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Sunday 24 March 2013

Market Fresh

I took the usual visit to the big farmer's market in Bath this Saturday, which of course resulted in lots of delicious things to eat. As I'm a total glutton I thought the best approach would be to put most of it in to a dish together...The result: Cauliflowerbroccolicheesebacon bake, it's a winner.

Simple too!

Ingredients:
Purple sprouting broccoli (couple of handfuls)
Small cauliflower
Excellent smoked streaky bacon (I only needed 3 rashers of the super strong stuff I got!)
Red onion
Stale bread crust
2/3 pint milk
Blue cheese (I used Bath Blue, very similar to Stilton)
Cream cheese (I used sheep cheese)
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon plain flour

Chop up the broccoli and cauli into florets, boil until just soft. Meanwhile, fry off the red onion and bacon until crispy. Chop up the bread into small chunks. Crisp up the bread a little in the bacon pan.

Make a cheese sauce, bechamel style. Melt the butter in a smallish pan, when bubbling add the flour, whisk in. Add the milk very gradually to avoid lumps. season and add a sprinkling of mixed herbs and nutmeg. Bring just to the boil, gently, stirring continuously. Turn off the heat then add the desired amount of cheese (lots). stir until the cheese is melted.

Combine everything in an oven dish, whack in the oven at about 160C for about 20 mins or so, until it is looking crispy on top. Enjoy!




Tuesday 5 March 2013

Freedom is Two Wheels

As a result of quite appalling neglect over the past three winters my bike has been out of action for a couple of weeks whilst I replaced various components. I finally got it back up and running on Monday night, so planned to take it a long way round to work this morning to check I'd actually managed to put everything back together in the correct places. Happily this morning was absolutely gorgeous, and I took my time on the way round (possibly also due to severe lack of fitness and a rather steep hill), thankfully some genius had thought to place a bench in the perfect spot for a rest, a good excuse for some early morning pictures.



I missed you bike!