#34 SAUSAGES WITH BUTTERY MASH AND ONION CIDER VINEGAR JAM

As you might have read in my last post (here) I am back in Austria and hoping for the weather to get better. it's actually not too bad today, the sun is out so I'm quite happy. 

It's good to come back and see my friends again, I've been gone for a month so I'm glad they still remember who I am. 

But of course I still miss the UK, I always do, and yes I miss the british food aswell. I have made it my mission (kind of) to show how gourmet british food can be. So I want to share this lovely meal with you which me and my boyfriend made about two weeks ago now. It's a classic british dish but add some lovely ingredients and you could call it british gourmet.

I can't wait to try my gourmet version of some more british classics, I really loved this, I think you don't need to do much and you can make simple sausages into something really lovely. and the british really do have the best sausages. no point denying that!

Sausages with buttery Mash and Onion and Cider Vingar Jam
(what a name ha?!)

for two

4 sausages (the best you can find!)
1 onion (red or white)
5 large potatoes
butter
salt
milk/cream
cider vinegar
sugar
nutmeg

so you should start by boiling the potatoes because they will
definitely take the longest.

then chop the onion in chunks, not too small you want some
consistency in your jam. (if not, make smaller chunks).
heat a pan with a bit of fat/oil and fry the onions until
golden brown. then add about 1 tbsp of sugar and about
2-3 tbsp of the vinegar. lower the temperature and
cover, leave to simmer for as long as you can. only gets better.

once the potatoes are done you can start your sausages, either
in a pan, in the oven or if you have something else use that,
whatever you prefer really.

while doing that, peel the potatoes (careful! hot! but they have to be!)
add some milk and butter and salt and mash them with a masher
(or whatever you have) until smooth (but not too smooth!).
taste and make sure there's enough salt. add some nutmeg.

now, the onions should be sticky sweet, the sausages lovely and juicy
and the mash smooth and buttery.

is it?? well then you can serve it up and enjoy with a pint (of juice)

P.S. if you love some more carbs, serve with some sourdough bread, yum!!

Magdalena. xx

Photography by Geraint Photography

Flight Food #1: LONDON STANSTED - KLAGENFURT

hey there, well I'm back in austria now, already really missing the UK and everyone there, but I'm also looking forward to meeting my friends who I've missed a lot and some austrian food too I guess. I think before I move to the UK I'll do a blog post about the austrian food I can't live without because there are some things that are just too important for me to give up. so these things and my friends will all have to come with me when I move.

anyway, on to the actual post: as you can see this is kind of a new mini-series on my blog, I couldn't really fit this into any other category and I thought well, I do fly quite a lot and it might be interesting to do something like that. even if it's just for myself to look back and see what I had to eat on my flight. as you might have guessed I fly with ryanair and as you might also know they don't do meals on there. well they have food but you have to pay a ridiculous amount for them so no thanks, I'd rather pay for something that I actually really enjoy.

sooo I kind of have this tradition going on that everytime I'm flying from stansted I go to pret. you can read a bit more about pret here. 
I think it started literally the first time I went to london, well on the way back actually. because obviously you can't take any liquids through security so I needed a drink for on the flight. and I guess also we don't have pret in austria so it's good to take a bit of british food beautifulness on the plane. 
another tradition with pret is that I always get a sandwich for my mum to take back. and don't worry the sandwich is still lovely when it gets to her, it's only a two hour flight after all. this probably started when we went to london together and she fell in love with pret so the next time I went I got her one as a surprise and now I get her one everytime. I'm glad she loves pret just as much as I do.

so of course I went to pret this time aswell. I got two sandwiches for my mum and her friend who is over at the moment. the sandwiches I got were Moroccan Falafel Salad and Edam Salad. I got her the falafel one last time aswell and she really liked it, and the edam salad was one we hadn't had before so I thought it'd be nice to get something new. 
I'm not sure if she's ate all of them yet but she said she really enjoyed them. and to be honest you can never go wrong with a pret sandwich anyway.

for myself I got the Brie Tomato & Basil Baguette, I just really fancied a baguette and I have recently re-discovered my love for brie (which means I shall be purchasing some very soon!) and tomato and basil together are always really lovely. I guess this is sort of a new approach to the classic mozzarella tomato and basil combination which you can get pretty much everywhere. and I really really love this combination on everything, but brie has just a very lovely texture and such a nice flavour so I think this is really lovely, so simple aswell, I'll definitely make this at home sometime soon. 

then to drink, because you always need to stay hydrated on a flight! I got my usual Pure Pret Pomegranate drink thing which is just amazing. it's so fresh and fruity but not too sweet or anything, just perfect I think. and I think I've only just realised that I've left what was left of it in my dad's car. sad thing. so fingers crossed I'll be back in the UK soon!

here you can see all the lovely things well placed on my suitcase to make it look very authentic. and yes people were looking at me very weird when I started placing all my food on my suitcase and taking pictures of it. but hey, who cares!

I really enjoyed the food and it definitely kept me going throughout the flight and even longer. I think you can't go wrong with something from pret because I enjoy it even more knowing that it's made from lovely ingredients and handmade and fresh. I have literally never had anything there that I didn't like so it's definitely my go to place when it comes to flight food. but we'll see, maybe I'll try out something else next time. 

hope you all enjoyed this a little different post, let me know.  I'll leave you with a lovely over the clouds picture from on the plane now, just to prove I did actually go on the plane and didn't stay there eating all day.

Magdalena. xx

my Twitter: https://twitter.com/lullabyforpies

my Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LullabyForPies

#33 GARLIC+CHEESE PIZZA BREAD

righty, since I'm kind of busy at the moment I haven't been able to share my lovely cupcake post with you yet, but don't worry I will in the very near future. but I was in manchester yesterday for my university interview which is quite obviously more important. I spent a lovely day there and even though my feet hurt terribly now, it was so worth it. I hope you don't mind me sharing this lovely but simple recipe with you I made a little bit ago. I'm sure you'll like it as much as I did.


So here it goes, another recipe using my pizza dough which can be found here. This was mainly made because we had some of the dough left over (yes you can keep it in the fridge for about two days or so, maybe longer but you'll want to use it as fresh as possible and there are just so many things you can do with it).

You can have this as a side with, well anything you like really, pasta or meat or fish and several other mediterranean treats! If you don't like garlic (I've heard some people don't) then don't worry, because the olive oil gives it such an amazing taste and you could put some oregano on aswell and it will taste just as delicious as this version.
cheese isn't a must either of course if you're not that much of a cheesy person.
And you can use whatever cheese you want. Go for the classic touch with some Mozzarella, something special with some goat's cheese (oh now I want that thinking about it!) or have it the british way like we did with some cheddar (yummy indeed!).

if you don't want it as a side you can also just have it as a lovely snack with some olives or dried tomatoes and all that beautiful stuff. if you haven't got dough left over it's just as easy to just make it, maybe for a night with friends, something different for a movie night.

I'm sure you'll find your way to enjoy it your own way, let me know if you have ideas for it.

Garlic Cheese Pizza Bread
for one pizza bread

1 handfull of pizza dough
1 glove of garlic
cheddar (grated)
2 tbsp olive poil

prepare pizza dough as described here.

cut or mince the garlic and mix with the olive oil.
roll out the dough as thin as you like it.
line baking try with baking paper, place
the pizza on the tray and  spread the oil garlic
mixture evenly.
grate some cheese (if you want mozzarealla
you'll want to cut or tear it instead)
and spread over the pizza aswell.

put the pizza bread in the oven for about
10-15 minutes at about 180°C
make sure the cheese is golden but not
too dark.

enjoy!

Foodography by Geraint Photography

Magdalena.

xx

my Twitter: https://twitter.com/lullabyforpies

my Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LullabyForPies

Eating Out: LA CRÊPERIE DE SOPHIE - CARDIFF

it's been quite a while since I had my very first crêpe by la crêperie de sophie down the market by the millenium stadium in cardiff. a lot has changed since then, but surely not the quality of their crêpes.
what did change is that they opened their own lovely shop in the high street arcade in cardiff's city centre, I already did a blog post about this when I first went there, which you can find here. they have since then added even more lovely variations to their menu and I just can't keep myself from going back and trying something new every time, but why would I want to keep myself from having lovely food anyway.
if you are a markets person though, don't worry, you can still find them around britain's farmers markets. in fact we met mr. crêperie/Loic the other day at his stall for st. david's day.

they definitely keep on coming up with new ideas so I wouldn't be surprised if I will be telling you about another one of them sometime soon. I definitely can't wait to try out more crêpes that's for sure. 
they have also been doing some lovely events such as the crêpes and cider evenings, which unfortunately I wasn't able to attend yet but I hope I will be able to at some point, I'd love to tell you all about that, but I've heard they have been really lovely.
oh and they also sell their very own crêpe mixture so you can make them yourself.

So as I already mentioned before, we met Loic in town on st. david's day where he was selling lovely crêpes for everyone who wanted to be part of the celebration. we had a little chat and since we were going to pop to the crêperie after anyway that was a lovely coincidence. 

after the st. david's day parade and a lovely day around town we decided to have some wonderful crêpes to finish off a really lovely very welsh day with a french meal, sounds perfect doesn't it? but really, you just can't go wrong with a french meal, no matter what day.

I'm always horrible at deciding what I want and I usually sit there with the menu for ages just reading it and probably secretly wishing I could just have everything. do you know that feeling? well this time it was completely different. 
we usually go for one of the savory and one of the sweet crêpes and share them. because you'll probably think of a crêpe and think, oh that's just a pancake, how is one whole pancake going to be enough for me? but really, crêpes are so much more, and these have lovely ingredients in them and they definitely put enough in them so one crêpe is a whole meal really (and the price is really good for a whole meal I think). so I'd advise you to take someone with you so you can get a savoury and a sweet one and try both, it's so worth it. (if you can't find anyone to come with you, I'll most definitely go).
but now let's actually talk about the crêpes I've been wanting to tell you about all this time.


Cocorico!

so back to my menu story, it wasn't that difficult this time around because a lovely crêpe with the name cocorico! caught my eye right after I opened the menu and I just knew I had to have it, as you can see below it's chicken and lovely french brie and cranberry sauce.
well I love chicken, I love love brie and if I could I would eat everything with cranberry sauce, so there was just no doubt I had to have this one.

and really, it's just amazing, it was even better than I imagined. the brie just works so well with the cranberries and they just give the whole dish this lovely little sweetness but in a more sophisticated kind of way. the chicken was also really delicious with all the nice herbs de provence. all in all a really delicious dish which I would definitely order again, and probably will after I've tried everything else on the menu. (looking forward to that)

Orchard's Gold

the sweet one wasn't that hard to choose either, because I had spent a while just reading through all the savoury ones, the waitress had arrived at our table and my lovely boyfriend said he wanted either one of those pointing at two of the sweet ones so I intuitively chose this one called orchard gold. the other one I could have chosen is the one above called sophie's which I'm sure is really nice, since it sounds nice and allowed to have the same name as the crêperie itself. but I think I really wanted something with apples, but I'll probably give sophie's a go next time because it sounds just as nice really.

As you can see it looks amazing, and I really wish you could smell it, because it just has this lovely smell like someone's making apple pie in the kitchen and you just really really want a piece. in fact I'd say this is probably the crêpe version of apple pie but better. you know, I love a piece of apple pie, but this sauce is just, wow, homemade caramel sauce I mean, wow, by the sound of it you'll know that it's going to be amazing!

and it comes with this lovely crunchy soft crêpe and topped with apple compote and cream and almonds on top which give it this extra crunch. it's just amazing and if I could have one right now I would. 

also one thing I'd like to mention is that I'm very picky sometimes when it comes to desserts, only in the way that I don't like it when things are too sweet. and you'll think now well why did she get something like this then. but I have to say, this is just perfect, caramel sauce is sweet and it really should be, but it's also got this lovely taste to it which isn't just sugary sweet but tasteful sweet, and the apples and the cream just balance it out perfectly. so if you're weird like me, you'll enjoy this one aswell.

well what more is there to say. I really really enjoyed my visit to la crêperie de sophie and as I said before I will always keep coming back. they are, in my opinion, definitely the best crêpes you will find in the whole of the UK and could certainly win a competition against some french ones aswell. 

I can't wait for whatever they come up with in the future and will certainly try out as many things on their menu as possible.

if you get the chance to stop by their shop in the high street arcade in cardiff you really should.

you can find their website here. their twitter here. and their facebook here.

the photography in this post has been taken by Geraint Photography who's pictures of france are currently on display at the crêperie. so definitely go and have a look. you can view some of the pictures here to get in the french mood.

hope you enjoyed this post, I certainly enjoyed my meal and can't wait to go back again.

Magdalena. xx