Bed and Breakfast is now open

The perfect table to enjoy your sourdough toast &  Fairtrade pot of tea at in the morning  

Oh I am just so excited. It's been months of hard work, with electricians, roofers, tilers, plasters, decorators, carpet fitters and plumbers here .. but the newest Northamptonshire bed and breakfast is now ready to have guests.  

I've tried to think of every small detail.  From buying beautiful organic cotton bedding to sourcing British made fluffy white towels, to making sure all the furniture and crockery are all vintage so as to be as ethical as possible where ever possible, and we even found some 100% wool carpets, with no man made fibres.

I think that the piece of furniture I am most delighted with I bought from Sugden and Daughters - it's a French dough table which is so appropriate in the breakfast room not least because of the sourdough bread making courses I run here. 

We started the project in July and left the builders to it whilst we were in France, but this week has seen a run for it.  Just 4 days ago there were bare floorboards and now after a marathon three day put together marathon we are up and running just in time for Dan Lepard to stay as he will be teaching here on Friday. 

Thankfully we are ready!

For more details on how to book click here. 

Stupid? Brave? or just Premenstrual?

Photographing Ricotta 

5pm 

Can you even be bothered to answer the question?

Well I rarely write about being fed up ..  but I am tired and bored of apathetic people. It seems that the world is overloaded with watchers who fail to engage. A thousand silent eyes.

I spent two days putting together a blog post.  I traveled to Chelsea, interviewed experts on the subject, spent time photographing, writing, creating and editing what I consider to be an attractive and informative blog post and then tweeted.  Nothing.

I tweeted again a few hours later.

Nothing.

After chatting to a few people, retweeting some things I found interesting and then  .. you guessed it .. I tweeted my post again.

So I was left wondering what is the point? Does my writing have no value? Are my photographs unworthy of even a moment?  It's like playing your heart out to an empty theatre.

I don't write for rating.  I don't blog for statistics.  I blog because I am communicating.  It's two way thing.

Frankly I've watched over the past year or so as so much of Twitter has degenerated to a load of total and utter twaddle.  Auto posts by bloggers too tired and lazy to bother tweeting themselves who signed up to various pieces of software to tweet on their behalf drive me potty.

It;s really partly my fault .. I've been guilty of just following people based on a whim and all of a sudden I am following over 800 people.  Yes I know that you can do lists  .. but really isn't that a bit pointless?

Then there is the serial competition  re tweeter.  Good God ( if I believed in one.)  I'm all for the odd competition yes it's fun to try and win something by pressing a button ..  but every tweet?

Oh and now I've got started .. there are the watchers.  The ones you engage with for a moment and they lurk not engaging with you ever ever again.  Just looking. So I feel like I am shouting in the dark.

I put a tremendous amount of effort into my both my blogs and my twitter, but you know two years ago when a post was written people would take some kind of interest. A beautiful photo was commented on, a good recipe re tweeted a news story shared, but not anymore.

To be fair I am at a loss as to what constitutes something worth commenting on or engaging with and I refuse to be rude about people,  I am not going to be horrible about something for the sake of a response, and I'm not going to move to London and try to get in with the in crowd of foodies just to be up with latest food fashion.

To be honest it's partly my own fault.  I try to respond to every tweet that is to me .. but in truth I can't engage with the people I like because I have followed so many people simply because they followed me.  So what I would do in real life?  Well I suppose I would value quality over quantity and so I'm going to unfollow all the people I am following just because they are following me.  I am really sorry if I hurt anyones feelings but frankly I feel totally overwhelmed following so many silent people.

update at 7.30pm 

I wonder .. . now that I have reduced the number of people I follow by over 500 I wonder how many will feel the need to unfollow me because I am not following them?  .. oh .. nope ..   I've stopped wondering now.

Deep breath.

Oh and do you like the photo from my new cheese making course?  .. on second thoughts I won't ask  ...  in case I just un -followed you......

The Moulton Morris Dancers

I know it's nothing to do with food or cookery, but I love living in a community and I just had to share these pictures.  You see Morris Dancing almost disappeared in the 1980's.  But like real food it's had a renaissance and it was so good to walk to my local pub, with the children, watch these fantastic chaps and have a pint of Pot Belly, our local beer and laugh .. and laugh. 

Moulton Morris Dancers

New Bread and Jam making courses in Northampton

Today I put this advert into my local village magazine.  The last course I did was fully booked and went really well.  I'll do another how run a pop up bakery as part of the Sourdough in a Day on 11th December, as part of learning to cook in Northampton.

Planting Alliums

Allium Big Impact from Thompson and Morgan 

On Wednesday I make the mistake of thinking that I will go for a bike ride later in the day.  It rains later and I am annoyed with myself, so as looked out into the garden yesterday and spotted a box of white papery bulbs on the side I took my trowel and spent ten minutes popping them in the ground.  After a day of cleaning and paperwork it felt good to get my hands in the soil planting splendid summer promises.  

Cardamon Rose and Rhubarb Cake fit for a Queen !

Last year  .. youngest daughter snapped picking off the chocolate curls. 

The rhubarb is coming up in the garden and since the rain it's been going a little crazy.  For those of you who have bought my recipes book Prepped you might recognise this recipe .. and I have to admit it is one of my absolute favourite cakes to bake and to eat and one of the very first recipes I developed for Prepped.  I am planning on making this for my first ever clandestine cake meeting in Northampton next week and I shall be making it for the jubilee celebrations for my village. 

I think that there is something whimsical about this cake. Soft, feminine and pink, with floral notes and flower petals. It’s the centrepiece for a summer’s day tea party. It’s really quite simple to make. It’s the combination of flavours that really sets this one apart. The rhubarb jam adds the sour that tempers the sweetness, whilst the cardamom and rose entwine like tangles of roses on your taste buds.  A small slice with a cup of earl grey tea in a dainty china cup -  how perfectly English can you get?

Serves 8 - 10

Prep time 30

Cooking time 25 minutes

Suitable for freezing? Yes before filling or decorating

For the cake

250g butter or margarine (suitable for baking)

250g Cardamom Sugar ( this is sugar that has been infused with Cardamon for about 6 weeks just like vanilla) 

250g self-raising flour

4 large eggs

For the filling

400ml double cream

3 drops of rose essence

80 g icing sugar (sifted)

200g of rhubarb Jam

To decorate

150g Icing sugar (sifted)

50g of White chocolate curls

Edible rose / geranium petals

NB if you don't have cardamon sugar to hand add one level teaspoon of freshly ground cardamon. (No more as it is pretty strong!)

1 Preheat the oven to 180˚C/gas mark 4.

2 Using a hand mixer or food mixer, cream together the butter or margarine and Cardamom Sugar Beat well until white and fluffy.

3 Add 3–4 tablespoons of flour to the mixture, then add the eggs. Adding the flour like this prevents the mixture from curdling. If it does, just keep adding flour a little at a time, beating the mixture to ensure it is evenly distributed. Continue mixing and add the rest of the flour,

4 Divide the mixture between 23 cm round cake tins and bake in the oven for 20–25 minutes, until firm to the touch. Cool on a wire rack.

5 Once fully cooled you can make the filling. Whip the cream and rose essence and icing sugar until thick.  Spread the jam on the base of one cake and the cream on the other and sandwich together. Mix the icing sugar for the topping and make into a viscous mix about the consistency of custard.  Pour this over the top of the cake and sprinkle the top with the white chocolate curls before decorating with edible flowers.

TIPS & USES

• Keep your eggs at room temperature. They get more air in them and you get a lighter batter.
• If you don’t have Cardamom Sugar to hand, grind about 10 cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar to release the good seeds inside. Discard the green husk and grind the seeds well into a fine powder.
• Oven temperatures vary, so after 20 minutes take a peek. Don’t do it before, though, or the blast of cold air can deflate your cake!
• Whenever you grease your tins use a piece of kitchen roll to spread a fine layer of margarine around the edge. To prevent a greasy film from forming on the cake, put a tablespoon of flour in the greased tin and proceed to tap it around surface.

Blossom

Today is the first day of spring.

I wander outside in the morning with my tea and for just a moment, before the day rushes at me I look at the blossom and remember a poem. 

FROM BLOSSOMS

From blossoms comes 
this brown paper bag

 of peaches
 we bought from the boy

 
at the bend in the road where we turned toward

 
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, 

from hands, 
from sweet fellowship in the bins, 


comes nectar at the roadside succulent


peaches we devour, dusty skin and all, 
 

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside, 


to carry within us an orchard, to eat


not only the skin, but the shade,


not only the sugar, but the days, to hold


the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into 


the round jubilance of peach

.

There are days we live 


as if death were nowhere 


in the background; from joy

 
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,


from blossom to blossom 

to 
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

- Li-Young Le

Moving on ..

The tomatoes are glorious this year. Especially good for the tomato chapter so if you've got a copy of Prepped promise to make the spiced tomatoes Jam on page 128 .. and the tomatoes sauce is delicious as a cold soup.

Well.. the year to write Prepped is up . I feel as though I am ready now for the next stage. I can't tell you all how much I've loved writing Prepped. I've learnt so much a met so many amazing people.

It's been seriously good fun and whilst I don't want to dispel the romance of it all I feel it is only fair to say that it has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Meeting the deadlines and writing Prepped was all consuming and trust me ... it tested all my relationships and pushed my health and waist line to the absolute boundaries!

As I set forth on this adventure I honestly believed I would get Prepped in the eyes of the foodie world up there in the best seller list with ease... I mean It is really fabulous and I was totally convinced it's uniqueness was enough to consider retiring as TV deals and invitations to consult on the menu for the royal wedding were going to come flooding in !

Please don't get me wrong .. Prepped is really selling well which is the scary bit when you consider all the hours of PR and bloggiing and a BBC Radio show, a Newspaper column and a huge Twitter following it's the truth to say that the royalties alone are not nearly enough to pay the bills. I won't say I wan't warned by by other far more experienced and successful authors then me. I was told that that writing on its own is simply not a way to make a good living, despite being such a lovely way to live ones life. . it's financially challenging is the what one seriously famous Author said to me ! The phrase I kept hearing was that is is necessary to supplement you income. . but being ever the optimist I ignored the advise in the hope I would prove everyone wrong. In case my husband is reading this ( Alastair sit down ... !) I'm not always right and so I am going back to work after the summer holidays are over.

I'm not however, going back to my old job. I am starting a whole new chapter in my life with a new set of specialist skills I shall be going back into Management Consultancy within the food, drink and hospitality industry. I already have some commercial recipe development commissions and I've now got several magazines I am writing for.

With the regional and local BBC Radio food shows, my fabulous weekly newspaper column in the Chronicle & Echo, coupled with Prepped I have every reason to believe that all the skills in the highly successful commercial career I once had are transferable .. so onward in my foodie adventures as a journalist, Food Consultant and BBC food journalist .. at www.VanessaKimbell.com

I want to say to you all thank you all from the bottom of my heart for following the adventures of writing a recipe book

........ Hooray for following your dreams!

Love

Vanessa

x

PS this is not the last post of Prepped at all and of course I shall keep updating .. but to follow my day to day journalism and Broadcasting then www.VanessaKimbell.com is the place to go

.. and yes a 2nd recipe book is being worked on .. so I shall be testing again

Mothers day Sourdough loaf

It’s mother’s day today and Thank goodness I am feeling in somewhat better health. So I for one shall be making my mothers day gift. It’s not a cake, nor is it chocolates or flowers. It’s much more down to earth. I’m making her a loaf of bread, but it’s not just any loaf. I’ve been inspired by a visit to Hambleton bakery ( more on this later in the week ) to make my own sourdough made with wild yeast and to find out more Jeremy Medley of Oundle Mill offered to share his recipe below and demonstrate his techniques with me.

Ingredients

About 1kg of flour ( or so )

2 tps Sea salt

2 tsps Sugar

Tepid water.

To start with you need a cure.

The starter cure “pet”

Use a glass jar or a suitable vessel with a lid if possible.

Blend I cup of warm water and I cup of unbleached strong flour

Place in jar and keep at between 28 and 32 degrees. Do not exceed 38 degrees.

This is the pet! So every 24 hours or so for up to seven days half the mix, throw away one half and add half a cup of flour and half a cup of water again, repeat for at least three days, it will start to cake and bubble. This is normal.

The longer you feed it for the better, but look after the pet! You can store it after the first there days in the fridge, keep feeding though and make sure there is a whole for air to vent, if a brown liquid appears either pour off or stir in, stirring in will increase the sourness. This is the fermented beer smelling liquid. (Don’t drink it!)

Then that’s it - you have the sponge.

To make the bread add one cup of starter and 3 cups of unbleached flour that has 2 teaspoons of salt and two teaspoons of sugar mixed in well. Mix this and knead to a smooth dough, adding a drop of tepid water as needed. This will make two medium sized ball loafs. It’s that simple.

The retained half of the sponge becomes your cure and you must re feed it again for your next batch and keep dividing. Remember you must feed with half water and flour as before. Clean and sterilise your container often. You only want the Pet growing - and nothing else. Leave your bread on the baking tray to prove in a warm environment covered in lightly oiled Clingfilm for about 8 hours. Remove the Clingfilm and pop your two loves into a preheated oven 190 gas mark 5 for about 30 minutes. Check the bread is cooked by tapping the base. It should sound hollow.

(Any cup is fine as long as you use the same cup each time. However I use an American cup, which hold 336 ml.)

You can listen to Making this sourdough recipe on www.prepped.co.uk or listen to BBC radio Northampton 104.2 FM 103.6 FM at 10am this Sunday Morning

See the full gallery on Posterous

Venison Burger with spiced Apple

Writing a recipe book for me is an adventure It’s exciting developing recipes and just this week I was kindly given some venison last week to develop a recipe with by Polly from Rutting Reds Venison near Daventry. It’s a delight to pick apples form the tree in my garden walk into the kitchen and cook them up to serve with local meat. The Venison is a treat - it’s tender, surprisingly juicy considering it’s a low fat meat and was so good it needed little adding to it at all. Aside from being utterly delicious venison is a healthy option because it is low in saturated fat and yet high in protein and iron. Ideal for people who want to watch their cholesterol but still have good red meat. Coupled with the slightly tart spiced apple it is a light fresh tasting burger and the apple compliments the rich natural flavor of the venison perfectly.

Makes 4 burgers

Spiced apple

250g of cubed cooking apple

30g caster sugar

juice of 1 lemon

1tbs garam masala

Burger

500g minced venison

4 tbs Bread Crumbs

3 tbs Worcester sauce

Large pinch of salt

Salad to dress

Method

1 For the Spiced apple place all the ingredients in a pan and bring the liquid to a light boil very gently simmer for about 3 minutes. Don’t be tempted to over do it. You are looking for firm chunks’ not mush. The Apple will continue to cook even as you take it off the heat, so leave the lid on and the apples will soften further with out losing their shape.

2 In the mean time place all the ingredients for the burgers into a bowl and mix together well. Form into 4 equal sized patties by squeezing the meat together gently in the shape of a burger. Venison doesn’t shrink in the same way beef does.. because of the low fat content, so make your patties the right size for the baps.

3 Cook your burgers under the grill for about 2 – 3 minutes each side. I like mine rare ..but judge how you like your meat. – don’t keep flipping you burger – these are home made and need to be treated gently.. just cook one side and turn to cook on the other.

4 Place the burgers onto the baps, with a handful of salad - top with the spiced apple and serve immediately.

For more information about Rutting Reds go to www.ruttingreds.com

Harvesting the grapes at my Parents Vineyard

Yesterday my PR manager Katie Read and her family joined us to harvest the grapes from my parents Award winning vineyard Fleurfields. We had to contend with everything the weather could throw at us .. but it was a super day. Children, fun, laughter, dogs stealing hats, some sunshine, some rain, wellingtons, buckets and buckets of grapes and lots of delicious food cooked by my mother and we picked until you could literally not see another grape in the dark. - The pictures tell it all!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Vanilla and Mango Pork & Social Networking

Today. The day is over and I am sitting at my desk with an unimaginable amount of new information to digest. Christian, otherwise known as Documentally came for lunch and to brief me on social networking.

Hold up. I feel the need to start by saying that I was up at 5:30am and rewrote 2 recipes. Packed lunch for Al, children were carted to school and nursery, and I fitted a trip to the local butcher to buy pork.

Today's recipe was Vanilla, Mango & Chili Pork. This recipe was multitasking as a recipe for the book. It is also for this week'sChronicle and Echo column and it was lunch.

The making of it was part of my introduction to Audioboo, and the subject of @Documentally filming me making it. our live example of social networking. There's nothing like a bit of pressure to hone your culinary wizardry. The truth is I've known for weeks how I want it to taste.. it just took me 3 goes to get there. Thankfully this was the final version. the pork caramalised, the mango sweetened, the vanilla placed itself in the mid tones and the finish was the chili hit. It was all bound together with a generous dollop of cream. It sat beautifully on a bed of cardamom rice, and the leftovers? They are Al's packed lunch for tomorrow - if I don't raid the fridge before midnight that is. Kirsty, one of the chronicles photographers popped over and took some shots.

I tweeted, blogged, audiobooed and learned how to use my iphone to get the to teh poeople that want to hear about this kind of food and ultimately get the book out there. We decided that we are going to have a Geeks Lunch ( I am told this is a complimentary term - I assure you !) So in a week or two I shall host a geeks lunch for the best local twitterers who want to come and eat. It just won't have to be finger food! There will be just 6 places ..so I am going to have to come up with a criteria for people to win a place a the table. In the mean time .. do have a listen to the audio below. I had lots of fun and it had over 200 hits this afternoon already.

Tomorrow I shall write up the recipe, cook chili and chocolate cakes and pumpkin pie and soup for the John Griff show on Friday just after 2pm .. tune in .. it's bound to be fun and I might sneak and extra bit of chili in John's cake.... it is live after all.

Ben, Sophie Grigson, and I

I am smiling. There are times when luck is with you. Having only ever met two famous people in my life, I have, this weekend, met both Raymond Blanc and Sophie Grigson. Luck does not mean that I don’t work exceedingly hard, but it can certainly give you a heads up in life.

Today I went to the Northampton food and drink show at Holdenby House where Sophie Grigson was giving a food demonstration. With over 20 books published she is considered to be one of our top food writers, having written for many years her columns have been published in both The Independent and the Times. It doesn’t get much better than that. Above photo taken by Sara Browne.

For me Sophie has a way that puts the food right at the front of what she talks about. Before herself comes the food. She is both highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic with a clear sense of communicating to her audience both on screen and in her books. She is one of my food hero’s, so I was nervous about meeting her. As a not even published author, I wanted to ask her if she would give me her opinion on my book when it is finished.

I ummed and arrred about how she might react to my request, playing various rejection scenarios out in my head as I approached back stage. I appreciate how busy she is, after all this was the end of a working day for her. Despite several people telling me how lovely she is I was quite concerned I would be interrupting her. Really, I need not have been the slightest bit nervous. Even though she did not know me from Adam, (no pun intended as Adam Grey was there in mid demonstration, ) she greeted me with warmth and genuine interest. Along with her adorable dog Ben, she put me at ease instantly. Thank goodness, she really is as lovely as people said she is.

What did strike me, aside from her relaxed demeanour and warm laugh, were her bright green eyes, glowing skin and her verve for both food, and life. There is an energy, which radiates around her. You could quite literally see the effect she had on people as they were exiting the demonstration. They left purposefully full of intention to buy the ingredients and get home to cook. That’s influence.

She is a leading food ambassador, a seriously successful author as well as being the sort of person you would want to phone up to tell good news to, because she really would be pleased for you. I was indeed cheeky enough to ask if she would have a look at Prepped before it is published.. and I asked if perhaps she would say something nice about the book for the cover. She fixed a wry smile and said yes .. of course …. as long as I actually do like it.

Now you can’t argue with that!

She inspires.