delicious March

In fact I think it will be a very delicious March, they’ve really come up trumps this month and in my opinion, trounced their peers. Actually both delicious and olive make the ‘ever – worthy’ fresh look a little stark and unsophisticated but they’re supportive towards vegetables!

This month’s delicious theme is eating well but on a budget, that seems fair enough as I guess we can’t each truffles every day!

They’ve even been trawling the high street looking for a few homeware bargains and my eye has been caught by some black Manhattan crockery at House of Fraser! Mmmm! The cover shot is a plate of lemon salmon fishcakes with a poached egg on top. The creamy mushroom and lemon spaghetti looks tasty and with a little tweaking could be a store cupboard standby. And the potato, Cheshire cheese and spring onion tarts looks really good, I really like this recipe and wouldn’t change a thing. The cauliflower cheese with ham looks pretty fabulous also; the wholegrain mustard gives the finished dish a pleasing speckled appearance. An enhanced cauliflower cheese; sounds good to me! The frankfurter and mushroom tortilla is a blast from ther past, I remember eating frankfurters as a child, sometimes in a finger shaped bun or with mash (and if my memory serves me correctly probably the Martian-friendly Smash!) Simon Rimmer starts his piece with the words “Potatoes are the finest ingredient in the world…” but then he makes potato cakes with sweet potatoes, curry paste and mayonnaise – hmmm, I don’t think so!

In Janet Street-Porter’s first delicious column she implores us “to keep it simple” and expresses her disgust with eating in “expensive, pretentious places” and as much as she likes Heston she thinks “his approach to food is ludicrous” Looks like we we’re in for a lively column!

There are some seriously splendid looking pies from Angela Boggiano’s new Pie book, the smoked fish and cider pie and the braised lamb shank pie with lamb bones intriguingly poking out of the crust look winners.

I also like the look of the zesty herb and chilli crab salad and blackened five-spice duck with mini roasties and the orange and Campari jellies with caramelised vanilla oranges looks a fabulous jewel bright end to a meal. There are some tasty looking desserts but the winner has to be Marcus Wareing’s astounding custard tart from the Queen’s 80^th birthday meal.

We also get treated to the lovely Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate and Zucchini fame giving us a tour of her favourite foodie hangouts of Paris. Now where’s my passport?

And there’s more! There’s a chorizo frittata, baked gnocchi with spinach and mushrooms in the assembly cook section. There’s a reminder how to make perfect pancakes, a sausage and onion rosti and the last page has a wonderful oozing creamy pancetta, Brie and mushrrom croissants. Mmmm, mmmm a delicious month, I think.