22nd October - broc-cauli cheese with bacon

Abel and Cole delivered a mini-cauliflower and two mini-broccolis in my latest box and lo - broc-cauli cheese with bacon was born. In fact, the cheese sauce was made with blue cheese...it might've been Roquefort...and some mature cheddar for extra cheesiness.

Chopped and washed my veg. Fried the bacon while starting to make the white sauce (which is very easy, by the way), put the veg on to blanche and pulled out my ceramic dish. Now's the time to switch the oven on on a moderate heat too - say 180 degrees C.

When the veg was nearly cooked through, I drained it thoroughly. Meanwhile I switched off the heat under my bacon and chopped it up with scissors, and made my white sauce into cheese sauce.

Then it's really simple - tip your veg into your dish, sprinkle over the bacon, tip over the sauce and make sure all your veg is covered, put some grated cheese on top and stick in the oven until nicely browned.

Mmmmmm. This was perfect wintery comfort food...and despite feeding me and my housemate, there was still enough left for lunch AND dinner the following day.

Only drawback was that eating that much cheese in that short a space of time is perhaps not the smartest thing I've ever done...

21st October - The Vaults, Cambridge

Ms. Hammer and I headed to Cambridge on this evening to see Ben Goldacre, of Bad Science fame, talking on the subject of The Public Understanding of Risk . For free!

It was good. But even better was The Vaults - we decided to hang around for dinner, but not knowing Cambridge and having no map, we went for the "wander aimlessly into the dark and peer in windows" approach.

So how we ended up choosing somewhere with no windows, I have no idea.

The menu was outside the door and looked tempting - it was only on the way out that I saw the TopTable Gold award on the door.

There are some fairly steep stairs that open out into a bar area, with divided up dining areas - each area being in a Vaulted room. Geddit? For some reason it was re-named The Depot for a year or so, but it's not back to being called The Vaults.

There's a lovely ambience in this place, and despite there only being a couple of big groups and being sat cosily in a little cubbyhole of our own, the atmosphere was lovely.

Bit dark, mind.

The service was amazing and the food was DELICIOUS. We went for the tapas-style dishes (seemingly the main draw on a relatively simply menu) and a bottle of red.

The wine was lovely, as were our dishes - they recommend two to three per person, but even ravenous as we were, we struggled with five between the two of us.

We had - slow-roasted pork belly in some sort of fruity sweet-and-soury sauce (that's not what it said on the menu), Thai sticky rice with ginger and coriander, goats cheese tart, roasted mediterranean vegetables and, the piéce de resistance, wild pigeon and chorizo combined I-don't-know-how, but I want to eat that again and again and again.

Sadly we were overstuffed, but the dessert menu looked yum.

If you want to visit this little gem, you can find it at 14a Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 1TB

Mm pigeons and pigs. On one plate.

21st October - sausages, mash and onion gravy

This was one of those days where it was approaching winter and it was my last week at work (following Redundancy) and I needed to comfort eat. I normally wouldn't have this sort of lunch unless a) hungover, b) grumpy, c) cold, d) haven't eaten for two days (this last one never happens).

It's possible I was slightly hungover. It's also possible that normally Benugo - the provider of this meat and potato-based lunch item - only do pies, and it really has to be Friday for a pie, but I got overexcited at the sausage option.

They were fairly average sausages...bit dry...pretty salty. But their mash and gravy is always warming.

I must've been hungry again - only remembered to take the pic mid-way through my munching.

20th October - pasta bake with a twist

Another one courtesy of my mum - I found this one lurking in the fridge when rummaging for some lunch.

It was only when I started to heat it up in the microwave, and remembered that my mum's favourite condiment is Tabasco, that I smelt the chilli.

Given the tomato content of said-bake, along with the green bits of basil and possibly marrow (I think...failing of memory, rather than oversight resulting from greed), I couldn't find the chilli as I was eating it, but boy could I taste it.

Ah, and it looked so innocent.

Tasty, but ow.

16th October - bolognese sauce and garlic bread

This was my dinner on this day. I was reallllllly ridiculously hungry. I got some beef mince on the way home with the intention of making bolognese and having it on a baked potato. Perhaps using up some carrots from my box of goodies.

But then hunger was getting out of hand, so I got some bolognese sauce too, because I was doubtful I could hold out until I cooked bolognese from scratch.

Then, on the way home I noticed the sauce actually already had meat in it.

I got home, and had no stamina whatsoever to even wait until a potato was baked, so ended up having bolognese sauce with garlic bread from....I can't remember where from.

This was speedy, but the sauce was SO tart that it made me make this kind of face. I had to put some black pepper and half a teaspoon of sugar in, but it was still a bit Wrong.

Still. Wasn't hungry anymore.

11th October - fennel and potato gratin

My latest food adventure has been to sign up to get a small mixed organic box from Abel and Cole - less because they were organic, more because I can get surprise fruit and veg to my door every other Tuesday.

This serves several purposes - the box often contains things I wouldn't voluntarily buy. Unless I don't like the taste of anything on the list (a rarity) I won't remove it from that week's box. But I do have to think of something yum to make with it! Somewhat inspiring.

Aside from that (and how selective it is - hate aubergines? You'll never have to have a single one) I ordered some soups (Mushroom Soup with Tarragon and Juniper - yum, Caremelised Onion - don't bother) and some brie too. In fact, I can add bits and bobs to my delivery as and when I like, then just send the boxes back with them the next time.

I get a box every other week, but now that I've been made redundant and can eat all meals at home, I think I might try getting one every week for a bit.

So, this particular week I got fennel and potatoes as two of my ingredients.

Fennel is YUM. Potatoes are good comfort food. Throw in cream and nutmeg and milk and put parmesan on top and you'll decide not to eat cheese for days...but then you'll have leftovers!







Before it went in the oven...I was too greedy after it came out to remember to take a picture!

Baking beginnings

Something tells me that a little after midnight on a Monday night (though I keep thinking it's Sunday) is not the best time to finally start writing my blog. But I've had my eyes in my screen so much today that now is by far the best time...well, the best time today, at least.

I started baking when I was a young'un - my mum taught me how to bake what you might call a bog-standard cake, which she'd been taught when she did home ec. at school...I can't remember how I went from that, to being limited to baking no more than two things a week - if I kept on, we were going to have to eat dessert morning, noon and night to get through it all.

The book I remember using most (in the early days) is The Dairy Book of Home Management. Amazingly there's a copy going for 50p on ebay.

We never had The Dairy Book of Home Cookery, but the home baking section of our copy of the former is well thumbed - it's where I first rummaged for recipes to make scones, and rock cakes, and pancakes and such.

I also used to get wide eyed at all the food and kitchen gadgets on offer when we'd go to the Ideal Home Show - the most pertinent memory is that they'd always be giving out an endless stream of kiwi fruits with plastic, luminous green spoon-knife thingummies so as to best devour your kiwi fruit.

Somewhere around this time, or maybe a bit before, I'd use the hatch in our kitchen to present my own cooking show to the dining room (the invisible audience got bored of me making rotis, I'm sure) and when I was a tiny toddler my mum would sit me in my pushchair in the kitchen and I'd watch her cook.

Never mind the baking - I'm not surprised I start pondering what to have for dinner around the lunchtime mark.

SO - my point is this. Anyone can be inspired by food and baking and get used to 'nutrition' being as much about enjoying your food and all the rituals that go with cooking and baking - rather than it just being a means to an end, eating a meal can be more than just putting food in your gob.

When you've got the Sunday blues, baking's one of the most therapeutic mid-afternoon activities you could imagine!