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Asparagus, Pea and Saffron Risotto and French Onion Soup

Category : Bits & Bobs

I am currently travelling around England on a bit of a break and so haven’t had much time to cook or try new recipes. So instead I offer a couple of very good recipes taken from some very good websites.

I cannot recommend the Smitten Kitchen blog enough and this recipe for French Onion Soup based on Julia Childs version is completely delicious. It takes a few hours to cook but left us with enough leftovers for another meal. Great for dinner but special enough for a dinner party as well, especially when covered with cheese and croutons!

 

Another recipe we tried recently was for this Asparagus, Pea and Saffron Risotto from The Quinces and the Pea. This was a really fresh tasting dish and a great change from some of the heavier risottos. Doug is risotto chef in our household and made a few susbstitutions here such as vermouth instead of white wine, white onions instead of green and leaving out the lemon zest entirely.

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Strawberry Rhubarb Pie (in a jar)

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Category : Desserts, Pie

A tragedy was brought to light when I lived in the UK. I was watching…some food show, I don’t recall what it was, something with Gordon Ramsey I think, when he proposed that for dessert, the dish be something that, from the way he was making it sound, was unheard of. I thought it would be something flashy, some unusual flavor combination that I never really would have thought of, and I’m not sure if it would work or not. But what he suggested was combining strawberry & rhubarb in a dessert dish. Guys, why hasn’t Britain figured this out yet? They’re in season at basically the same time, you put both of them in similar desserts (pies/crumbles/etc). The sweetness of the strawberries blends perfectly with the sour of the rhubarb. And they look quite lovely together. In the States this is one of the more standard pies. It’s not quite as common as apple or cherry, but particularly in late spring/early summer it’s a fairly common sight.

This week I’m making pie-in-a-jar. It’s delicious, it’s actually slightly easier than normal pie, and it’s infinitely more portable. It’s very easy to make in advance, just pop the lid back on and throw it in the fridge or freezer and bake it later, or bake it and then refrigerate it.

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Pesto Scones

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Category : Nibbles

Back in this post I recommended a book that I was lusting after as a possible Christmas gift: The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit. It seems a lot of people thought the same and Edinburgh city centre sold out in the run up to Christmas (according to a certain boyfriend). So I ended up indulging myself in the sales and I have been engrossed ever since.

Although the book doesn’t tend to give many recipes it is a great springboard for cooking. The other night I had some salmon I wanted to cook and half a lime that needed eating up. After a quick flick through the chapters Marine (Oily Fish) and Citrussy (Lime) I had more ideas for flavour combinations than I knew what to do with.

These scones are one of the recipes I found when I was searching for things to go with goats cheese and they are great although, possibly too easy to snack on. Continue Reading

Asparagus Strawberry Salad

Category : Salads

I know words like “easy” and “elegant” get thrown around a lot with food blogs, but this really recipe really is. It’s a bit more time-consuming than a bagged salad, but it mostly comes down to the peeling of the asparagus into little ribbons, so I’d say it’s on par with most salads that involve chopping, etc. It’s totally worth it though, it’s a great spring salad. And ultra-seasonal, making use of two of the main harvests right now. Pretty much all these ingredients are to-taste, so feel free to consider this more an inspiration than a recipe.

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