Cooking colours

Because I am a new and enthusiastic user of Instagram and a blogger of many years, I take an awful lot of photos of random domestic moments; and as I scrolled through my photos last night, I realised that I have a wonderful record of my cooking at this time of year.

Like many people, the arrival of autumn gives me a renewed enthusiasm for cooking.  The cooler weather, a new series of The Great British Bake Off, unexpected seasonal treasures in my Abel and Cole box, and a generally energising back-to-school-and-University air of new timetables and new diaries, all contribute towards this for me.

Chicken and leek pie, with a cheesy breadcrumb topping

Spicy chicken and vegetable soup

Chocolate brownies - these made by Olivia

Potato, bacon and onion hotpot

Making apricot flapjacks

   

The colours in these photos are autumnal too: the orange of my big Le Creuset bistro pan which I cook with at almost every meal, the wholesome browns of freshly baked bread, the yellow of eggs and squashes, the golden crust of a cheesy topping.  I even use orange and brown hundreds-and-thousands on my buns at this time of year.

Cinnamon and apple cake - adapted slightly from a Nigel Slater recipe

Using up the veg in the fridge to make a vegetable curry for supper - the night before my new Abel & Cole box arrives

Fritatta with cavalo nero, onions and chorizo

Autumnal iced buns

We've had the first mince-and-dumplings of the season, and the first slow-cooker stew is planned for later in the week.  I also think a particularly spectacular pie might be in order to celebrate the return of Strictly Come Dancing this weekend.  

As if autumn wasn't already my favourite time of the year, there's all this abundance of good food to share and enjoy too.   Good times indeed.

A giant cheese scone - fresh out of the oven; and two loaves of bread waiting to go in

Blackberry hunting

We had to search very hard indeed  just to find this paltry amount of teeny-tiny blackberries in Epping Forest today.  The weird weather this year has not suited the blackberries.

The sun is HOT here right now - it has been nudging 30 degrees for the last few days - and Epping Forest did at least provide plenty of shade this morning while we foraged for our berries.

 

 

I think we've gathered just enough for a crumble, if I bulk it out with the apples from the fruit bowl too.  There won't be enough for blackberry jam, though, which is a great sadness.

A very useful cake recipe

I'm still sewing, taking photos and saving them up to do one enormously impressive blog post in the New Year about how I managed to cut up some of my favourite fabrics, make them into things and them give them away. You're impressed already, aren't you?

In the meantime, I think we should have a recipe - haven't had too many of these around here lately. This is one of the most useful cake recipes I own. Infinitely adaptable, very easy, and devoured with pleasurable groaning by everyone who has a slice.

The List Writer's Fruit and Almond Cake

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I love almonds, and the solid, fragrant dampness they give to cakes. Bakewell Tarts are one of my all time top five things to eat, but I don't often make them because they're a little bit too faffy. Pastry and sponge? No, I need my almond cake to be made very quickly, when the need for an almond hit strikes.

Everybody else around here loves these fruit and almond cakes too. The one I made on Thursday was gone by Sunday morning.

The last, lonely slice

Ingredients:-

• 175g softened butter or marg
• 175g caster sugar
• 175g self raising flour
• 75g ground almonds
• 3 eggs
• half a teaspoon almond extract (optional - leave it out if you're not an almond freak like me)
• Chopped fruit - roughly enough to fill a cereal bowl

One of the most useful aspects of this cake is that it works with all kinds of fruit. For last week's cake I used big, red plums - six of them, stoned and cut into slices. For this week's version I used five eating apples, cored, peeled and sliced. Pears, fresh apricots, rhubarb, cherries and raspberries also work very well in this cake.

Put all the ingredients, apart from the fruit, into a food mixer and beat well for a few minutes until light and fluffy. You can do it by hand, or in a food processor if you do not have a mixer. Line the base of a loose bottomed cake tin with parchment paper. I use a 22cm springform tin. Tip the cake batter into the tin and spread out slightly towards the edges. Arrange the fruit on the top in any kind of pleasing arrangement. You should have enough fruit to pretty much cover the top completely.

Put in the centre of the oven at 180c or gas 4 for 45 to 50 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and cooked through. The cake will have risen up slightly around the fruit.

Allow to cool completely in the tin before removing. Serve with coffee, some Radio 4 podcasts and a pile of sewing on the side.

Crumble perfection

Thank you all so much for your museum suggestions - what a great list we came up with between us! I want to go to ALL your favourite museums. The random number generator came up with the number SEVEN, which is Ali who added the Oxford University Museum of Natural History to the list. I want to know how, despite having grown up in Oxford, I have never even heard of this museum! I will be putting that right the next time I visit my parents or my brother & his family who all still live in Oxford - do any of them know about this secret museum too, I wonder?? Ali, please email me your address and I will get your parcel in the post to you as soon as possible.

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This week I have mainly been thinking about food. In this house we all love a bit of crumble. Both G and I have cooked it for years. But each time we make it, it never seems to be quite as good as a crumble should be. You know - a gooey, fruity, sticky, crumbly crumble - just like the one your mother or your grandmother used to make when you were small. We come close - our crumbles are good - but they never seem to be quite as wonderful as the ones in our memories.

At the weekend, C shinned up our tree to pick the first bowl of 2009 cherries. He carried on picking, and climbing further and further up the tree until he was absolutely certain that he had enough for a cherry and apple crumble. I didn't really fancy making a crumble in the pulsating temperatures of last weekend, so I was fobbing him off with phrases like "Oh, you need LOADS of cherries to make a crumble, darling" and "I'm not sure there are enough ripe cherries yet for a crumble".

Then he fell out of the tree. Fortunately while I was not looking, and fortunately into the middle of the sweet orange bush. He limped inside with a scraped elbow and a sprained ankle and asked rather pitifully if his bowl had enough cherries for a crumble yet? Goodness, the guilt. I had my apron on and the mixer going before he'd even hobbled off to the sofa.

I vaguely remembered the last crumble G had made had rather a good topping. It was the plum crumble from my favourite summer recipe book, Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook. So I took the topping from that book and paired it with the filling from Annabel Karmel's Family Meal Planner. And you know what? It was The Best Crumble I Have Ever Made. Really. The Sarah Raven topping is heavy on the butter and gives a cakey, rich crumble - crucially not too dusty nor too oaty. I substituted almond flakes for hazelnuts but otherwise did exactly as she said. The secret to Annabel Karmel's filling is that she just briefly stews the fruit for a few minutes in a tablespoon of brown sugar to soften and sweeten it by precisely the right amount. Together these women work magic, I tell you.

Of course, there are no pictures. Like Driftwood's pavlova, we ate up every last scrap before I could get my camera out. Yum!

Life is good again

The chickens are happy, plump and laying once more.







There are green shoots and buds popping up all over the garden.

And there is apple & cinnamon slice to have with my morning coffee.

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Stewed fruit

I always want to call this something less reminiscent of school dinners or mass catering - the name doesn't do justice to one of the tastiest breakfasts or puddings I know. But any alternative I have tried - jewelled fruit, tempting compote - sounds pretentious and daft. So stewed fruit it is. This is easily my most frequently cooked recipe - it is rare not to find a bowl of stewed fruit in my fridge at any point

Stewed Fruit

Stone, skin, wash and chop the fruit as necessary. Put into a large heavy-bottomed pan with a little water (about half a cup for each 500g of fruit) and sugar to taste. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring occasionally, until the fruit collapses. You may need to add a little more boiling water form the kettle if it looks very dry, but go carefully - you don't want it watery.

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Allow to cool and serve with natural yogurt, custard, vanilla ice cream or just by itself. The blackberry and apple version is incredible with a wicked spoonful of clotted cream on top.

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Good fruit for stewing:

• bramley (cooking) apples
• plums, greengages or damsons
• rhubarb
• dried fruit such as prunes, apricots, pears or dates
• raspberries or blackberries
• cherries
• fresh peaches or apricots
• cranberries
• bramley apples in combination with any of the above
  

I do as my mother always did, and always serve the stewed fruit in a large, cut-glass dish - perfect for showing off the incredible colours of the stewed fruit.

This nicely seasonal cranberry and apple version was finished off for breakfast this morning, with natural yogurt dolloped on top. Yum.