PARSNIP & RHUBARB

Parsnip, rhubarb & ginger soup  (Serves 2)

Adapted from Covent garden soup for everyday

25g butter

225g parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped

110g rhubarb, washed and roughly sliced

1 small onion, finely sliced

2 tsps fresh ginger, grated

420ml chicken/vegetable stock

1 tsp honey

Salt and black pepper

Melt butter & cook the parsnips, rhubarb, onion and grated ginger for 5 mins in a covered pan. Add stock and sugar. Bring to boil, then simmer gently for about 15 mins.  Blitz until smooth and garnish with sour cream & chives.

She looked faded and shop worn, in amongst all the glitter and gaud, as if Christmas had nothing to do with her.

Monique; Lisa Jewell

QUINCE & WHITE PEPPER

Roast quinces with maple syrup & white pepper

2tbsp sugar

8 whole white peppercorns

1tbsp lemon juice

2 quinces, peeled, halved and cored

2 tbsp maple syrup

Few ground white peppercorns

Bring the sugar, 250ml water and the whole peppercorns to the boil

Rub the quinces with lemon juice and add to the sugar syrup, simmer for about half an hour till tender. 

Preheat the oven 180°C.

Place the quinces in a baking dish with the cooking syrup

Add the maple syrup and ground pepper

Roast for 30 mins until they are golden and really tender

Serve with the cooking syrup and maple/vanilla ice cream

They sailed away, 

for a year and a day…

… and danced by the light of the moon

The owl and the pussycat

ORANGE & LAVENDER

Lavender marmalade steamed pudding (serves 10)

Marmalade

Add 2tbsp of dried lavender per 1kg of oranges 10 mins the before end of cooking

Pudding

Add 3tbsp marmalade to the base of a 2 litre pudding bowl and the zest of 2 oranges into the sponge mix

The conflict between tradition and modernity is by no means cut and dried.

BFI summary of the film Wild River (1960) directed by Elia Kazan and starring Montgomery Clift 

BLOOD ORANGE & RED ONION

Blood orange & red onion salad

Blood oranges, peel and pith removed and thinly sliced into rounds
Small red onion, sliced into thin rounds
Extra virgin olive oil
Mixed peppercorns, ground

She was still in her pyjamas but wearing a pair of red stilettos that she had bought for last years christmas party.  

BLUE CHEESE & GRAPEFRUIT

Blue cheese and pink grapefruit marmalade sandwich

“Refine the senses to enrich the experiences” was chalked up on the blackboard.

ORANGE & WHISKY

Marmalade

Add 75ml whisky at the end of boiling to every 1kg oranges used

A New year resolution to read more poetry.

But I foor up the glen at e'en,

To see my bony lassie;

And lang before the grey morn cam,

She was na hauf sae saucey.

A Waukrife Minnie by Robert Burns