A trip to London; Yotam Ottolenghi and Carluccio's

My husband gave me a copy of the beautiful book Plenty from Yotam Ottolenghi for Christmas. You may already have guessed that I'm not a vegetarian (& neither is Ottolenghi, I hasten to add!) but this book is dedicated to vegetables. Using his particular talent to create exciting dishes with strong flavours and drawing inspiration from his Lebanese background and beyond, he's created a book that makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

We had to drive to London at the weekend and what should we drive past but Ottolenghi's (& I swear he was standing in the doorway chatting to a customer as we drove past!). Having conducted our business, we hot-footed it back. The display in the window was mouthwatering - beatiful delicate pastries, cakes and biscuits against huge bowls of salads. It looked wonderful and the queue trailing out of the door was testament to the amazing mounds of food pouring out of the kitchen. I managed to return later and bought some oat, cranberry and white chocolate cookies which even my husband (an anti-fruit weirdo if ever I met one!) fell in love with. I came home from work tonight to find a freshly baked batch of white chocolate and cranberry cookies made by my husband's fair hands cooling in the kitchen!

We'd passed a Carluccio's eatery on the way back to Ottolenghi's which is another place I've fancied trying. We ended up sharing an antipasti platter and a couple of espresso's which was spot on. The pasta that another diner was eating looked very tasty and if I'd have had room the white chocolate panna cotta with a raspberry sauce was sorely tempting! The platter was a lovely selection of sliced meats, mozarella, capers, balsmaic pickled onions, tiny peppers stuffed with tuna, juicy prawns wrapped in bacon, a delicious pate, artichoke, delicious thin slices of courgette marinaded in a delicate lemon dressing and similarly, a beautifully marinaded aubergine.

The marinaded courgette and aubergine are something I would like to try at home. I wonder if there's something similar in Yotam's book...?

Christmas meal

As we live relatively close to both sets of parents it means that we can enjoy a day at each parents over Christmas. This invariably leads to an excess of food and drink but you won't hear me complaining! Lovely as both Christmas meals were, we still like to cook our own celebration meal which is guinea fowl with all the trimmings and is now a firm tradition in our yuletide home. if you've never had it before I describe it as somewhere between a chicken and duck. It has a gamier flavour without being over powering and I admit that I struggle with duck for this reason. It seems to be coming more common place in the shops around Christmas and we generally go to the local market for ours.

This year I found myself cooking the meal as my husband had been struck down by one of the dreaded viruses currently floating around. Never having cooked guinea fowl before, I was a little daunted but determined to cook an enjoyable family meal... I roasted it for 1 hour and 10 minutes on gas mark 5 having stuffed the cavity with a handful of fresh thyme, some cloves of garlic and a quartered lemon.

I'd made the red cabbage earlier in the day as it benefits from a good slow cook: Shred a red cabbage, rinse under water and leave to drain. Meanwhile finely slice a red onion and gently fry in a knob of butter until soft. Add the drained (but still wet) cabbage, a teaspoon of cider or wine vinegar, a couple of cloves, a teaspoon of brown sugar and season. Cook on a low heat with a lid on the saucepan for at least an hour, checking it from time to time. If it looks like it's going to stick to the pan add a drop of water. This is so delicious with roast meat!

I also made a quick stuffing of breadcrumbs, finely chopped onion, some more fresh thyme, lemon juice, seasoning and once it was mixed up, I drizzled the top with olive oil but you could use the juices from the roasting meat or a knob of butter.

This was all served with sliced sprouts stir fried with bacon (lardons), carrots, broccoli, roast potatoes roasted in goose fat, mini sauasages (pigs in blankets without the blankets, after all you can over-do things!) and of course, cranberry sauce. Mmm. Can't wait for Christmas to eat it all again!!