EF is a fan of sous vide cooking – if you’ve followed us for a while, you’ll remember that Mr. EF built a sous vide machine a while back. Recently, SousVide Supreme, a company that creates compact sous vides for the consumer market, asked us to review their latest machine.…
Oat cakes are C’s favourite biscuit. He eats them with everything: hummus, cheese, tapenade – if it clings, spreads or stacks, it can go on an oatcake. (I’m the same with crisp bread.) Luckily, oatcakes good for you. They are also very versatile. I like them with cheese, but there’s…
The box of quinoa proudly announces that the United Nations has declared 2013 the Year of Quinoa (pronounced keen wah). This is intriguing, why would this grain be elevated to this status? Before cooking with it, I thought I’d find out more. It’s an adaptable crop even in places where…
Tacos are, to use the American vernacular, awesome, even amazing. I first had tacos as a child in Sweden. They were the crunchy variety, filled with mince and topped with grated cheese, sloppy salsa and sour cream. Since then I have made my own hard-shelled tacos, tried soft shelled ones…
Some six or seven years ago I had spinach and artichoke dip for the first time. A friend of mine, then living in Broxburn but originally from the US, served it as snack before dinner. It was creamy, reassuringly green and very tasty. That remains the best spinach and artichoke…
When I grew up, I – and everyone else – ate school dinners. They weren’t great but one thing I really liked about them was the daily salad. We’re not talking attractive or glamorous salads, but “råkost”, the Swedish word for raw food. In the 70s, it was all the…
Some of my very best food memories involve the subject of this post: Heritage Portfolio. I have been wowed by a champagne dinner at Lennoxlove House; astonished and bowled over by a Hallowe’en themed Mansfield Traquair and cosseted in the intimate dining room at the Museum of Scotland before going…
You might consider going all the way to Kerala to discover how to cook vegetarian food a trifle excessive, but I cannot think of a more enjoyable way to do so! We spent a week at The Pimenta on our foodie holiday. As a meat eater, it could have been…
I’ve become rather obsessed with India over the last few years, not least when I discovered Atul Kochhar on the Great British Menu and started cooking dishes from his two great cookery books. He gave me an insight to a subtle balance of spices and flavours with very easy to…
I don’t really miss meat or fish. I miss particular dishes. When C goes away I cook and eat differently from when he’s here. Within minutes of the door closing behind him I revert to an earlier eating pattern and slow cooking for pleasure. Breakfast becomes fruit salad instead of…
