The Woods Cafe, Cardinham Woods, Near Bodmin

On our way home from Corwall we decided to stop off for a stroll through Cardinham Woods. We chose the longest route which was 3.5 miles, unfortunately we took the wrong route to start with and had to turn around. Once we got on our way it was a lovely stroll through the fragrant pine forest. We were even treated to a young deer stopping on the path about ten metres in front of us.

We decided to stop for lunch at the Woods Cafe. It was a lovely cottage converted into a cafe. The inside was clean, bright and modern and the menu was full of tasty treats. Mr VST and I shared a savoury cream tea  or cream coffee if you like!

We had two scones, one plain and one very tasty cheese one (they only had one left!) with some cream cheese, cheddar and chutney. 

We were tempted to have a traditional cream tea as a pudding but I thought I'd make my own scones when I got home instead. I think I'm going to have to come back here at some point to try the brie and roasted balsamic vegetable sandwich as well as their yummy looking cakes.

Cauliflower Cheese Grills

My Mum always kept a good stash of veggie food in the freezer for me when I was a teenager and I used to love cauliflower cheese grills. We were at the in-laws for dinner last night and we had these as well as veggie sausages, broccoli, Cornish new potatoes and beetroot. To start we had home made tomato and lentil soup, it is so good! Made with tinned tomatoes and red split lentils all whizzed up together. It appeals to my sweet tooth as it is quite sweet in flavour. For pudding we had raspberry pavlova ice cream and shortbread biscuits - Yum!

Gylly Beach Cafe, Falmouth

Mr VST and I are on holiday this week. We came down to stay with some friends in Falmouth on Wednesday evening. We went out for dinner to the Gylly Beach Cafe for dinner. There were two vegetarian main options, a spinach and mushroom lasagne served with garlic ciabatta and salad and Pan-Fried Primavera Risotto 

Cakes with helford blue cheese served with salad and rocket & walnut pesto. Neither of us are keen on blue cheese but Mr VST can't stand it. I didn't want to have the same thing as him so I chanced it!

There wasn't a strong blue cheese flavour at all and the risotto cakes were lovely. I'm not sure they needed to be pan-fried though. It just made the outer layer chewy. The insides were creamy rice with the 'primavera' consisting mostly of peas. The salad and rocket and walnut pesto were a great accompaniment.

I had a bite of Mr VST's lasagne. The mushrooms were delicious, the garlic ciabatta was very garlic-y as was the rest of both of our meals. It worked well on the bread but I'm not so keen on waking up with garlic mouth the next day which I did. I think maybe a little less garlic would have been better. The cafe was lovely though with a great atmosphere. We shared puddings with our hosts and went for a chocolate amaretto torte with poached orange segments and an apple and rhubarb crumble with elderflower custard.

As you can see the chocolate torte was beautifully presented. It was thick, creamy and chocolatey as you would expect and the poached oranges were delicious.

The crumble can also be recommended. There didn't seem to be an awful lot of ginger in the crumble itself but it is one of my favourite puddings and the elderflower custard was sweet and light.

Not strictly food but I thought these pasty toys were great! They were in a shop window in Falmouth. They seem to be dressed up to celebrate the royal wedding. We got a couple of real ones for lunch a bit later on.

Hot Cross Buns - Mark Two

I had been hankering after these hot cross buns having made them for Good Friday a couple of weeks ago. I amended the recipe slightly. I didn't put the paste crosses on this time but I did make the glaze.

Ingredients:
Buns
300g white strong bread flour
200g wholemeal strong bread flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp mixed spice
75g raisins
50g mixed peel
110 caster sugar
50g butter
250ml milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

Paste:
80g plain flour
2 tbsp sugar
100ml water

Glaze:

1 tbsp milk

1 tsp marmalade

1 tsp brown sugar

METHOD

Sift flour and spices into a large bowl and mix in the yeast, fruit, peel and sugar. 

Melt butter, stir in milk and vanilla extract and heat until tepid (I did this in the microwave. I forgot last time and maybe that is why my buns didn't rise).

Whisk into egg, add to flour mixture, form a dough and knead on a floured surface for 10min until smooth and elastic. 

Leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Rising with the help of a hot water bottle!

Mix the paste, bung it in a piping bag (or a plastic freezer bag with one corner snipped off) and pipe a cross on each bun. 

I made the crosses by cutting into the bread this time rather than making the paste.

Bake at 180C for 10min, reduce the heat to 150C and bake for a further 15min.

Lightly brush with the glaze and cool on a rack.

We had one last night warm from the oven with a bit of butter and then toasted this morning. They really are lovely, full of flavour with a texture that is hard to describe. They are thick but also light and fluffy.

Curry

Had the same meal two nights in a row! Curry. Packed full of healthy veggies and tasty too. I made my usual sized portion but we didn't eat the left overs for lunch so had them for dinner instead.

Bought the (full-fat) naan breads from the supermarket and froze them a while ago. Somehow they managed to taste of nothing at all! Might have to find a recipe and make my own next time. 

Syrup Sponge Pudding with Home Made Custard

I really fancied pudding tonight, not just something sweet after dinner but a real pudding. I printed this recipe off years ago but haven't made it for ages. It was just right this evening and I had all the ingredients in the cupboards/fridge.

As I started to make it I realised that I didn't have any custard powder and ice cream was just not going to hit the spot this evening. I quickly googled some recipes for home made custard and found this simple one from the BBC. I didn't have a vanilla pod but I did have some nice vanilla essence so I started to make it. It never thickened up unfortunately and so I did another quick search and decided that the thing that was missing was cornflour. Not wanting lumpy custard I spooned a generous tablespoon (and a half) into a cup and mixed it with some water. I wasn't planning on adding the whole lot to my custard but being a bit tired after my run I lost concentration for a second and oops it was all in there turning my milky custard into more of a blancmange! Oh well Mr VST liked it and it wasn't unpleasant. Unfortunately we had to eat all the sponge pudding as it tends to go a bit hard if you don't eat it straight out of the microwave.

Bangers, Mash and Baked Beans

Can I start by saying that the macaroni cheese with leeks worked and that I successfully completed the Great West Run today - Whoop! Thirteen and 1/10th of a mile in 2 hours, 9 minutes and 16 seconds. Having given a lot of thought to what I wanted to eat before the run it didn't occur to me that I might want to plan something for afterwards as well.

When we eventually got out of the car park and got home Mr VST and I finished off the macaroni cheese. For dinner I decided that I would stick with the easy to cook, easy to eat,  nursery food theme and went for bangers and mash with baked beans.