Guest Blog - Christmas Day at The Beauchief - Leigh Richmond

NOTE THAT HEAD CHEF CHARLIE HAS MOVED ON FROM THE BEAUCHIEF (WHO NOW SPORTS A COMPLETELY NEW MENU). I WILL BE TRYING CHARLIE'S NEW PLACE AS SOON AS I CAN AND A REVIEW WILL FOLLOW.

Oooo, it's a hard job this 'ere blogging lark! A meal might only take an hour or two to consume, but I can assure you it takes a damn sight longer to write the follow up blogpost. So, when Leigh Richmond asked if he could do a guest blog I thought all my Christmases had come at once!

This is Leigh's first venture into the wonderful world of blogging and he's kicked off with The Beauchief. Leigh prides himself on having eaten at around 3/4 of the eateries in Sheffield and on being the one that his friends will call for advice whenever they are eating out. Soooo let's see what he thought to one of my favourite restaurants....

Welcome to my first blog! After years of being the ‘go to guy’ when it comes to local restaurants and where is worth/not worth going, I volunteered to do a review of our visit to TheBeauchief (formally Christians). I had been before it had changed hands, and wasn’t overly impressed, but I then read Clare’s blog and she had commented on how fantastic it was, so thought it was worth a go. I know that it now forms part of the Richard Smith empire (and we have visited every other one of his eateries - my favourite being Inn at Troway).

My family and I aren’t very traditional when it comes to Christmas Day – we quite often go out to eat. We have had some great meals (Middlewood Hall in 1996 – one of the greatest meals I’ve EVER had!!) and some terrible meals (Cubley Hall in 2009 – it was a Carvery and they had signs on the wall advertising the same meal for £4.99 on weekdays, when we had paid £60 per head on Christmas Day!!).

We arrived at the Beauchief for midday and were welcomed in to sit at the bar for drinks (Peroni on tap and a couple of glasses of rose grenache). They also gave us the menu and took our orders 10 mins later. Since my last visit the whole place has been renovated inside and it is beautiful. We had originally booked in for 8 people and were offered a separate room, where there were no steps (my Dad is in a wheelchair, so it is difficult for us to use lots of stairs). We had 3 people drop out a few weeks before, but elected to stay in the room despite the doubts of whether or not we would feel lost in there with less people. The room was set out really well, and it would be great for business meetings etc. Our doubts of feeling lost in there soon vanished!

We were given warm bread rolls with two types of butter (normal and Hendersons relish flavour) along with some olive oil and Balsamic Vinegar. The Hendersons butter added something different and had a bit of a twist.

For starter, I ordered the Lobster Ravioli with vanilla cream. I was interested to see if they could manage to make the two tastes work together, as the lobster can sometimes get lost if it is served with an overpowering sauce. The pasta was cooked perfect for me (al dente), and the vanilla cream had a soft flavour to it which really enhanced the lobster. You can tell that the Chef has a good pallet and knows how to balance flavours. I ate it far too quickly!!

Next up was the one I was looking forward to the most - Pan fried scallop with apple jelly, fennel and bacon ice cream. The thought of it made my mouth water!! I love fish, but only when it is cooked properly. A mistake that many chefs make is cooking the fish for too long, but fortunately for me the scallop was bang on. The dish was very well presented, with the scallop sitting on the slice of apple jelly, lightly draped with fennel. The bacon ice cream had a deep flavour with a smoky after-taste  The only criticism I had was that the apple jelly was bland for me - it could have tasted a bit sharper, to add a different element to the dish.

As I mentioned earlier, I am not traditional when it comes to Christmas, and I love fish – so I went for the crab crusted lemon sole, vanilla based chicory and coriander cream sauce.  The sole was absolutely beautiful – it melted in my mouth and the hint of coriander in the sauce blended really well with it. The crab crust on the fish gave it a bit of bite as well. I didn’t eat all of the chicory as it is too bitter for me and I couldn’t taste the vanilla in it. The vegetables that were served were a mix of Mediterranean and traditional winter, which were lovely! Overall, I really enjoyed it, and I finished my Dad’s off as well!!

Before I met my wife, I was never a ‘chocolate person’. I couldn’t even eat a full Mars bar. But her influence on my life has led me to develop a bit sweet tooth and I elected for the chocolate Brownie tower with peanut espuma. If you don’t know what an ‘espuma’ is, it is a type of foam (yes, I had to Google it as well)! It was basically a chocolate brownie encased in a chocolate tube filled with caramel, peanut foam and a surprise piece of peanut brittle or two. It was a demonstration of a chef who has great technique and loves chocolate! My Mum is a desert fan, and said that it was one of the best deserts she has EVER eaten. I couldn’t finish it all, as it was too sweet for me, but for the chocolate fan, it was a must!

At this point, my trousers were getting tight and I was on a huge sugar rush from the dessert… and then came the cheese!! I’m not a cheese expert, but I think there was brie, Stilton and something that tasted a bit like tickler. A fairly standard cheese board with a few crackers and chutney. I only managed a few crackers and a bit of brie, as I was incredibly full. To be honest I don’t think we needed a final cheese course, but this was Christmas Day!! A lovely filter coffee came to finish it all off.

Overall, the meal was brilliant and well worth the £70 each that we paid. The service was really good; we could easily have been forgotten about as we were hidden away in the separate room.  We were there for a total of 3 hours, and at no point did we feel rushed (as I knew that there were two services). We were also given a £10 voucher for weekday use, and a deal for dinner, bed and breakfast for two for £99. We are definitely going to use both offers and I would be very interested to visit there for a la carte. A big thumbs up from me and the family – a perfect place to visit if you want to be bold and go out for Christmas dinner!!

Follow Leigh at @leighrichmond for more food chat.

Meals in Minutes; Ainsley Harriott

You might recall that I'm on a bit of a mission to rediscover my cook books at the moment... last week it was Stew!, this week it was Meals in Minutes by Ainsley Harriott.

A book from the star of 'Ready, Steady, Cook' might not seem like the obvious choice of cook books for me, especially as I'm blogging it too, but this was one of the first cook books Gav and I bought together and, well, it served us quite well back in the day (that day, rather scarily, being around ten years ago).

The recipes are all simple and speedy; perfect for cooking newbies. There's a section on time-saving ideas where Ainsley suggests readers make double a recipe and freeze half, and to keep kitchens tidy. Sections on basic larder contents and kitchen equipment are full with equally obvious tips; but for someone getting to grips with owning his/her own kitchen for the first time, there a pretty sensible starting point.

Recipes (most of which serve 2, think young couples) are split into light bites of soups, snacks and salads, then vegetarian, fish, poultry and meat mains, all rounded off with desserts. As I say, we've had this book a while and I couldn't resist revisiting the meatballs (or marvellous chilli-cheese meatballs according to Ainsley, or Gav's chilli-cheese meatballs according to us, as he would always cook them). Not only are they Gav's 'speciality' (so it didn't take me long to persuade him to cook), they're quick, easy and pretty cheap to make.

Essentially the meatballs are made up of pork mince, garlic, a few herbs, Parmesan and chilli and are served up with a simple tomato sauce. Cleverly Ainsley uses spring onions in his recipe, rather than raw onions (they're just not good) or time consuming pre-cooked onions. I do think that this is a good recipe to encourage people to play with flavours; start putting pork, chilli and Parmesan together and people might move onto beef and Stilton or lamb and apricot.

Anyway, this time we didn't play around and the dish was pretty good; the meatballs are flavoursome without  packing too much chilli heat and the sauce is pretty rich considering it's cooked so quickly. Served with pasta and extra cheese this is a pretty good tea time meal.

For our next meal, I wanted to try a new dish and on having a few really bad Thai meals recently I decided to give wan kai Thai-style red curry a go. Ainsley says in his introduction to the recipe that 'Thai-style curries are very 'in at the moment' and my God, weren't they just?! I remember feeling rather brave making a hot and spicy Thai curry back then; something that I wouldn't even batter an eyelid at doing now.

This particular curry had white fish in it (amusingly a quick Google search suggests that wan kai is more green curry with chicken that red curry with fish, but hey, what's in a name eh?!) and I decided to keep it light by just serving it with some steamed pak choi. As I like a saucy Thai curry I doubled the sauce for the amount of fish which was a bit of an error as the dish ended up like soup rather than a curry. Having said that, it was good and I would actually do it as a soup again, but I would either make sure I had a decent curry paste, or make my own. Of course Ainsley doesn't make his own and I guess that this is for speed and also to keep the recipes approachable. In fact some of the ingredients are a bit strange in this one; lemon instead of lime, soy instead of fish sauce, but I'm guessing that's just a sign of a time when limes were considered to be posh and fish sauce was only available in big city Chinese supermarkets.

Last, but not least, was smoked haddock and poached egg (or fab haddie and gooey egg in typical Ainsley style). Again, the dish was simple with the poached egg being the trickiest bit of the dish (a truly 'gooey' poached egg is a thing to treasure). I did find that I needed to cook the fish for longer than Ainsley suggested and this did cause issues with the timing for the poached egg, but, served with some spinach it worked out quite nicely as a light, but rich, mid week meal.

So would I recommend Meals in Minutes? I'm not sure. The dishes are quick and easy, and pretty tasty, but it's quite outdated and won't do for anyone who's up on he food trends, but then this isn't the market that the book is aimed at, is it? So yes, I do recommend it to anyone who wants to gets into cooking or just wants some pretty healthy, quick and easy recipes for mid week meals.

Next week I'll be taking a week off. We're out a couple of nights and Gav's working one night and I don't really have time to shop... so I'll be cooking an enormous batch of sausage casserole to see us through the week. Sausage casserole with mash, sausage casserole with pasta, sausage casserole with polenta... the possibilities are endless....!

What are you cooking this week?

Italia, Manchester

Italia is quite new on the Manchester scene, but my God if you haven't heard about it (yes even you Sheffield) then you must have been hiding under a rock over the past few months. Just about every Manchester blogger (and his/her dog) has been to some form of soft opening event here and the internet is littered with reviews (all of which are full of praise). I guess you could say that the owners have got some good marketing heads on their shoulders as they haven't just covered the blogger scene they are all over Twitter like a rash (albeit a rather nice, friendly and tasty rash).

With this is mind, I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet. If you want to know more just Google Italia Manchester and once you've worked your way through all the references to Bella Italia (that chain thing that serves up 'Italian' food) you'll find all those blog reviews which cover everything from the history of the restaurant to the menu and the owners.

So, we were in Manchester because A) I fancied a day trip and B) I have been to Manchester a few times (we have family and friends over there) but don't really know the city that well. And being a lover of Italian food, and after hearing all the hype (and noting that the menu was not going to bankrupt us) I booked us in for a late lunch/early tea.

We arrived and we were welcomed by the manager who enthusiastically pulled out menus for us and showed us to our table. This was all with such speed that I didn't even have chance to confirm our booking, but it was in such a way that suggested he was expecting us (of course this couldn't have been the case as we had never met); such a welcome!

Thanks to all the reviews I'd read, I already knew what I wanted; suppli al telefono to start and carbonara for main, dishes which, quelle surprise, are Roman classics. We added some calamari and some tomato bruschetta to the starter course and Gav had papparadelle with wild boar for his main.

Suppli al telefono (balls of rice stuffed with mozzarella which creates a telephone cord string of cheese on biting - hence the name) were tasty, but to live up to its name the cheese could have been a bit stringier (something I never thought I would say...). The suppli also came with a super rich tomato sauce which was simple, but stunning.

Calamari was well cooked with a light batter and served with a strong garlic mayo which was good. Bruschetta was fresh and light but I do wish we'd gone for one of the more exciting combinations such as Grilled spicy Nduja sausage or Gorgonzola, grilled pears and honey, but, tomato was Gav's choice and nowt to do with me!

On to the mains and I liked what I saw on my plate. No cream, no onion, no parsley; it looked like a carbonara. It was, however, a lighter version which just meant that there was less of the rich egg yolk coating. The pasta was really well cooked; I believe that it's one thing to get penne (and the like) al dente, but another to manage the same with spaghetti so I was impressed. Gav's papparadelle was gorgeous with plenty of rich and tasty slow cooked meat in there.

Thanks to the lighter carbonara I had room for dessert and we both took individual trips to the dessert counter to make our choices. I went for a portion of black forest gateaux. It was encased in a thick layer of chocolate and looked stunning, thanks especially to the addition of a little gold leaf. Gav went for the cannelloni which are rolls of brandy snaps stuffed with cream. He enjoyed, but I don't think anything could have pulled me away from my gateaux (I greatly amused the manager by telling him I thought it was f**king brilliant).

We had shared a bottle of Nero d'Avola; one of our favourite reds and I'd also managed to sneak in a cheeky frascati (a wine I had really enjoyed last time we went to Rome) and I can't remember exactly how much the bill was, but it was certainly under £80.

Italia genuinely reminded me of eating in Italy and not just because of the food. It was informal dining at its best with people from all walks of life enjoying; from groups of blokes filling up on pizzas before the pub to families out celebrating with the full three courses. Waiting staff were rushing around, all on their own individual missions and there was a nice level of noise; enough to relax and feel that we could converse in comfort without being drowned out by others. It's just easy, approachable, affordable Italian food.

Bravo!

Samuel Fox, Bradwell (An Update)

Once Charlie and Kelly left the Samuel Fox (who can now be found here by the way) I kind of just wrote the place off, especially as I was beginning to hear some not so good reports about the food there. But then an email from the new owner (and chef) James Duckett landed in my inbox. It told me that James has worked under Albert Roux, Michel Roux Jnr and Marcus Wareing and suddenly the Samuel Fox returned to the 'to do' list.

I told myself that I would put off visiting until the New Year, just to give James chance to settle in, but a Deal Monster voucher offering three course meals for two, for £30 meant that I ended up booking us in a damn sight earlier. Furthermore a rather spontaneous visit from friends and the arrival of crazy Christmas season (and in turn lots of fully booked restaurants) meant that we have already had a second visit.

On our first visit I started with leek soup, potato, cheddar and soft quail's egg (£5.50). The syntax of the dish's description intrigued me and I was glad when I wasn't served up a bog standard leek & potato soup. Creamy leek soup served with some slices of potato, topped with a quail's egg with black sesame seeds scattered on top did not disappoint. It looked so pretty that I almost didn't want to dig in and bizarrely I was actually really pleased to see that the egg was soft rather than runny as I actually didn't want to lose all the yolk in the soup. Thinking back I don't recall there being any cheese, but maybe I just hadn't picked the flavour out; in any event I didn't miss it. Gav had the chickpea fritters (£6.75). The fritters were quite similar in taste and texture to falafel and they were nicely spiced with cumin and coriander. Served with a spiced aubergine and yoghurt dressing Gav really enjoyed the dish. 

On our second visit, it was clear that the soup had really impressed as Gav ordered a bowl for himself. I chose the braised rice (or risotto to you and me) with butternut squash, Blacksticks blue cheese and sage, on the basis that I knew the flavours worked well together. Again, the plate looked good with small chunks of butternut squash coloured cheese hiding amongst the vegetable proving for some deliciously surprising mouthfuls. Our friends also had the risotto and the rabbit and ham hock terrine (£7.50). I didn't get to try any of the terrine, but it looked quite meaty and like something that I would enjoy. I did, however, try some of the brioche served with it and, oh my, it was as light as air and pretty amazing to be honest!

Come mains and first time round I had gone for the duck (£14.50). There were two servings of duck, each prepared in different ways. What I can only assume was breast meat was perfectly pink whilst, again what I can only assume was slow cooked duck leg, was tender and tasty. Sides of red cabbage and a rather amazing spring roll (a nod to the country that produces everyone's favourite duck dish?) meant that the serving was ample whilst raisins and sweet potato puree gave the plate a touch of sweetness. Gav had gone for the pheasant (£14.50) which was simply a plate of comfort. Served with, lentils, savoy cabbage, mash, veg and crispy bacon; everything was all piled up with a good amount of gravy. It was the kind of dish that left you feeling well fed, and healthier for it.

On our second visit we both went for the hanger steak (£16.50) and I think we both now accept that this was a mistake. There was nothing wrong with the dish (the chips were perfect and the cep cream was a new one for me), but given the mains we'd enjoyed on our first visit, the steak option was just a bit safe. And although I cleared my plate, I couldn't help but feel a little jealous of our friends who had gone with bream and that delicious pheasant dish.

Sweet fans will be glad to know that the kitchen's talents are not limited to the savoury courses. On our first trip I had the lemon posset with berries and brioche donughts (£6.50). The posset was good and zesty; just how I like it. But the real highlight for me was the side of brioche donughts. They were quite salty which pleased my savoury tooth and they had a great texture thanks to a crispy outer layer. Gav had the sticky toffee pudding (£6.50), an old favourite of his. The sponge was light leaving the thick and sticky sauce to do the talking and I'm glad to say that he wasn't disappointed; in fact he enjoyed it so much that he had it on his second visit too.

I, on the other hand, went for the cheese course (£8.50). I didn't actually want it, or need it, as I was well and truly stuffed, but I was egged on by one of our friends who just doesn't get the concept of having cheese for dessert! I was served a selection of Blacksticks Blue, a brie and a strong cheddar along with some savoury biscuits, which I think were handmade, a chutney and a few grapes. It was everything you wanted in a cheese board, and in all fairness, the portion was big enough for a decent lunch so I was able to share it with everyone (including he who had criticised my choice!).

On both occasions we'd had Nero d'Avola which is priced at a reasonable £16 per bottle and I think that wine fans will be quite happy with the list as there's a fair bit of choice on there. On the other hand beer lovers will be pleased to see Bradfield Brewery on the bar.

Both trips had served us well; food was stylish, but with substance and very reasonably priced. Service was good; James had inherited a waitress from the days of Charlie and Kelly and she is sweet, friendly and efficient. Although a new waiter was a little nervous when we visited, he was chatty and enthusiastic which is all a diner can ask.

So, once again, the Samuel Fox is a decent dining option and one that I'll recommend to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of a drive out of town. I'll be keeping an eye on the place, as I suspect that James has some interesting plans for the place and I'm sure that I'll be returning one day... 

Stew! Genevieve Taylor

Lately I've been thinking about the number of cook books I have, or rather the number that I have but don't use. It's not that I don't ever cook, it's just that I tend to get an idea in my head and use Google to turn that idea into a meal, or, more often than not, I stick to easy, well rehearsed meals (think meat/fish chargrilled/baked served with a cous cous salad). And although this works for me and I still manage to eat well, I do think that it's a real shame not use the books I have.

So, last week I decided that I would cook from just one book, and the book of choice was Stew! by Genevieve Taylor. I've actually blogged a recipe from this book before but I had forgotten how much I liked Genevieve's recipes.

Last week I was busy on the Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights (and of course Gav had a couple of night/late shifts to work around), so I needed easy batch meals that could be heated up as and when required. So Stew! really was the perfect option for me this week.

I cooked the Butternut squash & red lentils and the Cavolo nero & cannellini bean stews.

Butternut squash stew was a little fiddly as it involved toasting and grinding spices as well as making an onion, garlic and ginger puree in the food processor. Given the size of my kitchen you can't blame me for dreading the moment I have to get any bulky gadgets out! Having said all this, the actual cooking process was easy as the stew sat on the stove quite happily for an hour or so. It was tasty too, really warming thanks to the use of cumin, chillies and coriander seeds. However, the recipe serves the stew with a raita which I had skipped (it involves grating cucumber and leaving it to drip dry for an hour - never gonna happen mid week) and it did suffer for this omission. It just needed a little creaminess and, as I had made two meals worth, I served it with some plain yoghurt the next day. It was certainly an improvement but I might try it with some coconut milk next time (although that would significantly increase on the 371 calories in the yoghurt free dish!).

I couldn't find any cavolo nero in the market and as there was plenty of British kale available, I thought that would make a good substitute (it did). The recipe also calls for dried cannellini beans, but as I needed to keep this simple I just used tinned which cut out both the soaking time and some of the cooking time which was good for me. Genevieve serves this with Gorgonzola toasts, but again, I wanted to keep this super fuss free so I skipped them and I don't think the dish suffered. It was gorgeous! The beans meant that there was a nice amount of healthy carb, the kale looked and tasted healthy and the inclusion of some smoked bacon and garlic meant that the dish was packed full of flavour.

So my first of rediscovering my cook books went well... next week I'll be cooking solely from a book Gav and I bought over ten years ago; Ainsley Harriott's Meals in Minutes!!

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It seems that it isn't just me who's been missing her cook books as fellow food lover Steph Walker had the exact same idea as I did, pretty much at the same time (she may have got in first actually!). Check out her blog to see what she's been up to!

Living Over the Shop by Steven Doherty

Given that I am nothing more than an amateur cook some would say that my obsession for cookery books is getting a little out of hand, especially as my collection is growing week by week. I just love reading recipes. I drool over the pictures, work through the methods, preparing each dish in my mind to the point that I can almost taste the finished dish. So when I was offered a free copy of Living Over the Shop by Steven Doherty on the basis that I would review it, I knew that I didn't need another volume on my shelves, but I greedily jumped at the chance all the same..

Steven Doherty and his wife, Marj, manage the First Floor Cafe at Lakeland in Windermere. Of course, I'd heard of Lakeland; it's a Mecca for those with a kitchen twice the size of mine, although I can appreciate the appeal of all those gadgets and tableware. As for Steven Doherty, I'm sorry, but I didn't know who he was and on reading the brief outline of his life story in the book, I realised that I should have done. He's worked at both The Savoy and La Gavroche. In 1985, he became the first British person to become head chef of a three Michelin star establishment and he later made Group Executive Chef for Roux Restaurants. The book itself is forwarded by Albert Roux which shows just how much respect he holds for Steven.

After such heady heights it's difficult to see why Steven would then settle for a life in a cafe in the Lakes, but Steven explains how they fell in love with the views, the walks and the healthier approach to life. It's also clear that Steven appreciates the quality ingredients that are now on his doorstep and a whole section of the book is dedicated to his suppliers, including his favourite bakeries, brewery and game supplier. To be fair, this section isn't of much use to me as I don't live in the Lakes, but I'd like to think that I would try and hunt some of them out when I next visit.

Moving on to the recipes, we are told that they will focus more on the down to earth side of cooking and this may be a little disappointing to some, especially given Steven's background. That said, this does mean that the dishes are relatively easy to replicate at home. Indeed the number of 'easy' dishes in the book is quite surprising. Think fishcakes, goats cheese salad, salmon en papillote and even bangers and mash! What is also quite striking is the number of salmon dishes in here.

Recipes are not split into sections but the book does take readers from starters to mains and finally to desserts. And talking of desserts, there's a decent variety of recipes including some rather fine honey Madeleines and homely cakes including a firm favourite of mine; carrot cake. There's lots of colourful pictures and I especially like how each recipe features a picture of the finished dish; I'm not very good at cooking recipes that don't have pictures!

As I had a couple of friends coming round for dinner one Sunday, I had the perfect opportunity to put the book to the test. I was in the mood for showing off a bit so I went for a full three courser of salmon rillettes to start followed by slow cooked lamb shoulder with petit pois a la Francaise for main and finally the lemon drizzle cake.

The salmon is a perfect dish for making ahead as it needs time to set in the fridge. Essentially slices of a sausage made of up of poached salmon, butter and roasted red peppers (amongst a few other items), the dish tasted great and looked impressive served up as a starter with a few water biscuits. The taste was quite creamy and rich thanks to the butter, but the peppers, green peppercorns and lemon juice gave a fresh and zesty flavour to the plate.

The recipe was easy to follow, although being a bit OCD, I didn't really get on with the word 'pinch' being used as measurement, but that's my problem, not Steven's! It's a recipe I will return to, mainly because it is so easy; in fact I'll be making it on Christmas Eve to take through to my parents for that starter on Christmas Day.

Instructions for the lamb main was also pretty simple to follow and I loved how the meat was cooked in stock and wine which meant that i didn't need to worry about any gravy. The peas were a bit faffy considering I normally just serve up some steamed veg as sides to my roasts, but they were also easy to prepare (although the recipe called for frozen button onions which I have never seen before - I just used shallots) and thanks to the nature of the recipes both dishes sat cooking away happily whilst we ate our starters.

What's more, as there was a lot of sauce, mash was called for rather than roasties and due to the way I prepare mash, this also helped keep the meal easy to prepare on the day. I bake potatoes, scoop out the flesh, mash with butter and reheat later in the microwave. If you haven't tried mash this way, do it. It's so much better than the sloppy and wet stuff. Everything was perfectly tasty and I will be doing the lamb again, maybe the peas too if I feel like doing something a bit more exciting than steamed broccoli.

Lemon drizzle cake is one of my favourite cakes and this recipe included a butter icing topping, so it offered something different to those I have used in the past. Embarrassingly I did manage to burn the cake. My excuse is that I followed the recipe to the letter and left the cake in the oven for the full 45 minutes as instructed when I should have checked it at about 35 minutes. However, disaster was quickly averted and I just sliced off the sides before topping with the icing. It went down a treat and although there were only four of us, we cleared the lot!

Aside from returning to these recipes in the future, I think there are a few others I'd also like to give a go. Backed jacket potato with a smoked haddock and creamy leek sauce sounds homely and comforting whilst shallot & goat's cheese 'tarte tatin' sounds like a must do for me, as does the belly pork with black pudding and mashed potato so I'm sure that I'll be returning to the book in the future.

The only real negative I have is that the link to the Lakeland shop is pushed a bit too much for me. A few of the recipes carry tips of related products you can buy (along with the product reference) which I just don't like. For instance if you want to make apple and cinnamon feuillete, Lakeland point you in the direction of their heavy-duty baking tray and flat spatula! Having said that, I gather that surviving the world of publishing ain't as easy as it used to be and Steven probably needed the backing from Lakeland to get the book published.

I recommend this book to anyone who lives in the Lakes and anyone who likes simple and comforting food, but quite likes to push the boat out a bit once in a while.