Fish & Chips

Sorry, I was too hungry and forgot to take pictures of our humble but fantastic dinner of Britain's famous meal. I think what makes fish & chips really good here and in Ireland is the fish and oil are fresh, and the batter is light but crisp.  It probably helps if you get the fish & chips from just a fish & chips shop, too. That is what they specialize in along with anything else fried.  Our restaurants at home don't even touch the flavors and freshness of what I have had so far in the UK.  Although the chips usually aren't fresh cut potatoes, for some reason they are just fine.  Everything gets wrapped up in paper and even with a bit of moisture, the batter on the fish holds up well.  The shop asked if we want it showered in salt & vinegar before it is all wrapped up and we say yes! with excitement.

We drove into Frimley as the Wednesday fish truck was not in the neighborhood.  Dale and I popped into the Railway Arms for half pints of Youngs Special Ale as we waited for our cod & chips order.  When we arrived for our takeaway in the steady rain, there were three other customers.  After our half pints in the slightly dodgy pub, the fish and chips shop was jammed with customers.  Other items they fry are real chicken nuggets, sausages, saveloy (a highly seasoned sausage common in English fry shops) and other fish like haddock, skate and roe.

I actually found the link for the fish & chips shop while writing this post.  Their description of why their food is so good was a guess on my part from devouring it last night.  Kims Plaice is exactly where we got our takeaway and the gentleman in the picture is who served us up with a smile and a laugh.  Brilliant!!

Surrey, England with the Bemis's

I have been in England since Thursday visiting the most fabulous couple in the world.  I have been playing house in Surrey County and it is really hard.  We are packing and cleaning for the upcoming move to another home in the County.  To gear up for the week, we relaxed at a few gastro pubs.  These pubs still have the feel of pubs but they also have sections that have the feel of fine dining.  This past weekend we had a quick dinner at the Horse & Groom in Guildford while Nathan was fencing.  Cory and I had pizzas and Dale ate the Chicken and Leek pie.  Local ingredients are big over here, too, so everything was made fresh and the pizzas were similar to our artisan pizzas in the states.  And it happens to be Cask Ale week ~ how convenient.  28 September to 7 October.  Our pints were Red Fox, Doombar & Bombardier. 

Saturday, with a full moon, we did the mountain bike pub ride (or race if Cory is leading).  We had dinner (fish & chips!!) and pints at the Rose and Thistle.  We rode to the Olde Wheatsheaf, Ye Olde White Hart, then the Embers Inn's Crab & Dragon.   All the beers I drank were traditional English cask red ales.  When Dale reports home from work, he will have to fill me in on the pints we had.  I know we had Young's Special Ale, Doombar and Nichols.

Okay, I need to get back to packing ~ maybe I will have to open a bottle as I am knackered and hoping for some cask ales later.

Music Fridays Downtown Lancaster

We rode the pub bikes downtown for music Friday.  Every third Friday of the month musicians fill businesses, restaurants and the streets of Lancaster with wonderful sounds.  The humidity of summer broke last week so the weather has been glorious with sunshine and breezes.  Pour on Prince posted on facebook they tapped one of our favorite beers, tripel karmeliet so Brad winds us through the streets of Lancaster to enjoy a short jaunt on the bikes.  We sat outside on the patio devouring duck fat fries drinking a tripel karmeliet.  An hour later, we rode two blocks to Carr's and there in the alley of Central Market was heaven; great food, drink and music.  Carr's developed a wonderful relationship with Sakura, a Japanese restaurant that has the best sushi in town and they had a portable sushi bar set up for the evening.  With a couple of Hennipens with three plates of sushi and music from two of the musicians from Vinegar Creek Constituency, we were set for a fabulous evening downtown.  They played some Dylan, Blue Grassy, Old Tyme music.  Life is good.

Checkers Bistro

Awesome; I have jury duty for three days!!  Got laptop and ESPN so I am set in the juror's lounge for  now.  Already ate all my granola bars by 10 a.m. so I had to buy a dry soft pretzel from the courthouse cafe.

Time to blog...  And dream about the fabulous meal I had Friday night at Checkers Bistro .  I am assuming David Payne was working in the kitchen as the cod was made to perfection with an Asian glaze. He made a cod melt in my mouth like Sea Bass.  The oyster mushrooms were tasty, asparagus crisp and the wide rice noodles rolled into chewy tubes that were made with the same Asian glaze that had a bit of a kick to it.  YUM!  And I almost forgot about my tomato almond bisque.  Amazing and these were the specials for the evening.  You can count on an excellent meal every time at Checkers Bistro.  Carr's Restaurant & Crush Wine Bar is the same way. You can never go wrong with what is on the menu or the specials.  The best two restaurants in Lancaster City.  Come on downtown and enjoy!!

Smith Island Cake

In May, I attempted to make a Smith Island Cake which has made Smith Island, Maryland, famous.  Saveur magazine has again afforded me with a wonderful recipe that I was able to mess up for the good (ended up add too much butter). It is an eight layer cake that I don't have the patience to slice the layers so when I read that I should bake the cakes in four pans at a time made perfect sense.  Brilliant!! I would have chopped the cake to shreds instead of slicing it.  I had so much fun and overloaded on a lot of sugar as I made the frosting, too.  All natural!  It did not look as professional with a "flat" top to the cake but it sure tasted really good even though I added an extra stick of butter in the batter (I am a space cadet with math).

FOR THE CAKE:

24 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pans

3 1/2 cups flour, plus more for pans

4 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

2 1/4 cups sugar

2 cups milk

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

6 eggs

FOR THE ICING:

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 cups sugar

1 cup evaporated milk

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

2 tsp. vanilla extract

The Comfort of Soup

Life happens or can take over and it had for a few months. I have regained some of my normalcy and finally had a good weekend and I think I can credit it to being able to cook soups, dig in the garden and ride my bike.

Yesterday was a perfect day to be prepping for the week with our meals except we are pretty good plowing through them quickly. With the ease of buying broth in cans or cardboard, making soup is easy. Although, it can get costly. One has the option of bouillon cubes but they tend to have either MSG or partially-hydrogenated oils. Lately, I have fallen back on the old fashion, make my own, vegetable stock and it has turned out great.

In a 16 quart, stainless steel stock pot made in the USA, I had about 12 quarts of water, two chopped carrots, one large onion-chopped, one stalk of bok choy, four smashed garlic gloves, green part of two leeks (not the white part - I use that for stir frys and not the end, too tough) and salt and pepper. I brought it to a boil then let it simmer for hours because I had other stuff to do. I split the soup stock and made an Asian noodle soup and my mainstay mushroom barley soup.

What is great about making soups is you do not have to measure anything. I did not use a recipe for the Asian noodle soup. I sauteed about a pound of chopped bok choy (leaves and white stems) in olive oil and a little sesame oil with three garlic cloves, shittake mushrooms, and some carrots for color. I brought the stock to a boil and added the dry soba noodles. Once the noodles were al dente, I added the bok choy, stir-fry. I love a great noodle soup.
Mushroom barley is a great comfort food, too. The first time I made this soup, I followed Zingerman's Ann Arbor recipe from Epicurious.com. I am not a fan of celery or parsley so I leave those out and add about a half cup of shittake mushrooms and the liquid after rehydrating them for the soup. I pass on the flour, use butter or olive oil to saute the veggies and use a vegetable stock, too. Brad loves those dill pickles so I save those jars to keep my soups in if there is any left over.

Swedish Pancakes ~ again

I posted this recipe in 2007 and here it is again to get me started on blogging again. I should be studying for my comprehensive exams but I am very good at procrastinating. I let the mix marinate overnight. It is oh, so good with real maple syrup and fried in a pan of butter.

This is the the same recipe but doubled. I use the 8 quart, Pampered Chef measuring bowl. One of my favorites along with their cooking stone I use for pizza & nachos.

4 cups of rolled oats

1 cup of flour

1/4 cup of sugar (I usually don't have white sugar so I use brown or honey)

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

4 cups of buttermilk (Maplehofe's)

4 eggs, beaten

1 stick of butter

2 tsp vanilla

Look at them oats! Hmmm.