I have been away from my computer cooking for lots of weddings just recently and so haven't posted for a while.
They have all been at the super-duper fforest camp. Mainly afternoon tea parties followed by a beautiful hog roast with salads in the evenings
Here are a few snaps of what I've been up to whilst my boys have been hanging out with their grandparents.
Lemonade.
A selection of cakes: coffee and walnut, triple choc, lavender, strawberry cheesecake cupcake and white choc and raspberry meringues.
Tea pots waiting for the tea.
The barn all laid up.
Victoria plum and vanilla cupcakes.
chocolate, pear and hazelnut cake.
Strawberry cheesecake cupcakes.
We have had the most beautiful sunshine for the past three days and so have been eating outside as much as possible. Dinner last night was two bean dishes - potatoes and green beans smothered in pesto and green bean and haricot beans with a lemon & herb crumble topping.
Dessert was a berry pavlova.
I haven't blogged for ages as I have been busy cooking.
I am back in Wales to work - a whole summer of cooking.
Each year my cooking season starts with the DO lectures.
www.thedolectures.com
It was great fun - mainly because of the people.
Here is the kitchen team (minus Josh and Kirsty who were too busy whilst we were hanging out posing).
I kept forgetting to take photos - Over the week there was a great variety of food: an amazing Mexican meal - Laura (3rd from left) is a brilliant Mexican cook, coq au vin, hog roast, beautiful soups, creamy rice pudding with lemon and vanilla, caramel oranges with cardamom, lots of pies and tarts, tons of cakes and tray bakes, good old apple crumble, Gordon's amazing sourdough bread, many many salads and much more.
Here are just a few snaps that I did manage to take...
Butternut squash salad and pickled mushrooms.
A wall of pork pies.
Gordon's bread on the table before each meal.
Puy lentil, perl las and roasted tomato salad.
Soft chocolate cookies.
Chickpea and chard salad.
Chorizo and cheese tarts.
flapjacks.
Our morning started off with some sunshine in a glass...and the sun continued to shine all day.
Although slightly overgrown, our rhubarb patch is thriving.
I picked a big bunch.
Whilst preparing the rhubarb I used one of my all time favourite kitchen tools - the wooden juicer.
Stewed rhubarb with cardamom and orange.
The boys played in the garden whilst mum and I did some weeding.
I found some wild garlic down by the stream.
And so we made 'wild garlic pizza' for dinner.
And just to round the day off and celebrate the sunshine, I made an amaretto and apple tart (recipe from the riverford cookbook).
Today I pulled some things out of the ground - radishes and shallots.
Lunch was a toasted cheese and shallot sourdough sandwich with some radishes on the side.
It rained this afternoon and so we made a cake, then sat on the floor and licked the bowl out together. Once the rain had stopped we went out to play in the puddles.
We are getting things ready for the garden this summer.
The strawberries will actually stay in the colanders on the balcony but the onions will go into the ground.
