Observer Food Monthly Awards 2012: vote early and vote often (just kidding!)

Observer Food Monthly
Awards 2012

But seriously, it's that time of the year again; the voting for Observer Food Monthly Awards 2012 is now open and if you vote, you could win a Caribbean holiday!

For those of you who don't know, The Observer (and its sister paper, The Guardian) host both the exemplary Word of Mouth food blog as well as the Food Monthly magazine, which celebrates what is great about British produce, food and the food scene; both genuinely innovative and interesting contributors to the British food scene. Of course my absolute favourite food writer in the whole world also writes for them (if you couldn't tell who it is . . . it is of course, the divine Nigel Slater).

my favourite bacon sarnie - another guilty weekend pleasure!

bacon breakfast sandwich

It is British Sandwich Week and I couldn't resist another bout of soul bearing - admitting to yet another of my guilty pleasures.

An English Breakfast in a sandwich is ridiculously indulgent, but one that graces my kitchen very occasionally . . . OK, I confess, it is more like once a month, usually on a Saturday or Sunday morning. But it really is a rare treat and it's perfect when I have a house full of people to feed. Everyone loves a good bacon sarnie, and even more so if it has a few added extras.

brined roast chicken

alien life forms! (Ok, Yorkshire puds!)

Have you ever walked into your kitchen and felt a slight Twilight Zone moment? (And cue the music . . . ) Da na, na na. Na na, na na . . . I was cooking Sunday lunch and returned to the kitchen with a distinct sense of unease. Something wasn't quite right but I wasn't sure what it was. Nothing was on fire. There was no smell of burning. But I just had a sense that something was up, a prickling sense of unease . . . 

I opened the oven door and was confronted with something out of a 1950s sci fi movie . . . my Yorkshire puddings had evolved into some kind of alien life form and were bidding to escape in a determined attempt at world domination! Hey ho, that's the price you pay for using strong bread flour; they were not the perfection of flying saucers but they were rather splendid nonetheless, if a little misshapen!

a splendid fish supper: grilled salmon with a warm salad of spring vegetables

grilled salmon with spring vegetables

Despite the delay in this year's asparagus season because of the sodden weather, I managed to get my delighted paws on some English asparagus. While one of my favourite ways of eating asparagus is one of the simplest, just steamed with a little butter, I adore asparagus in a mess of spring vegetables with my favourite peas and broad beans.

As a child I was revolted and fascinated by broad beans as there was something rather repellent about the dead man's fingers texture of the skins. Eating them without the skins was something of a revelation - you can really taste their nutty sweetness. Since then I have never looked back, despite the faff of having to fiddle around with them!

lemon and lime curd

lemon and lime curd

There was a break in the rain, the gunmetal hue of the sky was replaced with a hint of blue and the sun seemed to sparkle. I could almost convince myself that it was late spring. Ever the optimist, I wanted to celebrate with cupcakes, packed with almonds and citrus, as perhaps a portent of things to come. But first I needed to make some lemon curd. I wanted a curd that was sweet and zesty and explodes on your tongue like sherbet lemons!

still raining, but there are meatballs on the horizon!

Italian-style meatballs

Comfort food at its very best, these meatballs are loved by both adults and children. Fun to make too (and I find kids do like to get their little paws mucky helping to roll them). Yes, meatballs can take a little time to make and yes, a bit messy too. But they are well worth the time taken and besides, as well as making a little meat go a long way, make up enough of them and they freeze well too.

it's easy being green: a simple watercress soup

watercress soup

The wonderful peppery, almost metallic flavours of watercress combine beautifully with a whole myriad of foods, from bacon to blue cheese with grapefruit and from walnuts and beetroot to goat’s cheese. Nikl Segnit says in The Flavour Thesaurus that watercress "makes a sauce which is as refreshing as dangling your feet in the river on a hot afternoon," which is probably why it is just so good with fish, from oily fish to smoked fish and shellfish.

what's in season: may

a tiptoe through my bluebells

When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
William Shakespeare - Twelfth Night

April definitely lived up to its reputation as a cruel month! After an unseasonably warm March and an announcement of drought conditions in southern England, it proceeded to rain just about every single day. An irony I found was that in the medieval church calendar, 29th April celebrated Noah left the Ark (Egressus Noae de arca). Well if Noah had just waited one day he would have had hot beating sun in London on 30th April. Londoners smiled as the rain finally dripped to a halt and the sun came out. We welcomed May with open arms.

this week I shall be mostly eating . . . couscous salad with houmous and spiced lamb

lovely lunchbox roast lamb couscous salad

So in best Jesse from The Fast Show stylee, This week I 'ave mostly been eating . . . (pause) . . . couscous salad with houmous and spiced roast lamb. Actually this was last week and the pullover and wellies were optional!

Last Sunday, we had a wonderfully aromatic slow roasted spiced lamb shoulder. I had bought a far larger piece of meat than I needed to feed us, but with the knowledge that the leftovers would be put to good use . . . a creative lunchbox meal to save me from myself. I spend far too much money at sandwich bars. While some of them are very nice, it makes sense to save a little money if I can: (by my reckoning I saved about 20 quid last week, which can go on other important things in life . . . such as red wine!).

weekend pleasures: a posh fish (finger) sandwich

a fish (finger) sandwich

One of the worst culinary horrors I had ever experienced was a well-known fast food joint's fish sandwich. Words fail me. Vile. As a result, I had always had an aversion to the idea of breaded (or even battered) fish in a sandwich. So when a few years ago the fish finger sandwich appeared on trendy gastropub menus, a knowing nod to fashionable 30-somethings, I couldn't understand why many of my friends were so thrilled. What do you mean? You never had a fish finger sandwich at university? Um, well . . . no. Clearly my uni experience was somewhat lacking and I didn't feel like broadening my education any time soon.

pasta with wild leeks and roasted tomatoes

spaghetti with wild leeks and roasted tomatoes

The cupboard was a bit bare but with store cupboard ingredients including dried pasta, garlic and mi cuit tomatoes and handfuls of fresh herbs including my latest discovery of wild leeks, which are very similar to wild garlic, I had supper ready in minutes.

slow roast shoulder of lamb with middle eastern spices

slow roasted lamb shoulder with middle eastern spices

Have you ever brought a meal to the table, expecting a few happy exclamations and maybe a small rapturous reception, only to be sadly disappointed?

I learned this the hard way when it turned out that my lunch guests did not like roasted lamb tender and slightly pink the way that I do. Their cries of horror and revulsion were definitely not music to my ears. I was forced to shove the "underdone" meat back into the oven to cremate it just they way they liked it. The spuds were rock hard, the vegetables soggy. but my guests were happy. I managed to salvage a pink piece of meat about the size of a postage stamp and nearly wept.