Eating out: haggis nachos at the Leith Beer Co. Bar

A quick working lunch in Leith – at the Leith Beer Co. Bar down on the Shore – was very pleasant, and mostly consisted of haggis nachos.

Yup – haggis nachos. A genius concoction, and one I would recommend. Much like haggis pizza, it just works.

Pleasant surroundings; efficient, friendly service; and good food. Thumbs up for the Leith Beer Co. Bar.

New fridge joy

We’ve had our new fridge for a week now.

It. Is. Fabulous.

We have all the space for all the fruit and vege, and other first principle ingredients we use so often. And there’s a five bottle wine rack, and space for my Tennent’s lager underneath.

And, most importantly, lots and lots of space for Festive foods. Bring on Chrismtas, I say!

Eating out: The Adamson

Lunch at the Adamson, St Andrews, was excellent. We were celebrating in style, and the restaurant lived up to the hype.

I had the grilled calamari with aioli to art, and it was cooked to perfection if you ask me.

I then had the Adamson burger, with bacon and Gruyère, served with skinny fires and the house ketchup (which is fantastic). The burger was great, and cooked rare, which made it even better.

The service was, generally excellent and attentive – but slow, which was hugely frustrating (we had places to be!). The price was, in my opinion, mid-range, and worth every penny.

Artichoke and spinach pasta

This recipe is super quick and easy:

• take a 200g jar of grilled artichokes and chop roughly
• stir through cooked pasta (enough for 3 or 4 people)
• add a large bag of fresh spinach
• add some of the oil from the jar of artichokes
• heat gently, stirring all the while, until the spinach has wilted
• serve with fresh Parmesan

More prawny pasta: this time with tomatoes, green beans and lemon

This pasta dish was mostly what was left in the fridge, plus some tasty king prawns.

I chopped a couple of tomatoes and added then to the pan, then added the lemon juice nad zest (of one lemon), followed by the green beans (100g) – this only needed a few minutes to cook (perhaps five) until the beans are nearly done. Then I added the cooked prawns (200g) to warm through, before stirring it through cooked pasta.

The lemon and prawns worked really well together.

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Slimming World Syns: this recipe is Syn Free on Extra Easy.

A dinner party with friends and family: a trio of pate, gnocchi carbonara and meringues

We had a whole pile of lovely friends over for dinner last weekend, and had a very jolly evening. I really enjoyed the food – both the cooking and the eating. The menu was simple, but had lots of our favourite things.

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We started with two lovely nibbles:

• an olive, inside a peppadew pepper, wrapped in a basil leaf, held together with a cocktail stick (not dissimilar to recipes I’ve blogged before)
• a devilled piggyback date: a date, stuffed with gorgonzola, wrapped in bacon and grilled.*

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The starter was a trio of pate: chicken and chorizo, duck and orange and a coarse Ardennes, with a fig chutney and rye blend toast.

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The main was gnocchi carbonara, courtesy of Delia Smith. I love this recipe – it’s a cheat, but it has some great first-principle ingredients nad tasted absolutely delicious!

Having not cooked with it for many years, I love pancetta; some of it was smoked, and it was particularly tasty. Ditto gnocchi; so quick to cook and I do love it so.

I adapted Delia’s recipe to finish it off in the oven for 25 minutes, rather than grilling it – that way I could cook it while we were starting or meal.

The tomato salad was a mixture of chopped tomatoes, torn basil leaves with balsamic vinegar and seasoning.

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The dessert was one I’d done recently for Mum’s birthday: meringue nests topped with whipped cream, raspberries and passion fruit seeds. Simple and yummy.

Foodie requests for Mum’s birthday dinner: scallops, prawns and meringues

This year, Mum got absolutely everything she asked for for her birthday dinner: scallops, prawns nad merignues. Lucky girl.

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The recipe for scallops with hazelnut butter was taken from the BBC website. I love James Martin’s recipes. This one had a lot of fiddling around with ingredients, but it was worth it – the hazelnut butter was lovely. However, I reckoned I ended up with twice as much butter as I needed, so I’m saving it for serving with some prawns over the Festive period.

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The pasta recipe was simple and delicious: cooked pasta with cooked king prawns, finely chopped parsley, lemon zest and cream mixed through – then the whole thing heated through until warm. Delicious.

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The meringues were super simple: top meringue nest with; whipped cream, sweetened with vanilla sugar; raspberries; and passion fruit seeds.

Eating Out: Mitchell’s, St Andrews

Dinner at Mitchell’s, St. Andrews, was excellent: Cullen Skink; surf and turf; followed by hot chocolate.

Nice food, good service and pleasant surroundings (though it was a bit cold by the back door).

Thanksgiving foodie delights: apple turkeys and mulled cider

Apple turkeys

A fun craft for all the family!

Take an apple. Use cocktail sticks to stick raisins, dried cranberries, popcorn and grapes to the turkey, giving the apple tail feathers, feet/legs, and a head. Mine even had eyes.

Use as table decorations for dinner.

Mulled cider

To help s get in a suitably festive mood we had mulled cider before dinner. It was an experiment,  for sure! It was best when mixed with 1/3 mulled apple juice, which I made for the drivers.

Mulling spices for both were: a lemon and ginger tea bag; a couple of cinnamon sticks; four cloves; and the peel from an orange (I squeezed the orange in to the cider and added the whole thing). I also added several glugs of brandy to the cider, though rum would have been infinitely better.

Note to improve the recipe: add rum; more spices (and perhaps mulling spice bags); add apple or orange juice added to the cider to sweeten it up.

Thanksgiving: Maple roast turkey

Thanksgiving was slightly late – or early, depending on what way you look at it – due to number of scheduling conflicts. But the important thing was, we did it.

I brined the turkey last year, but decided against all the bother this year. Instead, I made a maple butter to stuff under the skin. I must admit, it didn’t work quite as the recipe suggested – it was a bit runny, and needed to be poured under the skin, rather than stuffed. But the turkey got plenty of the butter on top, and basted throughout the cooking. And it did taste pretty delicious.

Ingredients
2 cups apple cider
1/3 cup real maple syrup
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme (or 2 tsp dried thyme)
2 tsp dried marjoram
2 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
3/4 cup butter

Method
Boil apple cider and maple syrup in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 20 minutes).

Remove from heat and mix in 1/2 of the thyme and marjoram and all of the lemon zest. Add the butter or margarine and whisk until melted. Add salt and ground pepper to taste.

Cover and refrigerate until cold (syrup can be made up to 2 days ahead).

This recipe should be about enough to slather a 14lb or 6 kilo turkey.