Going Back To My Roots

 Jade bought me the Canteen cookbook for my Birthday. It's packed full with great recipes that reminded me of my childhood.

British food can often get a bad press, it's not glamorous, not exotic but done well it's fantastic. Canteen is an example of unpretentious, good quality and delicious cooking that is worthy of being called Great British Food. If you ever get a chance go as it's excellent value and feels like a home-from-home. It also remains the only place me and Jade sacrificed our wine in favour of finishing our food as it tasted that good.

On a cold, misty night this book inspired me. What better antidote to the winter blues than a proper beef stew with proper suet dumplings. As always I didn't follow the recipe 'to the t'. Instead of red wine I used a bottle of Marston's Pedigree ale, think Canteen would approve :-)

I have to admit that mine didn't look as nice as the picture in the book, but it tasted amazing and the dumpling were far better than any I've ever made before that didn't use suet.

Emily's Birthday Weekend - Brunch

A combo of eggs benedict (ham) and eggs florentine (spinach) was Emily's departing meal for the weekend.

Borough Market Signage

Not only is Borough Market a feast for the taste buds but also for the eyes, there is loads of lovely signage.

Well Educated Drunks

Jade 'Jilly Goolden' Sheppard and Emily 'Oz Clarke' Shaw took on a Birthday treat of wine tasting at Vinopolis.

Armed with knowledge from the short wine tasting lecture, tasting notebook, glass, and vouchers we we embarked on our wine extravaganza. Here are our tasting notes:

Wine One

 Name: Tinto Roriz Aliance Vista

Type: Red

Grape(s): Tinta Roriz

Region: Portugal, Beiras

Vintage: 2008

Cost: £7

Alcohol: 13.5%

Appearance: Dark red with a wide rim and a few legs.

Aroma: 'The seaside' and peppery plums.

Taste: Low on flavour, a harsh wine with no lasting aftertaste.

Occasion/Meal: Steak (Jade) Lobster (Emily).

Would we buy it: No

Rating: 3/5

Wine Two

Name: Kim Crawford Pinot Gris

Type: White

Grape(s): Pinot Gris

Region: New Zealand

Vintage: 2007

Cost: £10.49

Alcohol: 13.5%

Appearance: Golden with a very large white rim.

Aroma: Gooseberries followed by peaches and cream.

Taste: A sweet, flavourful wine. Peaches, Mango and Pineapple.

Occasion/Meal: Chicken Stew & Mango Sorbet (Jade) Greek Salad (Emily).

Would we buy it: Yes

Rating: 4/5

Wine Three

Name: Falernia Carmenere Syrah

Type: Red

Grape(s): Carmenere & Syrah

Region: Chile, Elqui Valley

Vintage: 2006

Cost: £8.99

Alcohol: 14.5%

Appearance: Dark with a thin rim.

Aroma: Cherry, rosemary and chocolate.

Taste: Dry, spicy wine with strong chilli and oaky tones.

Occasion/Meal: Mexican (Jade) Spicy meats - chorizo (Emily).

Would we buy it: Yes

Rating: 4/5

Wine Four

Name: Les Rochettes Pouilly Fumé

Type: White

Grape(s): Sauvignon Blanc

Region: France

Vintage: 2005

Cost: £12.99

Alcohol: 12.5%

Appearance: Light colour with a very light rim.

Aroma: Elderflower, peach, apple and honeysuckle.

Taste: Crisp, long lasting tastes of lemon, lime and fudge.

Occasion/Meal: Scallops (Jade) Pasta with creamy sauce (Emily).

Would we buy it: Yes

Rating: 3/5

Wine Five

Name: Lomond

Type: Red

Grape(s): Merlot

Region: South African

Vintage: 2006

Cost: £8.99

Alcohol: ---

Appearance: Light colour with a narrow rim.

Aroma: Earthy, smokey aromas reminiscent of root veg.

Taste: Dry, harsh wine that's low on flavour. Lot's of peppery tannins.

Occasion/Meal: Wouldn't want to ruin the meal!

Would we buy it: No

Rating: 1/5

Wine Six

Name: Bonterra Viognier

Type: White

Grape(s): Viognier

Region: USA, Mendocino County

Vintage: 2008

Cost: £11.99

Alcohol: 14%

Appearance: Very light colour with a narrow rim.

Aroma: Cantaloupe melon, pineapple and butter.

Taste: Pineapple and yoghurt.

Occasion/Meal: Chicken with a creamy/butter sauce (Jade) Mash Potato (Emily).

Would we buy it: Yes

Rating: 3.5/5

Wine Seven

Name: Torres De Casta Rosada

Type: Rosé

Grape(s): Granacha & Carinena

Region: Penedes, Spain

Vintage: 2009

Cost: £7.99

Alcohol:13.5%

Appearance: Light with a shallow rim.

Aroma: Strawberries, Strawberry leaves and vanilla.

Taste: Dry, harsh tasting wine with sour, strawberry flavours.

Occasion/Meal: Can't ever imagine drinking it again.

Would we buy it: No

Rating: 1/5

Wine Eight

Name: Greco di Tufo Vesuvium

Type: White

Grape(s): Greco di Tufo

Region: Italian

Vintage: 2008

Cost: £15.99

Alcohol: 13%

Appearance: Dark with a wide rim.

Aroma: Apricots and cream.

Taste: Sweet and smooth with pears and butterscotch flavours.

Occasion/Meal: Asparagus with Parma Ham (Jade) Belly pork (Emily).

Would we buy it: Yes

Rating: 4/5

Gin Cocktail

It's gin, 'nuff said, we were happy. There was a cool little display where you could 'experience' the many ingredients of Bombay Sapphire Gin

Rum Bar

Foolishy I thought they would come with coke :-S

Lager

By this point I just needed something to wash the neat rum down with.

What an ace day, we were total geeks and took the whole thing very seriously filling in our wine tasting notebook. We did a self guided tour which was perfect for us as we could go at our own pace, think we spent about 4 hours there. Luckily we also found some extra vouchers which allowed us to get some more wine to taste and then you also have an option to 'top-up' your visit by paying for extra tasting of Champagne, rum, whisky and lager as well as the wines including the premium ones.

The whisky cellar was also very cool, most expensive bottle was nearly £8k! We didn't try that :-)

Best Wine of the Day Award goes to....

Kim Crawford Pinot Gris.

Most Accurate Predicated of the Day Award goes to.....

Jade for correctly guessing the exacte food match of 'Asparagus with Parma Ham' for the last wine we tasted. 

Most Embarrassing Moment of the Day Award goes to....

Me, for falling off a bench at the tube station (yes it was post wine tasting).

Best Decision of the Day Award goes to...

Deciding to swerve the Absinthe Bar.

Foodie Heaven - Borough Market

As part of the foodie birthday weekend we went to Borough Market near to London Bridge. It is a wholesale and retail food market, one of the biggest in the UK, stuffed full of yummy foods, local suppliers and unusual drinks!

The great thing is you can sample lots of different cheeses, buy your lunch, pick up a present two and all your ingredients for dinner. It is usually packed but was a bit quieter due to the freezing temperatures when we visited.

I am a massive fan of french macaroons and Em had never tried them so we had a pistachio and a raspberry one to whet our appetite!

There are so many amazing stalls, check them out!

Every cheese lovers dream is the Neals Yard Dairy!

It begins....

The foodie weekend is about to kick off and in preparation I made some lemon drizzle cupcakes for Emily's honorary visit. The ones shown are all the extras I took to work, they went pretty quick.

Ready Or Not

London here I come. 'Birthday Weekend a la Jade' is on the menu and I'm very excited, not only because I still have all Flying Saucers intact but also as I haven't seen her in ages :-)

Emily's Birthday Weekend - Wahaca!

So Emily made it down to London to celebrate her birthday in a suitable foody faces style. Arriving in Euston and having only two bananas all day in preparation we headed straight to Wahaca for dinner.

Wahaca was founded by Thomasina Miers who is a former Materchef champ and author of the beautiful photographed Mexican Food Made Simple.

As always we had to queue (it has a no booking policy) but as it was only 7 o'clock the wait was only 20 minutes so we had a very yummy tequila mojito and some nachos with guacamole in the bar area to pass the time.

When we sat down we decided to go for lots of small plates to share and sample a bit of everything. We had:

• Tacos with Grilled British steak

• Tacos with Pork pibil

• Tostadas with Chicken guajillo

• Quesadillas with Chorizo & potato

• Taquitos with Savoy and pasilla

• Sides of green rice and spicy slaw

I love the steak tacos and cheesy quesadilla, where as emily would definitely have the goats cheese covered crispy taquitos again with the spicy slaw.

It was all really yummy and even though we ordered one or two plates too many we still found room for dessert! Emily had Churros y chocolate, a Mexican doughnut with a hot spicy chocolate sauce and I went for vanilla ice-cream with toasted pumpkin seeds and drizzled with caramel “cajeta” sauce.

It all makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

Brrrrrr

Ice cream isn't right for this wintery weather but the sentiment of this cute illustration is. Created by welsh illustrator Al Murphy.

Free food - two of my favourite things!

There is a really yummy american/italian restaurant recently opened by where I work called Giant Robot and they decided to do a members card for people who work or live in the local area - the EC1 locals card. Basically you get deals for the restaurants in the area, so today we went to The Larder for a free set lunch. It was so yummy, i had fried camembert followed by fish cakes and I think it would have been equally tasty even if I had to pay for it! I will definitely be going back.

Plus check out the piped with mash with the sausages, cute!