Provence

We arrived in beautiful sunny Provence after a long drive from the south coast of France, only having been lost a couple of times. The past few days have been spent sitting in the sun, surrounded by gardens, full of beautiful flowers, grapes, artichokes, figs tumbling all over the place and interesting looking lizards peering at you from in between the rocks. It's been a tough time...

We were staying with family, in the region of Vaucluse, in a lovely house surrounded by hills, vineyards, flowers, bees and sunshine. We visited a market in Buis les Baronnies with clusters of lovely stalls full of local produce, lavender, salami, cheese, garlic, spices, fish, beautiful pastries... The selection of salami on offer puts mine to shame, blueberry, mushrooms, cheese...

The evening of the suckling pig was a highlight, he turned slowly on his spit all day, being basted in butter and garlic, crispy and golden, served whole on a platter with the most amazing dauphinoise potatoes. There were cheese boards, veal chops, stuffed courgettes, delicately cured sardines, plum tarts and beautiful wine...

In pauses between eating we wandered round nearby towns and villages. Crestet, a tiny medieval village with its paths and alleys carved into the side of the hill, was full of nooks and twists. At the top we found a little café which looked out on what seemed the whole of France and beyond. I think we could just about see Italy...

Apple and Celery Salad with Walnuts and Mustard Dressing

I don't know what has happened to summer, one minute it is warm and sunny, the next we're in the middle of a monsoon. As I walked to work this morning it even felt a bit frosty, it was lovely and sunny but there was definitely a hint of autumn in the air...

This autumn will see the start of an exciting project for me, I am organising a seasonal market for small North East producers, growers and makers. 'Autumn Graze' will be taking place at Northumberland Tennis Club, Jesmond, on Sunday 2^nd October.

I have had a brilliant response and have lots of exciting people lined up to take part. The list is building, full of cakes, bread, flowers, wine, local breweries, cheese, pies, charcuterie, pickles, jams, tea, coffee, cookware, handmade chocolates. It will be a beautiful feast of a day, full of talented local people and lots of things to eat and buy, I'm looking forward to it a lot.

I will keep the blog updated with all the details, and please do get in touch if you are interested in taking part. Hopefully it will be the start of many more events to come.

In between planning markets, weeding and the day job I have still found time to slot in some time in my little kitchen. I made this salad last week for some friends and I. It is quick, fresh, healthy and delicious, a healthy take on a Waldorf Salad. The Waldorf Salad was first created in the Waldorf Hotel, New York, so perhaps this could become known as the Maybury Salad, after my little house... Or is that delusions of grandeur? I'll perhaps just stick to Apple and Celery Salad with Walnuts and Mustard Dressing.

Firstly chop 4 celery sticks into 1cm wide slices, make sure you keep all of the leaves and put both to one side. In a dry pan toast two handfuls of walnuts until they are toasty and browning, then add these to a bowl to cool down.

In a large salad bowl start to make the dressing. Start with the juice of half a lemon and add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and a teaspoon of English mustard. In a pestle and mortar crush a clove of garlic with half a teaspoon of salt until it is a smooth paste and add this to the dressing. Finally add 2 teaspoons of honey and some black pepper, and whisk everything together with about 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. It will thicken and emulsify as you do so.

Peel and core 3 Granny Smith apples and cut them into bite sized chunks. Add them to the dressing, at the same time adding the celery, roughly chopped celery leaves and toasted walnuts. At this stage I also added some crumbled Manchego cheese. I have made it with and without the cheese and like both versions, so it is up to you at this stage.

The dressing is delicious, sweet, zingy, garlicky and works very well with the sweet apple, toasty nuts, fresh celery and creamy cheese. I will make this again and again I know already.

Summer Supper

The salami was ready, and the football season was starting with Newcastle playing Arsenal... So it made sense to put a shoulder of lamb in the oven for four hours while we went to the match, invite friends round to join us for supper, and unveil the long awaited salami...

The allotment is offering up courgettes rapidly and I have six large cauliflowers to get to grips with, so we only had to get some lamb and we were ready to go. I made some sweet lemon pastry and picked some blackberries from the Ouseburn the day before, which became delicious Berry and Mascarpone Lemon Pastry Tarts.

We may have got a bit carried away wearing paper masks of Joey Barton's face, at various points before, during and after supper. They had made their way home from the football match with us somehow, and resulted in us tweeting Mr. Joseph Barton photos of ourselves wearing them, and invitations to join us. Bizarrely he didn't show up?

We started with an Elizabeth David inspired olive tapanade with French bread for dipping, and the Homemade Salami. One of which was red wine and walnut, my favourite I think, the other was fennel and garlic, also delicious. They don't look very professional, more like shrivelled wizards fingers, but they tasted really good. I have been feeling apprehensive watching them hanging in the porch, worrying that they were going to be horrible, or worse still, poison me... But they were the right texture and smell, rich, meaty, full of flavour. It feels good to have successfully made them from scratch so I'm already planning the next batch.

The Braised Lamb was a beautiful centre piece, it just falls apart after braising in wine and stock for hours, surrounded by shallots and garlic. To accompany it I made some Mushy Courgettes, simply chopped and stewed with butter and garlic for half an hour. I used all three varieties that I am growing, yellow, standard green and ball shaped ones. I really should find out the name of these instead of constantly calling them 'green ball courgettes'...

The cauliflowers are a bit funny looking, in both shape and colour, but taste very good. I chopped the first one I have picked so far into small florets, and roasted it with cumin, salt, rapeseed oil, sliced red onion and chickpeas. It was lovely, I'm fast becoming a huge cauliflower fan, it was nutty and roasted with cumin, sweet onions and chewy toasted chickpeas. That took care of two cauliflowers, so I still have four more to cook, I had better start thinking...

We finished the evening with a bit more mask wearing, the Berry and Mascapone Lemon Pastry Tarts, some cheese that the kind guests brought, a bit more wine, toasts to Joey, toasts to the the lamb, toasts to the cheese and some impressions of Vic and Bob... I can't think a better way to spend a Saturday evening really...

Chicken Tagine with Caramelised Baby Onions and Honey

The Lake District was beautiful and sunny on Friday evening, sitting in the quiet of the valley watching the deer with their new bambi's was a lovely end to the week. It did rain pretty much continuously from then on in, but it was still a lovely weekend. It stopped long enough to light the bbq for supper, but also managed to soak us thoroughly while out for a walk. The mist was rolling down the hills dramatically as we left but even in bad weather it is still such a beautiful and relaxing place.

So it may be August, British Summer Time, in case you had forgotten, but I think this rainy windy day calls for something a little bit warming... I have mentioned Claudia Roden before, her book Arabesque is never far from hand in my kitchen. A taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon, full of spice and flavour. My favourite section is full of Moroccon tagines, spiced with ginger and cinnamon, sweet with honey and perfumed with saffron...

Claudia uses a whole jointed chicken for her version of this tagine, but as I was only cooking for two I used boned chicken thighs. I find chicken thighs much tastier than breast meat, and for longer cooking times like this tagine, thigh meat is much less likely to dry out.

Start with 150g of shallots or baby onions. Pour hot water over them, in a bowl, and leave for five minutes to blanch. This makes removing the skin whilst keeping the onions or shallots whole much easier. While they are bobbing around in hot water finely chop a small onion and then cook slowly in a tablespoons of olive oil. Cook until soft, for about 5 minutes, and then add half a teaspoon of ginger, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of saffron. Continue to cook the onion and spices for a few minutes longer.

Chop about 300g of boned and skinned chicken thighs into bite size pieces, perhaps a bit more if you're really hungry. Add the chicken to the pan with the onions and spices, and when it is sealed all over add 150ml of water, the blanched onions with their skins removed and a pinch of salt and pepper. Leave the tagine to cook, on a medium heat, uncovered for about 20 minutes.

While the tagine is cooking you can prepare the couscous. It needs to be in a pan that can go in the oven. Use 100g per person, pour it into the pan and add the same amount of salted water to the couscous, cover and leave for 10 minutes. I used 200g of couscous to 200ml of boiling water with a teaspoon of salt in it. Fluff up the couscous after it has absorbed all of the water, it may have become quite a hard mass, but just break it apart with a fork until it is light and fluffy. Add a glug of olive oil and work it all through the couscous with your hands, getting lots of air into it as you do. Finally put the dish into a pre heated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes. Before serving stir a knob of butter through the piping hot couscous and fluff it up again. Claudia uses 20g of butter, but I think you can get away with a lot less, but just to your own tastes.

To finish the final stage of the tagine remove the chicken pieces from the sauce and set them aside, leave the onions in the pan to continue to soften. The sauce now needs to reduce and thicken up a bit. Add 2 tablespoons of honey and lots more black pepper, you need quite a lot to balance the sweetness of the honey. Just keep tasting it until it suits your taste. Turn the heat up a little and allow the sauce to bubble away and reduce by about half. Finally return the chicken to the pan to heat through for a few minutes.

Fill a bowl with a large scoop of buttery couscous and top with the chicken, sauce and onions. I sprinkled the top with some toasted sesame seeds, you could also use some toasted almonds roughly chopped. The gingery, cinnamon spice is lovely with sweet honey, spicy black pepper and soft onions. It is making me want to cook it again just writing this, I might have to wait until tomorrow...