Haloumi Salad with Dolmades and Pork Koftas: Getting a Lot off My Plate.

On the 18th November 2011 I wrote a blog.  There is nothing unusual in that, I am after all the owner and writer of five blogs.  Back then however I was a fledgling food blogger and Friday Night Take-Away was my first attempt at writing a blog post.  I had been a keen home cook for years and had been sharing my evening meals on social media with positive feedback.  People seemed interested in what I was cooking so writing about it felt like the right thing to do.

I'll be honest, that post isn't great.  The food was*, but the writing and the photograph leave a lot to be desired.  But I was on a learning curve.  I was primarily using Tonight's Menu as a tool to improve my written English skills and, over time, I think I have succeeded in that.

My original plan was to keep Tonight's Menu as a daily diary of our evening meals.  Not a recipe resource full of weights and measures, no step by step guide to cooking.  I wanted to write the story behind the food, the reason behind the meals we chose to cook.  Within a couple of weeks I found myself in a pub for my evening meal and I decided there and then that TM wasn't going to be a review blog either.  I love food and I'm quite opinionated, but who am I to judge what/how others are cooking.  I also applied this rationale to occasions when I was eating in my friends' and family's houses too, writing about the visit and the meal without feeling the need to rate anything out of 10.

This went well until I was approached to do a review for an American Diner in Leeds.  I was about to turn down the opportunity when the call of the freebie got the better of me.  That post, written in April 2012, is still the most read thing I have ever written and sadly I don't think it will ever be surpassed.  I have since accepted and written a scant hand-full of other freebie reviews, but they are not what I've been happiest writing.

I've been at my happiest when I've been thinking up and running random food challenges.  The Olympic Food Challenge, World Cup Food Challenge, and Everything But the Oink have allowed me to stretch my culinary muscle, try even more new ingredients and, to a lesser extent, boss about a glut** of food bloggers; a group of people I'm happy to call friends.

"But why are you telling us this?" I hear you cry.  Well I've decided to call it a day, give it a rest.  It's time for this old warhorse to be put out to pasture.  Time pressures and other activities mean that I just don't have the time for writing, even though it is still something that I really enjoy.  But I'm not going to drop Tonight's Menu like a hot potato.  I want to leave it as something that I'll feel proud of.

I've said for a long time that I don't have a bucket list of food that I want to eat before I die.  I do however have unfinished business with some of my food challenges and there are some dishes that I'm desperate to share with you.  So from now on every post will be one step closer to the end of Tonight's Menu.  There are going to be more endings than in Return of The King.  And at the end of it all there will be room for a little more...

For the record, Tonight's Menu was a Mediterranean meze including grilled haloumi salad, pork koftas, and dolmades.  Very nice it was too.

*I think, it's been a while.
**or whatever the collective noun for food bloggers is.

World Cup Food Challenge: Switzerland - Beer Fondue

Switzerland.  Home of the Swiss Army Knife, Red Bull, Toblerone, tax havens, and armed neutrality.  Birthplace of the Red Cross and the cuckoo clock.  It is also the home of FIFA, so it's not really surprising that they qualified for Brazil 2014.

Switzerland are the last of my four countries for the World Cup Food Challenge, but Tonight's Menu is one that I have been greedily looking forward to.  Anybody who knows me will be able to confirm that I am a lover of Cheese.  Given the choice I will go for a cheese board over any dessert on a restaurant menu.  I'm a paid up member of Homage 2 Fromage, Leeds' wonderful cheese club.  For my birthday this year Z bought me a cheese making kit.  It should be of no surprise that I chose fondue to represent Switzerland.

The decision wasn't automatic though.  Fondue was on the back burner whilst I was looking for other dishes to cook, when I found the recipe for "The Best Swiss Cheese and Beer Fondue".  Cheese and beer? Now you're talking.  I've only had fondue a couple of times in the past and the most memorable time was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  Too much booze overpowered the cheese.  The idea of a beery version was too good to miss out on.

The recipe is specific in relation to the cheese that's required, but when it came to the beer, it just says beer.  Dark beer, light beer, hoppy beer, I really didn't know what they had in mind.  I contacted Beer Ritz via Twitter to see if they stocked any Swiss beer, but the answer was no.  I was at a loss and started googling Swiss beer styles to see if I could get an idea of the type of beer that I should use.  I had settled on using a Helles style light lager when I was contacted by John from 1936 Biere.

John had seen my conversation with Beer Ritz and, being the seller of a beer brewed in Switzerland, was quick to get in touch and tell me of his wares.  He pointed me in the direction of Lazy Lounge who stock 1936, both bottled and on draft.  I hot footed it to the pub, bought the last six bottles of Swiss beer in the region*, and stashed it in the cellar until it was needed.

Yesterday I sourced the cheese for my fondue.  A trip to George and Joseph in Chapel Allerton is always a pleasure.  Stephen (cheesemonger extraordinaire) had reserved me a block of Reserve Gruyere de Jura and suggested Ogleshield Raclette as a suitable replacement for Emmental.  The two grated blocks of cheese were slowly melted into the beer, nothing could have been easier.

The only thing left was to decide what to dunk into the cheesy goodness.  We went for the obligatory bread, radishes, carrot batons, gherkins, and pickled onions, all washed down with the rest of the 1936.  The only rules were no double dipping and no sabotaging anybody else's dunk by knocking their bread off their fork and into the fondue.

Switzerland are not yet out of the world cup. A win against Honduras could well be enough to see them through to the knockout stages.  I'm not sure I'll be able to top fondue as a Swiss meal but I'll have to give it a go.  I will be going out to buy a fondue set though.  The orange beauty in the photo belongs to Nick, from Homage 2 Fromage, who was wonderful enough to let me borrow it for tonight.

*I also had a cheeky half pint of it while I was there.  Well it would have been rude not to.

Macaroni Cheese

It's funny how these things happen.  There was I, extolling the virtues of Rick Stein's India, when an on-line conversation moved rapidly from curry to Macaroni Cheese via pork chops and pesto.  There and then I knew that it wouldn't be long until it found its way into our plans.  That was last week and it happened in a corner of the internet that isn't full of my usual cohort of foodies.

Imagine my surprise then, when one of my food friends started talking about having macaroni and cheese.  In a third and unrelated conversation about meal planning, an other friend decided to change their plans for stuffed rolled pork loin in favour of "mac and chee", such is the power of suggestion.  

We had planned to have our macaroni and cheese on Thursday as a family meal after a day out together.  Our plans were changed however by a belly busting lunch in town.  By the time R's tea time came around we were still full and not in the slightest bit interested in eating more food.

Any other meal may well have fallen off the meal planner for a week or two, but macaroni cheese has a strange power.  Once you have decided that you are going to cook it, it has to be cooked, as my on-line discussions seemed to prove.  Our planned meal for this evening was steak with boulangere potatoes.  We'll now be having that some time next week.

As with so many family favourites, macaroni and cheese is a very personal dish.  Some people will use any old pasta shape.  Some will have a particular cheese that must be in the sauce.  We stick to macaroni but use whatever cheese we have in the house.  Today our sauce had mature cheddar, wenslydale and jarlesberg.  Along with cheese and pasta, our macaroni cheese is always topped with sliced tomatoes, breadcrumbs and extra cheese.  Sadly there were no leftovers, but we do still have steak to look forward to, so all is not lost.

Cheese Club - Cheese with added stuff.

I love cheese. You knew that already* but I really needed to set the scene before telling a tale of cheese I don't like.  Every Christmas, without fail, shops are filled with "seasonal cheeses" with stuff added to them.  I can't stand them.  I'm talking about Wensleydale with Cranberries, White Stilton with Apricots, Cheddar with Pickled Onions.

Last year, to keep a crowd happy I bought some cheese that had "Christmas Chutney" mixed through it.  I'm told that it was nice but I couldn't bring myself to eat any of it.  I do like fruit, chutneys and pickles with cheese, but I prefer to add my condiment to the cheese as and when I see fit.  It was with this in mind that I bought my ticket to this month's Homage 2 Fromage: Cheese with added stuff.

Why would I buy tickets to an evening of cheese that I don't like?  Well, I had faith Vickie and Nick, the driving force behind Homage 2 Fromage, that they would not be serving up plates of second rate cheese stuffed with dried fruit.  My faith was well placed with ten great cheeses for us to try.

As with every Homage 2 Fromage there were highlights and the inevitable cheese that wasn't to everyone's taste.  Tonight however the room was split.  There was no definite king of cheese and nothing was universally despised.  We had: Black Crowdie, Swaledale with Old Peculiar, Gaperon D'Auvergne, Double Gloucester with Chives, Snowdonia Red Devil, Gouda with Cumin, Bowland, Mahon, Royal Red and Katys White Lavender.

My personal favourite was Gouda with Cumin although I will swear until I go to the grave that it was flavoured with caraway not cumin.  The sweet spice seeds were mixed through the Gouda so that every bite had a wonderful warm nuttiness.  At the other end of the scale was the Bowland.  This was as close to the afore mentioned Christmas cheese as I would ever like to get.  A Lancashire cheese stuffed with apple and raisins and coated in cinnamon.  I knew on sight that I wasn't going to enjoy it.  It was far too sweet and nowhere near cheesy enough for my liking.

The evening was rounded off with a talk from Richard Paul, Chairman of Nantwich International Cheese Awards and Cheese Sourcing Director at Bradburys.  He travels the world finding, eating and buying cheese and I think that I want to be him when I grow up.  As well as being an interesting and enthusiastic guest, he also rounded the night off by knocking the room sideways by introducing us to what I think is the world's maddest cheese. 

Rossini is an Italian blue cheese, rind washed with grape must, and it is a thing of wonder.  The flavour and texture somehow manages to change with every mouthful.  None of the creamy sharpness of a good blue is lost but it is accompanied by an explosion of alternating flavours.  The sharpness of the wine and the sweetness of the grapes are both present and there is a pleasing sherbety after-taste.  I don't think my tongue has ever been given such a thorough work out.

There was a lot of talk about cheese snobbery tonight.  I probably** fall into the snob bracket, as I prefer to add chutney/onions/pickle to the cheese that I have chosen rather than have it added for me.  We are all different and we all have very different tastes.  If we didn't there would be no place for Homage 2 Fromage.  Without Homage 2 Fromage I would never have tried Rossini and that is a world that I wouldn't want to live in.  Bring on the blue cheese in December!

*unless this is the first time you have found my blog in which case, hello, I love cheese.
**definitely

Yorkshire Cheese

The second Thursday of the month is traditionally* the night for Homage 2 Fromage, Leeds' own cheese club, a gathering of fans of fromage, tasting and celebrating different varieties of cheese.  Sadly this month saw the night moved due to a pre-existing booking at the venue.  Cheese club happened last week and I was not able to attend.  The theme of the night was white rind cheese (brie, camembert etc.) which I love but you can't always get what you want.

Today, to make up for last week's omission, I visited George & Joseph at The Source on Leeds Market and stocked up on superb cheese for tonight's meal.  We already had a decent brie in the house but we topped up with a piece of Shepherds Purse Harrogate Blue, some Lacey's mature cheddar and some of Ribblesdale's mature unpasteurised goats cheese.

I'll skip the brie as it was a supermarket staple.  The three cheeses that I bought from George and Joseph were superb.  The mature cheddar was nutty and crumbly without trying to strip the enamel from my teeth, a trait of too many overly strong cheeses.  The Harrogate blue was nice and creamy.  I'm a big fan of blue cheeses and this is one not to be missed.  The star of the night for me was the unpasteurised goat cheese from Ribblesdale.

Unlike most goat cheeses this one was hard, not quite at parmesan levels but getting there.  The flavour was not too goaty and it had a good salty tang to its mature sharpness.  I can see myself going back to this one and just cutting off slices to eat by the light of the fridge.  I'll have to wait another month before I can go to cheese club but it's good to know that I can still get great cheese to satisfy any cravings I have.

*for the last year at least.

Olympic Food Challenge: Great Britain

Way back in April, when the initial draw for the Olympic Food Challenge took place, a kindly soul* suggested that since I had drawn Great Britain I should cook a four course meal.  The idea being that each course should represent one of the home nations.  Of course I laughed off the idea as sounding like far too much work.

Tonight I have cooked a four course meal, one course for each of the home nations that make up The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland**. 

Starter: Wales - Glamorgan Sausage

I suppose the obvious choice for a light Welsh starter would have been rarebit but I have always had a soft spot for Glamorgan sausages.  For a long time they loitered as a poor vegetarian option on pub menus but I think they are due a come back.  Caerphilly cheese, leek, breadcrumbs, parsley and thyme are mixed together with some beaten egg and formed into sausages.  These are then coated in breadcrumbs and shallow fried.  A very simple and very tasty starter.

Fish Course: Scotland - Smoked Salmon and Oatcakes

Anyone who knows me may well be surprised that I have not picked haggis as the Scottish part of the British meal.  Well, haggis season starts today***, but even if I had managed to shoot a wee beastie this morning, it would still need to be hung for a couple of days before we could eat it.

The other thing synonymous with Scottish cuisine is smoked fish.  From Arbroth Smokies to Cullen Skink, smoked fish gets everywhere.  As we're eating four courses I decided to keep the fish course light and opted for smoked salmon with oatcakes.

Main Course: Ireland - Bacon Chops with Braised Cabbage

I did a fair amount of research for Ireland****.  I wanted to do the kind of dish that turns up on family dinner tables not a cheffy reconstruction, so I was happy when I was told I had to make boiled bacon with cabbage and potatoes.

Those of you who have been following the Olympic Food Challenge may have felt a little queasy earlier this week when we cooked pigs trotters.  We were certainly unsure about how they would turn out.  In fact, we were so unsure that I had bought emergency bacon chops just in case we had to throw the meal in the bin.  Surprisingly we ate the trotters and the chops ended up in the freezer.

Tonight they have been briefly pan fried, not boiled, and finished in the oven.  The cabbage was then braised in the bacon pan to make sure they benefited from the bacony goodness that was left behind.  Served with boiled new potatoes, this is not the most glamorous meal I have cooked in the last two weeks, but it is one of the best.

Dessert: England - Trifle

This was the first dish on the menu.  I love trifle.  Not the hundreds and thousands topped jelly-fest, but the sherry soaked, fresh fruit filled and almond topped grown up version.  We would normally make a huge trifle but as we are going on Holiday tomorrow we decided to make these two dainty individual trifles.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.  Nineteen dishes, nineteen countries, nineteen days and one challenge.  The Olympic Food Challenge has opened my eyes to ingredients that I have never heard of before.  I have braised more food in two weeks than I have previously.  I have also met, and found a huge amount of admiration for, a group of food bloggers who have helped me cross the finishing line. Thanks for joining me over the last nineteen days.  Thank you for cooking, for blogging and for reading.  And thank you for your support.

*Yes Dan, you!
**I really am a sucker for a challenge!
***The Glorious 12th is not just for grouse.
****I asked J, the 29 year old receptionist at work, who happens to be of Irish decent.

Olympic Food Challenge: India - Paneer and Okra

I am not going to pretend.  I'm not to pull any punches.  When I drew India for the Olympic Food Challenge I was over the moon.  An other person may have taken this to be a day off, a banker, a chance to relax and just knock up the same old curry that they make week in week out.  I'm not that person.  I saw the chance to push myself and potentially pull off some kitchen wheelies at the same time.

Rather than one Indian dish, I decided to make a few and invite some friends over for a meal*.  First on the list was paneer.  Z and I both love paneer and we're lucky enough to be able to buy it locally, but where is the challenge in that.  I wanted to make my own.  Having looked it up, paneer is supposed to be the easiest cheese in the world to make.  All it takes is milk and acid (lemon juice or yogurt).  The acid is added to boiling milk which separates the curds from the whey and the cheese is rinsed under running water.  All that is left is to press the cheese so that you can cut it and cook with it later.

It was a huge success.  The cheese held its shape and was firm enough to cut into cubes before making Spiced Paneer, a recipe by Atul Kochar, one of my favourite chefs.  I had been looking for a simple recipe that wouldn't mask the freshness of my paneer and this combination of spices worked really well.

The second dish is another personal challenge, okra.  Having eaten okra a couple of times I am certain that I don't like it.  This is possibly due to the "ladies fingers" being poorly cooked, but slimy is never high on my list of properties food should have.  I was sure that cooked properly okra would be at least palatable and possibly really nice.  I found this recipe and bit the bullet. I had made the massala earlier in the day so that when it came to cooking all I had to do was fry the okra and add the spices.

The final part of the main meal, apart from a huge mound of pilau rice, was home made lemon pickle.  I had been talking about the Olympic Food Challenge at work** and a colleague told me about the amazing pickles and chutneys that his mum makes.  He rushed home to try to get her secret recipe for me but the translation of measures and ingredients from Hindi into English proved problematic.  Last Monday I was presented with a zip lock bag full of her pickle mix.  I could identify 99% of the spice mix but there was one seed that I couldn't put my finger on.  Ten lemons have been pickling on the kitchen windowsill for a week and tonight it provided a sharp point to a sweet and light meal.

Normally the meal would have ended there but Twitter intervened.  Back in April when I announced the Olympic Food Challenge, Mike from Indie Ices offered me some of his home made kulfi to celebrate India.  Of course I said yes and the months passed.  Yesterday, good to his word Mike delivered two pots of Mango and two pots of Almond & Pistachio kulfi.  I love kulfi but had never had any of Mike's award winning desserts.  They really are good, I had the mango but Z was in raptures about the almond.

Back to the challenges.  First, okra, my least favourite vegetable in the world.  It is definitely back on the menu.  It looks like the secret is cooking it fast and not letting it stew.  Second, paneer.  Wow, what can I say.  Paneer used to be a bit of a treat as it's quite an expensive ingredient but it is so easy and cheap to make at home I doubt I will ever buy it in a shop again.  Please try to make your own paneer, you wont regret it!

*if you're going to show off you may as well have an audience.
** I think about very little else at the moment.

Cauliflower Cheese

Tonight is the last night of our food freedom before being locked into the Olympic Food Challenge.  For the last time for twenty days we can eat whatever we want, without having to find a suitable recipe from Azerbaijan.  Only it's not that simple, things rarely are.  Because our diet is going places it has never been before, we need to eat up fresh items that won't be used while the big sport event in London is on.

Last night's spaghetti bolognese used up quite a few random vegetables that were about to become surplus to requirements.  However, there is no room in bolognese sauce for cauliflower.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, Z is the queen of white sauces in this house.  She made her cheese sauce using leftover garlic butter for the roux.  Once a pint of milk had been slowly stirred into the roux she added the remains of the cheese that I brought home from Cheese Club.  The sauce was then poured over the parboiled cauliflower, topped with breadcrumbs and mature cheddar, then baked in the oven.  With so much dairy it's hardly the healthiest vegetarian meal but it will leave me with fond memories of cauliflower until I can eat it again after the Olympics.

French Cheese, Homage 2 Fromage

It's that time of the month again.  Time for the cheese lovers of Leeds to get together, in a warm room above a pub, and sample some of the best cheese known to man.  The theme to this evening's cheese club was French Cheese and there isn't a lot the French don't know about fromage.  Some would argue* that French cheese is the finest in the world and tonight we had nine of their finest to sample.

As with us here in Blighty, there is a French cheese for every pallet.  From the soft and flavoursome Brie de Meaux (the king of French cheese) to the powerful Langres, a rind washed cheese to give Stinking Bishop a run for it's money, and everything in between.  I had been cheeky in the run-up to to this month's event and suggested that Morbier should be one of the cheeses on offer.  I presumed that not many people would have tried it never mind heard of it.  A soft mountain cheese with a layer of soot running through the middle isn't the kind of thing you find on the average supermarket shelf.

I was more than ammused when, after tasting all of the cheeses, Nick**, in his usual run through of what we had eaten, announced the secret behind Morbier's dark centre.  The audible gasp made me chuckle.

The evening was rounded off with a cheese quiz.  I love a quiz and I love cheese but clearly not to the extent of some of the homagers.  There were some gripes about the questions (I don't think ewe's milk is unusual for a cheese) but there was nothing to sour the evening.

*mainly the French.
**Nick and Vicky are the masterminds behind Homage 2 Fromage and need and deserve all the praise in the world.  What they have achieved in 10 months is staggering.

Onion, Cheese and Chard Tart

I'm sure that I'm not the first person to point this out, but the onion really is underrated.  Nearly every dish we cook, curries, pasta sauces, stews, you name it, the onion has a starring role but it never gets any of the credit.  Tonight Z has settled the score with an onion, cheese and chard tart.  The reason Z is cooking an onion tart is a surfeit of onions. 

At fifty pence for a couple of pounds of them I was hardly going to say no.  The chard was the last of our crop from the front garden.  We have grown nowhere near enough chard this year but as the old saying goes, your garden is never as good as it will be next year.

To make the filling for the tart, Z slowly sweated three onions in olive oil and butter until they were soft before adding the chopped chard stems.  These take a little longer to cook than the leaves which cook in next to no time so they were just stirred through the onion and stalk mixture as it cooled.  Other than salt and pepper the only addition to the naturally sweet mixture was lemon thyme.

Once cool, the onions and chard were spread over a sheet of rolled out puff pastry* and then covered with cheese.  We happened to have in a few ends of cheeses so four different types were used on our tart, but as long as you have a decent melting cheese any will do.  By the time the tart had baked and the sides had risen, a miracle had occurred, the sky had cleared and the sun was out. A perfect summer's evening for a perfect summer meal.

*shop bought. I know that this will outrage some people but there are some things that are worthy of shortcuts and puff pastry is one of them

Leek and Ricotta Cannelloni

This is my final week* of working the late shift at work.  The working pattern hasn't actually been too bad but getting home late, eating and then trying to find a bit of time to unwind before going to bed has proven to be difficult.  My nights have been getting later and R has still been getting up at 6am, so I'm lacking a fair amount of beauty sleep.  I have been spending my mornings catching up on housework, that would normally be done in the evenings, and trying to sort out the finances for Beeston Festival.  Today however, I found myself with some spare time.

Along with not getting to spending much quality time with R, the other thing I have really missed while working late, is cooking.  Not only do I love cooking for people, I also find the process to be really relaxing and the perfect way to wind down, so with some time on my hands I rolled up my sleeves and used as many pans and utensils as was possible.

Making cannelloni is a time consuming yet rewarding exercise.  I am sure that there are short cuts but
I didn't take any today.  I started by making the filling and the tomato sauce.  The tomato sauce is not much more than a seasoned tin of tomatoes with softened onions, garlic and dried basil.  After simmering for five to ten minutes I took a hand blender to the sauce and removed the lumps.

The filling was equally simple.  I softened a shredded leek in olive oil with garlic and a couple of teaspoons of lemon thyme.  Once this was cooked I let it go completely cold before stirring through a tub of riccotta.  I then spooned the mixture into eight cannelloni tubes covered them in the tomato sauce, some mozzarella and parmeasan.  At that stage I stopped and went to work with the dish ready for Z to put in the oven when she got in from work.

When it finally came out of the oven it looked a treat.  I'm glad to say that it tasted as good as it looked.  The only thing I would change next time was adding a bit more salt in the filling, as when cooked the ricotta masked the other flavours.  I had also considered adding pine nuts to the filling mixture, this would have turned tonight's meal from a really good meal into a great one.

*for now.

Best of British Cheese

Of all of the things that I have found out about since joining the twitter revolution in Leeds, cheese club is the one event that I look forward to the most.  A gathering of like minded cheese enthusiasts, blind tasting themed cheeses in one of the best pubs Leeds has to offer.  What's not to like?  Tonight's Homage2Fromage theme is Best of British, inspired by the Jubilee celebrations that have just passed.

Vickie and Nick, the grand fromages, asked cheese club members to nominate their favourite British cheeses.  On this basis the cheese list for tonight was formed.  At this point I am going to fess-up.  Due to work I couldn't attend cheese club this month.  Instead I was privileged to have been given an advance viewing of the cheese list so that I could join in the fun at home with Z.

Yesterday, armed with my cheese list I went on a cheese hunt.  I wasn't planning to get all of the cheeses, so I wasn't upset when I could only find three of them.  Millies provided all of my spoils, Yarg, Caerphilly and Montgomery Cheddar.  I already had some Garstang Blue in the house so that rounded off my cheese board, even though it wasn't on the original list.  I also bought a loaf of sourdough bread from Dock Street Market.  If you're sampling great cheese, you need great bread.

The Montgomery Cheddar was a nice cheese and a good representation of everything cheddar should be.  Too many cheddars fight to be the strongest or are so mild that you could be eating butter.  We discovered that neither of us had ever eaten Caerphilly.  In contrast to the smooth cheddar it was crumbly, sharp and salty.  There was also a vegetably undertone, but that was more in the aroma than the taste and balanced the strength of the cheese well.  Garstang Blue is an old Homage2Fromage favourite from the good people at Dewlay.  My personal favourite British cheese is Stilton. Garstang is a softer blue but still has the strength in its veins and went down well with Z.

The final cheese, Yarg, is a household favourite and was the cheese of the night.  We buy it nearly every time we're having a cheese board but I think familiarity had got the better of us.  We both thought we knew what we were about to eat, but this was something else.  I can only assume that it was a young Yarg because it was much creamier than we're used to and tasted much fresher.  It was by far the best Yarg we have had for years.

I missed going to cheese club tonight.  It's not just the fourteen varieties of cheese I could have tasted, or the fact that it's held in a great pub.  It's the people too.  Being in a room of 80 people all extolling the virtues of cheese is as mad as it is brilliant.  Luckily for me Z is just as into cheese as I am and is always fantastic company.  What I lost on not going out, I more than made up for with having a night in with Z.

Baked Potato with Ratatouille and Goats Cheese

While making last night's risotto, Z also managed to make a ratatouille from the vegetables that were knocking about in the fridge for tonight's meal.  We always have tomatoes, onions and peppers in the house.  They turn up in so many dishes, including salads for lunch, that they have a permanent place on the shopping list.  For some reason, we also had a pair of aubergines in the crisper.  I am not a fan of the aubergine.  I have only actually found one way of cooking it that I love.  But when it is mixed in with all of the other vegetables you hardly know it's there.

With the rat in the bag, all Z had to do before I got home was bake a couple of giant spuds that I bought on Kirkgate Market.  By the time I got home from work, everything was ready, including a couple of slices of goats cheese topping off the filled potatoes.  It turns out that it is national vegetarian week this week.  If I had known in advance I may well have changed the menu for our evening meals.  I think this would still have made the cut.

Szechuan Beef

I'm back working on the late shift but that is no excuse to stop posting our evening meals.  Z has wonderfully stepped up to the hot-plate and is taking the toddler-wrangling and husband cooking duties in her stride.  I'm not neglecting my duties.  Between us we've planned the evening meals for the week so that, where possible I will have prepared part of the meal before I set off for work.

Tonight that meant defrosting some steak from Swillington Farm and making sure the kitchen was clean for Z to work her magic unimpeded.  A stir fry is such a quick meal to cook that making sure that you have everything prepped in advance is vital.

By the time I got home Z had marinated the beef in crushed szechuan and black pepper corns, with a little oil and some rice wine vinegar.  She had also sliced an onion and some pak choi and was ready to fry.  Within minutes we sat down to eat and finally spend some time together.

Italian Cheese

It's that time of the month again.  The second Thursday and that can only mean one thing. Cheese Club!  Hundreds of people coming together to share in an evening of tasting cheese and learning a little in the process.  OK, so I perhaps exaggerated the total number of people, but since it launched 8 months ago, Homage 2 Fromage has gone from strength to strength and had to change venue three times to accommodate the hoards of Leeds denizens wanting to try new cheeses.

Tonight, at The Adelphi, we were treated to an evening of Italian cheese.  We had seven cheeses to chew over and for once I struggled to find a favourite.  They were all good cheeses, nice in there own way.  But not one of them blew my socks off.  Controversially, I'm not a fan of Gorgonzola.  I like blue cheese generally and always have room on my plate for some strong veiny cheese, but I just don't think it's as good as its own press.

Smoked Mozzarella di Buffala, seemed to divide opinion around the room.  I thought it worked quite well but the smoking process toughened the skin so that it was chewy on the outside and squidgy in the middle.  Provolone, Fontina and Asiago were all, again, nice but I won't be going on a mad cheese hunt to track them down.  I did rediscover my love of Parmigiano Reggiano*.  It's always in the house and added to so many dishes I lose count.  But eating it on its own in hefty chunks really lets the flavour shine.

The real treat of the night came in the form of Mario, a Barnsley lad with no trace of an accent at all**.  Mario is an Italian with a passion for the food of his homeland.  His passion is such that he still makes fresh cheese at home, the way that he was taught to when he still lived in Italy.  During the tasting, Mario dutifully kept a watching eye on his large pan of ewes milk.  By the time we had all gathered around, he had separated the curds from the whey and his first cheese of the night was born.  Mario turned his attention back to the whey and cracked on with making ricotta (re-cooked). this was a faster, hotter process and brought about the freshest cheese I have ever eaten.  It was so fresh that it was almost too hot to handle but it was so light and creamy that it was almost a dessert.  The perfect way to end the evening.

*parmesan to its friends
**joke

Tagliatelle with Stilton and Broccoli Sauce

Last week was national Stilton week.  For some reason, even though I was well aware of this fact, I neglected to cook anything containing my favourite cheese*.  Z took it upon herself to rectify the situation with tonight's menu.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Z makes a mean cheese sauce.  More than half a block of Stilton went into a bechamel before cooked broccoli was added.  The whole lot was then tossed over pasta and devoured.  It's not the most authentic Italian dish in the world, but it was very tasty.

*correct at time of publishing, my favourite cheese can vary week to week.

Chana Saag Paneer

This was meant to be the meal that we cooked on Friday for our Friday Night Take-Away but as you will see from yesterday's post things got well and truly in the way.  I also have a new distraction, the Olympic Food Challenge.  I spent most of today creating a new blog for my one-off summer food adventure, so it fell to Z to make the evening meal.

We started with a couple of onion bhajis each before the main event.  Z fried onions and garlic with mustard seeds, cumin, coriander, chilli powder and cinnamon before adding the paneer.  Once the paneer had started to colour she added a tin of chick peas and a glass of water.  When the water had all but evaporated the pre cooked spinach went into the pan.

A couple of tablespoons of yoghurt were stirred through with a good handful of chopped coriander and the meal was ready to serve.  After waiting three days for this I had started to wonder if we were ever going to cook it.  I'm glad Z took the reins, it was delicious.

Challenging Cheese

Tonight was the return of Homage 2 Fromage, Leeds' own cheese club, a monthly get together of cheese-fiends looking to get a big dairy hit*.  Since it's inception last year we have tasted hard cheese, soft cheese, blue cheese, Irish cheese, Yorkshire cheese, melty cheese and beery cheese.  But tonight we faced our biggest challenge, rind washed cheese.

Walking up the stairs at The Adelphi (the home of cheese club) I had no idea what I was about to face.  The fog soon lifted as I entered the room.  If I had been carrying my cheese miners canary it would have fallen off its perch.  But trust me, this is not a bad thing.  What I already knew about rind washed cheese wasn't much but I did know that they didn't necessarily taste as bad as they smelt.

We were being treated to 8 cheeses which were about as varied as a single type of cheese can be.  The stars of the show were Epoisses, Talaggio and Reblechon.  The Epoisses was almost running off the plate it was that gooey.  The Talaggio was soft but didn't try to run away and the Reblechon fell somewhere in the middle.  As with a lot of soft cheeses these were all mild and creamy and nowhere near punchy as they smelt.  There were hard cheeses on offer too.  Admiral Collingwood, washed in Newcastle Brown Ale, and Ardrahan, an Irish cows milk cheese that would have been at home at last months cheese club, both had a toothsome bite to them.

But it wasn't all cheesy deliciousness.  I fought and bettered Oxford Isis.  The initial assault on the senses was like your nose being attacked by a kimchee wielding kipper.  That said however, if you could get past the smell it had a pleasant sweet, salty flavour but it didn't taste good enough for seconds.  Neither did Celtic Promise.  To me this sounded more like a 100-1 shot at Aintree than a cracking cheese.  I'm not going to say that it had equine overtones, that would be cruel, but neither the flavour, taste or texture could win me around.

That left one cheese.  Stinking Bishop.  It is probably the most famous rind washed cheese in Britain.  Catapulted to fame by Wallace and Gromit, after its starring role in The Curse of the Ware Rabbit.  I had hoped that it would be on offer tonight as I had never tried it and to my joy, there it was.  We taste the cheeses blind, that's to say we don't know what we are eating until we have tasted all of them.  I was crest fallen to discover that my least favourite cheese of the night, nay decade, was Stinking Bishop.  Writing this after the event, I cannot put into words how much I disliked eating this cheese.  It was like it was going off in my mouth as I ate it.

A couple of valuable lessons were learnt at Homage 2 Fromage tonight; never judge a book by its cover, or a cheese by its smell and never meet your heroes, you will only be disappointed.

*that's probably just me, everybody else seems quite normal.

Beetroot and Goat's Cheese Salad

We had a lovely day today wandering around Local4Lent, a food and craft event that took place in Leeds Corn Exchange.  We always go to these events looking for inspiration for our evening meal and today was no exception.  The deciding factor for Tonight's Menu however, was not found on the food stalls, but was decided upon after stopping for lunch and possibly over-eating, a bit.

We went to The White Swan, next to The City Varieties for lunch, as we knew it was baby friendly.  Rather than choosing sandwiches or something from their light bites menu we ended up with burgers*, which might not have been the best idea as we were stuffed by the time we had finished.

We decided that a salad and some nice bread was the only thing that we all wanted after the large lunch, and as we were in the Corn Exchange anyway,  I popped to Anthony's Fromagerie and Bakery for bread and cheese.  I have an admission to make at this point, I can't for the life of me remember the name for the cheese that I bought.  I know it was a British goat's cheese and I know I'd recognise it if I found it again but that's about all I can tell you.

To go with the cheese, I roasted some beetroot, crushed some walnuts and made a dressing using pumpkin oil.  The salad leaves included some rocket from our front garden which has bounced back from last year in all of this unseasonally nice weather.

For desert, Z and her Mum had brownies from #brownies which they bought at Local4Lent.  Washed down with chocolate wine.  I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I didn't partake, but I'm told they were great.

*I had the falafel burger which was brilliant!

Irish Cheese at Homage 2 Fromage

This morning, over a huge mug of black coffee, Z gave me a present.  This was completely out of the blue.  It's not my birthday for an other month, our wedding anniversary is also in April, and there are no Hallmark holidays knocking around at the moment.

Z, bless her, had bought me membership for Homage 2 Fromage, Leeds' very own cheese club.  I've been going to the monthly cheese tasting nights for a couple of months but I was in two minds about becoming a fully paid up member.  Even though the perks of memberships are good (discounts at some of the finest cheese emporiums in Leeds and cheap entry to the cheese nights themselves) I wasn't sure I wanted to make the commitment.  Fortunately Z knows me better than I know myself.

I happily walked into town with my new membership card in-tow, not really knowing what to expect from Irish cheese.  I was in for an eye watering treat.  My limited experience of Irish cheese in the past was some rather disappointing cheddar.  Tonight none of the past rubberiness was on display.  Vickie and Nick (the grand fromages) managed to source four fantastic cheeses including; Cashel Blue, Gubbeen - a soft and mild cows milk cheese washed in wine, and Boilie - small balls of goats cheese which are stored in oil with garlic and herbs. 

The fourth cheese falls into the "cheese-gimmick" category.  It was a Porter cheese made with Irish stout.  I'm not keen on cheese with *insert non cheese item here* at the best of times.  Often it's fruit and I tend to avoid it as I'm always disappointed.  But I was here to taste cheese so I gave it a go.  The cheese itself was inoffensive, a mild cheddar stained brown with the stout.  My biggest problem with this type of cheese is that the balance is never right.  The stout needed to be much more prominent and in your face, this in turn would require a more robust cheese, but then I am no cheese maker.

Fortunately, Richard Bissett from Cooleeney IS a cheese maker.  He brought three cheeses with him for us to try tonight.  Durrus and Gortnamona were both great cheeses, Durrus was probably my favourite cheese of the night.  But the one that everybody was talking about come the end of the night was Cooleeney Farm House cheese.  I'm not sure what it was that made it so magical.  It was so soft it should have been melted but it was fresh from the pack.  The rind was reminiscent of camembert without being quite so pungent and the cheese itself so was beautifully creamy.  The fact that it almost ran off the biscuits added an extra bit of fun and jeopardy to the evening.