Oven-Baked Fish with Tomato & Parsley

At this time of year rather than thinking "what shall I cook for tea" I'm more often wondering "what can I cook for tea that goes with Jersey Royals". As a native (albeit it living overseas) I admit I'm bit biased but the annual arrival of these wonderful potatoes in the shops, like the asparagus and strawberries that are also beginning to appear, is cause for celebration. Their firm texture and buttery flavour are not to be missed at this time of year.

This particular recipe is a perfect partner for my favourite potatoes and comes from one of my favourite take-to-bed cookbooks (I'm surely not the only person who loves to curl up in bed with a pile of recipe books to leaf through!), Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros. A lot of the recipes aren't the sort of things I would usually cook but the layout and photographs are lovely and it's a great inspiration when I want to try something different.

The simple ingredients in this recipe and combine to provide some wonderful flavours and the colours are enough to brighten up the chilliest spring day. It's a great way of turning a plain piece of fish into something a bit special.

Oven-Baked Fish with Tomato & Parsley
(adapted from Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros)

1kg/ 2lb 4oz firm white fish fillets cut into 6cm pieces
400g tin tomatoes with juice, chopped (or very ripe tomatoes peeled and chopped) - I used whole tomatoes but by-passed the peeling part
15g/1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
juice of 2 lemons
2 celery stalks, chopped, with some leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/gas 4. Put the fish in an oven dish where they will fit in a single layer. Mix together the tomatoes, parsley, garlic, lemon juice, celery, sugar and olive oil and add seasoning to taste.

2) Pour over the fish so that all pieces are covered, cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes.

3) Remove the foil, increase the heat to 200c/400f/gas 6 and bake for a further 40-50 minutes, or until the liquid has thickened and the top of the fish is golden in a couple of places.

4) Serve with new potatoes or some crusty bread.

Serves 4 - 6

Keema Lamb Mince

Here's another one of those recipes that I've made many times over but never got around to writing about.

It's another brilliantly simple mince dish but, unlike the ones I posted about recently, it's cooked on the hob rather than in the oven. It only takes a few ingredients and, as you can see below, it couldn't be more straightforward. I use korma curry paste which gives it a nice gentle flavour but you can use an alternative if you want to ramp up the heat a bit.

Oh, and the children like it too - result!  

Keema Lamb Mince
(delicious magazine some years ago)

500g lamb mince
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
4 tomatoes, finely chopped
2 tbsp of your favourite curry pasta (I use Korma paste)
200ml coconut milk

1) Heat a deep, wide frying pan. Fry the lamb mince, onions and garlic for about five minutes.

2) Add the tomatoes, curry paste and coconut milk and simmer for 30-40 minutes.

Serves 4

Clandestine Cake Club - Bury St Edmunds - 23rd March 2013

Last Saturday five intrepid cake clubbers braved the snow, yes the SNOW, to gather at a secret location in the centre of Bury St Edmunds.  Our venue this month was to be found at a relatively new restaurant in Bury, Graze Kitchen and Bar.

Graze has only been open for a few months but in that short time it has become a favourite amongst the locals (as its number one spot on Tripadvisor can confirm) thanks to great surroundings and fantastic food. The restaurant offers "small plate dining" so rather than sticking to just three courses, diners can choose four, five, or even more, smaller-portioned dishes. Just perfect for someone like me who likes to try as many things off the menu as possible.

To get an idea of what's on offer have a look at their current menu.

Graze also have a wonderful private dining area which I knew would be ideal for our meetings as soon as I saw it.

And it looked even better with a selection of cakes on the table!

Our theme for this month was "Cooking THE Book". THE book of course being The Clandestine Cake Club Book which was released last month, and guests were invited to either bake a recipe from the book or bring along another favourite cake of their choice. (Have a look here for more details of the book and our launch party at Waterstones).

Here's what we indulged in.....

Katherine's Poppyseed Cake

Patricia's Amaretto Cream Cake

Sophie's Coconut Paradise Cake

Chrissi's Cardamom-Infused White Chocolate & Raspberry Cake

My Treat or Treat Tuck Shop Cake

So many delicious cakes as always and it was a real treat to tuck in to the leftovers the next day.

Thanks to all my guests for braving the weather and thanks to Graze Kitchen and Bar for making us feel so welcome.

Clandestine Cake Club - Bury St Edmunds - Sunday 9th December 2012

Yes, that does say 9th of December! I realised recently (ok, a few weeks ago) that I had completely forgotten to do a write up of the Bury St Edmunds Clandestine Cake Club pre-Christmas meeting.  The fact that it was pre-Christmas goes part way to explaining why I never quite got round to doing the write up but it doesn't excuse the fact that it's now March. Oh well, better late than never!

On a Sunday afternoon a small group of us met at one of my favourite places for lunch in Bury St Edmunds, Josef's Vegetarian Cafe. Josef's cafe can be found down St John's Street and serves a wide variety of tasty vegetarian food.

It was lovely to get together in the warm to talk about cake instead of thinking about presents and turkeys for a change and we enjoyed sharing some fantastic cakes.

Here's what we had to choose from...

Helen F's Chocolate Christmas Pudding Cake

Rene's Trifle Cake

Lynda's Buche de Noel

Nathalie's Coffee Amaretto Cake

Julie's Not a Terry's Chocolate Orange Cake

And finally my Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake





Thanks again to the staff at Josef's Vegetarian Cake for looking after us on chilly winter's afternoon.

Pastitsio & Lamb Moussaka with Feta Topping

I love pasta bakes and mince-based oven bakes, or in blogging terms, those dishes that are very difficult to take a decent picture of.  You'll just have to take my word for it that they taste great!

These sorts of recipes are perfect for weekends. You can prepare them in the morning and then they're ready for you to just pop them in oven for half an hour or so when it's time for dinner.

These are two of my favourites using lamb mince and actually use a lot of the same ingredients, notably aubergine and tomatoes.

Pastitsio

The first one is the Greek pasta bake which combines a tomatoey mince sauce, white sauce and pasta.

There are lots of recipes for Pastitsio out there on the internet but you can find the one I use here. It's slightly annoying that it uses just half an aubergine but you could always use the other half in this Veg & Bacon Pasta Sauce recipe, or in this MediterraneanVegetable Couscous. In both of these it won't matter if you use half an aubergine rather than a whole one.

Lamb Moussaka with a Feta Topping

The second recipe is more like the classic Moussaka in that mince and aubergines are layered in a baking dish and finished off with a cheesy topping. In this case the topping is a fantastic combination of greek yoghurt, feta cheese and egg that adds bags of flavour. I like to serve this one with a salad or veg and some garlic bread.

You can find the recipe on the delicious magazine website here.

The Clandestine Cake Club Book + Bury St Edmunds Launch Event

The 14th of February 2013 was a very exciting day for members of the Clandestine Cake Club as this was the release date for the Clandestine Cake Club book. This book, put together by the founder of the CCC Lynn Hill over many months, is a compilation of recipes submitted by club members from all over the country and even overseas.

The build up to the date of publication was very exciting and when I heard that the publishers, Quercus Books, were going to send me a copy to review I was delighted. After impatiently waiting for the postman for a few days it finally arrived on my doorstep.

Having seen a few snapshots beforehand I was expecting something good but I hadn't quite anticipated what a beautiful book it would be. The colourful background and Lynn's beautiful Pistachio and Lime Cake on the cover immediately tell you that a lot of thought has been put into the design and this is only reinforced as you flick through the pages.

There are 120 recipes in the book, which is divided into chapters such as Classic Cakes, Victorian Cakes, Fruity Cakes and Creative Cakes, and they all conform to the club rule that only allows for whole cakes that can be sliced into portions. Definitely no muffins, brownies, cupcakes or tarts here! This makes it unique among my recipe book collection which can only be a good thing.

I am, of course, more than a little biased but I can honestly say this is a really lovely book that I would recommend to any fellow bakers out there. I've already made one cake from it (the Raspberry & White Chocolate Loaf - see below) and can't wait to start trying out some of the other recipes.

Don't just take my word for it though. Here are some more reviews from fellow bloggers and CCC members:

Scrapiana - who's post gives us an insight into the gorgeous photography

Dolly Bakes - Rachel's brilliant write-up includes more of the wonderful photos from the book

Farmersgirl Kitchen

The retail price is £20 but is also currently available for £12.80 from a certain online book seller.

To celebrate the book launch a number of clubs around the country have been having special events in local book shops and the Bury St Edmunds group was no exception. So on Saturday 23rd February a number of us gathered in Waterstones, in the Arc shopping centre, with an extensive selection of cakes to share with the general public. We were also delighted that Lynn herself made the journey all the way down from Leeds to join us for the afternoon.

With the help of some bunting and other goodies supplied by the publishers we encouraged passers by to sample our cakes and took the opportunity to tell them all about the club.

In the picture above you can see (from left to right), Helen's Mocha Hedgehog Cake - one of the stars of the book, Rene's Chocolate Surprise Cake, Ruth's Blueberry & White Chocolate Cake and my Raspberry & White Chocolate Cake (another recipe from the book although not submitted by me).

The other cakes we shared included...

Tamar's Carrot Cake

Lynda's Clementine & Almond Syrup Cake (which was still warm from the oven!)

Barbara's Lemon & Poppy Seed Cake

Shauna's Lime Drizzle Cake

Sharon's Lemon & Lime Poppy Seed Drizzle Cake (towards the front of the picture)

Jane's Chocolate Surprise Cake

By an amazing coincidence we had two chocolate surprise cakes containing a mystery ingredient and yes, it was the same ingredient - mayonnaise! Not something you'd expect to see in a cake but it really made both cakes really moist and delicious.

All in all it was a really successful afternoon with a number of books sold and potentially a few new recruits. If you're interested in joining us then keep an eye on the events page on the CCC website for upcoming meetings in your area or like us on Facebook.

Thanks again to Quercus Books for sending me a copy of the book to review and also to Waterstones for letting us take over part of their shop for the afternoon!

Beaters Hut Bakers Club - Monday 18th February

Last night saw the latest meeting of the Beaters Hut Baker's Club, tucked away in a secluded location near Thetford. In keeping with Valentine's Day the theme for this month was "The Food of Love" and it was clear from the array of delicious delicacies on offer that when we think of love we think of cake, chocolate or a combination of the two!

Here are some close-ups of the delights we indulged in....

Shauna's Rocky Road

Jessica's Chocolate Cloud Cake














Jayne's Chocolate Fudge Slice

































Tamar's Red Velvet Cake














Sharon's Valentine's Cupcakes














Mandy's Chocolate & Rose Cupcakes

































My Raspberry Heart Cheesecake Cupcakes

As always everything was delicious with plenty of good conversation (mostly about food!) to go with it. Thanks to Shauna for bringing us all together.

If you'd like to come along to the next meeting keep an eye on the website or facebook page for details.