Summertime pudding

Strawberries, blueberries and vanilla ice cream

Boiled ham

Boiling a ham with bay leaves, onions, cloves, black peppercorns, celery and carrots

Served for lunch with a parsley sauce, Jersey royal new potatoes, carrots and mustard

Plentiful ham stock to make pea soup afterwards

Fried ricotta and herb cakes

Mixed ricotta, breadcrumbs, beaten egg, rocket, tarragon, parsley, salt and pepper

Shaped into small cakes, then shallow fried in sunflower oil

Drained and salted

Served with a mint and chive yoghurt, and a soft green salad

Back to the Griffin

Back to the Griffin for a second night in the row. Started with a salt cod and beetroot dish

Followed by an excellent plate of braised ox cheeks - shall have to have a go at making these!

Accompanied with 'pearl barley bourguignonne'. No idea how it's done, but it was great - definitely some pancetta and red wine in there, and probably a little onion and garlic as well

Finished with a tracle tart with brown butter ice cream and a glass of tokaji

Dinner in Wales

Dinner at the Felinfach Griffin, near Hay on Wye

Started with an amuse bouche of a carrot and parsnip soup

The menu was great - lots of things you'd want to eat

Started with the smoked salmon

in discussion the next day, Jay Raynor thought it 'a little overwrought', and I can see what he meant with the lemon caviar accompaniment, but it was very tasty

Main course was an excellent chunk of slow cooked belly pork with morels and champ

The usual . . .

A single portion of River Cafe slow cooked sausage pasta from the freezer made a great supper for one

More asparagus

Asparagus and pesto pasta, with some toasted pine nuts and plenty of parmesan and fresh basil

Dinner party food

First - preparing the grapes in advance. I served pickled grapes with the cheese, another smittenkitchen recipe

The grapes were removed from the stem, and a little sliced off

They were steeped in white wine vinegar, water, sugar, black peppercorns, mustard seeds and cinnamon

Rhubarb fool was a repeat dessert from last weekend

Rhubarb was cooked down in caster sugar and a little water


Cooked until not quite falling apart

Cooled, then mixed with softly whipped cream

For the main course, sausage casserole

Pancetta, torpedo shallots and sausages were simmered gently . . .

. . . in red wine

Mushrooms were added near the end, and it was served on sweet potato mash

With a fresh green salad from the garden

Twice cooked shortbread made another appearance

The finished rhubarb fool

A cheese board

And finally, the pickled grapes

Homemade tartare sauce. . .

. . . with decidedly unhomemade scampi and oven chips

Flapjack fun

Melting butter with brown sugar and syrup

Added Mornflake oats to make yummy flapjacks

Oriental salmon

Salmon fillet with soy sauce, lemon juice, coriander and chilli

Served with stir fried veg

Salmon was baked in a medium oven for about 18 minutes