cuban roast chicken with sour orange mojo sauce

Cuban roast chicken with sour orange mojo sauce

When I think of Cuba, I think of Hemingway, louche cocktails, cigars and the Buena Vista Social Club, but the food is something of an unknown quantity in the UK.
 
Cuban food is a fabulous combination of their historical influences and local ingredients. Since the island is the perfect example of melting pot influences, from Spanish, Portuguese and South American Indian to African, Chinese and Arab.
 
The food is also the food of ingenuity and creativity. You have to be imaginative when you are surrounded by hardship; when food is rationed. I had never been made more aware of this until I read the books of Leonardo Padura

salad of poached cherries and feta

cherry and feta salad

I may be feeling grumpy at lack of home computer but a tangy feta and sweet cherry salad are a marriage made in food heaven and enough to soothe even the grumpiest brow. 

It is worth bearing in mind that English cherry orchards are in a parlous state; we have lost 90% of our traditional orchards over the past 50 years and the UK now imports 95% of cherries into the country. Yikes! Support the Cherry Aid campaign at FoodLovers Britain or on Facebook. As part of the campaign, you can plant, rent or even adopt a cherry tree to show how much you love them.

no computer but at least I can still eat!

cherry and feta salad

A quick taster of a recipe since I am computerless at the moment - a delicious salad of fresh cherries with feta cheese and hazelnuts - enough to make anyone feel a little better when everything seems to be going wrong!

apologies - normal service may be resumed . . .

BBC Test Card c.1967

It has finally come to pass that I have to lay to rest an old and trusted friend - my ancient Dell laptop. It has creaked and gurned away for the past year or so and has sadly gone to the big recycling unit in the sky. Which means I am temporarily computer-less - a very strange feeling indeed; a bit like losing a limb although not quite as painful! I should be picking up my new laptop shortly so hopefully normal service will be resumed. 

roasted sweet pepper salad

roasted sweet pepper salad

There may be grey skies above but I want colour and romance at my kitchen table, which is why I served the simplest of pepper salads for lunch on Sunday with my lemon marinated roast lamb. So even if the weather was dire and miserable, at least I could bring a taste of the sun to our meal!

stuffed again! feta and sundried tomato bread pudding

feta and sundried tomato bread pudding

A chat with my local butcher as he was rolling a boned shoulder of lamb around an intriguing looking stuffing mixture, led to the discovery that no, he didn't make his own stuffing but was more than happy to stuff a joint for you should you bring in your own stuffing.

"This stuff is bloody gorgeous," he said, "I can't stop eating it," as he shovelled another small handful into his mouth. Between chews he offered me a taste. Well there is nothing like a free sample of someone else's stuffing to get the weekend off to a good start and I was in complete agreement with Mr Cramer, the butcher. This stuffing was bloody lovely!

Nigel comes to the rescue again! grilled steak with sweet chilli dipping sauce and chinese greens

grilled steak with sweet chilli
dipping sauce and Chinese greens

You will have heard that saying about "never look a gift horse in the mouth", well I suspect the clue is in the expression, as being a city girl I have never been given a free horse, gift wrapped or not. The opposite of the saying is "if it looks too good to be true, then it usually is". That's my kind of luck. 

I was seduced by a local supermarket into buying a pack of steaks, because they were on special offer and frankly they looked good. Now, I don't often eat beef, not because I don't like beef. I do, but I have to save myself from myself. I like beef too much, in the same way I like cheese, something I would happily eat my own body weight in. So everything in moderation.

appetite of a sparrow? eat crumbs!

migas - fried breadcrumbs
with chorizo

I often tell people that I have the appetite of a sparrow, not so much little, but definitely often. "How," people ask me incredulously as they admire my well-upholstered figure "do you maintain your exquisite physique?" "Crumbs," I say modestly.

Ok, a girl can dream. Sadly I am more a comfy country cottage sofa type than Swedish minimalism. But I do like crumbs, really. Stale bread is one of the wonders of the kitchen, and a fabulous weapon in the thrifty cook's arsenal.

what to eat on your ark: or how to whip up a delicious supper of sea bream with a chickpea and chorizo stew

sea bream with
chickpea and chorizo stew

I am building an ark in my back garden. Given the weather I think it is probably a wise precaution. Not that London is on a flood alert, and I do live on a hill, but I like to be prepared. And if this city does flood, I won't have to worry about getting my ark out through the front door. It's this kind of attention to detail that is important. 

what's in season: july

gooseberries - by Margaret Young

Gooseberry Fool 
The gooseberry’s no doubt an oddity,
an outlaw or pariah even—thorny
and tart as any
kindergarten martinet, it can harbor
like a fernseed, on its leaves’ under-
side, bad news for pine trees,
whereas the spruce
resists the blister rust
it’s host to. That veiny Chinese
lantern, its stolid jelly
of a fruit, not only has
no aroma but is twice as tedious
as the wild strawberry’s sunburst
stem-end appendage: each one must
be between-nail-snipped at both extremities.

good things come in small packages! mini victoria sponge cakes

mini Victoria Sponge cakes with strawberry jam

I love a good Victoria Sponge cake. It is both simple and delicious and perfectly suits my less-than-sweet tooth. I don't know when I first noticed miniature Victoria Sponge cakes. I suspect they only properly registered in my mind last year, watching lovely Jo Wheatley (and deserved champion) on The Great British Bake Off produce these delectably pretty teatime treats. This of course set me off wondering how she managed to get the perfect straight sides and shape to the cakes, because they were clearly not made in cupcake papers.

jam today! strawberry jam

summer strawberry jam

I am trying to convince myself that food has magical properties and that by making food that sings of an English summer, that perhaps I can hold the rain at bay, with such summer lovelies as strawberry jam and scones and other teatime treats.

I have often made chutneys and other savoury preserves. I have even made fruit compote but I had never made strawberry jam before. It was surprisingly simple and the results delicious.