Greek Easter Bread (Tsoureki)

     It was Easter Sunday yesterday, and I am recovering.  I can't remember when I cooked as much as I have this past weekend.  We had three dinner parties this week, plus two brunches.  Food is such an integral part of a holiday, and one main reason I cook is so that my kids will have happy, specific memories of special occasions.  But it does take time - something I'm not very good at admitting to myself.
     So, I was adventurous this year.  I made our traditional Simnel cake, and hot cross buns,

but I also tried not one, but two new Easter recipes.  The first one was an Italian Easter cake, called  Colombo di Pasqua.  It is a yeast cake, and I have been dying to try for years now.  It is very similar to the Italian Christmas cake Panettone.  You have to let it rise three different times, so it is definitely something to do when you know you will be at home throughout the day.  The result was fabulous, but I would say it might be something to serve at tea time rather than for dessert after dinner:

 

 

     The second new recipe I tried was for a Greek Easter bread, sometime referred to as Tsoureki.  The Greeks do Easter in a big way, so I was all for borrowing some of their traditions, particularly when it comes to food.  But I must say that I was not prepared for how very happy it made me to bake a Tsoureki.  Take a look at how BEAUTIFUL this thing is:

 

  

   
     I LOVE the idea of baking bread with dyed eggs!  It makes it really quite special.  This was the perfect thing to serve for our Easter Sunday brunch, which I did.  The kids loved it. I did something a bit different, in that most recipes I read called for the eggs to be hard-boiled, and then dyed, and then baked.  I didn't want to go down that route, as surely the eggs would be inedible by the end of that process.  So, I dyed raw eggs, and put them in the bread.  The result - besides the bread - was 4 beautifully baked eggs - better than anything boiled.
     I didn't quite follow the recipes I used for this bread, so here is my version of Tsourki (never thought I would say that !):

Greek Easter Bread

4 cups flour
4 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup milk
4 eggs
110 grams sugar
zest of three oranges
110 grams butter
1 tbsp. orange juice
2 tsp. vanilla

     OK - preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Warm the milk to 110 degrees F or so in a large bowl that attaches to a mixer.  Sprinkle on the yeast, and 1 tsp sugar.  Mix well, and then let it sit for 5 minutes.
     Mix again, and add 2 cups flour.  Mix well with the dough hook attachment, and let it sit again for a few minutes, until the mixture starts to bubble a little.  Then mix in the eggs, one at a time.  Next, add the sugar, orange zest, orange juice and vanilla, and mix well to combine.  Finally, cut the butter into little cubes and add to the dough, and mix again to incorporate.
     Add the next two cups of flour at little at a time.  The dough will be very sticky, but don't panic.  At this point, flour your hands and take the dough out of the mixer and onto a lightly floured surface.  We need to knead this dough now, even though it may seem like an impossible task because of the stickiness.  Slap the dough down, knead it, pick it up off the counter, and do that again and again.  As you knead, at some point - probably after about 5 minutes - the dough will develop into something beautiful and smooth.  Please don't be tempted to add flour, as this will make the bread heavy and plonky, rather than delicate and light.
     After the dough has become smooth, put it into a lightly oiled bowl, and let it rise until it has doubled in volume, about 45 minutes.  When it has, punch the dough down, and divide it in two.  Take one of the halves, and divide it into three pieces. Roll the pieces out into long, thin strips, and then braid the three strips together.  Form the braid into a wreath shape.  Let the braid rise again, about 20 minutes.  When it is ready to cook, carefully place three or four raw, dyed eggs into the wreath.  Brush the whole wreath with egg white.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until it is nicely browned on the outside but still soft in the middle.
 

Easter Carrot Cake

     Easter's coming, and that's exciting.  I love cooking for Easter.  It's different than cooking for Christmas, to be sure.  I would say there's less pressure, less expectation, than cooking for Christmas.  There are, of course, solid culinary traditions associated with Easter - fish on Good Friday, lamb on Easter Sunday, hot cross buns, Simnel cake, and so forth.  But I feel there is also more scope for experimentation. 
     Last year my daughter Georgiana was baptized on Good Friday, and I found myself catering for about 40 people after the event.  As I tried to think of the perfect Easter-type buffet, I was drawn to all sorts of foods - foods made with ingredients that represent Spring, foods made with fish, and foods with a middle-eastern bent - olives, almonds, dates, figs, apricots, vine leaves, goat's cheese, etc. - in memory of the life and death of Jesus Christ.  Here's a pictures of the buffet, just for fun:

     But surely, standard fare at Easter time is the carrot cake.  Georgiana's birthday is in March, and every year her birthday cake is a carrot cake. 
     I find there is something inherently interesting about carrot cake.  To my mind, it stands somewhere between a sponge cake and a fruit cake, and the possibilities are vast.  This year, I deviated from my normal carrot cake recipe and tried some different ingredients - I swapped butter for the oil, added some ground almonds, walnuts, and dried fruit.  Take a look:

Easter Carrot Cake

250 grams flour
50 grams ground almonds
1/2 tsp. mixed spice
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
250 grams butter
225 grams sugar
5 medium eggs
350 grams grated carrots
65 grams raisins
65 grams sultanas
50 grams walnuts
Juice of 1/2 orange
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Zest of 1 lemon

For icing:
Apricot jam
Cream cheese frosting.

First, in a small bowl, combine the raisins, sultanas and zest with the orange and lemon juice.  Let the fruit soak for about 20 minutes.

Grease and line two round 9-inch cake pans.  Make sure the sides of the pan are rather high. 

In a large bowl, combine the flour, ground almonds, spices, baking powder, and baking soda.  In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each one.  Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture by the spoonful, stirring gently after each one.  When the mixtures are combined, stir in the carrots, walnuts, and the soaked dried fruit with the juices and zest. 

Divide the batter evenly between the two pans.  Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes.  A skewer should come out clean when they are done.

Let the cake cool completely.  When ready to ice, spread about 3 or 4 tablespoons of apricot jam over the surface of one of the cakes.  Frost the surface of the other cake with cream cheese frosting.  Gently bring these two surfaces together to make a sandwich.  Then frost the rest of the cake with the cream cheese frosting.

Decorate as you see fit for Easter.  I can never resist doing something like this:

 

Mock Seville Orange Curd

     I continue to yearn to cook all the things I did in England.  It is hard, though, because much of the food just isn't the same.  There are no digestives here.  Well, OK, you can get them, but they are very rare, and very expensive when you do find them.  The only chocolate here that compares to chocolate in England is the Lindt chocolate, but again, very expensive.  The brown sugar isn't as nice.  Yogurts, cheese, and crackers - forget it. 
     OK - I'll stop whining, and talk about a  success story.  I missed cooking with Seville oranges this year.  As far as I could tell, they were not available here in southern California.  I usually make a Seville orange curd tart in January or February every year, and this is enough of a distinctive event in my culinary calendar that I was really quite sad at the thought of not being able to do it. 
     Then, I remembered a Nigella cooking program that I saw at least 10 years ago now, where she made orange ice cream.  She used orange and lime zest, and said that the combination of orange and lime gave the flavor of Seville oranges.
     It was my only hope of having anything remotely like Seville orange curd this year.  I'm happy to say that it worked, and I've had my Seville orange curd fix.


Mock Seville Orange Curd

50 mls lime juice
100 mls orange juice
Zest of two limes
Zest of two oranges
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
200 grams sugar
110 grams butter, cut into smallish pieces

Combine the juices, zest and sugar in a saucepan.  Whisk in the eggs.  Add the butter pieces, and cook over a low heat until the mixture thickens, stirring constantly.  The mixture will seem thin and unpromising as you stir, but be patient, because all of a sudden it will all come together and all will be well.

     I would say that one main reason I got into cooking, and why I still do it so much, is because I have control over the final product.  I can do a meatloaf with mushrooms, or not.  I can do a vegetable curry with cauliflower and carrots, or green beans and zucchini, or anything else.  I can do  a chocolate cake with all butter, instead of using vegetable oil, or an apple crumble just the way I like it.
     So, imagine my happiness when I made granola last week.  This is only the second time I have made it, and I have no idea why it didn't occur to me to make it years ago.  I love granola - in fact, I love all cereals and am a bit of a cereal addict.  I try to stay away from the stuff because, you know, it's too many carbs blah blah, but if trying to keep at a good weight and eating a balanced diet wasn't an issue for me I would probably eat it every meal.  I've taken recently to eating a handful of cereal in a little mug with a splash of milk as a snack, and that seems to keep my depravation complex at bay.
     Anyway, back to the granola.  I have spent years loitering in the cereal isle at the grocery store, reading the label of every granola and museli available, trying to decide which one I wanted for that week (the fact that when I hit 40 my eyesight became noticeably worse when reading small print didn't make this job any easier, and my older children laughed at me when they saw me hunched over a box of cereal, squinting and moving the box closer and then farther away as I tried to decipher the fine print).  Should I go for dried pineapple and brazil nut granola? Or banana chips, dried apricots and pecans?  Dried cherries and almonds?  How about the standard raisin and hazelnut combination?  And there was always a pumpkin seed option, gently chastising me that eating granola could only be justified if it had some kind of super food.  So much of the time I just went home without any granola, simply because I just couldn't decide.
     So making granola was a bit of a revelation for me.  I could use any combination that I wanted!  Amazing!  No more looking for someone else's version of the perfect granola.  I adapted recipes from both Nigella Lawson and David Lebovitz - my new favorite food person (although Nigella will always hold a special place ...).  They both used almonds, and Nigella added raisins.  I knew I wanted something else as well, so I added pumpkin seeds, golden raisins and dried apricots.  I served it at a church brunch last Sunday, and someone commented:  'This is like Christmas!'

Customized Granola

400 grams oatmeal (not the quick-cooking kind)
150 grams whole almonds
100 grams sliced almonds
100 grams pumpkin seeds
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon all spice (mixed spice)
1/2 teaspoon salt
200 grams applesauce
3 tablespoons vegetable or sunflower oil
150 grams agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla
100 grams raisins
50 grams golden raisins
75 grams apricots

Grease a very large, square baking dish with vegetable oil.  Combine all the dry ingredients in a big bowl, except for the raisins, golden raisins and apricots.  Put the oil, agave, vanilla and applesauce in a saucepan, and heat gently until they are well combined.  Pour this mixture over the dry ingredients, and mix well until the dry ingredients are thoroughly coated.  Pour into the prepared pan, and bake at 300F/150C for about an hour, giving it a good stir about every 20 minutes.

     And the fab thing about this is, the nut and fruit combinations are up to you.  Just keep the quantities the same, but chop and change as you will.  I see myself making this on a regular basis ...

  

     Eating in California has its undeniable pleasures.  Everywhere you look, food is growing, even in February.  Right now the citrus fruits are in season, and the orange and lemon trees are a beautiful sight.  It's warm here, so one isn't always in the mood for the rich winter fare we enjoyed in England, like steak and mushroom pie, or lamb stew with dumplings.  Our diet is changing a bit, just because it has to:  we eat more citrus fruits, avacadoes, and Mexican food, and we eat less yogurt, chocolate and cheese because those things just aren't as good here. 
     Still, I miss cooking and eating in England, and so I try my best to cook English food here.  I know that comforts the kids - they need familiarity in their new home, and nothing brings the comfort of familiarity like food.  They ask for sausages and mash, fish and chips, roast chicken, apple crumble, good chocolate desserts - all things that aren't really a part of the American diet.
     Speaking of familiarity, I am so happy to be reunited with my cookbooks.  I have been without them for 6 months, as they went into storage in July.  Opening them up again and reading the recipes was like conversing with an old friend.  And the recipes brought back so many memories - some very old, some more recent.  Each cookbook was acquired at a different phase in my life, so each one is associated in my mind with a specific time and place, and with the events and challenges that I was facing at that time and in that place.  Most of the time, food is made with the intent to respond to an event or a challenge, so when I read a recipe I used to cook, I remember not only when I cooked it, but also why I cooked it.  I cooked a spinach and goat's cheese quiche for a family blessing in Lincolnshire, I baked bread in Cambridge when we were first married because I wanted to get good a making French bread, I cooked Delia's chocolate bread and butter pudding in Huntingdon, usually late at night, because my kids adored it.
     Often what happens to me and cookbooks is that I get stuck into one and attempt to cook my way through it.  I'm fascinated right now with the book, La Dolce Vita. Sweet Dreams and Chocolate Memories by Isabel Coe.  I am especially happy that this book is out of storage.  It's one of those cookbooks that is half memoir, half cookbook.  Isabel Coe tells stories about both sides of her family - some from Italy, some from Switzerland - and gives chocolate recipes which have been in her family for generations.  It's fascinating reading, and the recipes are remarkable for their simplicity and elegance.
     One recipe I tried this week from the book is 'Cold-Weather Parsenstein', which is basically a truffle recipe.  It was Valentine's Day on Friday, and I always make the kids some kind of Valentine treat. This year I decided to make them chocolates, rather than buy chocolates, so I turned to this recipe.  I changed it a bit for my use, and it was a huge hit.  Tim said they were the best truffles I had ever made.

Valentine's Day Chocolates - For Tim
100 mls heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
250 grams dark chocolate
15 grams butter
50 grams raspberries

To coat:
3 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tbsp powdered sugar
150 grams dark chocolate

     Pour the whipping cream and the vanilla extract in a saucepan or microwavable jug.  Bring to the boil.  In the meantime, chop up the chocolate and butter into little chunks in a large bowl.  Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and butter and stir until the chocolate is melted.  Stir in the rapsberries - don't worry, they will fall apart and disintegrate.  Put the mixture in the fridge to cool. 
     When it is set, mix the cocoa powder and powdered sugar together in a small bowl.  Coat your hands with powdered sugar, and make truffle balls - or whatever shape you like - out of the chocolate mixture.  Roll the chocolate shapes in the cocoa power mixture, and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Freeze the truffles for a couple of hours, until hard.
     Finally, melt the dark chocolate over a double boiler.  Coat the truffles in the melted chocolate, and place back on the parchment paper.  Store in the fridge until ready to eat.  Makes about 15 truffles, depending on how big you make them.


   

     Since I last posted in this blog, we have moved countries.  No more cooking in England, I'm afraid, at least for the foreseeable future.  And I fear something is true which I have suspected all along:  I actually enjoy cooking more in England than I do in the States.  Since we have moved back to the States, I find myself just a little bit less interested in food than I have been for the past 18 years.  This is an alarming development - not one I am happy with at all - but I have to admit that for the past few months it feels as though I have lost my cooking 'mojo'. 
     So, the only thing to be done is to pick myself up and find inspiration for my cooking in this different environment.  We are moving to Southern California later this week, where we plan to live for a very long time, so that's the environment which will inform my cooking going forward.
     To encourage myself to get back into cooking and find the same kind of excitement and pleasure in it that I once did, I forced myself to do something just a little bit different today with our Sunday roast.  I focused on the vegetables.  Instead of boiling the brussel sprouts, I roasted them - a far superior way of cooking them, I think.  With the carrot and swede, I added orange peel, and they were amazing.  To the green beans, I added lemon peel, which improved them greatly as well. 
     I think that vegetables are often hard to get right.  I was surprised at how giving them just a little bit more attention transformed the meal from a bit mundane to rather special:  the brussels were gleaming, the carrots were bright, the green beans dark and sophisticated.  It made me happy to eat them.  And that's a good sign for the future.

Carrots and Swede with Orange
1 lb. carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
1/2 lb. swede, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
Zest of 1 orange
butter, to taste

Boil the carrots and swede until tender.  Drain them, and add butter to taste.  Zest the orange over the pan, and stir thoroughly so the carrots and swede are coated evenly with the zest. 

     Today is the day after Thanksgiving, and that's got to be one of the best days of the year.  It's the official start of the Christmas season, I am surrounded by exciting Thanksgiving left-overs - turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, dinner rolls, sweet potatoes, and I have some surprisingly positive memories of this year's Thanksgiving that will be sustaining me through whatever dark times befall me in the near future.
     I think we need to be clear about the importance of Thanksgiving, and I am not talking here about the culinary importance.  For me, it is the premier event in which food and family intersect so strongly with one another that it is hard to keep them separate and distinct.  This is not to say that I have confused my children with a turkey.  I mean, rather, that while Thanksgiving is most definitely about turkey and pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce, it is just as much about the company with whom you eat it, such that memories of food at Thanksgiving cannot be separated from the memories of the people eating it.
     For instance, one year my younger sisters were both living in London and I was a newly wed in Cambridge, and of course they came up for Thanksgiving.  We spent the whole day making all the foods we always made at home for Thanksgiving, one of which is a dish called Yams and Apples (a yam is a sweet potato in our neck of the woods).  It is a very time consuming dish and I remember my sister in my tiny apartment laboring over this big vat of yams and apples.  And now whenever I make that dish, I often think of her.  But it wasn't just that.  It was a powerful experience - bonding together as sisters in a foreign country by practicing our own family culinary rituals, which had the deepest of meanings for us as members of that family.
      And what is that meaning?  Well, on the surface, Thanksgiving is about celebrating the survival of the Pilgrims during the first year after they arrived in America in 1620.  We remember that they came to America because they wanted religious freedom which they could not get in England, and we are grateful that they had the courage to follow their convictions and found our country on such noble principles.  That was always a very important meaning in our family.  Thanksgiving is also about being thankful in general for the things that you have and the circumstances that you enjoy.  But I think there is something else going on here that makes the meaning even more robust.  If the ritual of Thanksgiving is about getting together with loved ones for a specific meal with a specific purpose, the meaning of Thanksgiving is embedded just as much in the meaning of those relationships with loved ones as it is in the meal itself.  In other words, the meaning of Thanksgiving is family, and, without trying in any way sound sappy, the meaning of family is love.  That's why my sisters and I had to get together and make Thanksgiving dinner even when we were living in different parts of a foreign country.  Practicing our family culinary ritual meant re-connecting with our family, who were so far away and who we loved so dearly.      
     So, with Thanksgiving now being on an equal footing with life, love and the meaning of universe, as I mother I feel it is my duty to pass on the full Thanksgiving experience, in the hopes that one day they, too will catch the vision and feel the love whenever they see a turkey or a pumpkin pie.
     And that 'full' experience starts with helping out in the kitchen on Thanksgiving eve.  I love the hustle and bustle in a kitchen the night before Thanksgiving or Christmas; I love it when the kids help out.  Not only are they learning, but it provides us with a common experience - a foundation on which to build our relationship further.  So, my three little girls helped me assemble the brine in which we would soak the turkey overnight:

     And my twelve year old made the best pumpkin pie filling I've ever had:

Imogen's Best Ever Pumpkin Pie

16 ounces cooked pumpkin or butternut squash
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp cloves
3 large eggs
12 ounces evaporated milk

Mix all ingredients together, making sure the eggs are well beaten.  Pour into a waiting pastry shell (that has not been baked at all, and see below for recipe).  Cook at 200C/400F for about 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 180C/350F and cook for another 20-30 minutes.  The pie is done with a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

     I put the teenager in charge of pastry:

     But she didn't always work on the pastry.  Our kitchen was filled with lots of mayhem on Thanksgiving Eve, and it wasn't because of the younger children:

     Now, this year, I feared for the pastry of my pumpkin and apple pies, and not because the teenager was in charge.  I have had too many bad experiences with pastry sticking to the pan, or it tasting like cardboard.  So, I used a method that I learned from one of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's books.  Instead of rolling it out, we simply broke off bits of pastry and pressed them into the pie dish, like so:

Perfect Pastry

125 grams butter, cut into small pieces
250 grams flour
pinch salt
1 egg yolk
juice of 1/4-1/3 lemon

Rub together the butter and the flour (and salt) with your fingers, until they look like porridge oats.  Mix the egg yok and lemon juice together in a small bowl, and add this mixture one tablespoon at a time until the pastry sticks together.  You may need to add a tablespoon of water or so to the pastry.  Break off bits of pastry and press them into a pie dish until you have covered the bottom and sides sufficiently.

     My next challenge was the apple pie.  I think it is actually quite hard to make a good apple pie, and I was mildly surprised to find that I had a pretty strong desire to get it right this year. I put my nine year old son in charge of getting the pastry in the pan, using the same recipe and method as we did with the pumpkin pie,

The filling was as follows:

Thanksgiving Apple Pie

800 grams Bramley apples, grated
450 grams Cox apples, cubed
145 grams white sugar
15 grams brown sugar
25 grams butter
25 grams flour
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp cloves
freshly grated nutmeg

Put all the ingredients into a big pan over a medium heat.  Stir the filling often to make sure it doesn't catch.  Cook for a few minutes until the apple cubes have softened somewhat.  Then pour the filling into the waiting pastry case:

For the topping, I decided to use a crumble topping:

130 grams flour
90 grams butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp white sugar

Rub together the flour and butter between your fingers until they look like porridge oats.  Mix in the sugars.  Sprinkle over the filling.  Bake at 190C/375F for about 30-35 minutes, until golden brown and bubbling on top. 

     On Thanksgiving morning, I woke up with refreshingly little to do, but I did have to get the turkey ready.  I didn't do much to it, since I had soaked it the night before, but it was beautiful when it came out of the brine:

     I am paranoid about dry white turkey meat, so I take all necessary precautions to avoid that.  One trick I learned from a Jamie Oliver program is to put butter directly onto the breast meat, under the skin - something my children like to freak out about when they witness me doing it:

     I had more help in the kitchen on the final stretch before dinner, with the teenager actually coming into the kitchen and saying to me 'Do you need me to help you?'  This was without prompting.  When I recovered from going into shock, I felt the biggest sense of accomplishment - my child asked to be helpful!  Funny how having children makes you appreciate the very simple things in life.  Either that or it reduces your expectations for yourself and for them to something so low that any good thing that happens is a bonus.  I put her to work making a topping for some broccoli in a cream cheese sauce, which was bread crumbs, butter and grated cheddar cheese:

     You can imagine how good the topping tasted.  She took a bite, enthused about how delicious it was, and I responded in agreement.  And in that moment, there was a unity between us, a shared understanding, that is not often there as of late.   Food can bridge the generation gap - temporarily, maybe, but in a way that matters.  And that brings us back full circle to the meaning of Thanksgiving:  it's about a common experience, about family unity, about love:

Even when your teenager does this at the table:

     It's autumn, I've got a pumpkin, and I'm not afraid to cook with it.

     I'm really, really not.  Whether or not my children are afraid - or loathe - to eat it, is a different matter.  Since the beginning of October they have been subjected to all manner of pumpkin dishes, including pumpkin soup, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin crumble, pumpkin cupcakes, stew cooked in a pumpkin, pumpkin bread, beef stew with pumpkin, pumpkin lasagne, pumpkin cake roll and pumpkin trifle. 
     They found the stew cooked in a pumpkin amusing and fairly edible, they tolerated the pumpkin lasagne (the teenager actually asked for seconds!), avoided the pumpkin cheesecake and crumble, gaged on the pumpkin soup, and broke down and wept when presented with the pumpkin trifle.  'Aren't you through with pumpkins yet?' my nine year old son cried.
     I shall, however, soldier on in the causes which I know to be worthwhile, even if I am surrounded by nay-sayers.  Thanksgiving is coming up, and the pumpkin obviously cannot be abandoned until after that day.  I would argue there is even a place for pumpkin at Christmastime.  I saw a recipe for pumpkin jam which I think might taste good on a gingerbread muffin in the days leading to Christmas ...
     One pumpkin recipe which my children don't hate and which I particularly enjoy making - therefore we are both happy, you see - is pumpkin bread.  Not bread in the sense of banana bread or zucchini bread, but yeast bread.  I found this recipe a few years ago on the King Arthur Flour website (www.kingarthurflour.com), and they have very kindly given me permission to reprint it here.  This recipe always works - it makes the most soft, supple, elastic dough which you could possibly imagine, and the taste is very moorish.

King Arthur Flour Pumpkin Yeast Bread

1/2 cup warm water
2 tbsp active dry yeast
2/3 cup warm milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1 and 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin, either fresh or canned
2 tbsp vegetable oil
6 and 1/2 cups (approximately) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

In a large bowl, stir yeast into water to soften.  Add milk, eggs, pumpkin, oil, 4 cups flour, brown sugar, salt, and spices.  Beat vigorously for 2 minutes.  The dough will look something like this:

Gradually add remaining flour, a little at a time, until you have a dough stiff enough to knead.  Turn dough out onto a floured surface.  Knead, adding flour as necessary, until you have a smooth, elastic dough.

Heat the oven to 190C/375F.  Put the dough into a large, clean, lightly oiled bowl.  Let rise at room temperature until doubled in size, about 2 hours.  Gently punch down and slide it onto a floured surface.  Shape either into loaves or rolls, and leave to rise for another 30 minutes or so.  Bake the loaves for about 30 minutes, until they are brown on top and sound hollow when tapped at the bottom.  The rolls will need less time, about 15 minutes, but keep an eye on them to make sure they don't brown too quickly.

       I would be remiss if I didn't comment on what I think are very important flavors for the pumpkin.  Obviously the cinnamon/nutmeg/clove/ginger combination is essential for many, if not most pumpkin recipes.  For savoury dishes, however, garlic, chilli, and goats cheese take pumpkin to a different level - an edible level, my husband might argue (I don't get much support, do I?).  And a match made in heaven is the pairing of pumpkin with amaretti biscuits:

     This is the combination which I used in my pumpkin trifle.  It may have been the cause of tears for my children, but frankly, they really don't know why they are crying, and neither do I.  In this trifle I bake the pumpkin layer with amaretti biscuits, which results in something like the crust of a creme brulee.  I then add the custard and cream layers on top, which softens the crust but seems to enhance it's burnt-sugar taste.

Holly's Pumpkin Trifle

for the pumpkin layer:
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
freshly grated nutmeg
3 large eggs
400 grams cooked pumpkin (or butternut squash, of course)
400 mls evaporated milk
about 20 amaretti biscuits

for the custard layer:
350 mls milk
350 mls double cream
75 grams sugar
8 egg yolks
2 gelatine leaves
1 tsp vanilla extract

for the cream layer:
400 mls double cream
a few crushed amaretti biscuits
toasted, sliced almonds

Heat the oven to 190C/375F.  For the pumpkin layer, put all the ingredients except the biscuits in a bowl and mix well.  Grease a large, round baking or cassarole dish and arrange the amaretti biscuits on the bottom.  Pour over the pumpkin mixture, and bake for about 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Let it cool completely, and chill it for a few hours, or overnight, in the fridge.

To make the custard, first put the gelatine leaves to soak in a bowl of cold water (they need to soak for five minutes, or follow the directions on your packet).  Combine the cream and milk and vanilla in a large saucepan.  Heat it until the mixture is about to boil, then take off the heat.  Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until frothy.  Slowly pour the milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisking all the while.  As soon as the milk and eggs have been combined, pour the whole thing back into the saucepan and whisk continually over a low heat until the custard starts to thicken. Take it off the heat, and continue to whisk for a minute or so.  Squeeze out the gelatine leaves, and then whisk them into the custard.  Whisk until the custard has cooled down a bit more, and then pour it over the pumpkin layer.  Chill for at least four hours, or overnight.

For the cream layer, simply whip up the double cream and carefully spread it over the custard.  Just before you serve, sprinkle it with the crushed biscuits and almonds.

     As I write, we are deep into autumn, which has always been my favorite time of year.  I love it when the days get shorter and the weather turns colder - time for warm boots and chunky sweaters. It is time also, of course, for certain kinds of foods, like rich stews, mulled drinks, and, dare I say it - sugar, in all it's wonderful forms.
     Yes, it was Halloween this past week, and we enjoyed (survived?) a sugar-filled day, even before the trick-or-treating started.  We made Halloween sugar cookies:

Our mission was to decorate them with all manner of candy:

And someone was so excited that she couldn't wait for the cookies to come out of the oven:

She was able to engage finally in a shameful sugar fest that included not only burying sugar cookies under a mountain of frosting and sprinkles, but also transforming pumpkin cupcakes into edible (inedible?), giant spiders as well:

 
     The simple sugars of Halloween baking are fun, charming, and I would even be willing to argue, in certain cases, necessary.  They are not, however, what I associate most with autumn.  For that, we have to look further afield, to the less refined sugars of treacle, brown sugar, and golden syrup.  Butter + any one of these sugar products makes for a carmel-ly taste, which has to win first place as the taste of autumn.   Put any of these sugars with butter, ginger or allspice in a baked item, and you have the perfect treat for a cold autumn day.
     We went hill walking last week.  It was a little strenuous (I mean, come on, this is Britain, so the hills aren't going to be that high, are they?), and very cold.  Can you tell?

     And the perfect pick-me-up during the walk was a dark, sticky gingerbread, which was remarkable for it's warming properties (was it the calories, do you think?):

  
      The ultimate crowd pleaser, however - the heartwarming, golden syrup-infested, comforting, this-will-lift-you-out-of-a-clinical-depression, post-hill walking treat was my flapjacks.  Need I say more?

Hill Walking Flapjacks

225 grams butter
110 grams demerara sugar
6 tbsp golden syrup
375 grams porridge oats
dash salt
dash ginger

Grease a 10 x 8 inch square pan, and line it with greaseproof paper.  Slowly melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup, salt and ginger together in a large saucepan.

When the sugar and the butter are melted, pour in the oats.  Stir to coat thoroughly, then pour into the prepared pan.  Bake at 180C/350F for about 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown around the edges.

     A few weeks ago our family was deemed a charity case by someone who works in the food industry.   This person has now developed what seems to be a habit of giving us a box, or two, every week full of fruits and vegetables which are about to go bad within the next twelve hours.  Although in my head I know I should be very grateful for free food, my gut reaction is to feel a little bit annoyed that someone is giving me food with which I have to do something almost right as I am receiving it.  I am inflexible by nature and frankly, these donations screw up my all-important SCHEDULE.
     However, in the spirit of 'enjoy the journey' and 'make time for surprises' and other mantras by which I feel obliged to at least attempt to live, I have rather grudgingly drug myself into the kitchen and thought about what I could do to not waste this food.  Happily, I made some joyous culinary discoveries which I would not have made had the opportunity not been thrust upon me, the most notable one being my original Figgy Chutney.
     Yes, I was given many figs.  I couldn't roast them all with butter and honey, so chutney seemed like a good option.  I kept singing the song 'Oh, bring us some figgy pudding ...', and although I knew that figgy pudding is made with dried figs, the idea took hold of me and I found myself wanting to replicate the figgy pudding experience, but with fresh figs and in a chutney.  Luckily, I had some damsons lying around for which I had no plans, and I thought they could serve as the plum element that is present in the pudding.  I used currants, an apple, Christmas spices, and even vanilla.  The result was, well, a delicious, Christmas-y, figgy chutney.  I cannot wait to put it on the cheeseboard at Christmas.

Figgy Chutney

250 grams onion, chopped
100 grams apple, chopped
210 grams currants
40 grams raisins
700 grams figs, cut into quarters
250 grams damsons or plums (if using plums, stone and quarter them)
300 grams light brown sugar
250 mls cider vinegar
100 mls red wine vinegar
3 balls stem ginger
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Juice of 1 orange
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon cloves
2 and 1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg (about 1/8 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Put all the ingredients to a big pot.  The red-ish figs contrast beautifully against the dark damsons in this raw state.

Slowly bring the ingredients to the boil, stirring frequently.  Simmer for a few hours until the right consistency is reached, and then pack them into sterilized jars.  If you are using damsons instead of plums, you will need to fish the stones out after about an hour of cooking.  As the figs and damsons simmer the chutney will cohere and become a gorgeous Christmas-y burgandy color. 

I also tried making fig conserve, which was incredible!  That same reddish burgandy color came out as I watched the conserve cook.  I served it to my husband for an autumn breakfast in bed one weekend:

     While we're on the subject of conserves, I have to say that we, the charity case people, were also given two massive marrows.  I know that marrow is pig food in Italy and France, but, again, part of me wanted to be thrifty and make use of this rather unusable vegetable.  I had seen recipes for marrow and ginger jam, so I thought I would try to do that.  I wondered who would eat it, though, and then remembered that we were having a Harvest Festival celebration at our church on Sunday, and that we were going to all bring food for the homeless to church that day.  What could be more in keeping with the festival than to bring food from the harvest, made into a preserve, to share with the homeless? 
     So, I set to work on my marrow jam.  My husband was in the kitchen at the time, so I shared my charitable plans with him 
'Who do you think is going to eat this jam?' he said. 
'Well, I thought I would bring it to church on Sunday to give to the homeless.'  I answered. 
'What?!!  The homeless aren't going to eat that!'
'So, are you saying that this jam isn't even good enough to give to people who are starving?' 
My husband did some very quick thinking.  'No, I'm saying that it's going to be too good.  They won't appreciate it.  They won't even know what it is.' 
'But on the BBC website it said that this is a traditional jam,' I protested.  
'Look, I'm just saying that they aren't going to want to eat something that isn't familiar to them,' he warned. 
     Well, we are all entitled to our own opinions.  I have finished the jam this morning, and I have to say it's pretty rockin'.  As a charity case myself, I would be only too happy if someone gave it to me.

Marrow and Ginger Jam

1 kilo marrow, peeled and cubed (this is the weight it should be after you have peeled and cubed it)
1 kilo jam sugar
Juice and zest of 2 lemons
4 balls of preserved ginger (about 80 grams), shredded
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Place the marrow and the lemon juice in a big jam pot. Cook very gently until the marrow is translucent.  Stir in the zest, ginger, sugar and spices.  Let the sugar dissolve, and then turn up the heat so that the mixture comes to a rolling boil.  Boil for four minutes, or until setting point is reached.  Pack into sterilized jars and seal.

     The sun is shining and the air is crisp, making this the most glorius autumn day yet this season.  There's apples, raspberries, blackberries, pears, figs, peppers, aubergines, tomatoes and ... my favorite ... pumpkins.  Things from the earth and things in my kitchen only get better from here until at least Christmas time, and that nesting, nuturing instinct is kicking in again.  That means I get sudden flashes of inspiration of something really exciting to cook when I have promised myself I would not do anything complicated or time consuming or even remotely interesting in the kitchen.  But it's autumn - with all this raw material, the creative juices can't help but flow ...
     Before I start enthusing about autumn recipes, however, I must note that there are still some foods hanging on from summertime - mostly notably courgettes.  My courgette plants just keep producing, and although I have heard shocking amounts of verbal abuse heaped upon this poor vegetable, I will stand tall and say that I, for one, am pleased that my courgette plants keep producing.  The explanation lies with another obession of mine:  the courgette flower.
     I consider myself to have had a very wholesome, healthy, and varied diet growing up.  My mother had a huge garden which produced far more vegetables than any garden of which I'll ever be in charge.  But never in a million years did we know or would we even have guessed that you can eat courgette flowers!  Imagine the liberation I experienced when I learnt that this indeed was the case.  So, here are my two favorite courgette flower recipes.

Stuffed Courgette Flowers

     This has been the standard first course for every romantic dinner I have served my husband over the past four summers.  Like brie cheese and other foods to which I was exposed only after leaving home, these flowers will always seem unique, full of wonder, and never tiresome.

About six courgette flowers
80 grams soft goat's cheese
fresh thyme
pinch dried chilli flakes
zest of 1/2 lemon
pinch salt
160 grams plain flour
240 mls sparkling white grape juice

Very carefully pick the stamen out from the center of each flower, and, being careful again, gently wash the flowers to get rid of any bugs, and pat dry.  Did I say you must be careful?  You will ruin these delicate creations otherwise.

Mix the goat's cheese, thyme, chilli flakes, lemon zest and salt together.  (Carefully) stuff each flower with the mixture, twisting the top of the flower to seal it a bit.

    Next, make the batter by simply mixing the sparkling grape juice with the flour, and maybe adding a pinch of salt.  Dip the flowers into the batter one by one, and, frying one or two at a time, place into a pre-heated, deep fat fryer.  Fry them for about three minutes - keep checking on them, and take them out when they are golden brown, like this:

      
I recommend serving them on a bed of mixed baby lettuce leaves, sprinkled with toasted pine nuts.

Courgette Flower Sauce

     I only discovered this sauce this past summer - in fact, only last month, when I was considering what to make my husband for our candlelight birthday dinner (our birthdays are three days apart, so, conveniently, we are allowed to celebrate them at the same time;  we get the same treatment that way).  I found the recipe in Anna del Conte's Gastronomy of Italy, but I changed some of the ingredients as well as some of the proportions.  I was looking for a sauce for some beautiful sea bass we had brought back with us from our favorite fishmonger, which happens to be about seven hours away from us in Porthleven, Cornwall.  Frankly, I could not have found anything more perfect.  There is something about the texture of the flowers that contributes a velvet smoothness to the sauce.  You will never wonder what to do with courgetters again - just pick the flowers and make this sauce.

Six courgette flowers
1/2 small onion, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
healthy pinch of saffron strands
75 mls hot stock (chicken, fish or vegetable)
1 egg yolk
30 grams grated parmasean cheese

Remove the stamen from the flowers, and wash gently.  Chop the flowers and the onion very finely, and saute them gently in the olive oil and butter, making sure you do not let the onion brown.  Dissolve the saffron strands in the hot stock, and add to the pan.  Put a lid on the pan and let it simmer gently for about 10 minutes or so.  Then put the whole thing in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.  While the mixture is still hot, whisk in the egg yolk and the cheese.  Season if necessary.  You should have an extraordinarily smooth, gloriously yellow and subtly delicious sauce.   

   

     Summer's over, and that's a shame.  There is so much going on, culinarily speaking, in the summer (although I would argue that there is even more culinary goings-on in the autumn - more on that later) that sometimes it makes my head swim.  I tried to stay grounded this summer, but I must admit to a pantry very full of homemade preserves and chutneys.  Here's a list of my exploits:  gooseberry and elderflower jam, elderflower jelly, lavender jelly, strawberry jam, raspberry and lavender jam, french apricot jam, apricot chutney, peach conserve, plum jelly, plum chutney, blackberry jelly, chilli jelly, chilli jam, and tomato jam. 
     Two recipes which I do not want to forget (so often I do forget) are my raspberry and lavender jam, and one of my (happily, successful) experiments this year, apricot chutney.
     The raspberry and laveder jam ... what I love about this recipe is that I can put some of the many lavender plants which I have in my garden to good use.  That makes it seem so thrifty to me.  Thankfully, the raspberries didn't cost the earth, either.  I took my four youngest children to a local raspberry patch, and I encouraged them to pick away.

     They stayed focused for about 50% of the time, I would say.  The other 50% of the time was spent complaining about some perceived dog poo somewhere in the raspberry patch, urgent requests to use a non-existent toilet, and whining about the heat of the English summer (??!!).  To be fair, picking raspberries might not hold their attention for very long when mom's a control freak and tells you constantly to only pick the ripe ones.
     
Raspberry and Lavender Jam

1.1 kilos raspberries
750 grams jam sugar
5 heads of lavender
Juice of 1 lemon

Make sure your lavender heads are fresh and deep purple, rather than drying out.  Aren't they beautiful?

First, put a small saucer in the freezer.  Combine the raspberries and sugar in a big jam pot.  Strip the lavender heads off of the stalks, and add to the pan, along with the lemon juice.  Gently crush the mixture a few times, and then very gently heat until the sugar is dissolved, stirring frequently.

Once the sugar is dissolved, turn up the heat and nurse the mixture to a rolling boil.  Skim off the scum that comes to the surface.  After about four minutes start checking to see if the mixture has reached setting point by putting a little bit on the cold saucer, then putting the saucer back in the freezer for a few minutes.  If the mixture wrinkles when you push it with your finger, you're good.  Pour into sterilized jars.  It makes about 4 350g jars.

     The apricot chutney was a bit of a surprise.  As I thought about which chutneys to make, all of sudden I realized that not only had I never made apricot chutney, but also that it is one of those chutneys that you hardly ever see in the supermarket.  The quest had then begun.  It wasn't very hard - all I did was consult my plum chutney recipe from last year, and replace the plums with apricots.  I made a few other very minor changes and hoped for the best.  The result was so successful that I now consider my plum chutney recipe to be the template recipe for all my other chutneys!

Apricot Chutney

1.2 kilo apricots
250 grams onions
250 grams sultanas
300 grams light brown sugar
1 eating apple
2 pieces stem ginger
1 tbsp + 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp coriander seeds
350 mls cider vinegar
3 tbsp ginger syrup

Stone the apricots, and cut them into quarters.  Finely chop the apple, onion and the stem ginger.  Put everything together into a big pot, slowly bring to the boil, and then simmer very gently until chutney consistency is reached.  Pack into sterilized jars and seal.  This makes about four 1 lb. jars.

Although Christmas was nearly two months ago, I must record a few culinary thoughts about it before my memory fails me completely.

Christmas 2011 was special because I took the plunge and invited - for the first time - friends rather than family for Christmas dinner. It was a wonderful occasion but of course occasions mean people, and therefore food, and lots of it. I found myself catering for 15 people on Christmas day, and while I remember feeling stressed, as I look back on it I realize that Christmas day itself was, in fact, not very stressful at all. Indeed, we had finished Christmas dinner by 3pm, which is the time at all other Christmases I have always aimed, and always failed, to get Christmas dinner started, let alone finished.

But more on Christmas dinner later, for there is so much more to be said about cooking at Christmastime than simply the Christmas day dinner. One of our biggest Christmas cooking times is shaping up to be the weekend of Thanksgiving. We have made it a tradition to make the Christmas cake as a family the Saturday or Sunday after Thanksgiving, which gives it a good month to mature. I started doing it a few years ago, as a way of welcoming the Christmas season, which cannot officially start in my house - because I forbid it - until the end of Thanksgiving Day. It turns out that, completely unbeknownst to me, by making my Christmas cake during that weekend, I was in fact honoring the old English tradition of 'Stir up Sunday', the day historically set aside to make up one's Christmas goodies such as the Christmas cake and the Christmas pudding. It falls on the last Sunday before Advent (which is December 1, for anyone who may not know), which, indeed will always coincide with the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

I don't have a recipe for Christmas cake which is original enough to post here, but I will say that the act of making it together as a family, although it can be fraught, is also a powerful way of binding us together. Someone is chopping the almonds and the cherries, someone else is beating the eggs, someone else is grating the nutmeg and getting the zest from the oranges and lemons. Treacle and marmalade go into the mix, and there is butter being whipped up with brown sugar and ginger so you know life can't be that bad. And then the amazing bit: we get to wrap the thing in heavy brown paper and tie it with string, so that the cake doesn't cook too fast. I love these simple methods that remain the most effective way to do something, no matter how advanced our society becomes.

Then, when the cake comes out, I get to wrap it immediately, while it is still in it's tin, in layers and layers of tin foil, and let it cool completely. When I was wrapping it up this year, my four year old watched me and said, 'Is that your baby?' To which I thought, 'Actually, it kind of is.'

Anyway, besides Christmas cake, this year during the 'Stir up Sunday' period, I also made mincemeat. It was the right thing to do - although I don't make mince pies until a few days before Christmas, it made a huge difference to my sanity levels during that frenetic week to know that all I had to do to make my mince pies was mix up the pastry. My mincemeat is different than modern-day mincemeat. First of all, I make it with beef mince, a concept first introduced to me by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This is the way mincemeat was made historically, and indeed I have a Tudor recipe book which includes a recipe for mincemeat using beef or lamb. I have taken elements from both Fearnely-Whittingstall's and the Tudor recipe to create my own mincemeat. Please make a note of the saffron in the recipe: although it only calls for a pinch, I think this has to be the most exciting ingredient.


Holly's Traditional Mincemeat

250 grams beef mince (ground beef)
75 grams beef suet
100 grams currants
100 grams raisins
100 grams chopped prunes
275 grams grated eating apples
125 grams brown sugar
25 grams gound almonds
50 grams flaked almonds
50 grams candied cherries
25 grams preserved ginger, chopped
100 mls apple juice
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
zest and juice of 1/2 orange
2 tbls. treacle
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp. mixed spice
pinch saffron

Combine everything together in a bowl. That's it. The only issue here is the shelf life of the mincemeat, which won't be long since the beef is raw and there is no alcohol in the mixture. (I suppose the title may be a bit misleading, because traditional mincemeat has alcohol in it, and here I have purposely left it out.) I have left it before in the fridge for up to two days before using it, as it does need a little bit of time to mature. Otherwise, the mixture freezes perfectly.

Next post: more on Stir up Sunday, plus other culinary delights of the season

Sadly I didn't blog about food during the Thanksgiving and Christmas periods - simply because I was too busy cooking it. Unfortunately the holidays are now one big blur so it is hard to remember exactly what I cooked and how I did it, but I'll try jotting a few things for posterity. Thanksgiving was a blast. I love cooking turkey - what a fantastic bird! This year I decided to search for the holy grail of turkeys - the super juicy, tender kind - by soaking it in a brine marinade the night before, including honey, sugar, allspice berries, oranges, thyme, bay leaves, etc. I had to buy a special plastic box just for the occasion, and my husband patiently helped me put it in the garage as I struggled to carry it when it was filled with the brine and the turkey - although he did sigh a few times, I seem to remember. But so ecstatic was I at the prospect of this exciting process of marinading the whole bird that I think even he may have caught the vision.
The next day I insisted that every child help prepare the dinner, and as they were wandering around the kitchen, I prepared the bird - wrestling it out of the brine, patting it dry, smothering it with butter, etc. I had to do it when they were there - as far as I'm concerned, this is the stuff of life-giving memories, the kind of memories that sustain you when life is disappointing or seems meaningless. 'Remember the year that Mom had to take the turkey out of that brine .....?'
I have a particular memory of Thanksgiving - one among many, but still one that sticks out. I remember my mother setting out breadcrumbs in a big bowl to make the stuffing, and then combining the breadcrumbs with chopped onion and sliced celery. She poured hot stock over the mixture to moisten it. I remember the smell was exquisite. I still don't think I can make stuffing as good as my mother's.
Other memories include my Grandma Hamilton's mustard pickles and baby onions, inhaling my mother's white bread rolls, cranberry sauce out of a can that retained the shape of the can once in the serving dish, my Dad's turkey gravy, getting up early and seeing the pumpkin pies laid out from being prepared the night before, dressing up and using the best dishes, and the first course of jello salad served on a bed of iceberg lettuce!
The turkey was wonderful, by the way.
Next post, Christmas.

It's autumn, and as far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough of a reason to be happy to be alive. Of course, this love of autumn has a rather strong connection with food; ok, it pretty much centers around food completely. October has got to be the best month for seasonal food. So much is in full swing: onions, potatoes, carrots, apples and pears. We still have tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, and aubergines, and there are even berries to be had! On Sunday we went for a family walk, first through a teeming apple orchard, and then along a road boardered by what seemed like miles of blackberry bushes. All the kids got stained fingers and hands as they kept spotting more and more perfectly ripe berries just within their reach. I still see local raspberries at my fruit and veg shops.

But I think it's the prospect of what will very soon come into season during this month, if they haven't already, that excites me the most: pumpkins, squash, and wild mushrooms. It's fair to say that I'm obsessed with pumpkins, which makes me think I might be French, at least in spirit (certainly not in body). I have a very interesting cookbook, entitled 'The New Vegetarian Cookbook', which has this intriguing recipe simply labeled 'Pumpkin Soup', which the author claims is 'a traditional French country soup'. I have memories of cooking this soup in October, standing in my kitchen, knife in hand, hacking into a massive pumpkin while the wind blew the leaves around outside. Here is where I first noticed, I think, the combination of pumpkin and sage. I have another book, entitled 'Cooking with Pumpkins, Squash and Zucchini', in which there is a recipe for a spicy, creamy squash soup. I cooked from this recipe first, for years, and it also uses sage, but since there is also a fresh chili in this recipe the sage doesn't play such a dominant role. Hence I never realized the important pairing of pumpkin and sage.

This week the pumpkin and sage combo came to our kitchen table in the form of pumpkin risotto. Proudly, I used the first pumpkin harvested from our own pumpkin patch (one of three, sadly). The recipe I used called for cubed pumpkin, which works, certainly, but the standard recipe I used calls for shredded pumpkin (actually butternut squash), which I think works better. I did something like this: chop an onion, and brown it in some butter. Then add 350 grams of cubed pumpkin, or shredded pumpkin, and stir it around until it starts to get soft. Then add 200 grams of risotto rice, and stir that in the pan until the rice is glossy with the fat. Add 100 mls of white grape juice, stirring until it is absorbed by the rice. When it is absorbed, then add chicken stock, a ladelful at a time, until the rice is tender and cooked. I used homemade chicken stock, which I think must be noted as producing a better risotto. It was creamier and more delicately flavored than it would have been if I had used a stock cube. When the rice is done, stir in chopped sage, a knob of butter, and a good handful of parmasean cheese.

I seem to be climbing back up to high levels of catering. We used to have large numbers of friends over on a near weekly basis, but that dropped off last year when we moved to a new place. Now it seems we are getting more settled, and the familiar hustle and bustle of having lots of people in my dining room is returning. It is a lot of work and takes a lot of time, but I love feeding people good food. Here are a few of my catering exploits this past month.

First, about a month ago, I served a five course birthday meal to a good friend of ours and her husband. Little children in bed, larger children plonked in front of the TV, we managed to create a few hours for ourselves for a candlelight dinner. The menu:

Starter: Deep fried courgette and pumpkin flowers stuffed with ricotta cheese, mint and chili

Fish Course: Sea bass topped with Cornish crab, with a saffron sauce

Main Course: Roasted poussins served with a lemon sauce, baby new potatoes roasted with garlic, spinach and carrots

Dessert: Raspberry and lavender trifle

Cheese Course: Brie de Meux, local fresh goat's cheese, lavender cheese, and blue stilton, served with chili jam, lavender jelly, gooseberry chutney, and charcoal biscuits

The highlight of the evening for me was, surprisingly, the sea bass. I had brought some very special fresh crab back with me from Cornwall (fretting for the entire two day return journey as to whether I was keeping it cold enough) and when I got home I threw it in the freezer and waited for a special occasion. I was going to make a cream of crab soup, or something along those lines, but I came across a recipe in the internet for crab-topped sea bass and thought it was worth a try. I adapted the recipe to suit my tastes, combining it with a medieval Italian recipe for sea bass and flaked almonds.

Holly's Crab-Topped Sea Bass

75 grams fresh white crab meat
50 grams small white bread crumbs
50 grams unsalted butter
1 egg, beaten
handful of flaked almonds
2 sea bass fillets

Combine the bread crumbs and melted butter, then add the crab and finally the egg and almonds. Place the sea bass fillets skin side down in a pan lined with lightly greased tin foil. Press the crab mixture on top of the fillets. Sprinkle more flaked almonds over the fillets. Bake for about 20 minutes at 190 degrees celsius.

My second catering moment this month was, happily, with a dear friend whom I have not seen since 1993, maybe even earlier. Like a true friend, she came with no expectations, and therefore it would have been hard to disappoint her - culinarily speaking, at least. But, me being me, I still tried to impress, which means the food wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, but it was still fun to try. The lunch menu:

Duck breasts served with blackberry sauce on a bed of baby leaves
Parsnip mash

I love blackberries, and I love it even more when I can cook with them in unexpected places, like the main dish of a meal. The blackberry sauce - which I got from Henrietta Green's book - is so simple: cook about 300 grams of blackberries in a 125 mls of water, adding some fresh thyme and honey. Boil up the blackberries until they are cooked, and then - this is the best bit - press them through a fine-holed strainer. This makes the most wonderful puree, and is essentially the sauce for the duck. You can add it to the juices in the pan after you have cooked the duck breasts, and heat it up a bit, thin it out if you need to, etc. It is the perfect thing to serve in September, and I make sure I do it every year.

My third catering adventure consisted of feeding twelve people -the family of one of my daughter's friends from school. I wasn't sure how to proceed, because I didn't want to serve chili - again. I have had somewhat of a re-awakening when it comes to roasted chicken, so I decided to go down that route. The menu:

Main Course: Roasted chicken, with twice baked potatoes, tomato and bread salad with anchovies and olives, and a green salad.

Desserts: Blackberry and apple crisp, chocolate custard served with fresh raspberries and crushed amaretto biscuits, and rice krispie treats.

Cheese Course: Gorgonzola, Gruyere, Ossau Iraty, and Vacherin, served with my plum and gooseberry chutneys.

September fare features heavily here: tomatoes, blackberries and raspberries are all at their peak. The seasonal highlight for me, though, was the Vacherin - a gooey, creamy, stinky cheese, only available from September to March, I was delighted to find the season's first of it in my local deli this week.

I am proud to say that my thirteen year old daughter came up the with chocolate custard/raspberry item on the menu. I thought that was a choice that showed a lot of sophisication.

Speaking of the re-awakening regarding roast chicken, I found out this month that I can change an ordinary, though still delicious, roast chicken into something extraordinary by stuffing the cavity of the bird with some very simple things: garlic cloves, thyme, sage and a half of a lemon. The top of the chicken needs to be smothered in unsalted butter, and I put unsalted butter under the skin as well, for good measure. Roast the chickens on top of some sliced onions, and baste the chickens every 20 minutes or so. The results are unbelievable. Just when you thought a roast chicken couldn't get any better, it actually can.

I love simplicity in cooking. I am happiest in my kitchen when I use simple ingredients to great effect: humble, fresh thyme, and sage, and garlic, and a lemon. Nothing artificial, nothing processed. Roman soldiers could have cooked this way.