Food at 52 Cookery School- Meat Free Mondays

Food at 52, a cookery school that I have attended many times over the last three years or so, have a new course to add to their repertoire - Meat Free Mondays!

We are all being encouraged to eat less meat which for many starts a panic. If no meat what will I eat, what will I feed my family - they don't like nut roast!  Well do not fear - Meat Free Mondays is here!

At Food at 52 the menu is written on the huge mirror on the wall and you work through the recipes one at a time stopping for a snack of one of the recipes as you cook to keep you going.

I had Little Miss Lizzie visiting for the weekend so she came with me and took loads of photos - she wants to have her own YouTube channel and post videos of her cooking - only one thing she is only 7 years old!!

Working in groups we started with the Thai Beetroot Soup: first of all make a quick and easy paste which you can vary the amount of chili to taste.

Ginger, lime, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and chilli are the basis of our paste to make the soup.

Adding in the beetroot to the spice paste.

Busy working in small teams.

Lots of colourful ingredients for the filo pie.

Playing with a new toy - a spiraliser which cuts the courgette into fine ribbons resembling spaghetti

Courgetti with Green Olive and Burnt Lemon Dressing

Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Pomegranate dressing.

The filling for the Two Green and Feta Filo Pie - a great supper dish warm or cold for lunches and pic-nics.

A lined cast iron pan filled and ready to go into the oven.

All baked and read to serve.

The pudding - Parsnip, Pear and Walnut Cake - tasted as good as it looked!

A quick clear away and the table is set for us to eat and enjoy all our hard work and not a nut burger in sight!

Here is the recipe for the Thai Beetroot Soup to make at home.

Makes 4-6 servings For the spice paste 2 lemongrass stalks, white parts chopped 2 garlic cloves, peeled 3 red chillies, deseeded if you don't want too much heat 5cm fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped 4 kaffir lime leaves 1 lime, juice only For the soup 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 2 banana shallots (or 4 round shallots), finely chopped 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 500g cooked beetroot, chopped 500-850ml vegetable stock 400ml can coconut milk sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

For the herby yoghurt

5 tablespoons plain yoghurt
handful of fresh mint, leaves chopped
handful of fresh coriander, leaves chopped
5cm cucumber, deseeded, finely chopped

Flatbread, to serve

Prepare the ingredients as described above.

For the spice paste, prepare all the paste ingredients as above and put them into a food processor and blend until smooth (the smoother the paste the better the soup).

For the soup, heat the vegetable oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the shallots, salt and cumin seeds and fry gently for a few minutes until the shallots have softened. Add the spice paste and cook for about five minutes to release the fragrance. Add the beetroot and cook for two minutes. Add 500ml of the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 8-10 minutes.

For the herby yoghurt, mix the yoghurt with the fresh mint, coriander and cucumber.

Just before serving, put the soup and coconut milk into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add more stock if the soup is too thick. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

To serve, reheat the soup gently for a few minutes. Pour into bowls and swirl in some of the herby yoghurt. Serve with warm flatbread.

If you would like the recipe for the Parsnip, Pear & Walnut cake leave me a comment below with your email address.

I was a guest of Foodat52. The recipe above is one of their Meat Free Monday recipes.  All opinions and photos are my own.

Devon: Prestoller House Bed and Breakfast and a Giveaway

Recently a visit to Devon-Dorset borders for a day at River Cottage HQ meant we would book a B&B in the Axminster region and make a three day break.  Mr R had already booked the week off and we were looking forward to exploring a part of the country so far unknown.

We booked a two night stay at Prestoller House Bed & Breakfast in Axminster which was a good 10 minute walk into the town centre and only a 7 minute drive to River Cottage.

When we arrived we were greeted by the owner Caroline, a lovely and enthusiastic woman so proud of her home and wanting us to have a great stay.

Prestoller House have three double bedrooms available year round, one in the main house and two lovely en-suite rooms each with their own entrance. The décor was fresh and cosmopolitan inviting you to linger a little longer, perhaps have a coffee before you set off.

The coffee machines are little Nespresso machines supplied with the pods and if you run out just ask for more or you could always bring some of your own.  Caroline fetched us a bottle of fresh water and a flask of fresh milk for our coffee which was replaced daily.

Adrian, Caroline's husband, presents you with fresh and warm croissants as you sit down to breakfast with your pot of coffee or tea. All the cereals are there and yoghurt along with a fresh fruit salad prepared daily by Adrian along with locally made jams and marmalades.

The full English breakfast will be cooked to your liking, I like my eggs scrambled however Mr R wants traditional fried eggs. The sausages are local and Adrian has plans of smoking and curing his own bacon in the near future. While you wait for your breakfast a fresh and warm croissant keeps you busy!

While you sit and enjoy your breakfast and perhaps stay for an extra cup of coffee or tea you can look out onto the manicured garden and plan your day.

We felt like we were saying goodbye to long time friends as we drove away.  I would love to go back and explore the Jurassic Coast a bit more and will certainly book in at Prestoller House B&B.

If you would like to stay one night at Prestoller House B&B follow the Rafflecopter instructions and enter the giveaway.  The prize is one night B&B date to be arranged directly with Prestoller House. You will have to arrange with Prestoller House when you can claim your one night stay directly with them, they will contact you if you have won.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mexico City: MUCHO Chocolato Museum

When I was in Grenada for the 2nd Annual Grenada Chocolate Festival earlier this year I met a lovely woman, Ana Rita, from Mexico City who ran her own museum of chocolate in Mexico City.

On my recent trip to Mexico City in August we had some time to do our own thing on the last day. One of the others with me on the trip, Anita, and I took a cab to Museo MUCHO-Chocolate.

Mexico City has supposedly got the second highest number of museums in a city in the world with only London having more! We got out of the taxi and entered the museum to an intriguing and very modern design.

Beautiful machines from Germany that are no longer working but beautiful to look at.

Dotted all over are interesting machines used solely for the production of chocolate in their younger days, this one is still used.

This room has metate on the shelves. I was pleased to see them as Ana Rita had two with her in Grenada.

A metate is a stone used traditionally to grind corn for tortillas and they are very, very heavy! I would love to have one but there is no way I could ever get one home!!

There are collections of drinking vessels and specialised pouring vessels as well as

chocolate sculpture!

One little room in the museum had chocolate tiles made and stuck on the walls.

The smell was quite intoxicating when you stepped into the room,

so much so that visitors were often unable to resist and took bites out of the tiles on the wall! This one particular area around the window is constantly being replaced.

As well as making chocolates to put in the exhibits they sell a wide range in the shop downstairs

A beautiful and eye catching collection of tins and moulds hangs on the preparation room.

Staff busy at work creating lovely chocolates to purchase in the shop.

When we were finished our tour we sat downstairs in the café with open courtyard and enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate and a chocolate 'tamale' (corn husks are used to wrap around the ingredients and they are usually steamed), this one was a kind of chocolate cake.

It was lovely seeing Ana Rita on our visit to Mexico City. I want to come back again and spend more time wandering around this lovely museum and shrine to the cacao bean!

Mexico City: Restaurant Review - Pujol

When I was in Mexico City earlier this year I was on an organised trip which took us to some great restaurants but one of the best restaurants in Mexico City was not on the list.  I kept thinking how much I would have loved to visit and have a meal at Pujol, one of the top 20 restaurants in the world and probably the best and most well known in Mexico City.

Anita, one of the other ladies on the trip and I got talking how much we would have loved to eat at Pujol the food theatre by head chef Enrique Olivera so we gave them a telephone call.  They tend to be booked up for three-four months in advance, and even though we were  not expecting to get a reservation,  Anita still made the phone call.  Surprisingly they could fit us in for lunch on the Monday, our free day before we took off for home that evening!!  We were ecstatic with anticipation!

We arrived by taxi to a very understated premises. A tiny plaque on the wall was all the indication that we had arrived at the right place.

Pujol offer a wine experience to accompany the meal however with a flight in the evening I really didn’t want loads of wine and neither did Anita so we just ordered one large glass each to go with our meal.  The wine list was international with wines from all over the world however as we were in Mexico and I have tasted Mexican wine before which is very nice, I went for a white 2013 Fluxus, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja california, Mexicoand Anita settled on a red which was also Mexican.

There is only one menu for the lunch time and each party had the same pre-starters and puddings.  There was choice in the other courses with three items and you picked one from each section.  Anita and I tried to have different choices to see as much of the menu as possible.

Our menus were presented in a sealed envelope, adding to the mystery of the occasion and the place.  Once opened there was still some surprises since the descriptions sometimes didn’t give much away.  The dessert course for instance was called ‘Happy Endings’!

The first course, a sort of pre-starter called ‘Street Snacks’ was five little portions of exquisite tapas containing much of the Mexican cuisine we had grown used to but with a slight variation on ingredients and presentation.

The hollowed out gourd arrived smoking and intriguing capturing our attention and those of the diners around us who had not yet been served. There is an element of theatre as well as taking you away from the traditional ways of serving Mexican food whilst the flavours and names of some of the dishes remained true to tradition. 'Baby corn, powdered chicatana ant, coffee, costeno chile mayonnaise'.

The little brown flecks on the baby sweet corn are in fact the powdered ants!  That I could handle but if they had bodies and antennae looking at me I would have abstained!

'Escamol sheath'

'Bocol Huasteco (corn dough with cheese, lard)'

'Corcurbita'

I think this was my favourite bit of the whole meal, the sesame crunch and taste was just exquisite, so delicate and fine. 'Chia tostada'.

Next course we had three items to pick from and I chose the 'Green Mole'.  The other two were 'Tongue with broth' or 'Cuitlacoche, molleja, chicken liver'.

 

Again we had three to pick from and I went for the 'Suckling lamb taco, avocado leaf adobo with avocado puree'.

 

For the fourth course I wanted the 'Chicken, green sauce chicarron, broad bean and pea'

 

Anita picked the Egg infladita, chapulin sauce, bean with hierbe de conejo. 

 

She didn't really like this dish and the waiter insisted on bringing the 'Candied catch of the day, red jalapeno, ginger, hoja santa, pumpkin seed.  We both tried this one and agreed it was the best so far!!

 

At this point we had a palate cleansing lemon filled with frozen lemon sorbet.  So fresh and citrusy it sort of revived us ready for course no. five!

Our fifth course was 'Mole madre, mole nuevo (738 days)'.  This dish consisted of a 'mole', dark and rich sauce that had been started 738 days before and was smoky and chocolaty to which new ingredients are added each morning. By now this would be called mole 788 days!  You roll up the soft taco and drag it through both of the mole at the same time. A truly unique taste experience.

 

Finally the last course was called 'Happy Ending'! We were waiting in anticipation to see what would be fitting for such an enticing name.

 

And here is each item in detail:-

A pair of thinly sliced apple slices sandwiched with a cinnamon cream.

A home made ice cream.

A mouthful of chocolate mousse with a coffee jelly.

Churros and chocolate dip.

and finally a slice of green 'tuna' (cactus fruit) and a slice of red 'tuna', both locally used in many restaurants and homes.  I would never have thought I would be eating the fruit from a cactus but they were refreshing and I had them most mornings for breakfast as well!

Following a coffee we made our way back to our hotel having spent a really enjoyable couple of hours in lovely, pleasant and stress free surroundings ready to collect our bags from the hotel and make our way home.

We were both grateful we had the opportunity to spend the afternoon at Pujol, in the Polanco district of Mexico City.  The meal cost £1,450 pesos - the wine, coffee and tip were extra.

Our total bill about £62.00 each.

I would highly recommend you try to eat here if you ever visit Mexico City but be sure to make a reservation to avoid disappointment.

Address: Calle Francisco Petrarca 254, Miguel Hidalgo, Polanco, 11570 Ciudad de México, D.F., Mexico

Phone:+52 55 5545 3507