The Ample Cook is 50

I was a happy baby

(The photographer must have been waving a pie)

(1959)

That's me in the front and no, I've never grown into those ears.
Apparently I sneezed when I was just born and out they flapped.
(1963)

Flares & platforms the first time round.

This was the year that I was planning my wedding to David Cassidy.

(1975)

Make-up by Dulux

(1985)

A scary perm at some point in your life is compulsory

(1990)

Well I can honestly say that I can't believe I'm 50 as I just don't feel it (that doesn't mean to say I don't look it mind!) In my head I don't feel older than 30. Age, as they say is just a state of mind.

In reality of course I know that just around the corner lurk the things that 'women of a certain age' will inevitably have to suffer - hot flushes, a hairy chin, grumpiness, varicose veins, control pants, unexpected flatulence and 'easy-fit' polyester trousers*.

I won't go down without a fight though.

*Husband informs me that most of these things have already started.

Jam packed

From mid August to the beginning of September my house alternates between smelling of boiling fruit and sugar to the acrid pong of hot vinegar. Yes, it's jam and chutney season. As soon as the fruit trees start producing I'm like a blur in my kitchen. Everything seems to come at once and with fruit you need to turn it into jam as soon as it's picked as that's when the pectin levels are at their greatest which means the difference between jam that you spread and jam that you pour. Add to this, the end of the courgettes and tomatoes ripening by the minute it's been manic.


This year I've been very lucky as a couple of friends have given me bucket loads of plums and pears. Plums are wonderful and very versatile, they make fantastic jam and chutney. The rest of the fruit I've either picked or bought. Over at the farm I managed to pick loads of blackberries and was given some damsons, and from a local orchard I bought Bramleys and greengages.

Unfortunately, as you can imagine all of this fruit attracts those evil little critters in brown and yellow jumpers. I have therefore become very skilled in thwacking them with an oven glove. The score currently stands at Ample Cook 17 - Wasps nil (ha ha!)

Damsons & greengages

The fruits of my labour

(actually this is the tip of the iceberg)

I know you can buy good quality jams and chutneys these days, but I promise you, nothing tastes like homemade. Just 1 lb of fruit and the same quantity of sugar will make a couple of jars of jam and takes very little time and effort to do. Chutney made now will be ready to eat at Christmas, making a really thoughtful gift.

Go on, give it a go.

Who needs Abel & Cole?

I was going to blog about this a couple of weeks ago, but decided it was a bit too smug. But then I got over it. *

This little crate of loveliness is from my sister's allotment. We've had various 'deliveries' over the last few weeks, including : onions, both red & white, shallots, potatoes, runner beans, french beans, beetroots, a few carrots, broccoli and LOTS of courgettes. Oh and of course not forgetting the wonderful raspberries which I made in to raspberry ripple ice cream. Her produce is quite simply amazing and we are very lucky.

Together with our own 25 tomato plants cropping like an Essex chav shells out babies, we have been blessed. It has been a little challenging shall I say in using all of our bounty and creating something new and exciting. But knowing how hard my sister has worked on her allotment to produce this wonderful veg, we have endeavoured not to waste a single bean. I would be lying though, if I didn't tell you that there was a faint whimper from the other side of the dining table, when I brought in the 'Sunday roast courgette'. I jest, there's been plenty of carnivorous accompaniments. Mike is more likely to eat a vegetarian than become one.

With regard to our tomatoes, I know that 25 tomato plants sounds a lot, it is a lot but as they crop, those we can't eat while they're still fresh, I just roast, then use a wonderful contraption called a mouli, which sieves all the skins and pips out. It's then reduced down until it's a bit thicker and you have lovely fresh passata, which goes into the freezer to use during the rest of the year.

Anyway, here's a small selection of how we've used our veg.

Char grilled courgettes & pepper with feta & herbs

The start of a spanish omelette

Roasted tomato & bean stew

Tom & basil bruschetta

Courgette fritters

Roasted toms, courgette & bacon pasta sauce

Courgette pickle & chutney

*I should point out that this is by no means a dig at those who did accept the Abel & Cole produce (and I mean that). I also had their offer, but turned them down.

Pub nirvana (almost)

If you could design your ideal pub, what would it be like? Maybe it would be set in a picturesque village, surrounded by green fields, with a river running next to it? Perhaps it would have a selection of real ales? Would it serve delicious food, the majority of which had been reared, caught and grown by themselves? Maybe their own smoke house? Wine and fizz supplied by their own vineyard? Well, believe it or not, such a place does exist.

The Anchor pub situated in the pretty village of Nayland, Suffolk is all these things and a little bit more. Just half a mile from the Essex border, Nayland is quaint and picturesque - think 'Lovejoy'. The pub aims to be as self sufficient as possible, having their own heritage farm. They grow the majority of their own veg in the kitchen garden which is next to the pub and keep longhorn cattle, lambs, pigs, game, trout and venison on their estate. They even work the land with Suffolk punches (which unfortunately are now an endangered breed of horse) These wonderful gentle giants are brought over to the pub twice a week - luckily we saw one working the day we were there. His name was Bruno and he had feet like saucepans.

Starting with a drink at the bar, Mike was impressed with the range of real ales and I was equally impressed by a glass of their own sauvignon blanc for £3.00. We then settled ourselves and perused the menu. I haven't mentioned yet that the kitchen is run by By Carl Shillingford (formerly of The Waterside and Pierre Gagnaire in Paris , both 3 star Michelin restaurants) Just gets better doesn't it?

The menu, as you would expect was very seasonal and quite honestly I had a difficult time choosing as there were several things I wanted to try. Well, as I wasn't wearing my 'comfort fit' crimplene slacks that day I chose just one dish from the grill menu, as did Mike. Scallops with chive and tarragon butter for me, and large black pork chops with smoked tomato compote for him. The dishes both came with 2 choices of side dishes, I chose 'thin cut' chips and a dressed salad and Mike chose 'fat cut' chips and grilled baby courgette and aubergine.

I asked the waiter if I could have my salad dressing on the side. "No problem madam". Well, clearly it was because the salad arrived dressed, well not so much dressed, but drowned. The poor leaves were covered in olive oil - my plate was swimming in the stuff. The scallops could have been warmer too and the chips cooked a bit longer. It was extremely difficult to catch someone's eye to point out the error, so when they eventually brought me a replacement salad I had eaten too many of the scallops and chips to need it. I was really stupid and should have got them to take the complete meal back, but I didn't and then regretted it, so my fault there. On the plus side Mike's meal was fine. The pork chop was big and tasted really porky and the chips were lovely. Again the veg was on the oily side, but tasty.

Although the food was a little disappointing the pub was comfortable, and in a lovely setting. There was a good selection of beers and wine and the staff were friendly. The prices, I think in particular were quite reasonable. Our food, plus 2 pints of beer, 1 glass of wine, a diet coke and a coffee was £34. I think it deserves another try and dressed in my 'eating trousers' I will return.

My name's The Ample Cook and I'm a Gravyholic

My addiction to and dependency on, stock based liquids started at a very early age. My Mum was a great plain cook and every roast, pie, stew and casserole had the most wonderful gravy. Every scrap of a chicken was used - roasted, then cold with mash and pickles or bubble and squeak, then the carcass was simmered with carrots, onions and celery to make a wonderful stew, soup or gravy.

Lamb or mutton stew was a favourite, big round chunks of neck of lamb that had more bone than meat, but those bones yielded a huge depth of flavour, with carrots, onion and pearl barley. Always made the day before so that the hard layer of cream fat that formed on the top could easily be removed.

This is my drawer of loveliness. A drawer in my freezer that holds little bags and plastic pots of meat jelly saved from a roast and left over gravy. I never, ever throw any meat stock or jelly away, no matter how small as they can either form the basis of a gravy, or sauce or just enrich a stew or soup. I also keep any meat fats - beef dripping, duck fat, pork fat - all fabulous for roasting potatoes.

This however, I have to admit, is not the full picture. In my larger freezer there are many pots of chicken stock - liquid gold. In our house we are never very far away from a risotto, or onion gravy to go with our sausages and mash or a lovely rich gravy to coat left-over chicken and sauteed leeks for a yummy pie.

I will hold my hand up here and confess to being a complete gravy and stock snob. The stock that is sold in supermarkets I think is of a very poor standard and expensive. Also, why doesn't it 'set'? If it was made from bones - as it obviously should be - it would, so what's that all about?

I suppose all this obsessive behaviour stems from my fear of 'Gravy Granules' That gloopy, salty, tongue coating powder of the devil. These are the ingredients taken from a jar of 'Bisto Best' - pork flavour: Maltodextrin, potato starch, salt, flavourings, flavour enhancers (E621 E635), hydrogenated vegetable oil, colour (E150c), Emulsifier (E322) soya, spice & herb extracts & onion extract. Mmmmmmmmm yummy.

Now, doesn't this deserve good gravy?

Well ripple my raspberries

A visit to my sister on Saturday resulted in me coming home with nearly a pound and half of raspberries, which we picked in her garden. They were gorgeous, really sweet. Now I eat a lot of fruit, especially on my breakfast porridge and granola, but not even I could snaffle down that many raspberries before they went off. So, instead of going for the obvious and turning them into jam I thought some raspberry ripple ice cream would be most welcome, particularly as I had quite a few eggs and a load of cream in the fridge.


First stage of the process was make a custard - 568ml of cream (yikes, low cal then) brought to just below boiling with 300ml of whole milk and a split vanilla pod. This was then poured onto 6 egg yolks which had been whisked with 50g of caster sugar. Then the mixture was returned to the saucepan and stirred until it thickened slightly. When it was cold enough I put it in the fridge and left it alone until the next day.



Then, I fired up the ice cream machine (not the quatro). It's only one of those that you keep in the freezer, but it's quite effective. It just churns the mixture with a plastic paddle and gets colder and thicker as ice crystals form. I would like one of those big ones that are always good to go but I just don't I think I'd use it that often and they're just such a big bit of kit to store.


The base vanilla was then squirreled away to firm up a tad more before being 'rippled' with 300g of pureed and sweetened raspberries. Something to note here - when ice cream freezes it always tastes less sweet than when it was in it's unfrozen state, so you have to add more icing sugar than you think to the soft fruit.

I think this looks like something 'Dexter' would keep in his freezer

I have to say that it was really worth the effort. I've only ever had commercial raspberry ripple and this knocked spots off it. It was creamy (obviously as it was virtually all cream!) and the rippled parts were really raspberryish and tangy and yummy.

Sexy Samphire

I always think Samphire is a good name for one of those steroid enhanced, orange skinned amazonian 'Gladiators' on that ITV programme - there might even be one, who knows? Anyway, I digress. I had a nice surprise when I picked up my meat order from the farm at the weekend. Paul (one of the farmers) presented me with a large bag of marsh samphire. The farm borders on the River Crouch which joins the Thames Estuary, so at low tide Paul had hopped over the sea wall and grabbed a load for me, which was very kind of him.


Samphire is obviously salty, but in a good way. Eaten raw it has a lovely crispness to it - it's a bit like a salty green bean really. It's known as Glasswort or sometimes referred to as 'sea asparagus' but apart from looking like very thin asparagus I don't think it really tastes like it. It's in season from late June to August. It's a great accompaniment to most fish and you can simply steam it and coat it in butter - but I decided to lace it with a sauce a la Rick Stein which is made by reducing some fish stock, Noilly Prat and cream by three quarters, then you whisk in a little cold butter. We had it with pan fried salmon and new potatoes.

Smokey Joe's

R2D2 had tried nicotine patches, but had not been too successful.

This is our new home smoker. We tested him out this week and were quite impressed. It only 'hot' smokes, so in effect it smokes and cooks the food as opposed to 'cold' smoking which basically cures the food. We decided on a hot smoker because cold smoking is a longer and more complicated process involving brining and maintaining an accurate temperature control. Apparently we can use this one for cold smoking too, but it invloves making a run off pipe in which to cool the smoke down, but I think we'll get to grips with the hot smoking first.

The smoker is made up of a bottom tray where you place the charcoal briquettes - it has to be briquettes - you can't use charcoal as it burns too quickly. Then on top of that there's a bowl to which you add water, plus any aromatics ie woody herbs such as rosemary or thyme. When you've got the briquettes going, you lay a foil pack of wood chippings of your choice. We used hickory.

For our first attempt we put on a small free range chicken, which we spatchcocked (which went on the level just above the water bowl) and a couple of rashers of pork belly and some sausages.


After the first hour and a half, it really didn't seem to be producing anything other than warm meat, so Mr AC put all of the meat on the top griddle and shifted the water bowl up which allowed more heat to circulate. Aha... success. I know we sound like a couple of numpties but the smoker came without any instructions. We had to phone the company we purchased it from and then rely on the website forum for advice. Yep, I don't know why either.

Anyway, the pork slices were very tasty and moist, if a little tough and the sausages tasted really good, a bit frankfurterish - very smokey. The meat doesn't look overally attractive but don't let that put you off.

As the smoker can double as a straight forward barbecue, we finished the chicken by giving it a bit of colour, directly over the coals. I must stress here that I have a food thermometer and used it to ensure all of the meat reached a safe temperature of at least 70 degrees C.

We used the chicken the next day to make a warm bacon, chicken & mango salad, with some salad leaves, rocket & coriander from the garden. Salmon and mackerel are our next victims.

Comfort eating

We've had a couple of very tough weeks in Ample Cook Towers. I've had a couple of unusually mammoth catering jobs and on top of this we were burgled and have spent so much time making endless frustrating telephone calls arguing the toss with insurance co over values etc* (see below) organising for replacement double glazing etc and quite honestly we've had enough. So, a bit of comfort food was required. No matter how busy I am in the kitchen we always eat properly. Thems the rules. To be fair it's not always down to me, Mr AC isn't a slouch in the kitchen either.

I'm also one of those people who is always planning their next meal whilst still eating the previous one and I look forward to my evening meal probably more than is good for me. Anyway, here are a few photos of some of the food we've been comforting ourselves with. The last of the British asparagus (a couple of weeks ago) covered in butter and parmesan with some reduced balsamic and some great Parma ham. We polished this lot off with some crusty bread and we followed that with.......

A warm salad of scallops wrapped in smoked bacon. I swilled a bit of mustard and white wine vinegar in the bacon fat and that just slightly moistened the salad leaves.

The ultimate comfort food of course - pork belly (we have moved on to another night now. Even we couldn't eat all of this in one night, although Mr AC would bravely give it a try if allowed) We had that with mash and onion gravy.

Then another night we had slow roasted shoulder of lamb. I think cuts of meat that lend themselves to being slow roasted or pot roasted are ideal for times when you're busy because you just bung them in and forget about them.Whilst the lamb was resting, I halved some charlotte potatoes (which were off my sister's allotment) and added them to the pan. They soaked up the lamby juices and went a little bit crisp. They were very yummy. Spring pointed cabbage, roasted pumpkin (again, courtesy of my sister's allotment) and carrots completed the meal.

*Just a bit of advice my fellow bloggers. Do check your house insurance policies. We hadn't realised that when replacing my stolen items of jewellery, our insurance co will be issuing 'vouchers' to be spent a very small collection of specific jewellers (crap ones in my opinion). If we want the cash and to have the freedom of spending it in jewellers of our choice we will have to take a cut of around 35%. What a con.

Fancy a tongue sandwich?

Preparing, cooking and pressing an ox tongue is probably a bit of an old fashioned thing to do these days, but quite honestly it's well worth the effort. The meat is fabulous. It's like beefy offal. It's very silky and quite rich. If you've ever had the cooked supermarket stuff and didn't like it, then trust me, you'd like this, it has so much more flavour.

Tongues used to be readily available quite a few years back brined in plastic pouches in the supermarket. Our local Salisbury's definitely used to sell them. I just don't think they're terribly popular today though. To be fair they're a bit gruesome looking and of course they've been in someone else's mouth haven't they?

To cook an ox tongue, firstly, give it a good wash and then poach it in water with the usual suspects: onion, carrots and celery for between 3 and 4 hours, depending on the size of your tongue.

When it's cooked, drain and cool slightly but don't let it go cold. Remove the grisly stuff underneath the tongue and peel the top. I find this bit bizarrely satisfying - like peeling little bits of sun burnt skin eeeeuw.


When the wee beasty is skinned and you've removed the nasties underneath, coil it round and put it in a container - I use a basin - where it fits really snugly, then pop a saucer and something very heavy on the top and refrigerate overnight.


The jelly will ooze and set the meat. It's lovely just with crusty bread and sharp pickles or obviously in a sandwich where mustard is vital. You've just got to have mustard in your sandwich or the tongue police will come round and take it away.

Temporarily out of order

Well, this post should have been the second part of my trip to Wales, however we were burgled last Thursday and my laptop and camera were two of the items taken along with some very precious stuff. To say I'm upset is a bit of an understatement. We have spent a very stressful few days with police, insurance assessors, double glazing repair men etc and I'm just a bit fed up.

Will be back soon though.

Wide awake in Wales

Mr Ample Cook and I have just come back from a very well deserved week's holiday in Wales, on the Pembrokeshire coast. I say well deserved because in the 7 days prior to the holiday I had catered for 200 people in three separate jobs - 115 of them on the day before we left, so I was pretty much dead on my feet and really needing a break.


We set off on the Saturday morning, bright and early, well early at least. The journey took 5 and a half hours. We were really lucky as the M25 was a breeze (unheard of) We broke the journey up by having some lunch - The Good Pub Guide is brilliant for giving suggestions of places near to motorways, then you don't have to rely on the nasty plastic over-priced food at the service stations.

We arrived about 3pm, and settled in to our lovely little cottage which was on a working dairy farm. The sun was shining and it was really warm, so, as we'd been sitting in the car all day we decided to go for a walk - off we went with a trumpety trump, trump, trump, trump.

In the evening, having bathed and talcumed we headed off down into the village to one of the many hostelries for food, beer and wine. It was an excellent meal: Smoked duck salad, fishcakes, salmon fillet and local rib-eye steak perfectly cooked. We then wobbled off back to the cottage for some much needed sleep. We both went out out like a light (we had brushed and flossed first).

Then, at 4am the martians landed. The bedroom lit up like a Christmas tree and there was a loud whirring engine noise. I whispered "Oh my God, what is that?" Mr AC tiptoed to the window and peaked out. Fortunately we hadn't been invaded by an alien force, it was the farmer on his tractor, rounding up the cows for milking. Phew, that was a relief as I wasn't wearing a nice enough nightie to be beamed up in. Anyway, eventually got back to sleep.

Then, at 4.55am we were woken up by tap dancing, shrieking magpies grrrrrrrr. You have to bear in mind that the bedroom was in the roof and we had the window open. They were literally running up and down the roof. It sounded like the little b******s were in the room. If you have ever heard magpies shriek you will know what I'm talking about. It frightened the bejesus out of us.

Not a good start, but it did get better. See part 2 shortly.