Making pasta at The Bread Bin

Pasta making has been on my to do list for such a long time, and I've seen lots of recipes I wanted to try but never found the time to get around to it - or maybe conquer my fear of it! So I jumped at the chance when Miss Sue Flay said she knew a local lady, Ruth from The Bread Bin, who taught pasta and bread making from her home, she'd also tasted her fresh pasta, which she sells to people in her village, and vouched for how delicious it was.

It was great fun, I'm quite used to working with dough and it was much easier to make than a pastry or a bread dough. Just eggs and flour slowly worked into each other, rested in the fridge and then rolled out and taken through the stages of a pasta machine.

The pasta machine part gets a bit tricky as the dough gets thinner and longer but as long as you work carefully and have plenty of space on your work surface you'll be fine. And if it breaks, well, you can start again or you just have slightly different shaped pasta!

Ruth is a fantastic baker, she bakes all kinds of things for her family and also to sell - breads, breadsticks, pitta, flavoured pasta. She has a real passion for real bread and uses the best ingredients and sources them locally. Her knowledge of all things made with flour is encyclopedic! Miss Sue Flay baked breadsticks whilst I did the pasta, and the bread dough she used can also be shaped to make lovely fluffy pittas - something I must try.

You can find Ruth on Facebook, where you'll find details of her courses and also make bread orders to pick up on Fridays, ready for the weekend!

Photo by Miss Sue Flay

We've been enjoying eating the pasta I made - tagliatelle, bows and little cups of pasta - since the class last week. And now I am on the hunt for a pasta machine.

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Shelford Deli, Cambridgeshire

The Shelford Delicatessen has to be one of the best loved spots in South Cambridgeshire, they are renowned for their amazing sandwiches which every office worker in within a 5 mile radius knows about. I worked nearby a few years ago and we regularly sent a colleague out with a sandwich order when the local supermarket offering got dull.

Back then they were just a small shop selling cheeses, meats, olives, all sorts of jams, pickles, oils and vinegars along with fresh pasta, bread and the aforementioned sandwiches. They also did a small line in fresh fruit and vegetables and the best tomatoes you could get your hands on.

I was tipped off recently that they'd extended the shop into a cafe which sold the same brilliant sandwiches along with hot dishes, pasta, salads, cakes and Monmouth coffee.

We settled upon a 'meze sandwich' each plus coffee. The sandwiches are in fact more like a ploughmans or a deli platter. Mine was ham with piles of pickles, salad and gorgeous granary bread, and of course English mustard. The ham is cooked and glazed in the deli and it certainly tasted so too, lovely. Mr had the vegetarian meze which consisted of a plentiful plate of homemade things - carrot houmous, guacamole, tapenade, olives and more fresh bread. The coffee is excellent, as you would expect with Monmouth.

We shared a chocolate cake (I am on a diet after all...) which was very rich, sugary and chocolatey - everything a proper chocolate cake should be I think.

The food here is great, a little on the pricey side as is normal for the area.The only thing I didn't really like about it is the strange ordering system, it is a bit like our experience at The Eden Cafe, but more complicated and ends up in lots of people bumping into each other - you order food at one place, drinks opposite, they write it all down on a bit of paper and you come back to a third till to pay at the end! Be prepared to get a bit confused, and queue in at least three queues, but the food is worth it!

Their website doesn't say anything about the new developments, they need to update it, and doesn't have opening times. I know closes at 2pm on a Saturday, closed Sunday and I think open all day during the week.

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Food blogger on a diet - eek!

Inspired by Miss Sue Flay's post I thought I'd write about my own mission to get healthier - eating better and exercising more (well exercising at all). Since I started blogging 4 years (!) ago I have learnt so much about food, how to cook and perfecting the perfect brownie, cake and bread. I still love baking and I am not giving up proper cakes and treats but now is the time to get a bit healthier and not always have a home baked sugary cake in the kitchen.

I've been half heartedly giving exercise a go since about January, when I went to my first Zumba class, which was a good introduction, but in the last few months I joined the gym which has helped me get into a routine, I am going to attempt to get better at running next - wish me luck!

But this is a FOOD blog so I am here to talk about some of the yummy and healthy things I've been enjoying lately.

Lizi's Granola with greek yoghurt, honey and berries

Courgette & pecan bread (sugar and butter, apart from the peanut butter, free)

Food Doctor Granola (no sugar unlike Lizi's) with banana, sunflower seeds, apricots

Shashouska, quinoa and an egg

Healthier pizza, swap mozzarella with ricotta, swap tomato sauce for hidden vegetable sauce. More tomatoes and capers for flavour, teeny shaving of parmesan.

Broadening my tea tastes!  

Chopped salad, houmous, pitta, sunbites - good if you really want crisps!

More granola, pretty breakfast!

 Amazing lunch at the Shelford Deli - lots of local and fresh produce (blog post coming soon)

Haul of veggies from the market

I seem to mainly take pictures of breakfast, one of the main things about changing my diet has been eating a proper  breakfast instead of grabbing a chocolate bar on the way out or leaving it til lunch and then eating too many unhealthy things. 

I don't have any tips yet because I am still learning myself but I think keeping loads of fruit and healthy snacks around and banishing biscuits, chocolate and crisps from the house really helps you not reach for unhealthy things when you are peckish. Also working lots of veggies in to your meals as sides really helps you eat less carbs and get your vitamins - a simple salad or some steamed or roasted veggies. We've been enjoying coleslaw made with low fat yoghurt and dijon, roasted butternut squash, chilli spiked broccoli and fresh summer tomatoes dressed with a teeny bit of oil and plenty of herbs. 

I have by no means banished treats from my diet - I do still have a piece of cake if I am having a coffee with friends, or the odd piece of chocolate. But I am trying to moderate and be mindful of how often I am having a treat, which is helping me keep an eye on things.

Am hoping to include some of my favourite healthy recipes on the blog soon, along with the usual things too. I'll leave you with some of my new favourite healthy blogs:

Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish

Not Just Apples

Oh She Glows

Where Are My Knees?

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Tomato Bruschetta

So who else, whilst watching Celebrity Masterchef this week, thought - who boils tomatoes for bruschetta and removes the skins? I always thought the idea was to use fresh tomatoes?

Anyway, despite that, I really fancied some nice basil and olive oil spiked tomatoes after watching it. Here is a confession - my tomatoes which should have been some locally grown fresh summer tomatoes were actually from Tesco. Sorry, are my blogger credentials ruined?

Anyway, I used some cherry tomatoes which are sweeter than the normal sized ones and gave them some help with decent olive oil and basil from my garden. So I think I win a bit more because I grew the basil myself? I finely chopped and then crushed into a paste with the knife some garlic and added that, with plenty of seasoning.

Instead of the traditional ciabatta I used some pizza dough I had in the fridge to make pizza fritta. This is a pretty unhealthy but awesome way of making pizza, I got the recipe from Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie at Home' book. Basically you fry it in olive oil on both sides til it fluffs up - then add toppings and grill to melt the cheese. For this I just topped with tomatoes and served it up.

This was a perfect indulgent but light lunch and the extra flavourings from basil and garlic pimped up (sorry been reading too much Joliver) some ordinary tomatoes. I will try it with some 'proper' local tomatoes soon, I'm sure it will be amazing!

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Exploring China & Sichuan Salmon

One of my favourite programmes at the moment is Exploring China, I wrote about catching up on it in my food programmes post recently and I am really glad I found out about it, it is a brilliant series. I've learnt a lot about Chinese cooking from it and am keen to try some new recipes from the series.

The programme in Sichuan was very interesting, having seen many Sichuan restaurants popping up in London and even one in Cambridge, I was keen to know about the province a bit more and also how to use the infamous Sichaun Pepper.

I liked the idea of creating a Sichuan pepper spiced hot oil to pour over the dish to finish it off so I tried it on a fillet of salmon. Not a traditional thing to use with Sichuan cuisine as they don't use much seafood, but it was delicious and diet friendly (more on the dreaded diet soon). A warning: the photo is pretty unphotogenic but it tasted delicious!

I poached the salmon fillet in vegetable stock (you could use fish stock if you had some) for about 10 minutes on a medium low heat. Meanwhile I fried finely chopped garlic, a teaspoon of chilli bean paste, finely chopped ginger and about 10 Sichuan peppercorns crushed up. When the salmon was ready I poured the fragrant hot oil over it. I had it with a cabbage and carrot salad spiked with rice vinegar, sesame oil and sesame seeds. A perfect light dinner with tons of flavour.

You can find (very few of) the recipes on the BBC Website, I wish there were a few more there but I suppose they want me to buy the book! Exploring China is on Sundays at 8pm, the next episode will be in Taiwan and Canton.

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Platelickers Anonymous Supper Club

I went to the second Platelickers Supper Club, cooked, hosted and run by miss igs and afternoontease back in July, so I do apologise for the extreme lateness of this blog post.

Along with an absence of enough good restaurants there aren't many supper clubs in Cambridge either, but with the amount of Cambridge food bloggers there are (hi everyone!) I did think someone would set one up eventually. Whilst I have wild ambitions to do a supper club with all the spare time I don't have, I don't think I could manage it as brilliantly as the ladies from Platelickers.

The supper club was in the St. Pauls Church on Hills Road, which was a quirky location - we ate amongst lovely stained glass windows and pews, with candles lighting the room and making everything very pretty.

This was the second Platelickers Anonymous, with a moroccan/middle eastern theme. We started with some gorgeous and garlicky houmous and some baba ganoush with pitta and vegetables to dip - neither of which I have successfully been able to make myself - these were shining examples of how to make these dips properly.

The drinks were not forgotten too, a lovely vodka and pomegranate cocktail. We were both thankful for these as we'd bought along a hastily purchased really awful bottle of wine to drink!

The starter was a chilled green gazpacho, nice to have something different to the usual tomato. We all mused over what it contained, we think peas, basil, garlic and maybe some other green vegetables. The soup was fresh and with lots of flavour for a cold dish.

Main for meat eaters (which I failed to take a picture of) was a slow cooked pork belly served with herby cous cous, gooseberry chutney and green beans with orange. Best crackling ever! And the pork just melted, the gooseberry was a really nice take on the traditional apple sauce. For the veggie dish Mr got courgette and feta fritters, which I wanted to steal one of when he wasn't looking! But I didn't. I'm nice.

Pudding was two desserts - win! Baked peaches with a lovely sugary nutty topping and almond and polenta cake. It was Mr's birthday so the ladies had kindly put a little candle in the top for him, sweet touch :)

We had a lovely time at the supper club, which was well attended by some local food bloggers, it is great to be supporting a little venture like this and try some new and interesting things in a relaxed atmosphere.

Details of the next supper club haven't been announced yet but follow Miss Igs and Afternoontease's blogs for updates.

They've also blogged some of the recipes from the evening too.
Roasted Pork Belly
Gooseberry, elderflower and ginger relish

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Food Programmes Galore - Great British Bake Off, Masterchef, Hairy Dieters

I've been seeing lots of tweets here and there about food programmes, some adverts, and it turns out there is  A LOT of food programming on in the next week and continuing for a couple of months, brilliant!

Despite being one of the biggest cynics I did get very addicted to the Olympic coverage, and so I am very happy there is now something to filled that swimming pool sized (geddit? sorry) void I have in my TV watching. *

Celebrity Masterchef
I missed the first one yesterday but fully intend to catch up on it this evening as soon as possible, I hear TV presenter from our teens Jamie Theakston is on it. 6.30pm every weekday for 6 weeks, BBC2.

Simply Italian
This has been on for a couple of weeks now,  hosted by TV newbie Michela Cappia. Despite the slightly annoying presenting style (and over pronunciation of things in an Italian accent in an English sentence) the recipes on here look really interesting and I'm keeping a mental note of a few to try soon. Mondays, 8.30pm, Channel 4.

Great British Bake Off
Back for a third series, one of my favourite programmes, is back on tonight. I've seen a few bloggers saying they are applying for it so I hope to recognise one or two of the contestants, or at least their blog names. Tuesday, 8pm, BBC2.

Lorraine Pascale - Fast, Fresh and Easy (don't snigger)
I watched this last night, it was ok, maybe it is aimed at beginners? I liked the idea of the Aussie Damper Bread but really a re-hash of the soda bread she made in a previous series. I would like to visit the street food truck she helped at though. Mondays, 8pm, BBC2.

Hairy Dieters
I love the Hairy Bikers, I really enjoyed their tour of Europe in their last series but I was having worries about the sheer amount of food they were eating and wondering if they really did eat like that! Turns out they do, or did. Apparently Dave Myers has lost 3 stone since they started filming it, some good recipes here, particularly as I'm trying to cut down on treats myself, and also, as always, quite fun to watch. Thursday, 8pm, Channel 4.

Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure
Featuring Ken Hom and super smiley chef Ching He-Huang, I need to catch up with this on iPlayer, thanks to Ireena for the heads up.

Also, Nigella is back in the Autumn for more totally over the top programming which will no doubt set Twitter on fire with comments, I do look forward to the pantomime nature of her TV shows. I'm sure River Cottage will be back with something too and I think Jamie Oliver is filming.

So there we are, void filled! How I am going to keep to a diet I don't know.


* Of course there is the Paralympics too and I will be watching that as well!

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A Weekend in Cornwall

After our wonderful trip to Rome we were lucky enough to have also planned a weekend in Cornwall soon after, centered around seeing Blink 182 play the Eden Project on Sunday night. With such a flying visit we tried to pack in as much as possible in a short time - and a trip to Fowey was something I made sure we fitted in along with a day at the Eden Project.

  

We ate at The Boathouse, an Italian restaurant right by the water, a beautifully fresh prawn linguine for me and a vegetarian pizza made in a wood fired oven for the Mr. We had a stroll around the town, and made a note to come back again for at least a week.

The Eden Project was the next day, last time we went about 3 years ago they had a so so canteen area and a little organic cafe which was good - the food has improved vastly since then. It is now called 'The Eden Bakery' which is actually the Town Mill Bakery under another name. The bakery is laid out with long benches and there is a counter at the top. You choose what you want, choose a drink and pay at the till. We ate a mid morning pastry there (pain au raisin), a fantastic lunch for £6 each (mine was salmon, new potatoes, salad, raita and bread) and then came back again for coffee and afternoon cakes (carrot and beetroot and banana muffin).

The food was fantastic, there was also a little shop upstairs selling ice cream made on site but we couldn't fit anymore food in. In the Rainforest Biome there is also a little stand where they sell Baobab Smoothies, a tropical fruit grown in the biome, which tastes a bit like mango and pineapple.

The Eden Project has always been somewhere different to go and I'm really glad the food now matches up to the atmosphere.

Oh and Blink 182 were AMAZING!

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Rome Round Up: Eating, and a bit of sightseeing

I knew before we went to Rome that I'd come back loving all the food, everyone I'd spoken to said they loved it and would definitely go back again, for the sights and the food. They definitely weren't wrong.

We ate a lot of pizza, and we didn't tire of it, each place is different and has their different specialities. I've decided to do a (quite long) round up of our favourite spots, edible and non edible. We came back nearly exactly a month ago and I am sure by the time I've finished writing this I'll be mentally planning our next visit.

Pizza
On pretty much every street you'll find little Pizzeria's selling slices of Roman style pizza - a very crisp base with a generous layer of topping. You choose the flavour you'd like, try to gesture in broken Italian how big you'd like your slice to be, they weigh it, heat it and wrap it up in paper (or put it on a tray) and hand it to you. Perfect fast food - slices cost between €2-4 a slice, which makes for a brilliant value and filling lunch.

La Renella
Via del Moro 5
(Trastevere)

I don't know if we are exceptionally unobservant, or if the heat was getting to us, but we walked past this many times trying to find it - and gave up in the end and went somewhere else. I looked it up when we got back to our flat and realised we'd be staring it in the face all along - some ivy had grown over the sign!

My pizza was the 'fiori di zucca' anchovy with courgette flowers, delicious and so fresh. Mr opted for a mixed vegetable pizza with courgette, pepper. We ate on lent against the little bar running along the side of the bakery, watching more pizzas being made opposite us.

Pizza Florida
Via Florida 25

A very generous truffle pizza for the Mr and a proscuitto slice for me set us back €6, this was really close to our tram stop, they had so many toppings and also some stuffed pizza, we had a hard time choosing. I think Mr won with his truffle pizza choice, we ate on the move as we headed for sightseeing at the Colosseum.

Forno
Campo d'Fiori

Famous for the pizza bianca, you must try this before anything else. Simply a base sprinkled with olive oil and sea salt, it was beautiful! The base was sourdough like in taste, fluffy inside and salty and crisp on top. We didn't try anything else (mainly because we'd just eaten gelato), but they sell a range of breads too. They close at 2.30 and open again at 5.00 so don't get caught out if you are planning a visit.

Pizzeria on Via Giovanni Caselli

I don't remember the name of this place, we visited on the off chance as it was directly under our apartment building, and we were rewarded with excellent pizza. Surprisingly they had a wood fired oven which was nice for a little local place, I had a pizza rosso (tomato sauce) and Mr one topped with thinly sliced chargrilled aubergine. If you fancy a trip out of the main area (about 10 mins on the tram plus 5 min walk) this place is great.

Gelato
If we weren't eating pizza we were eating gelato (or drinking gallons of water because of the 34 degree heat). I had the gelato places I wanted to visit very clearly set out in my mind - San Crispino and Giolitti, and we also took a trip to Blue Ice, one of the very few chains you'll see in Rome. Each place normally has different sized tubs and you choose as many flavours as will fit into a tub, a small tub for 2 flavour is between €3-4.

San Crispino
Via della Panetteria

A smart little gelateria a couple of streets away from the Trevi Fountain, there is a tiny little sign leading you in, a chalkboard menu and a neat counter with gelato hidden under metal lids. I'd heard a lot about the flavours with meringue so I jumped straight for the hazelnut meringue flavour, and also had a scoop of the honey flavour. Mr had the caramel meringue and a fantastic pistachio one.

Giolitti
Via degli Uffici del Vicario

Our landlady at the flat enthusiastically told us that Michelle Obama had visited Giolitti recently, and so we must go! Giolitti is very popular, because of the latter and also because of the sheer number of flavours they have - a sight to behold. It is the oldest gelateria in Rome, and they also have a shop near the Pantheon. I had raspberry and also oreo (very Roman!) flavour, they weren't as good as San Crispino but it was an experience going there. As you can see it was boiling hot the day we went, the ice cream melted rapidly as we ate outside the shop.

Coffee

Sant'Eustachio Cafe 
Piazza di Sant'Eustachio

Best cappuccino I've ever had, hands down. Slightly rude and hurried service (you will find this in Rome, you get used to it after a couple of days!) and you have to pay €1 more per cup to sit outside, but you do get to enjoy the Piazza and watch people (and scooters of course) go by. You can also buy their coffee beans to take home. David Lebovitz' blog post made this cafe go top on my list of places to go.

Tazza D'oro
Via degli Orfani
I had an espresso here, very very strong but good, they have a range of different blends which you can ask for when you order - and you can take the beans home - which we did. They operate the very common system in Rome (and maybe Italy?) where you buy a ticket for what you'd like at one till, and then bring it over to the bar and they'll make your drink.

Other
Forno Roscioli
Via dei Giubbonari, 21

 
The oldest bakery in Rome, this should maybe be under the pizza section but we also had a gorgeous cherry tart. An amazing bakery with so much choice of pizza, sweets, breads, pasta and little deli goods. I also had a pizza rosso which was brilliant, I'd love to create a tomato sauce like that.

Freni e Frizoni
Via del Politeama / Piazza Trilussa
Trastevere

We came here for aperitivo on our last night in Rome. Aperitivo is a brilliant idea! Between about 6pm to 8pm you can visit a bar, buy a drink and have access to either a buffet or a small menu of snacky foods to have. The drinks are more expensive than normal because of the food, about €8. At Freni e Frizoni (means Brakes and Friction, it used to be a garage) they have a gorgeous middle eastern inspired buffet - cous cous, crunchy salads, tabbouleh, fresh cumin spiced bread, herby vegetables and homemade sauces. After a week of pizza and gelato this was a perfect end to our holiday, great cocktails too. Arrive early as it gets very busy, if you'd like to sit outside overlooking the Piazza you need to call up and book a table.

Il Vascellari
Via dei Vascellari, 21
Trastevere
Our landlady heartily recommended this restaurant, everything was great - amazing truffle pasta, lasagne, tiramisu and mille feuille, and really friendly staff. Not too expensive either, around €40 for two glasses of wine, two mains, two puds and water. Popular with locals.

Ristorante New Station
Via Giuseppe Parini
Gianiconesi 
I had a pretty terribly salty carbonara, but Mr had an amazing 'Rigatoni Alla Norma' which was chargrilled aubergine and courgette and smoked garlic tomato sauce. Excellent puds too, tiramisu and hot chocolate pudding.

De Spar
in various locations

As you can guess, the Italian version of 'Spar' - but much better. To save money we ate in the flat on a number of evenings and the little 'De Spar' stores dotted around the city were a great place to pick up things for dinner. They do all manner of cheeses, pizza rosso and bianca, foccacia, sourdough, fresh pasta, lots of veggies and fruit. I wish our Spar stores were like that. Only downside was that they didn't stock any decent tea bags, must remember to bring our own...

Sightseeing

I'm no travel blogger but here are some places (along with the usual sights) that I'd recommend.

Ostia Antica - about a 30 minute train journey outside Rome, an amazingly well preserved Roman port town which is just fascinating, takes a whole day to walk around.
Trastevere - In general! A lovely part of Rome to wander around, we didn't stay too far away so we visited regularly. Santa Maria in Trastevere church is beautiful too.
Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary - A cat sanctuary in Roman ruins! There aren't many (or any other?) cat rescue centres in Rome and this place is run by a formidable and kind Italian lady with the help of lots of volunteers. Healthy cats are free to roam the ruins and injured and unwell cats are looked after inside. Visit, stroke the cats and buy a gift or donate to the shelter - you can also sponsor a cat.


So there you are, hope those of you lucky enough to be reading this and heading off to Rome soon find it helpful. I can't wait to go back some day.

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