The Sneaky Magpie

This weekend was great. Having a friend for breakfast on Saturday morning made me clean my house and do grocery shopping early. After my friend was gone about midday I was left with a tidy house, full fridge and a whole weekend to enjoy myself without any chores.

I did a small trip to one of my favorite cooking and baking shops in London – La Cuisiniere.  Unfortunately they didn’t have the things I needed and as I was in the area I popped to the local charity shop instead. I always head for the book section, they sell paperbacks for 50 pence and I usually find some of the classics I am meaning to read. This week I got:

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, a novel I wanted to read for some time as I am a huge Bronte sisters fan

The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith which I never heard of before but it looks very interesting and funny

Hotel Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones – I though Fashion Babylon was not that silly after all, the plot is very basic but there is a lot of little insights of how the industry really works, I hope to fish out those bits from this book about hotels, and at 50 pence it can go back to the shop anyway. I thought it was serendipity having just finished her other book.

Even though I haven’t bought any bake ware I did manage to make some tarts. I hate making pastry but I like the idea of pretty tarts. So I decided to face my demon and make some. I figured the only way to learn how to make pastry is to do it frequently. Sweet pastry is way easier to make than savoury one, though.

The treats this week were hazelnut tarts from Skye’s recipe and super rich chocolate tarts from Jamie’s recipe. The hazelnut filling is like hazelnut frangipane, delicious with a hint of lemon rind. I added one whisked egg white unlike Skye, I can never stick to a recipe!

I also learned that I should trim the pastry before baking for a neat look, doing so after it’s baked ended up in a disaster, the pastry just chipped and large chunks fell off.

I popped to the Battersea car boot sale and got some granny cups, love them!

Watched Milk at last and thought it was fantastic.

Also watched Everyone says I love you and thought it was not that fantastic, I haven’t been lucky with Woody Allen lately.

I also guest blogged about my olfactory adventures on Signature Scent which was fun.

I must say it felt a little bit like spring on Saturday but I don’t want to get too excited as it’s not even the middle of February.  Felt tempted to buy some daffodils but restrained myself and settled for small pink carnations, I should enjoy spring when it comes!

There is nothing better on a cold rainy day than a bowl of hearty warming soup. When feeling a bit run down and on a verge of getting a cold soup is the only thing that will make you feel better (plus season 3 of Mad Men of course).

This autumn I have introduced two new soup recipes to my dinner menu.

The first one is a sweetcorn chowder. So tasty and moreish.

This recipe comes from Yotam Ottolenghi for The Guardian and you can find it here.

I tried the spiced butter once but it is slightly overpowering. I prefer it with some bread on a side (or crumpets if none available). Another tip for this soup is to poach smoked haddock in milk and then add some of the milk and chunks of the fish to your chowder.

I have tried few recipes from Ottolenghi and they are all very delicious.

The second soup is from Skye Gyngell’s book My Favorite Ingredients – the tomato and bread soup.

I cross referenced the recipe with Jamie Oliver’s Italian cook book. Skye had sage, Jamie basil which I prefer for this dish.

The important thing is to have good balsamic vinegar and stale bread. All the components come together wonderfully creating a superb and fragrant bowl of soup.

I have been catching up on reading and films this weekend. Due to the postal strike magazines arrived late this month, same goes for DVD rentals. Pretty annoying. The strike is still going on and nobody knows when this will end.

Vogue and ELLE made me wish for even more pretty things. No matter how few things I really need there is always something new to wish for.

I also went to All Saints just to have a look and of course spotted things that would be very useful, especially this great hunting coat, perfect for rain, outdoor activities and cycling (same material as Barbour jackets but better cut). Skinny black jeans are always good,  fitted shirt would look good with these. And I really need a good belt.

After our visit to Petersham Nurseries I decided to expand my cook book selection to two Skye Gyngell books. I have just ordered A Year in My Kitchen which is all about seasonal cooking – it has been my cooking philosophy for years so I am sure I will enjoy exploring her recipes. If the book is a culinary success I will also get My Favorite Ingredients.

Speaking of seasonal food, I got some fresh figs yesterday and prepared them for my lunch. I love figs: fresh, roasted, baked in cakes; in savory and sweet dishes. It is such a wonderful and diverse autumnal fruit.

For my lunch I made roasted fig salad, this is the recipe:

4-5 figs

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp honey

1 buffalo mozzarella

handful of rocket

toasted pine nuts

few mint leaves

Quarter the figs and spread them on a baking sheet, pour a little bit of balsamic vinegar and honey, roast in  190-200 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Tear the mozzarella into chunks, place on a plate, mix with rocket leaves and pine nuts. Place roasted figs on top but let them cool first otherwise the cheese will melt and the leaves will wilt. Balsamic, honey and fig juice will create a lovely syrup which can be dripped over the salad. Sprinkle mint leaves on top.

Serve with good sourdough toast.

This has been inspired by Jamie Oliver’s fresh fig salad with parma ham aka the easiest sexiest salad in the world. You can find his version in Happy Days with the Naked Chef.

The whole afternoon was spent on reading Generation A which is yet another great book by Coupland. I only read two contemporary writers religiously, the other one is Dave Eggers.

Watched a couple of films:

Me and You and Everyone We Know – Funny, uplifting and quirky directorial debut by artist Miranda July. I also recommend her short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You. This girl is very talented.

Meantime by Mike Leigh – A very good English film that I can watch over and over again, Leigh captured the Thatcher era and life in the east end of London spotlessly and shot it beautifully. Amazing performances by absolutely everyone, especially by Tim Roth, Phil Daniels and Gary Oldman.

My weekend ended in Hoxton, had Vietnamese food at Cay Tre. Authentic tasty food, the summer spring rolls are super delicious.

Today, as planned, we went down to Northcote Road to have a proper look – the market stalls are not very exciting so I’ll stick to the farmers market.

Instead, we went to Gail’s for coffee and cake. I had cheesecake with blueberries, it looked so good I couldn’t resist but it turned out to be too rich, I should have settled on a pretty blueberry and pistachio cake or like my more sensible other half – bran muffin, much nicer. I also bought some French sourdough bread, they have a great choice of bakery goods.

Afterward we wandered down the street and came across Recipease, Jamie Oliver’s newish venture. It caught my eye because the outside is painted with horrible baby pink color. The shop sells cook books, crockery, kitchen accessories, ready made meals and some condiments. I haven’t bought any but I am tempted to go back as the jams looked delicious.

At the back of the shop there’s a cooking workshop. The recipes are really dead easy so I wouldn’t recommend going unless you wanna know how to make spaghetti with meat balls or fruit crumble. It does what it says on the tin I suppose…

Later in the afternoon I decided to do some baking (yes, I did have a savory snack in between the cheese cake and baking!) I bought some new baking accessories recently and was eager to use them. I wanted something simple and settled on tea cakes. The recipe I used is very simple and versatile – it’s also butter free:

2 eggs

100g sugar

180g natural yogurt

80ml olive oil

zest and juice of 1 lemon

40g poppy seeds

1tsp vanilla extract

205g plain flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

strawberries

Preheat oven to 180 degrees, prepare ramekins or molds.

Cream the eggs and sugar till smooth. Add lemon zest and juice, olive oil, yogurt and vanilla and whip, add sifted flour, baking powder and poppy seeds. You can exchange some of the flour for bit of ground almonds. Stir well.

Fill your containers half way as the cakes will expand in the oven. I put halves of strawberries on the top but seeing the result I would probably cover almost the whole top with them next time, they create lovely moisture that counterbalances the dry cake. You can use any fruit, seeds and nuts you desire, the basic cake recipe will work with everything.

Bake for 30 min or till golden brown. Enjoy!