I’ve been cooking since I was young and there have been different influences that have shaped how and what I cook. I cook for the joy of feeding people I love and for the pleasure of using skills I have developed.

Julia Child has probably been one of the biggest influences on my cooking. If you want to improve as a cook, ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ (MTAOFC) is a must. It has no colour pictures and there is the odd line drawing say of a vegetable or some other item of food, if you’re lucky. It is the perfect artefact of the analogue age.

There is a lovely film called ‘Julie & Julia’ that tells the story of how Julia became an exceptional cook via her passion for food and the Cordon Bleu school. How she came to change cooking in America is beautifully told (with expected artistic license). Or you can read Julia’s own book ‘My Life in France’.

Julia was a perfectionist. She deconstructed classic French dish after French dish, learned how to make each, broke it down into steps and then wrote those steps down in MTAOFC. Julia’s recipes work. If you have the proper ingredients and carefully execute the steps – the results are wonderful. Any difficult skill or technique is explained.

I’m a word person (duh – blogger) so I’m good with the explanations. You might not be – but you can search any recommended technique and you’ll find a video on Youtube. Here’s one on how to bone a duck. Not recommended for vegetarians. Veggies and vegans – check out this one on making apple matchsticks.

Julia did fail the Cordon Bleu final exam on the first attempt but rallied and passed the second time. Working with MTAOFC you will absorb classic French techniques. And you will eat a lot of butter and cream. And bacon. Lots and lots. But Julia ate this stuff everyday, was a happy woman and lived to be 91.

Cooking ‘like Julia’ from her cookbook made me a much better cook. Many of most significant recipes have you cooking the elements separately and combining them at the point of serving. However, the impact of this approach is to call down devastation on the kitchen. You may need a dedicated assistant to help with the washing up or wash up at every pause in the recipe. Thank goodness for the Davinator.

Our favourite from MTAOFC is ‘coq au vin’ or chicken in red wine sauce. Sounds simple doesn’t it? You will find many many versions of this dish in France and many recipes on the Internet. Here’s a link to an updated version of Julia’s classic from ‘The Endless Meal’. I cook from the book but this is a good internet alternative.

Below are the ’10 Commandments of Coq au Vin’. I was inspired to write these after an early attempt at Coq au Vin. They are irreverent but I’m not mocking religion. We all worship different gods. My worship is probably bad for your cholesterol but your taste buds will be happy.

The Ten Commandments of Coq au Vin

1. I am Cordon Bleu, the Lord of French Cooking, who brought thee and thine out of the land of happy meals, ready meals, instant noodles and supersize me’. Julia Child is my prophet. Thou shalt have no other cookbooks or recipes before me.

2. Thou shall not make for thyself any ‘shortcuts’ when following my commandments. Thou shalt not omit to cartouche thy pots with buttered parchment paper. Thy shall peel as many tiny pearl onions as is commanded and caramelise them thyself. In all ways, thou shalt observe my guidance. For I, the Lord of French Cooking, shall visit the iniquity of the chef upon thee and thy dinner party guests even unto the dessert and petits fours for those who do not keep my laws.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord of French Cooking in vain. Thou shalt never say ‘Gordon Ramsay’, ‘Jamie Oliver’ or ‘Nigella Lawson’ and thou shalt not keep any of the works of these heathen in thy kitchen. For they are examples of false prophets and they and their followers are the unholy ones.

4. Thy shall sacrifice an entire day and a night to making of thy Coq au Vin. Thou shalt cause the coq to marinade for 24 hours from the eve of the Sabbath and then dedicate thyself to the making of the coq au vin from just after lunch on the seventh day until thy dinner party guests arrive that evening.

5. Honour my disciples Paul Bocuse and Michel Roux and all those that follow my true ways for they are thy teachers and can show thee the path of righteousness. Worship at the many shrines to me that thy shall find in France.

6. Thou shall procure a true French coq from Bresse, the only A.O.C (appellation de origine controlee) chicken (if possible) and the true pearl onions even if thou must worship at the shrine of natoora.co.uk or Whole Foods or another importer of gourmet produce.

7. Thou shalt sacrifice two good bottles of the true Burgundy that have ageth at least five years. These need not be a grand cru nor a premiere cru, a village appellation shall suffice. However, if thou truly honour the God of Cordon Bleu thou would happily give up thy Romanee Conti to worship him.

8. Thou shalt not retain the vegetables that are stewed with the coq in the sauce once the coq in sauce hath passed through the high heat of the oven. For these vegetables have served the Lord of Cordon Bleu with honour and their continuing presence would disturb the smooth deep brown of the ultimate sauce.

9. Thou shall degrease thy sauce. Indeed, if thou arriveth near the end of the creation of the coq au vin and there is a clean saucepan, spoon or kitchen implement – thy must pause to reflect if any steps have been omitted. For the scrubbing of pots, surfaces and implements is pleasing to the Lord of Cordon Bleu.

10. Thou shall use butter (unsalted French butter) with reckless abandon for it is pleasing to me. Thou shalt never use the words ‘too much butter’ for this is heresy and thee and all thy generations shall suffer if thou utter it.

A couple of tips for Americans:

• if you can’t get Burgundy at a reasonable price, then reasonably dry Pinot noir of decent quality. This is not the dish for any old cooking wine.
• get a fat roasting chicken if you can’t get a capon.
• eat the butter, you know you want to.

Thanks for reading the blog, for comments, for following and sharing.

Don’t know what to get your favourite cook for Christmas? Another cookbook never goes amiss because a cook never has too many books.

We all use the internet for recipes, techniques and inspiration for our cooking and our baking. I’m a big fan. The internet is also amazing for finding communities of bakers and cooks interested in your specialist subject.

There are times though that only a book will do. Even for cooking. Perhaps especially for cooking and baking. Bookmarks, browsing, page flipping, looking at pictures. And actually using them for cooking. With care, a beginner could use most of these cookbooks. Except for the Guy Savoy cookbook and the Tartine book – approach those with caution as I explain below.

No links here but all are easily found on your favourite book buying platform.

Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques

An amazing book that ups your game. If you have MasterChef envy or just you want to know how to skim the fat from your meat stock without letting it cool – this is the book for you. Full of tricks of the trade – it will show you an easy way to make your egg whites stronger (thus your souffle will never fall). It starts with a great section on equipment for your kitchen – with illustrations. And finishes with a glossary of terms from ‘al dente’ to ‘zest’. I get this book out when I feel like I’m getting the taste right but my presentation or finish needs help.

The Taste of Country Cooking

Edna Lewis, the genius behind this book, was the descendant of freed slaves and grew up in Freetown, Virginia. She moved to New York City as a young woman and became a famous chef. Her book is a hymn to country cooking, an inspiration to eat in season, to make your own food and to support local producers and farmers.

The book is arranged in seasonal menus with a good index at the back to find recipes. It starts with ‘ An Early Spring Dinner After Sheep Shearing’ (sheep shearing is not required) and ends with ‘A Dinner of Chicken and Dumplings and Warm Gingerbread’. I take this book down off the shelf to inspire me when I’m bored with my current cooking routine.

The New Basics Cookbook from the Silver Palate.

The Silver Palate claims to be the first gourmet take out food store in Manhattan. Not sure if that’s true but it appeared in the early 80s, followed by a couple of cookbooks and finally this one. I have them all and use them regularly. The pages are falling out of this one – I have thought about making it a looseleaf book but it’s just too much work to hole punch all the pages. It’s not a comprehensive cookbook but it’s full of fun and interesting recipes and fun twists on classics. Published long before gluten free, lactose intolerant and vegans became things – it’s a book for feasting not calorie counting. Joyful cooking.

Essentials of Italian Cooking

The Slow Food movement was founded by an Italian who was profoundly distressed by the slow disappearance of Italian regional cuisine (in Italy) and the attempt to open an McDonalds near the Spanish Steps in Rome. If Italian cuisine was being homogenised across Italy you can imagine what happened to Italian cuisine elsewhere in the world.

Marcella Hazan was a one woman rescue party for Italian food. Early in our relationship the Davinator said to me ‘I don’t like Italian food’. I said, ‘that’s fine’ and proceeded to start feeding him Marcella’s classic dishes. Without telling him they were Italian.

The book is fun reading if only for Marcella’s food snobbery as a counterbalance to my childhood spent eating SpaghettiOs. Her disdain for mass produced pasta, heavy handed use of garlic and Kraft grated parmesan (remember the bright green container?) is entertaining even if I disregard some of her absolute prohibitions. I also think (at least in the UK) it’s easier to get quality ingredients than when she wrote her books.

The book is a celebration of the regional cuisine of Italy; any complicated technique is well explained and illustrated. There is a fab section on basics that covers not only sauces and ingredients but stocks and cooking techniques for things as diverse as beans and anchovies. From crostini to zuppa including a fabulous section on Italian desserts – dive right in.

Guy Savoy – Simple French Recipes for the Home Cook

Guy Savoy is a famous French chef with a Michelin 3 star restaurant in Paris, another in Las Vegas and a chain of bistros. Guy’s in Paris is my favourite restaurant in the world. But the big money in cooking is not in the ultra fancy restaurants but in the cooking shows, the cookbooks and the chain of more reasonably priced restaurants. This book was one of Guy’s efforts expand his footprint.

This cookbook is not for the faint hearted. I call it ‘3 lies for the price of 1’. It’s not simple, it’s not really for ‘home cooks’ and I’m not sure it has recipes. It has lists of ingredients and an overview of cooking methods; but they make leaps of process that are a serious challenge to any but an expert cook. It took me 3 attempts to achieve the macaroni and cheese recipe. I have had to revert to other reference materials (see Cordon Bleu above and Julia Child below) to master recipes.

But once I had worked out the mac & cheese – it is absolutely amazing. As are the other recipes in the book. Worth the effort of practice for the impact. Take a deep breath and plunge in.

Artisan Sourdough Made Simple

This has slowly become my go to book for sourdough recipes. It makes a lot of sense and the recipes work. I found a sourdough sandwich bread recipe that the Davinator loves and an amazing brioche recipe. It’s a contest to see if I can make brioche rolls faster than the Davinator can eat them.

If you’re dipping your toes into sourdough – this is your book.

Tartine Bread

The Tartine mob may deserve credit for the artisan bread craze in San Francisco. The book describes their amazing journey and has lots of detailed descriptions of how to make sourdough bread. It’s beautifully written and has good photographs but it reminds of that joke about asking for directions in Ireland. A couple is lost. They stop and ask a farmer for directions to Ballymaloe. The farmer thinks for a few minutes, asks a couple of clarifying questions and says ‘Well, if I was trying to get to Ballymaloe, I wouldn’t be starting here’.

If you’re starting out as a sourdough baker – I wouldn’t start with Tartine. I do use it and it looks good on my shelf. But recommended not for beginners.

King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

I use this book more than any other baking book I own, including the sourdough ones. The King Arthur team set out to making whole grain baked goods taste good. And they succeeded. There may be recipes in this book that don’t suit your taste buds (I realised I don’t like things made with cornmeal) but all the recipes work and they taste good. It’s an American book and they use both quantity and imperial weight (pounds and ounces). My sister Rachael bought this for me some years ago – it’s a perennial favourite and produces crowd pleasing bread, cookies, muffins and damn fine brownies.

The Art of French Cooking (Volume One) Julia Child

Julia Child changed cooking in America. There’s a lovely movie ‘Julie & Julia’ about a woman who decides to cook all 524 recipes in the The Art of French Cooking in a year and blogs about them that covers Julia’s story. We should all be so fortunate with our cooking blogs. This cookbook made me a much better cook. It’s hard to describe how in a paragraph.

Julia Child had an abundance of common sense about food and conveys difficult concepts in simple language. ‘Don’t crowd the mushrooms’ is a classic. If you are sautéing mushrooms and you put too many in the pan, you steam them you don’t brown them. So, if you want lovely golden brown mushrooms – DON’T CROWD THE MUSHROOMS. This is Julia.

If Julia says ‘do not let the cream come to a boil or it will separate and your potato dauphinoise will suffer’ you know it to be true. You follow her instructions and you produce food fit for the gods.

Delia Smith’s Christmas

This book was a gift and when I was perusing the bookshelf prior to writing this blog I was surprised by how much I use it doing the winter, not just at Christmas. Perhaps Christmas food is the ultimate comfort food for cold weather. If your weapon of choice at Christmas is turkey, goose, beef, ham or vegetarian – there is a recipe for you here. I swear by her roast beef instructions, the red cabbage recipe and the parmesan parsnips. There is also a great planning section with a countdown. Has saved me when I was too tired to do my own planning – I relied on Delia.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

Cooking is a chemistry experiment – combining ingredients, processes, heat and cooling to change raw material into food. This book will explain (often in excruciating detail) what went wrong or right in the kitchen and why.

Chefs say ‘beat the egg whites in a copper bowl’. Science & Lore tells you why this is a good idea. (It does work better). I was trying to make white chocolate fudge (it’s a good story worthy of its own blog). First time – would not harden. Second time – hardened in the pan. Then I checked Science & Lore – and the third time I stirred the damned molten white chocolate mixture for twenty minutes (by hand) with the bowl sitting in a bigger bowl of ice water. And the fudge was perfect. Of course, I found the twenty minutes of stirring so annoying I never made the fudge again.

The perfect book for cooking nerds.

Thank you for reading the blog. And best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a healthy prosperous 2020 to all.

This is an updated version of a previous post. Working through my store cupboard of less well used ingredients.

Everyone (well every American cook) is likely to have a can of pumpkin rattling around in the cupboard and god only knows how old it might be. If you don’t have canned or tinned then you can make this recipe with just about any squash except courgette (zucchini to los Americanos).

Oven bake the squash – split, remove seeds, brush surfaces with vegetable oil and roast until soft. Then scrape the inside out and weigh. One butternut squash should make about the right amount. Or peel, seed, cut into chunks and boil until soft. Drain and mash. You don’t need exactly the ‘right’ amount. If you’re within 20% plus or minus you should still be okay.

Don’t have the ‘right’ ingredients in your cupboard? Here are some flex suggestions and there’s a vegan version also.

Flour: any old plain wheat flour will do. Not self rising but white or whole wheat and any mixture of those. I also mixed in 10% by weight of potato flour.

Sugar: any brown sugar will do, even those dried up lumps you’ve found in the cupboard. You can reduce the sugar by 25% and still get a great result.

Spices: use what you have, spices add to the complexity of the flavour but not the basic taste or structure.

Nuts, raisins, chocolate: any or all can be omitted. Any dried fruit can be used, cut into raisin sized chunks. I didn’t use any chocolate in the version pictured here.

Vegan version:
– use 1/2 mashed ripe banana per egg,
– use vegetable shortening (trex or crisco) in same quantity
– reduce sugar by 20%

This is a straightforward ‘quick’ bread designed to use one can of pumpkin adapted from a King Arthur recipe. Depending on what pans you have:

• 3 x one pound loaves (small loaf pan, 400gms).
• 1 x two pound loaf (large loaf pan) and 1 x one pound loaf
• 2 x one pound loaves and 6 to 9 muffins.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 340 grams whole wheat flour (I used 60 grams of potato flour and 280 gram of mixed quality whole wheat flour)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 170 grams unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 320 grams brown sugar (light or dark)
• 70 grams caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 can of pumpkin puree (Not pumpkin pie filling) or (400 grams of cooked pureed squash of your choice)
• 115 grams of chopped nuts (walnut or pecan)
• 170 grams of ‘mix in’ I used raisins but any dried fruit chopped to the right size will do. Substitute a portion for chocolate chips for a decadent effect.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 170C (350f) if making smaller loaves or muffins. 180C if making larger loaves. Prep your loaf pans or muffin tins – I use paper liners for my loaf pans as well as muffin tins.
2. Chop the nuts and fruit. Combine with the chocolate chips if using. Put to one side.
3. Combine the butter and the sugars. This can be done by hand but easier in the mixer. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl to ensure everything is combined. Then beat in the vanilla and the pumpkin or squash.
4. Whisk the dry ingredients together: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg.
5. Stir your fruit, nuts and chocolate chips into the dry ingredients. Coating them with flour seems to distribute them more evenly throughout the batter.
6. Add the dry ingredients in three batches to the butter/sugar mix. Don’t over beat, but make sure all the dry ingredients are moistened.
7. Put the batter in your prepared pans. I like to use a trigger ice cream scoop, this batter does not pour well.
8. A large loaf will need an hour in the oven. Small loaves about 45 minutes and a muffin tin 35 minutes. Check the temperature – should be above 90C. The bread or muffins should look ‘dry’ across the top.
9. Take the bread out of the oven and place the pan or pans on the rack to cool for 15 minutes. Then remove from the pans and allow to cool completely.

And then enjoy. We like to eat this for breakfast with cream cheese. Please let me know if you’re baking the recipes. Thanks for reading, following, sharing. Happy baking.

It’s that time of year – the clocks have gone back, it’s cold, damp and dark. We need comfort food. I hope the baking followers are not too disappointed with a blog or two on great autumn and winter food. I’m also on a mission to eat more vegetables – not that easy for someone who doesn’t really like salad.

This roasted cauliflower soup ticks all the boxes. And it is suitable for those on a keto or low carb diet. Easy to make a vegan version – omit the bacon and swap in some grated vegan cheese at the end. If you’re trying for a vegan version be careful about stock cubes – even vegetable stock cubes may not be vegan.

The cauliflower is oven roasted before being included in the soup. This gives another layer of flavour to the soup, making it even more satisfying. If you’ve never had roasted cauliflower before you may find yourself just eating the roasted cauliflower and abandoning the soup. At least the first time.

My soup comes out with a dark tint because of the rich vegetable stock I use, my tendency towards lots of black pepper and very caramelised cauliflower. You could use a lighter chicken stock and less pepper if you wanted a whiter soup.

The Davinator has suggested an explanatory note. I made the soup, garnished it and then we ate it. Forgetting to take a photo. So the next day when we ate the leftovers I said ‘where is the leftover bacon?’. Apparently ‘someone’ had eaten the rest of the bacon. So we tore some lovely prosciutto into shreds and had that on our soup.

Makes four generous servings of soup.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 large cauliflower head
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Sea salt
• Black pepper
• 200 grams unsmoked bacon lardons
• 3 additional tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 large leek, chopped small
• 2 celery stalks, chopped small
• 1 large carrot, chopped small
• 2 garlic cloves, diced
• 30 mls cooking brandy
• 2 vegetable stock cubes
• Approximately one litre of boiling water
• 50 grams of cheddar cheese
• Fresh chopped chives or parsley to garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 220C (450f).
2. Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil, with sea salt and pepper in a roasting tin and then in the oven.
3. Chop the cauliflower into florets. Don’t need to be elegant, you’re going to blend the soup at the end. However, you want smaller florets for more even caramelisation and quicker cooking.
4. Carefully remove the hot roasting tin, tip the cauliflower in and stir to coat the florets in the hot oil and spices. Put the tin back in the oven and roast for 15 minutes. Meanwhile work on the other vegetables and soup base.
5. Use a deep heavy bottomed stock pot – coat the bottom with additional olive oil then add the bacon lardons. Cook until crisp. Remove from the stock pot with a slotted spoon and drain on some paper towel.
6. Add the vegetables and the garlic to the pot. Cook over medium heat until well wilted. Add the cooking brandy, turn the heat to high and burn off the alcohol.
7. Turn back to medium heat. Drop the stock cubes in, add the hot water and bring to a boil, dissolving the stock cubes.
8. Add the cauliflower and bring to a simmer. Cook for 5 minutes.
9. Puree your soup using a stick blender or your actual blender.
10. Grate the cheese and chop the herbs.
11. Serve in bowls topped with cheese, bacon and herbs.

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Thank you for reading, following, commenting and cooking along. Please send requests, comments and questions.

Pumpkin, in cans or the real thing, is widely available in supermarkets for a relatively short period of time. Americans (and some Brits) carve pumpkins for Halloween which renders them useless as food. But they can be cooked and eaten like any other squash. Canned pumpkin is hidden away in the back corner of American supermarkets except for the run in to Thanksgiving when its ubiquitous. Pumpkin pie is a given for most Thanksgiving tables.

The Davinator was very surprised that pumpkin pie is a dessert. Of course, many aspects of American food have bemused him over the years. I sympathise with his desire why pumpkin pie is a dessert and sweet potato and marshmallow casserole is not. Again, a topic for another day and another blog.

I wanted tinned pumpkin without paying for the stuff imported from the USA and sold in our local garden centre in the American speciality food section. Because I didn’t want to have to take out a mortgage to buy it. I think I may do a separate blog on garden centres because this is a retail establishment that I don’t think you find in America. Back to the pumpkin quest. I went on line and found a UK based brand. Then I had to buy a dozen cans to make the shipping reasonable. And there I was with 11 more cans of pumpkin than I really wanted.

What to do with excess pumpkin? Not a huge problem as pumpkin is lovely in bread, rolls, muffins and cupcakes. More of a storage issue as it’s not going to expire until 2021. These pumpkin chocolate chip cookies were the biggest hit of the various ‘things I did with pumpkin’.

Now on to the real problem. The recipe below makes 30 to 36 cookies. Unless you double the recipe you will only use half a normal can of pumpkin. Readers will know I hate to throw out food. So, I made a loaf of pumpkin bread that nicely used up the rest of the can. The pumpkin bread is coming in a separate blog and I will link to it from here.

This recipe can be easily adapted for vegans. The pumpkin does the job of eggs so none needed. You can replace the butter with margarine or unrefined coconut oil. Both are solid at room temperature and so give the ‘spring’ that butter will.

Time to get baking.

Recipe – makes 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 225 grams unsalted butter, melted and cooled (USA two stick) (substitute as discussed above for vegan friendly)
• 100 grams brown sugar (light or dark)
• 200 grams caster (white) sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 185 grams pumpkin puree NOT pumpkin pie filling (a bit less than half of a standard 15 ounce can)
• 380 grams plain white flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice or allspice mix
• 180 grams dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 60 grams of pecans, chopped small (optional)

Instructions

1. Whisk together the butter and the sugars until lump free. Add in the pumpkin and vanilla, beat until smooth.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and spice together.
3. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add in the chocolate chips and then the nuts if using. The dough will seem very wet.
4. Cover the dough and then chill for at least 45 minutes. I left mine for a couple of hours and went to spinning. (Ignore the virtue signalling here).
5. Preheat your oven to 175C or 350F. Get your baking sheets ready. I’m newly converted to ‘silimats’ or silicone baking mats instead of parchment. They work well and seem to last for ever.
6. Scoop out the dough with a small trigger scoop or a tablespoon. I weigh mine – with each scoop of dough weighing 35 – 40 grams. Please feel free to eyeball these at about a tablespoon and a half. Precision has limited benefits to cookies – it makes me feel better though.
7. Roll your scoops of dough into balls. Place on the baking sheets and flatten the tops with a spoon or your fingers.
8. Bake for about 10 minutes. The cookies will look set on the outside and wet in the middle. Take out of the oven. Leave to cool and set on the baking sheets for another 10 minutes. Then move to a rack for final cooling.
9. If you want to make these a little more chocolatey you can press a Hershey’s kiss or a big chocolate drop on the top of the cookies when they first come out of the oven.

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I really like the consistency of these cookies – I’m a chewy cookie kind of person not a crunchy cookie biscuit person.

Please leave comments, please share photos if you’re baking from the recipes: @mamadolson on Twitter and Instagram, Mama Dolson’s Bakery on Facebook. Requests always welcome.

Who doesn’t love a cinnamon roll or a lightly toasted slice of cinnamon bread with just enough raisins? There were a number of false starts before we arrived at the lovely golden brown destination. I resorted to the heavy artillery and consulted Cook’s Illustrated after several less than satisfactory attempts and inconsistent outcomes.

Readers of the blog will know – Cook’s Illustrated, IMHO, is one of the few cooking websites worth paying for. Why? They apply science and sweat to cooking problems. The cinnamon swirl bread recipe that I used as the foundation for the recipe below is a case in point. I have adapted some of the methods and tweaked the ingredients but the genius is theirs.

Several warnings before you read on. Equipment – you must have a KitchenAid or equivalent mixer to knead the dough. I don’t think it can be hand kneaded or done by stretch and fold. Ingredients – you are unlikely to have dry powdered skim milk in your store cupboard. It’s important for texture and lightness for the dough. Nerves of steel – after 10 minutes of machine kneading you will be convinced that the dough is not going to come together. Trust me, it does. Instructions – the folding and braiding instructions seem complicated but aren’t. Be methodical.

If you haven’t running screaming back to an easier recipe, bake on!

Ingredients

Dough

• 55 grams unsalted butter
• 290 grams strong white bread flour
• 40 grams skim dry milk powder (sift to get rid of lumps if necessary)
• 35 grams caster sugar
• 1 1/2teaspoons active dry yeast
• 170 mls warm water (55 C)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 100 grams raisins
• 1 medium egg

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Filling

• 55 grams icing sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Egg wash

• 1 medium egg lightly beaten with a pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Cut the butter into 16 pieces, toss with a tablespoon of flour to coat. Set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, milk powder, yeast (do not add the salt yet) in the bowl of your KitchenAid (other stand mixers are available but mine is 25 years old and going strong). Attach the dough hook.
3. Add the water and the egg and mix on low speed until a cohesive dough forms. It will not pull away from the sides of bowl and will seem sticky. Scrape down the sides. Cover with plastic wrap or a shower cap. Leave to rest for 20 minutes.
4. Remove the shower cap, add the salt and knead on low speed until the dough is smooth and elastic. This can be as quick as 8 minutes or up to 15 minutes. The mixture will seem sticky and will not form a ball of dough. Yet.
5. With the mixer still running, add the butter a few pieces at a time and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic. This is the point where you might start to think ‘this will never work’. It does. As the butter is incorporated the dough starts to form, clears the sides of the bowl and you relax. This might take another 3 to 5 minutes.
6. Add the raisins and give it another 60 seconds of mixing. Using a dough scraper, transfer the dough to a large greased bowl. Do a series of eight clock folds; lifting the edge of the dough, pulling it towards the centre and turning the bowl.
7. Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap. Leave to double in size. After an hour, do another series of clock folds. The first rise may take several hours. I did the first hour on the work bench and then the rest overnight in the refrigerator. As always, the timing of the rise this depends on the temperature of your kitchen.
8. Make the filling by whisking the dry ingredients together and adding the vanilla. It will look very dry.
9. Prep your loaf pan. Either grease well with a hard fat (butter or Trex or Crisco) or line with paper.
10. Lightly flour your work surface. Turn to dough out on to the work surface. Shape into a rough rectangle (15 cms by 27 cms) and fold top third to the middle and bottom third over both. Turn lengthwise, roll away from you into a rough ball. Dust the ball with flour. Flatten with a rolling pin to a rectangle 18 cm by 45 cm. It should about 1 cm thick and fairly even.
11. Spray or sprinkle the dough lightly with water. This makes the filling stick. Be abstemious with the water. Sprinkle the filling over the top, leave clean margins on all sides of the rectangle. Spray it again with water and roll up into a cylinder staring with short side. It should be a firm cylinder that it is about 20 cms in length. Tuck in the ends. Dust lightly with flour, cover with a towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
12. Clean your work surface. Gently stretch the cylinder out to roughly twice its original length. Cut it in half with a bench knife or scraper. Turn the pieces so the cut sides are facing up. Pinch the top ends of the two pieces together (you’re going to do a Russian braid or twist). Take the piece on the left, cross it over the piece on the right. Repeat left over right trying to keep the cut sides facing up until the pieces are twisted tightly together. Pinch the bottom of the two pieces together. Poke any raisins back into the dough. Gently transfer to your prepared pan.
13. Allow to rise until almost doubled in size meanwhile preheating your oven to 170 C. Brush the loaf with your egg wash. Bake for 20 minutes until the top is well browned. Reduce the oven temperature to 160 C and cover the loaf with foil. Continue to bake for another 20 to 25 minutes. Your thermometer should register 90-95 C when the bread is baked.

Thank you for reading the blog. Good luck with your baking. Thank you for following, sharing, commenting. Send questions and requests via comments, or Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Search ‘mamadolson’ and you should find me.

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I grew up in a small town in Michigan; my father didn’t hunt but many of my male relations; uncles, cousins, etc did go deer hunting. Genuine wild venison was a feature of the autumn in my childhood. Cooking venison was focused on two things; moderating the game taste and getting the best from genuinely free range lean meat. Slow cooking is one great way to accomplish both of those things.

Much commercially available venison is close to ‘ranched’ but if you’ve got your hands on genuine wild venison, this is your recipe. I suggest a cut with the bone in – venison shanks do amazing in this recipe but monitor the cooking time. The more bone and connective tissue, the longer it will need to cook.

I had a piece of boneless venison haunch and I probably cooked it for an hour longer than it needed. Still tasted great but the meat got a little bit drier than it should have.

There is no browning of meat here – why brown meat you’re going to cover in herbs, dark beer, vegetables and stock? It is very easy to make your venison tough when browning. If it makes you feel better, roll the meat in a little flour before putting it in the slow cooker.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 200 grams bacon lardons
• 2 large or 4 small carrots
• 2 beef stock pots or 4 stock cubes
• 1.5 to 2 kilos of venison, either whole or cut in chunks. If on the bone, leave on the bone, this really adds flavour
• Cooking brandy
• 1 large bottle (or can) of Guinness Extra Stout or other dark stout. I had a bottle of chocolate stout (who knows why) that I used
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 square of bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup of pearl barley

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Instructions

• Get your slow cooker ready and put the meat in it on high heat while you are prepping the sauce and vegetables.
• Use a large deep frying pan, heat the olive oil with a small pat of butter to medium high heat.
• Add the onions, garlic and carrots. Cook over medium high heat for two minutes. Then add the bacon lardons. Cook until the onions and garlic are softened.
• Throw a couple of tablespoons of cooking brandy on the vegetables, turn up the heat and burn off the alcohol.
• Turn the heat back to medium, add the beef stock cubes or stock pots and soften.
• Pour in the dark stout, again turn up the heat to burn off the alcohol. Get it to a nice burble, then add the brown sugar, the herbs and the square of chocolate.
• Once all the above are incorporated, add some water (not too much). Once back to a slow simmer, pour all the sauce onto the meat in the slow cooker.
• Cook for 4 to 6 hours on high, depending on the cut of meat you’ve used. This is not exact but the bigger the piece of meat and if it has a bone in it – the longer it will need to cook. A shank will take longer to cook than a piece of boneless haunch. Keep checking the meat for tenderness, when you can see it is falling apart or you can stick a table knife in, it’s ready. About 90 minutes before your expected finish time, add the pearl barley. (Or add the pearl barley after 3 hours). It absorbs the excess sauce, cooks up beautifully and makes this a direct to the bowl meal.

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I hope you enjoy this as much as we did. Keep on cooking, baking and commenting. Let me have your feedback and requests.

You don’t need sourdough starter discard to make this recipe, I’ve included a version below without starter. With the sourdough starter – it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Without the starter, it’s still great and will make better crackers than you can buy. The recipe is infinitely flexible; you can change the type of flour, the type of fat, the seasonings, the type of seeds and the toppings. I suggest that you make it as per the instructions the first time to get the technique down.

I made this several times, altering the seasonings each time until arriving at this recipe. The Davinator said ‘write that one down quick so you don’t lose it’.

Is this recipe easy? It requires some technique. This is a good recipe to practice your rolling technique and working with parchment paper because the ingredients are inexpensive. There are a couple of gadgets that make it easier and quicker. But you don’t need the gadgets. Useful gadgets for this recipe; a marble rolling pin, a spike dough roller and pizza cutter.

The good trick in this recipe – roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper. You can roll thin and even and make lovely crackers.

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Recipe

Ingredients (see all the flexes below)

• 350g sourdough starter discard
• 100g whole wheat flour
• 100g all purpose or bread flour
• 60 mls olive oil
• 1 Teaspoon salt
• Water – a couple tablespoons as needed to bring the dough together
• 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes, crushed ( I ground in a small mortar)
• 2 teaspoons of Italian herbs
• 2 teaspoons of sesame seeds
• Salt grinder for topping
• All purpose flour for rolling out

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 160C fan (180C with no fan) (350F)
2. Put all the ingredients except the water in a bowl that fits your mixer. Mix well, then use the dough hook and ‘knead’ in the mixer for 3 minutes or so. You’re not trying to develop gluten here so longer isn’t better.
3. If the dough has formed into a ball, you’re ready to roll out. If not, add cold water a tablespoon at a time and knead for 30 seconds until the dough comes together in a ball. Should take one or two tablespoons at the most.
4. Cut parchment to fit your baking sheets. I used four baking sheets to bake these crackers, you can rotate yours. You also need at least one additional parchment sheet to use as a cover.
5. Place a sheet of parchment on your rolling surface. Flour the parchment, place about 1/4 of the dough on the sheet. Flatten with your hands, and flour the surface. Roll the dough flat and as thin as your nerve will tolerate. This is where the heavy rolling pin comes into its own – focus on getting the middle part flat and then the edges.
6. Flip the parchment with dough over and peel off what was the bottom piece (easier than peeling off the top piece). Using a fork or your spiky roller punch a lot of holes in the dough. Puncturing the dough keeps your crackers from getting puffy. Take your pizza cutter or a knife and cut the crackers into pieces. You do not need to separate the crackers on the parchment.
7. Slide the parchment onto a baking sheet and place in the oven for about 20 minutes on the upper shelf. I put the first sheet in and then roll out the second. At 10 minutes, I move the first sheet to the lower shelf and put the new sheet in on the upper shelf. Or prep two, rotate them half way through.
8. 20 minutes is a guide – keep an eye on the crackers because the edges will usually be thinner (especially in the beginning) and will brown more quickly.
9. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheets if you can so the crackers get just a little crisper. If the crackers feel soft or chewier – put them back in the oven for 3 minutes at a time.
10. Let cool before eating, In theory, these will keep for 10 days to 2 weeks. In this house, there have never been any left after 48 hours.

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Flexing this recipe

There are so many ways to customise this recipe. Here are some suggestions:

1. No sourdough starter? Use 175 grams of flour (whole wheat, bread, all purpose) and 175 mls of water instead. You won’t get the sourdough tang but still really lovely crackers.
2. Vary the mix of flour in the recipe. Use rye, more white, less white, more whole wheat. I haven’t used any alternative flours like blue farina or spelt but it’s worth a try. Keep an eye on how much water you need.
3. Use different types of fat. I’ve used butter, bacon fat, sesame oil (very strong taste). We’ve settled on olive oil. Your fat should be liquid when mixing the dough so melt in advance.
4. Go wild with the seasonings. You can use up to 6 or 7 teaspoons of small seeds – sesame, black sesame, flax, hemp. Rosemary. Black pepper. Cumin. Oregano. Garlic or onion salt. Use combinations that you like and what you have in the cupboard. I found three open containers of chilli flakes – hence the chilli in this recipe.

Thanks for reading the blog. Please like, follow and share. Send comments and pictures if you’re cooking the recipes.

I’ve been working on my sourdough bread recently and try to strengthen my starter (named Liz by the way after a baker and teacher who has inspired me. I also like to take a treat for the team and clients at Smartworks where I volunteer on Wednesday. These two things came together and resulted in some of the best cookies I’ve ever made.

When you’re trying to strengthen your sourdough starter, you feed your starter everyday. This means you have discard. On the one hand, it’s only flour and water, on the other hand, I don’t like to throw stuff away. I was searching for things to make with the discard and found the basis for this recipe. I did misread the quantity in the original – it said ‘makes 20 cookies’. Accurate but those would be 20 giant American cookies, not cookies sized for normal humans. Even too big for the Davinator.

In my test bake, I rashly doubled the recipe and so I had enough dough for 40 giant cookies. I recalibrated the size (made them smaller) but of course that meant we had a lot of cookies. It rained cookies on friends and family.

The recipe below is adjusted to make 40 cookies for ordinary humans. You might not be a sourdough baker today. But these cookies are so good it’s worth making sourdough starter just for these bad boys.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 113 grams plain white flour
• 1 tsp baking soda (4 grams)
• 1 tsp salt (6 grams)
• 55 grams unsalted butter, melted
• 86 grams vegetable oil (corn or sunflower)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 175 grams brown sugar (any type)
• 110 grams caster sugar
• 70 grams sourdough starter discard (can be straight from the fridge)
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 280 grams rolled oats (not instant oatmeal)
• 60 grams dried cranberries or raisins
• 100 grams chopped walnuts
• 100 grams good quality chocolate chips (any variety – milk, dark, white as you like)

Method

Preheat your oven to 190C (170C fan). Cover several baking sheets with parchment paper.

1. Whisk flour, salt and baking soda (SODA) together in a bowl set to one side.
2. Chop your walnuts. You make want to rough chop your dried fruit as well depending on the size. Combine with the chocolate chips and set aside.
3. Melt the butter (microwave works well) and allow to cool for a few minutes. (Make a cup of tea or play a round of Angry Birds).
4. Stir the cinnamon into the butter. Follow with the brown sugar, caster sugar and oil – whisk until well combined. The mixture should be close to room temperature by now.
5. Add the sourdough starter, the egg, the yolk and the vanilla – whisk again until well combined.
6. Using a wooden spoon, spatula or a dough whisk (see photo below) stir in the flour mixture.
7. Follow by folding in the oats, fruit, nuts and chocolate. The mixture should be thick and stiff. Resist the temptation to eat it raw immediately. It looks yummy but it’s even better after baking.
8. Measure out your dough balls. I use a small trigger scoop (see photo below). You want about 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons by volume for each dough ball.
9. Drop the dough on to the baking sheets, leaving about 5 cms between each cookie. Flatten slightly with your fingers or a spoon. The cookies will spread when baking.
10. Bake one sheet at a time for 8 to 10 minutes. The centre should be soft but not wet and the edges crisp and starting to brown.
11. Cool on cookie sheet for five minutes then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Let them cool please, don’t burn your mouth like someone I know did. These cookies keep well for five days or more in the fridge. I stored mine in a cardboard box with parchment paper. Avoid a sealed ziplock or a plastic container as the cookies are very moist and will get soggy, I think.

Happy baking. Please comment, share and send requests and photos of your baking.

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My homage to Paul Simon, folks.  This blog post does not have 50 recipes for your courgettes (neither does the song list the 50 ways) but it should help you use your produce.

 What is it about courgettes that make them so prolific? They must be hardy enough to resist ambivalent (and lazy) gardeners (like me).  My first year, I put in six, yes six courgette plants.  OMG – did we have a lot of courgettes.  Now I plant three.  Some bit of ancient vegetable growing wisdom I have retained says three is the minimum number for pollination purposes.   Even three produce a lot of courgettes most years.

I really hate to throw away food I grew myself.  I have therefore accumulated a number of ways to prepare, preserve and eat courgettes.

 Here’s my round up of ideas and some specific recipes to make eating courgettes a joy not a chore. Hopefully, something for everyone. All of these recipes I’ve test cooked and the Davinator has eaten. 

1.  KISS – keep it simple, spiralize.  A spiralizer (many choices for less than £10 on Amazon) turns your vegetables into noodles.  Sautéed in butter, added to soups, salads and stir fry. Cover them with your favourite pasta sauce.  This is super use of the squash, especially when you harvest early and don’t let them turn into seed filled giants.
   
2. Just eat your vegetables.  Slice into 5 millimetre pieces, then chop in half.  Cook in boiling water or steam for 2 to 5 minutes depending on size and your preferences on the texture of your vegetables.  Alternatively, cut 1 inch slices and quarter these. Sauté in butter with a few chilli flakes and salt and peppel. Divine.
   
3. Get your revenge in first.  Make fried-courgette flowers.  Pick the flowers on stems (will never be courgettes) or small courgettes when the flowers are still attached.  You can either fry the flowers with the small courgettes attached or separate them and cook them separately.   Recipe link here: <fried courgette blossoms>
    
4. Use your weapon of mass consumption.  There’s nothing like chutney to use up large and diverse amounts of fruit and vegetables.  Sugar, vinegar, spices, onions and then a squash, a vegetable and a fruit component.  Here’s my recipe – <courgette chutney>.
   
5. Do it doughnut style.  Baked chocolate courgette doughnuts are about the healthiest doughnuts you can make and eat.  Of course, ‘healthiest’ doughnuts maybe a low bar but this recipe produces crowd pleasing treats – <chocolate courgette doughnuts>.
   
6. Put summer in a jar.  Courgette marmalade with ginger and lemon tastes like summer when you open it in November or gift it to good friends at Christmas time. This is not a recipe for newbies to making jam and marmalade but if you’re not intimidated by boiling sugar go for it.  Link here:  <spiced courgette marmalade>.
   
7. Hide the vegetables by burying them in deep dark chocolate cake. It’s all in the name.  This is a favourite of family, friends and co-workers.  So rich, it doesn’t need any icing or topping but you can go wild and slather it in whipped cream.  Link here. <deep dark chocolate cake>.
   
8. Pixar it up. One of my favourite Pixar movies is Ratatouille.  And you don’t have to be a Parisian rat to make awesome ratatouille.  Most cooks have a favourite recipe but ratatouille is very flexible. The core ingredients are courgette, aubergine, tomatoes and peppers.  Here’s a basic recipe that uses canned tomatoes but if you’ve got a glut go ahead and use them.  I would peel and core the tomatoes if you’re using fresh.  Link here: easy and flexible ratatouille.
   
9. Quickly now. Make quick whole wheat courgette bread.  It’s simple and quick and makes a good on the go breakfast treat. Link here: <whole wheat courgette bread>.
   
10. Round up……. Time to use your imagination and Google: courgette fritters, courgette terrine, courgette soup, tomato courgette spaghetti sauce.  Frittata with courgettes is one of my favourites. Link here: < frittata with courgettes>
    
11. Soup it up. Here’s the best courgette soup recipe I’ve found.
    
12. Get grilling. This is my new favourite grilled vegetable recipe.
    
13. Courgette and herb pilaf, you’ll never notice the courgettes.

Hopefully, these recipes will help you mop up the courgette tsunami and dig out from under the zucchini avalanche.  Thank you for reading the blog.   Please send comments, suggestions and requests.