Hummus Bros

I have been walking past Hummus Bros for quite some time now, never quite game enough to venture into the world of a whole bowl full of hummus - BUT, after reading many good reviews of late I decided that it was an appropriately warm sunny day for an adventure!

So the deal is you get a bowl lined with a large serving of Hummus, then you choose a topping, eg more chickpeas, guacamole, chicken or beef, served with your choice of 1 or 2 pita breads.  I chose the beef, but i'm not sure I made the best choice, the beef was more like a winter stew, not something I particularly thought went too well with the mediterranean flavours.

All in all, it was a tasty enough lunch, although i'm sure Ben would probably have enjoyed it much more than me - not to mention that I have no doubt a home-made version would be MUCH nicer.

Anyway, something else to tick off the London list!

Monday Fun-Day! (just because)

The "Damson Gin" End...

Due to obvious circumstances, we didn't quite get around to bottling our Damson Gin after the required 3 months, so we had to settle for continuing our 'little' experiment 6 months later.  We were a little worried that the results might not be quite the same, but as it turns out, we had nothing to worry about - our Homemade Damson Gin is divine!  Notes from our 'little experiment' confirm that a better quality Gin (ie Tanqueray) produce a much smoother taste, while I think we've decided that the amount of sugar didn't have too much of an impact!  However, we do agree that the Gin would have been best 3 months ago on a freezing cold, snowy day...  oh well, Damson Gin summer spritzers it is!

Bread and Pate

This morning, we had a mission - to make our first ever batch of bread!  After seeing the River Cottage Bread special again during the week, Ben was all inspired to get baking!  It's lucky we don't have much planned for today as we soon learnt that it is a lengthy process, mixing the dough, letting it rise, knocking it back, letting it prove, and then finally to the oven!  We're only at the proving stage, so hopefully in about an hours time we'll finally be pulling it out of the oven!

In the meantime, and after devouring Pate Moi's delicious Mushroom Pate last night, we decided that we just had to have more to go with our fresh bread hot out the oven.  I've been wanting to make Mushroom Pate for the longest time, so i'm very excited to see how my first batch turns out!  I slightly changed a recipe I had found via the ever inspiring Emma Bradshaw and goes a little something like this...

300g mushrooms chopped finely (mixing and matching varieties will give a richer flavour)
4 cloves of garlic (crushed)
1 small onion chopped finely
Fresh thyme leaves
2-3 tablespoons of butter
Juice of half a lemon
Freshly ground salt and pepper

Sautee all of the above ingredients (expect for the lemon juice) for approx. 10 minutes until soft - towards the end squeeze in the juice of half the lemon, cook for a couple more minutes and then set aside to cool completely.

Blend in a food processor with 200g of cream cheese and approx. 3 tablespoons of fresh breadcrumbs.

Place into jars or bowls and refrigerate until cold and firm.

Serve with freshly baked warm crusty bread - YUM!

The Damson Gin Story

This time last year I didn't even know what a Damson was...until a chance encounter in the Lake District last Christmas (but that's ANOTHER story...) that changed my view on Gin forever (note - this still doesn't make me a G&T fan).

So we did our research and learned that Damsons have a very short season (around 2 weeks in September), which coincidentally is when you should prepare your Damson Gin in time for Christmas celebrations.

Fostering the competitive spirit that we have, Ben and prepared our gin to different recipes - which are quite basic and the main difference is that my Tanqueray Gin has less fruit and more sugar, and Ben's Londons Beefeater Gin more fruit and less sugar - stay tuned!

Day 1 - 12 September 2010 - My Tanqueray Damson Gin

One week in... Tanqueray on the left!

Drunk Damsons

Week 3...what gorgeous colour!

A little smile on my face...

How can these little bundles of loveliness NOT put a smile on your face - especially on a drizzly autumn london day...

Add the Hummingbird Bakery to my list of things I will miss about London!

Bill's Basics

I'm not usually one to brag (well, not too much), but when you get to spend a night with Bill Granger, you can't NOT share the love!  There is quite the air of "Bill Mania" in London at the moment - you can't open a magazine or read a blog without seeing his name.  And never has it been such a good thing!

hanging with bill

Bill's latest promo for his new book Bill's Basics (a collection of his favourite 100 recipes, all pared down literally to the "basics"), was a cooking demonstration/book signing at Waterstones Piccadilly and what a lovely time we all had.  Bill really is as lovely and friendly in the flesh as he seems on TV and to have him here in London, sharing him with only 30 or so others was quite a special feeling.

in the kitchen

Tonight he wowed us with Lemon Chicken, Fish Cakes and Plum & Blackberry pudding.  Being the basic recipes that they are, all 3 dishes were prepared within an hour and all delicious in their own right - but personally, the fish cakes blew my mind - who would have thought the humble salmon fishcake could be so fresh and zingy!  It will be straight to Waitrose for me tomorrow stocking up on ingredients. 

what was left of pudding...yum!