The Hungry Fox, Broadclyst Station

Mr VST and I cycled out to Broadclyst in search of a possible new home this evening. It was a good cycle, about 35 minutes to get there, a bit of pottering around and then we stopped at The Hungry Fox in Broadclyst Station for some supper. The reviews online weren't all that great but it appears that a new chef took over towards the end of last year and promised great things. Sadly not so for vegetarians. Not even the option of the ubiquitous goat's cheese and caramelised red onion tart. There was the choice of 'light bites' of leek and potato soup or mixed bean salad and then a selection of baguettes or sandwiches or jacket potatoes. We went for a jacket each with cheese and beans, it also came with a salad. It was nice as far as jacket potatoes go. To be honest I enjoyed my cycle ride more than I enjoyed the meal. Oh well.

Rhubarb Cake

Local rhubarb on the stall this week, a big bunch was only a pound, I couldn't resist. I was especially pleased when I remembered how easy it was to make this recipe! 

Mix up the flour, butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract

Chop up the rhubarb and add some lemon juice

There are a couple of steps in between but you end up with a light vanilla sponge contrasting with the slightly tart rhubarb and then a little ginger kick on top. De-licious even if I do say so myself.

Roasted Vegetable Lasagne

Mr VST had been away on a stag weekend this weekend and on Sunday I was planning on making a roasted vegetable version of the summer lasagne I made a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I was on call and called out which meant that I couldn't get to the shops to buy the crème fraîche or the fresh lasagne sheets. Thankfully I did have some dried lasagne sheets in the cupboard and also some goat's milk that needed using up in the freezer so I made it the old fashioned way with cheese sauce. 

Veggies, pre-roasting

Post roasting and with two tins of tomatoes mixed in

Roasted vegetable lasagne and salad

Veggie Curry with Basmati Rice

Packed full of yummy veggies, a curry made with Patak's rogan josh curry paste. Just the job for dinner yesterday. 

Five Bean Chilli with Rice and Tortillas

Sounds good doesn't it? Unfortunately it was a Wetherspoon's chilli. It was flavourless and salty, the rice was bright yellow! The company more than made up for it though. Always good to have a catch up with a friend.

Wedding Bash

I was lucky enough to be invited to a work colleague's wedding bash last night. It was in a marquee overlooking the beautiful Devon countryside. It was a lovely evening, if a tad cold, and the bride and groom were very happy indeed, which was the most important thing of course! I had been forewarned that the evening food was being organised by the local branch of the Women's Institute and made sure I had plenty of room to accommodate their offerings. I was SO right to do that, the food was amazing. There was a hog roast, which of course I avoided, but instead extensively tested the salads, rice, pasta, Waldorf and quiches, tomato, mushroom and of course the sweets too. I had a few scones with clotted cream and home made gooseberry jam (my mouth is watering just typing this!) and mixed berry jam, flapjack and a delicious sultana cake. It was a lovely way to spend the evening.

Strawberry Oat Bars

Mr VST and I have been discussing doing a vegan week (more of that later) and in my search for recipes I found this one for Strawberry Oat Bars and decided to make them as I had some strawberries in the fridge. I made them with Bertolli spread though which I discovered isn't vegan as it contains whey. 

Ingredients:

(Makes 15 bars)

113g Margarine or butter (original recipe calls for half this, I was mistaken in my calculations, darn cups (!) but it worked just fine with double the amount)
120g dark brown sugar
210g whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
140g rolled oats
1/4 cup water
approx 250g strawberries, thinly sliced
50g raw sugar (I still have no real idea what this is, I used molasses sugar)

Method: 

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees celcius and grease a 9 inch/23cm square pan.

2. Cream together the spread and dark brown sugar.

3. Add the flour and baking powder and mix in well. 

4. Stir in the oats and water. 

5. In a separate bowl mix the sliced strawberries and raw/molasses sugar and squash the strawberries slightly so that the juice comes out. 

 6. Spread half the oat mixture thinly across the bottom of the pan. The mixture is quite thick and you will need to push it down with the back of a spoon, unless you used the original recipe which appears to make quite a dry mixture.

7. Spread the strawberries onto the mixture and then  spread the other half of the mixture on top.

8. Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly browned. 

 9. Cut into bars when cooled.

These were great, despite me getting my conversions from cups to metric mixed up! They are a bit like nutrigrain bars but much better. The strawberries are the star of the show here. They form a kind of jam in the middle. I was expecting them to be a bit too sweet because of all the sugar but they weren't at all. Don't let the nutrigrain comment put you off making them!