A proper cook makes Cottage Pie | Guest Post

 I give you The Cottage Pie Maker and The Cottage Pie Scoffer!

I was up 'That London' last week. Staying at perfect pal's little apartment at the base of the gert big spike. The view of the Shard at the end of the street on leaving her block made my heart soar to the top and fly about with the pigeons -  marvelous thing. 

So Perfect Pal has featured here before, that Pea Swoop didn't just arrive from the planet Pod you know. Well this time I was treated to the most delicious Cottage Pie - I've ever eaten. Now the caveat here is that this pie was helped along with a proper gravy - this pal is a real cook - she makes real gravy. However don't worry too much about that - we can bash out an old favorite just be following her instructions.

Be warned: Miss Kim is not given to convention. I didn't take a picture of the pie - too greedy for it! I do have a pic of me and the excellent woman in question. 

Cocoa Loco Juice

Hello! Hello! This is a drive by blogging - just before a cheeky workout with el podgero*. I have been juicing pretty much every day for at least a year now - and while I love all the combinations that veggies and fruits offer - I confess I tend to stick with some old faithfuls and I was getting a little bored.

Juicing is healthy, fun and easy but come winter it's easy to swerve the undoubted wonderment of juice and head to the sandwhich aisle. Fine - if you're all good with wheat - but the grain doesn't love me.

So here for you is an accidental discovery - made this afternoon. I just needed something naughty!
 
I give you a beet juice with choccy woccy happyness thrown in...

Chorizo & Barley Autumn Splodge

Hey! It's here... The golden tones of Autumn have crept up on my garden this year and the shift in the temperature has felt a little sudden for my liking. Still I'm dragging out my long boots, checking my cardies for holes and digging out my scarves and gloves ready for chillier mornings and leafy swish - swish walks.

To celebrate the changing of the season & the scoring of a sixer of lush chorizo inspired sausages from my local butcher I made a simple, insanely tasty one pan dish this week.

I give you Chorizo & Pearl Barley Autumn Splodge - it's a sort of thick, stick to your bones kind of a dish - so it's doesn't qualify as a stew. If you would like to experiment with other grains - this is a great way to get into pearl barley - you could also use pearled spelt too - it's a bit more pricey!

More Spelt & Fish | Salmon

My experiments with spelt continue. We're loving the nutty, chewy taste & it plays really well with nuts and beans. This is a little dish of loveliness I knocked up after scoring the most beautiful, fat, creamy avocado at the grocers. 

I think this recipe would also work with pearl barley which is a more hum drum ingredient & costs way less. 

Spelty Trout & Courgette Ribbon Salad

Yoo hoo! I'm experimenting this week with new grains. I'm trying out spelt tonight. Pearled Spelt - which has the rough outer jacket bashed off and makes it quicker to cook.

My good friend Aisha introduced me to this lovely nutty grain recently when she blew me away with a spelt, walnut and butternut squash recipe. It was just heavenly with some shaved mature, hard goats cheese. Oh lordy I'm hooked.

So tonight I'm having a go and in true cheffy style I'm using what I've got in my fridge.

Armed with some trout fillets & a couple of courgettes we're off!

Apols re: lack of pics - I'm having problems uploading... bear with... x

Marty's Smarty Joint Juice

Marty's off again on another juicy adventure - this time he's so close to goal he can taste it. Now one of the reasons our Mart is so hell bent on getting the weight off is to be slim enough to have his hip replacement ops.

He suffers with his joints and as he's off on another longish Juice Feast in a few days. I thought I'd come up with a juice that will help his old joints - while he's focusing on losing a few more pounds.

This juice uses fruit and veg rich in antioxidents and copper and has a little belt of omega 3 rich linseed oil.

Now most of the studies of arthritis and oil are done with fish oils - but I'm thinking fish oil would just taste nasty in a juice. So I've gone for Linseed.

If you are keen on getting more omegas into your diet - then using veggie oils is a really good way - but remember, heating them destroys much of their potency - and left out on the side, they can go rancid too.

So do your oils a favour and keep them in the fridgey box.

The cart is nothing to do with the juice - but it is orange and I like the idea of mart taking his juicer on the road in a beautiful gypsy wagon...

To the recipe!

Outrageous Smoothie!

I needed something quick for lunch this afternoon. Running late for a hospital appointment & needing sustenance that wouldn't sit heavy in my belly, I flung together a smoothie & it tasted so good I came back for seconds mid afternoon! Norty... I was too busy to take a pic, but the first one was a delicate pale pistachio colour, so elegant. In the 80's it would have been called  eau de nil. I had a pair of shoes from Hobbs the exact colour.

God I loved those shoes. I wore them through to the soles of my feet with the perfect dress from French Connection.