Leek and stilton tart

I have been on rather a long journey this evening to arrive at this post. Metaphorically speaking, I have visited Greece, Turkey, the Balkans and Thailand before arriving back in England to the comfort and ease of a leek and stilton tart.

I started out by writing about moussaka, but I got tied up in a longwinded history of the dish which I decided to leave for a day of the week when I am not feeling naturally depressed and lacking enthusiasm. A perfect day then to write about a disappointing restaurant experience; that is how I ended up in Thailand, but it did not bring the pleasure I sought and I thought it only fair that I re-read it in a more forgiving frame of mind.

So back to England for a simple dish which requires little or no explanation.  It is a well known staple of the Modern British gastropub or bistro. Served warm with some dressed leaves or green vegetables it makes for a substantial lunch, add some new potatoes and it is a hearty meal for a cold evening. 

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Uova in purgatorio (eggs in purgatory), for one of those days

 

I’m tired. I started the day with a hangover, remedied temporarily by a bacon butty and coffee at 8:15am. At 11:30 when the caffeine buzz was wearing thin, I went in search of a Coke Zero. I ended up eating my lunch at the same time, so I had already consumed a large tub of spaghetti carbonara by the time the clock struck 12. The afternoon wore on and by 5 to 5 I was packed and ready to go. 

 

I had to do the grocery shopping tonight, having bypassed it last night in favour of beer. Had everything gone to plan, I should have been in and out of the supermarket by 6pm, but my bus route was diverted and I ended up having to walk there. As a result, I did I not arrive at the supermarket until 6pm and by this time I was very hungry again. I know it's dangerous to shop on an empty stomach, so I headed straight to the deli counter for a sausage roll, which was suitably disgusting and did the job.

 

By the time I got home, I was in no mood for cooking, or eating for that matter (the 24% pork meat was congealing in my stomach with the 76% of God knows what else was in the sausage roll). But the boyfriend was hungry and he had picked me up from Sainsbury’s, so I felt I ought to make something.

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Chorizo, morcilla and potato salad with soft-boiled egg

My cousin came for dinner a while ago and brought some spoils from Borough markets. Amongst them was a large morcilla sausage  (Spanish black pudding) from Brindisa. My invite had been misleading; I'd said I would be “throwing together bits and pieces”, but failed to tell her that these bits and pieces would comprise approximately 6 courses, albeit small ones. Therefore, I very gratefully received the goods, but did not find use for all of them on the night.

Over the last few weeks I have seen the morcilla sitting there and thought that I really ought to do something with it, but knowing it was of a very good quality I wanted to wait until I was ready to do it justice and with this salad I believe I did.

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Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto with soft-boiled egg

Updated on Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 3:08PM by Vix

I am cooking a special dinner this weekend to say thank you to a friend of mine; I often say thank you with food. I have never cooked for Jane, but although she calls herself ‘Jane the hopeless cook’ I know that her worldly experience means that she certainly knows her food, even if she doesn’t like to cook it.

Under such circumstances, I always find myself fretting over what to cook, basically because I want to cook everything. I had so many different ideas this time that I went one step further than ever before, the geekiest a food geek could possibly be; I entered my starters, mains and desserts into 3 columns of an excel spreadsheet and sorted them into menus that went together, so that I could rule out options that didn’t fit. I cannot believe I am admitting this on a public website. Lucky I don’t have much traffic yet. Not so lucky, most of the visitors to the site know me. Oops!

Anyway, one of the dishes that I wanted to try was this, so I tested it out tonight to see if it worked. It does. In fact, it may even make the cut for Saturday.

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