We went to Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival. All the people I wanted to see, Gennaro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio and Phil Vickery were all there yesterday, but still, we went to see if there were any tasty treats left. There were. Only the weather was crap, which made us head home after 2 hours. There were great macaroons, as pictured. Nearly, nearly as good as the ones in Paris, only, I thought, the French ones have as much flavour in the cookie itself, as in the filling, the ones below lacked a bit in the base. Only 3 made it home though. 🙂

There was also a dude selling cheeses, freaky flavours like pina colada cheddar (WTF???), the texture of cheddar, but sweet taste that didn’t make sense. The ginger and whisky one though was awesome and came home with us.

We also sat through a wine talk about Bordeaux wines, tasted some, of which the lovely sweet Sauternes spoke to me most, so was purchased on the way home, alongside some prawns, olive bread, Roquefort and that stunning truffle brie they have in Whole Foods. Sauternes, bread, Roquefort and Brie were demolished while watching “Casino Jack”( not brilliant despite Kevin Spacey being in it), so much for Florek’s diet today.

To finish with, 3 hours later, I made super quick shrimp supper. The beauty of the seafood from Whole Foods is not just the quality of it, but as I took the shrimps out to clean them before marinating I discovered they were already deveined. This kind of service I like!!!! I quickly marinated  the girls in a mixture of soy, sesame oil, green chilli and coriander, 2 minutes on each side on the griddle pan and onto a simple rocket and tomato salad. I used the photo of  it to convince Zuzia Matuszkiewicz to pay us a visit one day. 🙂

I have one of those here already, but it came out so perfect, that I had to blog it again. I was more generous with grand marnier this time and also added an orangey extra on top of the cooling caramel- before I poured the custards in, I added a bit of orange peel, the sweet, fried one from my Mom. Worked a treat.

Basic recipe;2 whole eggs and 1 yolk whipped and fluffed up with 50 g of sugar. 250ml of milk heated up and poured in while still beating. Goooood generous slosh of grand marnier added added before straining well- that I managed well this evening, they were perfect. 20 minutes in bain marie, oven around 130 degrees.

From some old edition of Good Food. I’ve made it once before and took it to work, it was enthusiastically received. Famous food critic Florian has just given it 9 out of 10. 🙂

For the pastry I used 200 g of plain flour, 100g chilled butter, 1 tbsp icing sugar and 1 beaten egg. I made into a pastry and chilled in the freezer quickly and worked on the filling. I toasted 280 g of chopped pecan nuts and added them to the mixture of 250 ml of maple suryp, 75 g of brown sugar and 75 ml of double cream, which was bubbling on the stove for about 5 mins. The chilled pastry was blind baked in 180 degrees for about 15 mins, was then filled with the nutty stuff and back to the oven for about 25 mins, until bubbly and gorgeous. The kitchen still smells great.

I must admit I don’t know what a traditional bakewell tart should be like, but I copied the recipe from the most recent Good Food. I needed a boost of self confidence by cooking something good, pasta worked, so did the tarts, which ended up on the floor at some point, because of me being clumsy, but I saved them somehow.

They’re very lemony, the pastry was made by combining 85 g of butter, a zest of 1 lemon, 50 g of icing sugar,  1 egg yolk, 200 g of plain flour, nicely mixed up into dough and placed in the fridge while the filling was being prepared. Zest of 2 lemons, 100g of soft butter, same amount of caster sugar, 2 whole eggs, 85 g of ground almonds and 25 g of plain flour.

While I prepared the tins with the pastry( no blind baking this time), some lemon curd went on the bottom and then the filling. Finished with flaked almonds and baked in 200 degrees for about 25 minutes. Sprinkled with icing sugar when out of the oven.

Nice, lemony, I’m happy with it!