A is for App

In today's busy world, I love a good app, but get cheesed off when an app is just a mobile version of the website.  It needs to do more than that to command space on my screen.

Here are my top ten apps for entertaining guests which do more than their websites (with one exception).

1. Time to Roast

All you need to do is select your meat (every roast I've had) and enter the weight.  It beeps at you when you need to change the temp (after searing a roast) and when it's time to check whether your joint is cooked.  And if it's not, you can simply let the app know and it'll beep again after some more time has elapsed.

2. Escoffier Cook's Companion

This handy app includes a measurement converter, a kitchen timer, an ingredients list (so you'll never again have to ask what adzuki beans are), an equipment list and a glossary of cooking terms.

3. Paprika

Import all your favourite web based recipes into one (h)appy location, photo and all.  You can also manually add your own recipes too.  But the best thing about this app is that if you want to half or multiply the recipe, it'll re-proportion all the ingredients at the touch of a button.

4. RHS - Grow your own

This app helps you grow your own fruit or veggies whatever space you have.  But the best thing is the location-specific alerts for drought or frost to help you ensure that your plants stay healthy.  All the more homegrown food to serve to guests...

5. Great British Chefs

This free app features 180 recipes (and appropriate advice) from 12 of the country's best chefs.  Luscious!

6. Canadian Living (Magazine)

Yes it's a Canadian app but we have quite a lot in common with our Canadian cousins (after all we share a queen), and this magazine provides some of the most comprehensive advice without making you pay for every sentence.

7. Weber Grills

This app delivers new recipes to your phone weekly, as well as a host of tricks and tips to get your barbecued food cooked to perfection.  And you can combine your recipe shopping lists into one for your trawl around the supermarket.

8. Houzz

So you've planned your feast but realise that your dining room decor will let the side down.  Use this app and choose from over two million ideas by room, location or style.

9. Pro Party Planner

Now not many of us need to plan guests lists by excel sheet every week, but for the odd occasion you do, this is a great app.  It also helps you plot out seating plans, keeps track of budgets and timelines, and even lets you delegate tasks.   

10. Pinterest

This is my exception to the real estate rule, but since it's now much easier to link my phone snaps to my boards, it's made the cut.

S is for Satay

The weather forecast is promising a lovely weekend and so I'm getting ahead and brewing up some satay sauce to go with barbecued chicken skewers on the weekend.

This recipe involves an enormous list of ingredients, but it really is a very simple sauce so don't be put off!

Gather:

• 2 bird's eye chillies (red or green)
• 1 tblspn ginger, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tblspn lemongrass, chopped
• 2 tblspn groundnut/peanut oil
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 1 teaspn turmeric
• 1 teaspn ground coriander
• 1 teaspn paprika
• ½ teaspn cayenne pepper
• ½ teaspn black pepper
• 1 tblspn ground cumin
• 300 mls of coconut milk
• 180 mls water
• 85 grms peanuts, finely ground
• 40 grms peanuts, roughly chopped
• 1½ tblspn lime juice
• 1 tblspn dark soy sauce
• ½ tblspn light brown sugar
• Dash of rice vinegar

Then...

1. In a food processor, chuck in the chillies (seeds and stalk removed), the garlic, ginger, lemon grass and pour in a little of the coconut milk to loosen the mix
2. Pulse until it resembles a slightly lumpy paste
3. In a pan large enough to take all the ingredients, fry off the onion gently in the oil for 5 mins before adding in the paste
4. Fry off everything gently for another 5 mins before adding in the turmeric, coriander, pepper, paprika, cayenne and cumin; cook off until the mix no longer smells raw
5. If the mix starts to stick during this process, add in a little bit of the water
6. Stir in the rest of the coconut milk and water and start to reduce slightly (simmering very gently)
7. Stir in the peanuts and the lime juice
8. Cook for a further 5 mins
9. Add in the soy and the sugar and cook for another minute; add in the vinegar
10. Adjust the seasoning adding in more paprika/cayenne/cumin and salt is wanted
11. Serve warm

It can keep in the fridge up to four-five days if left to cool and reheated gently before serving.  This sauce can be frozen for up to six months and so I tend to quadruple the recipe and batch it up to last the summer.

Pictured here (in the middle) with sweet chilli sauce (left; amazing with sausages) and Greek yoghurt (right)

Z is for Zest

When I started this blog, I didn't really think through that there aren't many words beginning with 'z' let alone words connected with entertaining guests and food.  But zest is fortunately one of them.

Zest has to be fresh.  If you zest your (citrus) fruit too far in advance then the flavour disappears.  I use two tools for this: a microplane and a zester depending on how large I want my zest strips.

And I use zest in lots of things such as my BBQ butterflied lamb recipe (when I use the zester), and also when I cook spinach (when I use a microplane).

Once the leaves have just wilted in hot water, I drain, grind over lots of black pepper and add the zest of a lemon to serve.  I do this as I find this gives the veggie the flavour it needs without leaving a splodge of unappetising stodge when the juice breaks down the structure of the leaves too much.  If you have a pool of liquid in your spinach dish...this is why.

L is for Lamb à la Rick Stein

The weather's turned warmer and we're having a BBQ.  But since this is a Sunday and usually devoted to roasts, we already have a leg of lamb in the fridge waiting to be cooked.  And I love lamb.  So we've decided to BBQ it à la Rick Stein.

Gather:

• One leg of lamb (with the bone in if you can butterfly it yourself, or ask your butcher to do this)
• 1 lemon (unwaxed)
• 3 sprigs of thyme
• 3 sprigs of rosemary
• 3 chillies (deseeded)
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 bay leaves
• Olive oil
• S&P

Then...

1. Snip off any excess fat or sinew from your lamb and make sure that it lies flat
2. Zest the lemon and squeeze half of the lemon for its juice
3. Strip the herb leaves from the stalks and snip in a cup with the ends of a pair of scissors
4. Snip the bay leaf into thin strips
5. Chop up the chilli and spread over the lamb with the garlic, lemon and chopped herbs
6. Season the meat to taste and put the lamb in a large freezer bag
7. Slug in a good glug of olive oil and massage the ingredients into the lamb through the plastic (keeping hands clean)
8. Set aside and allow to marinade for at least an hour before putting it on the BBQ to cook
9. Serve with lightly-toasted pitta bread and salad

Then enjoy...

B is for Bastille Day

Next Sunday is Bastille Day and the day that the French celebrate all things linked to Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité (brotherhood).  The day commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789, the freeing of many political figures, the start of the French revolution and the beginning of the road to becoming a republic.

And in planning my own celebrations for the weekend, I came across a post on one of my favourite blogs, Creature Comforts, for a French style picnic (i.e. pique-nique) featuring a savoury and sweet clafoutis. Or should that just be 'picnic' since the word comes from the French, with the verb piquer meaning to pick/peck/nabe and the nique referring to a thing of little importance/bagatelle/trifle.

The pictures (as usual) are beautiful and the post also links to some very cute printables courtesy of the publishers (Chronicle) of The Little Paris Kitchen, the recipe book published by Rachel Khoo to accompany the eponymous BBC series.

Now the picnic with the weather we're expecting is a little optimistic, but I do love a good savoury clafoutis and so thought this was the perfect occasion to dig out my Marie Claire Ideés recipe for a favourite cherry tomato/goat cheese version.

Gather:

• 4 large eggs
• 300 mls of whipping cream
• 250 mls of whole milk
• 4 heaped soup spoons of corn flour
• 150 grams fresh goats cheese
• 350 grams of ripe cherry tomatoes
• 1 bag of basil
• 20 grams of butter
• S&P

Then...

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC
2. Beat the eggs and then incorporate in the corn flour spoon by spoon, before adding in the cream and milk
3. Cut up the basil into strips, reserving a floret for decoration at the end
4. Add to the creamy mix and season to taste
5. Butter an oven proof ceramic dish that is big enough to take all the liquid
6. Arrange the tomatoes in a single layer and tear the goats cheese into lumps and arrange evenly
7. Pour over the creamy mix and put the dish in the oven until it's cooked (approx. 40 mins) but still has a slight wobble
8. Serve warm or cold with the garnish of basil (set aside earlier), some crusty bread (baguette works best) and a salad

You can also add pitted, chopped black olives to this, meat (lardons work well) or replace the goats cheese with another soft one.

For more Bastille day ideas, check out my Pinterest board on the celebration.

F is for Fika

This lovely Swedish word is a noun and a verb and communicates laid back snacking in a way that no other word in any language manages.

It really is nothing more than a drink (usually coffee or tea) and a snack (more often than not baked but almost always on a doily) and is enjoyed between neighbours, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, and at any time of the day (or night).

And now I've discovered it's a cookbook..and has been for a while now...

...with the most beautiful layout inside, with each recipe spanning four pages, with ingredients first...

...and instructions second...

Now I just need to work out where I can get my mitts on a copy.

P is for Picnic

We've decided to brave the British weather and go for a picnic.  However given my memories are full of soggy sandwiches being eaten in the car, I've invested in some tiffin boxes to keep everything dry.

Marks and Spencer's do a really good solid one, and one that (for me) affords lots of space for a salad in one layer; a small quiche, cherry tomatoes and some cocktail sausages in another; and cheese, biscuits and grapes in the last.  All clipped together for easy transportation.

I usually take along a tupperware box of butterfly cakes for dessert as they're v. easy to eat.

And if those suggestions for tiffin tucker don't appeal, there's a long list of lovely options for a picnic on the Beeb's website.

Meanwhile, if the idea of a picnic appeals but you don't know a good spot, there is of course a website to help you out.

S is for Summer Solstice

Mid-summer heralds the longest day. In Scandinavia and Finland, the almost zero hours of darkness give way to celebrations.

And, depending on the country, the festive customs vary although every country (apart from Sweden and the South West of Finland) likes its bonfires.  In Sweden, people instead twist wild flowers in their hair and dance around a tall pole.

The food is pretty much the same across the region: pickled fish, new potatoes (with dill) and strawberries. All this is washed down by beer and schnapps.

Here in the UK, the summer solstice is only celebrated by a few who try to make it to Stonehenge, but I think we should make more of the day and its lovely long evening.

This year the weather looks to be fine so a BBQ beckons...anything but pickled herring for me!

S is for Sweet Paul

Another Sweet Paul is available to read online, but this one is for kids.  Some fun ideas to copy...

And if you don't have children/grandchildren/nephews/nieces or they're too old, you can indulge yourself in some of the ideas in Sweet Paul's summer 2013 edition also out.

D is for Dragon Boating

Every year in Hong Kong between late May and early June, everyone celebrates the Duen Ng festival.  The date commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, a court official who served towards the end of the Chou Dynasty, but who fell out of favour.  To protest his exile and what was happening in his home state, he decided to commit suicide by drowning himself.

He was however quite popular, so the locals paddled their boats furiously to try to save him and threw food into the water to stop the dragons from eating him.  They failed.

The date varies as his death was on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month and the Chinese calendar varies according to the moon and sun cycles, unlike our Gregorian one.  But on the day of his death, people take to their dragon boats (basically a very heavy, wooden canoe) and indulge in parcels of sticky rice steamed in lotus leaves (and lots of drinking).

Boats get ready to set off in a race in Stanley, Hong Kong in 2010

In the UK, dragon boat racing's been held since 1980 and races take place in Cambridge, London, Peterborough, Nottingham and as far north as Chester.

This year it's on 12 June in Hong Kong, but on weekends either side of the date here in the UK.  Something else to do...