Yesterday I visited Claremont Farm in Bebington on the Wirral, a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Having finished my interview I had a good look round the farm shop, needing to buy bread in particular. I purchased a couple of loaves, the first already finished and it was excellent. But the cheese I got was better, and though expensive it was great value, which when you think about it is not a paradox.
I spent £10 or so on two big chunks, one was Doddington from Northumberland, bought after tasting a tiny piece. It was still with me half way up the M6 on the way home. The other was the wonderful Montgomery Cheddar, one of this country's great cheeses. My son raised his eyebrows when I did my wine-tasting bit that evening: first flavour herbaceous, a bit grassy, then you get cream which morphs into acidy strength, and the whole gels at the end. Sounds pretentious, maybe is a bit, but it's true.
OK, £10 on two pieces of cheese is not what IDS will be spending from his £53 a week budget, but it is still for those of us with reasonable if limited funds a bargain, maximising taste for your pound. It satisfies the austerity thing as we need eat just a little to have huge pleasure, so it will last longer. What a pity it's hard to find such fantastic produce.
To Booth's shame their stock of decent cheeses (at Fulwood anyway) has diminished, with Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire no longer available. File under bloody stupid. Yet you can buy horrors like cheddar with mango there. File under bloody criminal.
Showing posts with label bang-for-your-buck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bang-for-your-buck. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Monday, 31 December 2012
Christmas Austerity Cannon
A Christmas austerity cannon is made with the tube from a used cracker, and propellant made from three of the unused strips that go bang from same, loaded with plastic hair-slides, miniature packs of cards, and nail-clippers that break within a day. Alternatively it is a spelling error. Mea culpa, I blame it on Michael Gove because he has a face like a constipated frog.
Top leftover tip and compliments of the season to you: made some stuffing to go with chicken yesterday that used up several odds and sods. Three slices of bread past the first flush, four tiny sausages that should have been breakfast two days earlier, some walnuts (who ever finishes one of those string bags that are a legal requirement of the British Christmas?), a handful of dried-ish prunes and the one ingredient not on the to-do list, a big juicy onion. All zapped then moistened with oil and cooked in a dish alongside the bird, firstly covered with foil to keep it soft, then without to brown the top.
The oil I used was walnut, which doesn't sound like it is part of the austerity thing, but is relatively cheap and for me fits as it is one of the best bang-for-you-buck flavourings you can find. A few drops in dressings or as a flavour enhancer in cooked dishes is all that's needed.
Top leftover tip and compliments of the season to you: made some stuffing to go with chicken yesterday that used up several odds and sods. Three slices of bread past the first flush, four tiny sausages that should have been breakfast two days earlier, some walnuts (who ever finishes one of those string bags that are a legal requirement of the British Christmas?), a handful of dried-ish prunes and the one ingredient not on the to-do list, a big juicy onion. All zapped then moistened with oil and cooked in a dish alongside the bird, firstly covered with foil to keep it soft, then without to brown the top.
The oil I used was walnut, which doesn't sound like it is part of the austerity thing, but is relatively cheap and for me fits as it is one of the best bang-for-you-buck flavourings you can find. A few drops in dressings or as a flavour enhancer in cooked dishes is all that's needed.
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Elegance for Pennies - Floaty Cheese Dumplings
This post harks back to the whole austerity cooking thing of buying the most bang for your buck, as yesterday I made some very pretty little cheese dumplings with Parmesan. Any well-flavoured hard cheese would do, but Parmesan was to hand so I used it. A cheese with little flavour would have been cheap compared to Parmesan, but more would have been needed which balances it all out. You gets what you pays for. And for the same flavour cheap cheese would have meant eating much more fat.
The cheese was in fact free to be honest, as I just returned from a press trip to Parma with a suitcase weighed down with some wonderful samples, gratefully received, though I had some in my fridge anyway and it is what I would have reached for.
In the morning I had made some chicken stock with the carcase of a bird roasted at the weekend and a few pot vegetables - turnips past the first flush of youth, a carrot, sage, onion, garlic, leeks, par-cel and bay all from the garden or allotment, and a half chilli looking sad and unwanted. To make it more substantial as a first course and to use up a dried-out bread roll I later made some dumplings to poach in the stock.
Bloke cooking means no precise measurements were made, but in rough terms I used about half the crumbs from the roll, added the yolks of two eggs, some seasoning, and maybe three or four tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan. The egg whites were beaten till stiff-ish, a little stirred into the crumb/cheese mix to loosen it, then the rest incorporated as lightly as possible. More crumbs were needed to make a consistency that would hold together. In wet hands I formed the resulting mix into big marble shaped and sized pieces, and dropped them into the simmering stock to poach for about five minutes.
The results looked and tasted so good - they were really light and soft, (very different from my usual efforts in meat stews) that they were served out of the stock with more cheese grated on them, the stock served as a consome after them.
The cheese was in fact free to be honest, as I just returned from a press trip to Parma with a suitcase weighed down with some wonderful samples, gratefully received, though I had some in my fridge anyway and it is what I would have reached for.
In the morning I had made some chicken stock with the carcase of a bird roasted at the weekend and a few pot vegetables - turnips past the first flush of youth, a carrot, sage, onion, garlic, leeks, par-cel and bay all from the garden or allotment, and a half chilli looking sad and unwanted. To make it more substantial as a first course and to use up a dried-out bread roll I later made some dumplings to poach in the stock.
Bloke cooking means no precise measurements were made, but in rough terms I used about half the crumbs from the roll, added the yolks of two eggs, some seasoning, and maybe three or four tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan. The egg whites were beaten till stiff-ish, a little stirred into the crumb/cheese mix to loosen it, then the rest incorporated as lightly as possible. More crumbs were needed to make a consistency that would hold together. In wet hands I formed the resulting mix into big marble shaped and sized pieces, and dropped them into the simmering stock to poach for about five minutes.
The results looked and tasted so good - they were really light and soft, (very different from my usual efforts in meat stews) that they were served out of the stock with more cheese grated on them, the stock served as a consome after them.
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