Lake district foodie finds and wedding planning

Last week we went to Keswick for a couple of nights during which my boyfriend proposed. I have set up a separate wedding planning blog, somewhere I can bookmark and save ideas and inspiration for the big day. You can read all about the proposal here.

We are currently looking in to getting married in Tuscany, Italy. We do not know anyone else that has done this so if any of you do and you have any advice to share with us please contact me, I would love to hear from you.

Anyway back to foodie talk! I wanted to share with you a few foodie finds in Keswick. First up there was the B&B we stayed in - Howe Keld. It has won awards for it's breakfasts and it wasn't hard to see why. Check out the menu here. There was fresh smoothies every day, a great selection of cereal, yogurts, fruit (fresh and dried), nuts and seeds to start. Then wholemeal bread, banana bread or malt loaf (all home made). Cooked breakfast choices included a locally sourced full English (with a vegetarian option), smoked salmon and scrambled eggs or pancakes with maple syrup. The rooms are also very well decorated/designed and the staff friendly and helpful.

Next up was a little cafe/deli called good taste cafe. This cafe is run by a chef and the food is excellent. There are daily specials as well as a regular menu. I can highly recommend the pork and fennel seed meatball with mozzarella panini. On Saturdays the shop window is full of home baked breads which all look fantastic. Upstairs in the seating area there is a warming wood burning stove tables and chairs, comfy sofa's and books shelves stuffed full of cookbooks! They also run a selection of cookery classes which are listed on their website with everything from bread making to butchery (and a Tuscan inspired Italian class that sounds right up my street).

Finally I want to share with you a great restaurant in Keswick called Morrels. I had the Chorizo, Smoked Bacon, Peppered Salami & Tomato Risotto to start followed by Rump of Lamb with Minted Lamb Sausages, Boulangere Potatoes, Redcurrant & Thyme Jus. Finished off with a bramble, apple and flaked almond clafoutif. The lamb was perfectly cooked and all the dishes were delicious and flavoursome.

Authentic spaghetti carbonara

Until a few years ago I used to love the rich, creamy carbonara sauces most Italian restaurants serve. Ok so it's not the healthiest dish on the menu but it was a very occasional treat. Then suddenly I started to find the dish too rich for my tastes and stopped ordering it when in Italian restaurants. Maybe my tastes had changed or maybe I had had one too many rubbish carbonara's. Then as I started to get more and more in to cooking I discovered that true Italian carbonara's don't include cream at all! At this point I started to consider the idea of making a carbonara myself.

I discovered Italian Foodies sometime last year and have been following the blog since then (and also working my way through the posts/recipes from before I discovered it). It has to be up there as one of my favorite blogs. It is full of mouth watering pictures and deliciously simple recipes (mostly Italian - my favorite kind). You might have noticed that I have a list in my side bar called 'recipes I want to try'. I have been using this list to keep track of some of the recipes other blogs post that I want to try myself. Italian foodies authentic carbonara has been sat there for quiet sometime waiting for me to find the time to try it.

At the weekend we visited The Hollies farm shop in Cheshire. They were hosting a Great British food feast, with lots of local suppliers showcasing their produce and lots of food to sample. There was also a delicious hog roast and a showcase of 1000's of pumpkins (the advertising said 4000 but I didn't count them!). One of the products that caught our eye was their bacon. So armed with a packet of local bacon I decided to try my hand at a real authentic (cream free!) carbonara. I wasn't disappointed. The carbonara was simple to make and turned out fantastic, I didn't miss the cream and it really allowed the quality and taste of the bacon to shine. I wanted to share this recipe with you all and also book mark it here so I can make it again in the future. For the recipe and step by step photos see here.

A weekend in the Lakes

This last weekend myself and my boyfriend went up to the lake district for a couple of nights. We had a great time relaxing, walking and enjoying delicious food. I thought I would share with you my photos and thoughts on some of the places we visited and/or ate.

We stayed at a very nice little B&B in the heart of Ambleside (stumbling distance from the pubs, restaurants and shops). The owners were really friendly and helpful, the breakfasts used local products where ever possible and our room was lovely and perfect for our needs.

We arrived Friday afternoon and after unpacking we set out to explore Ambleside and book somewhere to eat Friday and Saturday evening. Whilst wandering round Ambleside we discovered a fantastic specialist food shop - Lucy's Specialist Grocers. It stocks a wide range of food from around Cumbria including, breads, cheeses, fruit and veg and a vast selection of jams and chutneys. We bought a selection of spices shown below, all for under £2.50 (much more reasonable than the supermarket and you can control how much you buy).They also have two restaurants in Ambleside (but you really need to book ahead) and also a cooking school near Kendal.

Friday night we ate at The Glass House Restaurant and I really wish I hadn't left my camera in the B&B. The restaurant is a listed building, a converted mill and still has a working waterwheel (although it wasn't on when we were there). The restaurant is on a series of mezzanine flours and we were right at the top where all the machinery that powers the waterwheel are still visible on the ceiling. The food was delicious and reasonably priced for the lake district. Starters were around £5-6 and mains ranged from £10-14 (with the exception of a couple of more expensive dishes like fillet steak). I had the Caesar salad with warm poached egg and maple glazed pancetta to start and char grilled pork chop with bubble and squeak and courgette ribbons served with a creamy mustard sauce. My boyfriend started with crispy duck, bean sprouts, water chestnut and white radish salad and had the fish pie as a main. All the food was delicious including the complimentary bread basket to start with which I believe was home made.

On Saturday the weather started out wet and windy but if your going to the lakes you expect this. So we put on our walking boots and waterproofs and headed off to Grizedale Forest hoping the weather would improve. Thankfully it did, but not before pouring down on us! We had a good long walk through parts of the forest looking at the sculptures and as an added bonus we picked lots of blackberries.

By early afternoon we were starving so headed back to the visitors centre where there was a fantastic cafe. I don't know about anyone else but I find canteen style cafes at popular local attractions are either really bad (school dinner like, over cooked or simply prepacked sandwiches) or really good (local produce, flavourful and a reasonable amount of choice). Thankfully The Cafe in the Forrest at Grizdale fell in to the later category. The menu consisted of the usual burgers, sausages and chips but there were also casserole of the day (beef, mushrooms and Hawskhead ale) and venison burgers. I had the casserole of the day and my boyfriend had the pie of the day (Coniston beef and red wine) both cost approximately £7. Both dishes were very generous in size (the pie looks a lot smaller in this picture than it was), packed with flavour and perfect warming comfort food after a long walk. To finish with we shared a slice of their homemade toffee fudge cake. Again the portion size was very generous (more than enough to share) and the cake delicious. The only problem was it looked so delicious we forgot to take a photo!
Saturday evening we ate at Zeffirellis restaurant, a Mediterranean inspired vegetarian restaurant, cinema and jazz bar. Most Friday and Saturday evenings they have free live music upstairs in the jazz bar. We went both nights and really enjoyed ourselves. The food again was delicious and reasonably priced (around £9 for mains and pizza's). I had aubergine and mozzarella parmigiana and my boyfriend had vegetarian red bean chilli. Both dishes were very good portion sizes and full of flavour and neither of us missed the meat (a sign of a good vegeterian meal in my eyes). To finish with decided to spoil ourselves with a dessert each. I had their speciality chocolate sundae (all I can say is it was truly delicious) and my boyfriend had the tiramisu.
On Sunday it was time to pack up and head off home but not before spending the morning in Keswick followed by lunch and a spot of shopping at the Rhedged centre. They have 3 cafes and a selection of shops most selling local products. In the food shop we picked up a jar of Westmoorland's chutney and some diced shoulder of venison. If any one has any good recipes for venison stew/casserole which would be good for someone whose never cooked or eaten venison please let me know! The chutney was delicious in a simple cheese sandwich when we got home on Sunday evening. The bread is homemade Irish Blaas which I made before going away using Eat like a girls recipe. The bread is delicious with a soft light texture. I will certainly be making them again.
Enjoy!

Last days of summer....

Last Saturday, on a gloriously sunny day, myself, my boyfriend, his sister and her boyfriend spent a day on a canal boat. We couldn't have asked for a better day, the weather really made it. We had great fun learning to drive the canal boat and enjoying the weather as we slowly cruised through the Cheshire countryside.The day before I prepared a range of goodies to enjoy throughout the day. I made a bottle of lemonade, baked a Bakewell tart, some mini pizza wheels and prepared a couscous salad. There was also a banana bread loaf and half a dozen or so blueberry muffins in the freezer so they were packed too.

The pesto couscous salad is something I came up with last summer and has been a regular summer lunch since then. Its really simple to prepare but very tasty to eat. Perfect for picnics, lunch boxes for work or just to enjoy as a quick weekend lunch. The quantities are quiet vague as it depends which flavours you prefer and can be adjusted accordingly. Sometimes I add a handful of pine nuts &/or some fresh basil leaves at the end. The recipe is at the end.
I also decided to try out an idea I remember seeing a magazine sometime back. The basic idea was to make a pizza, roll it up and then cut into slices and bake in the oven. The result is perfect picnic finger food. Delicious hot or cold.Pesto couscous salad
serves 2

100g couscous
Chicken or vegetable stock, hot
1-2tsp pesto
handful of feta cheese, cubed
5-6 sun-dried tomatoes, diced
handful of olives, halved

• Pour the hot stock over the couscous until the couscous is just covered, cover the bowl and leave for 5 minutes or until the couscous has soaked up all the moisture. Fluff up the couscous with a folk.
• Add the pesto and stir through well.
• Add the other ingredients and mix well.
• Serve while still warm or once cooled.

Mini pizza wheels
Makes approximately 20

For the dough
500g strong white bread flour
5g fast action yeast
10g salt
300ml warm water
1 tbsp olive oil
For the topping
4 tbsp passata or pizza sauce
1 ball of mozzarella
Topping of your choice
1 tsp dried oregano

• Mix together all the ingredients for the dough. Knead either by hand or with a mixer for 10 min until smooth and silky. Shape into a round and leave to rise in a covered bowl for 1-2 hours, or until it has doubled in size.
• Knock the dough back. Knead again very briefly. Divide the dough in two. Use a rolling pin to roll each piece out on a lightly floured work surface into a rectangle which is about 1cm thick.
• Spoon on 2tbsp pizza sauce onto each rectangle. Add the toppings of your choice (I did one with a couple of slices of torn up parma ham and one with olives and sun dried tomatoes), grate or tear the mozzarella over the two pizzas and finally sprinkle over the dried oregano.
• Have the pizza so the longest edge is in front of you and then carefully roll it up like a Swiss roll.
• Cut the roll into 2 cm thick slices and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Leave a good few cm around each one as the dough will rise slightly.
• Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 200C.

Summer days - Homemade lemonade

So the sun finally showed its face in the UK for a couple of days this weekend. In honour of the glorious weather, I decided to make a bottle of lemonade. I have always preferred traditional, cloudy lemonade, enjoying the real lemony flavour but this is the first time I made it myself. It won't be the last time though as it is really simple and tastes far better than shop bought versions. I used a recipe I had torn out of one of the supermarket magazines but I'm not sure which one.
To make the most of the great weather we went walking on Saturday in Dovedale again. It's a really nice area for walking (although a little over crowded on a hot, August weekend) and they sell great ice cream which I have previously wrote about but tasted even better on a hot day, after a long walk. On Sunday we finished off the lemonade sat in the garden reading. I have a selection of review copies of cookbooks that are being released in August/September to tell you about in the next couple of weeks so I enjoyed a lazy Sunday flicking through these gorgeous books deciding which recipes to try and what to tell you all about them. Expect the first review in the next few days of The Eagle Cookbook by David Eyre Published by Absolute press. I cooked a delicious chicken recipe form this book on Sunday evening so expect to hear all about it and the rest of the book in the next few days.

Homemade lemonade
Makes around 1 litre

6 lemons
150g granulated sugar
1 litre water

To serve
Sparkling water

1. Peel the skin off the lemons and place in a large pan, taking care not to take any of the bitter white pith off with it.
2. Squeeze the juice of all 6 lemons into the pan and add the water and the sugar.
3. Heat gently, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Allow to boil fairly rapidly for 10 minutes. Take off the heat and allow to cool.
4. Strain through a fine mesh sieve and pour into bottles. Seal and store in the fridge until ready to serve, preferably within 24 hours.
5. To serve, half fill a glass with lemonade and top up with sparkling water and add some ice cubes.

Enjoy!

Delicious ice cream!

It's turning in to a quiet few weeks for update on my blog. Sorry about that, I haven't given up on it though. It's been a busy few weeks with too much work and studying to do, leaving very little time or energy to cook, never mind blog! We've mostly been eating meals from the freezer or reliable, quick favorites (think pasta bakes etc).

Easter weekend has been fun (work and study free!) but not much cooking has gone on in my kitchen. We ate out whilst shopping on Friday and the last two days we have been staying with family. On Saturday we went for a walk in the south Peak District (Dovedale) and consequently had a very lazy meal of pasta and sauce when we got home. We parked and started our walk from Dovedale car park and after our walk we rewarded ourselves with a well earned ice cream.

Who doesn't like ice cream? Well apparently me when I was a toddler. I find this very hard to believe that any child can not like ice cream! And certainly not someone who loves it as much as me now!

In the car park at Dovedale there is a little wooden hut selling delicious, dairy made ice cream (made with local cream) in no less than 8 flavours and very reasonably priced too. The hardest part was choosing the flavour, Belgian chocolate or caramel toffee crunch? mint chocolate chip or rum and raisin?

All in all a great way to spend Easter Saturday - delicious ice cream, sunshine and a nice walk with stunning views.

A walk in the forest

Last weekend, one sunny morning we decided to get up and go for a walk in Macclesfield forest (on the cheshire/peak district boarder). Don't worry this is a food related post! We found a really tasty stall in the Trentabank car park - Nice Nosh and I thought I would share this with you in case any one is in the area.

After a good walk through the forest, we were feeling in need of a well earned sit down and some good food. Nice Nosh fits the bill well. It is a refreshment stall open most weekends and bank holidays, run my a friendly man, himself a keen walker with good local knowledge. There is a good selection of hot and cold drinks and food. Most of the food is home made (including a delicious looking selecton of cakes) and many of the recipes have Peak District Cuisine marks showing that local products have been used in the recipe. Some items on the menu have also been awarded the Peak District Environmental Quality Mark showing that the business actively support good environmental practices in the Peak District National Park. A good example of this is the recylcling facilaties for the food packaging - the stall has bins right opposite and you are kindly asked to seperate your waste into the appropriate bins for recycling. There was also a good selection of leaflets available of peak district food and the places producing and/or selling it.
Povey's (a Staffordshire brand) oatcakes were a big feature of the menu. Both hot and cold fillings were available for white, brown rolls or staffordshire oatcakes/ I had never heard of staffordshire oakcakes before and was struggling to imagine a sandwich made out of the scottish style oatcakes. However they turn out to be quite similar to pancakes (much better for containing stilton sauce with bacon!) but with added oatmeal.

The pictures show one of the ones we had but don't really do it justice.
Click here for further details.