Summer Review

So better late than never! We actually ended up finishing the Summer season of recipes on Tuesday 6th October - just over 2 weeks after the 'due date' of 21st September.  This was due to a multitude of reasons:

• We had an extremely busy summer and often didn't have weekends free to do the tricker recipes.  
• We were in a different location for the whole of August, house-sitting and as a result ended up with less time to cook due to a longer commute.  
• We just majorly underestimated the amount of recipes - lots of small recipes in there which we thought we'd be able to crack out really quickly and then didn't...

We also had a stupid 'thing' about a few of the recipes - namely the Lamb Loin and the Rabbit Loin.  We have to admit, that the cost caused most of the apprehension here, as well as how to source them. Therefore, we just put these two recipes off.  So much so that they ended up being the last recipes we did - not helpful for the wallet! As it happened, the 'Ginger Pig' butcher in Marylebone was very helpful in terms of supplying the goods, and it wasn't as expensive as you'd think.  

To focus on these two recipes for a moment, I will start by saying that £13 for two lamb chops isn't really that bad when the chops were THAT big, and tasted amazing! Possibly the best lamb I'veever tasted.  The loin is a tiny piece of meat, which is kind of housed somewhere within the chop, so we decided this wasn't a bad compromise for something we were worried about sourcing.  Furthermore the rabbit cost £8, but that was the whole rabbit and the butcher kindly cut out the loins for us.  Leaving us with the rest of the rabbit (currently in our freezer) for another recipe (watch this space for Autumn).  So really, what were we worrying about?! 

We found this season to be quite heavy on the desserts, so much so that we had a bit of a sugar overload - we'd finish one cake and be making the next batch of Madeleines or brownies. The Poached Cherries deserve a special mention here for overdosing on the good stuff - it left your lips feeling sticky and your brain turning to mush purely because of the sweetness!

We also noticed a lot of strong flavours going on, which strikes me as odd for a what should be a lighter season.  The salad in the Cold Chicken Breast with Warm Red Onion & Grape Salad, the Slow Roasted Tomatoes with Worcestershire Sauce, the salad in the Deep Fried Tomato Fritters with Red Onion Salad and the Soused Herrings with Red Chilli & Chive Cream were all so strong it sometimes hurt my eyes! 

Gluten free substitutes again weren't too much of a problem in the end.  The cakes all worked very well with gluten free flour, apart from the Teacakes.  We stuck to the recipe rather than use a tried and tested gluten free recipe for a bun of a similar kind.  Although I managed to get a nice dough which I could knead (very unusual), the final taste to me, resembled a rock! I would probably stick to a tried and tested recipe for teacakes next time.  We are guilty of a gluten free cheat too...the pizzas we made weren't actually using our own dough.  I had a pack of part baked pizza bases in my cupboard, and this certainly made that recipe a lot easier! I have made my own pizza 'dough' before, but it actually resembles more of a batter so we thought we would simplify things by just making the topping on this occasion.  The croissants were initially difficult to source - my Mum was staying so I sent her on a mission to find them, and she was eventually successful! The gluten free croissants were really nice, as they just fell apart when soaked in the custardy mix.  The dessert looked much nicer than the product we started with (think dry, deformed croissant).  

We had a bit of a problem finding Sardines - even in Cornwall! We used Red Mullet in the end, which was a colourful substitute. 

Something that was a real treat, was being able to cook a few things on the BBQ - Beef & Fennel Koftas, Lemon & Rosemary Lamb with Tahini Aubergines.  We both love cooking things on the BBQ that aren't 'normal' fayre - ie burgers and hot dogs! Being able to cook some real good food on the BBQ was always something we were going to do, whilst we had a garden with a BBQ to play with!

Top 5:

Here are our headline dishes this season...

Andrew's Favourites -

Oven Roasted Apricots with Honey Madeleines

Eggy Croissants with Fresh Raspberries & Zabaglione

Sweet & Sour Pickled Plums

Chicken with Peach & Watercress

Spicy Crab Linguini

Rachel's Favourites - 

Spicy Crab Linguini

Pork Spare Ribs with Coleslaw, Star Anise & Whiskey Glaze

Lemon Verbena Cake with Strawberries & Cream

Tomato, Basil & Mozzarella Pizzas

Egg Croissants with Fresh Raspberries & Zabaglione

You'll have noticed we sneakily started cooking Autumn recipes before we actually finished Summer...well we didn't want to delay any further so that we fell further behind.  Hopefully we can catch up on ourselves and hit next season's target (only 71 days to go!).  

Spring Review

So, we've just made our 'Spring' deadline - we completed the last of the spring recipes on the longest day of the year (21st June) and whilst this can sometimes be classed as Summer we have stuck to our guns on the deadlines; we'll call the changeover the 22nd of each 3 months!

So it's been quite an exciting time in our kitchen. I definitely started off very excited and looking forward to all of the recipes we were about to cook. My positive attitude did sometimes wane, as the least appealing dishes loomed ever closer! Also, as we've been nearing the end of the season I have been browsing the next section of recipes for Summer.  These look incredibly appealing and as such, I almost lost interest in the last few recipes we had to cook.

There have however, been some absolute revelations along the way.  Some things that we have worried about and then thoroughly enjoyed, some things we were eager to try but didn't taste that good and even some difficulty sourcing ingredients.

Here is a rundown of the ups and downs...

Tricky Bits:

James Martin uses Bibb Lettuce and Frisee lettuce - I had never heard of Bibb, and I could only find Frisee in mixed bags.  I searched and searched and unfortunately, ended up getting what I felt was the closest!  

Going to the Supermarket for Mackerel, I was told that it was not in season. I asked what the season was and was told it was all year apart from the months I needed it! We had to buy fillets rather than whole mackerel in the end which did act as a suitable substitute but I was a bit confused as the whole point of us cooking this book was to be in line with the seasons! (It does raise questions as to why the shops had fillets and not whole fish though...)

Elderflowers are renowned for having a short season - we managed to source some and do all of the elderflower recipes in one sweep - you'll notice that all of those recipes feature in my top 5!

Timings were (as is often the case) a little shy of what our kitchen can do! I expect all chefs have the best gas hobs and top range ovens that can cook things very quickly but alas we do not! We did get caught out with this a few times - for example the rolled rack of lamb for the lamb, mint & little gem salad.  It was very nice, but extremely rare!

There were some general store cupboard malfunctions (or memory malfunctions?) a few times - for example, in one recipe we substituted hazlenuts for almonds as we had run out of stock of hazlenuts! I suppose this is bound to happen, but I thought I should mention it just in case anyone can spot that we've swapped something around in the photos.

Gluten free substitutes weren't really a problem this season - hoorah! The Dill Marinated Salmon was served with one of my standard homemade gluten free loaves - and very nice it was too! We also searched everywhere for a gluten free victoria sponge as we were low on time to do the baked alaska.  Apparently shops do not sell these so I had to quickly whip up a sponge, which worked very well in the end.

The Scotch Eggs did not go to plan.  We're actually seasoned scotch egg makers but we use a different recipe and unfortunately, following these instructions just didn't work this time.  It was a complete disaster really, as the eggs managed to seep out of the sausage meat casing, and once that has happened it's a write off in terms of keeping the egg from drying out.

Things we learnt:

We do not enjoy livers.  At all.  (I feared this from the start, but Andrew did not enjoy them either)
Gremolata is just butter basically - but very yummy with lemon and pistachio added for flavour on top of pancakes!
Broad beans taste very nice when cooked in a good recipe.
Baked Alaska is actually super fun to make and not too tricky.  Two pairs of hands definitely advisable as you have to be very on it.  I got really psyched about this one because I thought it would be a complete disaster (think Great British Bake Off 2014), but because we were so careful it was a great success!
How to segment a lemon - very handy for the halibut recipe.

Top 5

To do a round up - these were our favourite recipes! Hopefully some of these will make it in to our usual repertoire as they were a joy to eat (and cook!)

Andrew's Favourites -

Grilled Halibut with Champ & Lemon Caper Butter
Wok Fried Chicken with Ginger, Chilli & Garlic
Baked Alaska with Elderflower Meringue
Lamb, Mint & Little Gem Salad
Juniper-Pickled Cucumbers

Rachel's Favourites -

Dill Marinated Salmon with Rhubarb & Lime
Elderflower Fritters with Maple Syrup
Baked Alaska with Elderflower Meringue
Wok Fried Chicken with Ginger, Chilli & Garlic
Elderflower & Lemon Cordial

**And of course there are recipes that were still lovely to eat, but didn't quite make it in to the top few...

Now onto the Summer recipes!