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Intrepid Gourmet
First of all I must advise readers that we are not chefs. We are just one of the many of that reckless breed; kitchen dabblers or hobby cooks. We know what we like to eat, we enjoy cooking and experimenting and occasionally – and not always successfully – we like to show off with our creations or concoctions. If you would like to share your favourite recipes with us please send them to: gourmet@intrepid-optimist.com.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
On a cold day, nothing beats Sticky Toffee Pudding for a dessert. It's easy to make and doesn't require a mixer. Sticky Toffee Pudding is one of Britain's most loved puddings and following a long, chilly day outside, this old-fashioned dessert really hits the spot. For convenience you can make the puddings a few days in advance and then, before serving soak them in the sauce.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
Ingredients
Yorkshire Pudding
The origin of the Yorkshire pudding is, as yet, unknown. There are no cave drawings, hieroglyphics and so far, no-one has unearthed a Roman Yorkshire pudding dish buried beneath the streets of York. The puddings may have been brought to these shores by any of the invading armies across the centuries but unfortunately any evidence of this has yet to be discovered.
The first ever recorded recipe appears in a book, The Whole Duty of a Woman in 1737 and listed as A Dripping Pudding - the dripping coming from spit-roast meat.
Torta della Nonna - Grandmothers cake
'In the relationship of its parts, the pattern of a complete Italian meal is very like that of a civilised life. No dish overwhelms another, either in quantity or in flavour, each leaves room for new appeals to the eye and palate; each fresh sensation of taste, colour and texture interlaces with a lingering recollection of the last. To make time to eat as Italians still do is to share in their inexhaustible gift for making art out of life.' Thus spoke Marcella Hazan - The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
A Good French Onion Soup
A reader wrote asking how much wine she should have on hand for a dinner invitation. If it is of any help my dear lady, I am thinking about serving just soup to some friends this evening and as there will be wine served maybe I can be of assistance with her query . What I will be dishing up for them will be steaming hot earthenware pots of good French onion soup? First and foremost I will require one large glass of chardonnay or some other dry white wine. That one glass is for the soup recipe.
Vegetable Couscous
“Have you ever wondered how many miles your cantaloupe has on it or questioned the gas guzzling habits of your kiwi? When you reach for that apple in the produce bin, do you consider the hand that picked it from the tree? Do you ever think about the life that bag of spinach had prior to your tossing it in your shopping cart? Before our food makes it to the table it has been grown, harvested, handled, processed, packaged, shipped, stocked, perused, carted and bagged.
Soothing Noodle Soup Recipe
This week we all need to watch our energy and health closely so we don't end up getting an unwanted gift for Christmas (a flu or cold bug!). And if you're like me, you're extra busy these days with all the gift buying, cooking, and other holiday activities that fill the calender. On such days, there's nothing like a bowl of steaming homemade soup to soothe and invigorate, not to mention one that also happens to keep you healthy. And if it's noodle soup you prefer, check out this delicious Thai soup.
Stuffed Roast Turkey with Bread Sauce
By now there has to be a surfeit of coffee table, professional, and personality cook books in the world, and that is not including the million or so recipes on the web. As for fashions, over the years we have enjoyed or detested numerous food fads. But whichever exotic name they were christened in the end, culinary basics have remained the same.
Fillets of Sea Bass with a Pernod Sauce
Once I am being chastised for not including enough fish recipes, so this week I am rectifying this by including a dish which utilizes three of my favourite ingredients, Pernod, sea bass, and white wine. As there is always a bottle of Pernod lurking somewhere in my kitchen, it tends to get used more frequently than it should. Apart from taking the occasional glass for inspirational purposes I find myself pouring a small shot over a few prawns and or using it to make a quick sauce with any piece of fish I take from the deep freeze to fry in an emergency.