THE RECIPE - Cheese Ham and Olive Loaf

So, a friend at work (Maria) got into a phase of bringing in luscious food they'd baked, and the best of these was a loaf / slice thing containing olives and ham. I must have eaten about half of it cos not everyone was keen, but it you like olives and ham, and cheese, you've LOVE THIS!!!

So I can't find it anywhere online so I will retype here. For credit, it was in the BBC Good Food Magazine in March, sent in by the wonderfully-named Anne Shrimpton from Lincoln.

I bring you: Cheese Ham and Olive Loaf

Serves 10 (ahem) Prep 15 mins (woohoo) Cook 55-60 mins

Ingredients

150ml / quarter pint of dry white wine

4 eggs

150ml / quarter pint olive oil

250g / 9oz self-raising flour

140g / 5oz Gruyere cheese, grated

200g / 8oz thick slice ham

140g / 5oz pitted green olives

140g / 5oz pitted black olives

Method

1. Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C / gas 5.

Butter a 900g / 2lb loaf tin and line with baking parchment. Beat the white wine and eggs until frothy. Add the oil and sift in the flour, mixing until smooth. Stir in the remaining ingredeinents to combine, then season with salt and pepper.

2. Pour into the prepared loaf tin, smoothing the surface with the back of a sppon. Bake in the oven for 55-60 mins until golden brown and firm to the touch. Cool on a wire rack before cutting into slices, and serving with some chutney or a bowl of soup

Per serving: 368 kcalories, protein 14g, carbs 20g, sat fat 7g, fibre 2g, sugar 1g, salt 2.1g

So there it is, typed in from a photocopy of a photocopy.

TIP: Maria used cooked gammon instead of ham which I suspect made it as wonderful as it was.

When I eventually get round to making this, I will be sure to post some photos :)

Sunday Breakfast Smile

Breakfast Smile
Originally uploaded by pebblesfromheaven

Toast, fried haggis slices, fried eggs, and tomato ketchup. Yum!

Race For Life 2008, with XL crisps

Race For Life 2008, with XL crisps
Originally uploaded by pebblesfromheaven

Forgot to say, completed the Race for Life again.

Well, we did well to resist the burger van beforehand, but hey there's no way we could walk past the crisps, man

Kilmartin Glen - the Reprise Trip

So we had another trip up to Argyll a couple of weeks ago (17th-19th March) because it coincided with B's birthday.

We booked at the Dunchraigaig House B&B again, it was fab last time we went so of course had to go back there. B was already looking forward to the breakfasts a week before we left home.

I can't blog in extreme detail about the wheres and whyfores because sadly I've not anymore got the luxury of being able to sit at my desk all day!!

We set off in good time and the weather was predicted to be chuffing marvellous, and it didn't disappoint. Better than last September when it rained for most of our visit. We took the M74 (ages since I last went up that road) but at Glasgow the roadworks led us onto the old A74 so we had a bit of a merry jolly through the rougher parts of town, past the Celtic football social club etc, but took note of the massive rash of new flats being built in that area. Anyway the traffic wasn't bad at all so we made it through to the M8 without pain.

Taking the scenic route via Dumbarton M&S, Helensburgh & Faslane peacecamp (resisted the flickr moment), there were some lovely views especially when we got up to the Rest & Be Thankful. Stopped there to take some photos (doesn't everyone?), carried on through Inverary and past the site of the Connect Festival (looks completely different in daylight - last time we were there we opted to dice with the traffic along the main road rather than take the swampy route back to the car)

We stopped by at Achnabreck rock art to discover that the carpark was closed for repair - however we found a good place to park further up the track at the top of the hill, which we wouldn't have know about otherwise! We followed a path from here right to the new panels, which were still covered in tarp. The good-old "hollywood" panels were further round the hill and I had a wander around while B took his photos.

then back to the B&B, and off out for a meal at the Carinbaan Hotel. Now let's get this straight right from the start - we were absolute PIGS on this trip and ate ourselves silly. We had three courses when we didn't really need it, because the menu was wonderful and the food completely gorgeous. We returned the next night, because there were things on the list we still wanted to try!!

Solfest 2007

Yay! The weather held out so we camped for only the second time this year. We arrived on Friday afternoon and already the main campsite had overflowed to the opposite side of the road; but the Solfest area isn't very big anyway so it wasn't much further away.

I like Solfest. As last year, there was a fancy dress theme on Saturday night, but this time it was freeform, so there were lots of wacky outfits. Mine was almost identical to last year, apart from this year I wore a lime-green silk dress that I picked up for £4 from a TK Maxx. Somewhere in this house are the glowsticks I bought last year but could I find them?!

This year, B went as a Mexican, and there were quite a few others. Like a numpty, I completely forgot to take any pictures of our own costumes...!

For me, the food at a festival is almost more important than the music! And having been disappointed at Wickerman that there was no Burrito stall, it was the first place we looked for when arriving at Solfest. Yes! The Mexican Food stall was there as last year, worth the queue for the bulging Buffalo Burrito.... yum. the Stoat's Porridge stall was there again too - but we were disappointed to find it closed on Saturday morning - but we were soon comforted by turning round to find the Mexican place open already. Breakfast Burritos - woohoo!

So the stalls as always were also worth a good trawl - seemed like after a while they all started to merge into one large Indian bazaar. The workshops, the peoplewatching, the friendliness, the comfortable atmosphere.. and this year one of the main attractions was the alcohol rub in the toilets! Why has no-one thought of that before?! Brilliant!

So the music we saw was: Bens Brother, Moss Troopers (rehearsing and the real thing), Neck, Chumbawumba, Alison Dewar, Badly Drawn Boy, The Undertones, Lucy & the Caterpillar, Gaurav Mazunder, Thea Gilmore, Louise Mary Martin, KTB, Bex Marshall. Phew... Quite a lot actually!

Bens Brother were good, they are the next tip to be famous...perhaps a bit James Blunty though. Moss Troopers were great, numbered about 15 traditional musicians - would see them again. Can't remember much about Neck, Chumba, Alison Dewar. I think I might have been asleep. Badly Drawn Boy suffered from muffly sound from the main stage - in fact, most of the acts there did. The Bar Stage opposite was in constant competition - I think they should try and stagger it better. The Undertones had the crowd bouncing!

Lucy & the Caterpillar was bloody wonderful (dispite the poor sound quality). I would certainly go out of my way see her again - she was an acoustic guitarist with a voice similar to Joanna Newsome / slightly Bjorkish. One to watch!

Gaurav was a real-life sitar player and I've not witnessed one in the flesh before, he was good and drew quite a crowd, but to be honest we got a bit bored (too sober). It did make me wonder though how Indian classical music was acceptable but no European stuff... hmmm somehow can't imagine that at Solfest though.

Enjoyed Thea Gilmore. Louise Mary Martin was wonderful - did a great version of a Bjork song, Joga, which was nice! (Really looking forward to seeing Bjork perform in the flesh next weekend now!)

KTB was good, another acoustic girl singer - I could easily get mixed up! this girl is part of "Little Sister" who had been on earlier but we'd missed. She taught the crowd a simple song and organised a short round.

Bex Marshall was powerful - more rock chick twanging attitude than the tinkly picking which went before. Her voice sounded a bit too Bonnie Tyler for me but B liked her. She pulled off quite a successful "Purple Haze" including the fancy fingerwork. It's on her myspace page.

So that was it!

Photos now on Flickr

Silent Wispa

I read today that Cadbury's (of salmonella outbreak fame) is bringing back Wispa, after an internet campaign including 93 groups on Facebook.

Well:

1. I'm on Facebook and I've never seen these mythical groups (but admittedly only have 12 contacts). Just checked and the number has increased to 102 groups. Makes me wonder what other essential groups I am missing out on.

2. I hadn't even noticed Wispa wasn't around any more... it's bit like finding out someone that used to be famous has died

3. Doesn't this smack of desperation to you? A PR stunt to be seen to have the customers' interests at heart, rather than the reality of taking the money and running...


And it's gonna be called Wispa Classic. Yawn! Bad move! That sounds like they will accompany it with the other varieties that killed its popularity in the first place, like the version with caramel on the bottom which just Didn't Work.

I might try one for old times' sake - I liked them in their own way. As everyone knows, the only decent way to eat a Wispa is to dunk it in warm tea - not hot as it'll just disintegrate. Or, nibbling the outer layer to reveal something that resembles a big turd. Ah! What fun.

Bluebells!

Last weekend (end of April) we travelled to some wonderful bluebell woods.

The first was Carstramon Woods, parking here and heading up into the woods. Some fantastically great oaks here, as well as Scots Pine. The stars of the show of course were the bluebells. We had a good meander through while listening to the wonderful birdsong and watching the butterflies wake up as the day warmed. On the way back to the car we had a brief face-to-face with a doe deer, and when driving away we had to brake hard to avoid hitting a red squirrel. Unfortunately on both occasions I didn't have my camera to hand...

For lunch we stopped at the Gem Rock Museum in Creetown; good food here, shame the website fails to mention this. The menu includes Gemrock cakes and 21-Carat Cake...! The shop is as interesting as the exhibition in my opinion... but I didn't want to spend much money so had to resist spending too long in there!

Next was to Wood of Cree Nature Reserve, parking at the main carpark. This was a slightly longer walk which included a waterfalls and lots of wildflowers.

We hung around at the otter viewing platform for about 40 minutes but didn't see anything, all the time reminded of that kitkat advert with the pandas!

Carstramon Woods:

Wood of Cree Nature Reserve:

Northumberland Odyssey Part 2

For B's birthday, we travelled over to Wooler, and included some rock art and good eating. Perfect!

First stop was Prudhoe Castle to visit the prehistoric rock art, and to be honest the best things here are outdoors - the museum inside is fairly crap unless you have to entertain kids. The ruins are interesting, complete with staircases that go nowhere and wild flora outside. Some good pictures here.

After climbing Ros Castle we visited Chillingham Churchyard. Another interesting graveyard, Robert Jopson had a lovely headstone:

Here LYet hthe
Body of Robe
rtJopson of
Hebburn who
died the 4th of
august in the
year 1730
in the 64 year
of his life

I couldn't read the name of the owner of this beautifully innocent verse:

My friends go home
& ceace from tears I
Most ly hear til christ
A peares

We then headed to our favourite B&B West Weetwood Farmhouse. It's completely fab and lovely both inside and out. We went for dinner to the Tankerville, including banana and black pudding salad (gorgeous!) and half-a-sheep-on-a-plate (aka Blade of Lamb).

The gardens at the B&B are magical (in the Secret Garden sense), so we took a wander next moring before the grand breakfast. Then off to Routing Linn to see the rock art and waterfall. The hope was to see the bluebells but we were a bit early for the main event, although a few were peeping through. We saw lots of other wildflowers and B reckons he saw a large black cat...

Lunch at Milfield Tearoom was followed by a visit to Maelmin - the recontructed hut has been re-reconstructed after vandalism a couple of years ago, and a handsome new wooden building has been added.

On the way back west we went to Tod Crags - some wonderful scenery around there.

Prudhoe Castle:

<= Wild Garlic

Chillingham Churchyard:

<=cool swirly eyes

West Weetwood Farmhouse:


<= "Leeky roof? What leeky roof?"

Routing Linn:

<= wood sorrel and waterfall

<= opportunistic primrose

<=spot the cotyledon leaves

Maelmin Trail:

Finally, Tod Crags:

Aldidl. How do you tell the difference?

Aldi, Lidl. As Harry Hill says, "you've gotta have a system".

But which is which? I visit both. They have spread like a rash throughout Britain, and on my travels I know where a few of them are; I often go to the one in Marton in Middlesbro, another on a road in Gateshead, the one on the road into Dumfries. There's two of them in Bishop Auckland now (but, that's probably one of each type!)

So which came first? Was the first one so successful that the second is a copycat? Did they simultaneously dream up similar names and logos?

Yeah I buy stuff there. I like the cheap chewing gum, the jars of salsa, the chocolate shampoos, the biscuits... it's different to things you'd find in other supermarkets but that doesn't mean it's rubbish. I'm certainly not a snob when it comes to getting a bargain! But don't buy the veg, it's shit.

If someone asks me where I got it from, I have no idea which one, so I will say Aldidl.

Surely it's in their interests to try and be different? But maybe not, if you are used to one and you visit the other, they look identical inside, and the goods are sometimes even the same but with different labels. So it's a ruse!

Anyway I've done some in depth research (ie consulted wiki). Aldi is German, so is Lidl, so that's no help. Apparently Lidl copied Aldi! Aha... and Lidl is actually a real name, whereas Aldi is from the name Albrecht (presumably).

Will this help me? Will I remember if the one on the Viaduct in Carlisle is the family-named copycat or the original?

So, Lidl = named copy. Aldi = Original.

OK! gawd... I have no idea why I care...!

Bluerare Restaurant - a review

Last night we went out for a posh romantic meal, at our "local" restaurant, the Bluerare at Carleton, on the edge of Carlisle. It's not been open long, used to be called the Terracotta. We went there about a year ago and in that guise, it's menu was mostly Italian and it was trying to have a Mediterranean feel but it failed somewhat and felt more like a very large conservatory; bright, echoey and chaotic, with too many very small tables, although it did the biggest deepfried brie I'd ever seen!

During its transformation to Bluerare, there has been no major building work undertaken but the redecoration has been enough to improve the atmosphere to one of modern gastro restaurant, with blue being the main theme (unsurprisingly) larger table and very comfy chairs. Overall much more luxurious and romantic!

We had an early booking, so had the place to ourselves at first, but before we left it had filled up with larger groups and the atmosphere changed to have a bit more buzz, but still with a lot of class.

I had no starter but B ordered the salt & chilli monkfish. It came on a bed of rocket and carrot salad, and three large chunks of beautifully battered fish.

For the main, B had the lemon sole, which had been panfried in butter and came with a simple parsley sauce and new potatoes. The fish was moist and tasty, with a hint of crispiness on the edges.

I ordered the Cumberland Fillet Steak on black pudding mash, but asked for the Drambuie sauce to be made without mushrooms, which they were happy to do. When it arrived, it was so thick (about 2.5 inches) that it was almost round like a tennis ball! But inside, it was perfectly cooked. I had it well-done (despite the name of the restaurant), so there was no trace of pink but all moisture was still there, encased in a crust. Fantastic! I love a good bit of steak, and this was a good bit of steak. I take great pleasure in peeling the fibres apart like feathers, and this was very tender so fell apart - absolutely lush! The mash, sauce and veg accompaniments were equally gorgeous.

For dessert, I was drawn to the Cherry Creme Brulee, which was simply creme brulee with cherries in the bottom. Not sure it had been freshly torched though, as it was cold as if from the fridge. B had "Cinder Surprise" which was ice cream with Crunchie.

We would have had coffee but it was about this time that a few large parties came in and we lost priority in the pecking-order for the staff's attention, so after a while decided to leave and have a cuppa at home.

It was a bit expensive, but we felt like it was worth it, and we'll be going back you can count on that!

PS (added July 2008)
This is the most popular pages on my blog, attracting so far over 450 visitors, mostly sent here via a Google search. Just saying. I mean I reckon if only 10% of those people actually booked a meal spending say hmmm minimum £50 each, that works out at £2250. Hmmm. makes you think doesn't it. Dear Bluerare: maybe someone could send me round a plate of chips or something? That would be nice. Thanks.