Cooking in Lockdown and a return to blogging.

Peach and Nectarine Tart

Like many people, the current lockdown situation for me has it's definite pros and cons. On the one hand, I miss seeing my family terribly, I am itching to get back to my aerial hoop classes and sometimes I get sick of the inside of my house. On the other I have never had more time sew,  I've been exercising probably more than I ever have due to Zoom classes, and I get to have an extra 90 minutes (and then some) in bed every morning before I have to commute the 10 paces to my desk.



 Then there is cooking. Eating at home all of the time means significantly more cooking. Again this is both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes it feels like a real chore to think of 3 meals a day, every day, with no opportunity to just nope out of a packed lunch and go to a cafe. I miss cafes, and restaurants - though here we have at least been fortunate enough that many great independent food places have been delivering. You also can't just pop out to get ingredients so easily - if your local corner shop doesn't have something going to the supermarket can be a bit of an ordeal. To say nothing of any food shortages or restrictions - I couldn't get tinned tomatoes for several weeks at one point.

Cod with roasted balsamic vegetables and chorizo

Griddled halloumi with green lentils, peppers and chorizo -clearly we ate a lot of chorizo that week

But there is also so much time to cook. If you aren't leaving the house to do your usual activities you can take time to ponder over what you might fancy for lunch, to nurture that sourdough starter that would usually be neglected, to leave a pan of something simmering on the stove all afternoon.

I mean, it is a good thing I have been doing so much more exercise, because with the amount of baking I have done over the past 9 weeks with no one to give it away to the struggle to still fit into my jeans is real.

Mum's birthday cake

Last year I set out to cook something from each of the cookbooks on my shelves. And whilst I did cook from a lot of them mostly what it taught me was I basically never stick to a recipe. Cookery books  for me are more like references, I am constantly tweaking to suit my own personal tastes or whims.  Yes I might follow the quantities for a perfect choux pastry as baking is 90% science but you can also bet that I won't be filling the resulting buns with the suggested cream. I go too easily off piste.

So the premise of this blog didn't really work. I couldn't stick to things. I made some wonderful food but after a while I realised that prescriptive recipe following wasn't the kind of cooking that feeds my soul. That lies in tinkering about, making things my own. Cooking from each book was too restrictive. When I look back at some of the things I have made in the last year that I am most pleased with they were at best a bastardisation of several recipes or simply came out of my own head.

The Christmas Entremet - the epitome of 'Emma bastardising recipes to suit her whims"

Cheese Scones with home made tomato and chili jam

The only issue is I never write anything down, which makes recreation hard. So by picking up this blog again that is what I am trying to fix. To take some of that extra time, for at least whilst we have it, to learn to write down my recipes and musings about the things I create rather than just sending snaps to family Whatsapp group. Maybe when we are allowed to do such things share other food related adventures. And if someone else gets enjoyment out of it as well? That's an added bonus.

Although clearly if I am actually start sharing some of these things further I am going to have to take more care with my food photography, as however delicious it was this katsu still looks like something that disagreed with the cat.

Chicken Katsu Curry with quick pickled onions.