All Things Cornish: Cornish Pasty (Veggie)

I am not someone who likes to be seasonally correct in terms of cooking. I just listen to my stomach and my mood. Past few weeks for some weird reason has been a sort of madness revolving around all things Cornish! How corny is that? I mean, 'S' & I have been trying all makes of Cornish ice-creams all week and after 6 7 tubs of ice-cream we seem to have found the one that pleases our taste buds; we are now hunting for the perfect Cornish pasty. Although, I have made them at home several times, so far the one that we like (apart from mine) is from this tiny van (The West Cornwall Pasty).

 

I guess even the weather gods have such moody days…One day he blesses us with rich sunniness & radiant blue skies and the next its wind, chill & grey skies with downpour that has no plans to stop. This afternoon, I sat near the window watching rain pour & splash against the chilly winds and enjoyed the tiny droplets hitting my face. I instantly knew my body needed something warm and cheesy from the oven. I quickly whizzed the short crust pastry in my processor and a hour later rustic looking Veggie Cornish Pasty emerged out of the oven…Sun was shining again!

Cornish Pasty (Veggie)

Ingredients

For the Shortcrust Pastry

Flour - 450g

Butter - 175g

Vegetable Fat like Trex - 25g

Salt

Ice cold Water - 6-8 tbsp

For the Filling

Potato -1 peeled & cut into 1cm dice

Onion - 1 peeled & cut into 1cm dice

Swede - 1/4 peeled & cut into 1cm dice

Quorn Mince - 100g-2200g

Cornflour - 1 tbsp

Cheese

Salt & Pepper

Method:

Make the pastry first - dump the flour, butter, trex & salt into the processor and pulse till the mixture resembles bread-crumbs. Pour the water and pulse until it comes together. Turn onto a floured work surface and knead gently to bring together then wrap the pastry in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge. Preheat oven to 180C. Meanwhile, toss the veggies with the corn flour & season well. Divide the pastry into 4 equal pieces and roll each one out on a lightly floured work surface, rolling in one direction. Give the pastry a quarter-turn, and then roll it again to form a round, about 20cm in diameter & the thickness of a £1 coin. Arrange the filling onto the centre of the rolled out pastry, top with cheese and lightly brush the edge of the pastry with water then carefully bring up the edges to the centre to cover the filling. Pinch or crimp so that the filling is sealed. Brush the pasties with egg wash and bake for about 45-60min or until the pastry is golden. Serve hot.

Tip: I usually have a chilled bag of flour for making pastry and I use chilled butter.

June Plate 2 Page Photography assignment - WATERMELON

Just when you thought all that pink post it madness ended with the workshop...here is the June assignment...WattaMelon!

I made this very summery Watermelon & Feta Salad; a must on a hot day at a picnic! The sweet & Juicy watermelon provides a perfect balance to the crumbly saltiness of the feta. I have in many occasions made this salad with sliced red onions & olives. Th pumpkin seed gives it the perfect crunch.

June Plate to Page Assignment - Watermelon. Two images of watermelon.

 Love my new Ergo Chef Knive that I got back from plate2page!!

 Watermelon.Feta & Pumpkin Seed Salad

Watermelon,Feta & Pumpkinseed Salad
Ingredients
2 large slices of best juicy Watermelon cut into wedges
200g Feta cubes
Handful of basil leaves(you could use mint instead)
1 red onion sliced
Handful of olives
Olive Oil for drizzling
Pepper 
Method:
Toss all the ingredients except the oil in a bowl and  drizzle over some oil & serve.

The ever expanding line: Would you let your waistline determine where you live?

The photo above & below is me with my parents, my vast collection of recipes, A travel/foodalogue  (I even have restaurant receipts ).

Summer break in the 90s…I am helping my mum in the scorching heat to make potato bhaji sandwiches for our little family picnic later that day. She passes the bread slathered with butter & mint chutney and I load it greedily with the bhaji and cheese. Fast forward 2 hours, we are all happily devouring the treats devilishly under the shade. Joys that simplest of things give us! The thought of these sandwiches brings back those sweet memories and makes me hungry instantly.

For me food just isn’t a source of energy or nourishment, it’s about memories- of times, places, childhood, a holiday, it’s about people and love. That’s why till date, to me, my mum’s potato bhaji sandwiches are the best. Its memories like these that inspire me in my kitchen and act as a starting point for something new. I am not a trained professional and neither do I have culinary degrees, all I am qualified to do is people management. Everything I know today about food was learned either from eating, travelling widely or from watching people cook. Technically I might not know much, but I have a passion- a passion to eat good food and a passion to cook good food! Not everybody is born with knowledge of baking and there is no shame in looking up techniques and learning and neither is everybody blessed to do a pricey Pâtisserie course!

Cooking is pretty much like a puzzle to me. It starts with an ingredient picked up in the local market or delivered by a CSA man and definitely not with what you had in mind when you left home. The excitement builds on as you pick up ingredients; run it through your mind’s archives for recipes. It’s simply an art of combing things in different ways, the more you eat, the more you cook and vice versa. The more you remember things, the more you build up flavours & ingredients and start experimenting. The more you know what works - you create, you invent! You are definitely not going to make perfect macarons with ‘feet’ the very first time. You have to adjust, fine-tune, season, re-season, taste, fiddle, give things a shot & see what happens! Be a risk taker, drawing on memoirs of good things and making some new innovations along the way, giving a family signature dish your personal twist. Most of my versions of a classic recipe are simply the result of fiddling until I ended up with something that satisfies me. 

I think I have always loved food; it has been a very important part of my life. As a kid, I started my ever expanding collection of food clippings from newspapers and magazines. I remember every weekend was, to me, an experimental weekend. I would jot down a recipe from my vast collection and dish it out with great enthusiasm and wait for the verdict from my former guinea pigs (my 2 adorable sisters A2 & A3). Nothing has changed much now! I have more cookbooks, paper clipping & e-versions as references to try; although I admit, I don’t follow the recipe to the T anymore. I have become more daring, but I still wait with the same excitement to serve to my new guinea pigs (S and my beloved friends)…
Answering the #coldcoffeeclub discussion… Does your waistline determine where you live? The answer is No,it really doesn't matter where I live, I will always be the big fat foodie that I am, today! Kitchen is where my heart is and so as long as the place we live has a decent one, I will cook my heart out & Eat it!

Do read up what everyone else thinks on this topic here: Ilva of Luculliandelights Mona of WiseWords, Simone of Junglefrog, Ishay of Foodandthefabulous, Astrid of Paulchen's FoodBlog, Jamie of Life's A Feast and Jenn of Jenn's Cuisine.

Peony: my all time fav!

A weekend escape and Giveaway winner announcement

This weekend S and I escaped the city buzz to a swanky spa town in Yorkshire called Harrogate. A city of Old-World charm, Harrogate, is undeniably splendid with its stone mansions and seductive arts – crafts & antique shops dotted through the town, amidst exotic cafés. Harrogate's many mesmerizing shops in the Montpellier Quarter for antiques, fascinating arts & crafts shops and bustling markets. It is a vintage prop heaven for crazy food bloggers like me and I got back home with the loot.

Harrogate is well-known for its tearooms and classy cafés. The renowned Betty's tearoom was established in Harrogate in 1919, with people still lining up for their magnificent afternoon teas and Fat Rascal. The windows display an array of different breads, tarts, cakes, macarons, exotic teas and coffees (to relish at home). We enjoyed the speciality Tea at Betty's complete with China Rose Petal Tea (served in enviable collection of tea pots & cutlery), perfect scones with clotted cream & jam, and a corrupting collection of fresh fruit custard tart, chocolate macaron, mini lemon drizzle and tartines. 

 Vintage BMW Parked on the street outside a cafe

 Inside busy Bettys Cafe

With the discovery of a mineral water well in 1571, Harrogate became England's first spa. So the spa buffs can find pure relaxation at The Turkish Baths and Health Spa, complete with steam rooms, pool and a cold-water plunge pool. A Turkish Bath ritual is a journey of heating, cooling and cleansing the body, promoting a sense of relaxation and a clear mind. 

Outside the Cafe

On a completely different topic: I am happy to announce that Nisha of an open book is the winner of Kitchen Stools Direct giveaway.

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:1Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Reliving the Plate2Page Experience: "All work and no shop"

We Tweeted, mailed, skyped…Well that’s all we had in the beginning…A virtual page…where we could laugh, cry and share our passion for food…
‘They are just going to be robots/machines and not real people’..’S’s words kept coming to my head, as I sat on the plane all set to meet my virtual friends at plate2page in Weimar. I had no idea how they looked (expect for some photos) or even how they sounded…I couldn’t put a voice behind their faces...but I was just confident that they all existed and were very much crazy bloggers like me...

Photo:Jenn

As I hopped on to the DB train supposed to take me to Weimar, (the Plate2page headquarters this time)…I met the gorgeous duo..Jeanne and Ilva. Phew! What a relief… At least 2 out of 17 are humans…sigh of relief… 

We reached kiperquelle inn (our humble abode for the next 3 days) and soon met Team MIJJ. Gorgeous Simone was next to join me, followed by Ishay and her handsome hubby, Ken & Mitch. 

We were all set to have dinner at Divan a Turkish Restauant and were whisked away in a posh car by Ishay’s Husband. 

Photo:Simone

Jasmine joined us shortly and after dinner we met the lovely Astrid and Julia who were absolutely gutted after the long trip and a little adventure. 

Next 3 days was BIG for all of us… 

We were there to learn, like, discover, grow and share. We were there to find our own struggles, to find our strengths/weakness and improve. We gathered to give and take and to find ourselves in the process. Our workshop schedule was hectic with cooking, more cooking, photographing, writing, planning a picnic and then again some more cooking, more photographing, pink slips and more writing assignments. We spent hours laughing and coming together as a group striving to teach and learn from each other. We had group discussions and critique of all the assignments (both writing and photo) at the end of each day. 

We were challenged to shoot / write at complete opposite of what we usually do and sometimes thrown into pairs to complete our assignments. There were moments of happiness and then there were moments of frustrations when things din't work, (that's team work right?) along with moments of innovations and progression. 

Plate2page is very much what it says…one-to-one, hands-on, creative and intensive. So if you are looking to develop your writing skills or photography skills Plate2page is the Workshop you need to hone your skills, with fabulous and very talented instructors. 
The second Plate2Page workshop will take place in Tuscany, Italy from October 28th to 31st, 2011. 

Thank you Meeta, Ilva,Jamie,Jeanne. You have made me a motivated photographer and hopefully a better writer. You will always be an inspiration to me. 

I never imagined that 17 people that I have never met before, would influence my life so much in a matter of just 3 days. I miss each and every one of them .They have become more like an extended family now. Not even a day goes by without thinking about the good times we had at the workshop.
Thank you Alessio, Astrid, David, Deborah, Ishay, Jasmine, Julia, Jenn, Ken, Mitch, Mona, Simone for everything each one of you have given me in your own special way. I will always hold you guyz close to my heart.
Each time I decide I should write an over-elaborate post about my trip, tears fill up my big fat eyes and words choke up my throat and I somehow can't get around to writing (Is this classified as writer's block?). Gowd I wish I could write like my sweet room partner Mona (she has written a 3 part series!). I guess we still are fighting our emotions and finding solace in twitter and facebook or each other’s blogposts. I terribly miss my new found family.  I do love the idea of #plate2page class of Weimar reunion tour we were discussing this morning on Twitter. Hopefully soon!
For more updates follow @plate2page or #plate2page on twitter or check out the Facebook fan page.