Scary severed fingers with black bat’s blood sauce (oh alright then, ‘posh’ fish fingers with olive tapenade)
You know when you write up a whole recipe, then the internet gremlins get to work over the weekend and delete it all? Yes, that.
Ah well, I’ve blown my nose, wiped my tears, and here’s my second attempt at telling you all about our spooky Halloween fishy supper. I was sent a lovely, fresh box of coley and haddock from the lovely chaps at Seafish over the weekend, and challenged to make them as spooky as possible. Not easy, especially when you’re somewhat challenged in the creativity department, but here’s how it went:
You will need:
500g firm, white fish
250g breadcrumbs (this was a bit much actually, 200g would be fine)
80g finely grated Parmesan cheese
300g fresh parsley
Salt and pepper
200g plain flour
1 large egg
Splash of milk
So whizz up a couple of slices of bread in the food processor, then add in the Parmesan and parsley (I whizzed it all together and it was fine). Season generously.
Now, you need to assemble your eggy wash department. Grab three bowls, and in the first one put the flour, in the next the egg and splash of milk and in the third, the breadcrumbs.
Get your production line rolling by slicing the fish into nice fat fingers, then placing them into the flour, then the eggy wash, and finally the breadcrumbs. Arrange them on a buttered (or non stick) baking tray, and bake at 180/gas 4 for around 10 to 15 minutes (you don’t want to overcook the fish – it needs to stay lovely and moist).
For suitable Halloween spookiness, I served my ‘severed fingers’ with olive tapenade (I let it down with a little olive oil) but I’ll be honest, it didn’t go down well. It would be much better with a quick homemade tartare sauce made with mayo, a squeeze of lemon and some chopped capers.
And the verdict? Gorgeous. Everyone loved the fish fingers and they were quick and easy to make, with soft, delicate fish and a lovely savoury crust. Yum!
Happy Halloween!
For more information on Fish is the dish, click here!
Review: Allegra McEvedy’s ‘Bought, Borrowed & Stolen’
There are some cookery books that I definitely class as bedside books. Some are just a plain old list of recipes, and that’s fine, I like those ones as well, but others tell amazing stories and warrant bedside-table space along with the handcream and glass of wine (everyone does that, right?).
Take Sophie Dahl’s beautiful Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights. It’s one of my favourite books – I thinkSophie Dahl writes amazingly well, and her gorgeous prose interlinked with anecdotes, rememberings from her childhood and other snippets enhance the lovely recipes and really make the book what it is, a classic to be treasured.
Allegra McEvedy’s new book, ‘Bought, Borrowed & Stolen. Recipes & Knives from a Travelling Chef’ is definitely a bedside book. Part recipe book, part travel tome, it’s a wonderful mixture. McEvedy has travelled extensively and started to pick up knives here and there on her travels. Along the way, she lists the knives she purchased in different places, then goes on to give local recipes in a friendly, matey way that I absolutely love. She starts one Mexican recipe with ‘My Spanish is crap’. I love that.
In my usual, destructive way I’ve turned down loads of pages to mark recipes that I really, really want to cook. They are miriad: Clafoutis aux Abricots, Szechuan Crispy Pork Ribs and Caldo Verde, temptingly subtitled: ‘A Soup of Greens, Spuds and a bit of Pig’. What’s not to love about that?
If you count a food lover amongst your nearest and dearest, especially one who loves to travel, lovingly wrap this book for them for Christmas. Like me, they will absolutely adore it.
Bought, Borrowed & Stolen is available now, published by Octopus. Click below to take you straight to Amazon.
Food glorious food: stuffing my face on the Disney Dream
So I keep meaning to tell you about part two of our journey. It seems such a long time ago now. But back then…
After a mahoosive party to celebrate sailing away, we settled into an endless round of eating, drinking and sunbathing (what? It was research). We slept like babies and awoke to a beautiful pink sunrise in Nassau. An hour later we were gliding into the dock:
Our day was spent exploring the beautiful resort of Atlantis, where we wiggled our toes in the sand, and swam in the clear, turquoise water:
If I was to go back, though, I’d spend the day exploring Nassau, which looked amazing (and that’s nothing to do with the fabulous shops we caught a tantalising glimpse of *cough*).
Back on the ship, exhausted after all that exertion, we came back just in time for cocktails before dinner.
The Disney Dream has some amazing restaurants. The adults-only Palo was, I have to say, my hands down favourite. Our dinner there was spectacular. But first, being girls, obviously we had to check out the bathrooms. We weren’t disappointed – gold sinks!:
The food was as spectacular as the bathrooms (not often you get to write that in a sentence), and we started with a selection of yummy nibbles: olives, little pizzas and charcuterie, before moving on to a delectable starter (I chose a trio of crispy calamari, prawns and portobello mushrooms (apologies for the photos – always the way with restaurant photography):
Moving on, my main course was a delectable tuna steak (it looks really pink in the photo, but it was cooked to perfection):
… and this was all rounded off with possibly the best chocolate soufflé I’ve ever tasted:
To say we were completely full was the understatement of the century and we waddled back to our staterooms before collapsing in a big heap.
The next day, we docked at Disney’s own private island, Castaway Cay. Sadly the weather wasn’t on our side and it was a bit grey and drizzly (but still lovely and warm). Here’s me in front of the ship in dock at Castaway Cay:
Still, we had a wonderful day – we did a bit of snorkelling, fed the stingrays (an amazing experience), indulged in a delicious barbecue (ribs to die for) and bobbed in the balmy bathwater-temperature water, collecting shells and having a good cackle.
That evening it was time for a pirate party. There was a fabulous firework display (check out Liz’s video here) and plenty of silly pirate antics. Arrrrrrrr.
TIP: Make sure you’re up on decks 11 and 12 for the firework display – you can’t watch the show from your cabin for safety reasons (being smashed in the face by a stray firework would be very Disney now would it).
My favourite, favourite thing of all though (if I was absolutely forced to pick one) would be the champagne brunch at Palo. We met Sarah there for a final blowout and my, was it worth it. The brunch is not only a mahoosive buffet of everything you can possibly imagine, sweet and savoury…
…but they also serve fantastic Mimosas and gorgeous eggs benedict. As we sat, replete and burping, feeling a bit like Mr Creosote, the waiter was determined to bring us something else. I actually worried about exploding.
Oh wait, no, my favouritest thing of all was the ‘Pink’ Champagne bar, where the decor is to die for and they serve scrummy pink champagne with a panacotta chaser…
Oh, I can’t decide.
This was actually our final day and we couldn’t believe it had gone so quickly. Saying goodbye was sad, but we had one more surprise to come. We were met at Port Canaveral by our very own VIP guide and town car, to have a private tour of any of the Walt Disney World parks we wanted to go. More of this very soon!
Big huge hugs and thanks go to the amazing team at Disney Destinations. Mwah xxx
11-night Caribbean Stay, Cruise and Stay from £999
Virgin Holidays Cruises offers seven nights at Rosen Inn Orlando on a room only basis, before joining the Disney Dream for four nights from Port Canaveral, Nassau, Castaway Cay and back to Port Canaveral. Prices are per person based on two adults travelling and sharing an inside cabin on a full-board basis and includes Virgin Atlantic flights from London Gatwick and car hire. Based on departure date 15 Jan 2012. Offer is subject to availability andincludes all applicable taxes and fuel surcharges which are subject to change.
Start your holiday before you’ve even taken off in the v-room at Gatwick Airport and Manchester Airport…adults £20, kids £12.
To book: Visit www.virginholidayscruises.co.uk, call 0844 573 4398 or visit one of our 70 stores located in Debenhams and House of Fraser stores nationwide.
If you want to see all the pictures from our trip, check out my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/englishmumdotcom
English Dad excels himself in the celebrity video department. I give you… Ralf Little!!
So clever old English Dad’s been teaching Ralf Little to fly. He’s been rubbing my nose in it FOR MONTHS whilst simultaneously forbidding me from mentioning it anywhere on the interwebz. The fiend. I bloody love Ralph Little. From the frankly amazing Royle Family, through Two Pints of Lager and the brilliant Married Single Other, (which we both loved and were devastated when it ended), I’ve loved it all. I even love his Asda adverts (every time they come on, someone in our house shouts ‘Ralf’s on!’
Plus, he happened to let slip that he was working on something new that he had co-written and I wasn’t allowed to mention that EITHER. The torture. (I know now, it’s called The Café and it’s starting really soon on Sky 1).
‘Tell him about Gary Barlow‘, I begged. Tell him anything, just PLEASE ask him for a video. Pleeeeease…’
Anyhoo. Sitting down to dinner this evening, Old Sneaky McSneaky passed me his phone. ’Check out where we were today’, he said, nonchalantly. So I pressed play. And this appeared:
*SCREAM*
Ralf, I love you. And thank you thank you thank you for my amazing video. And call you? Too bloody right! *shoves husband out of the way roughly*
Oh, and congratulations on your new helicopter licence. Mind you, you had a pretty good teacher, eh?
A Halloween recipe roundup, and win a hamper of baking goodies from Dr Oetker
So who’s baking what for Halloween (or Hallowe’en) then? My novelty baking skills are somewhat lacking (as evidenced by the debacle that was the spider cake a while back). I’ve had a look around and here are some of my faves so far:
Asda’s spooky recipes (especially the skeleton gingerbread men)
Sprinkle Bakes’ frankly fabulous ‘batty’ Battenburg cake
Lovely Jam and Cream’s Hallowe’en cupcakes
Lavender and Lovage’s Halloween owls
Annabel Karmel’s ghostly cakes
New Mummy’s Tips’ spider cupcakes
National Baking Week’s spooky cookies
Maison Cupcake’s fabulous chocolate orange bats
Cherished by Me’s spiderweb cakes
Nessa’s Family Kitchen’s selection of Hallowe’en recipes (love the severed fingers best)
Bat and Ghost cookies from The Party Times
Jules’ amazing beetle cupcakes, plus her new beetle forest gateau
Lovely Helen at Aardvark Cakes’ ghostly gifts
Leave a comment telling me which one you like best (or telling about any Halloween recipes I’ve missed – or just say hello if you like) and you’ll be entered into a draw to win all the Dr Oetker baking goodies!
Dr Oetker are also giving away tickets to Cake 2011 via their Facebook page - you can become a fan here.
THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR ENTRIES!
I used the random number generator and the number produced was 14. The 14th comment appears to be: Beth! Congrats Beth – email on its way to you 
Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen on BBC Three Counties Radio. Eek!
So first of all, I have to be honest, I’ve said no to coming on this show A LOT. Luckily for me, I think Nick could see through my thin veneer of nonchalance to the terrified wobbling jelly within and just kept on asking until I said yes.
Originally I was going to do the Christmas show, but then it was all change and suddenly it was this Saturday. I was overcome with a mixture of excitement, nerves and a bustling, Womble-like determination to get everything perfect. It didn’t help when Nick mentioned that I was going to be the main guest on the show (oh, no pressure then…) and needed to devise a three course menu to bring into the studio for us all to eat. We chatted around different themes… three courses for under a tenner? Versatile family dishes? But then got lost in a conversation about how the sauce for one of the dishes I’d planned to do (a spicy lamb meatball dish) could be used for lamb shanks, bolognese, soup… and the theme was there before us: frugal food. Luckily, I would be joined by fellow food enthusiast Christian Carden-Maund, who would be bringing a main course and a dessert, and the amazingly clever Charles Bennett from Hanslope wines in Buckinghamshire who would be matching wines to our dishes.
I cooked everything on the Friday (dishes are warmed up in the kitchen at the studio so it was fine to bring everything cold) and arrived, stupidly early at the BBC Three Counties studio in Luton on Saturday morning.
Nick was, as ever, cool as a cucumber (I’ve known him for ages through his food blog/vlog, My Daddy Cooks) and very reassuring, as was the lovely producer, Emma. When Christian and Charles arrived I felt even better as they were lovely – really friendly and chatty, and before I knew it, we were live!
Although I think my first couple of sentences were a bit nervous-sounding, actually I soon forgot I was in the studio as the wine flowed and we tasted and chatted about the various dishes. Weirdly, all that kept popping up in my head was that my Mum was listening and that I mustn’t let her down by burping or swearing or anything. It’s fascinating to see behind the scenes, and actually was quite hilarious during the news or a song to have to sprint up the stairs to the kitchen Benny Hill stylee to warm up the dishes, plate them up and bring them back to the studio, then settle into your chair and joining in the chat again as though you’d never left!.
Christian was a brilliant choice to talk about leftovers as he’s something of a leftover guru. The dish he bought was a fabulous chicken in a sherry cream sauce with mushrooms, which was accompanied by a gorgeous caramelised onion mash – made with potato skins!:
Christian’s dessert was just fabulous – and his own creation – I’m going to ask him to guest blog about the dessert for us because it really is a perfect centrepiece for Christmas: a zesty, light creamy citrus take on a classic tiramisu. Check out the fabulous caramel basket:
Charles’ wine matches were clever and perfect. He chose a beautiful organic Argentinian Torrontés wine called Cuma (Michel Torino) to go with my spiced butternut squash soup (inspired by my homie Laura’s gorgeous butternut squash soup). The generous amount of chilli that I’d added had initially worried me, but matched with the sweetness of the squash and this amazingly rounded white wine, the whole thing was perfect.
For the spicy lamb meatballs, Charles chose this lovely Carmenere (I love Carmenere anyway – Tesco Finest do a great one):
and to match my fudgy chocolate brownie, he went with an amazing dessert wine, which, incidentally he would recommend as a perfect accompaniment to Christmas pudding:
We were also joined by my fellow foodie blogger and online friend, Ren Behan, who does a segment on the show every week. It was lovely to finally meet her in person (plus her apple cake was to die for – I snaffled a couple of slices).
For all the recipes from the show, you can download the factsheet here
Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen is live every Saturday on BBC Three Counties Radio. Thanks so much to Nick for inviting me and to Emma for being so lovely xx
If you want to listen to the show on BBC iPlayer, here’s the link
Review: ‘Vax Voice’ consumer testing – the Vax Air Reach
I was delighted recently to be asked to become part of the Vax Voice team. Basically I get to try out Vax products and give honest feedback about them. I like this because I do find that sometimes brands are enthusiastic for bloggers/consumers to review their products, but not always as happy to receive honest feedback.
Today, I’ve been trying the new Vax Air Reach – now you know me, I’m not massively keen on cleaning at the best of times, but here at New New English Towers the entire place is carpeted in that weird ribby carpet (you know, the ones that looks a bit like corduroy), which is a total pain to clean.
After scratching my head a bit over the initial assembly, then scratching my head a bit more trying to work out how to attach the longer hose, I was finally off. Considering it’s quite light, it’s really powerful. The carpet we’ve inherited had started to go slightly darker around the edges, but a quick whizz around with the hose and the pointy attachment saw the edges back to the same colour as the rest of the carpet.
There’s also a very good brush attachment (see pic) which works really well on my leather sofa – it has a sort of soft finish and everything sticks to it – especially white hairs from the Ninja Cat of Death.
I managed to hoover the stairs without having to juggle the cleaner or balance it half way up (it sat at the bottom – the hose is really long) and it was easy to empty too. It’s also really nice and light, and very easy to carry up and down the stairs.
My one gripe is the little bunch of accessories which has a really tricky little button that you need to push in really hard to get the nozzles to release.
Apart from that, it’s a big 9/10. Nice, one, Vax!
For more information, check out www.weloveclean.co.uk and www.vax.co.uk.
In which our hero rumbles shoplifters in Next. And makes a bit of a knob of herself
So this morning, then, I took myself off to my favourite shopping place where two of the bests shops (not counting food shops obviously because that would be Waitrose) sit very near each other: Next and TK Maxx.
I’d already had a rummage about in TK Maxx and was gazing at cardigans in Next when two men caught my eye (no, not in THAT way). They were standing by the coats near the entrance. They both had big coats with their collars turned up and flat caps, which looked a bit weird (I mean, why not just go the whole hog and wear a sign saying ‘I’M SUSPICIOUS’?) and they were fumbling around with a coat. Suspicious Flat Cap Man #1 kept looking up and catching my eye. I kept doing that ‘oh I’m not really staring at you, I’m kind of staring vaguely past you’ thing, but kept being drawn back to the fact that Suspicious Flat Cap Man #2 now had his hand completely down one of the arms of a coat. Odd.
So being nosey, and a bit of a snitch, I thought I’d go and tell someone. I sidled up to one of the nice customer service ladies and said ‘erm, it’s probably nothing, but those two men by the door are acting a bit weirdly’. Well. People that work in Next must have some sort of psychic link to each other, because without hearing anyone actually speak, the entire shop floor seemed to suddenly be full of staff. The Suspicious Flat Cap Men suddenly decided they didn’t want the coat any more and left.
Oh, I thought. How embarrassing. I’ve made everyone in Next suspicious and frightened the men away. Maybe they weren’t Suspicious Flat Cap Men after all and just genuine shoppers… Everyone will now be looking at me and thinking I’m a right nosey cow.
But then, the nice Customer Service lady came up to me, holding out a broken security tag – one of those ones with the pin and the other bit – and said ‘they’d managed to break the security tag – it was down the arm of the sleeve’, so you were right, they were definitely up to no good’…
‘Oh!’, I said, ‘wow!’, I feel all Inspector Clouseau now…’
‘Ahaha’, said the Customer Service lady, not really laughing but smiling politely
Inspector Clouseau? Said my inner normal person. Inspector Bloody Clouseau? One, he’s old. Two, he’s French, three he’s not very good at catching villains and most importantly, four, he’s fictional. You knob.
It actually sounded quite clever and funny in my head, I told my inner normal person, returning to looking at the tights…
But then, my knight in shining knitwear, the manager, came over and made me feel better: ‘thank you SO much’, she said, while I beamed and tried not to say anything else stupid, ‘we’re really very grateful’.
Well. I’m made up.
And there’s probably two Suspicious Flat Cap Men shaking their fists in my general direction somewhere and shouting ‘we would have got away with it if it wasn’t for that pesky English Mum’.
But rest assured, I listened to my inner normal person and didn’t actually say that bit out loud.
Result!
The countdown to L plates, driving lessons and a ‘new’ car
The Mad Professor is loving the sixth form. My gorgeous baby is so grown up (insert small sob here). There are, apparently, all sorts of perks too. As well as not having to wear uniform (they all swan about, as I think I mentioned, in pointy leather shoes, slim legged tailored trousers, trendy checked shirts and v-necked jumpers – oh, and ID tags so they don’t get mistaken for young, trendy teachers), they don’t have to wait in the lunch queue, but can elbow their way to the front (I can imagine this makes the younger ones fume), can go THE WRONG WAY around all the school one way systems (oh, the power) and can all exit the building at lunchtime where they flow en floppy haired masse to the local Tesco – woe betide anyone that times their shopping trip badly – it’s like the attack of the gangly GQ model.
Anyhoo, digressing. High on the agenda at every mealtime/car journey/opportunity to monopolise any conversation with a parent is When I Start Driving. It’s a conversation I’ve started to dread.
Did you know that driving lessons are 30 quid a pop now?
Why do teenagers have NO CONCEPT of money? He was actually looking at brand new VW polos the other day on the web. Now I don’t want to crush his dreams, but where does he think we’re going to get the money? He also thinks that, for some unknown reason, he will escape the extortionate insurance charges that obviously apply to every other young male driver.
Just for a laugh, and to prove a point, we got an insurance quote for a newly qualified 17 year old driver on his father’s somewhat powerful car. A snip at… wait for it… £25,000 per annum.
Oh.
Does anyone have any tips? Is it better to share a car with your offspring? Or is it best to help him (bless him, he’s working weekends at a local hotel doing silver service to save up) buy a car of his own? If so, which one is best? It won’t be flash, which in itself worries me from a safety point of view. Purely selfishly, though, sharing a car is a pain as I rather like my Mondeo – it’s nice and roomy (useful when the Death Wish Dude offers lifts home to half the skate park), powerful and automatic. Just about everything that he can’t have, then. And also, what do I do when he’s out at weekends? ’Mum, you never go out at weekends anyway’. But IF I wanted to…
I need words of wisdom, dearest reader. Off you go, then.
National Baking Week – thank you Asda!
So it’s National Baking Week (17th to 23rd October) and to celebrate, lovely Asda sent me a big, mahoosive parcel packed with all sorts of lovely baking kits. There were chocolate tray bakes, white chocolate chip cookies, toffee cookies, vanilla tray bakes and blueberry muffins and iced cookies (I hid the cheesecake brownie kit – that’s obviously just for grown ups).
When the slaves -sorry, cough, of course I mean children – came home from school, I set them to work in the kitchen to make me some cookies while I lolled around on the sofa drinking gin.
Here are the results. Impressive.
Look at his little face.
Slovenly motherhood result! Now they’ve proved they can cook, I am herewith giving up all my motherly duties to spend more time concentrating on gin consumption and sofa lolling.
Hic.
