Smoked trout pate

I have been in the Loire Valley for the last three weeks working for a lovely family with four kids, there has been lots of spaghetti on the walls, wine drinking, chocolatey faces and bum pinching from a certain naughty four year old. We are staying in a big Chateaux and my bedroom in in a turret so I am now calling myself Rapunzel, although no french men have been at my window trying to climb up my hair yet!

Here is a nice little recipe from Jamie Oliver for smoked trout pate which I have been doing as a little addition to summer lunches. So unbelievably easy to make, just mix in a bowl or chuck into a magimix for a smoother pate.

serves 6-8

125g cream cheese
2-3 heaped teaspoons jarred horseradish
1 lemon
small bunch of chives finely chopped
125g hot smoked trout or salmon, skin removed
sea salt and pepper

Mix the cream cheese with the horseradish, zest from the lemon and half of the juice. Mix in most of the fresh chives just leaving a few to sprinkle on the top when you serve it. Season generously and add more horseradish and lemon if it needs perking up, then flake in the smoked trout and stir gently so you are left with a few bigger chunks. Serve in a pretty dish with the chives sprinkled on top with some really good brown bread.

River cafe polenta, almond and lemon cake

This week has been a bit up and down with the weather, lots of rain and then an absolute scorcher yesterday in the 30˚s. Yesterday was an especially good day because not only did I get a little bit less pasty but I also stood up on my surfboard about 10 times!! I did almost die about twice getting absolutely smashed by waves and ended up with my hair looking a bit like a loo brush but very happy!! Since the weather has been crappy I made a huge cake, and I think this could be my newest most favourite cake I have ever made. I have been trawling through my River cafe books and there is so much amazing stuff so since I have all kinds of great ingredients on my door step I am going to go nuts and try loads this month. Serves 12 450g unsalted butter, softened 450g caster sugar 450g ground almonds 2 teaspoons good vanilla essence 6 free range eggs zest of 4 lemons juice of 1 lemon 225g polenta flour or fine semolina 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon of salt Preheat the oven to ...

I ♥ Biarritz

I recently returned from a girls surf trip to Biarritz. I say surf trip but it was more of a food, wine, shopping, lying horizontally on beaches and perving on lots of incredible male surfers torsos trip. We were six girls, and I think we scared the locals from our noisy behaviour talking loudly about all kinds of inappropriate subjects and drinking too much of the local Basque liquor Manzana, which they seem to just hand out and act surprised when one of you is spider pigging on the ceiling. Biarritz is located in the Basque region next to Spain so the food has a massive Spanish influence with loads of tapas bars and Spanish meats, plenty of seafood and salt cod around the place as well as the famous spice piment d'espelette and the delicious Gâteau Basque. We shopped in the market which is open everyday till 1pm to get all our food and cooked up a storm most evenings when we stayed in, however there are loads of really good restaurants and bars which we of course had to sample to...

Poached Pear Crumble

Lots of pears and apples around it being winter and all, so I got all english at the weekend and made crumble with poached pears. By poaching the fruit the crumble tastes pretty different and less sugary in my opinion, you could poach apples too I guess and I like to mix half poached with half not so you get a different texture and taste. Poaching liquid 100ml of caster sugar to 200ml of water...use depending on how many pears you poach and should cover all the pears in a big pan cinnamon stick 2 Star Anise 1 bit of peeled lemon rind 1 Pear per person (best to use harder pears not very ripe ones) Heat the poaching liquid and spices, lemon rind until the sugar has dissolved. Peel half the pears whole and place in the poaching liquid and cover with a round piece of parchment paper. Bring liquid to a low simmer and they should cook for about 20-30 mins depending on how ripe the pears were at the start. You should be able to stick a knife through. Take them off the heat and let them cool i...

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