As you may have noticed, I’ve got a brand new look! With four new headers in preparation, you’ll soon see English Mum in a whole new way, split into easy sections so you can find the bits you like best - there’s foodie travel, our home life and parenting waffle, family travel and good old cooking and baking.
Keep checking back to see the new look English Mum!
l love cream. But with double cream containing 48% fat, it’s not exactly your healthy option. Fine for the occasional treat, but not for every day. So how can we still make all the lovely creamy recipes and sauces that we love whilst reducing some of the calories and producing a lighter, fresher end result?
Well, last time I was there, the Yeo Valley chaps set me a bit of a challenge: have a go at substituting yogurt in some of my favourite creamy recipes. And you know me, I’m always up for a challenge in the kitchen.
In baking, dressings and marinades you can add yogurt straight from the fridge. If you’re cooking with the lower fat yogurt varieties, you do run the risk, as with single cream, that they will ‘split’ (ie curdle) if you place them straight into a very hot environment. You can counter this by using the ‘standard’ versions rather than the low fat (still much lower fat then cream) and bringing the yogurt up to room temperature before you cook with it.
I used Yeo Valley’s Greek Style Natural Yogurt which has 9.5% fat (plus a nice long sell-by date) so it’s still got a nice creamy finish and isn’t too sharp-tasting. I’ve taken to keeping a couple of pots in the fridge as I use them at breakfast time, with fruit and muesli, as well as for cooking.
I had a go at cooking some of my favourite creamy recipes, substituting yoghurt instead. Here’s how I got on:
Spaghetti carbonara (or yoghetti carbonara - see what I did there?)
Snip a pack of smoked streaky bacon (outdoor reared, please) or pancetta into strips and fry in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until nice and crisp. Set pan aside on a low heat (you can do this while the spaghetti cooks).
Cook 300g spaghetti in plenty of boiling, salted water.
Meanwhile, mix a large tablespoon of Greek yoghurt with two eggs and a splash of milk, then stir in a big handful of grated Parmigiano or Pecorino.
When the spaghetti’s cooked, drain and dump it into the bacon. Pour over the yogurt mixture and toss to combine.
The verdict:
To be honest, once we’d added Parmesan, we could hardly taste the difference. Slightly sharper in flavour but still yummy. Fussy Death Wish Dude didn’t even notice and hoovered it down, and the Prof said that he’d ‘noticed something a bit different’ when I told him afterwards. Success.
We also tried:
Ice Cream: AMAZING success here. We actually liked the flavour of the ice cream better with the yogurt. Especially good with fruity and citrussy flavours and the bonus is here that you don’t need an ice cream machine. Try folding lemon curd through Greek yogurt and adding a grating of fresh ginger for extra zing, or just fold through your favourite fruit compote (Yeo Valley do some lovely flavours) before freezing. Take the ‘ice cream’ out of the freezer to soften up a little before serving.
As a dressing: I mixed the yogurt half and half with mayonnaise, added a squeeze of lemon and a handful of herbs and served it with smoked haddock fishcakes. Delicious.
However, my biggest success by a mile was with my usual buttermilk scone recipe:
Greek Yogurt Scones
Scone recipes often call for buttermilk. Yogurt makes a great substitute as it’s still slightly acidic but adds a lightness to the finished scones. Here’s my adapted recipe:
500g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
125g cold butter
1 tbsp caster sugar
150g Greek yogurt
150ml milk
1 free range egg
First, get the oven nice and hot - you want it at 200 degrees/gas 7.
Next, weigh out all your dry ingredients. Sifting them together will give you a lighter finish. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a knife, then rub it in, squeezing the butter pieces into the flour gently with your fingers until only small ‘flakes’ remain. You don’t have to make it completely uniform. Stir in the flour.
Now mix together the liquid ingredients. Add them into the dry until it comes together into a soft dough. You probably won’t need all the liquid. Reserve it for glazing the scones at the end.
Roll the dough out quite thickly (say about 2-3cm) and cut out 12 rounds with a cutter. Pop them onto a baking tray (sprinkle on a little flour first so they don’t stick) and brush them with the leftover liquid. Sprinkle over a bit of extra sugar for colour and crunch.
These scones take literally about ten minutes to cook. Keep an eye on them. Serve warm with jam and more Greek yogurt.
The verdict: Fabulous. Light and fluffy in the centre and they rose magnificently too. I’ll be using yogurt from now on!
So yesterday saw me tootling off into London in the Spring sunshine. We had such an amazing time at Leith’s last time, cooking the Extra Special Christmas range, I was delighted to be asked back to try out their Easter range. Once again, Leith’s have been hard at work testing (and eating!) loads of new products that they feel are good enough quality to be called ‘extra special’ and go into the new range at Asda. I actually felt quite sorry for lovely Camilla, the MD of Leith’s School of Food and Wine when she was talking about the sheer amount of chocolate they’d tested (who’d have thought there was such a thing as eating too much chocolate?!).
Like last time, we were lucky enough to be allowed into the famous Leith’s kitchens to cook with the new ingredients. Our starter was a delicious mixture of fresh green samphire (yes, you can get it at Asda!) and young asparagus, topped with a poached egg and some strips of parmesan. As you can see, our table slightly failed on the runniness of the poached egg (we might have been gasbagging a bit too much to be paying attention), but the finished dish was delicious, and so elegant:
Next up was an amazing rack of lamb (it comes ready trimmed), which we adorned with a herb crust:
And our desserts were gorgeous strawberry tarts, with a crisp (ready made, but ‘extra special’) buttery pastry case, filled with a delicious mixture of mascarpone, double cream, vanilla and icing sugar and topped with strawberries which we then glazed with Extra Special strawberry jam. Droolworthy. And a ‘top tip’ we learned here, if you’re going to be making the tarts in advance, line them with a thin coating of melted chocolate before filling - it keeps them crisp):
We had such an amazing day and sadly, once again, I just about managed to hoover up my starter and main course (and plenty of the very freely flowing wine) before I had to leg it off to catch my train.
And especially for you, I’ve got a hamper with loads of the new Asda Extra Special Easter products to give away:
Just comment to enter!
Competition finishes midnight Tuesday 27th March. The winner will be chosen at random. No cash alternatives. The judge’s decision is final.
This competition is now closed. Well done to Jo Bryan who won the hamper
As you may have noticed, I’ve got a brand new look! With four new headers in preparation, you’ll soon see English Mum in a whole new way, split into easy sections so you can find the bits you like best - there’s foodie travel, our home life and parenting waffle, family travel and good old cooking and baking.
Keep checking back to see the new look English Mum!
I’ve written before about the fact that as a nation we’re not massive turkey eaters. Christmas, yes, but the rest of the year? I’ll be honest, when I was given this challenge and popped to the shop, I was surprised to find packs of turkey breast there on the shelves - right next to the chicken. Have you ever seen them? Thought not.
So anyhoo, the lovely chaps at Lean on Turkey, supporting our fantastic British turkey farmers, set me a little challenge: create a turkey dish for a family of four, NOT a roast dinner, for under a tenner. I thought instantly of my new best friend, Ras el Hanout.
About Ras el Hanout
Ras el Hanout is a North African spice blend that I first came across in Morocco, where it was being made into a paste with oil and lemon juice and rubbed onto fish before it was grilled. It has a a wonderful warmth and rich flavour and is a blend of all sorts of spices: black pepper, cumin, coriander, clove, cinnamon, turmeric.. all sorts of lovely stuff. There’s a hint of chilli in there but nothing too fiery.
For the Moroccan style turkey
You will need:
1 large red onion
1 pack turkey breast fillets
Ras el Hanout spice blend
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
For the couscous:
300g couscous
300ml chicken or turkey stock (cube is fine)
Large handful of chopped herbs
1 lemon
Firstly, slice the red onion and fry in a couple of tablespoons of rapeseed oil until starting to soften.
Slice the turkey, place it in a bowl and sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of the Ras el Hanout spice blend. Mix well.
Add the turkey breast to the pan and fry until the meat is opaque.
Then, add in the chopped tomatoes, plus another half tin of water. Sprinkle over 1 teaspoon of sugar, stir, then turn down the heat and allow to just simmer for about 15 minutes. Season to taste.
While the turkey is simmering, make your couscous:
Place the couscous in a bowl and add in a couple of slices of lemon peel (I just peeled it off with a vegetable peeler).
Pour over the boiling stock and cover the bowl with a plate.
When you’re ready to serve, fluff up the couscous with a fork, squeeze over half the lemon and stir in a big handful of chopped herbs (we used coriander and mint).
Serve with steamed Tenderstem broccoli.
For more information on the Lean on Turkey campaign, head to leanonturkey.co.uk
WHAT a weekend. There were so many great (and funny) moments I hardly know where to start.
First up, the the lovely chaps at Hertz UK offered to lend me one of their new Family Collection cars to go to the opening of the new Legoland Hotel this weekend. Bright and early Friday morning, a SPACESHIP was delivered. I kid you not.
After some initial teething problems, like waving the nice delivery chaps off assuring them I’d be fine, then realising it didn’t actually have a key and I had no clue how to start it (turns out you post the key fob into a little slot on the dash - you do not, as some wag on Twitter suggested, have to shout IGNITION ON!, but nice try though), I got on really well with it. The enormous beast took up my entire driveway and in a spectacular piece of teenager Tetris, I managed to fit FOUR of the fully grown and very gangly blighters into the boot.
Offski, then, to Windsor and the new Legoland Hotel, conveniently placed right at the entrance to Legoland, where a whole bunch of the media’s great and good gathered to celebrate its opening weekend. There were LOADS of celebs there: we spotted Zoe Ball, Dom (from Dick and Dom), Michael McIntyre, Vic Reeves and his gorgeous wife Nancy Sorrell, Warwick Davis and a host of other people that kept us in permanent ‘hey, don’t I know you?’ mode the whole weekend.
We met up with fellow bloggers Laura and Tara and their families and headed for the bar (as you do). In the restaurant we bumped into Tim Minchin. Instead of looking a bit awkward, both boys dived in, held out a hand and said hello (proud Mum moment there). He was utterly lovely and chatted to them for ages. Later he played football with them outside and they were absolutely made up. Isn’t it amazing when you meet people you really like and they turn out to be really nice in person?
The food was a good, solid buffet selection, with a carvery, a children’s section serving all the usual suspects, and a salad bar. I wouldn’t say it was amazing restaurant fare (my beef was very well done and a bit leathery, and the pannacotta poured out onto the plate like yoghurt), but we all ate well. We were all a bit taken with the lego cake, but sadly didn’t get a slice.
We were on the fourth floor in an ‘adventurer’ room. We were really impressed with the decor: a map for a carpet, lego creatures climbing the walls and a very posh bathroom (sorry about the picture - I did the classic ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY, WOMAN! thing in the mirror). It was compact, but the Prof is 5’9” and there was plenty of room for him in a bunk and the beds were mega-comfy.
The next day saw us up early (and hungover) for a big cooked breakfast before setting off for a bit of celeb-stalking around the park. We walked around the Star Wars exhibit, spotted Manta Rays on the Atlantis Submarine Voyage, whizzed around on The Dragon (this did nothing for my hangover - luckily Laura was the holder of the headache pills, as well as the map), did the Digger Challenge and zapped away on Laser Raiders. The boys took a final drenching on the Vikings River Splash and we headed for home, leaving the smaller dudes with more energy to enjoy the park.
What a fabulous place. And the icing on my dragon cake? This tweet from Tim Minchin:
About the Legoland Hotel:
The Legoland Hotel is now open for business with prices starting from just £248 for a family of 4 for a themed bedroom, including breakfast, 2 days into the Park and loads of added extras! Book early (the hotel is already fully booked on several dates through March, April May and even into June). For more info, go to legolandholidays.co.uk
About the Hertz Family Collection:
The Hertz Family Collection launches on 4th April. Hertz Family Collection offers a variety of cars with ample room for passengers and luggage, plus 5-star NCAP safety rating: total reassurance for your journeys with family or friends. For more info, check out Hertz’ new blog: HertsTravelGuide, or go to hertz.co.uk
Notonthehighstreet.com
I love all their personalised gifts, LOVE the fact that they have a whole section of ethical gift ideas, and also love love love the fabulous memo board they sent me, which now takes pride of place in my office and is practical as well as beautiful.
Still on my WANT list is the wall mounted herb rack and all the lovely gardening bits and bobs (I’m determined to have beautiful, scented pots on my patio this summer).
Carte Noire Instinct
The Death Wish Dude and English Dad are both addicted to coffee. They adore our Tassimo machine, but we try to keep it for special treats, as ten or more cups of coffee a day start to become very expensive! The DWD pronounced that this new Carte Noire coffee is ‘as good as filter’, which is a pretty hefty claim. It certainly smells nice (I’m more a coffee in cake person).
On a purely practical level, I also like that they do the coffee in packs as well as tins… I like to use my own containers and I think the move towards less packaging is great. Thanks to the lovely chaps at Carte Noire for sending us this.
Next up is albelli.co.uk who have all sorts of fab products for photos. They offered to put one of my favourite photos in a frame, and I chose this lovely Dubai beach shot that I’ve used as a background on Travelling And Arriving.
It’s finished in a shiny acetate and already has the fixings to hang on the wall attached (as well as some little rubber ‘feet’ that means it hangs level on the wall).
I absolutely love it. It takes pride of place in my office and every glance transports me back to that sweltering beach.
Whooga Boots
Yup, I know what you’re all thinking, they’re Uggs. And yes, they really are, as it turns out that ugg is not just a brand name, but an actual type of boot. Whooga make uggs with gorgeously thick sheepskin in a nice range of colours and styles and offered me a pair to try (and compare to my beloved Uggs). I chose a pair of short, black ones and they’re so deliciously comfy (you wear them with bare feet, and no, they don’t get stinky because the thick fleece allows lots of air to circulate - they don’t get ridiculously hot either) that they’re rarely off my tootsies. The care tips are really helpful and when disaster struck and I whooshed an entire bucketload of water and Milton fluid (I was whitening pilot shirts if you must know) over them, I had no choice but to rinse them. Dried carefully, stuffed with lightly scrunched newspaper, they were as good as new. I was impressed. I’ve since treated them with some suede protector, just in case.
Personal Planner
This lovely planner came from Personal Planner. They’ve sorted it so that it starts from Feb 2012 and it’s even got my name written on the front! Inside it’s just as pretty and it’s got a week to a page with plenty of room to write appointments. There’s also little squares for ideas, notes and things to do.
When you order one you get to pick your own colours, text and picture for the covers too.
I’ve got a gift card to give away for a personal planner. If you’d like to win it, just mention it in the comments.
I’m a massive Soreen fan and they sent me some of their fabulous new snackage: first up is the new Malt Toastie Loaf, which is already sliced, meaning that you don’t squish it while you’re slicing - a Soreen hazard (of the best kind. It’s still really low fat and is fab for breakfast, priced at £1.39 for a loaf.
And then there’s the little snacky packets of loveliness that are the 5 packs of Malt Snackers and Fruity Five Snackers - little individual packs of slices of either the traditional Soreen Malt Loaf, or their ‘Fruity Five’ loaf which has all sorts of raisins, cherries, orange and stuff in. Both yummers but I’m afraid I’m a traditionalist. The Soreen Snackers are exclusive to Asda, selling at £1.28 for a pack of five.
And finally, I have to give a massive big up to the fabulous chaps at Polaroid, who, on hearing that the poor Death Wish Dude had squished his cool shades and broken the arm off them, sent him a fabulously cool new pair. Check out these bad boys (they’re called Horizon):
Even better, they sent me a pair too, so both of us are going to look ‘hawt’ all summer long.
Thanks guys, you absolutely rock!
Yesterday morning, then, saw me heading up to London on the train, in my beautiful Boden cocktail dress, for the Tesco Mum of the Year awards. I felt like one of those girls that had stayed out all night and was doing the ‘walk of shame’ home on a Sunday morning. I tweeted as much. Little did I know that all tweets with the hashtag #TescoMumoftheYear would later appear up on the mahoosive screen at the awards ceremony. Oopsy.
I can split my day into three categories. The laughs, the sobs and the cringes. Here they are:
The laughs
1. Me smiling at Heidi Range from the Sugababes thinking I knew her from somewhere. And then going up and telling her this too. I think she thought I was a bit mental. She later caught me out when I was trying to take her picture. Twice.
2. Cackling with my lovely mates Tara, Laura, Ellie, Jacqui and Liz when we realised half of us didn’t know who Amy Childs was (I have honestly never seen TOWIE). We also failed to spot Pixie Lott AND Michelle Heaton from Liberty X.
3. Having a nice chat with the abovementioned Michelle Heaton about wearing two pairs of Spanx (seriously, the girl is TINY and has just had a baby) - what a lovely lady though.
4. Poor Lee from Blue being accosted by a rampaging gang of parent bloggers. He’s got that wild eyed, desperate look of a man who is cornered:
The Sobs
1. Watching lovely ‘Achieving Mum of the Year’ Helen Wynne with her adorable son, Dyfan. Oblivious to the charms of Amy Childs and Heidi Range who were presenting his Mum with the award, he treated us all to a bit of Zumba. What a star:
2. Hearing the story of how Sharon Mills, the Campaigning Mum of the Year, coped after losing her son, 5 year old Mason, to E. coli poisoning after eating a contaminated school dinner. Sharon is determined that no other Mum should feel the pain of losing their child in this way and campaigns tirelessly for better food safety standards. She had us all in tears and received a standing ovation. Pass the tissues.
3. Marvelling at the generosity and kindness of Compassionate Mum of the Year, Julie Jones, who took on her best friend Caroline’s SIX children after she died of a brain tumour. The children were all at the awards and were obviously so proud of their new family. Lovely to see. Also lovely was Julie’s ‘I don’t get what all the fuss is about’ attitude. ’I did what any friend would do’, she said. Pass more tissues.
The Cringes
1. Walking down the red carpet REALLY feeling like we didn’t belong. None of the photographers bothered to take our picture. And who can blame them, frankly..
2. Watching as some of my tweets were relayed across the massive screen, including this one in reply to an enquiry about whether I actually WAS doing the walk of shame:
3. My phone, in a really quiet bit of the awards, suddenly blasting out, and everyone looking at me. I picked it up and rushed out of the room, scarlet faced. It turned out to be the Death Wish Dude wanting a lift home from the skate park.
4. Being not very good at stealthy celeb-stalking. I also got rumbled taking a picture of Pixie Lott’s fabulous mint silk shoes, and we all got caught gawping at Sinitta’s waist (it’s minute, and she looks about 25).
Massive thanks to Tesco Magazine for inviting us, and for putting on such a wonderful event. The music (from X Factor’s Mary Byrne, Estelle and the amazing Dionne Bromfield was top drawer, as was the food. And the free champagne.
For the exclusive highlights of the awards ceremony, check out Tesco Magazine’s website.
If I’m honest, I’m not one of those people you’d ever call ‘groomed’. In fact, the words ‘scruffy’ and ‘oh dear’ probably sum up my personal style.
So when a very flash looking invitation plopped through my letterbox, complete with lilac ribbon, inviting me to the swanky Tesco Mum of the Year awards ceremony at a very posh hotel in London, it prompted a bit of hysteria, if I’m honest. I’m one of the Tesco Mum of the Year ‘official bloggers‘, see? So I can’t shamble up in jeans and wellies. Oh no, I’ve got to look smart.
There’s a red carpet. And a ‘champagne reception’. There’ll be *gulp* celebrities!
Nobody panic.
As any self-respecting social media addict would, I turned to my Facebook page. I presented my friends with a load of dresses, and yelled HELP! in a loud voice. Here are the choices:
There were lots of votes for #6, and quite a few for #2. #7 was deemed ‘too Christmassy’ by English Dad, but all seemed slightly too formal for me. Let’s face it, I usually walk around with birds’ nest hair and my jumper inside out, so everything was always going to seem a tad formal, I fear.
Lovely Boden then jumped in with another choice, the ‘fun’ dress:
… which frankly does exactly what it says on the packet, and seemed a bit more me. Disaster struck, though, when it turned out that everyone else liked it too and it was sold out. Dammit.
But wait…
Lovely Boden AGAIN came to the rescue by suggesting the fun dress again, but in a different colour:
And in a final, and rather fabulous twist, the really nice people at Boden actually sent me the dress! I know! They actually just said ‘hey, here you are, we’d love you to have it’. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, they went and sent me the black formal one too, so I have a choice!
I am a lucky blogger. I’ll be reporting back on what I finally wear, what celebs I bump into and, of course, which fabulous Mum wins the title.
And yes, I’ll remember to brush my hair.
So when we went down to Yeo Valley last week, I was telling them how much I wanted to have a go at ‘Jaime’s strawberry and rhubarb cheesecake‘ recipe that’s on their website.
‘Well go on, then’, they said, ‘feel free’.
So I did.
The thing that’s so appealing is that you get to MAKE YOUR OWN CHEESE. Yup, you read that right. It’s really simple (great fun to do with kids) and the end result is really quite magical! In 24 hours you have your very own ‘curd’ cheese, which cuts out the need for buying cream cheese (a big bonus) and uses fat free yogurt (an even bigger bonus). Obviously I then went and completely ruined it by making it into a chocolate version, but hey, you can use fruit too.
Basically, all you do is take one of their pots of fat free natural yogurt (the big 500g ones - soon to be in the pretty new packaging I showed you), stir in a pinch of salt, then just pour the whole tub into a sieve that’s been lined with a muslin or clean tea towel.
You sit it over a bowl and 24 hours later - hey presto - you’ve got a soft cheese curd just begging to be turned into a soft, velvety cheesecake!
I mixed the curd with double cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract as in the recipe, but then after it was whisked, I stirred in 100g melted dark chocolate (left to cool a little). The result is so easy and very lush, although we were a divided house… de brevren and I loved it, but English Dad thought the slight tartness didn’t go with chocolate, so next time it’ll be the fruity version.
For the full recipe of the fruity version, click on http://www.yeovalleyorganic.co.uk/recipes/jaimes-strawberry-rhubarb-cheesecake/
‘Teenagers’. To quote Sebastian from The Little Mermaid: ‘they think they know everything. Give them an inch, they swim all over you’.
Mine are relatively tame… apart from the odd bout of scariness and the odd error of judgement (which would make your hair curl) they’re quite polite… do as they’re told and are good fun. One of the things I HATE, though, is the Spontaneous Unexplained Incident.
Let me explain. The Spontaneous Unexplained Incident, or SUI for short, generally occurs when there’s nobody else in the house, or after dark when everyone else is sleeping: the last KitKat vanishes, but curiously, nobody knows who ate it. There is water all over the kitchen floor, but nobody’s been in there. Handles fall off school bags… holes get ripped in blazers, but they always happen without anyone noticing and without anyone to blame.
Sometimes an SUI can even occur when EVERYONE is in, like last week when a courier called not once, but twice, while both teenagers were in the house, but seems to have knocked silently (and rung the bell silently) and put ‘while you were out’ cards through WITHOUT ANYONE HEARING. Amazing.
Our most recent SUI occurred while I was on the train home from Bloggers on Tour: West Yorkshire. As is customary with the Spontaneous Unexplained Incident, it started with The Sheepish Phone Call.
Death Wish Dude: ‘Mum, there’s been an accident’
*SILENT SCREAM*
Me: ‘Oh blimey! Is everyone alright?’
DWD: ‘Yes, but the bathroom is damaged’
*’SHIIIIIIIIT’*
Me: ‘What do you mean damaged?’
DWD: ‘All the tiles fell off the shower in your bathroom’
Me: ‘WHAAAT? What do you mean, they just ‘fell off’?!
DWD: ‘I dunno. It just happened!’
You see? A dozen tiles appeared to have just LEAPT off the wall onto the floor off the shower without any apparent help from anyone else. Spooky.
Later, careful questioning ascertained that ‘someone’ might have fallen against them (‘or something’), but even then ‘they must have been, like, really loose, ‘cos they JUST FELL OFF!’
So there you have it. If you have young children, be warned: they will grow into teenagers and, just as spring follows winter, so things in your house will start to spontaneously break, rip, fall apart or DISAPPEAR.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
[Insert Twilight Zone music here].
We’ve had a bit of an up and down relationship with the Village Gate. We went there en famille (and we’re a grande famille, trust me) for my Mum’s birthday last year and had an excellent time. The place is absolutely gorgeous: a typical village pub revamped in a really clever, stylish way. The menu was great - creative and varied, the service fast and friendly and the food was as good as the menu promised.
So when we got an email through offering a table on New Year’s Eve for £30 a head we jumped at the chance and booked. The whole evening was a bit of disappointment, to be honest. Even though the restaurant was relatively quiet it took 45 minutes for our starters to come out (by which time we’d already finished one bottle of wine and frankly, were a bit past caring about the food), and then waited nearly as long for mains which were a bit disappointing. My sea bass was okay, but the tiny portion was full of bones and the crab crust made it difficult to catch them before you put them in your mouth, resulting in a bit of embarrassing hiding behind the napkin and fishing them out.
The desserts were disappointing too and to add insult to injury, we were charged £35 a head, not the promised £30. I emailed several times afterwards but never received a response.
But then, just when we’d given up hope, a new General Manager appeared on the scene. He’d read our email, he said, and would we please come back for a meal ‘on the house’ so he could show us what the restaurant could really do? ’Too right’, we said, leaping at the chance in an ungainly fashion.
And I’m happy to report that John (who is lovely, and very passionate about his food) has totally turned the place around. For one, it was packed (always a good sign), not just with diners but with people just in for a drink, giving the place a delightful background burble of happy conversation and chinking glasses. The menu is still fabulous - the Death Wish Dude and his dad were delighted to discover that the whitebait was still on the menu - and I was happy to see that John tries hard to source a lot of his produce locally (obviously not the whitebait, unless they came from the Grand Union Canal…). They also have creative gluten-free options.
My starter of bubble and squeak was topped with a perfectly poached egg and some delicious crispy pancetta, and was smothered in creamy hollandaise. It was absolutely massive, but that didn’t stop me polishing off the whole thing. The whitebait, I am assured, was delicious too.
For our mains, the Death Wish Dude and English Dad went for 28 day dry-aged Aberdeen Angus sirloin steaks which were cooked perfectly to order and were melt-in-the-mouth tender. The Prof went for beer-battered North Sea haddock, generously served with nice fat chips and a creamy pea and mint purée. All yummy. I went for the slow-roasted pork belly with a sweet potato dauphinoise, parsnip crisps and apple sauce. It was absolutely delicious, with tender flesh that pulled away in gorgeous flakes and an amazingly crisp crackling. Top drawer.
We were really a bit stuffed for the desserts, but the boys managed to force down a few of the ice cream flavours. All in all, we were delighted, and although we only paid for the drinks, we agreed that we would happily have paid for the whole lot. The service was friendly and attentive and John was around to give advice on the compact but very interesting wine list. We’ll definitely be back. Maybe even en famille. Brace yourself, John.
The Village Gate is in the beautiful Chiltern village of Wendover in Buckinghamshire. If you pop in, tell them English Mum sent you. Thanks to John and his staff.
Read any self-respecting food blogger’s posts and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the only things in our supermarket trolleys are stuff like truffle oil, organic this, free-range that, puy lentils and 90% dark chocolate.
Of course I’d love to tell you that’s true, but the reality is that my teenagers hit the kitchen like a plague of locusts every evening after school and yes, I’m afraid they demand crisps, sliced bread, gallons of milk and digestives as well!
Now I’ll be the first person to shout that our obsession with cheap food isn’t always a good thing, but everyday staples have to be bought, and essentials like eggs and bread, and those after school bickies, really add up.
Handily, Tesco have now given us a way of voting with our keyboards and actually influencing the items that we all want to see added to their new price drop campaign. All you have to do is click on The New Price Drop on Facebook and you can really help to make a difference to the price of the food in your trolley.
Of course, I shall be demanding price drops on caviar and quail’s eggs too. Worth a try, surely?
For more information on Tesco’s New Price Drop, go to tesco.com/pricedrop.
Over half term, the Death Wish Child and I popped to the Rainforest Café in London to meet up with the lovely team from Thomson and First Choice for their family blogger event. They’ve got some fab stuff going on at the moment, what with First Choice’s move to all inclusive from summer 2012, and loads of new family initiatives. Here’s the stuff that took our fancy:
Thomson also have a range of family holidays (all decent-rated 4 and 5T) with kids’ clubs, interconnecting rooms and lots of family-friendly entertainment. The 5T Atlantica Aegean Blue in Rhodes caught our eye, with its sparkly new waterpark, lovely restaurant with an open-air section so you can dine under the stars and a gorgeous taverna right on the beach. It also offers deluxe rooms which are in smaller buildings on the ground floor.
More info:
Thomson offers seven night family holidays to Rhodes staying at the Thomson Families 4T Atlantica Aegean Blue, on an all inclusive basis, from £1009 per person with the first child from £580 and second child from £730. Price is based on two adults and two children sharing, and includes flights departing from London Gatwick airport on 02 June 2024 and transfers. To find out more about this holiday or to book visit your local Thomson travel shop,Thomson.co.uk or call 0871 230 2555.
