Homemade Burgers

Burgers used to fall into a category of Delicious And Totally Not Worth Making Yourself.  Other foods in this category include mayonnaise (what's all this nonsense about combining olive oil and eggs?  Just go and get the Hellman's), marzipan, pickles, and so on.  This was because I'd never tried making homemade burgers.  I thought vaguely that it involved raw egg yolks, breadcrumbs and lots of waiting about.  It turns out, it doesn't.  And they're so, so good.  Join me in rejoicing!

We followed Nigel for the method, although we were using different ingredients.

Homemade Simple Beef Burgers (serves 2)

250g beef mince
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Sea salt & black pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika

Combine all the above ingredients thoroughly together in a bowl.  Shape into two large burgers and leave on a tray in your fridge for half an hour.

Get a griddle pan nice and hot, and gently put your burgers on to cook.  They will need about five minutes per side (depending on how rare you like them), and should develop a lovely crust on the outside.

Serve with all the necessary accompaniments - bread baps or rolls, crisp lettuce leaves, ketchup, mayonnaise.   Go all out!  You don't have burgers every day.

OOOOH YEAH.

To off-set the general indulgence of the burgers, we made a runner bean and tomato salad to have alongside.  We steamed the beans until tender, then combined them with sliced tomatoes, chives, cucumber, and lettuce.  It got dressed with a balsamic sauce.

The beans started off life looking like this:

Alien beans!

Breakfast At The Counter Cafe

On a lazy sunny Sunday, there's nothing nicer than heading out for a leisurely and indulgent breakfast.  We're lucky enough to have a couple of lovely cafes within walking distance, so we can breakfast in style without having to venture into town. 

The Counter Cafe has moved since we were last there, and now occupies a beautiful, light-filled space with amazing riverside views over the Olympic park.  

*Sigh.*  I always order the same thing - it's boring, I know, but I just don't think that a bacon, avocado and tomato relish baguette can be beaten.

Bream with Potatoes & Chard

Whilst I was festivalling in Clapham, B was earning husband points by organising and cooking dinner for us both.  We were feeling a bit guilty about our Wimbledon picnic blowout, so I'd left strict instructions to make something healthy and virtuous.

B excelled himself by buying some lovely fresh fillets of wild black bream, and using up our veg box odds and ends for accompaniments.

I love cooking fish in paper parcels - I think it keeps all the delicate flavours locked in.  B sliced some potatoes thinly, then put the fish fillets on top, with a generous coating of lime juice, chopped parsley and garlic.  Some chopped swiss chard and spring onion went on top, and the whole thing got tied up neatly with string and given 30 minutes in the oven.  Fabulous - and very virtuous.

The Big Feastival

It's festival season in London town, and we got involved yesterday by heading to Clapham for Jamie Oliver's Big Feastival. The common had been set up with music stages, kitchen tents, and all sorts of different food outlets. 

There were several bar tents too, so we were able to enjoy some girly fruit cider whilst making our all-important food decisions.

I went for the Locanda Locatelli tent, which was doing a roaring trade in little dishes of pasta and flatbreads topped with parma ham and rocket.  The parma ham was being freshly sliced as required, and was as salty and succulent as you could wish for.

My only complaint was the size of the portion - I could have eaten twice what I was given, and for the £5 price tag I definitely expected more.  Still, the flatbread was puffy and perfectly cooked, the rocket fresh - good quality food when you think it was being produced on a grand scale.  

Fresh cherries (cherries! yay!) on the grass whilst listening to the live bands.

Wimbledon Picnic

B and I were exhausted on Friday night (too much Take! That! excitement for me) and neither of us could be bothered with cooking.  Also, Andy Murray was playing his semi-final match, so we wanted to throw together something quick and easy to have whilst watching him strop all over the court.

Enter, the Wimbledon picnic! 

Cooking time: nil. 

Assembly time:  approximately 5 minutes

We had olives, baguette, fresh salad (out of a bag, of course), pork pies, and two cheeses.  The only thing I "made" was the salad dressing, which was a bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, all whanged in a jug and swished with a spoon.   For the laziest dinner in the world, it was delicious.

For dessert we had jelly pots, which B found hilarious and laughed at for about ten minutes. 

I don't know why it's funny to eat jelly pots?  They're yummy! They have bits  of pineapple in them, and you can suck the jelly through your teeth (er, I mean, you can eat the jelly in a socially-appropriate and polite manner).  They remind me of the packed lunches my mum used to make for me.  Anyway, yummy not funny. 

Pre-Concert Snackage

On Thursday, the girls and I went to see the mighty Take! That! at Wembley.  Not being fans of the mass-produced orange nachos and leathery hot dogs that seem to be standard stadium fare, we decided to fuel up in town before going to the concert.

We stopped at Le Comptoir Libanais and bagged a cute street-side table so that we could watch the world go by.  The service was terrible - we had to ask for menus, then our order got "forgotten", so it was a long wait for our dishes to arrive.  When they did, J looked down incredulously at her plate.

"This is supposed to be a LARGE salad!" she hissed.  Ha ha.  There actually was more cous-cous tucked under the chicken, so it wasn't too insubstantial, but still.  Not really a large plate.   The lemonade flavoured with rose-water was lovely.

After getting over-charged on the bill, we decided to cut our losses and headed to the nearby All Bar One to take advantage of happy hour.

We had tea first, and the waiter enamoured himself to us forever by bringing over a steady flow of Smarties in adorable shot-glass portions.  A girl's heart can always be won by free chocolate.

At five o'clock on the dot we were ordering our cocktails.

Then we went to Wembley and rocked our socks off to Relight My Fire and tried to get Gary to notice us.  It was awesome.

Carrot & Ginger Soup

Hurray! I'm being unseasonal again.  I don't know why, but I've suddenly got a yen for making soups.  I should be enjoying summery salads and delicately grilled pieces of fish, but...no.  Hearty, autumnal soups all the way. 

This is a brilliant recipe - it's simple to make and cheap as well, relying mostly on store cupboard ingredients.

You need (serves 2):

500g carrots, scrubbed (don't bother peeling - they're going to get blended later and nobody will ever know)
1 Onion
Olive Oil
Honey
Curry Powder
Ginger (dried powder is fine)
500ml stock
100ml single cream

Firstly, chop your carrots into lengths and your onion into quarters, and spread out on a baking tray.  Drizzle olive oil over the vegetables until lightly coated.  Dot a couple of teaspoonfuls of honey over as well, and then dust everything with a good shaking of ginger and curry powder.
Stick the tray in a low oven and roast for an hour.

Take the vegetables out  from the oven and pop into your blender.  I also always swill the roasting pan round with some water or stock to make sure I get all the yummy sticky bits that have crusted themselves onto the pan during cooking.  Add your stock, and blend everything until smooth.

When you want to serve the soup, gently reheat on a low flame and add the cream just before serving.  You might also want to add some salt and pepper - although, if you're using stock from a stock cube, you won't need any additional salt.  I used a homemade stock from our duck carcass (hello duck! You're still around!) so a pinch of salt worked nicely.

Serve and enjoy feeling unseasonal too.