In (& Out Of) My Kitchen | A Busy Month

I’ve been on Instagram for just over a year and I’ve quickly come to love it. It’s quite distinct from other social media platforms, though it also lends itself to some cross-sharing – I push selected instagrams across to twitter, facebook and to my Nibbles tumblr, which in turn feeds through to the Kavey Eats sidebar. The downside, if there is one, is that I often forget to share some of my food and drinks experiences here on the blog. So for this month’s In My Kitchen, I thought I’d take a meander through some of the last few weeks via my instagrams.

At the beginning of March, Pete and I took the opportunity to visit the recently opened Sky Garden, housed in that skyscraper that lookslike a mobile phone. It’s (currently) free to visit, but tickets must be booked in advance. Although there are some pretty planted terraces within the space, I think it’s a slight exaggeration to describe the space as a garden, as most of the space is taken up by a restaurant and a cafe terrace space. That said, the views of London are beautiful, and if you’re planning a trip to London, it’s a fun thing to do.

Afterwards, we popped across to Bad Egg Bar & Diner where we enjoyed a giant fried pork belly rib, huevos rancheros, portion of fries, dulce de leche milkshake and a couple of beers for very reasonable prices.

We made use of our slow cooker to make a delicious batch of Boston Baked Beans which we enjoyed with slices of Clonakilty black pudding.

I finally remembered to bake some of the Japanese kit kats friends brought back for me last year – they’ve been sitting forgotten in a box for several months. Note: these kit kats are designed to be baked, I’m not sure this would work well with regular kit kats!

I was blown away by some particularly fabulous lychees from a local grocery shop – so plump and super sweet.

Pete and I met with the creators of Codlo, an affordable and space-saving sous vide solution which converts your existing slow cooker or rice cooker into a fully functional sous vide machine. Our results so far have been very positive indeed, and I’ll be writing a full review to share soon.

I got my hands on my friend Mat Follas’ first book, Fish and it’s a cracker. Review coming in the May issue of Good Things magazine, for which I’m still a regular contributor.

McVitie’s sent me some of their cuddly toys and biscuits – the cuddly soft toys are super soft and super cute. And I can never resist a chocolate digestive (though, for the record, I think the dark chocolate ones are way tastier!)

We combined a visit to our wonderful local pub, The Bohemia (in North Finchley) with a catch up with our friend Dom, who is currently in the process of launching his new chocolate brand. In the meantime, we happily purchased his excellent chocolate bars, such as this bar of Trinidad 60% Laverstoke Buffalo Milk Chocolate with Halen Mon Vanilla Sea Salt. Delicious!

It’s a constant source of surprise to me that North Finchley can support quite so many coffee shops, with new cafes opening every few months to add to the list. But I’m glad Harris & Hoole are one of the options as their hot chocolate and banana cake make a very welcome breakfast after an early morning local appointment. And service is consistently helpful and friendly too.

I can rarely resist browsing our local Tiger store whenever we pass and on my last visit I found these gorgeous individual oven dishes, as well as a funky white jug to send my friend Celia for her Festivalof50 birthday celebrations. (You can see that jug over on Celia’s blog and watch the video created by our fellow blogger Jason from Don’t Boil The Sauce! – yes I’m in it, looking quite demented!)

Once again, I was invited to be a judge for the International Chocolate Awards. Of course, it’s a pleasure to taste some excellent chocolate, but the judging is taken very seriously, with regular palate checks and palate cleansing (icky gloopy polenta, but it works) and a carefully considered marking system.

I attended the inaugural Good Things Supperclub, a pop up dinner featuring recipes from our latest issue – I think it’s fair to say that everyone enjoyed the evening.

Gregg’s The Bakers invited me to visit a store and try their new breakfast range – which was shockingly good value and very tasty. Just as well there’s not one near my new office or I’d be far too tempted to have a sausage baguette every morning. We also picked up a few of their doughnuts and were amazed at the quality of these, especially at the price point – the caramel custard and chocolate custard ones we bought definitely rivalled those by Krispy Kreme (which I buy regularly) and were far less expensive.

A Sunday visit to Maltby Street Market saw us devouring a truly fantastic burger from Grant Hawthorne’s African Volcano peri peri stall. We also took home samples of his new smoked salmon -both the peri peri dry rub and the treacle and peri peri sauce varieties were excellent. Keep an eye out for those going on sale soon.

We had a lovely visit to Anspach & Hobsday Brewery, where we chatted with Jack Hobsday about the history of the brewery, the individual beers and the adjacent market. Pete was seriously impressed with the beers. Left to right above, the (third of pint) tasters are A&H’s White Coffee Milk Stout, Pale Ale and Table Porter. We bought home a big box of several of their beers, so look out for full reviews of their bottled range on Pete Drinks soon.

Of course, we also did some shopping – a couple of St John’s custard doughnuts and some fantastic Iberico ham from Tozino, which we had for dinner along with the African Volcano salmon and the Gouda cheese I received from Kaashandel Peters.

Pete experimented with some kamut flour that we purchased from Tuxford Windmill a few weeks previously. This was Pussy Galoaf loaf 6 and although it was denser than the usual white loaves we’ve been making, the texture was nice and even and the taste very pleasant.

Just before I started my latest contract (having been working from home for the last couple of months) I spent a happy day down in London catching up with friends for dim sum at Princess Garden and cake at The Delaunay Counter before grabbing a tasty Honest Burger at Camden and heading on to an excellent Tea Tasting event run by Momo Cha Fine Teas.

Glad to find that their teas are as magnificent as ever – I placed an order for more of their incredible High Mountain Oolong the very next day!

The last Sunday in March was a decadent affair, as I accepted an invitation to Sunday Brunch at the Rosewood Hotel, in celebration of their recently launched Slow Food & Living Market. Unlike other small-scale food markets I’ve visited, this little market is perfectly curated and the range of top quality produce is fantastic, with current stallholders including O’Shea’s Butchers, Hansen & Lydersen (smoked fish), Oliver’s Bakery, Nyborg’s Kitchen, Hiver Honey Beer, Anspach & Hobday brewery, Lalani & Co fine teas, Gosnells London Mead, and other stalls offering fresh produce, dairy and cheese as well as chocolates, cakes and more. It’s not huge but every stall is a good one, so it’s a lovely place to browse and shop. The brunch, featuring produce from the market, was also excellent, though pretty pricy at £60 per person without drinks.

Surprisingly late in life, I finally spotted and bought some fresh garlic – this is fully grown (unlike wet garlic, which is usually harvested before the bulb has developed much) but still green from the harvest, rather than the dried bulbs we more commonly buy. It has a far milder flavour than the dried equivalent and was delicious in a pasta sauce alongside finely diced homemade fuet.

Another invitation, this time to a fun blogger event hosted by Tonia Buxton at The Real Greek restaurant in Soho. After some light learning (mixing our own tapenade and learning how to stuff dolmades) we enjoyed a tasty dinner – the menu is affordable and tasty.

Over the Easter weekend, Pete and I were very happy to discover that the newly taken over local Vietnamese restaurant, now called Phó’ Viet Hu’ó’ng, is better than ever. My dish is the co’m su’ó’n (pork ribs and fried egg with rice) and Pete had mi xào (egg noodles) with chicken and veg. Better still, lunch was only £5.50 each including a soft drink. Very very tasty!

Easter cooking at home included a simple rosemary roast lamb and some hot cross buns – despite the somewhat Jackson Pollock-esque crosses, they turned out very nicely!

I’m submitting this (mammoth) In My Kitchen post to Celia’s round up over at Fig Jam & Lime Cordial.