Tag Archives: bermondsey

The Aldi Baby Event

Sometimes a girl just has to accept she’s living on statutory maternity pay…and even that won’t last forever. So today when the Aldi supermarket one day baby event was launched, the baby and I were out of the house by 7.30 and battling the South London traffic to Old Kent Road. You can tell I’m not an experienced Mum, because in my head, I envisioned queues of Mums, waiting for the doors to open, all rushing in to get the £19 Hauck travel cot I wanted. (That’s how things used to be in the pre-baby days when I would go to fashion sales, etc, so surely that’s how things would be at the baby sale.)

As it happened, I was the first one in the parking lot (managed to get the parent/child parking spot right outside the front door) and there was just me and one other woman, at 7.45 in the morning, waiting for the doors of Aldi to open. Like bums, waiting to get in to buy the cheap off-brand booze, but instead we were after baby-grows and nappies.

What a geek.

And why was I the first one there? Because I’m still a newbie at this Mum thing. Because most normal, sensible Mums with little babies barely think about getting out of the house (or pyjamas) before noontime, and those that do – its only because they’re taking their older children to school. But I still hold the belief that I will not be defeated by Mum-dom. I will live life on a normal(ish) schedule…even if it means standing on the Old Kent Road at 7.45am with my baby still in her pyjamas, tucked into her BabyBjorn, and me, looking pretty ok-ish in a white shirt and skinny jeans, but secretly I hadn’t even taken a shower yet.

So, moving on, as I pushed my trolley through the non-existant crowds of fellow shoppers, I got the first of the Hauck travel cots, three packs of giant muslins, a hooded towel and a Tommy Tippee sippy cup. I mean, there was actually plenty of great stuff there – and all quite cheap…but then, that’s the problem with Aldi. You go in to buy your polish jam and battery hen eggs and come out with a discount chainsaw instead.

However, for the budget minded organic shopper, there are a few good buys at Aldi. You can get a few organic veg basics: potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and onions, a few seasonal organic fruits, organic milk, as well as a few random dry goods throughout the store. Today, for instance, there were Kallo puffed buckwheat and quinoa cakes (like rice cakes). You kind of have to go in with an open mind about what you want to buy, but you can come out with your shopping bag full of 100% British organic foods at around 25% less than you would pay at Sainsburys or Tesco.

All good news for a Mum who is about to start baby led weaning and isn’t too keen on the Annabel Karmel ‘all sugar, all the time’ approach to feeding baby. (I may feel differently after steamed broccoli has been rejected for the 50th time, and I promise, I’ll admit it if that’s the case.)

I should also say that I was really pleased to see packs of Bambino Mio cloth nappies for sale there today. At our house we use cloth nappies (resorting to biodegradable disposables for outings, travel and nighttime only) and although we don’t use Bambino Mio, I’m pleased that they’re becoming more mainstream and accessible to people on a budget. (Lets face it, the Old Kent Road isn’t the cheapest property on the Monopoly board for no reason).

So, overall, it was a good shopping trip. We have a travel cot, so we won’t have to make our baby sleep in a milk crate or dog pen when we go on holiday to Cornwall, later this summer. We’ve got some adorable elephant themed giant muslins, at 1/5th of the price of the ones at Jojo Maman Bebe. And best of all, the baby fell asleep in the car on the way home, so after transferring her to the nursery when we got home, I’ve had the whole morning to myself!

No really, it was just a trifle

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I make an excellent trifle…though I do say so myself…

A full on view of my sherry trifle

Four years ago I bought a beautiful LSA crystal trifle bowl at the John Lewis on Oxford Street. The first reaction of my then boyfriend, was that I would never use the trifle bowl and it was a waste of £40 and precious storage space. At that time, we lived in a one bedroom flat in Bermondsey; a beautifully designed home that by all rights should have been the perfect pied a terre for city professionals with a large country home in Norfolk or Wiltshire. Just like us…minus the large country home in Norfolk or Wiltshire. With the absence of any storage whatsoever, it was absolutely essential that each item we owned had to serve a purpose, if not several purposes.

So in order that I would always have the moral upper ground, as least as far as my frivolous purchase was concerned, my trifle bowl spent much of the year, serving as an urn for displaying leafy Spanish mandarins, bright knobbly Sicilian lemons, shiny and jewel-toned pink pomegranates or really whatever happened to be in season. And once a year, at the great family gathering in Sussex on Christmas or Boxing Day, my trifle bowl would display its true splendour and serve its intended use.

As, I have discovered, trifles are surprisingly sturdy. I have preassembled and carried them across the home counties on trains, in the boot of my car (bumping wildly over country lanes), and I have jostled them along London streets, wedged into a hemp Whole Foods carrier bag. It always survives and always looks a masterpiece when displayed on the table or the sideboard.

Eventually the time came to prepare to sell our flat and my boyfriend took great pleasure in placing my beloved trifle bowl in storage. In fact, last Christmas I never even had an opportunity to use it, as it was locked away over the holiday period. (While I describe him like a pantomime villain, he really is very nice, and I did in fact eventually marry him, despite his general disrespect for my trifle-related paraphernalia.)

So this year, when friends invited us to their home for Boxing Day dinner…their large country home in Wiltshire, I might add…I didn’t hesitate to shamelessly offer to bring the trifle. Through politeness, or perhaps a lack of opportunity to refuse, our hosts appeared grateful and accepted.

After feasting on gravadlax on rye toasts, spatchcocked poussin and creamy dauphinoise, my trifle made its appearance. No one usually holds very high hopes for trifle. (I’ve seen many a layered Jell-O, pineapple and Cool Whip creation lurking on British supermarket shelves, claiming trifle status. I can appreciate the general cool attitude towards it.) I was offered by my host to be mother, and I took the opportunity, assertively spooning equal proportions of the deep layers into each of the dessert bowls.

“Oh, Kelly” my host gasped, in what I think was genuine surprise, “from now on, you are in charge of all things sugar.” And I blushed with much false modesty.

So, with some hesitation, I share my precious, yet simple, trifle recipe with you:

Jewel-like red currants, crowning my sherry trifle on Boxing Day

Ingredients

12 trifle sponges (around 300 g)

1 medium (100 g) sponge flan base (optional)

1 litre of custard (homeade or store bought)

1 litre of whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks

1 x 400 g bag frozen raspberries

200 g fresh blueberries, raspberries or blackberries

1 small jar (around 300 g) raspberry conserve

A quantity of Amontillado sherry, to taste

Fresh raspberries or red currants, to decorate

Method

Step One: Cut all the sponge fingers in half and make small jam sandwiches with them. Arrange these in the base of the trifle bowl and drizzle liberally with a good glug of Amontillado sherry – around 4-5 tablespoons. (You don’t want the sponge fingers to become too wet, though, as the raspberry juices will need to be soaked up later.) You can do this step the night before, should you wish.

Step Two: Create an even layer of frozen raspberries on top of the sherried sponges. This is where I pause if I am taking this dish to someone else’s house. Placing the raspberries on the sponges around lunchtime will mean that the raspberries will have thawed by dessert, later that evening, and the juices will have soaked into the sponge.

Step Three: If you have a medium sponge flan case, place it on top of the now thawed raspberries, and fill it with the remainder of the jar of raspberry conserve and the 200 g of fresh berries. It should help contain the custard and create a layer of sponge which isn’t as soggy as the bottom layer.

Step Four: I wouldn’t do this step until probably an hour or two before serving. Pour the custard over the sponge flan & berries and spread the softly (unsweetened) whipped cream in an even layer atop the custard. I usually finish mine with a small crown of fresh raspberries, cape gooseberries or red currants (as shown).

Where HAVE I Been?

When Life Gives You Lemons…

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When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. (This is London, not Miami, for Pete’s sake.) Make lemon drizzle cake. Its much tastier. That’s what I did yesterday on a rainy, cold & windy Sunday afternoon here in Bermondsey. One of the last Sundays I’ll spend here in my little Bermondsey kitchen. We’re moving at the end of the month. To the suburbs, I might add. I’m happy we’re moving into a bigger space and that we’ll have a garden to lounge about in on the one or two languid hot days we’ll have to look forward to over the course of the glorious English summertime. But our little urban pad has been a wonderful space to spend the last four years.

L has been spending the better part of the last few months negotiating our property exchange, and so he doesn’t get fired before we can pay for the place, he had to spend the day catching up in the office. Meanwhie the dog and I lounged about all the morning; me in my jammies, putting the Nespresso to good use and the dog sighing and staring mournfully out the window at the fifth consecutive day of rain.

Sometime around 3pm I rolled up my sleeves, marched into the kitchen, cleared the counter and fired up the…computer…and proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes researching recipes. But after THAT, I made some lemon drizzle cake. I found a great recipe by a fellow blogger (click here for (Mostly) Yummy Mummy’s original recipe), but I’ve spent enough of my life as a professional recipe developer that I can’t help but mess with recipes, and I love my lemon cake to be extra lemony – which in this recipe you really need to cut the intense butteryness.

So here’s what you’ll need to cook this cake…

6oz spelt (or wheat) flour (sifted)
6oz caster sugar
6oz butter
3 medium eggs
2 very juicy medium unwaxed lemons
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp of icing (powdered) sugar

And here’s how you do it…

1. Grease & flour a small loaf tin & line base with parchment. Preheat oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5.

2. Cream butter & sugar until pale in colour and fluffy in texture.

3. Add 3 eggs, one by one; mixing each egg thoroughly before adding the next.

4. Add the zest & juice of one whole unwaxed lemon straight into the wet mixture.

5. Add the sifted flour, salt & baking powder and fold in gently. Don’t overmix it or you’ll overdevelop the gluten. (You want a tender cake, right?)

6. Spoon the cake mixture into the loaf tin and pop it into the middle shelf of the oven for around 40 minutes. Once its golden brown, test it with a wooden skewer – if it comes out clean, its done.

7. Let the cake cool for a few minutes while you prepare the drizzle. The drizzle is prepared by whisking together the icing (powdered) sugar with the juice of the second lemon.

8. Remove the warm cake from the tin and turn it upside down. Make plenty of holes (20-30) with a wooden skewer and pour the drizzle all over the bottom of the warm cake. Let it sit upside down for a few minutes as the drizzle works its way down, flavouring the cake with the lemony sweetness. Once its cooled a bit, turn the cake around and let it totally cool before cutting.

. . .

So, in summary, a few of these…

…and a couple of these…

(girl with smeared mascara optional)

…gives you one of these…

Bon Appetit!

A Surfeit of Blue Eggs & Lemons

3 Replies

I have rather a lot of eggs in my fridge right now. Three boxes, in fact. I mean, there’s only two of us, so three boxes of eggs is a bit ridiculous.

One box I bought last Saturday morning from folks at the Demeter farm in East Sussex – they come to the Bermondsey Farmer’s Market as well as Borough Market every week. The second box is something I think L bought from somewhere depressing, like Tesco. (Its organic & free range, but still…) The third box of eggs are these gorgeous babies from my future in laws’ farm in Buckinghamshire.

I also seem to have a mysterious surfeit of lemons. I think a lemon drizzle cake is on the horizon…

blue eggs

Shop by the Season

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Fresh raspberries from Kent I bought at Bermondsey Farmer’s Market this morning

I don’t always buy organic.

I do when I can, but sometimes I prefer to buy the local Kent or Sussex grown tomatoes if that’s what is available at the farmer’s market, rather than the organic Spanish ones at the big chain superstore, which are laden with the additional guilt of unecessary food miles and extra packaging. I shop the way my conscience tells me to, and sometimes that means that means making difficult choices. The one choice I never compromise on, however, is how my food tastes. I’m not going to buy either of those tomatoes if they taste of damp cardboard. And certainly not unless they smell like a tomato should smell; of damp earth and acidic fruitiness.

Buying what’s in season usually keeps me on the right track for getting the freshest & most flavour packed produce. And, as a farmer I am not, my vegetable guy at the market always steers me in the right direction, so my general horticultural ignorance doesn’t seem to hinder me too much.

Luckily I didn’t have to make any difficult choices this morning when at the farmer’s market. My fish guy, Chris, was there with his truck back full of sustainably caught sole, haddock, crab, plaice and mackerel. I bought some plaice and got the instructions on how to prepare it. Chris is a 4th generation fisherman and though I’ve not been buying from him for too long, his fish is always fresh & odour-free and I’ve found his advice to be consistently spot on. When I prepare my dinner tonight, I’ll season and flour the plaice lightly and fry it in butter, finishing it only with a squeeze of lemon. A little fennel, sliced thinly and sauteed to transparency in butter (if I still had a gallbladder, it would hate me now) and well seasoned with salt & pepper and a tablespoon of luxuriously thick and tart creme fraiche stirred in at the end, will make a beautiful and simple side dish to accompany the fish.

But wait, I need to tell you more about the butter! Its Glastonbury butter! Green’s of Glastonbury are a family-run dairy farm from…well, Glastonbury in Somerset, where their organically certified herd munches on the grass around the slopes of Glastonbury Tor. They are mainly a cheese producer, but they also sell their own butter, which is sold in huge round wodges and they also make the most nutty and sharp unpasturised cheddar you will ever taste.

After the amount of butter and creme fraiche in my supper, I think the cheddar will have to wait for another day, but the abundance of raspberries in season means I will still be having dessert tonight. But this time, no Greek yogurt, no creme fraiche, no drizzle of honey. Just plain raspberries, so ripe that each drupelet bursts open and starts to melt as it touches your tongue.

The Taste of Summer

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Ripe tomatoes & fresh organic local mozarella

Its summer now. Apparently. And on the odd day or two its even been vaguely hot outside. As cool Spring evenings turn into sultry Summer ones, my tastebuds stop craving the carby warm & sweet earthy concoctions of grains, rich spices and roasted vegetables I once favoured and start craving the light and elegant flavours of summer. Basil. Watermelon. Tonic Water. Pistachios. Orange blossom honey. Sour yogurt.

Last night I came home, miraculously still full from the miso soup I’d eaten at lunchtime. Some tomatoes from the local Greek market around the corner were sitting on the counter, ripening from red to almost purple, and their heady fresh dirt perfume hit my nose as soon as I walked into the kitchen. I rummaged in the fridge to find the last of my recent farmer’s market purchases, a fresh ball of organic buffalo mozzarella, and cut it into thin slices, alternating with slices of the tomato, and then heightened the flavours with a sprinkle of my Portuguese fleur de sel (flor sal I believe it is called) and some coarsely ground pepper. We mop up the juices with slices of dense rye bread & butter from the local organic bakery.

Another small slice of the honey & vanilla pound cake ended the meal extremely well and we retired to the sofa to watch Thomasina Miers’ new Mexican cooking show in my old Oaxaca culinary haunt at the Abastos Market.

Cake & Jam

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Butterylemonyvanillaness.

Gooseberry Jam

Until you have tried this cake you will think that is a non-existent and very silly word. After you have tried this cake, you will know exactly what I mean. Yellowy organic butter creamed to whiteness with organic sugar. Eggs from free-range, organic, corn-fed chickens are mixed in, one by one; each yolk is almost orange and the batter starts to regain its golden eggy shade again. Vanilla and fresh organic lemon zest are added for flavour, and two sticky dollops of honey from my parent’s apiary. Baking powder, some sea salt and spelt flour are sifted in to the mix and slowly stirred to the thickness of an old fashioned cake batter which smells like the birthdays of your childhood. And just when you think it sounds as if it might be getting to be too sweet, now imagine that I have cut the cake in half and spread a thick layer of gloriously tart and freshly homeade gooseberry jam.

The gooseberry jam itself was another learning experience. I’ve never made it before, and every time you try to preserve a new fruit, estimating its pectin content is a bit like throwing craps. So I turned to Nigel Slater, who I always turn to when I have no idea what I’m doing. (He won’t know it, but he taught me to roast my first chicken when I, as a naieve vegetarian, thought I’d treat my boyfriend to a Sunday roast.) I roughly followed a recipe, mixing the gooseberries with an almost equal quantity sugar and a drop or two of water, to partly dissolve the sugar. Its incredibly satisfying, popping the gooseberries with a spoon as they start to warm up and become soft. (All the therapeutic qualities of bubblewrap, but with a lovely tart smell.) I squeezed in a bit of lemon juice to help keep the lovely livid shade of gooseberries in tact, but to no use, as they soon took on a translucent, candied fruit quality, and after about 45 minutes of regular stirring and fussing, the jam finally became jammy, with big chunks of partly dissolved gooseberry skins – all in a beautiful quincy rust shade.

In all truth, this cake was intended to culminate its existence in the form of a Washington Pie. But, in order to turn a vanilla cake filled with gooseberry preserves into a proper Washington Pie, like the kind my grandmother makes for my visits to Canada, you’d need to cover the entire thing in a thick layer of whipped cream. For today, though, I’m afraid that some semi-health conscious urge has stopped me from going to these lengths. We instead, settle for a slice each, after dinner, with a heaped spoonful of low fat creme fraiche.

Find Your Farmer’s Market

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Bermondsey Farmer’s Market Finds

Kermit the Frog wasn’t wrong. It ain’t easy being green. It ain’t cheap either.

Buying things in glass bottles & recycled cardboard punnets. Weighing up whether to buy the organic milk from the big chain store or the regular milk from the small local shop. Thank God for Saturdays when throughout the UK and North America, farmers and small producers flock to the towns and cities and put up their stalls to flog their wares for the day. Thank God for the Farmer’s Market. Suddenly the anxiety from the constant onslaught of ethical decisions I associate with buying food melt away, and I can just enjoy the experience of buying good food and having a ‘good chinwag’ (as my boyfriend so delicately puts it) with the producers.

Sometimes you don’t have the extra money to buy as your ethics would guide you. Sometimes you just don’t have the time. Sometimes the products you want just aren’t available. (Seriously, just try to find organic tonic!) But sometimes, just sometimes, you’ll be suprised.

Today I went to Bermondsey Farmer’s Market (in the heart of Bermondsey Square, for those of you who are interested) with £30 in my handbag. It has been an expensive month so far, but despite that, I had intended to head out to the famous (and I might add extremely pricey) Borough Market to buy some organic basics for the week, I was halted in my tracks by a small green sign guiding me into Bermondsey Square.

Rather than the few veg and bottle of organic gin which I had intended to buy at Borough Market, I instead came home laden with the following groceries. Most organic. All locally sourced. And all for my £30.

1 litre fresh Bramley apple juice from Norfolk (http://www.droveorchards.com/)
1 large handful of samphire
1 large bunch of flat leaf parsley, organic
1 large garlic head, organic
1 cucumber, organic
1 fennel bulb, organic
2 punnets gooseberries, organic
4 punnets raspberries, organic
1 100% rye bread, organic
1 whole lemon sole, sustainably caught
2 chicken thighs, organic & free range
3 small buffalo steaks, organic
6 eggs, organic & free range
1 ball of fresh, homeade mozarella, organic
1 large spanikopita
2 small Portuguese custard tarts

I dare you to spend £30 at Tesco (or $50 at Loblaws for my Canadian readers) and do so well…

The spanikopita was absolutely yumlicious and I scoffed it for my lunch as soon as I got home. The Bramley apple juice is extremely more-ish and very dry, and I suspect it will make an excellent apple gimlet – I do realise there is probably no such thing as an apple gimlet, but I decided on the way home that it sounded like a good idea. A nice pre-dinner cocktail. As a starter for dinner tonight, I think the mozarella ball will be nice, sliced thinly and served on a plate, alternated between slices of ripe vine tomatoes and basil leaves and sprinkled lightly with a sort of Portuguese version of fleur de sel which I have and some coarsely ground organic black pepper. The chicken thighs will be massaged in butter before being doused in olive oil, garlic and slices of lemon and being roasted in the oven later tonight for my boyfriend’s dinner while I have the lemon sole on a bed of samphire. I’ve never made lemon sole, but I recently saw on Saturday Kitchen how to ripe the skin off in one single, swift yank – not dissimilar to leg waxing actually. Dessert will consist of the raspberries, which are already starting to melt, they’re so ripe, crudely poured overtop of the Portuguese custard tarts and followed by a cup of hot Ethiopian roast coffee.

So, not to sound pushy, but get out there, find your Farmer’s Market and buy something special to cook for someone you love. Even that person is just you.

Our Little Organic Life

Green Living. Eco Travel. Natural Wellness.

Tag Archives: bermondsey

The Aldi Baby Event

No really, it was just a trifle

Where HAVE I Been?

When Life Gives You Lemons…

A Surfeit of Blue Eggs & Lemons

Shop by the Season

The Taste of Summer

Cake & Jam

Find Your Farmer’s Market

London Bridge

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