Tastecratedotcodotuk

This is one for the bakers amongst you. Twice a year I make a monster batch of vanilla paste and homemade vanilla extract from Grade A vanilla I purchase in bulk from a vanilla co-op. The extract takes over a year to make (and my mother always steals it on me🤣) but the paste is immediate. I have ten 120ml jars of the paste available for immediate pick up. It’s £15 a jar- used exactly the same as extract, a teaspoon or two in a cake, in icing, in yoghurt, in cream. It’s there or thereabouts the same price as the widely available branded one available in big supermarkets (a little cheaper in fact) but I promise it’s ten times nicer!! Please PM me if you would like some of this liquid gold!!!

Omelette Arnold Bennett. Quite possibly my death row meal! What’s yours? What would you just love to learn recreate at home?

Best lasagne ever! Made from beef short rib. Cooking all day. Divine!

Lasagne made from beef short ribs for dinner tonight. Maybe the best lasagne I’ve ever eaten. Delish!

Twenty minute dinner using my taste crate pan plus oval tray in the oven. Crispy duck breast sealed on pan and roasted in the oven for five minutes with some honey and soy. Taken out and rested. Egg noodles, cooked for five mins in boiling water, sugar snaps thrown in for final minute. All drained and tossed in the pan with a teeny bit of the duck fat and some sliced spring onions, chopped coriander, a dash of soy and a dash of outer sauce. The remainder of the duck fat was poured into a tub and is happily sitting in my fridge so I can roast spuds this weekend. It also freezes beautifully, the fat that is, not the noodles!!! This was devoured in minutes. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Have you ever heard of reverse searing a joint of beef? I cooked this rib roast yesterday for my daughters birthday dinner. Photo number one is the beef coming out of the oven after 3 1/2 hours cooked at 70 degrees Celsius. I used a meat thermometer and took the meat out when it reached 55 degrees. This is somewhere between a medium rare and medium cook. Obviously cooking meat at this low temperature like this doesn’t brown it so after a good period of resting (45 minutes or so) I turned my oven up to 260 Degrees Celsius, grill and fan combined and then I flashed the meat at this high temperature for 10 minutes. This gives it the browning on the outside. Picture number two is the carved meat. Was delicious. A yummy Monday treat. I served it with a roast garlic mash, creamed celery and sautéed sprouts with pepper sauce.

Trying to use up all the leftover cheese, butter, smoked fish before dry and sensible January truly starts. (Hey if the kids are still off school, then how can I truly be back to reality!!). This was a quiche I made yesterday with some buttery, short pastry, some smoked mackerel, spinach, cherry tomatoes and some delice de Bourgogne cheese I needed to use up. The rest of January for me will be using up what needs to be used but maybe in a healthier way!!! Happy New Year all. For those whose kids aren’t back at school yet, like me, don’t worry, Monday will come around soon!!!!

Before and after New Year’s Day goose. This is our new years tradition for the last ten years. A great story is behind it if we are ever together eating a goose I’ll tell you the story! Happy New Year all!

A yummy vegetarian dinner last night after all the meat! cauliflower filo pie. Delicious!

From this, to this. The turkey carcas becomes the base for my favourite meal of Christmas. French onion soup. Yum yum!

Wishing all my customers, friends and customers-to-be a joyous Christmas break. Thanks for the unwavering support this year. So for the next week I’m going to be doing my best with my eight year old daughters cake efforts. She’s decided she wants to me more than a one trick pony in the kitchen so we will be cooking lots together this holiday!

I love a sharing starter, for ease there’s nothing nicer. This was cooked and assembled this morning for a catering client to serve with Guinness bread tomorrow. I’ll do something similar for us tomorrow. It’s got baked salmon, fat juicy prawns, smoked salmon, my cucumber pickle and some Marie Rose sauce.