closed down even before the covid-19 lockdown.
We went into the Sovereign Centre to go to Waterstones, this is a shopping centre that has a food hall with no food places from which you can buy food! They converted the Druckers Café into this food hall, no one took up the other kiosks or stands, Druckers closed and so we were left with a food hall where you can’t buy food! Well not entirely accurate, there is a Parsons’ pasty shop in the centre, but you’re not allowed to eat in the food hall as it has been roped off!
So as we walked outside the Sovereign Centre it was a nice surprise to bump into the Weston-super-Mare food fair.
We looked around the stalls, in the end we bought some gluten free scotch eggs, which were very nice. As with the recent Portishead food fair I was slightly disappointed with the stalls, but even so it was nice to see such a busy market in Weston.
Wanting to have something nice to go with some fish I was cooking I decided to cook some risotto.
One of the key ingredients for this is the rice. I like Gallo as the rice cooks well and the resulting dish is creamy and soft, but with defined grains of rice.
For this recipe I used:
Dice the onion and peppers.
Cut the chestnut mushrooms and the woodland mushrooms into chunks. I used the mushrooms from Morrisons, but you can get similar mushrooms from Sainsburys and Asda.
Rehydrate the porcini mushrooms by placing in container and covering in boiling water, and set aside to hydrate. I used some from Lidl.
In a large hot frying pan add the olive oil and the butter. When the butter has melted and is sizzling, add the garlic, diced onion and peppers.
When these are softened add the chestnut and woodland mushrooms.
The add the Gallo Traditional Risotto Rice and stir into the mushroom, onion and pepper mixture, until the rice is coated and well stirred in the pan.
Add the Knorr Chicken Stock Pot and water to cover the rice. Stir well.
As the water and stock is absorbed, add more water and continue to stir.
Cook the rice for 16-18 minutes until the rice is soft tender and creamy, but the grains are still firm.
Stir in the chopped rehydrated porcini mushrooms as well as the parmesan cheese and finely chopped parsley.
Season if required.
Serve.
One of my regular breakfast dishes is gluten free breakfast waffles. I use a quick and simple method to make these puffy waffles.
I bought a special waffle frying pan from Aldi a few months back and it works really well for cooking these breakfast waffles.
These ingredients should make three batches, so twenty one waffles in one cooking session.
I take a cup of self-raising gluten free flour, a cup of milk, one egg, a large spoon of sugar and some vanilla essence.
Whisk the ingredients together until you have a smooth batter. You may want to add extra milk if the batter is too thick.
Heat the pan on a moderate to low heat, you need these to cook through and not be overdone on the outside and sticky in the middle, You’re aiming for a puffy waffle with crisp outside.
I brushed the pan with some sunflower oil and pour Not too much) of the batter into the pan. I always put less in than it looks to fill the waffle area, as the batter will expand as it cooks.
You have to take care to ensure that the pancakes cook all the way through, but isn’t overdone on the surface. I find turning them can be quite messy, so I use two spoons to turn them. One to scoop underneath and the the other to keep it from slipping and messing up the pan.
I served these with sugar or golden syrup. I think I might need to get some maple syrup if I am going to make these again.
I’ve been meaning to try and make these for a while now, but kept making other things instead.
Heat the oven to 180ºC or 160ºC for a fan oven.
In your muffin tin or tray add six muffin cases.
Sieve the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a medium bowl.
In a jug add the egg, sugar, oil and milk, then mix well together
Gradually pour part of the mix into the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Then add some more, repeat until all the ingredients in the jug are combined with the flour, cocoa and baking powder.
Stir in the chocolate chunks.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Scatter a few dark chocolate chips on top of the muffins.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the muffin tray for 15 minutes and then remove from the tray.
Not 100% sure about the blue muffin cases, but you’re not going to eat them are you?
Working from home, literally every day now, means I rarely go our for lunch. When I was working and travelling away from the office I would go out for dinner and lunch. So there I was working in Bristol back in January, and with a colleague we went out for lunch. I wasn’t sure where we could go, but in the end we chose Bella Vista.
This is an independent Italian restaurant and I have been there for pizza, but usually to takeaway. So I would get a pizza and take I back to the office. This time however we decided to sit in and go for their lunch offer, which was a menu of various choices including pizza and pasta, with a free salad buffet. The staff are friendly and attentive.
I went with the Pizza Vegetarian which came with the following toppings of onions, mushroom, peppers, olives and artichoke.
It came really quickly and I really enjoyed eating this pizza. It was freshly cooked and tasted great. These are delicious homemade pizza, I’ve enjoyed them before when I had them as takeaway, and I enjoyed it this time too.
There was a wide choice of salads along with garlic bread.
Overall a great place for lunch.
So there I was going though some photographs from January when I saw some delicious looking dishes from Wahaca. I realised that I had this great meal and hadn’t written (well I had started but not finished) a blog post about it.
Well, so back in January I was in London for a morning meeting, so I had been up early and was feeling hungry so was looking somewhere for lunch. I know how much I had enjoyed the food at Wahaca I decided it was pretty much a no brainer to go there for lunch, especially as I had a special offer in my email inbox.
The nearest branch to me was the Covent Garden one. Each Wahaca branch has its own style and feel. The Covent Garde branch is downstairs in the basement, but does feel quite bright and open.
There was a lovely warm welcome from the staff and I sat at the table and viewed the menu.
I had a special offer which meant I could get a dish for a pound.
Pack your January with veg and treat yourself with our ultimate range of vegetarian street food dishes. From buttermilk cauliflower bites to our mushroom and grilled cheese tacos there’s plenty of delicious veggie dishes to add to your meal. Just show this email to your waiter to get your dish for £1
For me that was an easy choice and I went with the crispy cauliflower bites, crispy buttermilk-battered florets, with roast serrano allioli.
These were delicious crunchy florets with a soft melt in the mouth centre, accompanied with a tasty allioli. I really like these and enjoyed these.
I had another dish, the prawn cocktail tostada.
This was sustainably sourced prawns with red chilli mayo, crisp lettuce & avocado on crispy tostada. This was the Wahaca version of the prawn cocktail. It was not as good as I hoped, the prawns lacked flavour, as did the avocado, but it was still fresh and tasty.
My third dish was grilled mushroom & cheese tacos.
These were sweet ancho rubbed mushrooms with crispy grilled cheese. The mushrooms were delicious and I really enjoyed that strong flavour of funghi and spicy ancho. I do find that Wahaca often add crispy grilled cheese to dishes, which I don’t always see that it adds anything to that dish.
I was feeling hungry, so I went with another dish and went with the steak and cheese tacos.
This was chargrilled steak served with grilled cheese, chipotle salsa & avocado. Again more grilled cheese. This use to be an optional extra, but now was part of the dish. I’ve had this dish a fair few times, and this was not the best version I’ve had of this dish, but it was still quite tasty.
Overall I enjoyed my four dishes, the mushrooms and cauliflower were certainly the ones I enjoyed the most.
I never really know if I like a calzone or not. So back in February after a game of bowling we headed off to Bella Italia for a meal. This was pre-lockdown and they had their full menu available.
I looked over the menu and decided that I would try a calzone. I went with the Funghi Calzone.
This was described as a traditional Neapolitan folded pizza filled with chestnut mushrooms, leeks, mozzarella cheese in a mascarpone and porcini sauce.
As with most times I’ve had a calzone, what arrives at the table looks like a large Cornish pasty!
I did quite enjoy the pizza, you could taste the mushroom in the dish and I finished it all.
I do quite enjoy the way that Lidl does themed flavour weeks, and I often visit just to see what they have and get a few things.
This week is French week.
I enjoyed the Rosette Air-Dried Salami, so much so, that I went back a day later to get some more, but my local branch had sold out. It was tasty salami.
The Laiterie de la Montagne Tomme de Montagne was a delicious cheese. Soft and mild flavoured, I really liked it.
I also got some Pommes Noisettes from the freezer, these are tastier than the potato pots we get from Tesco. The last time Lidl did a French week, they did some Pommes Rissolées, however this time these were absent from the promotion.
I got a few other things as well and we have had some nice meals with the different things I bought.