Tag: Cycling

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Blog Snacks

Mount’s Bay, Cornwall

Our motorhome travels around Cornwall, in the south-west corner of Britain, have now brought us to Mount’s Bay.

St. Michael’s Mount is visible all around the Bay, from Marazion to Penzance in the west. It is an ancient castle and sacred site high up on an island, accessed via a causeway at low tide, as shown in my photo below. It’s a path well-trodden down the centuries by pilgrims and travellers.

Low tide was early morning when we visited, and the mist around the Castle had yet to fully clear. I clambered across the sand to get a dramatic picture of the Mount reflected in this rockpool.

By the time we had crossed and climbed the steep cobbled lanes to the summit, the mist had cleared. There were terrific views back to Marazion, the sun now glinting on the stone causeway snaking its way across the golden sand.

We returned ashore again before the sea flowed back, a few hours later. Anyone leaving the journey too late will receive nature’s reminder that time and tide wait for noone.

The stretch of the South-West Coast Path around the Bay is also a cycle trail. We were treated to more scenic views as we rode it all the way to Penzance.

Arriving in Penzance, I enjoyed a swim in the Jubilee Pool, a vast, open air saltwater lido. It dates from the 1930s and has an art deco design.

The main pool is filled directly from the sea, and was a bracing 16C (it’s, er, ok once you’re in and moving around!) I then warmed up in the Jubilee’s star attraction, a large geothermal pool heated naturally by an underground spring to a much more amenable 30C.

After all that walking, climbing, cycling and swimming, I reckon I had earned another Cornish Pasty.

These ones had a traditional filling of chopped steak, potato, onion, swede and black pepper, in a buttery, flaky pastry crimped together at the edge. They really are the most popular street food here, with thousands baked fresh every day by little independent bakeries. Warmed up that evening in the motorhome oven, it was delicious and filling.

Time for the next track on the ADK Playlist. Those misty, early morning images of the Mount kept reminding me of the lyrics in this track by Led Zeppelin ….pack your bags for the misty mountains, where the spirits fly….: This is Misty Mountain Hop.

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Blog Drink Mains

Atlantic Coast Express

The next adventure on our foodie travels around Cornwall is a trip to Padstow, by bike along the Camel Trail.

Padstow, shown in my photo above, is a compact, picturesque and very popular little fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall.

The Camel Trail follows a disused railway line along the bank of the River Camel estuary all the way from Wadebridge.

This coffee stop along the route is housed in a refurbished railway carriage. It takes its name from the train service that used to travel this line back in the day: the Atlantic Coast Express. You place your order, then collect it when the toot-toot of the old steam whistle sounds.

There’s a relaxed vibe, with people chatting, checking the map, or just enjoying the views across the estuary.

It’s a good place for a spot of bird watching.

The cakes at Atlantic Coast Express are all locally sourced and look great. We shared a peanut butter chocolate brownie, giving us the energy boost we needed to complete the 5 mile ride into Padstow.

Padstow has been rather thrust into the foodie scene since celebrity chef, Rick Stein, set up his seafood restaurant here. It’s proven such a success that he’s followed it up with a cafe, deli and cookery school. Other restaurants and outlets have followed,  meaning the town now boasts a varied and quality food offering, whether sit-in or takeaway, to suit every taste and budget.

We bought these fillets of Cornish hake from the wet fish counter in his deli.

Arriving that evening at our next motorhome stopover, I cooked them in a foil parcel on the Cadac (my gas bbq). Ten minutes was all that was required, then a squeeze of fresh lemon and a few twists of black pepper. We served them up with Cornish new potatoes and broccoli.

A bottle of Cornish IPA was a perfect accompaniment to the meal, also biked back to the van in my pannier, from the Padstow craft brewery.

We had live music at our campsite last night, and this timeless classic is one of the tracks the band performed. It could be a motivational song when it comes to cycling, considering all the hills here in Cornwall! This is Jackie Wilson with (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.

Categories
Bakes Recipes

New Forest Buttermilk Scones

Mmm….freshly baked buttermilk scones with butter and home made plum and apple jam. Yes!

This week I found myself with a tub of buttermilk to spare. The by-product of an exercise in making butter from Jersey cream, I was vaguely aware that it could be used in baking scones.

A little further research taught me that its acidity makes it react well with bicarbonate of soda to give a light texture to baking. It also brings a slightly sour, but pleasant taste to a scone mix.

I decided to give it a go, thinking that the scones would make a tasty picnic lunch the following day, when we had planned to go cycling in the New Forest. A remote national park that has changed very little over the decades, the Forest has an extensive network of tracks exclusively for non-vehicle traffic – just walkers, cyclists and horseriders.

And so it worked out! My photos show the plate of golden brown scones, as we prepared to devour them after a morning’s cycle in the peace and solitude of the Forest. Look carefully in the background and you can see some of those famous wild ponies that roam the New Forest.

Just make sure you eat the scones before those ponies do 🙂

Servings

This made 12 scones and, with a couple of re-rolls of the remaining scone mix, another 2 – 3 on top.

Timings

15 mins to make, 20 mins in the oven at 160C.

You Will Need

  • 450g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 100g butter or baking spread
  • 85g caster sugar
  • 300ml buttermilk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • a splash of milk for basting

Method

  1. Switch on the oven to 160C. Sieve the flour into a large bowl with the salt. Add in the butter or spread in cubes or small pieces, and mix with an electric whisk until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs.
  2. Tip in the sugar and whisk again to mix in.
  3. Warm the buttermilk and vanilla in a saucepan on the hob for 2 – 3 mins. Then gradually add it in waves to the flour mix, turning over with a spatula after each addition to mix it in. Keep going until all the buttermilk has been incorporated, and a cohesive scone mix has formed in the bowl.
  4. Tip the mix out on to a well-floured surface. If the mix is still a little too wet to work with, don’t be afraid to sprinkle over more self-raising flour until it has a consistency that can be pressed and moulded with the fingers, and rolled out to around 2cm thickness.
  5. Press a scone or biscuit cutter into the mix to produce rounds – mine are around 7cm diameter, and this gave me enough for 12 scones. Re-roll the leftover mix and this should give you another 2 – 3.
  6. Place on a metal tray lined with baking paper. Brush each with a little milk on a pastry brush and bake for 20mins at 160C.
  7. Remove and place on a wire rack to cool.
  8. Serve with butter or spread and jam. We had ours with home made plum and apple jam, as shown in my photo at the top of the post. The scones are best eaten within a day.

Customise it!

If you can’t get your hands on buttermilk, I have read that adding 1 tbsp of lemon juice to ordinary dairy milk can be a useful substitute.

The colour of the scones reminded me of this track, so I have been playing it this week. I don’t think The Stranglers intended the song to be about making scones, or cycling amongst the ponies in the New Forest, for that matter. Never mind – here they are with Golden Brown.

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Blog Sides

Green Tomato Chutney

This week on A Different Kitchen we welcome our latest guest post. Our contributor is my wife Lesley, a keen gardener and cyclist, who has been making the most of this summer’s tomato harvest from our garden!

Hi. I grow Gardener’s Delight tomatoes, a really tasty cherry tomato. At the end of the season I usually compost the green ones when tidying up the garden for winter, having had a magnificent crop of warm juicy tomatoes when picked fresh. 

This year I decided it was more in keeping with my desire to reduce food miles and increase self-sufficiency  to convert the green tomatoes into chutney.  I inherited some vintage Kilner jars from my parents who used to make jam from gluts of fruit. The skill and desire to preserve a home-grown harvest has been handed down to me, even though I thought it was boring at the time.  This recipe was super easy to make and, as the following photo shows, we now have this rich sticky chutney to pair with cheese, ham and bread for much of the winter to come.  

This made just under a litre of chutney.  Here’s a ‘How to’:

Slice the green tomatoes and an onion. Sprinkle with the best salt you have and leave. The salt will draw liquid out of the tomato onion mixture, then discard by straining it. Don’t rinse the salt away, its all part of the salt/sweet/sour balance of the chutney. 

I used 200g muscovado sugar and half a litre of cider vinegar to my 1kg tomatoes to make it rich and tasty but any sugar and vinegar will do. I have windfall apples from my tree so I added about 4 medium-sized ones peeled and cored with a handful or 2 of sultanas or any similar dried fruit. Add in whatever spices you like. 

All this gets boiled up till it is pulpy and sticky  (about 1 hr) and then carefully spoon into the sterile jars that have been warming in the oven. I don’t have lids for these so have put greaseproof paper squares over the jar with an elastic band and popped it in the fridge once cool. 

I always say to my children when eating anything we have grown in our garden, “this was made from Hampshire sunshine”. Eating it will remind me of a ridiculously record breaking sunny summer, sheltering inside from the heat, watching cycling teams on TV dousing copious amounts of water over their heads in le Tour de France on punishingly hot roads. Being a keen cyclist, I have chosen this excellent Kraftwerk tune to go with my chutney.