This week it’s Sainsbury’s turn to knock 25% off any wine in their range if you buy six bottles. I thought their wines were showing particularly well at their recent press tasting, especially their own label ‘Taste the Difference’ range. Here are six bargains under £6 Macon Villages ‘Les Côtes Blanches’ 2010 (down from £7.99 to £5.99)A good chance to pick up a very decent basic white burgundy at a knockdown price. Very useful Christmas drinking - would work particularly well with Christmas leftovers and smoked salmon. Taste the Difference Coolwater Bay Marlborough Sauvignon 2011 If you’re a Kiwi...
Friday, 28 October 2011
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Hachis parmentier (aka French shepherd's pie)
I've been thinking of making this French take on shepherds pie for a while but what prompted it was having a large bunch of parsley in the fridge. (You can't win with herbs - either you get a ridiculously small packet that costs the earth or a huge bunch that you end up wasting.) There are of course many ways of making hachis parmentier which is basically a leftovers dish. A lot of recipes base it on a stew but you can make it with mince which is what I've done here having picked up a cut price pack in the Co-op reduced from £2.50 to £1.65. You can add some fried onion and garlic to it (which...
Friday, 21 October 2011
Wine of the Week: Sainsbury's Moscatel de Valencia
Moscatel de Valencia, a sweet wine from Southern Spain, has always been good value but it's extraordinary that it still costs only £3.89 a bottle (in most branches of Sainsbury's). A whole bottle, not a half, like most other dessert wines.OK, it's not particularly fashionable but it tastes just gorgeous. It has a deliciously orangey character that would make it a fantastic pairing for apple tart, pie or crumble (served with cream rather than custard), light chocolate desserts (plain rather than with berries) and - thinking ahead to Christmas - Christmas pudding which is always a tricky one to...
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Aggie's Granny’s scones
It's taken me a couple of days to get the recipe I promised you from Aggie MacKenzie's new book. I went for these scones because they look so delicious and involve so few ingredients. I suspect there's more to them than meets the eye - they look so fabulously light but have a go. This is what Aggie says about them:"These are legendary. My mother’s mother made them almost daily (bread was a once-a-week delivery in the remote north-west of Scotland) and they were eaten with crowdie, which is a cream cheese that’s sharp and dense. My mother does these too, and they are the talk of the area. And of...
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Six wines for under £6 at Waitrose
Waitrose has one of those increasingly popular 25% across the board discounts if you buy six bottles offer (12 if you buy online) which lasts until next Tuesday. Trawling through my tasting notes I must admit I struggled to reach my self-appointed target of six bottles to recommend under £6 which shows how much prices have crept up lately but here's a half dozen I think you'll enjoy:Cuvée Chasseur 2010 (down from £4.35 to £3.26)This warm southern blend of carignan, grenache and merlot is a reliable standby at its full price but well worth snapping up at this reduction if you're planning to mull...
Monday, 10 October 2011
Aggie's Family Cookbook: review
You may be thinking 'not another celebrity cookbook' and, if so, I don't blame you. If I didn't know Aggie MacKenzie I'd probably be thinking that too.But it may surprise you to learn her background is in food rather than hygiene - I used to work for her on Sainsbury's magazine and Good Housekeeping before she became famous for How Clean is Your House. So the cooking thing is not just made up to trade in on her fame.And this is a real family cookbook. Of things she cooks, her sons cook, her mother cooks and even, her ex and her late mother-in-law cooked (now that is saintly!). It's as if your...
Friday, 7 October 2011
Wine of the Week: Gran Vega Garnacha
I was thinking of making a white wine my wine of the week this week but since the weather has turned chilly and now finally feels like autumn I'm reverting to red again. This time from Asda which seems to permanently have its entire range on special offer.Don't let that encourage you to go mad in the aisles. There's some pretty dreadful stuff on Asda's shelves but here's one that's a fantastic bargain, even at its full price of £4.18.It's a modern Spanish red called Gran Vega Garnacha from Bodegas Borsao in the Campo de Borja region, a big lush, ripe blockbuster of a red that would make great...
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Rosewater cupcakes
So scornful have I been of the world's obsession with cupcakes I'd conveniently forgotten that I included a recipe for them in my book Food, Wine & Friends back in 2007. And when I was trawling through my photographs just now I didn't think they looked too bad. Even though they were - for heaven's sake - pink. To be frank they're more like a fairy cake - they haven't got the ludicrous amount of icing of today's pumped up specimens but I think they're the better for it. Try them and see.Rosewater cup cakesMakes 24 cakes250g soft butter250g caster sugar4 large eggs, beaten with 1 1/2 tsp vanilla...
Monday, 3 October 2011
Storecupboard spaghetti with garlicky prawns
One of the few advantages of being under the weather is that you don't want to go to the shops and make do with whatever you have in the fridge, freezer and cupboard. Hence last night's spaghetti which was also designed to blast through a cold.It's not the most beautiful creation, I admit - if I was making it again I'd definitely add something green - most probably some chopped coriander or snipped chives but it's dead tasty. A slightly ritzed up version of the thrifty Italian classic spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino Serves 2-3*2-3 large cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced1 fresh chilli,...
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