My Cup of Tea - my take on it!

Well, you will find the inspiration for this post from a lovely bloggy chum Sadie.

Here is her post ( most of my bloggy chums are hers too so no doubt I am preaching to the converted.

Sadie's cup of tea
I checked and to my astonishment, the link works!

Here are my answers. The last question about Masterchef comes from me watching it religiously from day 1 when I was just a child and it was a very different programme with Lloyd Grossman as the host! I love how bonkers some of the meals sound and the ridiculous items they put together on a plate - roasted essence of  foraged tripe served with a deeply frozen fried strawberry leaf , hand picked by Peruvian peasants, with a smear of  free range organic badger jus.

Anyway as ever, these questions have me dithering before I give an answer. I always have more than one favourite everything.

1. What's your favourite meal?

See? How hard is this?
Sadie's was afternoon tea. Mine will have to be traditional Christmas Dinner. Roasted free range bronze turkey, pigs in blankets, smooth creamy mashed potatoes,  goose fat roast potatoes and parsnips, glazed carrots, brussel sprouts, sausagemeat and chestnut stuffing, sage and onion stuffing, turkey gravy mmmmmm

Or beans on toast.

2. Favourite vegetable/favourite fruit?

A bit of a cheat answer if I say anything from the cabbage family, including brussels and cavelo nero. Cherries are my favourite, or pears or peaches. See? I am useless at being pinned down to one answer.

3. Would you like to grow your own vegetables? I have done in the past - lots of different things. Alas I grew tired of the perma battle against pests. Also the biggest disappointment had to be my broccoli. MASSIVE whopper plants and despite being picked and in the pot within seconds, I could not taste the difference AT ALL between home grown and shop bought! The only things that gave the best satisfaction in that regard, I found,  were carrots.

4. What's always in your fridge?
Milk - either 20 bajillion gallons or just enough left for a brew and why did nobody tell me we were out  scant amount at the bottom pf a container. Various salad condiments - pickles, sauces, cooking ingredients - soy sauce, fish sauce, always always half a tube of tomato puree. A tube of aloe vera for my prickly heat, baby food puree cartons ( for Bluebell's kongs ), fat free yogurt/cottage cheese/fromage frais and quark - yes I am a SW member. Vegetables in various stages of decay ready for soups - leeks, celery, carrrots. Always a minimum of 2 sweetheart cabbages, a few sweet potatoes, ordinary potatoes and carrots. Stork SB for baking, lard, olive oil spread, dairylea triangles, cheese = Lancashire Creamy Mild from Dewlay, a cheddar and edam.

5. Do you enjoy cooking - yes. I likes to try recipes and for the first time always always follow them to the letter, then tweak it after that. Lately the recipes have been from the Pinch of Nom books, Tom Kerridge and Hairy Bikers - but we do own 1000s of cookery books, including every single one of Gary Rhodes - I and the HG was really shocked and upset by his early untimely  accidental death. We loved him. I have cooked so many things and my glazed carrots are infact Gary's recipe.

6. Recipe you have always wanted to make but haven't yet?
Ummmm - had to ponder on this. Rick Stein once made chinese bbq glazed belly pork that had my mouth really watering in real life. I have the book but never actually made it yet - so that will be my answer right now.

7. What's a typical supper?
Either something we will all have most nights like tonight, griddled pork loin steak, potatoes, carrots and greens, or what I call cafe tea night. Either Mr 22 and I will have something slight spicy or stir fry ey. and the HG will have summat n chips. Or it'll be the HG and Mr 22 on something together and Ill have summat n salad. I have no qualms about cooking different things. My kitchen, my rules.

8. Favourite breakfast? poached eggs.

9. Dream dinner menu ( you don't have to be the cook )
Starter - cheesy garlic stuffed mushrooms
Main - Tradional Burn's night fare - haggis, neeps and tatties and gravy
Pud - toffee sundae icecream fudge gooey meringue with cream.

10. What do you order at a fish and chip shop? Depends which one I'm in. Local to me? Chips and curry sauce. Any on the coast in Northumberland - just a fish, eaten straight from the paper with salt and lots of vinegar.

11. Do you have a favourite fish? Truth be told I'm not a fishy person I wish I was but I'm not. I do like cod and haddock. Love tinned tuna - has to be steak in brine. Also I love prawns and brown shrimps. I hate salmon in any shape or form. Also the smell puts me off. It's so fishy!

12. Do you like other seafood? No. As part of a French Cuisine course I went on the the Lower Sixth to La Rochelle and Le Touquet, we had to spend the morning at a fish market then sample a seafood platter. Bleuuuurgh. Oysters - big snot, cockles and winkles - little snot! Mussels - medium sized snot! S'not for me at all.  I will eat scampi though - only wholetail and when it's on offer hahaha

13. Food you could never give up? Now here I could list a list of snacks as long as my road but they are not true 'food' so I think I would have to say yogurt. One food I have given up tht I thought I never could is bread. It makes my arthritis flare up and my stomach blow up so I avoid it. If I have a relapse because how gorgeous is the stuff in all it's shape and forms I really know about it and ,groan about the house moaning how it wasn't worth it. The HG just rolls his eyes because he knows it's only a matter of time before I succumb to the crumb! Ha just made that slogan up!

14. What's your favourite food memory? Sunday teas at my Nanna's. It was either a full roast dinner with baked rice pudding for pudding or a cold tea = sliced cooked 'meat' ( I later found out it was home pressed tongue - I was HORRIFIED when I discovered this was what I had been eating all along )  - salad = always soft green leaves, tomatoes and cucumber,  boiled eggs, sliced in the little wire slicer, cress ( I can picture it now sitting in the sieve in the kitchen having been rinsed), brown bread and butter cut thin in triangles and then tinned fruit and carnation for afters with buttered malt loaf, angel cake and battenburg on a little posh cake stand with cups of tea in the best china cups and saucers, served from the stainless steel teapot that I now lovingly keep in my wardrobe.  No matter which it was, it was always at the table with a white table cloth and the best mats and coasters. A silver sugar bowl with tongs and sugar cubes provided much joy. When I was older I would be allowed to wash up in the kitchen whilst listening to the Top 40. Also the bonus being you got to scrape the dish of it was a rice pudding night!
And from more recent times, the HG and I had been out on a sightseeing trip to an English Heritage site in Yorkshire - can't recall oh it was Rievieux Abbey, and it absoultely chucked it down all day. We stopped at a pub on the road from Harrogate to Skipton and we were starving. We had chicken liver pate, with caramelised onion marmalde and bread - we asked for more bread and scoffed the lot. Next it was steak and ale pie, real chips and peas - huge portion, scoffed the lot and then pudding was the massivest trifle I have ever had to myself. It was served in a goldfish bowl! Homemade cake and custard and whipped cream and sof jelly mmmmmmmmmm. We rolled out of there bellies groaning! Also I had a cocktail - a white russian mm!

15. Best biscuits for dunking - I'm with Sadie here - digestives plain and true!

16. How do you take your tea? The opposite of Sadie. Never ever ever put milk in near or next to my tea! Same goes for sugar! We drink Twinings assam or breakfast blend. I am a one dip girl. Literally dip the tea bag in and out. Never squeeze because it would be too strong for me then.  I do like green tea on it's own or flavoured but I cannot abide any kind of mint tea or licorice. shudders. The HG is a typical builders - strong, milk, 2 sugars.

17. What would be your winning Masterchef dish? I would make pan fried haricots in a rich tomato jus, served nestled on a bed of caramalised wholemeal squares.

18. Just thought of this on the back of the Masterchef one - what would be your signature bake on the Great British Bake Off? I'd make a batch of Aunty Olive's!


That;s all! Thanks again to Sadie for the idea. Ive really enjoyed doing this. I'd love to read your answers, especially the food memories. I've actually got lots going round my head now. For me food = a happy place.

Lots of love from
Rachel *That's why I'm round* Radiostar xx

PS. I have been slip stiching the the sunshine and amazed myself with the fact that my mitred corner is so neat and you cannot see my stitches! I took Bluebell for a walk on an empty field and yet despite that, a sodding ignorant jogger just ran straight past me in close less than 2m proximity grrrrr.

PPS I HAVE JUST REALISED THAT MAYBE, DUE TO CURRENT TIMES, I MAY HAVE TO CHANGE MY PROFILE INFO - HAS THE DFS SALE ACTUALLY ENDED????